Murder Island. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

       3

      “Hello, Byron. How’ve you been?” Tony Spence said, his amusement evident. Bolan shoved Cloud forward. He’d bound the man’s wrists with a zip-tie on the trip to the airfield. He’d done the same to the pilot, and he propelled his second captive forward to stand beside Cloud.

      “Spence,” Cloud said. He made the agent’s name sound like a curse. Spence was the CIA’s man in Hong Kong. He was short, plump and dressed like a tourist. The tooled-leather shoulder holster he wore beneath his cheap sports coat was occupied by a 9 mm pistol and his hands had the hard calluses of a fighter.

      “That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Spence said. He took his sunglasses off and grinned at Bolan. “Agent Cooper, good to see you again.” One of Bolan’s many cover identities, Matt Cooper was an agent of the Justice Department.

      “Cooper,” Cloud said slyly, glancing at Bolan. “Is that your name? I’ll remember it.” Bolan didn’t feel threatened as much as amused. Cloud might consider himself a hard man, but Bolan had faced worse in his long, bloody career.

      “Shut up, Byron,” Spence said, swatting Cloud on the back of the head. “The grown-ups are talking.” He smiled at Bolan. “They told me you were good, Cooper, but I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it.”

      “We aim to please,” Bolan said. “I wasn’t aware we’d met before.”

      “Oh, we haven’t. I saw you at a distance, during that Ackroyd thing a while ago.” Bolan nodded. “The Ackroyd thing” as Spence put it, had been bad—a group of psychotic white supremacists had attempted to let loose an antediluvian plague. Bolan had tracked them halfway to the Arctic Circle before he could put paid to the threat they represented. “Good job with that, by the by,” Spence continued. “Anyway, when they said you could get our guy out of his sanctum sanctorum, I wasn’t sure, but we’ve tried everything else. Ol’ Byron here is a slippery one.” He took hold of Cloud’s arm. “Come on. You look like you could use a cup of coffee. We got time before our flight.”

      “I could go for a coffee,” Cloud said.

      “Shut up,” Spence replied amiably. He gestured to the pilot. “Bring him, too.”

      Bolan hooked the pilot by the back of his shirt and pushed him after the others. As they walked, he took in the airfield. The cracked tarmac sprouted grass and the hangars and buildings had seen better decades. This had been an RAF base, once upon a time, but now it was privately owned. Whether the CIA was the owner in question, or merely borrowing it for the occasion, Bolan didn’t know.

      Spence led Bolan toward a hangar that held a midsize private jet and a crew working to get the plane ready.

      “Mine’s bigger,” Cloud said.

      “Yours was bigger. The Chinese have probably confiscated it by now,” Spence said. He shoved Cloud at another man. “Get him on the plane and make sure he’s cuffed, for God’s sake. Wait—you got to use the toilet?” he asked, grabbing Cloud.

      “I’m not a five-year-old,” Cloud snapped.

      “Long flight.”

      Cloud made a face and mumbled, “Yes.”

      “Let him use the toilet and then cuff him.” He turned back to Bolan. “They used this place for Operation Yellowbird, you know,” he said as his people took the pilot and Cloud away. “One of several former airfields. MI-6 and the Agency share this one, though it’s on the books as the property of a Hong Kong film studio. You watch martial arts movies?”

      Bolan looked at him blankly. Spence smiled. “Not a film guy, Cooper?”

      “I read,” Bolan said.

      “So do I,” Spence replied. “Mostly film books.” He grinned and Bolan shook his head and smiled back. “Anyway, they used filming as a cover for transporting a number of activists out of China to more hospitable climes. Whole thing was cooked up by a bunch of Hong Kong businessmen and the Agency got involved…”

      “As they tend to do,” Bolan said.

      Spence laughed. “Yeah. Got to keep those plates spinning, man.” He led Bolan into the hangar office. “Before my time, but I heard it was a hoot. Anyway, we’re lucky you got to him when you did. Someone—probably the Chinese—spilled the beans that we were onto Cloud, and it looks like his own people were getting ready to…you know…” Spence drew his thumb across his throat. “Hard to be an arms dealer these days, I guess.” He paused and then added, “Well, one that sells to terrorist groups, anyway.”

      “You seem to be on a first-name basis with him,” Bolan said.

      “Who, Byron? Yeah. He’s a mouthy little asshole, isn’t he?” Spence went to the desk, where a French press carafe sat on a tray. He tapped it. “Kenyan roast,” he said. “My one weakness.” He began to lower the press and the contents of the carafe gurgled. “I take this bad boy with me wherever I go. Anyway, yeah, Cloud’s a third-generation criminal. His granddaddy used to run a floating casino. He was mostly a blackmailer, but he dabbled in the arms trade and murder-for-hire. His daddy was of similar cut. Both were pretty nasty, so Byron’s comparatively harmless.”

      “The weapons he sells aren’t,” Bolan said as Spence poured him a cup of coffee.

      “Hope you like it strong,” Spence said, preparing his own cup. “And, no, they aren’t. СКАЧАТЬ