"LaHaye, Tim - Left Behind 11 - Armageddon" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

Once in the air, Naomi leaned forward. "Can I talk to you?" she said. Rayford removed his headphones.
"Is that stuff normal for you guys?" she said.
"Nothing's normal anymore, Naomi. You've been through a lot yourself."
"I never heard a man being murdered before. And I've never walked by so many hurting people without a thing I could do for them. We're isolated in Petra, and I wanted to be where the action is. But if I never see any-thing else like this, it'll be all right with me. And we can do more from our computer center than anywhere I can think of."
"I'm sorry it was hard," Rayford said. "It was for me too." He told her of the woman he had tried to help and of his conversation with Nicolae's assistant.
"We'll watch for her uncle's name on the system," she said. "And I suppose we'll hear from Mr. Weser too."
"Hope so. What a character."
She leaned closer, and while she had to raise her voice over the engines, Naomi seemed to speak so only Ray-ford could hear. "Chang's not doing well, you know."
"Why's that?"
"This has been his home, crazy as it's had to have been. It's got to be strange leaving."
"I should think he'd be glad to be gone."
"I wish I could have met Mr. Hassid, the one Chang talks about so much. What they did in the palace and the setup at our place ..."
Rayford nodded. "You going to be able to do the same thing-monitor this place-from Petra now?"
"With Chang, yes. It's going to be wonderful to have him in our shop."
"Is he going to be competition?"
"Hardly. I'll just let him do what he wants. He likes the technical stuff, keyboarding and inside the box, more than managing people. But he can teach if he wants to."
Rayford's phone chirped. It was George Sebastian. "Been trying to get hold of you. Your phone down?"
"Had it off for the palace mission. I was going to report in when I knew you guys were up. It's still early there, isn't it?"
"We've got a situation."
"Why are you whispering? Where are you?" "Outside."
"What time is it there?"
"Just before five in the morning. We can't find Chloe."


It hit Buck that the figure on the periscope had been Chloe, so where was she? It was just like her to be out without a walkie-talkie or a phone, which he attributed to strategy rather than impetuousness. He would have a hard time convincing anyone else of that, though.
He and George had split up, fully armed and in con-stant touch with each other. George had found the empty GC personnel carrier-which had to be some sort of a decoy-but no GC or Chloe. Buck hoped he wouldn't have to call for more help and further expose his people or their location.
Two hours later, when the sun left Buck and George with no choice but to retreat inside, they had covered two square miles with nothing to show for it. In the compound, everybody was up, worried, praying, and eager to be brought up to speed. Ming Toy took Kenny and George's daughter, Beth Ann, to her place "for as long as is necessary."
George and Priscilla set up a command center in the workout room. Ree Woo sat at a small folding table in the corner, digging through files to see if any of their aliases had been underused or uncompromised.
Buck admitted he was going to be of little help. "I'm paralyzed."
"Snap out of it," George said. "You do Chloe and us no good that way."
Buck glared at him, knowing he was right. "Easy for you to say, Sebastian. It's not your wife out there."
Priscilla looked away. George let his papers fall on a table and approached Buck. He put a hand on each arm of Buck's chair and leaned close to his face. "I'm only gonna say it once. If it was my wife out there, I wouldn't be sitting in here with my hands in my lap. I owe your wife big time. She risked her life for me in Greece. I can only imagine how you feel. Not knowing anything is worse than knowing the worst, but we know nothing. Maybe you're just a little mad at her because she didn't seem to follow protocol and skipped a lot of steps here.
"Maybe you're feeling guilty about being angry with her because you're scared to death she's into something over her head. I don't blame you. I don't. I'm telling you, we need everybody on this, especially somebody with your brain. Now, you want to find her so we can get her back safe and sound, or you want to assume the worst and start grieving now?"
"George!" Priscilla scolded.
"I'm not trying to be a hard case," George said. "It's just that there's nothing we can do outside in the day-light unless we know the coast is clear and we've got someone with a good disguise and alias. Meanwhile, we've got to rest and strategize, and we don't need Buck sitting here feeling sorry for hims-"
"All right, George, I got it! Okay?"
"You and I are all right then?"
"Of course."
"I mean, you think I was out there in the middle of the night for my health?"
"Not so good news," Ree said. "Chloe's 'Chloe Irene' and Mac's 'Howie Johnson' are no good after Greece. Hannah's 'Indira Jinnah' might still be okay, but only she can use it and she's too far away. Rayford and Abdullah's Middle Eastern brothers IDs may still be okay, but Abdullah is staying in Petra and Rayford will need R and R when he gets here."
"Don't be so sure," George said. "He'll go till he drops."
"Tell me about it," Buck said.
"Has Albie's `Commander Elbaz' been exposed yet?" Ree asked.
Buck nodded. "Unfortunately, yes."
"Too far away too," George said. "What else have we got?"
"One more. Ming's guy persona, 'Chang Chow."'
"Let's not risk Ming," Buck said.
"Why not?" George said. "She's still got the uniform. She can cut her hair and-"
"Hey!" Ree said. "You're talking about my fiancee."
"So?"