"Энди Макнаб. День независимости (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

of a smile as he thought of his daughter fucking me off, as he placed the
frame carefully on the tabletop.
"I've done you a favour, son. She needed to find out some time. And I
happen to think she deserved to know." He bent down and picked up a leather
folder from beside his feet.
"Maybe this will help. Compliments of the US Government."
He went and poured himself some coffee from the percolator while I sat
opposite his chair at the table and unzipped the folder.
"It's not as if it's a bad thing you've done, you've nothing to be
ashamed of." He turned round and gestured towards the mug in his hand. I
accepted with a grudging nod. Carrie's mother would go ape if the wood got
marked so I took two pineapple-motif coasters from the pile in the centre of
the table as George continued, now with his back to me.
"This isn't a war of choice like Vietnam or Kosovo. This is a war of
necessity. It's in our yard now, Nick. Carrie should be proud of you."
I glanced into the folder and saw my passport, driver's licence and
other documents. This could have waited, George."
"What you did for us out there, it had to be done, Nick. This is not
the time to be showing the world we're nice guys. This outreach thing that's
going on, every school kid gets a Muslim pen pal, that kind of thing, it
makes no sense. This isn't a time to hug, this is a time to be feared."
I flipped through the passport and there was something wrong, big-time
wrong. These weren't Nick Stone's documents; they belonged to someone called
Nick Scott, who had the same face as me. I looked up sharply. George was
still pouring creamer.
"I didn't want a new name, I wanted my own back."
He came and sat down with the two mugs of coffee, passing one across
the table then waving my last words aside. He kept the other in his huge
left hand, his veteran's onyx signet ring glinting on his wedding finger. He
took a tentative sip; too hot the mug went on the coaster.
"Do you know over six hundred people died in floods over in Algeria two
days ago? You were lucky to get in-country before the storms."
I cupped my hands around the mug and felt the heat.
"I heard something."
"You know why? Because the drains had been blocked to stop terrorists
planting bombs under the streets and killing people. Kind of ironic, isn't
it?"
I didn't know where this was headed, but I wasn't feeling good about
it. I just wanted to get out of here and go and find Carrie.
"Know what my job is nowadays, Nick? To make sure we don't have to
block our drains. You've helped me do that, and the first thing I want to
say today is thank you."
This was really starting to worry me. I picked up the dull-looking brew
with not enough creamer, and took a sip.
"For years, we've been fighting this war with our hands tied. Now
people are looking for scapegoats because America doesn't feel safe any
more. America says, "The government should have known, the CIA should have
known, the military should have known. Thirty billion of our tax dollars
spent on intelligence, why didn't anyone know?" He paused to lift his mug.
Well, here's the news. On nine-eleven America had the exact level of