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

of halls.

That meant splitting up.

Harry picked up his electric torch and aimed it down the hall. He hated doing rounds at night, when the
museum was lost in gloom. The only illumination came from the streetlamps outside the windows. But
now, with the blackout, even those lamps had been extinguished. The museum had darkened to macabre
shadows broken by pools of crimson from the low-voltage security lamps.

Harry had needed a few hits of nicotine to steel his nerve, but he could put off his duty no longer. Being
the low man on the night shift’s pecking order, he had been assigned to run the halls of the north wing, the
farthest point from their underground security nest. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t take a shortcut.
Turning his back on the long hall ahead, he crossed to the door leading into the Queen Elizabeth II Great
Court.

This central two-acre court was surrounded by the four wings of the British Museum. At its heart rose
the great copper-domed Round Reading Room, one of the world’s finest libraries. Overhead, the entire
two-acre courtyard had been enclosed by a gigantic Foster and Partners–designed geodesic roof,
creating Europe’s largest covered square.

Using his passkey, Harry ducked into the cavernous space. Like the museum proper, the court was lost
to darkness. Rain pattered against the glass roof far overhead. Still, Harry’s footsteps echoed across the
open space. Another lance of lightning shattered across the sky. The roof, divided into a thousand
triangular panes, lit up for a blinding moment. Then darkness drowned back over the museum, drumming
down with the rain.

Thunder followed, felt deep in the chest. The roof rattled, too. Harry ducked a bit, fearing the entire
structure would come crashing down.

With his electric torch pointed forward, he crossed the court, heading for the north wing. He rounded
past the central Reading Room. Lightning flashed again, brightening the place for a handful of heartbeats.
Giant statues, lost to the darkness, appeared as if from nowhere.The Lion of Cnidos reared beside the
massive head of an Easter Island statue. Then darkness swallowed the guardians away as the lightning
died out.

Harry felt a chill and pebbling of gooseflesh.

His pace hurried. He swore under his breath with each step, “Bleeding buggered pieces of crap…” His
litany helped calm him.
 He reached the doors to the north wing and ducked inside, greeted by the familiar mix of mustiness and
ammonia. He was grateful to have solid walls around him again. He played his torch down the long hall.
Nothing seemed amiss, but he was required to check each of the wing’s galleries. He did a fast
calculation. If he hurried, he could complete his circuit with enough time for another fast smoke. With the
promise of a nicotine fix luring him, he set off down the hall, the beam of his torch preceding him.

The north wing had become host to the museum’s anniversary show-case, an ethnographical collection
portraying a complete picture of human achievement down the ages, spanning all cultures. Like the
Egyptian gallery with its mummies and sarcophagi. He continued hurriedly, ticking off the various cultural
galleries: Celtic, Byzantine, Russian, Chinese. Each suite of rooms was locked down by a security gate.
With the loss of power, the gates had dropped automatically.