"Дон Пендлтон. California Hit ("Палач" #11) " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Sergeant Mercy" - the GI who could not turn away from orphaned kids and
stricken villagers who were victims of the brutalities of warfare.
The homicide detective who investigated Bolan's initial "homefront
battle" described the sergeant as "... an enigma. I don't know if I want to
arrest the guy or pat him on the back. He's a killer, sure - but he's a
killer with a difference."
That "difference" was the only thing that allowed Mack Bolan to
tolerate himself and his new role in the world. He did not kill for personal
gain, nor out of hatred or revenge. In his own view, he was simply a soldier
doing his duty. His war was with the enemies of his society, enemies who had
found protection from legal justice through a high degree of organization,
political "clout" and financial power. By their own manipulations they had
lifted themselves beyond the restrictions of the law.
In Bolan's understanding, they had also removed themselves from the
protection of the law. Through their own actions and their own contempt for
social justice, they had thrown themselves into the court of jungle law -
and here were no judges, no juries - here was simply life and death, the
survival of those fittest to survive, and here Mack Bolan was the
Executioner. So long as he lived, those others would die. This was Bolan's
"difference." He was in a state of war - with those who were unfit for
survival.
His jungle knew no geographical boundaries. It existed only in the
hearts and actions of certain men, in the territorial environs of a criminal
conspiracy known variously as the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, the organization,
the syndicate - or, collectively, the mob.
And, yes, in that exciting old city beside the Golden Gate, in that
paradoxical town of human extremes, there existed a jungle of considerable
dimensions.
And Death moved coolly upon the scene, and sniffed the air, and bent an
ear to the ground, and knew that the time was right for the California hit.
The Executioner was on the scene.
And the golden city knew immediately that she had a hot war on her
hands.

1
Openers

It was a time for war.
And Mack Bolan was not a negative warrior. His game was blitzkrieg -
thunder and lightning, death and destruction, shock and panic and crawling
fear - and once again his time for war had come.
For three nights he had held his peace and his patience, carefully
reconnoitering and gathering intelligence, reading faces and comparing them
with the indelible etchings of his mental mugfile, classifying them by
family, function, and rank - and marking them for death.
On this third night, the tall man in night combat garb had been at his
post for more than three hours in the late evening chill, quietly watching
and biding his time outside the would-be swank nightclub at the edge of San
Francisco's North Beach district. He was dressed all in black. From his
right shoulder was suspended a "greasegun" machine pistol, riding