"Clancy, Tom - Op Center 4 - Acts of War (v4.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

Thirty-three-year-old biophysicist Dr. Phil Katzen stood to the attorney's right. The long-haired scientist shielded his eyes as he looked toward the dusty outline of the ancient metropolis.

"Did you know, Lowell," Katzen said, "that ten thousand years ago, right where we're standing, is where beasts of burden were first domesticated? They were aurochs---wild ox. They tilled the soil right under our feet."

"That's great," Coffey said. "And you can probably tell me what the soil composition was then too. Right?"

"No." Katzen smiled. "Only now. All of the nations in this region have to keep records like that to see how long the fanmlands'll hold out. I've got the soil file on diskette. As soon as Mike and Mary Rose are finished, I'll load it up if you want to read it."

"No, thanks," Coffey said. "I have enough trouble retaining all the goddamn information I'm supposed to learn. I'm getting old, y'know."

"You're thirty-nine," Katzen said.

"Not much longer," Coffey said. "I was born forty years ago tomorrow."

Katzen grinned. "Well, happy birthday, counselor."

"Thanks," Coffey said, "but it won't be. Like I said, I'm getting old, Phil."

"Don't knock it," Katzen said. He pointed toward Sanliurfa. "When that place was young, forty was old. Back then most people lived to be about twenty. And not a healthy twenty at that. They were plagued by rotten teeth, broken bones, bad eyesight, athlete's foot, you-name-it. Hell, today the voting age in Turkey is twenty-one. Do you realize that ancient leaders in places like Uludere, Sirnak, and Batman couldn't even have voted for themselves?"

Coffey looked at him. "There's a place called Batman?"

"Right on the Tigris," Katzen said. "See? There's always something new to learn. I spent a couple hours this morning learning about the ROC. Helluva machine Matt and Mary Rose designed. Knowledge keeps you young, Lowell."

"Learning about Batman and the ROC aren't exactly things to live for," Coffey said. "And as far as your ancient Turks are concerned, with all the planting and sowing and irrigating and rock-hauling those people did, forty years old probably felt like eighty."

"True enough."

"And their life's work was probably the same job they'd been doing since they were ten," Coffey said. "Nowadays we're supposed to live longer and evolve, professionally."

"You trying to say you haven't?" Katzen asked.

"I've evolved like the dodo," Coffey said. "Stasis and then extinction. By this time in my life I always thought I'd be an international heavy hitter, working for the President and negotiating trade and peace accords."

"Ease up, Lowell.." Katzen said. "You're in the arena."

"Yeah," Coffey replied. "The nosebleed seats. I'm working for a low-profile government agency nobody's ever heard of---"

"Low-profile doesn't mean lack of distinction," Katzen pointed out.

"It does in my end of the arena," Coffey replied. "I work in a basement at Andrews Air Force Base---not even Washington, D.C., for God's sake---brokering necessary but unexciting deals with grudgingly hospitable nations like Turkey so that we can all spy on even less hospitable nations like Syria. On top of that, I'm roasting in the freakin' desert, sweat running down my legs into my goddamn socks, instead of arguing First Amendment cases in front of the Supreme Court."

"You're also starting to whine," Katzen said.

"Guilty," Coffey said. "Birthday boy's prerogative."

Katzen pushed up the back of Coffey's felted wool Australian Outback hat so it covered his eyes. "Lighten up. Not every useful job has to be a sexy one."

"It isn't that," Coffey replied. "Well, maybe just a little it is." He removed the Outback hat, used his index finger to wipe sweat from around the band, then settled the hat back on his dirty blond hair. "I guess what I'm really saying is that I was a law prodigy, Phil. The Mozart of jurisprudence. I was reading my dad's statute law books when I was twelve. When all my friends wanted to be astronauts or baseball players, I was thinking it'd be cool to be a bail bondsman. I could've done most of this stuff when I was fourteen or fifteen."