"Reed, Robert - TreasureBuried" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

"A universal virus, maybe?"

"But not inside a woman who died thirty thousand years ago. Nor in any of the
incomplete fossil samples."

"A genetic fart then." Mekal tried laughing.

"You're going to give up?" Wallace spoke as if injured. [He wasn't. He was
panicky.] "I've been working on it for years. You've already done a good job
excluding things, narrowing the suspects. Can't you keep at it some more? A
little while?" He paused, then asked, "Just do? Can you?"

Just do.

There was an instant when Mekal seemed disgusted and thoroughly disinterested;
but those two words had their effect, percolating into him, pride or fear of
failure causing him to say:

"All right. When I've got time. But that's all I promise."

And with that Wallace returned to his office and carefully, on the sly, inserted
a few more telling dues into some files not yet accessed. Hoping it was enough.
Hoping, yet in the same instant sensing that it wouldn't be. Not quite yet. . .
.

ANOTHER TWO weeks of nothing. Wallace was stuck on the pigeon work, and Mekal
worked harder than he'd ever admit, using his nights and both weekends and his
face drawn and tired when he approached Wallace, asking if he'd come to
tonight's volleyball match. They might need him to sub, or at least score. How
about it? So Wallace came, and after the first game Cindy arrived, coming from
an aerobics class with sweats over the colored tights. Too bad. But Wallace was
in heaven when she took the empty chair beside him, remembering his name and
then cheering for her husband in the second game.

They were matched against the bastards from Marketing again. Everyone on
Marketing was at least six two, it seemed, and they had flutter on their shoes.
The game was forever on the brink of a slaughter. Mekal's heroics kept them
within seven or eight points. Then as a long volley looked won, Cindy bent close
to Wallace and said, "You know, he hates when I watch. He's afraid he'll look
--"

There was a scream, a spongy white ball bouncing to death and Mekal on the hard
floor, gripping an ankle and his face the color of cottage cheese. A bad sprain
was the verdict. He was helped from the court, and Cindy dashed back from
somewhere with ice and towels. Wallace watched as she doctored her husband, her
concern obvious and her manners motherly; and she seemed to know when her
attentions embarrassed him, because suddenly she returned to her seat beside
Wallace, watching Mekal in the corner of her eye but otherwise letting him sulk
alone.