"Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 02 - Patriot Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

your wife and our sergeant finished off with a knife. So when did you
arrive in Britain?"
"It's still Thursday, right? Well, we got in Tuesday night from Dulles
International outside Washington. Arrived about seven-thirty, got to the
hotel about nine-thirty or so, had a snack sent up, and went right to
sleep. Flying always messes me up -- jet lag, whatever. I conked right
out." That was not exactly true, but Ryan didn't think they needed to know
everything.
Owens nodded. They had already learned why Ryan hated flying. "And
yesterday?"
"I woke up about seven, I guess, had breakfast and a paper sent up,
then just kinda lazed around until about eight-thirty. I arranged to meet
Cathy and Sally in the park around four, then caught a cab to the
Admiralty building -- close, as it turned out, I could have walked it. As
I said, I had a letter of introduction to see Admiral Sir Alexander
Woodson, the man in charge of your naval archives -- he's retired,
actually. He took me down to a musty sub-sub-basement. He had the stuff I
wanted all ready for me.
"I came over to look at some signal digests. Admiralty signals between
London and Admiral Sir James Somerville. He was commander of your Indian
Ocean fleet in the early months of 1942, and that's one of the things I'm
writing about. So I spend the next three hours reading over faded carbon
copies of naval dispatches and taking notes."
"On this?" Ashley held up Ryan's clipboard. Jack snatched it from his
hands.
"Thank God!" Ryan exclaimed. "I was sure it got lost." He opened it
and set it up on the bedstand, then typed in some instructions. "Ha! It
still works!"
"What exactly is that thing?" Ashley wanted to know. All three got out
of their chairs to look at it.
"This is my baby." Ryan grinned. On opening the clipboard he revealed
a typewriter-style keyboard and a yellow Liquid Crystal Diode display.
Outwardly it looked like an expensive clipboard, about an inch thick and
bound in leather. "It's a Cambridge Datamaster Model-C Field Computer. A
friend of mine makes them. It has an MC-68000 microprocessor, and two
megabytes of bubble memory."
"Care to translate that?" Taylor asked.
"Sorry. It's a portable computer. The microprocessor is what does the
actual work. Two megabytes means that the memory stores up to two million
characters -- enough for a whole book -- and since it uses bubble memory,
you don't lose the information when you switch it off. A guy I went to
school with set up a company to make these little darlings. He hit on me
for some start-up capital. I use an Apple at home, this one's just for
carrying around."
"We knew it was some sort of computer, but our chaps couldn't make it
work," Ashley said.
"Security device. The first time you use it, you input your user's
code and activate the lockout. Afterward, unless you type in the code, it
doesn't work -- period."
"Indeed?" Ashley observed. "How foolproof?"