"John Ringo - Ghost 04 - Into the Breach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ringo John)

actually turning to his desk, he paused, removed the lab coat and redonned his suit coat. After another
moment's thought he removed the heavy jacket and fur hat and placed them on his desk.

The office was small, barely adequate to fit his desk, a safe in one corner and a filing cabinet. It was also
Spartan. On the desk was a lined pad, a pencil and a framed photograph. On the back wall was a
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picture of the current Russian president. A slight discoloration around the frame indicated that there had
once been a larger picture in the same spot. It also indicated how long it had been since the office was
painted.

Picking up the briefcase that was already in the room he set it on the desk and opened it. Turning to the
safe, the combination for which the facility administrator didnot have even if the idiot thought he did, he
dialed in the combination from memory and opened it. Inside were four steel containers. Smuggling them
to his office had taken the better part of two nerve-wracking months but getting them out of the building
was impossible; everything leaving was searched with otherwise abnormal efficiency.

Which was why he was here at three o'clock in the morning.

He opened the briefcase and slitted the containers into the pre-cut slots in the foam rubber inside. He
then removed ten CDs from the safe and carefully arranged them on the face of the foam rubber. He
started to close the safe then paused and picked up the framed picture on the desk. He looked at it for a
moment and then carefully removed the picture itself, sliding it into the briefcase before closing and
locking it.

His preparations complete he centered the briefcase on the desk, sat down on his hard wooden chair
and steepled his fingers in front of him. After a moment he looked at his watch. He would continue to do
so every nine seconds, unthinkingly and really unseeing, for the next three minutes and forty seven
seconds.

***

At the same moment as Boris was questioning the doctor on why he was arriving to work at three in the
morning, on a narrow road nearby a delivery truck was stopping at a police checkpoint.

Police checkpoints were so ubiquitous, and greedy, in the Confederation of Independent States, the
formerSoviet Union , the only surprise on the part of the driver was to find one at this time of the morning
at such an out-of-the-way spot. However, based upon their standard police car and there being only two
of them it was probably a roving patrol that had chosen a side-road to "raise some revenue." If they were
on the main road it would be obvious and they'd have to cut their watch supervisor in on their take. Out
here nobody was going to notice.

The driver braked to a stop and pulled out his license and registration, slipping a ten ruble note between
them. He'd put it in an expense report and probably be paid back, eventually. Argenia Pharmaceuticals
could afford the bribes; they were after all a part of doing business inRussia . They were so common,
they weren't even considered bribes. Given the way thatall public servants were paid these days it was
almost reasonable for the cops to increase their salaries in this way. But they could be God-damned