"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 01 - The Ninja" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

Satisfied, he slammed the bonnet and went around the car checking the doors, one
by one. The seams of glass and chrome were illuminated as he sought to find any
sign of a forced entry. Finding none, he came back to the left side and, bending
again, inserted a small metal key into a fixture in the car's side. He turned
the key with a quick jerk and silence descended once again. The sound of the
cicadas returned and the hiss of the surf gave renewed evidence of its tireless
attack upon the slowly eroding shore.
Barry had already turned away on his way back to the house when he thought he
heard a brief clatter against the rocks near the edge of the low cliff fronting
his property. It sounded to him like the soft noise of running bare feet. He
spun around, lifting the flash to scan the area. He saw nothing.
Curious, he went across the lawn and into the high grass which he had never
bothered to mow because it was so close to the cliff, emerging seconds later on
the slightly elevated portion of land studded with grey slate rocks. He peered
along the ridge to both left and right. Directly below him he saw the palely
iridescent curl of the tops of the breakers as they rolled noisily in. It's high
tide, he thought.
The pain in his chest came totally without warning. He was thrown backwards just
as if a hand had come out and pushed him and he stumbled along the dew-slick
rocks. His arms flew out to the sides to give him balance and the flash spun end
over end like a miniature falling star in the night. He heard quite clearly the
sharp pang as it bounced off the rocks below and arced into the churning sea
like some suicidal firefly. His mouth worked spasmodically. He tried to scream
but all he could manage was a kind of gasp, insignificant and irrelevant, and he
thought he knew what it must be like for a fish on a line.
His arms and legs felt as if they were full of lead and the air seemed to have
run out of oxygen just as if he were lost on an alien planet without the
protection of a spacesuit. He was incapable of coordinating movement, balanced
precariously on the faceted rocks, on the verge of the long drop to the white
and black sea. Dimly, he thought he might be having a heart attack and,
desperately now, he tried to remember what to do, how to help himself. He died
trying to recall...
With the absence of all movement, a shadow detached itself from the wall of the
hedge, coming swiftly and silently across to the rocks. Even the cicadas, the
night birds, were left undisturbed by the passage.
The shadow knelt over the corpse and black fingers worked at something dark and
metallic, embedded in the chest just under and to the right of the heart. With a
last wrench, the thing was free.
He checked the carotid first, then the eyes, peering intently at the whites for
what seemed a long time, then the pads of the fingers.
Softly, to himself, the shadow recited the Hannya-Shin-Kyo.
He stood up. The corpse seemed as light as air in his arms. With barely any
discernible motion or effort, he launched the corpse out into the night, over
the edge, far enough out so that it fell squarely into deep water. Immediately
the strong current took it.
Within seconds the shadow had disappeared, having become one with the darkness
and having left no trace of its ever having existed.


First Ring