"Janet Morris - Crusaders In Hell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

junior officer rankled. Welch had been the case officer on the Trojan
Campaign; Nichols had been one of many weapons Welch had employed there.
So it was all backwards, to Welch s way of thinking. He had to get things back
into a perspective he could live with. Or die with. In Hell it didn't much
matter, but case officers thought in terms of human coin - debts owed, favors
done, responsibility and trust.
Trust was a big one: whether betraying it or ratifying it, it was the fulcrum
on which all operations turned.
This mission, on the face of it, was simple, if Achilles' assessment was
correct: strafe the caravan with the Huey's chain gun until nothing moved;
firebomb what was left once they'd made sure that Enkidu and Gilgamesh were
among the dead ... or the missing. That was a little addendum to the main
mission: separate Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and send or bring both Sumerians back
to Reassignments.
There was nothing in the orders about how, though, and Achilles was right:
death meant the Trip; the Trip ended you at the Mortuary (except, sometimes,
if you died on the battle plain of Ilion, a couple of dimensions away from
here...) and then at Reassignments.
Even Tamara Burke had voted for the easy way, until Welch had put her down
with a carpetbag full of feminine accouterments and detailed her to infiltrate
the caravan and seduce one of the Sumerians.
Tanya had a field phone, tracer jewelry, and a chopped Bren Ten that could be
heard to New Hell and back if she had to shoot it. She was an experienced
field collector, as well as a proven seductress.
But the look she'd shot Welch when they'd let her out a hill away from the
caravan had been scathing. Only Achilles was pleased with that.
So now it was Welch and Nichols in the belly of the chopper, alone but for
their data collection equipment and each other, bathed in sweat and running
lights and trying to keep their equipment cool as they waited for a signal
from Tanya that the caravan had picked up its load of drugs and was headed
toward the hinterland. The low-shrubbed boonies. The damned no-man's-land of
buffer zone that was so undesirable even the commies hadn't claimed it. Yet
"You know, something about this doesn't feel right," Welch said to Nichols.
Arching his back in his ergo chair, Welch put one foot up on the padded bumper
of the "mapping" console that could show him how much spare change Enkidu had
in his pocket or how much ammo was in one of the caravan guard's Maadi AKs.
"Tanya should have called in by now. The caravan should be loaded up and on
its way out by now. And I can't find the right heat signature for Gilgamesh
and Enkidu to save my soul."
"Umn," said Nichols with illuminating volubility. "Me neither." Nichols was
still hunched over his tracking console, stripped down to a black t-shirt that
showed the screaming-eagle tattoo on one muscular arm. "Think maybe they've
gone off on their own? the OD's, I mean?"
The ODs: the Old Dead - Gilgamesh and Enkidu. One of Nichols' little
rebellions was a feigned inability to pronounce either name. "Tanya would have
let us know," Welch said, because it was his job to say that, not because he
really believed he knew what Burke would do in any circumstance That might
come up during fieldwork.
"Yeah?" Nichols was more blunt, the sneer on his square face eloquent as he
shifted to lock eyes with his superior. "What if Achilles and her have cooked