"Destroyer 018 - Funny Money.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

"You'll swear to it?"
"You know damn well I will. You sent me a genuine. We would get these in training to trip us up. You probably got it, too. Each sample was better than the one before until they were giving you real ones to examine and you were pointing out flaws in the genuine."
"Would you bet your job on it?"
"Yes."
"Don't. Open the second envelope and say nothing over the phone."
Castellano tore open the second envelope labeled "Do not open without specific telephone authorization." Inside was another fifty-dollar bill, mint fresh. Castellano fingered the bill, glancing at the fine engraving around Grant's face.
"I've got the envelope opened," Castellano said into the phone, cradled between shoulder and cheek.
"Then compare the serial numbers and come on over."
When James Castellano compared the serial numbers on the two fifty-dollar bills, he said softly to himself: "Jesus, no."
When he reported to the supervisor's office with the two bills, he had two questions framed: Was there a mistake at the Kansas City mint? Or was America in serious trouble?
Castellano didn't bother to ask the questions. He knew the answer when he entered the supervisor's office. It looked like a command post just before launching a small war. Castellano had not seen so many weapons since World War II. Four men in suits and ties cradled M-16s. They sat against the far wall with the blank bored expressions of men controlling fear. Another contingent stood around a table with a mockup of a street corner that Castellano recognized. He often took his wife to a restaurant on the southwest corner and when one of the men at the table moved a hand, Castellano saw that the restaurant was sure enough there in miniature.
The supervisor was at his desk, checking his watch with a thin blond man who had a long reddish leather case on his lap. Castellano saw that it was sealed with a shiny combination lock.
Seeing Castellano, the supervisor clapped his hands twice.
"All right, quiet," he said. "We don't have much time. Gentlemen, this is James Castellano of my department. He is the one who will make the exchange. Until he-and no one else-signals that we have a valid exchange, I don't want anything walking out of that street corner."
"What's up?" said Castellano. His mouth tasted brassy nervous and as the coldness in the faces of these strange men impressed itself upon him, he felt grateful they were all on the same side. He hoped.
He wanted a cigarette badly even though he had given up smoking more than five years before.
"What's happened is that we have been lucky. Very lucky, and I don't know why. I am not at liberty to tell you who these men are but needless to say we are getting cooperation whether we like it or not from another department."
Castellano nodded. He felt moisture forming on his right hand which held the small envelopes with the two bills. He wished he was not holding them. He felt the men with the M-16s staring at him and he did not wish to look back at them.
"We don't know how long these bills have been in circulation," the supervisor said. "It is just possible that if they've been on the streets any length of time, they might be a major factor in inflation. They could be making our currency worthless. I say 'could' because we just don't know. We don't know if a lot of this has been passed or if this is the first batch."
"Sir," said Castellano, "how did we wind up knowing anything? I didn't realize this was queer until I saw the duplicate serial numbers."
"That's just it. We got lucky. The forger sent them to us. This is the second set. The first set had different numbers. To prove they were forgeries, he had to produce identical serial numbers for us."
"That's incredible," said Castellano. "What does he want from us? With his plates and printing process, he can buy anything."
"Not anything, it seems. He wants this sophisticated software-computer programming-that's, well, part of our space program and not for sale. Jim, don't think I'm treating you like a child but I can only explain it to you the way it was explained to me. NASA, the space agency, says that when you send things into space they must be very small. Sometimes you have to send very complicated things into space and they have to do very big jobs. This all comes under a new discipline called miniaturization. These very small things can do very complicated things like reproduce the reactions of the retina of an eye. Okay. This program the counterfeiter wants is a close facsimile of what NASA calls creative intelligence. It's as close as you can get to it anyway, unless you want to build something the size of Pennsylvania. Understand?"
"The guy who makes the fifties wants that thingamajig," said Castellano.
"Right," said the supervisor. "He's willing to swap the gravure plates for them. Twelve fifteen tonight on the corner of Sebastian and Randolph. That's the mockup of the corner. Our friends will tell you what takes place there. Your job primarily is to make sure the gravure plates are valid."
Castellano saw a gray-suited man with immaculately groomed hair at the corner of the mockup signal him with a blackboard pointer to come closer. Castellano went to the model and felt like God looking down at a little San Diego street corner.
"I am Group Leader Francis Forsythe. You will identify the plates on the corner. The man you will meet will be identifying the computer program. You will not leave the light of that corner with the plates. You will be picked up by an armored car. You are not to leave anyone's sight with those plates. Should the contact attempt to retrieve the plates for any reason whatsoever, you are authorized to kill said contact. Are you weapons-familiar?"
"I've got a .38 here."
"When was the last time you used it?"
"Nineteen fifty-three or -four."
"That's wonderful, Castellano. Well, just put it in the contact's face and pull the trigger hard and often if he tries something. Let me warn you again. You are not to leave that corner with the plates under possibility... no, make that probability of death."
"You'd shoot me if I disappeared with the plates?"
"With pleasure," said Forsythe and gave the street corner a tap with his pointer.
"Well, I wasn't going anywhere anyhow. What good would the plates be to me? I don't have access to this guy's paper source. What would I print queer on? Paper towels?" asked Castellano.
"It'll take paper towels to pick you up if you try to leave that corner," said Forsythe.
"You must be CIA," said Castellano. "Nobody else on this earth is that stupid."
"Let's calm down," said the district supervisor. "Jim, this plate process is so important it's more than just a counterfeit. It could literally wreck our country. That's why everything is so tight. Please try to cooperate and understand, okay, Jim? This is more than just another bogus bill. Okay?"
Castellano nodded a tired acquiescence. He saw the man with the red leather case come to the table. Forsythe's pointer came down on a rooftop.
"This is our primary sniper post and this man will man it. It has the least obstruction and best view. Show Mr. Castellano your weapon."
Castellano watched the fingers work the combination on the red leather case so quickly no one could get a track on it. The case snapped open, revealing a fine-tooled thick rifle barrel and a metal stock set in red velvet. There were eight two-inch-long stainless steel cartridges, each tipped with a white metal substance that appeared to have been sharpened. Castellano had never seen cartridges that thin. They were like swizzle sticks.
The rifleman snapped his weapon together and Castellano saw that the very thick barrel had a very thin opening. The tolerance in the boring of that weapon, thought Castellano, must be incredible.
"I can pop out the iris of an eye at fifty yards," said the rifleman. "This is the weapon. I saw you notice the bullets. They are designed to disintegrate when they hit metal of any sort so we don't go damaging your plates or any machinery. They will kill very nicely, however. They penetrate skin and are curare tipped, so if you see a little pinprick on your contact's face, or hear a little sort of slap, you will know your man is in the process of dying. I do not need a second shot. So once I get him, don't you go running anywhere."
"Just thought you should know that he's the one who's going to stop you if you decide to move anywhere with the plates," said Forsythe.
"You make me root for the other side," Castellano said and was surprised to hear several of the men carrying M-16s burst into laughter. But when he looked over for expressions of support to accompany the laughter, the men turned away their eyes.
He was shown the street corner again, where he would stand, and given a gray felt-wrapped box.
"And don't forget. Try to keep the contact between you and the primary sniper. He's our best."
The man with the peculiar fat-barreled, thin-bore rifle nodded curtly.
"When you are sure you have the right goods, fall down," said the sniper. "Just collapse and keep the plates protected by your body."
"I'm setting up somebody for a kill?" asked Castellano.
"You're following orders," said the man with the pointer.