"Robert Doherty - Area 51 - The Mission" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doherty Robert)

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Lisa Duncan adjusted the focus on the telescope. "There's the mothership. You
can see it against the moon as it goes by."
Duncan was short, barely over five feet, and slender. Her dark hair was cut
short, framing a thin face, etched with worry lines and stress. She had a glass
of white wine in her hand, and gestured toward the scope, inviting the other
person on the deck to take a look.
She wore khaki pants and shirt under a brown leather flight jacket that was
worn and faded. The jacket was necessary, as a cool breeze was blowing down from
the Rocky Mountains and the telescope was on a deck that wrapped around her
house, precariously perched on the side of a steep mountain. The faint strains
of jazz floated out of the open door onto the deck. A fire blazed in the large
stone fireplace inside, the smoke curling out of the chimney above their heads.
 The house, 7,000 feet up, overlooked the Great Plains to the east. The lights
of the city of Boulder twinkled 2,000 feet below. The glow from Denver was
farther away and to the right. The nearest neighbor was over two miles away up
the packed dirt road that was the only way to get to the house.
The Rockies stretched north and south, the continental divide to the west. It
had taken them over two hours

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to drive the rental car from Denver International to here, the last forty
minutes from Boulder on a precarious narrow road that had degraded from paved to
gravel to dirt the closer they got to the house.
Mike Turcotte put his chilled mug full of beer on the railing and took
Duncan's place at the scope. He bent over, placing his eye on the rubber
eyepiece. He was a solidly built man, of average height, about five-ten, with
broad shoulders. His skin was dark, a legacy of his half-Canuck, half-Indian
background. His black hair was peppered with gray and cut tight against his
skull. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt with a gold Special Forces crest
emblazoned on the left chest. He didn't seem to notice the cool breeze.
"That thing survived a nuclear blast," he marveled, seeing the mile-long alien
ship through the scope as a sliver of black against the bright full moon.
"It was designed to cross interstellar distances using a drive system we don't
have a clue about," Duncan said. "Remember, Majestic-12 couldn't cut through
that skin for over fifty years when they had it at Area 51."
Turcotte straightened. "Is it in a stable orbit?"
Duncan laughed. "Worried it'll land on your head?"
"On somebody's head."
"It won't be coming down anytime soon. Larry Kincaid from the Jet Propulsion
Lab says it's in a high orbit that doesn't seem to be decaying. The ship is
tumbling very slowly. There is the gash the explosion put in the side, but
considering the power that was expended, it's not much damage. Close-ups reveal
the ship's skin is torn, but the framework seems intact. One of the talons is
nearby, also tumbling."