"Quintin, Jardine - Head Shot" - читать интересную книгу автора (Quintin Jardine)

Bill Massey, for his constant encouragement,
Jimmy Scott, Van Morrison and Diana Krall for most of the musical
accompaniment, and as always,
Eileen, for putting up with it all. Yes, okay, honey, I'll turn the music
down a notch .. .


Size matters ...
'I didn't appreciate how big it was, not until the very moment when he
brought it out.'
She looked up into his twisted, anguished face. 'I mean I've seen that
calibre of gun before,' she added, 'but I've never actually held one.'
'It's quite a cannon,' he admitted. 'I'll give you that.'
'Yes, but I'm not just talking about its weight, or its smoothness, or
any physical thing, I'm talking about a sheer sense of potency; I just
seemed to feel it flowing into me. It scared me, yet thrilled me, at the
same time.' Her voice was matter-of-fact; he realised the depth of her
hysteria and that scared him more than anything.
He threw his head back and exhaled, a great breath hissing through
his teeth. He could feel the tension gripping him, bunching the muscles
behind his neck, puckering the scars of battle that he had picked up over
the years. That roar of anger and frustration swelled up inside him again,
and again he held it back.
He gazed at the weapon as it lay at her feet; a huge old-fashioned
nickel-plated automatic, which he recognised as a 45 calibre Colt, with a
long black silencer fitted to the end of the barrel. 'So . . .' He ground out
the word. 'Gripped by this sudden surge of omnipotence, you ...' Again
he cut himself off short. 'Is that what you're saying?'
The emotion within him seemed to bring her to her senses, or to
somewhere close by; yet still, she looked at him as if he was a stranger.
'No,' she said evasively, her whisper barely audible even in that still,
silent room. 'That's not how it happened. I was frightened; he was
mocking me.'
'If he'd laid down the fucking gun, and you had picked it up, why
were you frightened?'
There was a long pause; he felt his heart-rate rise, and a strange, cold
feeling ran through him. 'Come on,' he snapped, at last, forcing her to
answer.
'It was the look in his eyes; he was sneering at me. He thought he was
so dominant; he was just so damn confident. He was playing with me as

if I was his slave. He had me there, at his mercy, about to be killed and
there was nothing I could do about it.'
'Did he speak?'
'Oh yes,' she said, her voice strengthening. 'He spoke, all right. He
explained to me in great detail what it would do to me . . . after he was
finished with me, that is ... how the bullets were soft-nosed with a
mercury core to flatten them on impact. He didn't have to, though. I've
seen how they work.'
'Too bloody right you have,' he grunted, absently.