"Michael McCollum - Duty, Honor, Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

DUTY, HONOR, PLANET
Michael McCollum
A story of love, honor, courage,
and the Strategic Defense Initiative...
Jan Pieter Heugens had been a hod carrier, a sailor, a revolutionary, and a hard working diplomat in his
time. As he stood before his spacious office window and watched the rain sluice down on New York
from leaden skies, he reviewed his checkered career with a mood that matched the gloom of the
weather. In the last dozen years, he had seen famines, and floods, and revolutions aplenty -- all of which
the UN had somehow weathered under his stewardship as Secretary-General. As he watched the
rivulets of water cascading down the glass wall in front of him, he wondered if either he or the UN would
last long enough for his term of office to reach a dozen and one years.

The oaken door behind him opened and his secretary ushered a ragged figure inside. Heugens took a
deep breath and turned to face the man he was careful to think of only by his code name, "Bernard."

Bernard peeled off a threadbare raincoat and tossed it over the back of one of the leather chairs in front
of the Secretary-General's desk.

"Did you have a good flight down?"

"Average good for a re-entry, Mr. Secretary-General. A little bumpy on final approach to the Cape,"
Bernard said, seating himself in the other chair. "I see by the Times that the Security Council has
scheduled a vote for next Wednesday."

"Don't believe everything you read in the papers. Torres is not about to let it come to a vote. The
Motion to Censure is dead. It just hasn't laid down yet."

"Then we go as planned?"

"We go as planned. Have you found your man?"

Bernard nodded. "Yes. Of course, a thousand things could go wrong."

"Such as?"

"Our intelligence could be faulty. Maybe Torres is on to our scheme and feeding us what he wants us to
hear."

"In that event, Bernard, we'd better prepare for the firing squad."

"What about Warren? Can we trust him?"

"He is the President of the United States. If not him, who?"

Bernard's response was a rude noise.

"When can you get the ball rolling?" the S-G asked, tamping tobacco into his pipe. His doctor would not
let him light it, but the act of holding it clenched between his teeth relaxed him.

"Forty-eight hours."