"Дон Пендлтон. Continental Contract ("Палач" #5) " - читать интересную книгу автора

returned warily to his former position where he stared down at the suffering
man, grimly assessing his possibilities of escape and quietly damning
himself for walking into the setup.
The same thick voice from the darkness called out, "Wise up, Bolan.
You're sewed in. Throw out the gun, then put your hands where we can see 'em
and come talk to us."
Bolan knew how that conversation would go, with a six-figure bounty on
his head. He also knew that this gun crew was not at Dulles International
Airport to convoy a nickel-and-dime air freight hijack operation;
Executioner Bolan had been suckered. What had begun as a soft surveillance
of Mafia activity had quickly escalated into a full firefight, and Bolan
could read nothing into the unhappy development except ambush. He gave them
credit; they had played it cool. And now he was wondering just how long they
had been onto his interest in the airfreight operation. Knowing this, he
would know also how elaborately planned was the ambush. If it had been a
hasty, last-minute set, then perhaps he stood a chance of busting out. But
if they had come there in force, expecting Bolan to walk in...
He knelt and placed the muzzle of the .45 against the fallen Mafioso's
temple. "How many are out there?" he inquired quietly. "What's the set?"
The man was in a paralysis of torment, and obviously cared little
whether he lived or died. He made a faint attempt to respond, partially
uncurled himself, then quickly drew back into the knot and vomited. Bolan
grimaced with sympathy and stood up, leaning against the building and
breathing as softly as possible, ears straining to tell him what his eyes
could not.
Frozen time moved sluggishly as he assessed the situation. He could
hear them moving about out there in the darkness, closing consolidating the
jaws of the trap. A big jet was taking off from the far side of the airport,
another was landing close by, its landing lights probing the darkness as it
swept low past the warehouse area - though not close enough to affect
Bolan's situation. He was in a section of the sprawling complex which
normally saw little or no activity at this hour of the night, a pre-customs
storage area. Perhaps even the gunplay had gone unnoticed in the other
noises of the huge air terminal.
"What about it, Bolan?" asked the voice out there.
He snapped his .32 out of the sideleather and quickly inspected the
load, then threw the appropriated .45 into the open. It clattered loudly as
it slid along the concrete ramp, adding another grotesque note to the sounds
about him.
Some one called out, "Watch it! He's probably got Joe's gun too!"
Bolan snapped a round toward the voice and was rewarded with a muffled
yelp and a returning volley of fire. Meanwhile he had spun off as he fired,
crouching and running along the shadows of the warehouse, his eyes alert to
the sudden eruption of muzzle flashes. The fusillade tore into the area he
had just vacated, and a gasping groan behind him told of the effect upon the
writhing Mafioso who had been identified as "Joe."
A voice crowed, "He's hit!"
"Watch it, he's tricky!"
"Not that tricky."
"Well, you just waitaminnit, dammit."