"S. Andrew Swann - Zimmerman's Algorithm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swann S Andrew)

up.
"It's five past midnight," Raphael said. "When do we give up on this thing?"
"Give it time."
"We've given it five hours already."
For just a moment, Gideon felt an irrational surge of resentment toward Rafe. It was as if he, along
with everyone else he'd contacted, just couldn't believe that good ol' Gideon Malcolm would ever get close
to something this big. It wasn't just that they believedтАФRafe believedтАФthat his contacts were small time.
They were convinced that Gideon was small time.
It seemed that he was permanently a step behind his brother. His brother could hack it as a Fed where
Gideon washed out during training. The ghost of that failure seemed to follow him everywhere.
Damn it, Gideon thought, stay focused. If something happened and he missed it, that would be much
worse than nothing happening at all. He sighed and resumed looking for some sign of anything unusual. .
A gentle drifting of snow didn't do much to change the basic character of the neighborhood. The street
was lined with empty storefronts, and the offices stared down at them with blind glassless windows. Even
the liquor store next to them was boarded up. Gideon's Dodge might have been as beat up as any D.C. cop
car, but here it was exceptionalтАФone of the few cars parked on the street that looked like it ran.
Gideon tried to understand why Raphael wanted to give up the stakeout. If he thought logically about it,
he had to admit that he himself had trouble imagining what anybody would be doing stashing fifty million
worth of computer hardware in this neighborhood.
Raphael seemed to read his mind. "I told you, you've been conned."
Yeah, your little brother was had by a "two-bit crack-head. " It was easy enough to believe that.
But this had gone far enough that he didn't want to admit it. "Lionel hasn't steered me wrong in five years."
"Even drugged-out scumbags are mistaken occasionally."
More likely, perhaps, than your little brother being right about something? "Maybe these guys
made us," Gideon said, staring at the building which remained as silent and unremarkable as ever.
"You're still convinced that there's something to the story from this Lionel guy?"
"There's supposed to be a pickup. The guy Lionel heard this from someone who's supposed to hijack a
refrigerated semi and meet the guys with Daedalus. Here. Maybe something queered the deal."
Outside, the wind whistled through the empty streets, carrying the smell of urine and spilled beer. A
single car drove by them, the bass from the stereo shaking the shocks on the Dodge.
'Today's the day for it," Raphael said. "It just became Friday the thirteenth."
Gideon turned to him, lowering his binoculars. He felt a small chill, almost an evil premonition. "You're
not becoming superstitious on me, are you?"
"Who, me? Never?" Raphael reached out and knocked twice on the dashboard.
Gideon returned to looking through his binoculars. The uneasy feeling didn't recede. He hadn't realized
it was the thirteenth until Raphael had mentioned it. For all he thought that Lionel had fed him a real lead, he
had a strong urge to give in and abandon the stakeout.
After all, he did have to admit that Rafe was right. What they were watching for was way out of
Lionel's sphere of operation. Lionel was a street-level punk, the kind of guy who could tell you who sold
junk to some OD in the morgue, or who was fencing TVs from the Holiday Inn. Raphael wasn't the first
one to question why Gideon believed Lionel knew what he was talking about.
"He's not creative enough to make something like this up," Gideon whispered to himself.
"What's that?" Raphael asked.
"I said, let's wait a little while and see if the guy with the truck shows up. It was supposed to be
Thursday night. If he doesn't, we can serve the warrant and see if there's anything in there after all."
"Be great if there was something in there, wouldn't it?"
Gideon looked at Rafe. If there was any sarcasm there, it didn't show. But that wouldn't have been like
Rafe anyway. The irritating thing was, Rafe was proud of him. Proud he'd made the force, even prouder
when he'd made detectiveтАФeven if D.C. robbery was not a glamorous assignment.
Never once was Rafe intentionally condescending to him. He was probably genuinely excited about the