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.
“It is not that Miki enjoys pain. He does not believe that I am authorized to inflict pain. It takes him a long time to understand this.”
“What does he know?”
Cernan grinned in the almost darkness. “Miki knows everything.”
“And Anna. He knows about Anna.”
“Yes. He told me that at last, about Anna and that Anna was my child. It was the last thing he told me. Could Henkin be aware of this as well? It has to be. It was why I was chosen to bring Miki back to Prague. Except I was not to bring Miki back at all. How do you order a murder? You hold out something that the murderer wants and you offer to give it to him if only he will kill. So the killer does the bidding of the man who has a prize. My child is the prize. I feel it in my bones. Henkin will want me to see that Miki does not return to Prague.”
Rita broke in. “I’m a journalist, you can’t—”
“Shut up. Please, I mean, shut up,” Cernan said. “You make the bargain for me and now I will buy the bargain.”
And Rita shivered, touched Devereaux, felt the cold and unyielding body. “What bargain did you make?”
“Your life for Anna’s freedom,” Devereaux said.
Rita gasped. And then she hit him very hard in the face. Blood came to his lips. He looked at her and she hit him again with her fist. He didn’t move.
Cernan said, “Do not do this, woman.”
“I would have died for you,” she said.
Devereaux said nothing to her. He stared at her and there was blood on his mouth. He didn’t wipe it away.
“We watch you,” Cernan said. “From Brussels. And then you come to Bruges. I do not care about you, how close can you come to me? I tell him this. I say, ‘It does not matter to me. Colonel Ready will come after her, he inquires about her from the gentlemen in Club Tres, in a little while Colonel Ready takes her and that is nothing to me.’ I tell your man this thing to see what he will say, because everything is true, Rita Macklin. Colonel Ready knows you are in Bruges. In a little while, he has you. What does he want with you? But maybe you know. I think Devereaux knows.”
And Cernan was smiling. Her fist was poised for another blow. She stared wildly at Devereaux’s impassive face and the trickle of blood on his lips, dripping down his chin.
“That’s why you made the bargain with this man,” she said.
Devereaux said nothing because all words lied or were misunderstood. He had wanted her to understand him when he held her a moment before and let his body flow into her body in a dirty farmhouse kitchen in the middle of this lost world. If she didn’t understand him then, he could never make it more plain to her.
“There are clothes, your passport, the tickets,” Cernan said abruptly. “The night plane from London—”
“All right,” Devereaux said, breaking his silence. He stepped away from Rita. “I don’t have a choice. Let me go, let her go. I will get Anna.”
“Is that your word? Will you swear before the saints?”
“On the Infant of Prague if you want,” Devereaux said.
“No, I do not believe in saints or miracles or oaths.”
Devereaux said nothing.
“You signal the runner in Brussels and he will tell me the truth. You must have Anna and she must be alive.”
“If she is dead—”
“Then Rita is dead.”
“She was never—”
“She is dead in any case. Colonel Ready wants her as he wanted you. He is this close behind her. Only I am a little more quick than he is. After you give me reason to be quick.” Cernan smiled and it was not pleasant. “You must bring me Anna and I will give you your life. And the life of this woman. It is more than a fair bargain.”
Rita saw then the way it had been. She was going to be killed by Ready — or worse. And Devereaux would be dead as well and there was no hope for either of them. Unless he had made this bargain, this terrible understanding to trade a life for a life.
“Dev.”
He did not speak to her. He felt her reach for his hand and it was enough. He said to Cernan, “There can’t be a misunderstanding. A life for a life.”
Cernan nodded.
“No. No misunderstanding at all. I will find Anna and then you will show me that Rita is safe and alive and then we can complete… the bargain. But if you hurt her, I will hurt your daughter in the same way. If you kill her, I will kill Anna. Just so there is no misunderstanding.”
Cernan shook his head slowly. “No. I have no illusions, American. You are brutal, a brutal people you come from. To kill is nothing to you, even an innocent child. You—”
“Save it for your masters, Cernan,” Devereaux said. “I want you to understand because there’s no turning back. I will kill her if you harm Rita, and if you harm her, after your daughter is dead, I’ll come after you. I’ll kill you in the same way. I want you to understand there is no turning back once you do harm.”
The words were finished and the silence was all that was left. Rita touched his hand again and this time he opened his hand and covered her hand in his palm and closed his hand. To keep her safe for a little while longer.
23
“We are preparing to close, sir.”
“Really? What time is it?”
“It is six in the morning, sir. It will be light in a few minutes. We close in the morning, sir. Can I call you a taxi? Would you like me to drive you back to your hotel, sir?”
“I’m only staying at the Amigo, it’s just across the square.”
“Perhaps we will see you in the evening?”
“Do you always close about now, Philip? You and Jans?”
“Yes, sir. Club Tres is for the night only.” He smiled. A nice-looking boy.
“Where is Jans?”
“We are not too busy on Monday night, so Jans leaves early. We take turns.”
“I see,” David Mason said. He put down his drink along with a one-thousand-franc Belgian note. “Is this enough?”
“It is generous, sir, whatever you wish to leave.”
“No, I meant for another drink.”
“Well, sir, we are closing.”
“I need another drink,” Mason said.
“Well, let me lock the door.” Philip smiled at him. “Let me lock the door and then we can see about that drink.” He moved around the wide oak bar to the big door and pulled the lock across. “There. We won’t be disturbed then,” Philip said. He wondered what the American boy had in mind.
Mason stood up when Philip came back to the bar and hit him very hard in the stomach. Philip bent over and felt the waves of nausea and Mason hit him very hard in the face. He broke Philip’s nose. Philip sank to his knees and Mason kicked him in the stomach and Philip gagged. His nose was bleeding. Mason hit him a second time in the nose and then picked him up by his shirt and slammed him against the bar, so that the edge of the bar smacked Philip sharply in the kidneys.
Mason took him by the shirt and slammed him against the wall that held the picture of the naked woman and the naked woman fell on the floor.
Mason slammed Philip against the bar again and Philip could not scream with the pain because he didn’t have any breath in his body. He heaved for breath. It came at last and he moaned. Mason sat down on the barstool and Philip hung on to the bar to remain upright.
Mason said, “Tell me about Colonel Ready. The man with the scar on his face.”
His voice was good, calm, almost sweet. There was a natural softness that did not carry any inflection.
“You broke it. You broke my nose.”
Mason hit him in the stomach again.
Philip groaned and retched but he had nothing in his stomach. He held his stomach and reached for a chair and collapsed into it. He groaned over and over and rocked back and forth.
“Tell me about Colonel Ready,” Mason said.