"MacLean, Alistair - Airforce One is down (John Denis)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

isolation wing with more than usual relish.
He was aware that it would be the last meal he would ever take there. He lay
back on his bunk and considered the immediate and more distant future, while his
mind automatically catalogued the jail's grinding routine, cell by cell, tray by
tray, door by door, step by squeaky-booted step (a squeaking boot! Not two, but
one! A pleasing paradox to take out with him).
Smith chuckled his delight, and in his brain the nagging metronome that kept
time for him ticked remorselessly on. He fell asleep, but even as he awoke hours
later his first conscious impression was of the metronome taking over again, so
that he knew for an indisputable fact that the hour was drawing near.
The prison "trusty" bribed to be the prime mover in springing Smith from jail
licked his lips and tried to stop his eyes from darting repeatedly to the wall
clock in the maintenance block. The second hand clicked over from 0359 to 0400,
and the convict jammed the flat of his hand down on the plunger-key of the
detonator device that had been smuggled in to him.
In the isolation wing, two hundred yards away, an electric spark leapt out from
a junction box to join a trail of black powder. The powder spluttered into
flame, and eleven seconds later a can of gasoline exploded in a bedding store at
the end of Smith's corridor. Soon the store and its adjoining rooms were well
alight, and the prison staff, squeaky-boot among them, rushed to the scene. That
was when Smith's cell light came on.
The alarm from the prison to the local fire-station was automatic on the
location of any uncontrolled outbreak, but still the fire-officers tended to
wait for a confirmatory phone call. When it came, six fire appliances - two
turntable ladder-wagons, a control vehicle and three water/foam-tenders roared
out at a reckless speed into the night.
The fire spread quickly, yet the prison governor, and the deputy governor and
the chief warder, all had to be roused and mobilised before the order to
evacuate the threatened areas could be given. The guards drew rifles and riot
guns from the armoury, and a nervous police commissioner turned out a cadre of
the local CRS detachment, the not police.
Arc-lamps and sweep-lights illuminated every cranny of the gaunt building, and
Smith sat up and then leaned back on his elbows when his cell door burst open.
'Out!' the armed guard ordered. 'There's a fire. We're clearing the block. Out!'
'Where to?' Smith asked, putting on a show of sudden panic.
'The main yard. Join the queue. Hurry!'
Mister Smith left the place which had been his home for more than three years
without so much as a backward glance.
The fire-engine convoy wailed and clanged its way through the dark streets, to
be joined at an intersection by police cars and outriders, adding still more
manic noise to the already insane cacophony.
At the prison, shouting guards urged streams of convicts from five different
directions into the large central yard, herding them into resentful chains to
feed water and sand to the flames. The keening of sirens and screeching of tyres
announced the arrival of the police, who did little apart from get in each
other's way until the firemen came.
The fire had now spread to the stretch of buildings nearest the high
perimeter-wall, and the two big turntable appliances straight away hoisted up
their ladders above the wall. Firemen scrambled along them like mountain goats,
and trained their hoses on the flames.