"Destroyer 026 - In Enemy Hands.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

DESTROYER #26: IN ENEMY HANDS
Copyright (c) 1976 by Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy

IN ENEMY HANDS

CHAPTER ONE
Walter Forbier surrendered his .25 caliber Beretta to the owner of a small bookstore on Boulevard Raspail in Paris, France, just as the first buds appeared under the fresh spring sun that early April day, and four hours before laughing men beat his rib cage into the muscles of his heart.
"You have no knives?" said the scrawny old man with a gray sweater and a twodayold beard. His teeth were black from a gummy thing he chewed and rolled over his lips.
"No," said Forbier.
"No brass knuckles?"
"No," said Forbier.
1
"No explosives?"
"No," said Forbier.
"Any other weapons?"
"I know karate. Do you want me to cut off my hands?" Forbier asked.
"Please, please, we must get this over with," the man said. "Now sign this." He unsealed a plastic case and took out a three by five card. Forbier could see his own signature on the back. The man placed the white card on the counter, unlined side up.
"Why don't you have one with photograph and height and weight?"
"Please, please," said the man.
"They're more afraid of my killing someone than of my getting killed."
"You are expendable, Walter Forbier. Is that the correct pronunciation?" He had pronounced it Foebeeyay.
"That's the French way. It's four like in the number and beer like in the drink. Fourbeer."
He watched his little pistol go under the counter. Forbier wanted to grab it and run. He felt as if he had lost his bathing suit while swimming, and that now, while thousands lined the shore, he would have to walk through all of them back to his clothes.
"That's all," said the man after Forbier signed the card. "Leave."
"What are you going to do with it?" asked Forbier, nodding to where the pistol had gone under the counter.
"You can get another when you're allowed."
2
"I've had that one for five years," said Forbier. "It's never failed me."
"Please, please," said the man. "I don't want you spending too much time here. There are others."
"I don't know why they didn't just call us home," Forbier said.
"Shhhh," said the man. "Get out of here."
Walter Forbier was twentynine years old and he was wise enough that spring morning not to expect to live to thirty. He had a knack for bad timing.
Five years before, just out of the Marines with a degree in mechanical engineering, he had discovered that almost everything he had learned before doing his military hitch was now useless.
"But I graduated summa cum laude," Forbier had said.
"Which means that you're one of the foremost experts in outdated systems," said the employment agency.
"Well, what am I going to do?"
"What have you been doing recently?"
"Wading in mud up to my neck, avoiding booby traps, and trying to stay alive in situations that did not lend themselves to longevity," Forbier said.
"Have you thought of politics?" said the employment agency.
Forbier had gotten married, just in time to find out that others were enjoying the same pleasures without the legal complications. On the honeymoon, his wife invited several pretty young things to their hotel dining table. He was amazed that she showed no fear of his being attracted to them. Then he discovered it was he who should be jealous. They were for her.
3
"Why didn't you tell me you were a lesbian?" he had asked.
"You were the first really nice man I ever met. I didn't want to hurt your feelings."
"But why did you marry me?"
"I thought we could work it out."
"How?"
"I didn't know."
Thus, without a wife and without a job and with a useless technical degree, Walter Forbier vowed he would not mistime his future again. He would get into something that was going to last. He looked around, and the one profession that looked healthiest was fighting the cold war. Even if America lost, there would be even better employment under the Communists.