"Richard Preston - The Cobra Event" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preston Richard)

Johnston Atoll

Looking into history is like shining a flashlight into a cave. You can't see the whole cave,
but as you play the flashlight around, a hidden shape is revealed.
One evening late in July 1969, a thousand miles southwest of Hawaii, the waters of the
Pacific Ocean had calmed to a liquefaction of blue. A moderate swell rocked the deck of a
fishing boat that was heading slowly across the prevailing wind, and the boat's radio masts
and weather sensors swung gently. The sun had descended to a handsbreadth above the
horizon. Mare's-tail clouds fingered in veils across the sky, but you could see the moon, a
gibbous moon, as pale as a spirit. Somewhere on that sphere the Americans had been walking.
Captain Gennadi Yevlikov held his binoculars on the moon, wondering which of its dark
areas was the Sea of Tranquility, but he couldn't remember. Then he focused on the horizon
toward the north. He could not see Johnston Atoll, but he knew it was there, and that the
Americans were there, too.
All around Yevlikov on the deck, the scientific men from the Ministry of Health hurried to
put out petri dishes and to set up their bubblers and glassware. They moved among equipment
racks, intense, disquieted, trying not to break anything. Fishing nets, unused and in perfect
condition, hung from winches above them. A sailor standing near the bow shouted, and
Yevlikov turned and saw that the man was pointing to the north, in the direction of the atoll.
Yevlikov looked with his naked eyes, then snapped up his binoculars. He saw a tiny brown dot
on the horizon, above the water. It was not moving. There was no sound. For a moment he
thought the dot must be a seabird.
It was not moving. But it grew larger.
Then he saw the wings. They were greenish brown.
It was an American Phantom jet with Marine Corps coloration. The reason it seemed not to
be moving was that it was heading straight for the fishing boat. It was perhaps a hundred
meters off the water. It gave no sound, which meant that it was traveling at supersonic
speed. Yevlikov saw a pop-flash around the tail: the pilot had just fired his afterburner. The
Phantom, already traveling close to Mach 1, was still accelerating toward the boat. It came
lower, skimming the surface of the sea. They saw a V-shaped shock wave tearing up the
water behind the Phantom. There was total silence.
'Down!' Yevlikov shouted.
With a thudding of bodies, everyone hurled himself to the deck. They stabbed their fingers
into their ears and opened their mouths wide.
They all did this, except for one scientist from the Ministry of Health, a thin man wearing
spectacles. He stood by an assembly of laboratory glassware, his mouth hanging open, his
eyes fixed on the incoming Phantom like a man before a firing squad.
The Phantom went over the Russian trawler going Mach 1.4. It passed exactly ten feet
above the boat's foredeck, flicking by in silence.
An instant later, the sonic boom blew over them like a bomb. Yevlikov felt his body bounce
on the deck. The breath was knocked from his lungs. Every window and port, every gauge,
the petri dishes, all of the laboratory glassware, everything made of glass exploded, and
Yevlikov felt glass showering over his back. The air was filled with falling glass and the roar of
the departing Phantom, its afterburner glowing as it climbed to get off the water. Two more
trailing sonic booms passed over the boat, echoes of the Phantom's passage.
 The Ministry of Health scientist was left standing in a heap of glass. His eyeglasses had
cracked. He touched one finger to his ear. His finger came away with blood on it. His eardrum
had broken.
Yevlikov stood up. 'Clean up, please.'
'Captain! There's another one out there!'