"Destroyer 036 - Power Play.pdb" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Remo)

And then they saw it.
A man came over the wall of the roof, as if he had climbed up the side of the building. He was a thin man, dressed in black T-shirt and chinos and his eyes were dark and his hair was dark and his wrists were thick. As he moved across the roof, he nodded to them.
"Just keep doing whatever it is you're doing," he said. "I won't be but a few minutes."
Then he vanished over the far wall of the roof, and Jeffrey and Marcia looked at each other with surprise on their faces.
"There's no fire escape there," Jeffrey said.
"I know," Marcia said. "Wow."
They went to the edge of the roof where the man had disappeared. When they looked down, he was going down the smooth side of the brick building, as easily as if he were walking down a ladder. But there was no ladder and no fire escape.
"How you doing that, fella?" Marcia called. "Going down like that and all?"
"Shhhh," Remo called up. "It's an optical illusion. Actually, I'm staying still and you're going up."
"Hey, wow," Marcia said. "Jeff, you got any more of that?"
They sniffed and salivaed and swallowed and kept watching but they were quiet.
Remo would have preferred it if they had gone away because he didn't like performing in front of witnesses, but he didn't have much choice. And besides he had a problem.
There was a window about ten feet away that led into the apartment where the Red Regiment was holed up. If he went through the window, they might be able to kill the businessman before he could rescue him. That was why he had not gone through the apartment's front door. He not only had to get into the apartment quickly, but shockingly enough to stun the Red Regiment so it had no chance to react.
As Jeffrey and Marcia finished their new sniff of powdered milk and vitamin C, Jeffrey looked up to the sky, but the stars were still dully immobile.
"Nothing with the stars," he said. "Maybe this stuff only works with your perception of people."
Marcia nodded. She had not been able to take her eyes off the thin man since he had crossed the rooftop. There was something about his eyes and the way he moved, something that made her know that he could make her forget every other man in the world. She watched the apparition hang to the side of the building. He was holding onto the smooth brick with his left hand, with no more effort than if he had been leaning against the wall of an elevator. His right fingertips were being driven into the building.
"Look," she hissed. "He's pulling bricks out of the building."
Jeffrey looked down. One by one, Remo was removing bricks from the wall and dropping them down into the small dirty yard behind the old apartment building.
"How's he doing that?" she said.
Jeffrey's voice was thick. "Gotta remember," he said. "He's not doing nothing. Our heads are doing it. He ain't really there. We're here. We make him there in our heads. If we close our eyes and want him to go away, when we open our eyes, he'll go away."
Marcia tried it. She closed her eyes, squinted them together real hard, then opened them. Remo was still tossing bricks into the yard, making a hole in the building wall.
"Whooops," she said. She was happy he was still there.
Jeffrey had tried also. "Gotta practice some more," he said. "This stuffs not easy to use."
"How you doin' that?" Marcia yelled at Remo.
"I'm not doing it," he called back. "Actually I'm staying still and you and the building are moving backwards. Have some more grass."
"This isn't grass. It's Lightning Dust. Wanna come up and make it with me?"
"Later," Remo said. "Soon as I'm done."
"All right," Marcia said. "I'll wait."
Remo had the hole big enough now. The two-by-fours of the interior walls and the lathing strips and the rough inside surface of the wall plaster were clearly visible.
Jeffrey was looking at the sky, hoping for an aurora borealis.
"Hey, Jeffy, look," Marcia said.
Jeffrey leaned over and looked but all he saw was a pile of bricks in the yard.
"What?" he said.
"He jus' go through that wall. Like it isn't there," Marcia said. She giggled. Jeffrey leaned over to try to see better. As they both watched, a body soared through the hole in the rear wall and out into the yard where it hit the bricks with a wet, doughy thump and lay still. They heard a thwacking sound, and another body came flying through the hole into the yard. Then more sounds and another body and another. They all hit hard. Two of them bounced on contact. None of them moved afterward.
"Wow," Marcia said.
"You can say that again."
"Wow," said Marcia who thought it was stupid to say it again.
"I'm gonna see the guru tomorrow and get us some more of this," Jeffrey said.
Marcia didn't answer. She was waiting for the man in black to come back out of the hole in the brick wall and climb up to the roof and make love to her. And if he had to fight off Jeffrey, so much the better. And if he couldn't fight off Jeffrey, then she would fight off Jeffrey.
But Remo didn't come.
He found the kidnaped businessman in a closet, blindfolded, gagged and tied. Remo removed the gag and the ropes, but left the man's blindfold on.
"You're all right now," he said.
"Who are you?"
"Just another guy trying to do two men's work," Remo said.
The hostage reached for his blindfold but Remo stayed his hand.
"You can take that off when you hear the front door close," he said.
"Where are they?" the businessman asked.
"They left," Remo said.
"I heard noises. Like a fight."
"No, there wasn't any fight," Remo said truthfully. "Some scurrying, maybe, but no fight. Look, I'm going now. You take that off when I leave."