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

of church-going parents, as a youth he drifted from the rituals and
trappings of the faith and sought a universal truth in his own place and
time. He saw enough bigotry and persecution in his travels to recognize that
demagogues habitually use religion as a cloak for their fanaticism. The
cross inverted was a bloody sword, and he knew that holy wars were often the
most vicious and unholy.
Not that Bolan was an atheist - far from it. He believed devoutly in
the concept of Good and Evil battling for the hearts and minds of men. From
adolescence he was a volunteer combatant in that ageless war, striking when
and where he could against the cannibals and savages. Bolan was his
brother's keeper, endlessly at war, offering his future as a sacrifice to
the common, universal Good.
And in that sense, he was a deeply religious man. The holy warrior,
standing guard on a grim frontier.
As a military strategist, he recognized the role of organized religion
in the history of human conflict.
From the earliest Crusades to the ongoing conflict in Ireland and the
Middle East, God and doctrines have provided motivation for the massacre of
countless millions. No cause ever rallied men to arms with such predictable
efficiency as a call to strike against the infidel, the unbeliever.
America has seen her share of doctrinal dissension. The Founding
Fathers were refugees of persecution - Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in
Pennsylvania, Puritans in Massachusetts - building a sanctuary for their own
unorthodox beliefs. Some who sought a new world of tolerance would launch
inquisitions of their own, but in the end they were all Americans, united in
the pursuit of freedom. Together they forged a Bill of Rights, beginning
with a guarantee of liberality, the fundamental right to worship, to
believe, without fear of government harassment.
Along the way, there were some who willfully mistook their freedom for
a kind of license. Bigots and borderline fanatics, celebrity saviors with a
keener eye for profits than prophecy, the Constitution sheltered all of
them.
There is a line that divides holy men and harmless cranks from other,
more sinister practitioners. When the mask of worship crumbles to reveal
corruption, when minds and lives are twisted and manipulated, primal laws of
preservation and survival supersede the Bill of Rights.
Mack Bolan was a master at survival, dedicated to protecting and
preserving Man the Builder. He carried the cleansing fire to Asia in his
youth and brought it back home to purge another band of savages. That fire
consumed his old identity and he rose from the ashes as "Colonel John
Phoenix," then embarked on another bloody mile of War Everlasting.
Bolan knew there were limits to a single warrior's capabilities. He
also knew a fighting man could lose a battle by concentrating on his
limitations. Defeatism had no place in his personal philosophy.
War was the game; survival was the game's real goal. The Executioner
was staying hard, staying large.

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North of San Francisco, the fog rolls in at night like silent smoke