"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 02 - The Jade Warrior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

The Jade Warrior
Blade Book 2


by Jeffrey Lord




Chapter One
^┬╗
J thought, privately, that if war was too serious a business to be entrusted to the generals, then the future
of world civilizationтАФand especially England's part in itтАФwas much too important to be entrusted to
scientists. J kept his thoughts to himself.
He was an important man in his own right. As head man of M16A he was in charge of a very special
branch of the Special Branch. But at the moment he was very much a third wheel at the party. He walked
about the rose garden of the magnificent old mansion inSussex and smoked his fine cigarтАФwhich he did
not really care forтАФand sipped at the very expensive scotchтАФwhich he did like.
J was a pragmatic man, and he did not much like it when people talked above his head. Not that it
was the fault of the other two men. It was his, J's, fault. He simply did not know anything about quarks
and molecular reassembly. And he was worried about Richard Blade. They were getting ready to put his
boy through the computer again. To send his best agent, and his good young friend, through the
dimensional rift.
J did not like it. He had not liked it the first time, either, when Lord Leighton's giant computer had
erred and sent Blade spinning into the X-Dimension of Alb. That had been an accident, a mistake, and
they had very nearly lost Blade forever.
The three men reached the end of the rose garden and stood smoking and gazing over a box hedge
at the river glinting in the moonlight. A swan slept nearby, its head tucked under its wing, and J thought of
a glass swan he had had as a boy and had kept on a round mirror in his room in Dorset.
Dorset! J wished he had not thought of it. Dick Blade was inDorset at this moment. Probably lying in
the sweet smelling thyme near the Channel and making love to his Zoe.
And soon, very soon now, J would have to set the phone to shrilling in the little cottage nearby. He
hated to make that phone call.
 "J," said Lord Leighton, "are you moonstruck, man? I've spoken to you three times. Come, we're
going back to the house for a brandy or two. Then I'll make that phone call toDowning Street for final
confirmation and you can get on to Blade. Get him up toLondon first thing in the morning. No use wasting
time now that everything is set up."
J nodded and dumped cigar ash on his dress shirt. "Yes, Lord L. Of course. We may as well get on
with it." Ordinarily he would have been a bit more tart with His Lordship and would have called him
simply Leighton, not Lord L. But the presence of the third man was inhibiting. Mr. Newton Anthony was
not only almost as big a boffin as Leighton himselfтАФand Leighton was the greatest scientific brain
inEngland тАФbut Mr. Newton Anthony had some mysterious connection with one of the Treasury
Commissions. He had procured the money that was going to propel Blade from the computer.
Mr. Newton Anthony had a very fat backside. As they went up the graveled path, J restrained an
impulse to kick it. He sighed. After all it was forEngland . But why must it always be Blade, a boy who
was so nearly like a son to him. Blade was actually thirty, but J always thought of him as a boy. J was
himself sixty.
He knew very well why it must always be Blade. Because Richard Blade was the best, the most
nearly perfect physical and mental specimen that they had been able to find. Out of a million files the
personnel computers kicked Blade's card out every time. There were times, J thought gloomily, when