Так заканчивается это приключение, но другое, большое, маячит впереди, так как эта история продолжается и в "Дьявольской колонии" (в книжных с 21 июня 2011 года). Бумаги, найденые в, с таким трудом добытом, портфеле, повлекут за собой цепь событий, которые изменят Сигму навсегда - и даже изменят ваше видение самого основания Америки.
The Skeleton Key
She woke with a knife at her throat.
Or so she thought.
Seichan came fully alert but kept her eyes closed, feigning sleep, feeling something sharp slicing into her neck. She instinctively knew not to move. Not yet.
Wary, she relied on her senses, but heard no whisper of movement, felt no stirring of air across her bare skin, detected no scent of body or breath that was not her own. She smelled only a hint of roses and disinfectant.
Am I alone?
With the sharp pressure still on her neck, she peeked one eye open and took in her environment in a heartbeat. She lay sprawled in an unknown bed, in a room she’d never seen before. Across the bed, the covers were finely textured brocade; above the headboard, an old tapestry hung; on the mantel over a fireplace, a crystal vase of fresh-cut roses sat beside an eighteenth-century gold clock with a thick marble base. The time read a few minutes past ten, confirmed by a modern clock radio resting atop a walnut bedside table. From the warm tone of the light flowing through the sheer curtains, she assumed it was morning.
She picked out muffled voices, speaking French, a match to the room’s decor and appointments, passing down the hall outside the room.
Hotel room, she surmised.
Expensive, elegant, not what she could afford.
She waited several more breaths, making sure she was alone.
She had spent her younger years running the slums of Bangkok and the back alleys of Phnom Penh, half feral, a creature of the street. Back then, she had learned the rudimentary skills of her future profession.
Survival on the streets required vigilance, cunning, and brutality. When her former employers found her, and recruited her from those same streets, the transition to assassin proved an easy one.
Twelve years later, she wore another face, an evolution that a part of her still fought, leaving her half formed, waiting for that soft clay to harden into its new shape. But what would she become? She had betrayed her former employers, an international criminal organization called the Guild-but even that name wasn’t real, only a useful pseudonym. The real identity and purpose of the organization remained shadowy, even to its own operatives.