"Дон Пендлтон. Doomsday Disciples ("Палач" #49) " - читать интересную книгу автора

show. Rage, sure - a deep fury at the kind of atrocities man inflicted on
his fellow man. Beside him, April Rose watched the slides in stony silence,
both hands tightly clenching one of his.
There would be a link, some common thread between the random acts of
violence. Bolan knew his old friend well enough to let Hal approach it in
his own way and time.
The big fed cleared his throat as the screen went mercifully blank.
"We're looking at a string of incidents from coast to coast, going back
two years. The Lakeland crucifixion went down a week ago. No pattern on the
surface. Psychos and junkies on a rampage, pushers and gunrunners thrown in
for balance. All of them violent, homicidal. No possible connection - except
that each and every perpetrator was an ex-member of the Universal Devotees."
"No current members?" Bolan asked.
Hal shook his head.
"Negative. It's all double-checked. Officially, the church has them
down as dropouts and defectors. A couple of them were expelled for failure
to adopt, unquote. Naturally, church leadership deplores the violence... but
it goes on. Drug enforcement and the FBI keep turning up Devotees in
connection with narcotics and related rackets. Off the record, that's
scarier than all the random slaughter put together."
Brognola punched up another slide, this time a man's face, magnified to
twice life-size: an Oriental face, impassive, ageless beyond a talcum
dusting of gray around the temples.
A face that Bolan recognized.
"Nguyen Van Minh," Hal was saying. "Founder and leader of the Universal
Devotees. He's appalled by rumors that his people are involved with drugs or
crime in any form."
"Vietnamese?" April asked.
"That's affirmative. On the record, he's an anti-Communist, family
executed in reprisal after Saigon fell in 1975."
Bolan frowned.
"All family? "he asked.
Hal nodded.
"Seems so. Minh got off with prison time, if you can figure that. They
cut him loose after three years, and we granted him political asylum. Six
months later, he's got himself a church. Claims Christ came to him in prison
with a revelation of the one true faith."
"Membership?" Bolan asked.
"Pushing half a million, mostly under thirty. Every convert pledges to
divest himself of worldly burdens - like money, cars. You get the picture.
They adopt a Spartan life of service to the church."
"I've heard that," April chimed in. "Weren't there some fraud
accusations made against the church?"
"That isn't half of it." Brognola shook his head wearily. "Parents have
charged Minh with kidnapping, brainwashing, harboring runaways - you name
it. So far, nothing sticks."
"There's more," Bolan said. It was not a question.
Hal took his time lighting his stogie, watching Bolan through the
smoke. When the fed spoke again, his voice was unusually grim.
"Justice has him marked as the organizer of a cult-related crime wave.