Ли Чайлд - Persuader

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Persuader: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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A Jack Reacher Novel – #7
Amazon.com Review
Jack Reacher, the taciturn ex-MP whose adventures in Lee Child's six previous solidly plotted, expertly paced thrillers have won a devoted fan base, returns in this explosive tale of an undercover operation set up by the FBI to rescue an agent investigating Zachary Beck, a reclusive tycoon believed to be a kingpin in the drug trade. The novel begins with a bang as Reacher rescues Beck's son from a staged kidnapping in order to get close to his father – and trace the connection between Beck and Quinn, a former army intelligence officer who tried to sell blueprints of a secret weapon to Iraq but was murdered before he could pull it off. Or so Reacher thinks, until he spots Quinn in the crowd at a concert in Boston. As usual, Child ratchets up the tension and keeps the reader in suspense until the last page, although his enigmatic hero hardly ever seems to break a sweat. In the tough guy tradition, Reacher and his creator are overdue for a breakout, and this muscular, well-written mystery might be the one.
From Publishers Weekly
The promo copy on the ARC of Child's new thriller proclaims, "We dare to make this claim: Lee Child is the best thriller writer you're probably not reading yet." Hopefully the "six-figure" marketing campaign promised by Child's new publisher will make that statement obsolete, because readers will be hard-pressed to find a more engaging thriller this spring season. Child is a master of storytelling skills, not least the plot twist, and the opening chapter of this novel spins a doozy, as a high-octane, extremely violent action sequence sees Child hero Jack Reacher rescue a young man, 20-year-old Richard Beck, from an attempted kidnapping before the rug is pulled out from under the reader with the chapter's last line. The rest of the novel centers on the Beck family's isolated, heavily guarded estate on the Maine coast where Reacher takes Richard. Richard's father is suspected by Feds of being a major drug dealer and the kidnapper of another Fed, and also seems to have ties to a fiend who killed Reacher's lady 10 years before, someone Reacher thought he'd killed in turn, in a vengeance slaying. Tension runs high, then extremely high, as Reacher, ingratiating himself with the dealer and hired on as a bodyguard, pokes around the estate, looking for the kidnapped Fed and evading and/or disposing of in-house bad guys as they begin to suspect he's not who he seems. But then little in Child's novels is as it at first seems, and numerous further plot twists spark the story line. What makes the novel really zing, though, is Reacher's narration – a unique mix of the brainy and the brutal, of strategic thinking and explosive action, moral rumination and ruthless force, marking him as one of the most memorable heroes in contemporary thrillerdom. Any thriller fan who has yet to read Lee Child should start now.

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“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Elizabeth said quietly.

I said nothing.

“And thank you for your intervention,” she said. “But it will prove futile. And I’m afraid it will bring you a lot of trouble. He already hates you, you know. And he’s not very rational.”

I said nothing.

“It’s a control thing, of course,” she said. It was like she was explaining it to herself. It wasn’t like she was talking to me. “It’s a demonstration of power. That’s all it is. There’s no actual sex. He can’t do it. Too many steroids, I suppose. He just paws me.”

I said nothing.

“He makes me undress,” she said. “Makes me parade around for him. Paws me. There’s no sex. He’s impotent.”

I said nothing. Just drove slow, keeping the car steady and level through the coastal curves.

“It usually lasts about an hour,” she said.

“Have you told your husband?” I asked.

“What could he do?”

“Fire the guy.”

“Not possible,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because Paulie doesn’t work for my husband.”

I glanced at her. Recalled telling Duke: You should get rid of him. Duke had answered: That’s not easy.

“So who does he work for?” I said.

“Somebody else.”

“Who?”

She shook her head. It was like she couldn’t speak the name.

“It’s a control thing,” she said again. “I can’t object to what they do to me, just like my husband can’t object to what they do to him. Nobody can object. To anything, you see. That’s the point. You won’t be allowed to object to anything, either. Duke wouldn’t think to object, of course. He’s an animal.”

I said nothing.

“I just thank God I have a son,” she said. “Not a daughter.”

I said nothing.

“Last night was very bad,” she said. “I was hoping he would start leaving me alone. Now that I’m getting old.”

I glanced at her again. Couldn’t think of anything to say.

“It was my birthday yesterday,” she said. “That was Paulie’s present to me.”

I said nothing.

“I turned fifty,” she said. “I suppose you don’t want to think about a naked fifty-year-old, parading around.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“But I keep in shape,” she said. “I use the gym when the others aren’t around.”

I said nothing.

