Brink of War

Начало книги

I could feel the cold radiating in from the steel hatch that led from Flight Control to the flight deck. The air duct overhead was pumping out intermittent blasts of hot air, but couldn't keep pace with the arctic air separated from this compartment by only an inch of steel. The enlisted aviation specialists behind the service counter were bulky and sexless in layers of sweaters, foul-weather jackets, and long underwear. All of them wore gloves and black watch caps pulled down tight over ears and forehead.

They crowded around one point located directly under the counter, surreptitiously elbowing and jostling. From the occasional bliss on their faces, I deduced that somebody had managed to smuggle in a highly illegal, completely unsafe, and critically necessary space heater. It was cached out of view of the officers who'd undoubtedly make them remove it from the space, citing the potential for electrical fires, shock hazard, and class alpha fires should the hot filaments make contact with one of the stacks of papers cluttering their work space behind the counter. A conscientious officer would confiscate it, preventing any one of those highly unlikely risks from escalating into a problem, leaving the enlisted men and women to combat the cold as best they could.

Читать дальше →