Judas Country
- Автор: Лайл Гэвин
- Язык: чешский
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «Judas Country». Краткое содержание книги:
Take a clean-cut middle-aged pilot--well, maybe he's a little further into the penumbra of the law that he wants you to think; charter him into Cyprus with a planeload of soidisant champagne that suddenly turns into far more lethal cargo; mix him up with a bankrupt hotel chain and a canny old smuggler of antiquities, and you have only the opening flourishes of this suave fasten-your-seatbelt thriller.
When Roy Case lands in Nicosia, he wants only to greet his partner, Ken Cavitt, fresh from a smuggling rap in a grim Israeli jail, and deliver to Beirut the twelve case of Kroeger Royale '66 for a gala hotel opening. Instead he is immediately plucked up and dangled over a perfect microcosm of the entire Eastern Mediterranean caldron. A small arsenal for terrorist, bankruptcy, blackmail, murder, espionage, Greco-Turkish and Arab-Israeli mayhem, and incongruously, the long-lost crusader sword of Richard Coeur de Lion all add deadly nightshade seasoning. Also playing key roles are the enigmatic daughter of a sinister German antiquarian and a striving and attractive museum scout for New York.
Then one said: 'Say, pal, if you've paid for your ticket and don't feel up to the ride, I'd be happy to oblige your lady friend.'
'Save your strength for the mooses! '
He got his feet on to the floor and swung his right at the same time.
In that light, he wasn't likely to be too accurate, but I had to duck anyway. And if I hit back, I'd make another five enemies…
Something small and shiny-black swished over my shoulder like a scythe and clunked solidly on the Canadian's cheekbone. He slammed back against the bar and his knees melted. Two of his mates reached him before he hit the floor, Nina grabbed me and we ran for the stairs while they were still regrouping.
As we galloped upwards, I identified the secret weapon as a small handbag covered in black sequins; I just hadn't noticed it before.
'What the hell d'you keep in that bag?'
'Just a load of pennies,' she panted. 'It doesn't look as suspicious as a piece of lead.'
'When you've reformed the Treasury, try for the Ministry of Defence.'
We reached the front door and she said: 'Itold you.'
7
It was raining like something out of Noah's memoirs. The street, pavements and parked cars were covered with a grass of spray two feet high and the only sound was a steady roar like a waterfall. Until the street was lit by a neon-coloured flash and almost immediately a gigantic explosion of thunder right overhead.
Mediterranean thunderstorms always have an over-melodramatic quality that makes them seem unreal. Unless you're up in among them. I said: 'Pity poor airmen on a night like this.'
'What?' she shouted. 'We'll have to go back inside and wait.'
'With all those mad Canucks? They'd rape both of us, and personally I'm not used to that sort of thing.'
'Coward! '
I nodded. 'Come on – run! '
So we ran. The moment we hit the rain, visibility went down to nil. But nobody else was fool enough to be on the street, even in a car, so we blinded up the middle and reached the Castle in about fifteen seconds – soaked through.
I was, anyway. Nina was a bit better off: her hair looked fairly lank, her legs were wet to the knees and her face was dripping, but the mac had saved the rest. It didn't seem to cheer her much.
She shook herself angrily and said: 'My shoes were new last week and I had my hair done only this afternoon. Blast you.'
I was taking papers from my jacket pockets and laying them on the lobby desk. They were only slightly damp and buckled. 'Never mind, you can have a free bath while you're here.'
That solves everything, of course.' She sounded rather bitter. 'Oh, hello Papa.'
The Sergeant didn't even notice her. His face looked lemon yellow in the thin light and his red jacket was undone at the neck. 'Captain – thank God you've come. Thank God. The man – the Professor -1 think he's dead.'
I thought so, too.
He was in the bathroom, sprawled over an upright kitchen chair, head hanging over the back so that… so that… well, so that what had been in his head had dripped into the bath.
It's the suddenness, not the sight itself. You walk up to a wrecked aeroplane and you have time to think what you'll see, to pull the lace curtains behind your eyes. I stepped back into the bedroom and wanted to sit down with my head on my knees, but also didn't want to, with the Sergeant watching from the corridor. And there'd been a spatter of blood and something on the wall behind the bath… Gradually the hot-cold feeling passed and I stopped swallowing.
