"Cussler, Clive - The Mediterranean Caper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cussler Clive)

THE MEDITERRANEAN CAPER
BY
CLIVE CUSSLER





PROLOGUE

It was oven hot, and it was Sunday. In the air traffic tower, the control
operator at Brady Air Force Base lit a cigarette from a still glowing butt,
propped his stocking feet on top of a portable air conditioner and waited for
something to happen.
He was totally bored, and for good reason. Air traffic was slow on Sundays. In
fact, it was nearly nonexistent Military pilots and their aircraft rarely flew
on that day in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations, particularly since no
international political trouble was brewing at the moment. Occasionally a plane
might set down or take off, but it was usually just a quick refueling stop for
some VIP who was in a hurry to get to a conference somewhere in Europe or
Africa.
The control operator scanned the large flight schedule blackboard for the tenth
time since he came on duty. There were no departures, and the only estimated
time of arrival was at 1630, almost five hours away.
He was young—in his early twenties—and strikingly refuted the myth that
fair-haired people cannot tan well; wherever skin showed, it looked like dark
walnut laced with strands of platinum blond hair. The four stripes on his sleeve
denoted the rank of a Staff Sergeant, and although the temperature was touching
ninety-eight degrees, the armpits of his khaki uniform displayed no damp sweat
stains. The collar on his shirt was open and missing a tie; a custom normally
allowed at Air Force facilities located in warm atmospheres.
He Leaned forward and adjusted the louvers on the air conditioner so that the
cool air ran up his legs. The new position seemed to satisfy him. and he smiled
at the refreshing tingle. Then, clasping his hands behind his head, he relaxed
backward, staring at the metal ceiling.
The ever-present thought of Minneapolis and the girls parading Nicollet Avenue
crossed his mind. He counted again the fifty-four days left to endure before he
was rotated back to the States. When each day came it was ceremoniously marked
off in a small black notebook he carried in his breast pocket.
Yawning for perhaps the twentieth time, he picked up a pair of binoculars that
were sitting on the window ledge, and surveyed the parked aircraft that rested
on the dark asphalt runway stretching beneath the elevated control tower.
The runway lay on the island of Thasos in the northern part of the Aegean Sea.
The island was separated from the Greek Macedonia mainland by sixteen miles of
water. appropriately called the Thasos Strait The Thasos land mass consisted of
one hundred and seventy square miles of rock, timber and remnants from classical
history dating back to One Thousand B.C.
Brady Field, as generally termed by the base personnel, was constructed under a
treaty between the United States and the Greek government in the late nineteen
sixties. Except for ten F-105 Starfire Jets, the only other permanently based