"Richard Preston - The Hot Zone2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preston Richard)

life forms. The Marburg in his blood had come from Charles Monet's black
vomit and perhaps originally from Kitum Cave. Today this particular
strain of Marburg virus is known as Musoke strain. Some of it ended in
glass vials in freezers owned by the United States Army, where it was kept
immortal in


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a zoo of hot agents.

A WOMAN AND A SOLDIER

1983 SEPTEMBER 25, 1800 HOURS

THURMONT, MARYLAND, nearly four years after the death of Charles Monet.
Evening, A typical American town. On Catoctin Mountain, a ridge of the
Appalachians that runs north to south through the western part of the
state, the trees were brightening into soft yellows and golds. Teenagers
drove their pickup trucks slowly along the streets of the town, looking
for something to happen, wishing that the summer had not ended. Faint
smells of autumn touched the air, the scent of ripening apples, a soreness
of dead leaves, cornstalks drying in the fields. In the apple groves at
the edge of town, flocks of grackles settled into the branches for the
night, squawking. Headlights streamed north on the Gettysburg road.
In the kitchen of a Victorian house near the center of town, Major
Nancy Jaax, a veterinarian in the United States Army, stood at a counter
making dinner for her children. She slid a plate into the microwave oven
and pushed a button. Time to nuke up some chicken for the kids. Nancy
Jaax wore sweatpants and a T-shirt, and she was barefoot. Her feet had
calluses on them, the result of martial-arts training. She had way auburn
hair, which was cut above the shoulders, and greenish eyes. Her eyes were
actually two colors, green with an inner rim around the iris was amber.
She was a former homecoming queen from Kansas-Miss Agriculture, Kansas
State. She had a slender, athletic build, and she displayed quick
motions, flickery gestures, with her arms and hands. Her children were
restless and tired, and she worked as fast as she could to fix the dinner.
Jaime, who was five, hung on Nancy's leg. She grabbed the leg of
Nancy's sweatpants and pulled, and Nancy lurched sideways, and then Jaime
pulled the other way, and Nancy lurched to the other side. Jaime was
short for her age had greenish eyes, like her mother. Nancy's son, Jason,
who was seven, was watching television in the living room. He was rail
thin and quiet, and when he grew up he would probably be tall, like his
father.
Nancy's husband, Major Gerald Jaax, whom everyone called Jerry,
was also a veterinarian. He was a Texas at a training class, and Nancy
was alone with the children. Jerry had telephoned to say that it was hot
as hell in Texas, and he missed her badly and wished he was home. She
missed him, too. They had not been apart for more than a few days at a