"James E. Gunn - Crisis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gunn James E)

reporters equally panicky and equally professional.

Johnson listened and watched for half an hour, sitting on the edge of the bed, occasionally looking as if he
were seeing more than appeared on the front of the glass tube. Finally he turned the set off, went to the
dresser, picked up his suitcase, and walked to the door. He looked back. Except for the unmade bed
and the imprint of his body on the side of the other, both of which soon would be removed, the room
bore no trace of his existence.

He walked down the carpeted hallway, his footsteps as distant as the future, into the broad lobby.
Sunlight slanted brilliantly through the distant glass doors, but reached only a few feet into the space.
Elsewhere a subdued lighting from scattered lamps set by overstuffed chairs and sofas almost disguised
the fact that the lobby was deserted.

At the front desk a dark-haired clerk who looked to be of draft age was listening to a portable radio.
"Russian forces continue to assemble at the Iranian border near the Kazakhistan city of Ashkhabad and
the Afghanistan city of Herat. The President has placed the U.S. military forces on full alert.
Aircraft-carrier task forces are steaming at top speed toward the Arabian Sea from bases in the Pacific,
and the Mediterranean fleet has put out from bases in Italy. Rumors persist that the President has been on
the hotline to Moscow several times, but that mounting threats rather than conciliation have been the only
result.тАж"

Johnson tapped on the desk with his hotel key, and the clerk, noticing him for the first time, gave an
apologetic smile. "Sorry," he said. "People have a hard time keeping their mind on business these days."

"I know."

"You're checking out?"
"Bill Johnson," he said.

The clerk leafed through a metal file and drew out a bill. "You're paid up," he said.

"May the future be kind," Johnson said, and picked up his bag and walked through the lobby into the
blinding sunlight.

The nearby airport was packed with people twitching like a netful of newly caught mackerel. Lines
jiggled in front of every airline counter. People moved from one to another as the fortunes of one line
moved it forward and difficult problems or difficult customers delayed another.

Johnson took his place in one line and remained patiently in it as the line slowly moved forward to break
against the counter like a wave in slow motion. Words of protest and pleading and anger reached
Johnson as he neared the front. The man and woman just ahead of him took a long time insisting that they
had to get home, that they had children there and they had to get them out of town before the bombs fell,
that they had tickets assuring them of a place on this flight. The ticket agent was blond and round-faced
and a sweater. In other times he might have been jolly and sympathetic, but now he was frowning, and
sweat gathered on his forehead and ran down the wrinkles and dripped on the counter while he explained
with a calm close to fury that military passengers had first priority, that the government had recalled every
military person on leave and called up everyone from the Reserve, and that the airline would get them the
first available seats. When he reached the head of the line, Johnson put down his small suitcase and said
quietly, "That's good enough for meтАФthe first available seat to New York." He handed over his credit
card. His actions and words were like the first layer of pearl around an irritant.