Absolute Power. Michael Carroll
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Название: Absolute Power
Автор: Michael Carroll
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780007369935
isbn:
He stepped out into a clearing and saw a squat, vine-covered, crumbling stone building. Two men in grubby overalls were standing near the entrance. Danny walked around the edge of the clearing, counted all the people he could see, then headed back into the jungle, towards his colleagues.
He could picture the scene: Impervia bossing everyone about, Façade taking no real notice of her and doing his own thing, Renata doing her best to keep as far away from Butler as possible.
Butler Redmond was definitely a little easier to get along with now, ever since he’d had a panic attack during Dioxin’s attack on Sakkara. Before that, Butler had swaggered about like he owned the place – now he mostly kept to himself, with only the occasional verbal jab at Danny when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself.
Danny walked out of the jungle a few metres away from the others, and took a moment to look out at the sea. The nearest wave seemed to be frozen in mid-splash. Danny concentrated, shifting back to normal time, and the wave crashed to the shore.
“You were gone one hundred and twenty-seven seconds,” Impervia said. “Twice as long as you should have been. What happened?”
“Nothing,” Danny replied. “I took it easy. I might have been in hyper-fast mode, but it’s still two kilometres there and two back.” He pulled the fist-sized scanner from his belt and handed it to her.
Impervia connected the scanner to the small computer screen built into her uniform’s wrist. “All right…We’ve got twelve hostiles. Four on guard duty, the rest inside the building. Renata, you’re on point. Butler will stick close to you. Vaughan? You stay put and monitor. Give us twenty minutes. If we’re not back—”
The young soldier said, “I know. Pull out and get back to the transport.”
“We keep it quiet until we’re on the edge of the clearing, then we take out the guards: make enough noise to bring the others running. When the compound is secure, I’ll set the charges.”
Renata asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier for one of us to go inside?”
“Yes, it would. But what happens if the compound is booby-trapped? You three are too important to lose.”
Danny glanced at Renata, who was looking back at him with a familiar expression, and he knew that they were both thinking the same thing: Impervia wasn’t a superhuman any more, but she still wanted to pretend that she was.
Façade turned to the other soldier, Vaughan. “Get the extraction team ready to pick up twelve hostiles. And watch our backs.”
“Yes sir.”
“Let’s do it. Renata, lead the way.”
Danny followed Renata into the undergrowth.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go horribly wrong.
THE NEATLY-DRESSED MAN slowly raised his right hand and showed Colin that he was holding a small device about the size of a mobile phone.
Colin stepped back, but the man simply smiled and pressed a button on the machine.
Instantly, the sounds of the farmyard flooded back and Colin jumped: he’d been concentrating so hard on his super-hearing that now the sounds were greatly magnified. He could hear everything: the man and woman’s heartbeats, the noises of the animals – including a tremendous amount of gurgling coming from the cows’ stomachs – birds, insects, the slow ticking of a nearby car’s engine as it cooled down.
“Sorry,” the man said. “We knew you’d be able to hear us coming from miles away so we had to use this. It’s a sound-muffler. It works by inverting—”
Colin interrupted him. “I know how it works. What do you want?”
“We’ve been tracking you for weeks, Colin.”
“Who?”
The red-haired woman gave Colin a warm smile. “Look, we know you’re Colin Wagner. Let’s not bother with all that ‘I don’t know who you think I am’, nonsense, OK? It’ll save time.”
“We just want to talk,” the man said. “I’m Byron, this is Harriet.”
Colin looked them up and down. Immaculate black suits, white shirts, dark-blue ties. Highly-polished expensive shoes. “You’re Trutopians.”
“That’s right.”
“And you want me to join your organisation.”
“We just want to talk to you, Colin,” Harriet said. “That’s all. You’re a hard man to track, but we’ve got people everywhere. You were spotted a month ago outside Budapest, and ever since then we’ve been concentrating on this area.” She paused. “What exactly are you doing here?”
Before Colin could reply, Harriet said, “Never mind that for now. Colin, we didn’t come empty-handed.” She nudged her colleague with her elbow. “Show him, Byron.”
“What?”
Harriet raised her eyes. “What you’ve got in your pocket, you dink!”
“Oh, right.” Byron reached into his jacket pocket, pulled something out and tossed it to Colin.
“A Mars bar,” Colin said.
“Yeah. We thought you might be missing some of the comforts of home.”
Colin briefly wondered whether the chocolate might be drugged, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from tearing open the wrapper and taking a huge bite out of the bar.
“Reginald Kinsella told us to order that stuff in specially for you,” Harriet said. “And your favourite chips.”
“You mean crisps,” Byron corrected. “Cheese and onion – those are your favourites, right?”
Colin nodded.
Harriet said, “We just want to talk. Mr Kinsella has been in Munich for the past week, but he’s cutting his visit short and he’s coming here to Romania specially to see you. Just give him a couple of days of your time, OK? If you’re still not interested after that, then that’s fine. You know what the Trutopians are all about, don’t you?”
“You claim to be interested only in world-wide peace.”
“Exactly. We’ve got a community in Satu Mare, that’s about twenty kilometres from here, and it’s in the direction you were heading anyway. So it’ll save you half a day’s walking. How’s that sound?”
Colin shook his head. “No.”
Byron started to speak, but the woman put his hand on his arm. “Leave it. All right, Colin. We tried.” She stepped to one side and pointed at СКАЧАТЬ