"Destroyer - 013 - Acid Rock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Murphy Warren)

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* Title : #013 : ACID ROCK *
* Series : The Destroyer *
* Author(s) : Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir *
* Location : Gillian Archives *
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CHAPTER ONE


The day before his flailing body met the Denver sidewalk, accelerating at thirty-two feet per second per second, William Blake lost his temper at the Los Angeles headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It was not that his district supervisor had once again given him an assignment that might keep him away from home for weeks. It was not that Special Agent Blake had to cancel his family's vacation for the second year in a row. It was that the supervisor was so ... so ... well, supervisory.

"Damn it, what is Washington worried about?" asked Blake, referring to the place from whence all policy flowed. "I've successfully handled situations like this seven times. At this, I'm probably the best in the whole bureau."

"That's why you're in charge," said District Supervisor Watkins.

"Yeah. I'm in charge, but you're going over where we're going to keep her, who's going to be on duty with her at night, what's she going to eat, and who's going to prepare it."

"I'm just going over the details with you. Two heads are better than one."

"Not if the other one's yours."

"I'll forget you said that, Blake."

"I want you to remember it. I want you to put it in your report. I want you to put down that you're giving advice to the man Washington calls in on all protective custody situations. I want you to tell them that."

Blake straightened his tie. He could feel the heat rising in his neck. Perhaps it was just the summer queasies getting to him, queasies he had hoped to cure with a two-week camping trip. Perhaps. But why was Washington making such a fuss over a simple protective custody? There was a girl, nineteen. The girl was the daughter of a wealthy commodities dealer. She hated her father and was going to testify about some hanky panky with a large Russian grain deal. So what? The biggest problem they faced was that she would change her mind, not that someone was going to kill her.

"Bill, I think you should know. This girl is the target of the largest open contract in history." Watkins's voice was hushed.

"What?" asked Blake, his clear blue eyes widening, his brow wrinkling.

"She is the target of the largest open contract in history, we believe."

"I thought you said that," said Blake. "Open contract, you said."

"The largest open ..."

"I heard that. I heard that. I heard that." Blake's smooth fortyish face showed sudden wrinkles as he gave way to laughter. "An open contract." He shook his head and laughed some more. "Since J. Edgar, nothing has worked right. What's the matter with you? You should know better."

"This one's for real, Bill."

"Real, unreal, a thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars. It's an open contract. Give her a plane ticket, a new name and the date she's supposed to show up to testify and let me go on my vacation."

"We have reason to believe this open contract is for one million dollars. One million dollars."

"Why not ten million? Why not a hundred million?"