Primary Command. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ he said. “Hold on a minute.”

      Murphy looked up and turned around. A moment ago, he had seemed lost in thought, but his eyes had come instantly alert. His face was narrow, birdlike, handsome in its own way.

      “Luke Stone,” he said, his voice flat. He didn’t seem pleased to see Luke. He didn’t seem displeased. His eyes were hard. Like the eyes of all Delta guys, there was a cold, calculating intelligence in there.

      “Let me walk with you a minute, Murph.”

      Murphy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

      They fell into step with each other. Luke slowed down to accommodate Murphy’s pace. They walked for a moment without saying a word.

      “How are you doing?” Luke said. It was an odd nicety to offer. Luke had gone to war with this man. They had been in combat together a dozen times. With Martinez gone, they were the last two survivors of the worst night of Luke’s life. You would think there’d be some intimacy between them.

      But Murphy didn’t give Luke anything. “I’m fine.”

      That was all.

      No “How are you?” No “Did your baby come?” No “We need to talk about things.” Murphy was not in the mood for conversation.

      “I heard you left the Army,” Luke said.

      Murphy smiled and shook his head. “What can I do for you, Stone?”

      Luke stopped and gripped Murphy’s shoulder. Murphy faced him, shrugging Luke’s hand off.

      “I want to tell you a story,” Luke said.

      “Tell away,” Murphy said.

      “I work for the FBI now,” Luke said. “A small sub-agency within the Bureau. Intelligence gathering. Special operations. Don Morris runs it.”

      “Good for you,” Murphy said. “That’s what everybody used to say. Stone is like a cat. He always lands on his feet.”

      Luke ignored that. “We have access to information. The best. We get everything. For example, I know you were reported AWOL in early April and were dishonorably discharged about six weeks later.”

      Murphy laughed now. “You must have done some digging for that, huh? Sent a mole in to examine my personnel file? Or did you just have them email it to you?”

      Luke pressed on. “Baltimore PD has an informer who’s a close lieutenant of Wesley ‘Cadillac’ Perkins, leader of the Sandtown Bloods street gang.”

      “That’s nice,” Murphy said. “Police work must be endlessly fascinating.” He turned and started walking again.

      Luke walked with him. “Three weeks ago, Cadillac Perkins and two bodyguards were assaulted at three a.m. while entering their car in the parking lot of a nightclub. According to the informer, just one man attacked them. A tall, thin white man. He knocked the two bodyguards unconscious in three or four seconds. Then he pistol-whipped Perkins and relieved him of a briefcase containing at least thirty thousand in cash.”

      “Sounds like a daring white man,” Murphy said.

      “The white man in question also relieved Perkins of a gun, a distinctive Smith & Wesson .38, with a particular slogan engraved in the grip. Might Makes Right. Of course, neither the attack, nor the theft of the money, nor the loss of the gun was reported to the police. It was just something this informer talked about with his handler.”

      Murphy was not looking at Luke.

      “What are you telling me, Stone?”

      Luke looked ahead and noticed they were approaching the John F. Kennedy gravesite. A crowd of tourists stood along the edge of the two-hundred-year-old flagstones and snapped photos of the fire of the eternal flame.

      Luke’s eye wandered to the low granite wall at the edge of the memorial. Just above the wall, he could see the Washington Monument across the river. The wall itself had numerous inscriptions taken from Kennedy’s inaugural address. A famous one caught Luke’s attention:

      ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU…

      “The gun Martinez used to kill himself had the inscription Might Makes Right on the grip. The Bureau traced the gun and discovered it had previously been used to commit two execution-style murders believed to be associated with the Baltimore drug wars. One was the torture killing of Jamie ‘Godfather’ Young, the previous leader of the Sandtown Bloods.”

      BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR COUNTRY.

      Murphy shrugged. “All these nicknames. Godfather. Cadillac. Must be hard to keep track of them.”

      Luke kept going. “Somehow, that gun found its way from Baltimore all the way south to Martinez’s hospital room in North Carolina.”

      Murphy looked at Stone again. Now his eyes were flat and dead. They were murderer’s eyes. If Murphy had killed one man before, he had killed a hundred.

      “Why don’t you get to the point, Stone? Say what’s on your mind, instead of telling me some children’s fable about drug lords and stickup men.”

      Luke was so angry he could almost punch Murphy in the mouth. He was tired. He was aggravated. He was heartbroken by Martinez’s death.

      “You knew Martinez wanted to kill himself…” he began.

      Murphy didn’t hesitate. “You killed Martinez,” he said. “You killed the whole squad. You. Luke Stone. Killed everyone. I was there, remember? You took a mission you knew was FUBAR because you didn’t want to countermand an order from a maniac with a death wish. And this was… for what? To further your career?”

      “You gave Martinez the gun,” Luke said.

      Murphy shook his head. “Martinez died that night on the hill. Just like everybody else. But his body was too strong to realize that. So it needed a push.”

      They stared at each other for a long moment. For an instant, in his mind’s eye, Luke was back in Martinez’s hospital room. Martinez’s legs had been shredded, and could not be saved. One was gone at the pelvis, one below the knee. He still had the use of his arms, but he was paralyzed from just below his ribcage down. It was a nightmare.

      Tears began to stream down Martinez’s face. He pounded the bed with his fists.

      “I told you to kill me,” he said through gritted teeth. “I told you… to… kill… me. Now look at this… this mess.”

      Luke stared at him. “I couldn’t kill you. You’re my friend.”

      “Don’t say that!” Martinez said. “I’m not your friend.”

      Luke shook the memory away. He was back on a green hill in Arlington, on a sunny early summer day. He was alive and mostly well. And Murphy was still here, offering his version of a lecture. Not one that Luke wanted to hear.

      There was a crowd of people all around them, looking at Kennedy’s flame and quietly murmuring.

      “True to form,” Murphy said. “Luke Stone has failed upward. Now he finds СКАЧАТЬ