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

"But you just said only five of us know about this. And this is the UK.
It's not a Foreign Office matter."
His smile confirmed what I already knew.
"Ah, Nick, we don't want to bother anyone with minor details. After
all, they may not really want to know."
With an even bigger smile he added that should any part of the
operation go wrong, no one would be held ultimately responsible. The Service
would, as always, hide behind the Official Secrets Act or, if things got
difficult, a Public Interest Immunity Certificate. So everything was quite
all right, and I'd be protected. I mustn't forget, he said, that I was part
of the team. And that was when I really started to worry.
It was blindingly obvious to me that the reason no one knew about this
operation was because no one in their right mind would sanction it, and no
one in their right mind would take the job on. Maybe that was why I'd been
picked. Then, as now, I comforted myself with the thought that at least the
money was good. Well, sort of. But I was desperate for the eighty grand on
offer, forty now in two very large brown Jiffy-bags, and the rest
afterwards. That was how I justified saying yes to something I just knew was
going to be a nightmare.
We were now on the approach road to Westminster Bridge with Big Ben and
Parliament to my right. On the other side of the river I could see the
County Hall building and to the left of that, the London Eye, the wheel
turning so slowly it looked as if it wasn't moving at all.
"You should get out here, Stone. Have a look around."
With that, the Sundance Kid kerbed the Previa, and irate motorists
behind hit their horns as they tried to manoeuvre around us. I slid the door
back and stepped out to the deafening sounds of road drills and revving
engines. The Yes Man leant forward in his seat and took the door handle.
"Call in for what you need, and where you want the other three to
collect their furnishings."
With that, the door slid shut and Sundance cut up a bus to get back in
the traffic stream heading south across the river. A van driver gave me the
finger as he put his foot down to make up that forty seconds he'd been
delayed.
As I sat at the desk waiting for the other two bulbs to illuminate, I
concentrated hard on that eighty grand. I didn't think I'd ever needed it so
badly. The snipers were probably getting at least three times as much as I
was but, then, I wasn't as good as they were at what they did. These people
were as committed to their craft as Olympic athletes. I'd met one or two in
the past when I, too, thought of going that route, but decided against it;
professional snipers struck me as weird. They lived on a planet where
everything was taken seriously, from politics to buying ice cream. They
worshipped at the church of one round, one kill. No, sniping might pay well,
but I didn't think I belonged there. And, besides, I now found bullet
trajectory and the finer points of wind adjustment pretty boring after
talking about them for half an hour, let alone my entire life.
From the moment the Yes Man dropped me off with my two Jiffy-bags, I'd
started protecting myself far more than I normally would. I knew that if I
got caught by Special Branch the Firm would deny me, and that was part and
parcel of being a K. But there was more to it this time. The stuff I did