"Linda Nagata - Hooks, Nets & Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nagata Linda)

untangle its secrets. He would have done anything to be permitted to study in those preserves.

Commarin shared that hunger. He'd gambled his life for it, on a wire-thin chance to evade Ryan. And he
was about to lose.

Zayder's gaze fixed on the diving equipment on the deck. "Underwater," he muttered. Then he looked up
at Commarin. "They might not look for you underwater."

He sent Commarin to a network of caves in the reef, just outside the steel mesh wall of the shark pen.
He had him take the bloody bedding and clothing with him, because there wasn't time for it to be fully
consumed in the recyclers. "You can stay down for fifty minutes, no more."

From inside the pen, Tiburon watched Commarin drop into the water; the shark disappeared into the
depths in parallel with the young man.

Zayder returned to the shed to find the helicopter already down, the rotor slowing to visibility as the craft
bobbed on pontoons a few meters off the station. The helicopter's doors had been removed. Mr. Ryan
liked it that way.
A bodyguard leaned out from the passenger side to catch the rope Zayder tossed. Another half-rose
from his position in the back seat, his automatic weapon cradled across his chest. Ryan held the pilot's
seat.

After the rope was secured, Zayder pulled the helicopter close to the deck so the party could climb up.
Then he let it drift a few meters out on the swell.

The two bodyguards ignored him. Weapons in hand, they set off through the station. Ryan turned to
Zayder. He was a big man, thick-necked and well-muscled like the bodyguards. He stepped into the
building's shade and removed his sunglasses. From his Chinese mother, he had dark hair and pale skin.
From his Caucasian father, he had blue eyes and the bearing of a shark. "A valuable man was lost at sea
last night," he told Zayder. "The incident occurred near here."

Zayder nodded. "A garbage trawler brought him in."

Ryan smiled coldly. "I missed your report," he said. "Where is he?"

Zayder glanced nervously at the waters of the pen. The smile on Ryan's face disappeared, to be replaced
by a stony frown. "I didn't get to him in time," Zayder said. "At dawn I saw the great white feeding on the
body. The trawler must have classified it as organic garbage and dumped it into the pen."

The pale color of Ryan's face deepened to the coppery blush of sunset. "You didn't try to recover the
remains?"

Zayder stared at him impassively. Ryan, still bristling, returned his stare for a long moment. Then suddenly
he seemed to relax. The color in his cheeks eased and a sly look came over his face. "Bring me the
shark," he said. "I want its fins."

Zayder started. But Ryan had already turned away from him. He barked a brief order, and the two
bodyguards reappeared from the shed. "We're going shark hunting," Ryan told them. He turned to
Zayder. "Perhaps we can still recover some evidence of our young man from the belly of the shark."