"Maloney, Mack - Wingman 03 - The Lucifer Campaign UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maloney Mack)

"He is everywhere" he whispered.

"You mean, his spies are everywhere?"

"Spies too," el-Fauzi said. "But the man himself. He walks among us, they say. He's seen frequently. Here. In Tunis. On Crete. Cairo. And farther east. Spreading terror. People are afraid just to look on his image. The poor believe him to have god-like powers. His face appears in the night sky, they say. Even looking at his photo can cause death."

Hunter closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. He realized that he hadn't been giving Viktor enough credit. He had sown his seeds of fear and hysteria in Europe and the Mediterranean just as effectively as he had in America.

"Who knows where he really is?" Hunter asked.

El-Fauzi laughed again. "One man, in town," he said. "The Lord. He'll tell you. He knows where everyone is. Come. I'll take you to him."

23

Chapter 3

A half-hour later they were in a jeep bouncing over a cratered highway, approaching the city of Casablanca. Or at least Hunter assumed it was Casablanca.

The city before him was brilliantly lit up, like a neon oasis in the middle of the desert. In fact Hunter felt it was too bright. A dozen multi-colored searchlights dashed across the night sky. From this distance, every building seemed to have all its lights on at once. Everywhere was blazing electricity. No wonder the light of the city could be seen from seventy miles out.

But, as a city, it also looked, well . . . too small to Hunter.

El-Fauzi, behind the wheel for the breakneck trip, roared into the city. Almost immediately the jeep was forced to slow down to a crawl, so crowded was the street. Everywhere were shops, eating places, gambling dens, rug stores, whorehouses, and cafes. And despite the late hour, the streets were filled with people, some dressed in authentic-looking Moroccan clothes, others wearing strange, 1940ish styles.

And everything was so goddamn bright!

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Hunter had to shield his eyes to look at some of the streetlights. Finally he saw one that was broken and he realized it was a Kleig light, an ultra-powerful piece of illuminating equipment used for filming movies.

Then he noticed the buildings were very authentic. Too authentic. Nothing seemed out of place. That was the problem. From the stucco-type construction to the grand Arabic and English lettering, the "perfect" buildings looked more like movie props.

El-Fauzi knew what he was thinking. "It is a movie set," he explained. "Years ago, right before the war broke out, a Hollywood movie company came here, built this place. The real Casablanca was destroyed in the war. It's over the next hill -or what's left of it."

"Are you telling me that all these people are living on a movie set?" Hunter asked.

"That's right," el-Fauzi said. "Oh, they've added to it. And it's barely one-tenth the size of the real city, and that's only counting downtown. But when the war cooled down, there were a lot of people passing through this part of the world. We had a fairly serviceable airport, and we knew if it were operational, we could make money and survive. And why build another city? Hollywood built this one for us!"

"God, this place is wired," Hunter said, seeing mules of thick electrical cables stretched everywhere. "How can you afford to burn this much juice?"

" 'Juice' is one thing we have a lot of, major," el-Fauzi said, turning a corner and heading for the center of the small prop city. "Natural gas. It's everywhere. Under the ground. We've got gas turbines. A bunch of them. They drink the stuff. It's pure and they love it. They run like charms. So we

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got more electricity than we need."

It was all starting to make sense to Hunter. The crazy kind of sense that served as normalcy in the New Order world.

The jeep screeched to a stop in front of a well-lit cafe. Crowds of people were streaming in and out. Many of them were beautiful women. A piano tinkled inside. A bright neon sign above the place featured a flashing palm tree and the establishment's name: "Rick's American Cafe."