"Jeffrey Lord - Blade 15 - The Towers of Melnon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lord Jeffery)

CIA or Special Forces or Royal Marine Commando schools. Nor could they receive it in any of those
conventional facilities, without risking compromising Project Dimension X. How do you explain why an
agent is being trained in the use of medieval broadsword, longbow, and battleaxe?
So they would need a special training center, one for the Project alone, one where they could learn
all the exotic miscellany of skills they would need in Dimension X. J's purchase had just taken care of the
land for that. But he would have a good deal more to do before there was a training center out there in
Herefordshire. He would need to go over the house and grounds with a fine-tooth comb. Then he would
have to confer with Blade, with the best trainers in MI6, with the Project's psychologists. They would all
have ideas on what the center would need. He wanted to pick their brains as thoroughly as possible
before moving in as much as one stick of furniture.
And perhaps the estate would be good for more than a training center. Every one of Lord Leighton's
new ideas meant more paperwork, more office space, more laboratory space. There wasn't much room
left in the underground complex below the Tower. What there was, they were reserving for the computer
itself. That monster could not be moved at all, at least not without a million-pound bill and a year's delay
in the Project. Nor could they expand the complex much fartherтАФat least not without another huge bill.
Carving tunnels and chambers out ofLondon 's bedrock wasn't cheap.
Moving some of the laboratories and things out to Herefordshire was definitely worth considering.
The estate could become a whole annex to theLondon complex, taking some of the strain off it. Annex
West. Yes, that might be a good name. And it certainly was a good idea. It was such a good idea, in
fact, that J kept thinking it over all the way back toLondon .


Chapter TWO
┬л^┬╗
"Well, Richard, what do you say to the notion?"
Blade straightened slightly in the Chippendale chair and raised his eyes from his empty plate to J's
elegantly wrinkled face.
"I'll be more than willing to help, sir. I think it's a damned good idea, getting a training center set up
beforehand. I hope the PM will swallow it."
"He won't have to," put in Lord Leighton, his eyes gleaming wickedly like those of an old billy goat.
"We pulled the entire purchase price out of the Contingency Fund. He won't know a thing about it until
after the deed is signed, sealed, and delivered."
"To be sure," said J dryly. His eyes met Blade's for a moment. Both knew there was little love lost
between Lord Leighton and the Prime Minister. The scientific genius and the hardheaded practical
politician had come into head-on collision more than once. "But the bill for fitting the place out as a
training center and office annex is going to be more than the Contingency Fund can provide. That's why I
want Richard's help. He's our one and only Dimension X veteran. He can sit down with the
headshrinkers and the training technicians and give them some notion of what to train the new people for.
Otherwise they'll simply be guessing. And we're going to have to give the PM a complete presentation
and an accurate one, with a list of gear and a budget. Otherwise I can't imagine he'll play. He'll say it's
another of your wild-goose chases, Leighton."
The scientist ran his gnarled fingers through his fringes of white hair and shook his head. "That's all
very well, J. But you can't have Richard now. The computer is all set up with a new program. I was
planning to ask him to report tomorrow afternoon."
There was no need for Leighton to say what he wanted Blade to report for. Blade felt a quickening
of his breath and for a moment his mouth was so dry that he was not sure he could speak. He was going
into Dimension X againтАФon his fifteenth trip, this time. How many more, he wondered, before one of the
people to be trained at this new center replaced himтАФor his luck ran out? For a moment his vision
blurred. The little private dining room, the dark paneling, the white tablecloth, the red wine in the crystal
glassesтАФall seemed to be things from a dream.