"Charles Stross - Red, Hot and Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

She pushed past the fat man. "Where's Oleg's office?" she asked.

"Here. I'll take you." It was the woman student again. They hurried indoors, then waited
interminably for a creaking lift to arrive. "We've barricaded the stairs -- if they try to root
us out we'll shut off the lift motor," said the student. "Who are you?"

"A friend of Oleg's. Not all the security forces are against you," said Val. The lift doors
opened and they crowded in. "Where did they go?"

"One of them -- an informer, looked like one of us -- came and took the Academician
downstairs. Oh, there's his office."

"Looks like he left in a hurry," observed Valentia, as the student swung the lift doors
open and darted into the room. "Hey, what a mess! What ..."

The woman leaned over the desk, concentrating. "These are all his papers. Shit."

Valentina stepped closer, her right hand thrust deep into her pocket. "What are they
about?" she demanded.

"This -- these are all confidential! I didn't know Professor Meir worked for the army --"

She turned and made a dash for the lift; Valentina followed her, grabbed the back of her
coat. "Wait," she hissed. "What kind of papers?"

The student twisted round, then saw Valentina's expression. "Uh --"

Breathe. Relax. Val forced herself to smile. "What were they about?"

"Uh ... oh. Something about the radar base at Krasnoyarsk. You know it? Big rocket
forces base. They're going to dismantle it soon. Uh. I could have sworn you --"

But Valentina wasn't there any more, wasn't in the lift; was back through the office then
half way down the stairs and out to the police car before she stopped to think, before the
student could even blink back after-images of what she had thought she'd seen in Val's
face.

"Airfield," Val snapped at her driver: "fast!" Rubber screeched. "I've got a plane to
catch." Why Krasnoyarsk? she puzzled, consulting her inner oracle, her memory of her
brother. But all he did was shrug and smile and say something: and all she could make
out was one phrase. Three thousand megawatts.

Three o'clock:
Oleg Meir peered out of the small, dim porthole and tried to ease the pain in his wrists.
The hand-cuffs were too tight, and the fleshy part of his hands tingled with pins and
needles. A simple exercise, thinning out his own flesh, would ease it -- but his captors
knew who they were dealing with, and there were limits to what could be done in an hour
or two. Besides, with fists the size of a baby's he'd be in no position to put up a fight.

This is the worst part: the waiting. He looked down across the white emptiness below,