"Энди Макнаб. Последний свет (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

sure that I did.
As I looked down yet again at the clear plastic lunch-box on the desk
in front of me, three torch bulbs sticking out of holes I'd burnt in the lid
stared back up. None of them was illuminated;
the three snipers were still not in position.
Everything about this job was wrong. We'd been given the wrong weapons.
We were in the wrong place. And there just hadn't been enough time to plan
and prepare.
I stared through the net curtains across the boat-filled river. The
Houses of Parliament were some 350 metres away to my half left.
The office I'd broken into was on the top floor of County Hall, the
former Greater London Council building. Now redeveloped into offices, hotels
and tourist attractions, it overlooked the Thames from the south side. I was
feeling rather grand sitting behind a highly polished, dark wood desk, as I
looked out at the killing ground.
Parliament's terrace spanned the whole of its river frontage. Two
prefabricated pavilions with candy-striped roofs had been erected at the far
left end, for use throughout the summer months. Part of the terrace, I'd
learnt from their website, was for Members of the House of Lords, and part
for the House of Commons. The public were not admitted unless they were with
an MP or peer, so this was probably the nearest I was ever going to get.
The Department of Trade and Industry's guests today were a group of
about thirty businessmen, plus staff and some family, from Central and South
America. Maybe the DTI was trying to curry a bit of favour and sell them a
power station or two. Who cared? All I knew was that one of them would be
getting dropped somewhere between the vol-au-vents and the profiteroles.
Directly below me, and five storeys down, Albert Embankment was
thronged with hot-dog vendors and stalls selling plastic policeman's helmets
and postcards of Big Ben to people queuing for the London Eye, or just
enjoying a lazy Sunday afternoon. A sightseeing boat packed with tourists
passed under Westminster Bridge. I could hear a bored voice telling the
story of Guy Fawkes over a crackly PA system.
It was holiday season and another news-starved week, so Mr. Murdoch and
his mates were going to be ever so pleased with what I was about to do: the
biggest explosion in London this year, and right in the heart of
Westminster. With the added bonus of a major shooting incident, it would
probably take their ratings right off the scale. Unfortunately, good news
for them was bad for me. SB (Special Branch) were going to be working their
arses off to find out who'd pressed the button, and they were the best in
the world at this sort of thing.
They'd been formed to stop the IRA carrying out exactly the kind of
stunt I was about to pull.
Three torch bulbs were still unlit. I wasn't flapping, just concerned.
At either end of the row of lights was a white, rectangular bell-push
from a door chime set, glued in position with Evostik, the wires curling
into the box. The one on the left was covered with the top from a can of
shaving cream. It was the detonation press el for the device that I'd set up
as a diversion. The device was basically a black powder charge, designed to
give off a big enough bang to grab London's attention but not to kill
anyone.