"Janet Morris - Crusaders In Hell" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morris Janet E)

didn't trust Achilles worth a damn. Or the corn line he checked in on.
Welch, who didn't like "excess" casualties, might have given him an argument,
Nichols knew. Welch had a message for Tanya that underscored that forgivable,
but very real, flaw in the Harvard man's nature.
The camp was easy enough to negotiate-nobody here asked questions when
strangers came around, especially strangers with backpacks in unfamiliar,
non-standard, camouflage.
Finding Tamara's wagon was no problem-they'd scrounged it for her; there
wasn't another like it in the caravan. Tapping on it with the butt of his
survival knife, Nichols had a moment to worry.
He didn't like those sort of moments, wherein possible problems that might
never occur popped up like phantoms and scared him witless. But he sat out the
flash of anxiety stolidly-he knew how to manage field jitters. You just kept
telling yourself, "So what?" and they passed.
Because there was no answer to that question, beyond the simple answer: you
handled whatever came your way.
It was taking her too long to respond, and he risked a low, "Hey, Burke, you
in there?"
From somewhere, a desperate scramble became a barking dog, launching itself at
him.
Reflexively, Nichol's service pistol came to hand. The dog was big, brindle, a
decent target. Deciding, as he watched it bound toward him in a slow motion
his adrenalin-prodded physiology provided, that a two-shot burst would beat a
headshot in this situation, he drew a bead. Then the gold silk of the wagon
parted hurriedly and Tanya Burke said, "Don't you dare, you bastard." And:
"Ajax, down!"
Ajax slid to a slavering, unhappy halt and, paw-before-paw, stretched out on
me ground, whining.
"What are you doing here, Nichols?" Tamara Burke demanded angrily.
Everything about her was too damned perfect She was too pretty, too rumpled,
too obviously roused from sleep.
"You alone. Burke?" Suspicion kept Nichols alive.
"At the moment." The women crossed her arms over breasts whose nipples were
rising in the cold under her thin chemise.
"You didn't check in," said Nichols uncomfortably, his eyes still riveted to
her breasts, pressed firmly by her arms.
'This is the first sleep I've had," she said with a strained, game smile.
"Enkidu ... well, I'm doing my job, what I was assigned to do." She shrugged.
'Gilgamesh doesn't like modem equipment, and he's not the only one around here
who's suspicious, so I ditched the lot."
"That was dumb." Nichols wanted to get out of here, give her the message and
be done with it But the woman was showing signs of stress, real or feigned,
and he had to know which.
"I knew you wouldn't leave me. I can't guarantee anything.... They went up the
mountain, Gilgamesh and Enkidu. They haven't come back. I think Enkidu will,
though-for me. He promised." She darted a look at the dog, then at their
immediate surroundings. Content that no one was paying undue attention to
them, she leaned closer, her knees now up against her chest.
Nichols leaned in too, and put a hand on one of her bare knees. "Welch wants
one Sumerian aboard the chopper-he doesn't care which. Doesn't want to kill