"Michael Z. Williamson - Better to Beg Forgiveness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Michael Z)

Across from Bart, occasionally pulling the screen flat to see better, Shaman read the same maps upside
down. He was slim and looked the part of an executive. He was also a damned fine doctor with lots of
combat experience during Liberia's Third Civil War (or Eighth, depending on who did the counting),
more than once using rigger tape, rags, and a pocketknife to perform lifesaving surgery. Horace
"Shaman" Mbuto might leave you a scarred mess when done, but you'd probably be aliving scarred
mess, and reconstructive biosculp was covered under Ripple Creek's generous benefit package. Alex
wasn't sure if the native rituals Mbuto used alone and on patients were a religious matter for him or simply
an act meant to disturb and creep out observers, and wasn't going to ask. The man was one hell of a
cutter and one hell of a shooter with years of experience.


Last on the couch was Jason Vaughn, with his attention focused on his computer.


"What are you writing, Jason?" Alex asked.


"Letter home," Vaughn said tersely. Vaughn had a wife and kids on Grainne Colony. He'd probably
memorized the maps already, and his eyes kept flicking up and forward toward the flight deck, in nervous
habit. Vaughn was a pilot if need be, an armored vehicle driver if need be, a mechanical master, and very
professionally paranoid. He swung from reticent to lecturing, and if he said something was so, it almost
always was. Alex was glad to have him along. Great operator.


They were all great operators. That's why they got paid better than doctors, lawyers, and most
corporate mid execs. If you wanted someone with that skill set and talent, who'd put themselves between
their employer and an incoming bullet, you had to pay.Contractor had been the polite term for a long
time now, but the proper term wasmercenary .


They were on contract to guard Balaji Bishwanath, the incoming temporary president of Celadon on
Salin. Celadon was a backwater haven for terrorists and pirates, and enough events had finally happened
to draw notice to those facts. The UN Forces were pacifying it, at least on paper, and the Bureau of
State moved in the interim president selected by the Colonial Alliance while a new, functioning
government was created. Many of the gangs, syndicates, clans, and tribes didn't want the peace
Bishwanath promised. Contingents from every faction on the planet wanted him dead.
 That wouldn't really matter in the long run. More troops would come until the UN/Alliance's goal was
accomplished. But as with common criminals, there was a mind-set with certain people that such fights
were "winnable." It was only fair, and professional, to give Bishwanath proper security presence while
things settled down. The fact that he was seen as such a figurehead was, in fact, a boost to his credibility.


"Do you think we can get other contracts here, boss?" Aramis asked. "We've got diplomats,
Assemblypersons, CEOs, and executives. I figure this could last a decade."


Money was one of the big appeals, Alex admitted to himself.