Partisans. Alistair MacLean
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Название: Partisans

Автор: Alistair MacLean

Издательство: HarperCollins

Жанр: Историческая литература

Серия:

isbn: 9780007289363

isbn:

СКАЧАТЬ "uf380b613-e80b-5a1a-8bb8-6826e3b79947">

      

      PARTISANS

      Alistair MacLean

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       Copyright

       This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

      The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      This eBook edition 2009

      First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1982 then in paperback by Fontana 1983

      Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1982

      Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2021

      Cover photograph © Stephen Mulcahey

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

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      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 ebook 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

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      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: 9780006167631

      Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007289363

      Version: 2020-12-14

       Dedication

       To Avdo and Inge

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       About the Author

       By Alistair MacLean

       About the Publisher

       ONE

      The chill night wind off the Tiber was from the north and carried with it the smell of snow from the distant Apennines. The sky was clear and full of stars and there was light enough to see the swirling of the dust-devils in the darkened streets and the paper, cardboard and assorted detritus that blew about every which way. The darkened, filthy streets were not the result of the electrical and sanitation departments of the Eternal City, as was their peacetime wont, staging one of their interminable strikes, for this was not peacetime: events in the Mediterranean theatre had reached a delicate stage where Rome no longer cared to advertise its whereabouts by switching on the street lights: the sanitation department, for the most part, was some way off to the south fighting a war it didn’t particularly care about.

      Petersen stopped outside a shop doorway—the nature of its business was impossible to tell for the windows were neatly masked in regulation blackout paper—and glanced up and down the Via Bergola. It appeared to be deserted as were most streets in the city at that time of night. He produced a hooded torch and a large bunch of peculiarly shaped keys and let himself in with a speed, ease and dexterity which spoke well for whoever had trained him in such matters. He took up position behind the opened door, removed the hood from the torch, pocketed the keys, replaced them with a silenced Mauser and waited.

      He had to wait for almost two minutes, which, in the circumstances, can be a very long time, but Petersen didn’t seem to mind. Two stealthy footsteps, then there appeared beyond the edge of the door the dimly seen silhouette of a man whose only identifiable features were a peaked cap and a hand clasping a gun in so purposeful a grip that even in the half-light the faint sheen of the knuckles could be seen.

      The figure СКАЧАТЬ