"Michael Flynn - In the Country of the Blind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flynn Michael)

IN THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
Michael Flynn

What if it were all a plot?
What if there really were a secret conspiracy runnning things behind the
scenes...and they were incompetent?

It is a little known fact that over a hundred years ago an English scientist-
mathematician named Charles Babbage invented a machanical computer that was
nearly as powerful as the "electronic brains" of the 1950s. The history books
would have it that it was unworkable, an interesting dead-end.
The history books lie. In reality, The Babbage Machine was a success whose
existence was hidden from view by a society dedicated to the development of a
"secret science" that would guide the human race away from war and toward a
better destiny.
But as the decades passes their goals were perverted-and now they apply their
knowledge to install themselves as the secret rulers of the world. Can they do
it? Even though their methods are imperfect, unless they are stopped their
success is assured. In the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King...


"This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely
coincidental, except for some friends and relatives who make cameo
appearances."
Copyright (c) 1990 by Michael Flynn


PART 1
HORSESHOE NAILS

Then

The rain fell in torrents, heating a staccato rhythm on the cobblestoned
street. It created rivers and oceans on the paving and formed a curtain
beyond which only vague shapes could be seen. The man waited beneath the
hissing gas lamp in the middle of the block. The rain ran off his broad-
brimmed hat and down the back of his neck. It was a hot, sticky rain; not a
bit of coolness in it, and he endured It stoically. He hitched the waterproof
leather briefcase under his arm, changing his grip for the hundredth time. Far
off to the south he heard booming; but whether of guns or of thunder, he
didn't know.
A drumming of hooves from G Street. The man turned expectantly; but it was
only a troop of cavalry that turned the Corner: horses stepping high, striking
sparks off the paving with their hooves. Leather straps and belts gleamed
wetly in the dusk and the metal of sabers and spurs and bits jangled like an
Arabian belly dancer.
He read their cap badges as they rode by: Third Pennsylvania. He raised his
arm and huzzahed and their captain saluted him smartly with his quirt.
He watched them fade out of sight as they vanished once more behind the