"D. F. Jones - Colossus 01 - Colossus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones D. F)

Colossus

D. F. Jones

1966

To Neville Randall

Chapter 1
Forbin leaned back in the plastic-smelling opulence of the armor-plated car of the Presidential fleet,
gazing at the dartboard neck of the Marine driver. The great moment was a bare five minutes awayтАФthe
moment he had worked unremittingly toward for twelve hard years. Forbin knew it was not his work
alone; nothing of this magnitude could be the achievement of one man, or even a hundred. It had been the
collective effort of two or three thousand minds, backed by thousands of technicians. ButтАФand it was a
very large butтАФhis had been the guiding brain, the one with the big overall concept, the vision. And that
was the one that counted. Now the job was done and his moment of triumph was at hand, the moment
beyond which he had never had the inclinationтАФor timeтАФto look. And all he felt was a sense of flatness
and overwhelming tiredness.

Briefly he considered his future, but the idea of life without the Project lacked reality. He mused on
reality; he had lived so long with his work that the outside world had grown unreal. What was realтАФall
that back there, a thousand miles away? or all this, this man, the President? Was he reality, or just a
simple dummy?

Forbin half- smiled to himself. If the Secret Service man beside the driver could guess what his passenger
was thinking, he would rate Forbin a bad security riskтАФand that could be a very unhealthy state of affairs
if you happened to be scheduled to meet the President of the United States of North America in the near
future. Since the Kennedy tragedy all those years ago the protection of the President had been, for his
bodyguard, not so much a job as a religion. Forbin knew the life of a bodyguard; psychoanalysis and
medical checks every three months, a closely observed private life, special schools, housing precincts,
vacation centersтАФeven separate chapelsтАФand the whole setup guarded almost as closely as the
President himself. No Presidential guard must have anything on his mind except the security of the
President; if he had a problem he could not solve, whatever it was, it was his duty to report it to the Help
agency, and they would deal with it. A guy prone to difficulties had no place beside the President.

Forbin knew that sort of life; his had not been so very different for the past ten years. But nowтАФall this
would be swept away as a side effect of his work. He wondered, not for the first time, if even the
President appreciated the difference the completed Project would make to his personal power and the
stature of his office. . .

The car slowed down, making its final careful approach to the White House entrance. The Secret Service
man reached forward, switching on the radar responder, coded to give the correct signal for that
particular time when they were invisibly challenged by the radar interrogator beamed down the drive.
Given the right response the interrogator would automatically open the massive gates and allow the car
through the first barrier that stood between the President and the man in the street. Forbin experienced a
slight moment of anxiety before the gates swung swiftly open. From previous visits he knew that as soon
as the car reached the gates, another pair had closed equally swiftly behind it. While he did not know
what would happen if the wrong response were given, to be trapped between two gates with high stone
walls on either side was like being in a giant birdcage, and potentially unpleasant.