"Brian Lumley - E-Branch 1 - Defilers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lumley Brian)

But despite his leanness, Jake's chest was deep under shoulders broad and square, and his sun-
bronzed upper arms were corded with muscle. His jeans and T-shirt displayed his hard, fast body to
its full advantage, and there was little or nothing of shyness, reticence, or uncertainty about
him. If anything, Jake was too quick on the uptake, and arrogant with it.

Indeed, Trask thought, he has everything I would have liked to have when I was his age! Not
jealousy, but simple frustration: that all of this could end up wasted. But not if Trask had
anything to do with it.
As for Liz Merrick: well he wasn't about to let her go to waste, either! As a telepath, she was
just too valuable. Out in Australia, despite that her men-talism hadn't fully matured yet, she'd
worked well, had seemed a natural. So that if or when her talent came more fully into its own . .
. well, Trask just wanted to see it happen, that was all ...
Liz had settled into her seat, looked a little less flustered now. She was a very good-looking
girl-no, a woman, Trask corrected himself. She was maybe five-seven, willow-waisted, and her
figure was film-star stuff. Her hair, as black as night, was cut in a boyish bob, and when she
smiled, her whole face lit up. A pity she didn't do it more frequently, but working for E-Branch
was a pretty serious occupation. Damn, but she'd used to smile a lot, before Jake Cutter. Trask
looked at Cutter, sitting in the front row, just slumping there with his long legs stretched out
in front as if he didn't have a care in the world. The next Necroscope? Jake? Huh!
Trask felt his temperature beginning to rise, got off Jake, and looked at Liz again:
Her green eyes, looking back at him from under that fringe of jet-black hair. A pert nose-the only
way to describe it, really-that could very quickly tilt when she was annoyed. Her full mouth, with


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lips so naturally red they needed only a daily dab of moistening colour, sitting slightly aslant
over a small, determined chin that was wont to set like a rock when her mind was made up.
Still very young, Liz was full of life and character, and the fact was that Trask found it a damn
shame that she had ever got mixed up with this lot- with his lot, yes-in the first place. For
unless she was very fortunate, or one of a kind, the job was bound to age her, he knew. But what
the-? That was no way to be thinking! In fact she was the very stuff of E-Branch, and the Branch
always came first.
Trask knew that it came first with Liz, too, knew that she fitted in here almost as if born to it,
and wanted nothing more than to be a member of the team. Or at least, that was what she had
wanted,- her eager smile and readiness to join in had always said so. So, what had changed now?
For as Trask had so recently observed, Liz wasn't much given to smiling. Not any longer.
It could be that he had put too much on her out in Australia, that she'd
grown up" too fast out there, seen too much and come too close, until she'd
realized just how rough, dirty, and dangerous the work could get. Or it could
be that her so-called rapport with Jake was breaking down, and that maybe a
different kind of rapport was developing.
As for that kind: E-Branch could do without such complications. But the two of them-developing and
working in unison-what a force for good they might make! Would make, if Ben Trask had his way . .
.
"Right," he let his gaze rove over his audience and began again. "Now that we're all here, maybe
we can get on. Those of you who weren't with us out in

the Gibson Desert, and later in the Macpherson Mountains resort and Jethro Manchester's island,