I said: 'You were right first time. Get on to the police.'
'Perhaps a doctor, too? It's normal when something like this…'
I shrugged. 'It's a waste of money, but… You'd better ring Kapotas as well, so let him decide.'
He nodded and moved off, for once briskly.
Then I just stood and looked around the room. It looked tidy enough: even the glasses, champagne bottles and caviar pot -empty – were all back on the tray on the window table, beside a square rigid black briefcase. Two black suitcases stacked neatly in a corner. The silk dressing-gown folded neatly on the bed -he'd been wearing just trousers, shirt and slippers.
A tidy, economical man, the late Herr Professor. Gunshot suicide's a messy business at best, but he'd done what he could to minimise the damage. Always assuming that itwas suicide, of course.
Had there been a gun?
I could go back in and look, of course… I shut my eyes and tried to visualise the scene in there, and then tried to forget the parts I recalled best. But after a minute or so, I was sure I hadn't seen a gun. And after another minute, I accepted there was only one way to be sure.
Downstairs, the Sergeant, Nina and the chambermaid were huddled up by the desk. They looked at me with various expressions of pale apprehension.
'Did you get the police? And Kapotas?'
Sergeant Papanodded. 'He says he will come.'
Nina said: 'I think perhaps it would be best if I went-'
'You'd better hang on, love. The cops might get snarky if they find you'd been here and gone before they arrived.'
'Oddly enough, I was thinking of your reputation.'
I grinned. "Thanks, but let my reputation look after itself. It's big and ugly enough by now.'
She smiled lopsidedly.
I turned back to the Sergeant. 'Where's Ken?'
He nodded at the ceiling. 'He came in an hour ago. Not alone.'
Any point in waking – I mean disturbing – him yet? I couldn't think of one. Then I suddenly remembered. 'Where in hell's the daughter? – Mitzi.'
'Out.' Papa looked at the wall clock, which showed five past midnight so it was only ten minutes fast. 'Before Mr Cavitt got back. Perhaps about nine o'clock.'
I looked round to check that her key was hanging on the proper peg by the pigeonhole: it was. And in the pigeonhole for 323 there was a bright green envelope. 'What did they do about dinner?'
The Sergeant shrugged and looked at the chambermaid and they swapped a few words in Greek. Then: 'They did not eat downstairs. I think the Professor did not eat at all, except the caviar. So perhaps she went out for food.'
'I don't blame her, but she's taking her time with it.' Still, she could be just waiting for the storm to ease. I turned to the chambermaid. 'Can you start making coffee? Buckets of it. It's going to be a long night.'
Nina sighed.
First to get there were a uniformed sergeant and constable -just a reconnaissance party. They shook themselves dry in the lobby and asked if I'd sent for a doctor.
'No.'
'Not?' The sergeant seemed shocked. 'But why not?'
'Because I didn't know one that does head transplants.' But he didn't get it. I said impatiently: 'Just go up to 323 and have a look, then tell me I was wrong. Go on.'
He frowned and led the constable upstairs. They were still there when Mitzi came in. She wore a long lightweight black coat that was hardly damp, and I saw the lights of a taxi pull away behind her. And so now somebody had to tell her… Somebody like Sergeant Papa or the chambermaid? I took a deep breath and stepped forward.
She looked puzzled at our little group. 'Is something wrong?'
'I'm afraid your father – he's dead.'
Her face just froze, expressionless. Her mouth moved in an odd independent way, like a puppet's. 'No. But how?'
'I think he shot himself.'
She looked at the stairs. 'Is he up there?' She moved and I stepped in the way.
The police are there. Better wait until… until they've cleared up a bit.'
Then her face slowly crumpled and she leant over the desk, head in hands, sobbing:'Ach, mein Vater…'
I just stood, feeling like a bundle of hands and feet without a purpose. Then Nina came forward and put her arm round Mitzi's shoulders, and Mitzi clung to her.
The police sergeant came downstairs looking a lot paler. I pushed the phone across to him. "Thank you. Yes, I see what…' he started a fast patter in Greek.