Fear is the Key. Alistair MacLean
Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу Fear is the Key - Alistair MacLean страница

Название: Fear is the Key

Автор: Alistair MacLean

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Триллеры

Серия:

isbn: 9780007289264

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ on id="u1e1c8036-d447-51a2-8118-1a2ebf7629dd">

      

      ALISTAIR MACLEAN

      Fear is the Key

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Previously published in paperback by Fontana 1963

      First published in Great Britain by Collins 1961

      Copyright © Devoran Trustees Ltd 1961

      Alistair MacLean asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780006159919

      Ebook Edition SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780007289264

      Version: 2016-08-24

       Dedication

       To W.A. Murray

      Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Epilogue

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       By Alistair Maclean

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

      May 3rd, 1958.

      If you could call a ten by six wooden box mounted on a four-wheel trailer an office, then I was sitting in my office. I’d been sitting there for four hours, the earphones were beginning to hurt and the darkness was coming in from the swamps and the sea. But if I had to sit there all night, then I was going to do just that: those earphones were the most important thing in the world. They were the only remaining contact between me and all the world held for me.

      Peter should have been within radio range three hours ago. It was a long haul north from Barranquilla, but we’d made that haul a score of times before. Our three DCs were old but as mechanically perfect as unceasing care and meticulous attention could make them. Pete was a fine pilot, Barry a crack navigator, the West Caribbean forecast had been good and it was far too early in the season for hurricanes.

      There was no conceivable reason why they shouldn’t have been on the air hours ago. As it was, they must have already passed the point of nearest approach and be drawing away to the north, towards Tampa, their destination. Could they have disobeyed my instructions to make the long dog-leg by the Yucatan Strait and flown the direct route over Cuba instead? All sorts of unpleasant things could happen to planes flying over war-torn Cuba those days. It seemed unlikely, and when I thought of the cargo they were carrying it seemed impossible. Where any element of risk was concerned, Pete was even more cautious and far-seeing than myself.

      Over in the corner of my office on wheels a radio was playing softly. It was tuned in to some English-speaking station and for the second time that evening some hill-billy guitar-player was singing softly of the death of mother or wife or sweetheart, I wasn’t sure which. ‘My Red Rose Has Turned to White’ it was called. Red for life and white for death. Red and white – the colours of the three planes of our Trans-Carib Air Charter service. I was glad when the song stopped.

      There was СКАЧАТЬ