"James P. Hogan - The Proteus Operation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

Ferracini shook his head. "I don't know, and to be honest I can't say I care all that
much, Claud. Look, if you want to take off on a nostalgia trip or something, that's okay, but
leave me out of it. I thought we were supposed to be talking about the assignment that Cassidy and
me were radioed about, that you said had something to do with the President. So, could we get back
to the subject, please?"

Winslade cut off the music and turned to look directly into Ferracini's face. Suddenly his
expression was serious. "But I never left the subject," he said. "This is your next mission...or I
should say, our next mission. I'll be coming along, too, this time -- heading up the team, in
fact."

"Team?"

"Oh, yes. I told you we're on our way to meet some interesting people."

Ferracini struggled to make some kind of connection. Finally he shook his head. "So where
are we going -- Japan? Someplace in the Japanese Empire?"

Winslade's eyes gleamed. "Not where, Harry. We're not going any where at all. We're
staying right here, in the States. Try asking when."

Ferracini could do nothing but look at him blankly. Winslade made a pretense of being
disappointed and nodded toward the radio as if giving a hint. "Back then!" he exclaimed.




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Nonplussed, Ferracini shook his head again. "It's no good. Claud, I still don't get it.
What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nineteen thirty-nine, Harry! That's the next mission. We're going back to the world of
1939!"


CHAPTER 1

TWENTY-FIVE MILES SOUTH of London, near the town of Westerham in the Weald of Kent,
Chartwell Manor and its estate stood amid a rolling landscape of woodlands, fields, and sleepy
farming villages lying chilly and damp in the bleakness of an English February afternoon. Although
cluttered now by such signs of modern times as clumps of roofs spreading among the tree-covered
hillsides, buses and motor cars vanishing and reappearing along roads hidden by high hedgerows,
and bridges and viaducts carrying railway lines south to the coast, the basic character of the
scenery was as it had been for centuries.
Chartwell itself was a massive, two-storey, red-brick affair of indeterminate
architecture, some parts going back to Elizabeth I, standing in spacious grounds and approached
from the road by a curved gravel driveway. A lawn at the rear separated the main building and its
outhouses from a cheerfully rambling layout of walled kitchen garden, rose gardens, greenhouses,