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

and his enemies where he found them. And that could be anywhere.
It was all one struggle, sure. All part of the same universal conflict,
and you didn't need a program to tell the players apart if you could only
get a handle on the game.
There were, of course, no living losers in the game.
Bolan had returned only hours earlier from the Turkish hellground,
anxious for a brief respite from his war everlasting. The targets had been
opium and the men who grew it. The method: total destruction. Executioner
style.
And yes, Bolan had been more than happy to find the brief sanctuary of
his Phoenix base, located on Stony Man Farm in the lovely Blue Ridge
mountain country of Virginia. He could find peace there, or at least the
illusion of peace.
But there would be no real peace at Stony Man Farm for Mack Bolan. Not
on this return trip from the universal hellground.
He had been welcomed home by April Rose and Aaron "The Bear" Kurtzman,
warriors-in-residence at the Phoenix base. Behind the lovely young woman's
kiss of greeting and her sparkling eyes, Bolan had read a message of
concern, even distress.
Something, yeah, had been happening on the home front while Bolan was
circling the eastern frontiers, stomping vipers.
The last of the telexes had been received forty-five minutes before
Bolan's arrival by air. The Executioner spent the next forty-five in gentle,
aimless conversation with April, unwinding from his recent brush with death.
He spoke in the vague generalities of a man who hates to worry his woman,
and she listened with the incisive knowledge of a woman who lives on the
fine edge between exultation and despair.
For the moment, though, simple gratitude was enough for both of them.
They were both alive, yeah, and ready to fight another day against yet
another enemy. On another hellground.
And every day above ground was a good day for Mack Bolan and his woman.
The expected telephone call had come exactly on schedule, and Aaron the
Bear had fetched Bolan from his seat on the porch of Stony Man's ranch
house. April had stayed behind, watching him go with sad, knowing eyes.
Pol Blancanales was on the line, his normally firm voice almost
cracking, his words dripping with grateful relief.
"Mack... thank God... I was afraid..." He broke off, as if struggling
to collect disordered thoughts before continuing.
"Easy, Pol," the Executioner said. "Give it to me one piece at a time,
from the beginning."
Something caught in the Politician's throat, far away at the other end
of the line.
"Jesus, Mack, it's Toni. I... I..."
He broke off again, but already he had said enough to raise Bolan's
hackles, letting him know that there was something deadly personal about
this cry for help.
Toni Blancanales was the Politician's kid sister. And some "kid," yeah.
All woman, that kid, and no question about it.
During the Executioner's home-front Mafia wars, she had worked on
occasion with Bolan and the members of Able Team, and since the birth of the