The Infant of Prague
- Автор: Granger Bill
- Серия: November Man #8
- Год: 1987
- Язык: французский
- Год: Warner
- ISBN: 0446347809
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «The Infant of Prague». Краткое содержание книги:
For in a humble Chicago parish church, the sacred statue of the Infant of Prague is found weeping real tears. A visiting Czech child star actress, transfigured by the wondrous event, declares, on live television, her intent to remain in American in the name of Christ and freedom.
Only an operative as cynical and seasoned as the November Man can sense the sinister link between two dramatic, yet apparently unrelated defections. A miracle has plunged him into a vast global adventure. And it will take a miracle to get him through it alive.
The defection of a highly visible Czech sparks an international crisis, and the November Man is caught in the middle.
They were alone in the kitchen. The two big Czechs were outside as usual. Miki spent all his time in his room at the back of the house, reading and smoking as though he did not have a care in the world. He made it clear that he resented Devereaux for screwing up his perfectly good defection and that when he returned to Prague, he might register a complaint about it with someone, perhaps Henkin. He mentioned Henkin to Cernan several times, as though he might have to do something about Cernan as well if he were not treated with more respect. Cernan frowned whenever Miki mentioned Henkin’s name. Once, Miki told Devereaux that Henkin was his mentor and that Henkin would do anything to have him returned, which is probably why he had sent Cernan, because the mission was so important.
And yet, a curious lethargy had come over the operation. They had been in the farmhouse for two days, fretful days of Cernan waiting for something. Perhaps now it had come.
“Good news?” Devereaux said.
“No,” Cernan said.
“I see.”
“Perhaps you are not so valuable to them after all,” Cernan said. The eyes revealed nothing. The face was set. Perhaps a little too hard.
“No. Perhaps not.”
“You pretend not to be afraid?”
“Yes. I pretend.”
“Good. Because you understand my choice now?”
“No,” Devereaux said. “I didn’t understand at the beginning.”
“There is no interest in you. Not in Prague, not in your own country, it seems.”
“You were going to trade me.”
Cernan grunted.
“You offered me in a trade and there were no takers? I don’t believe that.”
“They make two crosses,” Cernan said.
“Double cross. How did they double-cross?”
“It is of no importance now.” Again, he made a sound that might have been a sigh, and he brought up the Uzi and checked the action to make certain the first round was seated in the firing chamber.
Devereaux did not speak. He saw the way it was. The distance between the two seated men was seven feet. The table could be overturned. Cernan would get off a few rounds and that would bring the Czechs in from outside, but at least it would be a fighting chance. Only lambs went to the slaughter with meekness.
“I do not understand you,” Cernan said in a very soft voice. Again, he seemed to hesitate. He brought the barrel of the automatic weapon down. He stared at Devereaux. “Why do they not want you to be returned?”
“What did you want? Whom did you want? Whom did you contact?”
Cernan smiled. “We contact the right people. They know you. They agree to this… trade. Then, in less than six hours, they double the cross, they—”
He stopped, shut his eyes fiercely for a moment and then opened them.
Devereaux saw his eyes were wet.
What was this about? Why were they waiting in a farmhouse in the middle of Belgium for two days? What the hell was this about?
“You are not authorized,” Devereaux said suddenly.
Cernan waited.
Devereaux smiled.
“What do you mean?”
“You are not authorized. What are you making a trade for when you are not authorized?”
“I won’t argue with you. You’re a prisoner. You have limited importance.”
“Important enough for you to do something for which you are not authorized. Two days we wait here. Is it so hard to get back to Prague? Don’t the East German freighters still use Zeebrugge? Or Antwerp? Or any of a dozen places up and down the coast? Is it so hard to bring me back to Prague and make your deals from there? You came to get Miki; you have Miki. Why wait, Cernan?”
The tone was mocking, almost teasing, certainly with the edge of an insult to it. Cernan caught the tone all right. He pointed the barrel at Devereaux’s chest.
“Are you so brave? Or are you crazy?”
“You don’t want to kill me. You want something else and you want me to tell you how to get it.”
Cernan said nothing. The Uzi created the mood for the room.
“What do you want?”
Cernan looked at the Uzi. He waved the barrel toward the stove. “Make coffee. No, do not make it too easy for me. You make coffee and throw it in my face? That is a nice trick, I think of that trick on the first day when you look at me with the bowl on the table. We both do not fool each other.”
“We do not.”
Devereaux moved to the stove and lit it with a kitchen match. The gas burned bright and filled the room with gas smells. He was clean, for the first time. He washed in the mornings and his pants were clean, if torn and a little tattered at the knees. The smell of urine was gone and he felt almost well. His leg was not as stiff and the swelling was almost gone. There was a long and ugly bruise on the shin and another from the knee to the buttocks. The water boiled and he dropped coffee grounds into it and watched the grounds stain the water. He cut a piece of bread from the loaf and buttered it. He put the coffee in the bowl and poured in milk. He put the bowl on the table and dipped the bread in the bowl and chewed off the end.
Cernan was on the far side of the kitchen now, watching Devereaux eat. He held the Uzi but now it was not pointed at Devereaux.
“Do you know about Anna Jelinak?” Cernan’s voice was almost shy. The tone surprised Devereaux but he said nothing. He kept his eyes down and ate. After a moment, he shook his head.
“On the same day that you take Miki, Anna Jelinak is in Chicago. In the United States.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Devereaux said.
“It is my duty to see to her protection on the tour of the United States. I assure you, the visitor to Prague has every protection, every courtesy. But it is not the same in the United States. There is a very violent country, very brutal, very hard for people.”
“It builds character,” Devereaux said.
Cernan did not bother to frown. The American agent had intrigued him from the beginning. He had represented a way out of a twin dilemma for Cernan. Now, perhaps, he was about to die and it wasn’t even his fault.
“Nearly ten days ago, she is in Chicago and a very strange thing. I cannot explain it. She is in a television place, what do you say it is?”
“A studio?”
“A studio. She is in the studio and they are showing a film of some ‘miracle’ in a church in that city. It is something you hear about, usually in Spain or Italy where the people have nothing else to do but make themselves crazy with talk about blood on statues or paintings. On this film is the Infant of Prague, which is an icon in my country, a religious relic. It is a statue of Christ as a child, as a King, from when people believed in kings and such things.”
“I know what it is,” Devereaux said. He had stopped eating. The monologue was getting very strange, he thought. He stared at Cernan’s eyes and they were looking beyond this room.
“They say she sees a miracle in this statue, that it is crying for Anna Jelinak who has never even been in Paris, not to say Chicago. Now they hold Anna because they say she wishes to defect. I do not believe this. This is a girl who is in the film in Prague, who is very well loved in my country. She has everything. She wishes to defect? No sir, I do not believe it, sir. And since it is my duty to find her and to bring her home, I send her mother to her. Now, what happens? This other duty intrudes upon me and it is completed and what do I think?”
Devereaux stared at Cernan.
Cernan sighed, broke the spell. “It does not matter. I expect to sell you back to your side, but the cross is double. They say one thing, they do another thing. There is nothing to be done with such people. I do not hate you, Devereaux, but I cannot bring you back to Prague. It is too… well, I cannot tell you. But I cannot let you go, perhaps then my superiors would question me. So what can I do but kill you?”
Devereaux saw the apology was genuine.