"Dean Ing - Silent Thunder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ing Dean)

Ramsay, with a chuckle: If I were amateur enough to tell more than I asked, yes. Not a
problem, Matt.

I suppose not. And I don't want to wander into a can of worms.

Not if I can help it. But I'd like to contact your acquaintance directly. It would take you
out of the loop, Ramsay added the inducement.

Alden: Uh-huh. I can give you something along that line, if he concurs. Actually, he'd be
more likely to contact you than the other way around. It's just as well because, frankly,
I'm beginning to want out of this loop. Ah? if acting as an innocent conduit somehow
puts me at risk, you will be good enough to warn me?

The chances are one in a million, but it's the least I can do, Ramsay replied.

Alden: I didn't quite hear you say yes.

Ramsay, laughing: Yes, and yes again. My sources are privileged too; I never made this
call. Anything more?

Alden: Just keep up the good work. Good to meet you, Alan.

Ramsay: And you, Matt. Good night.

Ten minutes later, Ramsay realized he was still standing by the phone, and by then it
was too late to call Laurie. It wasn't too late to do some research from an anonymous
computer terminal in the National Press Building, though. These days the historic old
structure at Fourteenth and F was open around the clock. Like as not, a gaggle of
domestic and foreign press people would be arguing, working, and boozing until the
early hours.



He cursed the lock and the balky door of the garage he rented a block from his
apartment, promising himself for the hundredth time that he'd install an automatic
opener, knowing he never would. The shovel-nosed little Genie coupe, his one adult toy,
squatted inside with the gleam of a yellow opal in a tarnished setting. Five minutes later
it was fully warmed, squirting southwest on U.S. 1 while Ramsay inhaled cool night air.
Soon he could smell the reek of the Potomac tidal basin, and minutes later he found
press parking.

His ID was enough union card to get him past all the reconditioned bric-a-brac to the
National Press Club's lair on the building's top floor. Few of his colleagues in electronic
media spent much time here, but a reporter could call up any number of data services at
any hour? including the Library of Congress? on an unused terminal without using his
personal ID. He spied a terminal carrel in a corner, exchanged nods with a pair of
newsmen who scarcely interrupted their discussion in fluent French, fed coins into an
espresso machine, then took the bitter, steaming brew to the carrel and unfolded the
small rectangle on which he had made his list.