"Evanovich, Janet - Full Tilt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evanovich Janet)each twist and turn with the precision of a professional driver. A Pink
Floyd CD played from a cutting-edge sound system that would not be available to consumers for at least another year. Max took a great deal of pride in his automobile, the same one his friends laughingly referred to as his Maxmobile. The car had been designed from the chassis up by former NASA scientists. The body and frame were composed of titanium and a newly identified polymer that offered the lightness of fiberglass and the durability of the strongest steel. The end result had resembled a Porsche, but Max's version was bigger, better, and could do things that car manufacturers would not find on their drawing boards for years to come. Nothing was indestructible, but the Maxmobile came close. The dashboard was more complicated than the cockpit of a Leariet. A team of first-rate computer whizzes, hired away from top government contracнtors, had created the car's instrumentation using state-of-the-art equipment. Spread out among luxury automotive goodies like a tachometer, an alнtimeter, and a global positioning satellite system were a highly enhanced PDA, keyboard, a digital speech recognition module, a photo-quality printer, a fax, a satellite phone, an HDTV display screen, and a full video-conferencing suite, all operated by a high-powered computer that was smaller than an ashtray. Thanks to all these modifications, Max, if he wanted to, could run his vast business empire without ever getting out of his car. Only a man like Max Holt would have laid out the kind of money it had taken to build such a maнchine; and only a man like Max would have created computer intelligence with voice recognition techнnology and a sassy personality to a sexy voice that one employee claimed gave him a stiffie every time he heard it. There were those who'd said it couldn't be done. Max had proved them wrong. He insisted on the best. He drove himself and his employees hard. If he exuded confidence it was because he always sucнceeded in what he set out to do. Always. Not a difficult task for a man with an off-the-charts IQ, and a business acumen that put fear in the hearts of his toughest competitors. He'd created two comнpanies, simply to put a scare into AOL and Microsoft. The television network he'd purchased ten years ago had grown far beyond even his own imagination. He had recently sold all three comнpanies for a king's ransom, simply because they no longer offered the challenges he craved. The New York Times, Newsweek, and Money magazine were clamoring for interviews, but Maximillian Holt did not give interviews. He maintained a low profile at all costs. Sure, photographers had grainy pictures of him slipping into buildings wearнing expensive Italian suits, or ducking into stretch limos with a gorgeous model or actress on his arm, but he was clever at keeping his image out of the media. Most people wouldn't recognize him, even if they did know his name. And that's the way Max liked it. He had homes all over the world, but he preнferred his horse farm in Virginia, not far from his cousin Nick who'd instilled in Max a love of horses. His farmhouse offered sanctuary from his hectic lifestyle, and he maintained his privacy with cameras, an alarm system he'd personally created, and enough security personnel to guard the White House. People called him eccentric and egotistical, but Max had never cared what others |
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