"Clancy, Tom - Op-Center 04 - Acts of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

think the heat's dried up your brains."
"Could be," Coffey said. "Maybe that's why
everyone's always been at war in this part of the world. You
ever hear about the Eskimos fighting over ice floes
or pinguin eggs?"
"I've visited the Inuit on the Bering
Coast," Katzen said. "They don't fight with each
other because they have a different outlook on life.
Religion is comprised of two elements: faith and
culture. The Inuit have faith without fanaticism,
and to them it's a very private matter.
The culture is the public part. They share
wisdom, tradition, and fables instead of insisting that
their way is the only way. The same is true of
many tropical and sub-tropical peoples in
Africa, South America, and the Far
East. It has nothing to do with the climate."
"I don't believe that about the climate,"
Coffey said.
"At least, not entirely." He removed a can of
Tab from the melting ice in the cooler and popped it.
As he poured the soda into his mouth, he squinted
back at the long, gleaming van. For a moment, the
despair left him. That seemingly nondescript
vehicle was beautiful and sexy.
He was proud to be associated with it, at least.
The attorney stopped drinking and caught his breath.
"I mean," he said, panting after the long, unbroken
swallow, "look at cities or prisons where there
are riots. Or compounds like Jonestown and Waco
where people turn into cult-kooks. It never happens
during a cold spell or a blizzard. It's always
when it's hot. Look at the Biblical scholars
who went out into the desert. Went out men, stayed in the
heat, came back prophets. Heat lights our
fuses."
"You don't think that God could have had anything to do
with Moses and Jesus?" Katzen asked
solemnly.
Coffey raised the can to his lips. "Touchand" he
said before he drank again.
Katzen turned to the young black woman standing
to his right. She was dressed in khaki shorts, a
sweat-stained khaki blouse, and a white headband. The
uniform was "sterile." Nowhere did she display the
winged-lightning shield of the rapid-deployment
Striker force to which she belonged. Nor was there any
other sign of military affiliation. Like the van itself,
whose side-mounted mirror looked just like a mirror and
not a parabolic dish, whose walls were intentionally