"Steve Perry - Matador 01 - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

He closed his eyes and replayed the stations slowly. The first one was
okay, the second was right, it must be the third....
He fired twice, caught Jason and the quad leader with the first two rounds,
then fired both his handguns again. He got Janie, but missed Toomie....
Ah. Yes. He'd missed the last quadman with his first shot, it had taken a
second dart for him. Khadaji grinned wryly. He was getting careless. He
reached up and pulled open one of the drawers in his desk. There was a
second flash-rigged packet nestled in the corner, under a banded packet of
standards. A thief who opened the drawer would see the money and likely
not worry about the plastic packet under it. If he or she did try to open the
case, there would be a hot surprise waiting; the thief would be lucky to
escape with hands and face intact.
He removed the second case from the drawer and printed it open. Inside
were loose spetsdod darts; there had been a hundred of them. Ninety-three
now, Khadaji knew. He had removed seven of them in five-odd months, once
for each wasted dart he'd fired. There was a pair of tweezers inside the lid of
the box and he used them to pick up a single dart, which he carefully loaded
into the magazine of his right-hand spetsdod. There.
He closed the flash-rigged packet and put it back into the drawer. His
carelessness hadn't been in missing Toomie, though that was bad enough; no,
the problem was in forgetting that he'd missed. True, it had been in the
middle of a heated exchange, but it was inexcusable.
He put the weapons away and closed the store box. There was no rigged
lock on the store box itself, even though a determined search of the cubicle
would likely turn it up. That was all right, it was unlikely anybody would be
in here while Khadaji was alive and if he were dead, well....
He suddenly felt very tired. The Reflex had finally worn off and the Paco
was still pulling at him. He stood and walked back to his bed. So very tired.
He slept again, and if he dreamed, those dreams didn't disturb him. "Good
morning, Boss."
Khadaji nodded at Bork, the largest of his bouncers, one of the largest men
on Greaves. Bork was of Homomue stock, from a world where the gravity
was higher than normal and increased muscle mass was an asset. Here on
Greaves, where the gravity was close to standard, Bork resorted to weight-
lifting to keep in tone. He could have simply used elec-trostim but Bork
preferred the barbells. More organic, he said.
"Bork. Things peaceful last night after I turned in?" "Yessir. I had to warn a
trooper to quiet down, but he didn't cause any trouble after that."
Khadaji smiled. Bork was soft-spoken most of the time, but when he
"warned" somebody, it could involve lifting them by the shirtfront with one
hand until they were eye-level. He had seen Bork load a flexsteel bar with
275 kilos and then proceed to bench press it ten times; Bork himself weighed
a good hundred and twenty-five kilos and stood close to two meters high.
Most troopers smiled nervously when Bork passed.
"You're off at eight?"
"Supposed to be," Bork said, "but Sleel had to see the medic so I said I'd
cover for him."
"Sleel sick?"
The larger man looked uncomfortable. "Sir. Sort of."
Khadaji didn't say anything, but he continued to stare at Bork. Finally,