"Lee Edgar - Princess 04 - Checkmate for a Princess" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edgar Lee)

'Under the ground?'
'Yes, Commander. At Rouen, we stayed for a while in a tracking station built
under the ground, just outside the city.'
'That reminds me,' said Philippe. 'My helicopter is still there.'
Suzette suddenly turned and gave him a strange look but said nothing. She
watched him closely as he conversed with the naval officers and discussed
possible alternatives for the future.
'I gather we have you to thank for saving our skins,' said a voice close to
her elbow.
'Sorry?' she queried.
'With the computer and the satellite,' prompted Commander Jakes.
'Oh, it was nothing. Just playing with figures mostly.'
'Do you do it for a living?'
'I did before all this started. I worked at S.I.E.D. in Cambridge,' she
pointed to her colleague who held Gillian's hand. 'With Jim.'
'S.I.E.D.?'
'Satellite Information Evaluation Databank. We interpret the data from
Princess.'
'I'm sorry.' He looked confused. 'Who is Princess?'
She laughed. 'Not "who". The Photoconductive Radiation Network Communications
Satellite, PRNCS for short, is in Geostationary orbit. It has heat sensors
that scan Western Europe and provide data which can be used to interpret
weather patterns.'
'Oh, weather,' he said, suddenly bored.
'And other things,' Suzette added. 'The French placed Princess in orbit last
year with Ariane. Unfortunately, the rebels gained control of the satellite
and used it for their own ends.'
'How do you know all this?' he asked suspiciously.
'Louis was the former Chief of Security at Rouen and, before we sent him away,
he told us about how the Consortium which started the war was founded by
businessmen who were sick of the restrictions placed upon them by their
respective governments and longed to be free to act as they wished. They
managed, somehow, to trick Western Europe into a war with the Russians.' She
shrugged. 'The rest you know.'
'All we knew at the time was that a large number of nuclear detonations
registered right across Europe before all communication went dead.'
'Was the USA affected at all?'
'Very little. The weather is all to pot, as it seems to be earthwide, but no
actual attack took place on the States itself.'
'Russia?'
'Again, no strikes there, or anywhere in Asia as far as we could tell. The
main area of destruction is Europe. There would appear to be little life left
in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy or Eastern Europe.'
'Britain?' she dared to ask.
'No contact since just after it all started. There were no actual detonations
recorded on the islands but the winds were Southerly at the time and the
fallout from France very considerable. Until we land there, it will be
impossible to know for certain how many have survived.'
'I see.'
'When we left the Azores to come here, a separate fleet left for there and