"Robert Doherty - Area 51 - The Reply" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doherty Robert)

"And the target is?" the British lieutenant colonel asked.
Kostanov shrugged. "That is for your intelligence people to tell you. I gave
them the location. I assume they have better pictures than I had ten years ago."
Duncan gestured at a woman in a gray three-piece suit who had been sitting
along the wall while Kostanov spoke. She now stood up. She was tall and slender
with jet-black hair, cut tight around her head, framing an angular face. She
appeared to be in her mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell as her skin was
perfectly smooth and pale.
"My code name is Zandra," the woman said. "I represent the Central
Intelligence Agency."
Zandra held a small remote. She clicked a button. A long-range satellite photo
appeared. "Northeast Africa," Zandra oriented them quickly. She clicked and the
shot decreased in scale. "Southwest Ethiopia, near the border with Kenya and
Sudan. Very inhospitable terrain. Largely uninhabited and largely unexplored."
Turcotte nodded to himself. That fit the pat-
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tern. The Airlia had picked the most inaccessible places on Earth to hide their
equipment: Antarctica, the American desert in Nevada, Easter Island. Always
where it would be difficult for humans to get to and survive.
"The most significant terrain feature in this part of the world is the Great
Rift Valley. It starts in southern Turkey, runs through Syria, then between
Israel and Jordan where the Dead Sea lies; the lowest point on the face of the
planet. It goes from there to Elat, then it forms the Red Sea. At the Gulf of
Aden it splits, one part running into the Indian Ocean, the other going inland
into Africa, to the Afar Triangle. The lowest point in Africa, the Danakil
Depression, which is where our target is, lies directly along the Great Rift
Valley.
"From there the Rift Valley goes south, encompassing Lake Victoria, the
world's second largest freshwater lake, before ending somewhere in Mozambique."
Another click and there was a tiny square in the center of a deep valley, high
mountains on both sides and a river running in the center. The next shot and
they could see that the square was a fenced compound next to the river. The
vegetation was sparse and stunted.
"That's your target. According to legal documents we've traced, that compound
is owned by the Terra-Lei Corporation, which is headquartered in Cape Town,
South Africa. They own a variety of interests, and they claim this compound is a
mining camp. It's been there for sixteen years. Our satellites have never shown
any mined material leaving. The only way in or out is by plane or

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helicopter or a hazardous three-day trip by all-terrain vehicle from Addis
Ababa.
"The interesting thing about Terra-Lei is that the only sort of mining
operation, if you could call it that, they've ever been associated with has been
sending mercenaries into Angola to attack diamond mining camps. Terra-Lei's main
business is arms; manufacturing, buying, selling, and exporting them to the