"James Rollins - Black Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Romeyn Henry)

She donned a set of sound-dampening headphones. Still, the engines roared as the blades spun faster.
The craft bobbled on its treads as the rotors tried to grip the thin air. A whine ratcheted up into subsonic
ranges. The craft finally lifted free of the rocky helipad and rose rapidly.
Lisa felt her stomach sink below her navel as the craft circled out over a neighboring gorge. She stared
through the side window and down to the clutter of tents and yaks below. She spotted her brother. He
had an arm lifted in farewell, or was it just raised against the sun's glare? Next to him stood Taski Sherpa,
easily identifiable by his cowboy hat.
The Sherpa's earlier assessment followed her into the sky, icing through her thoughts and worries.
Death rides these winds.
Not a pleasant thought at the moment. Beside her, the monk's lips moved in silent prayer. He remained
tense...whether from their mode of transport or in fear of what they might discover at the monastery.
Lisa leaned back, the Sherpa's words still echoing in her head.
A bad day indeed.
9:13 a.m.
ELEVATION: 22,230 FEET
He moved along the chasm floor with easy strides, steel crampons gouging deep into snow and ice. To
either side rose cliffs of bare stone, pictographed in brown lichen. The gorge angled upward.
Toward his goal.
He wore a one-piece goose-down suit, camouflaged in shades of white and black. His head was
covered by a polar-fleece balaclava, his face hidden behind snow goggles. His climbing pack weighed
twenty-one kilos, including the ice ax strapped to one side and a coil of poly rope on the other.He also
carried a Heckler & Koch assault rifle, an extra twenty-round magazine, and a satchel holding nine
incendiary grenades.
He had no need for additional oxygen, not even at this elevation. The mountains had been his home for
the past forty-four years. He was as well habituated to these highlands as any Sherpa, but he didn't speak
their language and a different heritage shone from his eyes: one eye a glacial blue, the other a pure white.
The disparity marked him as surely as the tattoo on his shoulder. Even among the Sonnekonige, the
Knights of the Sun.
The radio in his ear buzzed.
"Have you reached the monastery?"
He touched his throat. "Fourteen minutes."
"No word must escape of the accident."
"It will be handled." He kept his tone even, breathing through his nose. He heard as much fear as
command in the other's voice. Such weakness. It was one of the reasons he seldom visited the
Granitschloft, the Granite Castle, preferring to live on the fringes, as was his right.
No one asked him to move any closer.
They only asked for his expertise when it was most needed.
His earpiece crackled. "They will reach the monastery soon."
He didn't bother to answer. He heard a distant thump of rotors. He calculated in his head. No need to
hurry. The mountains taught patience.
He steadied his breathing and continued down toward the cluster of stone buildings with red-tile roofs.
Temp Och Monastery sat perched at the edge of a cliff, approachable only by a single path from below.
The monks and students seldom had to worry about the rest of the world.
Until three days ago.
The accident.
It was his job to clean it up.The bell-beat of the approaching helicopter grew louder, rising from below.
He kept his pace steady. Plenty of time. It was important that those who approached enter the
monastery.
It would be much easier to kill them all.
9:35 a.m.