"duane,.dianne.-.spider.man.-.octopus.agenda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duane Diane)

"Ah, the human condition," it said in a deep, dark voice. "Easily
remedied, fortunately. "Jim gulped. He didn't know what that meant,
just that he didn't like the sound of it. "Secure him," said the dark
voice. "And his friend with the children."

It was done quickly and effectively, not with ropes, but with the
plastic binders favored by many police departments instead of
handcuffs.

"Now tell me," said the man with the arms, lean inga little

closer, "that new borehole at the center of the site is recently dug,
is it not?"

'/essir,"Jim said. "They sank it just two days ago."

"And what security arrangements are there for that hole?" Jim blinked
and licked dry lips. If he told what he knew, he would get fired. But
if he didn't tell--he risked a glance at the slowly writhing
tentacles---his employment would be terminated in a far more permanent
way. Getting fired was preferable. He could always get another job.

"There's a team of two down there. They make their rounds every half
hour."

"Correct," said the man with the arms, gazing down at Jim through a
pair of spectacles that were halfway between sunglasses and goggles.
"-Very wise of you not to attempt some sort of foolish deception. Alert
Team Two. Have them secure the area." One of the black-clad men
turned and darted off into the truck.

"And as for you," he continued to Jim. 'q'o ensure your continued
cooperation, you and your friend the family man will accompany us.
Bring them."

The black-clad men didn't use their truck to negotiate the network of
access roads that coiled and switch backed along the terraces of the
old strip mine. Instead, the group standing around Jim--presumably
Team One--grabbed him and went scrambling on foot straight down the
walls of the crater.

If Jim had been scared of the unknown, in the shape of the stranger
with the tentacles, he was even more scared of something he knew all
too well. Those terraces, sixty and even seventy degrees from the
horizontal, had been exposed and weathering for years. The rock was
friable--crumbling like old, stale pound cake, likely to give underfoot
without warning and

send any careless climber down to the borehole at the bottom a good