"Tim Lahaye & Bob Philips - Babylon Rising 02 - The Secret On Ararat" - читать интересную книгу автора (LaHaye Tim)

It was no good. He had to get some air into his lungs before they burst. He turned his face upward,
toward the feeble light, and after an agonizing few seconds during which he had the horrifying sense that
he was sinking, not rising, his head broke the surface.

He sucked in a huge, spluttering breath, simultaneously grabbing on to the narrow stone ledge that
projected from the side of the pit. Resting his head against the jagged rock, he could feel something warm
mingling with the freezing water. Blood. As the pain suddenly hit him, a wild carousel of thoughts started
racing round his brain.

Laura. He would never see her again. She wouldn't even know he had died here, in this remote,
godforsaken place. She would never know his last thoughts had been about her.

Then he remembered. Laura was dead. She'd died in his arms.

And now he was about to join her. With that thought, his body seemed to relax, accepting its fate, and
he felt himself slip-ping back into the surging torrent.

No! He couldn't give up. He couldn't let the crazy old man win at last. He had to find a way out.

But first he had to find those puppies.

Clutching the ledge with both hands, Murphy took a series of quick, deep breaths, hyperventilating to
force as much oxygen as possible into his lungs. He'd done enough cave diving to know he could stay
under a full two minutes if he had to. But that was under ideal conditions. Right now he had to contend
with the effects of shock, blood loss, and bone-shaking cold—all the while trying to find two little dogs
somewhere in a swirling maelstrom. As he let himself slip back under the freezing water, he
wondered—not for the first time—how he man-aged to get himself into these messes.

The answer was simple. One word: Methuselah.

_____

Murphy had been making his way carefully through the cave, fanning his flashlight across the dank black
walls, when he found himself standing not on loose shale but what felt like solid wooden planks. Ever
alert to tricks and traps, Murphy instinctively reacted as if he'd just stepped onto a tray of burning
coals—but before he could leap aside, the trapdoor sprang open. As he felt himself plunging into the
void, a familiar cackling laugh shattered the silence, echoing crazily off the rock walls.
"Welcome to the game, Murphy! Get out of this one if you can!"

As Murphy cartwheeled through space, his brain was still trying to come up with a suitable response.
But all that came out was a grunt as he slammed into the ground like a bag of cement and the air was
punched out of his lungs, before the impact flung him sideways and his head connected with a boulder.
For a moment all was black, buzzing darkness. Then he raised himself up on his hands and knees and his
senses re-turned one by one: He could feel the damp grit between his fingers; he could taste it in his
mouth; he could smell stagnant water; he could dimly make out the shadowy walls of the pit he'd fallen
into.

And he could hear the fretful whining of what sounded like two cold, wet--and very scared—little dogs.

He turned toward the sound and there they were, shivering together on a narrow ledge. A pair of