"Timothy Zahn - Cobra 3 - Cobra Bargain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

Even through the surreal numbness in Jin's mind, she felt a brief flicker of pride. No, of course
her father wouldn't fall apart. A Cobra who'd survived both Qasaman missions wouldn't break over
something like this. Besides which, she would bet large sums that whatever had happened had been
the other guy's fault. "Have you talked to Gwena yet?"

Fay shook her head. "I was hoping to have more details before I did that. She's got all she needs
on her mind already, and I'd hate for her to drop everything and fly in unnecessarily."

"Better let her decide how necessary it is," Jin advised. "They can always reschedule her thesis
defense, and she'll be pretty hurt if she has to learn about this from the net. Anything on the
net yet, speaking of which?"

"This early? Shouldn't be. Anyway, I just wanted you to know what had happened, make sure you were
here when Dad gets home."

"Yeah, thanks," Jin nodded. "I'll come now."

"Okay. See you soon." Fay's face vanished from the screen.

Beside Jin, Cari took a shuddering breath. "I'd better call Mom and Dad," she said. "They'll want
to know about this."

"Thena's probably already done that," Jin told her, eyes focused on the empty phone screen.
Something was nagging, premonition-like, at the back of her mind... Reaching out, she tapped the
phone's numberpad, keying it into Capitalia's major public/info net. _Search/proper name: Moreau,
Justin,_ she instructed it.

"What are you doing?" Cari asked. "Fay said there wouldn't be anything on it yet."

Jin clenched her teeth. "Fay was wrong. Take a look."

***

There was no sign on the driveway leading to the squat, square building nestled back from the
street a few blocks from Capitalia's main business district. Not that a sign would have made much
difference; the small plaque beside the windowless front door proclaiming the place to be the
Kennet MacDonald Memorial Center would mean little to the average Capitalian citizen.

To the city's Cobra population, the name meant a great deal more. As did the building itself.

The door was locked, but Jin knew the code. The center's softly lit social areas were largely
deserted, she noted as she padded quietly past them, with only a relative handful of Cobras
sitting together in twos or threes. Attendance had been dwindling, she knew, ever since Priesly
and his loud-faced Jects had started harping on what they liked to call "Cobra elitism." Gazing
across the empty chairs and tables, Jin's mind flashed back to her childhood, to the hours she'd
spent here with her father and the other Cobras. The men who were the true heroes of the Cobra
Worlds.

And now those men avoided the center, hesitant to add fuel to Priesly's fires by congregating