"Eric Nylund - Paladin Blake and The Secret City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nylund Eric)

Paladin Blake
And the Secret City
-From the files of Blake Aviation Security-

By Eric Nylund



Chapter One: Thicker than Water...

Paladin Blake had never had it so good-and had never felt so lousy about it, either.

Gray light diffused through his office window; outside was the Santa Monica pier and the
roiling Pacific. In another hour the sun would be up, and the citizens of Hollywood would
start their day, take the trolleys to work, build planes, and pretend the world had a happy
ending like every motion picture churned out by the studios.

He flipped on the intercom. "Tennyson, you there?"

"Yes," replied a voice with a British accent, "working up a bit of a surprise on one of our
Devastators."

"Surprise? Is there a problem?"

"Everything is under control, my boy. Business as usual, smooth sailing and all that."

"Good." Paladin snapped off the intercom.

Smooth sailing and success were dreams easily bought into. Blake Aviation Security had
been out of the red ink for a solid year. Barely. There had been a string of headline-
smashing cases-The Phantom Prototype, the Klondike Caper, and the Destruction Island
Incident-but good business was the problem.
He picked up a handful of telegrams from his in-box. There were urgent requests from
Empire State bureaucrats and Dixie dignitaries, mission requests from Boeing and Hughes,
and three checks wired as payment for his services.

Paladin glanced at the map of North America covering the west wall of his office. Pushpins
and lines of string traced the air lanes protected by Blake Aviation; they crossed and
crisscrossed from Seattle to Baja, Cuba to the Maritime Provinces. His business was making
sure passengers and airfreight got delivered safely along those lines...and making sure that
every pirate got what was coming to them.

Each line on the map was there because the state militias looked the other way when pirates
attacked their competitors, and because there were behind-the-scenes cold wars raging
between the tiny empires.

Blake Aviation Security prospered because of it. Paladin would have felt a lot better if there
was no need for his protection-indeed, if there was no need for Blake Aviation, at all. The
world was falling apart and he was profiting from it. That made him sick to his stomach.