"Ann Maxwell - Risk unlimited 02 - Shadow and Silk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

the bank.
He looked away when Dani glanced in his direction.
She had taken the opportunity to memorize the big stranger. His face was weathered, as though he had spent a
long time in the high Himalayan sunshine. He was lean and hard-muscled.
He could have just come from an extended, high-altitude trek on limited rations.
Despite his American clothing, he was entirely at home in the Tibetan street scene. When a monk passed by, the
big man bowed his head slightly. It was an expression of respect usually found only in Tibetans, and devout
Buddhists at that.
The gesture could have been intended to shield the strangerтАЩs face from DaniтАЩs eyes. But there was an automatic
quality to the bow. The longer she thought about it, the more she believed that he might indeed be Buddhist.
It was oddly reassuring, the way the stranger bowed to a monk half his size.
The comforting thought vanished as he continued to follow her through the grisly open-air slaughterhouse and
meat market called Yak Alley. She was grateful that the thin, cold air didnтАЩt carry smells very well. She had been in
some Amazon fish markets that would have gagged a skunk.
From Yak Alley Dani slipped into the quiet, shadowed darkness of a small shop immediately adjacent to the
Jokhang Temple and waited as long as she dared.
When she emerged, the tall, bearded stranger was gone. In his place was another tall stranger.
The second man was as big as the first man. It was easy to tell them apart, because the new man was pale by
comparison. No beard. Fine, almost white hair worn slightly long. He had wide cheekbones and a blank, blue-eyed
fairness about him that made Dani decide he was Scandinavian.
Irrationally, Dani found herself wishing that the first man was back. At some gut level, she preferred him to his
blond partner.
The second man had a good sense of natural camouflage. He blended effortlessly into one of the inevitable,
talkative bands of Dutch trekkers that had gathered outside the main entrance to the temple.
When Dani walked off along the pilgrimage path that circled the temple, the blank-eyed man moved with her. She
assumed that the two men were working her in relay.
She caught another glimpse of the AmericanтАЩs black North Face jacket. He had covered his dark hair with a soft
Tibetan felt hat. He was lounging against a wall across the market with the hat pulled down over his eyes, as though
he was half-asleep.
The next time Dani checked, the American had disappeared completely.
His absence did nothing to comfort her. Even when she could see his blond, blank-eyed associate, she found
herself looking over her shoulder frequently for the first man.
When she didnтАЩt catch another glimpse of his wind- and sunburned face, she fought a growing uneasiness. She
half expected him to jump out of an alley and attack her.
Dani distrusted big men. They were all bullies, whether or not they realized it.
It wasnтАЩt that she was small. At five feet, five inches and a well-conditioned one hundred ten pounds, she was just
slightly below the average size of her gender. But life тАУ and her ex-husband тАУ had taught her that only a manтАЩs
personal sense of honor guaranteed a womanтАЩs physical safety.
A lot of men lacked that sense of honor.
Shivering, Dani found a sheltered alcove along the street leading to the grand stairway up the front of the Potala
Palace. She snapped up her coat collar and buried her nose in it, partly to stay warm but mostly to conceal her
Occidental face and hazel eyes.
She waited, watching the last light fade behind the ragged brown mountains that surrounded Lhasa. The shadows
deepened. The cold bit through her quilted Chinese coat. Smudged and dirty from almost six weeks of fieldwork, the
coat blended well with the rough clothing of the natives on the street.
Even though the open-air markets were shutting down with the sun, the ancient city was still alive with pilgrims
and trek-kers. The ragged pilgrims moved with ecstatic exhaustion, having prostrated themselves for every inch of
their journey. Their faces were transformed by being finally within reach of the holy center of their spiritual universe.
The expensively outfitted trekkers strode upright with eager confidence, ready to prove themselves against the
highest mountains in the world. The trekkers who had just conquered the mountains, and themselves, had faces lined