"Simon Hawke - Time Wars 05 - The Nautilus Sanction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawke Simon)

comment that the poor bastard was probably hiding under a rock somewhere, terrified out of his wits.
The comment had been flippant, but it brought to mind immediately the fate of Albrecht Mensinger, who
committed suicide when he realized the full implications of his work in refining the chronoplate.
Now, those same implications were forcibly driven home to each and every soldier in that room. The
theft of five thousand temporal transponders was unsettling in the extreme. Lucas realized his mouth had
gone completely dry and no one had paid any attention whatsoever to his shout of “As you were!” They
were all talking at once, shouting and creating a din that drowned him out. How in hell had the theft been
accomplished? Amalgamated Techtronics was a Top Security plant —the Top Security plant. Whoever
accomplished the daring theft would still need an ERG, properly modified, for the transponders to be
keyed to. But if they were able to hijack a shipment from Amalgamated Techtronics, right from under the
very noses of crack troops, how difficult would it be for them to obtain the necessary plans to adapt an
industrial ERG for temporal translocation? The very fact the warp discs had been stolen suggested that
whoever had them also had the means or the means to get the means of using them. The transponders
that were stolen varied in classification from P-1 to V-20. V-20! Lucas shuddered. Just one of those was
big enough, at a diameter of about twelve inches, to transport something the size of, no, bigger than the
Washington Monument!
“They must have stolen them for ransom,” Finn said,standing beside Lucas. “They couldn’t possibly
use them.” He licked his lips and glanced at Lucas. “Could they?” Forrester waited patiently for them all
to become quiet. It was hardly the sort of news he could expect them to take calmly. When the noise
died down at last, he continued. “I don’t need to tell you people the potential for danger this situation
represents,” he said gravely. “If any word of it should happen to leak out, the media is going to play it up
for all it’s worth and we’ll have a disaster on our hands. And that’s not even counting the disaster we’re
already faced with in terms of the potential for temporal contamination. The entire Observer Corps has
been placed on the alert for temporal anomalies and the TIA has been working around the clock,
correlating all the data from field stations reporting in.” He paused significantly.
“I realize it’s going to be difficult, people, but I’ll expect you to restrain yourselves when I report their
conclusions. No computer data this time. Word of mouth only. We’ve got some very frightened people
on this and the levels of paranoia have reached new heights. So listen carefully and I’ll open up the floor
to questions when I’m through. I want no further outbursts. I trust I’ve made myself quite clear.”
Forrester waited a moment while they watched him with tense anticipation. He took a deep breath.
“On November 12, 1993, the Soviet Union reported the disappearance of their new Typhoon-class
ballistic missile nuclear submarine, Vostochnaya Slava, off Jan Mayan Island in the Arctic Ocean—”
Lucas felt Finn Delaney’s hand grasping his forearm in a viselike grip. He glanced at Finn, seated
beside him, and saw that all the color had suddenly drained from his face. They exchanged quick glances
and Lucas saw the fear in Finn Delaney’s eyes. He tried to swallow and found himself unable to. His
throat felt constricted. The realization struck them both at the same time.
Whoever had stolen the warp discs had used them to hijack a Soviet nuclear submarine, a mobile,
submerged and therefore practically undetectable strategic missile base. And with a V-20 warp disc, the
Russian sub could be equipped for time travel and teleportation.

1
“Apparently,” said Forrester, “no one knows exactly when the Soviet sub disappeared. Its
disappearance was officially reported on November 12, but the Kremlin was aware of it as early as two
weeks prior to that date. The head of the Observer Corps outpost in that time period and location is
Lieutenant Colonel Powers, whose cover is that of an agent for United States Central Intelligence
functioning as a mole within the KGB headquarters in Moscow. From him, we have the following:
“Jan Mayan Island is a small spit of rock of about 145 square miles located in the Arctic Ocean
between the northern part of Norway and Greenland. The island is owned by Norway and its remote
location, as well as the savage climate, in which temperatures fall between 40 and 50 degrees below zero
with a windchill factor of over 100 below, make it an ideal place for submarines keeping an eye on the