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

victims... From the tortured POWs still behind the lines in Asia, to the
dead and dying claimed by terrorist bombs and bullets here at home, my
environment is sick with savagery, degradation, abandonment.
The war I fight is my personal commitment, neither thrust upon me nor
sold through any promise of reward. I fight here today because there is no
decent alternative, not in a land like ours, which is racked by the
pressures of decay. Therefore I have no choice, even though this war is
essentially mine alone, and is up to me.

* * *

The Executioner was EVA and crouching on a wooded hillside overlooking
Minh's estate. Below, the manor house and grounds were cloaked in fog.
Because of the distance, Bolan replaced the Nitefinder goggles with a
Starlite spotting scope, using it to scan the grounds. Through the mist, he
could pick out moving figures, details of the big house, everything tinted
green in the Starlite's viewing scope.
The gatehouse guards had been replaced and reinforced. Bolan counted
three and figured on at least one more inside the sentry box. One of Minh's
carbon-copy Cadillacs was across the entrance, replacing the ruined gate,
and his "elders" lounged against the tank, smoking and talking quietly. One
of them cradled a stubby riot shotgun.
Sweeping on, Bolan spotted sentries traveling in pairs along the outer
wall. None was obviously armed, but he was betting on their having pistols
and other hidden hardware underneath the trench coats. Soldiers, right, and
Bolan knew they would react professionally at the first sight of an
intruder.
More were moving around the barracks-style bungalows ranged behind the
manor house. Bolan took the bungalows for quarters of the cultists in
residence. He wondered if the guards were there to keep strangers out, or to
pin the "faithful" in.
As Bolan expected, Minh was going hard. A rapid head count registered
thirty soldiers on the grounds, and he counted on another dozen, minimum,
inside the house. Make it twice the force he expected. Amy's guess was
wrong... or Minh was calling in the troops, gathering his "elders" for a
showdown.
Either way it was an army.
And like any fighting force, it had strengths and weaknesses.
With courage, skill and a dash of luck, the Executioner would find
those weaknesses and turn them to his own advantage.
Lights were on throughout the manor house, including one in Minh's
second-floor study. Bolan focused on the lighted window, zooming in, but fog
and draperies combined to hide the inner sanctum from his view. Once, he
thought a shadow moved across the blinds, but it could have been imagination
or a gremlin in the opticals.
The limpet bug planted on his first probe was still in place, but
silent. Bolan fine-tuned the volume on a miniature receiver at his waist,
searching for a signal, but nothing was audible through the tiny earpiece he
wore.
If Minh was in his study, he was alone and quiet.