"Andre Norton - Crosstime 2 - Crossroads of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

field knew. He read the final sentence on which his decision must be
made.
REMARKS:
Must term operation "solution dubious"Чcritical plusЧrequire extreme
powers under 202 classification.
Com Varlt, MW in charge.
Com Varlt. The Inspector triggered a button with one of those nervous
finger tips. The report flashed off and in its place was a series of code
symbols. Hmm, that agent had a rather impressive record all the way
along. The Inspector's hesitation was gone. He pressed a second button
and smiled almost grimly. Varlt had asked for it Чnow he had his wish.
Only "solution dubious" had better turn out "Solution Satisfactory"! A new
report clicked on the reader and the Inspector turned to consider another
case.

CHAPTER ONE
The window was a square of gray light at the narrow end of the small
hotel room. Blake Walker regarded this evidence of another day with an
odd detachment. He movedЧto snub out a cigarette in the tray beside the
bed. Then he collected his watch from the table. A minute past six. And
what he had been waiting for the past hour must be very close nowЧ
He pulled his six feet of lean muscle and fine bones out of the bed and
padded into the bathroom to plug in his razor. From the mirror his own
eyes, tired and dark, stared back at him without curiosity or interest. In
the artificial light his thick cap of hair appeared as black as his brows and
lashesЧbut in the sun light it would be red, so dark a red as might rightly
be termed mahogany. Only his skin was not fair, but a smooth and even
brown, as if before birth he had acquired a permanent sun tan.
Shaving was a perfunctory business, conducted mostly from force of
habit, since his area of beard was small and grew slowly. His black brows
twisted together now in a familiar frown as he wondered, for perhaps the
thousandth time, if he did have Asiatic blood. Only, who had ever heard of
a red-haired Chinese or Hindu? Not that he could trace his parentage.
Detective Sergeant Dan Walker had brought the resources of an entire city
police force to bear on that problem some twenty years ago, after he had
stumbled on the "alley baby." Patrolman Harvey Blake and Sergeant Dan
Walker had found him and later Dan had claimed him for a son. But he
would always wonder about the two years of his life before that.
Blake's well-cut mouth became a grim line under the pressure of
memory. SergeantЧnow InspectorЧDan going into the First National to
buy traveler's checks for that long-awaited tripЧrunning into a holdup in
progress. Dan Walker had been shot down and it had not lessened Molly's
heartache to know that he had taken his killer with him. After that there
had been the two of them, Molly Walker and Blake. Then Molly went to
bed one night and did not awake in the morning.
So now he was alone again, cut off from the only security he had known.
Blake put down the razor carefully as if that motion was a part of some
intricate and necessary action. His eyes were still on the mirror, but they
saw no reflection there, certainly not the lines of tension suddenly aging
his face. It was comingЧit was very close now!