"Richard Preston - The Hot Zone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Richard Preston)

them incapable of responding to an offer of help. They become hostile,
and don't want to be touched. They don't want to speak. They answer
questions with grunts or monosyllables. They can't seem to find words.
They can tell you their name, but they can't tell you the day of the week
or explain what has happened to them.
The Friendship drones through the clouds, following the length of the
Rift Valley, and Monet slumps back in the seat, and now he seems to be
dozing ... Perhaps some of the passengers wonder if he is dead. No, no,
he is not dead. He is moving. His red eyes are open and moving around a
little bit.
It is late afternoon, and the sun is falling down into the hills to
the west of the Rift Valley, throwing blades of light in all directions,
as if the sun is cracking up on the equator. The Friendship makes a
gentle turn and crosses the eastern scarp of the Rift. The land rises
higher and changes in color from brown to green. The Ngong Hills appear
under the right wing, and the plane, now descending, passes over parkland
dotted with zebra and giraffes. A minute later, it lands at Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport. Monet stirs himself. He is still able to walk.
He stands up, dripping. He stumbles down the gangway onto the tarmac.
His shirt is a red mess. He carries no luggage. His only luggage is
internal, and it is a load of amplified virus. Monet has ben transformed
into a human virus bomb. He walks slowly into the airport terminal and
through the building and out to a curving road where taxis are always
parked. The taxi drivers surround him--"Taxi?" "Taxi?"
"Nairobi ... Hospital," he mumbles.
One of them helps him into a car. Nairobi taxi drivers like to chat
with their fares, and this one probably asks if he is sick. The answer
should be obvious. Monet's stomach feels a little better now. It is
heavy, dull, and bloated, as if he has eaten a meal, rather than empty and
torn and on fire.
The taxi pulls onto the Uhuru Highway and heads into Nairobi. It
goes through grassland studded with honey-acacia trees, and it goes past
factories, and then it comes to a rotary and enters the bustling street
life of Nairobi. Crowds are milling on the shoulders of the road, women
walking on beaten dirt pathways, men loitering, children riding bicycles,
a man repairing shoes by the side of the road, a tractor pulling a
wagonload of charcoal. The taxi turns left onto the Ngong Road and goes
past a city park and up a hill, past lines of tall blue-gum trees, and it
turns up a narrow road and goes past a guard gate and enters the grounds
of Nairobi Hospital. It parks at a taxi stand beside a flower kiosk. A
sign by a glass door says CASUALTY DEPT. Monet hands the driver some
money and gets out of the tax and opens the glass door and goes over to
the reception window and indicates that he is very ill. He has difficulty
speaking.
The man is bleeding, and they will admit him in just a moment. He
must wait until a doctor can be called, but the doctor will see him
immediately, not to worry. He sits down in the waiting room.
It is a small room lined with padded benches. The clear, strong
ancient light of East Africa pours through a row of window and falls
across a table heaped with soiled magazines, and makes rectangles on a