"Ahern, Jerry - Survivalist 003 - The Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ahern Jerry)

"Ever hear of something called the Eden Project when you were with the company?"

Rourke thought for a moment. There were so many coded files, so many top-secret projects. But the Eden Project wasn't one he recalled.

"I haven't heard of it," Rourke told Reed.

"Well, neither had anybody else. We were sifting through the ruins of the Houston space center, found a charred file folder, and inside all we could make out was Eden Project, but nobody's left from NASA that we can find, except Colfax if he's still alive that is, and he should be right here in Georgia."

"Why, just because he had a vacation home here?"

"And he was speaking at the University in Athens the night before the bombing. It was the last engagement on a speaking tour, then he had a few weeks off."

"Hell of a way to spend a vacation, with a nuclear war," Rourke observed.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Reed said.

"So you want to find him to find out what the Eden Project was."

"We think it has to do with some launches at Cape Canaveral, just before the place got a direct hit, and we think the Russians are interested in it too."

Rourke looked up at the darkening sky. Was there someone up there, he wondered, or something that was a new horror. "I'll give you a description of my wife, my son, my daughter, the horses they were probably riding, then some poop on the Jenkins couple they might have been with, get it out as fast as you can. Got a radio?"

"Yeah, if I only use it a few minutes at a time so they can't peg us."

"You want my help," Rourke said, "then you get the description out, now. I'll write the details for you, and I'll listen while you send." Rourke fished a zippered notebook from his backpack on the back of the Harley, then began to write. He stopped. Was beautiful a valid description for Sarah, and how about Michael and Annie, handsome for him, cute for her? He decided on something more exact in nature.

An hour later, the message was sent and Rourke had committed to meet Reed and the others outside Athens at noon the following day. Two hours from the retreat, Rourke rode hard through the night.

Chapter 19.

Rourke sat on the sofa, his hair still wet from the shower, a glass of whiskey in his right hand, a cigar burning in the ashtray beside him. Rubenstein had already eaten by the time Rourke returned, and nearly jumped out his skin, as Rourke had thought, when he'd seen Rourke walk in, three days early and with news of an American Intelligence team insertion in the area.

"Did Captain Reed ask about me?"

"No, sorry," Rourke told the younger man.

Rourke had fixed himself a can of stew and poured the beef, vegetables, and gravy over bread, then eaten it quickly. He sat in the great room, wanting to think. Finally, sipping at the top of his second drink, he shouted to Rubenstein, who was sitting on the far side of the room, reading. "Paul! What do you think, the Eden Project, something to do with Cape Canaveral, what does it suggest?"

Rubenstein seemed lost in thought for several moments, then looked up, and said, "Well, the Eden reference seems to mean some sort of beginning, maybe beginning again."

"Yeah," Rourke said.

"So, maybe it's some sort of manned flight that would have been too risky, unless there wasn't anything to lose, a lot of people thought the world would just get flattened after a full nuclear exchange, maybe it was some sort of space colonization effort or something."

"Or maybe just the opposite, a doomsday device. You've got to remember one thing, Paul, intelligence-operations names rarely have anything to do with the actual operation, just the opposite, so maybe a new beginning simply means a surprise ending."

"You mean some kind of superbomb orbiting the earth and timed to blow up soon?"

"Maybe not soon," Rourke said soberly. "Maybe not for five years, or ten years, or maybe the next five minutes. And maybe it's nothing we've thought of. I'll tell you what Reed wants me to do," Rourke said then, recounting his conversation with the Army captain and their scheduled meeting the next day. Rourke looked at his watch. It was already the next day, fifteen minutes into it.