"Thomas E. Sniegoski - Sleeper 1 - Sleeper Code" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sniegoski Thomas E)

The messenger launched himself at the sleeper and the two of them hurtled backward into
the stream. The killer was on the sleeper, the blade of his knife descending toward his throat.
He shifted his weight beneath the man’s attack. The point of the knife plunged through the
water and into the streambed where he had been lying.

The sleeper did not have a weapon. It was part of the plan—part of the test.

The thick, cottonlike clouds slid across the velvet Ecuadorian sky to reveal a fat moon, its
jaundiced light shining down into the jungle below, penetrating the openings in the thick
canopy of foliage. And as the concealing darkness momentarily burned away, the combatants
saw each other for the first time.

Truly saw each other.

The sleeper looked up into the chiseled features of the man who was trying to kill him. He
did not look the part at all. This wasn’t some wild-eyed lunatic starving for the taste of blood
but a professional. He could have been a carpenter or a grocery store manager, but instead he
had chosen to make killing his job.

That was where he and his attacker greatly differed.

He had never been given a choice. Killing was all the sleeper had ever known.

And as he saw his attacker, his attacker saw him.

“You’re just a ch—” the messenger began in Spanish, but didn’t get the chance to finish.

The sleeper’s fingers probed the muddy riverbed, wrapping around a jagged rock. He
brought his arm up out of the water; rock clutched in his hand, and savagely struck it against
the man’s temple.

The messenger let out a howl of pain, falling to one side in the stream.

Rock still in hand, the sleeper splashed to his feet, advancing toward his attacker. A deep
gash ran from the man’s temple to his eyebrows. Blood flowed freely from the open wound.
The messenger had managed to retain his knife and held it before himself defensively as he
struggled to stand.

Taking aim at the messenger’s hand, the sleeper let his rock fly, the crushing impact forcing
the killer to drop his weapon.
 And then time seemed to slow. The sleeper watched as the rock rolled into the thick foliage
and the knife dropped from the killer’s grasp into the water.

The messenger wiped blood from his eye with the back of his injured hand while reaching
for a weapon holstered beneath his arm with the other.

The sleeper reached down for the knife. His hand closed around the hilt, and he noted that
it was still warm from its owner’s grip as he plucked it from the stream.

The gun—a nine-millimeter Ruger—had left the leather holster and was swinging in the