"Дон Пендлтон. The Libya Connection ("Палач" #48) " - читать интересную книгу автора

"Sounds like you're expecting something."
"Always expecting, pal. Always ready. We'll be pulling out of here
within the hour. Be ready to move."

6

The rider wore crude shepherd's clothing as a disguise. The gray
charger beneath him soared at full gallop across the tumbling landscape of
desert wasteland.
Colonel Ahmad Shahkhia pulled rein at the crest of a dune. Below, a
stretch of the Benghazi-Jarabub highway arrowed from north to south.
A three-sided tent was pitched against the scorching Sahara sun, some
twenty yards off the highway.
One man sat in a camp chair, waiting alone in the tent's shade.
Pornov.
Of course, thought Shahkhia.
The Russian would be here early for their meeting. He always was.
Colonel Shahkhia clearly discerned, through the shimmering mirage of
afternoon heat, a small bodyguard force, deployed around a cluster of desert
vehicles parked another ten yards up the highway from the tent.
The sentries were all heavily armed. Shahkhia spotted rifles, machine
guns, a grenade launcher.
The man in shepherd's clothing felt a certain satisfaction at this.
The amount of protection for the general was an indication of their
respect for Shahkhia.
And what he was capable of.
Yet, he must be careful. And cautious.
This was a treacherous game he played. Especially now.
Shahkhia fully understood that success, at this point, rested solely on
his maintaining a confident facade to all involved in the unfolding drama.
The rider spurred his mount into a sideways canter along the face of
the sloping dune.
Shahkhia wondered why the Russian had contacted him for a meeting. This
was not a time that Colonal Shahkhia wished to be seen making contact with
anyone who might cast the slightest hint of suspicion on him, most notably
the Russians. Most notably on this day of days.
Nothing would stop Colonel Shahkhia from keeping his rendezvous this
evening with Leonard Jericho.
Nothing!
Shahkhia realized once again exactly how dangerous was this game he
played with Pornov, the KGB agent from Moscow.
Be very cautious, the rider reminded himself again as Pornov's tent
grew closer. Do not make the same mistakes in dealing with these people who
are about to bring down Moammar.
Brother Colonel Khaddafi was one year older than Ahmad Shahkhia's own
thirty-seven years. They were of the same tribe, and it seemed to Shahkhia
that he had always been forced, by circumstance, to live in Moammar's
shadow.
Shahkhia had been aware of this from their very earliest days together.
And he had always resented it. And always waited for the day when he, Ahmad