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

across the water, rising from the bay and crawling inland. It devours
everything, muffling sounds and making simple movements a ghostly dance. The
chill it carries creeps inside a man, penetrating flesh and bone, fastening
upon the soul.
The fog is neutral, unfeeling, but men invest it with the qualities of
friend or foe. To police and firefighters, motorists and airline pilots, the
mist is an enemy, bothersome at best, a potential killer. To others, men and
women who transact their lives in darkness, away from prying eyes, it can be
a trusted ally.
The fog was friendly to Mack Bolan. He wore it like a cloak and let it
shelter him. Secrecy was everything, and the canny warrior thanked the
universe for any helping hand.
He was counting on the famous San Francisco fog, knowing the mission
couldn't wan, and this time the cards fell his way. Weather did not make the
penetration simple, but it shaved the odds a little, made the risk
acceptable.
Bolan reached a six-foot-high retaining wall and paused, resting his
back against the cool stone surface. Daytime reconnaissance had showed him
the wall completely circled a thirty-acre estate. The wall ensured privacy,
but posed little difficulty for determined infiltrators; he could scale it
easily.
Bolan had skinned into his black night-fighting outfit away from the
scene, donning it in the privacy of the night. He had strapped on the web
belts, hooking the holster of the lethal AutoMag onto his right side. A
shoulder holster for the Beretta was next.
The AutoMag made a heavy weight when he slid it into the leather
hanging on his hip. A familiar, comforting weight for Colonel Hard.
Yeah, it was a big gun. Too big for most shooters to carry. Too much
weight. Too much recoil.
But for Mack Bolan it was an appropriate weapon. It took a man like him
to tame the big silver gun and adopt it as his head weapon.
There was no other automatic handgun in the world like the late model,
series C, .44 AutoMag.
With even the short (for the AutoMag) 6-1/2" barrel, it was 11-1/2" in
length. Unloaded, it weighed almost 4 pounds. It was constructed of
stainless steel, reinforced at crucial points with titanium steel.
Seven fat .44 Magnums rode in the magazine. With another sitting in the
chamber, eight powerful brain-busters simmered within the big guy's grasp.
Cartridges were so powerful that the big silver beauty required a
rotary bolt with six locking lugs to contain the enormous explosive internal
gas pressures generated when the shootist squeezed the trigger.
Like a rifle? It was as close to a rifle as any handgun could be. And
adjustable rear sight made it as accurate as a bolt-action shoulder arm.
The cartridges were in fact cut down from 7.62 NATO brass cases and
re-necked for a .44 slug. The bullet that Bolan preferred was a heavy
240-grain boattail that could tear through the solid metal of an automobile
engine block.
Sure, it was a big gun. It was special. In the same way that Mack
Samuel Bolan, the Executioner, now known as John Macklin Phoenix, was
special. One of a kind.