"Hawke, Simon - Sorcerer 3 - The Ambivalent Magician" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

Okay, that takes care of Warrick for a while. Now, where were we? Give me a
minute to collect my wits. This book's already off to a rather rocky start. I
didn't really plan it this way. Honest. But those of you who haven't read the
first two novels in this series are probably wondering what the hell is going
on. If you want to start at the beginning, pick up The Reluctant Sorcerer and
The Inadequate Adept (Warner Books), but if you haven't read those novels yet
and want to know what this craziness is all about, I'll try to bring you up to
speed. The rest of you hang in there for a while. One way or another, we'll get
this sorted out.
It all started when Marvin Brewster, a brilliant but absent-minded young
American scientist working at the London headquarters of the multinational
conglomerate known as EnGulfCo International, invented time travel. This could
not have come at a worse time for his English fiancee, Pamela Fairburn, a
beautiful cybernetics engineer who had already been stood up at the altar on
several occasions because Brewster was so intent upon his secret project that he
kept forgetting about such mundane things as wedding dates. The wedding guests
had even started a betting pool, wagering on how many times Pamela would have to
put on her fabulous, white lace designer gown before she actually got married in
it. Pamela's father had stopped speaking to her, because the whole thing was
costing him a fortune, and her friends were all convinced she'd lost her mind.
But Pamela knew Brewster was a genius, and she understood that he wasn't simply
toying with her affections. She didn't know what he was working on, but it had
to be something terribly important for him to be so excessively preoccupied,
something that was liable to be a significant scientific breakthrough that would
bring him international acclaim . . . and scads and scads of money. But when he
failed to show up for the third scheduled wedding, and no one had heard from him
for days, she became concerned and called the EnGulfCo CEO, who happened to be a
golfing partner of her father's.
Together with Dr. Walter Davies, executive vice-president for research and
development for EnGulfCo International, she broke into Brewster's private
laboratory high atop the corporate headquarters building in downtown London,
only to discover that her fiance had disappeared without a trace. Security
monitors showed him entering his restricted private laboratory in the penthouse,
but they never showed him leaving. He should have been there. But he wasn't.
Pamela was not the only one who was upset at this development. The EnGulfCo CEO
was very much concerned, as well. Brewster's research had netted over a dozen
very lucrative patents for the conglomerate, and the CEO had recently authorized
vast expenditures on his behalf for some surplus military hardware and an
unspecified amount of something called Buckminsterfullerine, also known as
"Buckeyballs," an incredibly rare and expensive substance that Brewster
absolutely had to have for his latest secret project. The only trouble was,
nobody had the slightest idea what it was, and Brewster had apparently
disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving behind evidence of what appeared
to have been a sonic boom inside his laboratory.
Pamela was the only one capable of deciphering his notes and figuring out his
filing system, so the CEO authorized her to have complete access to the
laboratory in an attempt to find out what Brewster had been working on. And if
it had been anyone but Brewster, the CEO would never have believed it when
Pamela told him it was time travel, and that he had apparently succeeded in
constructing a working prototype of a time machine. The CEO immediately