“He pages me,” she said. “I have to carry a pager at all times. It buzzed in the middle of the night. Last night. I had to go, right away. It’s much worse if I keep him waiting.”

I said nothing.

“I was on my way back when you saw me,” she said. “Out there on the rocks.”

I pulled onto the side of the road. Braked gently and stopped the car. Eased the gearshift into Park.

“I think you work for the government,” she said.

I shook my head.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “I’m just a guy.”

“Then I’m disappointed.”

“I’m just a guy,” I said again.

She said nothing.

“You shouldn’t say stuff like that,” I said. “I’m in enough trouble already.”

“Yes,” she said. “They’d kill you.”

“Well, they’d try,” I said. Then I paused. “Have you told them what you think?”

“No,” she said.

“Well don’t. And you’re wrong anyway.”

She said nothing.

“There’d be a battle,” I said. “They’d come for me and I wouldn’t go quietly. People would get hurt. Richard, maybe.”

She stared at me. “Are you bargaining with me?”

I shook my head again.

“I’m warning you,” I said. “I’m a survivor.”

She smiled a bitter smile.

“You have absolutely no idea,” she said. “Whoever you are, you’re in way over your head. You should leave now.”

“I’m just a guy,” I said. “I’ve got nothing to hide from them.”

The wind rocked the car. I could see nothing but granite and trees. We were miles from the nearest human being.

“My husband is a criminal,” she said.

“I figured that,” I said.

“He’s a hard man,” she said. “He can be violent, and he’s always ruthless.”

“But he’s not his own boss,” I said.

“No,” she said. “He isn’t. He’s a hard man who literally quakes in front of the person who is his boss.”

I said nothing.

“There’s an expression,” she said. “People ask, why do bad things happen to good people? But in my husband’s case, bad things are happening to a bad person. Ironic, isn’t it? But they are bad things.”

“Who does Duke belong to?”

“My husband. But Duke’s as bad as Paulie, in his way. I wouldn’t care to choose between them. He was a corrupt cop, and a corrupt federal agent, and a killer. He’s been in prison.”

“Is he the only one?”

“On my husband’s payroll? Well, he had the two bodyguards. They were his. Or they were provided for him, anyway. But they were killed, of course. Outside Richard’s college. By the men from Connecticut. So yes, Duke’s the only one now. Apart from the mechanic, of course. But he’s just a technician.”

“How many has the other guy got?”

“I’m not sure. They seem to come and go.”

“What exactly are they importing?”

She looked away. “If you’re not a government man, then I guess you wouldn’t be interested.”

I followed her gaze toward the distant trees. Think, Reacher. This could be an elaborate con game designed to flush me out. They could all be in it together. His gate man’s hand on his wife’s breast would be a small price for Beck to pay for some crucial information. And I believed in elaborate con games. I had to. I was riding one myself.

“I’m not a government man,” I said.

“Then I’m disappointed,” she said again.

I put the car in Drive. Held my foot on the brake.

“Where to?” I asked.

“Do you think I care where the hell we go?”

“You want to get some coffee?”

“Coffee?” she said. “Sure. Go south. Let’s stay well away from Portland today.”

I made the turn south onto Route One, about a mile short of I-95. It was a pleasant old road, like roads used to be. We passed through a place called Old Orchard Beach. It had neat brick sidewalks and Victorian streetlights. There were signs pointing left to a beach. There were faded French flags. I guessed Quebec Canadians had vacationed there before cheap airfares to Florida and the Caribbean had changed their preferences.

“Why were you out last night?” Elizabeth Beck asked me.

I said nothing.

“You can’t deny it,” she said. “Did you think I hadn’t seen you?”

“You didn’t react,” I said.

“I was in Paulie mode,” she said. “I’ve trained myself not to react.”

I said nothing.

“Your room was locked,” she said.

“I climbed out the window,” I said. “I don’t like to be locked in.”

“What did you do then?”

“I took a stroll. Like I thought you were doing.”

“Then you climbed back in?”

I nodded. Said nothing.

“The wall is your big problem,” she said. “There are the lights and the razor wire, obviously, but there are sensors too, in the ground. Paulie would hear you from thirty yards away.”

“I was just getting some air,” I said.

“No sensors under the driveway,” she said. “They couldn’t make them work under the blacktop. But there’s a camera on the lodge. And there’s a motion alarm on the gate itself. Do you know what an NSV is?”

“Soviet tank-turret machine gun,” I said.

“Paulie’s got one,” she said. “He keeps it by the side door. He’s been told to use it if he hears the motion alarm.”

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