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.
Denisov spoke: “Jules Bergen is a wealthy man and he runs a wealthy conglomerate. There is no other kind, I think. It is a large company with extensive assets including the license to five television stations, agreements with a hundred and ninety-four affiliates, radio stations, a record company, two casino hotels in Atlantic City—”
“What about Prague?”
Denisov blinked. He almost smiled. He reached for his glass of iced vodka and drank a little. “I am a man of business.”
“Filthy capitalist pig,” Devereaux said.
Denisov studied him for a moment.
“Should I sell my shares in this company?”
“You have shares?”
“I have a portfolio that is divested.”
“Diversified.”
Denisov frowned. “I talked to my brokers.”
“You have more than one?”
“One in Los Angeles, one in New York. Of course. And one in Switzerland.”
“Of course,” Devereaux said. He smiled. He put down the money.
“This is only part,” Denisov said.
“The rest in ten days, after I get back to Lausanne.”
“If you get back, eh?”
“I have great expectations.”
“Every man alive has them. But some die anyway.”
“The stage Russian is heard from again. You’re affected too much by the Slavic soul; you begin by making aphorisms and end up by believing them. Tell me about Prague.”
“The network owns sixty percent of Trans-Global Films. This is a cinema company. It makes international arrangements. I think it is a laundry, only two films in five years it makes itself. They are middlemen for many others.”
“How?”
“They arrange movies. They work with governments from the top to the bottom, to the local commissar. If you film in Poland, they arrange for you.”
“A Communist front?”
“You are too suspicious, my friend. No. They are American firm, owned by the network and forty percent by BH Productions. That is Ben Herguth, who does not produce anything.”
“Your broker knew all this.”
“And other sources. I have lived in California six years now. As you know, as you arranged.” Denisov looked at him.
Devereaux tasted the icy vodka. “Is exile so terrible?”
“Existence is to remember. You separate me from my past.”
Devereaux said nothing. He was in the city of his childhood. He was surrounded by brick and steel reminders of his past. He closed his eyes to them; he refused to see them for fear of creating pain.
“Information,” Denisov said. “I am still the old spy. The trade is the same, inside or outside. Information is always available. You call me because I know some things. Because I am in California. This is about film and television.”
“So Ben Herguth is a shell company?”
“Yes. But this is what you ask: What is Prague to any of this? Well, they make a film there. They make six films there in four years. They do not make themselves, you understand: They arrange. They get permits, they smooth the way, they bribe officials, they arrange transport and storage and accommodations. Now they make a new film about Napoleon. They will film in Prague.”
“Was Napoleon in Prague?”
“No,” Denisov said. “I ask why they film in Prague. They say that Prague looks like Paris from the inside and like Vienna the way it was from outside. And it is a hundred percent cheaper than using Paris. They use Prague also for Moscow when Napoleon attacks my country.”
Devereaux had stopped listening. He put his large hand around his drink and stared at it. He had been in the States for just twenty-four hours and the tiredness was gone. He had taken the plaster cast off his hand. He felt very close to the end. One way or the other.
“Is the company on the square?”
“Do you mean honest? Of course not,” Denisov said. “This is the cinema business. They steal, same as everyone steals.”
“You’ve lost your sense of morality.”
“Yes. It is the decadence of the West. I am diseased by it.”
“But rich enough to indulge the symptoms.”
“Alas,” Denisov said. He shrugged in his black cashmere overcoat. He had a large head and his eyes were crystal blue, like mountain lakes. They had known each other in the trade. They had come against each other one too many times and Devereaux had conducted Denisov to his side. They had been old enemies and were still; but in a world without friends, they had become accustomed to each other.
“Then they deal in Prague, they have contacts. Who would the contacts be?”
“You only asked last night,” Denisov said. “But there is Emil Mikita. I spring a name out of my glove. This is surprise to you?”
“Out of your hat,” Devereaux said. “Emil Mikita. How did you get the name?”
“He is called Miki,” Denisov said.
“I know.”
“I asked and everyone said he was the man to know in Prague. In the cinema. It is surprise to me that you know his name as well. But then, that is what they tell me.”
“What?”
“Everyone knows Miki.”
“I need a little more than information,” Devereaux said. He looked at his drink and then at the Russian. The Russian had put on weight and he had not started out small to begin with. Denisov was not the best he could do, but he couldn’t call on Section. He had the feeling Section would not like the game.
“So,” Denisov said. “I shipped through a bag.” He had understood from the beginning, Devereaux saw. The checked-in bag contained a gun and check-ins were never X-rayed.
“There might be problems.”
“Ah, well. My life is dull. Perhaps we need a problem.” He paused. “How many?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps a half dozen, perhaps less.”
“Will you say this is five thousand dollars?”
Devereaux nodded. “Ten days after Lausanne.”
“Is this your account or your agency?”
“At the moment, I pick up the bill.”
Denisov grinned and displayed the fierce square teeth set evenly in his wide mouth. “Good. It is pleasure more for me that you pay.”
“You knew that when I called.”
“Yes. You are running outside the fence again.” The image was more striking because Denisov had a wide but faulty command of the language. At language school in Kiev he had learned English with pain and without pleasure until one afternoon a colleague introduced him to a recording from The Mikado of Gilbert and Sullivan. He became a Savoyard overnight; he could not get enough of the music of the two eccentric Englishmen. He learned all the words to all the songs before he fully understood them.
“I’m just trying to find the gate,” Devereaux said. “To lock myself back in.”
“You are the exile, comrade,” Denisov said. “I am exile, too. We are all without country in the trade, is not so? We are both out of our countries and we have no place in them.”
“Russian self-pity.”
“Perhaps,” Denisov said and smiled to mock the other man. “What matters to you?”
“A little girl. She was kidnapped a week ago. We get her back and we return her to her own country.”
“What is?”
“Czechoslovakia.”
“Ah. That girl who saw the statue weep.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me: Is truth?”
“What?”
“The statue. Does it weep?”
“There are no miracles,” Devereaux said.
“Yes. So I believe also. But if there is one miracle, then I do not have to believe this anymore. So: Is truth?”
“I don’t know. She thought so. And now I think I understand. About Miki, about her. About why she was taken. They couldn’t stop the miracle show at St. Margaret’s Church and they couldn’t stop the news and they couldn’t let Miki come across for some reason. So they want to leverage the Czechs: Get Miki and we give you the girl. Except the Czechs don’t know they have Miki already. There’s a man who wants her and he’s putting his neck out for her.”