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.
“And Al. Did you look into Al?”
“Al Buck had a visitor. He doesn’t say he did but he did. He was fifty minutes late going into the station. Someone had a talk with him. He don’t want to talk about it, so I figure it has to do with this business.”
“Kay Davis?”
“Yeah, I figure the certain someone had a talk with her, too. I figure that Kay has got to come to no good end, you know?”
“Be careful this time, Ben.” Jules looked up, a small sharp look of annoyance on his face. “I don’t want that mistake repeated. I had to call Al twice in one day, once to promote her, which that idiot didn’t understand, once to rehire her. It annoys me to have to repeat myself, Ben, to cover my tracks. You’re supposed to cover tracks.”
“I’m sorry, Julie, I swear to God it won’t happen again.”
Ben was almost white in the face. The tan didn’t help and the martinis didn’t help.
Jules had small hands and a precise way of speaking. He pursed his lips and stared at Ben standing before him. Then his look softened. “When this is over, I want you to go to Mexico again.”
“You got it, Julie, you tell me when. You tell me, you got it.”
Jules nodded. “I know, Ben.” He studied Anna’s nakedness. “Fix Kay when you can.”
“I’ll fix her.”
“The problem, the central problem, remains. Miki knows. Miki knows us and about CIA and everything. No one should know that much.”
“No.”
“A man was sent out to pick Miki up. He went and he’s not been heard from for nearly five days. Henkin hasn’t made contact with me since he told me to take in the little girl. The girl was the illegitimate daughter of the agent he sent. I don’t presume to understand how these things work in Prague; Henkin has every incentive to get rid of Miki, perhaps more than we do. Miki knows and Miki has to carry what he knows to a shallow grave. If Henkin is indecisive in this, we are going to have to decide for him. I want Miki dead before November is over.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Contact Willis. I want the name of an absolutely reliable contractor. Money is no object, of course. If Henkin can’t act, we will have to act. At least Henkin knows where Miki is supposed to be, which is more than Willis or the Langley Firm know.”
Ben licked his lips to get rid of the dry, sour taste.
“What about the little girl?” he said at last.
“We took her for leverage. Obviously, if we find Miki — or if Henkin can act in time — the need for leverage is over.”
Ben thought it was going to be that way from the beginning. It didn’t affect him one way or another. He shrugged inside his big sports coat.
“Willis said in L.A. that Langley is putting fifteen million dollars on Life,” Herguth said.
“That’s a substantial sum. How can we mule for them this time?”
“The laundry is coming out of Credit Suisse in Zurich as well as two suitcases we mule direct into Prague. The arrangements are all made. The big assault on Moscow has room for every extra we could lay our hands on and we got a lot of Czech Army volunteers. The money is substantial for them, for doing what they like to do anyway, which is run around shooting their guns off. It’s going to be a nice film, Julie.”
“It’s going to be another overpriced piece of shit,” Jules Bergen said. “I like your enthusiasm, Ben. It comes from living in California. But I can afford to see things as they are. Life of Napoleon is a preordained piece of shit, crammed together by burned-out, sold-out people between coke breaks, starring a substantial cast of people without a wit of talent, mouthing meaningless lines. It’ll make us richer than we already are. I like the action, Ben, don’t get me wrong. It’s like looking at these pictures. They interest me, seeing her naked like this. But I wouldn’t want to see her. Not as she really is. I like the illusion of action. You give me that, Ben. You are the supreme fixer, the ultimate wired man. Your talent is in your enthusiasm.”
Ben felt put down but that was the way Julie was. He was not used to it exactly, but it had happened often enough not to put Ben in a sulk for days.
Jules was enjoying himself. “Because I’m a patriot, my country permits me to steal. Because I’m the president of a great television network, my lies are made into gospels. I am as fake as… as that miracle in Chicago, but if I said tomorrow that I was not a patriot and not a great man, no one would believe me because their religion is already in place, Ben.”
“Yeah, Julie,” Ben said because Julie was getting wound up.
Jules smiled at him. His eyes were mellow and kind. “I really like you, Ben. I like what we’re doing. I like everything except that Miki is still alive and not dead. How long will it take to make him dead, Ben?”
“I don’t know. I’ll do it as fast as I can.”
“Do it fast, Ben,” Jules said.
“You know I will.”
Jules sighed. He touched one of the photographs. “Poor little girl with her weeping statues and miracles. Do you suppose she still believes in miracles, Ben? Do you suppose she is praying right now to the statue to rescue her? Do you think she knows she is going to die?”
Ben said, “I don’t know, Julie.”
“Find out, will you?” He looked at the photographs and touched them with his fingertips. “Find out for me. I like to know how long the illusion lasts. I mean, when you are naked and afraid and you know that nothing is going to save you ever again, do you finally give up on the illusion?” He paused, thinking of it. “Or maybe it just becomes so much stronger.”
31
He was a large man with the eyes of a saint. He came off the plane through the connecting tube to the terminal, looked left and right, and then started down the concourse. He saw the man waiting for him on the other side of the security barrier. The other man was as he always had been: gray, pale, cold. Denisov shivered and went to meet him.
Denisov said, “You are too much the stranger to your own country.”
“I’m glad the country treats you well.”
“It is well,” Denisov said. He didn’t smile. His eyes stared at Devereaux through the rimless spectacles. The spectacles were his last link with his own past. They reminded him of Moscow and the dark winter nights and the old wife and the lumpy bed and the clamor in the kitchen and the smell of vodka and the music of Tchaikovsky in the park. That had been his past and it had no link to the present except for the man who walked with him down the main concourse to the cocktail lounge between two terminals.
They did not speak to each other as they walked. They walked as old friends but they were old enemies. Denisov had become the reluctant defector one night in Florida when he had lost the last game to Devereaux. He had grown accustomed to his exile. He had money, even friends, but the Moscow nights haunted him in winter and remembered scenes of his past made him hurt and made him recall the pain Devereaux had inflicted upon him by forcing his defection.
“What about the information?”
“To business? Then. So. I am accustomed to American manners.” He opened his briefcase and put it down on the bar.
They were in the Crossroads Lounge that connected the departure floors of Terminals One and Two at O’Hare. Beyond the window wall, planes boomed and struggled aloft and came down at a frightening pace — one every fifteen seconds. The afternoon sky was still brilliant with sunlight and the air beyond the lounge carried the sweet, nostalgic smell of diesel fuel. They were two business travelers who met for a moment and shared a drink at the most anonymous bar in the world.