"Andy McNab - Immediate Action" - читать интересную книгу автора (McNab Andy)

Published simultaneously in Canada


September 1996

The windows and doors of the building were boarded up and bristled with
barbed wire, but that wasn't going to keep us out.

An old sheet of corrugated iron naled over the frame of a small door on
the side was loose. jamming a length of wood into the gap, I heaved
with all my weight. The nails gave. Several pairs of hands gripped the
corner of the sheet and pulled. The metal folded on itself sufficiently
to create a hole that we could crawl through.

Murky light spilled down from a run of six or seven skylights in the
flat roof thirty feet above our heads. In the gloom I could see lumps
of metal here and there on the bare concrete floor, but apart from that
the place seemed empty. There was a dank smell of mold and rotten wood
and plaster. It was totally, eerily silent; had we made the slightest
noise it would have echoed around the vast space.

Probably nobody on the outside would hear it and raise the alarm, but I
didn't want to take the chance. I looked at the others and nodded in
the direction of the stair-well at the far end. As I took a pace
forward, my foot connected with a tin can. It went skidding across the
floor and clattered into a lump of metal.

From over my shoulder came a whispered curse.

I could see that the stairwell would take us up to the offices on the
half floor, then up again to a hatch that was open to the sky.

Once we were on the roof, that was when the fun and games would start.

It felt colder thirty feet up than it had at ground level.

I exhaled hard and watched my breath form into a cloud. I started to
shiver. I walked to the edge of the flat roof and looked down at the
tops of the lampposts and their pools of light. The street was
deserted. There was no one around to see us.

Or to hear the crash of breaking glass.

I spun around and looked at the three figures standing near one of the
skylights. There should have been four.

A split second later there was a muffled thud from deep inside the
building.