"Энди Макнаб. Удаленный контроль (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

through the material. I needn't have bothered.
All they knew for certain was that two boys had booked tickets to
Washington, D.C." and they wanted to find out why.
They wanted to know who they were meeting and what was happening once
they met. I knew from experience that the chances of failure were great.
Even if they kept to the script and landed in D.C." how was I going to
follow them around?
There were two of them and one of me; as a basic anti surveillance
drill they were sure to split up at some point. But hey, the Firm had me by
the balls.
Judging from one of the documents, it seemed that we'd reached the time
of the year when all good PIRA fund raisers headed for the dinner circuit in
Boston, New York, Washington, D.C.-even down as far as Tucson, Arizona, to
catch Irish American sympathizers who'd retired to the sun. It seemed that
the seizure often tons of explosives and weapons during the search of a
warehouse in north London last September had produced a financial crisis.
PIRA wasn't exactly asking its bank for an overdraft yet, but the increase
in legitimate fund-raising in Northern Ireland was an indication that they
were sweating. There were also other, less public, ways of raising cash. I
was sure my new friends were part of that.
Apart from that, I was still none the wiser about the job. I had no
information on the players' cover stories, or where they might be going,
inside or outside D.C. All I knew was who they were and what they looked
like. I read that Michael Kerr had been a member of the South Armagh ASU
(Active Service Unit). He'd taken part in four mortar attacks on Special
Forces bases and in dozens of shootings against the security forces and
Protestants. He'd even gotten wounded once but escaped into the South. A
tough nut.
The same could be said for Morgan McGear. After a career as a shooter
in the border area of South Armagh, the thirty-one-year-old subcontractor
had been promoted to PIRA's security team, where his job was to find and
question informers.
His favored method of interrogation was a Black & Decker power drill.
The helicopter was operated by a civilian front company, so the arrival
procedure at Shannon, the Irish Republic's premier airport, was no different
than if I'd been a horse breeder coming to check the assets at his stud farm
in Tipperary, or a businessman flying in from London to fill his briefcase
with European Union subsidies. I walked across the tarmac into the arrivals
terminal, went through Customs, and followed the exit signs, heading for the
taxi stand. At the last minute I doubled back into departures.
At the Aer Lingus ticket desk I picked up my ticket for Heathrow, which
had been booked in the name of Nick Stamford. When choosing a cover name
it's always best to keep your own first name-that way you react naturally to
it. It also helps if your last name begins with the real initial because the
signature flows better. I'd picked Stamford after the battle of Stamford
Bridge. I loved medieval history.
I headed straight to the shop to buy myself a bag. Everybody has hand
luggage; I'd stick out like the balls on a bulldog if I boarded the aircraft
with nothing but a can of Coke. I never traveled with luggage that had to be
checked in because then you're in the hands of whoever it is who decides to