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

guy like that, Harry!" he said. "What if I made a mistake one
night?"

"You?" There was laughter like a rusty saw in a log as Jim stepped out
through the door. In the light of a bright half moon he could see
where Harry Pulaski, the other guard on this shift, was leaning against
the wall of the guard hut. He was grinning. "We both know you'd
sooner pick your nose with that cannon than fire it at anybody."

"Yeah, well." Jim hated guns. According to his supervisor, that made
him one of the safest kinds of people to use them. He wasn't too sure
about that. Being safe around yourself and your coworkers was one
thing; being safe up against some young punk with state-of-the-art
firepower and no scruples about using it was something else. "Quiet
round?"

"What else?" Pulaski shrugged. "Still, it's an ill wind, ya know? I'm
set to lose another two, three pounds this week walking around in this
heat, if it keeps up."

The site lay spread out before them, monochrome in the moonlight. Not
that there was much color about it even in full daylight. All but a
few of the security lights had been turned out this late at night. Only
the big floods around the graveled area where the heavy machinery was
parked were still on.

Forty years ago this had been the biggest of several strip mines in the
area, a huge concentric ulcer burrowing into the countryside,
surrounded by heaps of spoil. Over the years since the supply of coal
ran out and the mining company went out of business, the local county
government had made several sporadic, halfhearted attempts to
re-landscape the place, but Nature had proven more effective. Weeds
and scrub plants that didn't mind the local coal dust-laden soil had
moved in and made a great green terraced garden of it, where at least
the various wild grasses seemed to prosper.

Much of that green covering had been scraped away now as the digging
started again. The site was easily half a mile from one rim of the
hole to the other, with the guard hut perched high up on one side. Jim
often wondered how quick their reaction was supposed to be, if
something started happening clear across the crater. All around the
edges of that crater were Detex watch clocks, and a rough, graveled
road that would have served a better security purpose if the guards had
some sort of vehicle. As it was, once every hour one or the other of
them had to leave the relative comfort of the hut and walk around the
site, swiping his electronic key card at each of the clocks--and,
naturally, keeping an eye open for anything suspicious.

What they were watching most carefully was the wire fence around the
facility, which had been cut months ago. Three