"Nephilim - 03 - The Revealing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marzulli L A)
"How much farther?" Nora asked.
"It's up here. See that pile of trash that was throwed into that kinda basement there?"
"Yeah."
"There's a tunnel in there, connects to the sewer."
Jerry led them into the basement, which was surrounded by the remains of brick walls that rose several stories above them. "It's supposed to be here." He hurried over to the rusted hood of an automobile leaning against the wall. Pushing it aside he chuckled again. "It's here ... just like Tim said it would be."
Nora sl?d past him into the tunnel. Jerry followed but put back the hood to conceal the entrance. The two of them sat for a moment, allowing their eyes to adjust to the darkness, before scrambling down the tunnel.
"Where's it end?" Nora asked.
"Tim say it goes into a main sewer."
They crawled for a few minutes more in what now was complete darkness. Their scuffing shoes and panting breath echoed down the pipe.
"Hey, it's here," Nora whispered.
"Just like Tim said it would be," Jerry added.
The pipe intersected into a main sewer, allowing them to stand upright and walk through ankle-deep sewer water. "When you want to pop up?" Nora asked.
"We go a little more ways just to make sure," Jerry responded.
"What did you get?" Nora asked.
"Lots of canned stuff. Yams, beans, oriental vegetables, I don't knowЧit's all stuffed in the bag here." Jerry moved his shoulders upward which made a few of the cans jostle in the bag.
"What about this one?" Nora asked, pointing to a shaft of light that poured through a manhole cover.
Jerry shook his head sagelike. "Let's do the next one just to be safe."
They continued walking and came to another manhole cover.
"?'11 go up first," Jerry said, handing Nora the bag. He climbed the rusted ladder and pressed upward on the man-hole cover. "It's down tight," he muttered as he heaved against it with his shoulder. Finally the cover loosened and he held one corner of it. Light poured in and, for a moment, stunned him. He blinked his eyes and then squinted outside and looked around.
"Well?" Nora asked impatiently.
Jerry didn't answer. He moved the other side of the lid upward and looked around some more. Finally he pushed the whole thing over the side and it was gone.
"Hand the bag," he ordered.
Nora handed him the bag and Jerry took it and threw it out of the manhole then followed after it.
Nora scrambled up the ladder after him. The tw? stood in a small side street. Jerry elbowed her to look at a few startled pedestrians who gawked at their sudden appearance from the underworld.
The two set off and several blocks later crept through a hole in a chain-link fence that led to a littered vacant lot that bordered the underground subway tracks. They slid down the angled concrete embankment, dropping almost thirty feet to the single set of train tracks below.
"We did it, Nora," Jerry laughed, as they walked leisurely along the tracks.
"Yeah. Hey, train coming," Nora warned, and a few moments later the headlight of a train could be seen in the recess of the tunnel that opened up before them.
They moved to the mouth of the tunnel and waited. Jerry grabbed the bag as the train streaked past. He looked up just as the last car was going by and caught a glimpse of a man reading a newspaper, oblivious to him and Nora just a few feet away.
"No place like home," Jerry said, as he and Nora moved back into the tunnel, following the tracks that disappeared under the streets of New York City.
4
Brian Fitzpatrick took another breath of air in two distinct gulps timed with the stride of his legs, as he ran up a hill that he had jokingly named Heartbreak Hill, in New York City's Central Park. Then, as if his legs were pistons that were tied to the rhythm of his breath, he let out the air in one long stream that took up two more strides. He snatched another breath of air and leaned forward into the hill, feeling the burn in the back of his thighs as he passed the halfway mark. Sweat poured down his forehead and he yanked his sweatband, pulling it down toward his eyes.
He passed another jogger, a woman, who was taking the hill in short, almost babylike steps. He shouted, "You can do it," as he passed close to her. Two minutes later he crested the hill and let his body relax into an easier pace, as this part of his run was flat. He looked forward to mornings when he didn't have to work, when at the crack of dawn he would jump out of bed, don his sweats, and head to the park. He relished the time alone, away from the constant demands of the Doomsday Clock Project Think Tank.
"The Tank," as it was nicknamed, consisted of a staff of people who monitored world events twenty-four hours a day and fed the information into a state-of-the-art computer.
Since the Industrial Revolution, progress and technology had increased exponentially to the point that no one person could get a decent overview of all that was happening. Life had become a complex interlocking web of commerce, industry, and art.
A negative by-product to this technology was that humans had succeeded in gaining the potential to annihilate every living soul on planet earth ... many times over. Fitzpatrick had been employed at the Tank for his knowledge of eschatological prophecies from different cultures spanning thousands of years. He had read and studied everything from Hopi Indian legends to Hebrew apocalyptic scrolls.
Because by personal preference he lived in New York City even though the Tank was based near Washington, D.C., it wasn't unusual for him to spend as many as three consecutive days at the Tank, catching a short nap in the staff lounge every now and then to ward off fatigue. In fact, he had just finished a three-day shift.
His mind started to run off on a linguistic problem involving translation from an ancient Canaanite text. But he firmly stopped it, shoving it back to the compartment that it belonged in as he looked at the brilliant hues of a maple tree that was backlit by the rising sun.
He quickened his pace, nearing the end of his run. For the last fifty yards he sprinted for all he was worth, imagining himself at a track meet at his former high school. At the finish line he slowed, walking in a large circle on the grass holding his hands above his head. A sudden nip of cold fall air made him turn up his collar on his jacket. He dropped to the ground and stretched his legs, taking care to massage the backs of his calves. Not bad for someone over forty, he mused.
As he headed out of the park he spotted a homeless per-son sleeping on a park bench. He detoured a little out of his way and looked at the sleeping figure of a man. A shopping cart with a New York Mets' flag attached was parked near the bench. He smelled the alcohol and saw the empty bottle tossed a few feet away from the bench. Remembering that he had a five-dollar bill in his jacket earmarked for a Starbucks' latte, he retrieved the cash and stuck it in the threadbare sleeve of the man's coat.
Then he made his way to Columbus Circle, where he noticed a black limo parked on the corner ahead of him. At first he didn't give it a thought, but as he drew nearer, the blacked-out window disappeared and he recognized the face of Anthony Titwell, his driver.
He tightened his lips and straightened his back as he drew closer to the vehicle.
"How did you find me?" he asked as he stood a few feet from the limo.
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