"Дон Пендлтон. The Violent Streets ("Палач" #41) " - читать интересную книгу автора

that hated term, and the penalty for treason is inescapable.
Before now, it has been something unthinkable, like spitting on the
flag or changing sides in the middle of my own private war. The sides never
change, but people do, and perhaps it's time for me to meet that fact
head-on with respect to the targets I've acquired. Even flags, when torn and
soiled beyond repair, are destroyed to make way for newer, cleaner ones.
So be it. I take nothing for granted in this struggle, and I keep an
open mind with regard to targets and solutions. If it becomes necessary for
me to take the final step, I will take it not with eagerness or anger, but
with sadness - the quiet, personal grief that accompanies the death of an
ideal.
And the war goes on, unchanged, unchanging. The target is still
terrorism, whatever its face, name or position in society. And the victims,
the souls hanging in the balance, are the same - the builders and seekers,
the gentle civilizers. They are worth saving, worth protecting at any cost,
and with that decision made, the other questions answer themselves. The war
goes on.

13

Assistant Police Commissioner Roger Smalley listened to the incessant
ringing at the other end of the line, cursing softly to himself. After
several long moments, he cradled the receiver, his mind racing to evaluate
the ramifications of his problem.
Benny Copa would have to learn that he couldn't just waltz off to
nowhere and leave a job unfinished. Especially this kind of job.
When Smalley had first heard from one of the metropolitan precincts
that a girl, the girl, dammit, had been spirited out of hospital, he
absolutely did not know what to make of it. And then the facts had started
to come in. The girl belonged to some kind of detective agency. Able
Company, or something like that. Another member of the agency was an
out-of-towner, apparently her brother. And that stank. Smalley hadn't liked
that at all. He wanted the stranger neutralized. That was Benny Copa's job.
And he blew it.
Not that Smalley now suspected Copa of running out on him entirely, oh,
no. The little ferret didn't have the guts for that sort of double cross.
He was just irresponsible as hell, that was all, and more than alittle
uptight these days when it came down to getting his own hands dirty.
Smalley was considering ways to severely chastise Benny Copa if he
couldn't raise him in the next half-hour, when the phone rang at his elbow.
A little smile played across the assistant commissioner's face.
That would be Copa on the line, asking for instructions. The thin smile
continued to play across Roger Smalley's lips at the thought of Benny Copa
sweating it out, wondering what the hell was going on.
Smalley picked up the receiver on the third ring, taking his own sweet
time about answering.
"Yes?"
"Hello? Commissioner Smalley?"
And it wasn't Benny Copa, dammit. Smalley couldn't place the female
voice at the other end of the line.