"Clancy, Tom - Debt Of HonorUC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

At least you cleared the water.
"Been playing how long, Jack?"
"Two whole months."
Jackson grinned as he headed down to where the cart was parked. "I
started in my second year at Annapolis. I have a head start, boy. Hell, enjoy
the day."
There was that. The Greenbrier is set among the mountains of West Vir-
ginia. A retreat that dates back to the late eighteenth century, on this October
morning the while mass of the main hotel building was trained with yellows
and scarlets as the hardwood trees entered their yearly cycle of autumn fire.
"Well, I don't expect to beat you," Ryan allowed as he sat down in the
cart.
A turn, a grin. "You won't. Just thank God you're not working today,
Jack. I am."
Neither man was in the vacation business, as much as each needed it, nor
was either man currently satisfied with success. For Robby it meant a flag
desk in the Pentagon. For Ryan, much to his surprise even now, it had been a
return to the business world instead of to the academic slot that he'd
wanted-or at least thought he'd wanted-standing there in Saudi Arabia,
two and a half years before. Perhaps it was the action, he thought-had he
become addicted to it? Jack asked himself, selecting a three-iron. It wouldn't
be enough club to make the green, but he hadn't learned fairway woods
yet. Yeah, it was the action he craved even more than his occasional escape
from it.
"Take your time, and don't try to kill it. The ball's already dead, okay?"
"Yes, sir, Admiral, sir," Jack replied.
"Keep your head down. I'll do the watching."
"All right, Robbie.'' The knowledge that Robbie would not laugh at him,
no matter how bad the shot, was somehow worse than the suspicion that he
might. On last reflection, he stood a little straighter before swinging. His
reward was a welcome sound:
Swat. The ball was thirty yards away before his head came up to see it,
still heading left.. . but already showing a fade back to the right.
"Jack?"
"Yeah," Ryan answered without turning his head.
"Your three-iron," Jackson said chuckling, his eyes computing the flight
path. "Don't change anything. Do it just like that, every time."
Somehow Jack managed to put his iron back in the bag without trying to
wrap the shaft around his friend's head. He started laughing when the cart
moved again, up the right-side rough toward Robby's ball, the single white
spot on the green, even carpet.
"Miss flying?" he asked gently.
Robby looked at him. "You play dirty, too," he observed. But that was
just the way things went. He'd finished his last flying job, screened for flag,
then been considered for the post of commander of the Naval Aviation Test
Center at Naval Air Station, Patuxent River, Maryland, where his real title
would have been Chief Test Pilot, U.S. Navy. But instead Jackson was
working in J-3, the operations directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. War
Plans, an odd slot for a warrior in a world where war was becoming a thing
of the past. It was more career-enhancing, but far less satisfying than the