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 you? You know this and where she is?”
“Yes,” Devereaux said. He put down a ten-dollar bill to cover the two drinks. The planes catapulted with nothing to spare into the crowded sky. The huge bar was filled with strangers staring out the windows at the planes.
“What do we do?”
“Kill people,” Devereaux said. He stood up at the bar and waited for Denisov.
32
Hanley rode in the back of the Diamond cab as it crossed the Fourteenth Street Bridge and followed the signs around to National Airport. What would Mrs. Neumann say to this? Hanley pulled his overcoat tight. She would be told in time and it would be made clear. If Devereaux wasn’t lying. He didn’t want to think about Devereaux lying.
He had not heard from Mason for forty-eight hours. The Eurodesk people in Brussels used the current Central American slang to describe the situation: Mason “was disappeared.” Devereaux, Macklin, Mason. The other side had everything going for it, whoever the other side really was.
The plane was a Boeing 707, really more plane than anyone needed for a short trip to Chicago. The side of the plane was painted with the familiar colors of one of the three biggest airlines in the country. The plane, however, was on permanent lease to the United States government. Specifically, to an agency called International Land Management and Evaluation, a subsection of the Department of Agriculture in the budget but, in fact, a part of Section.
Hanley was the only passenger. The interior of the plane was vast and spartan. The rear section was partitioned by wood and held the freight area. The front section had ten seats. The pilot and navigator invited Hanley to sit in the cockpit. Hanley accepted.
“What’s the cargo?” the pilot said, casually flicking switches and reading dials.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Are you fueled for a long flight?”
“Chicago? Hardly nudge the gauge.”
“Then Lakenheath. In England.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” the pilot said. He wore a turtleneck sweater and a nondescript leather jacket, just like pilots in movies. Hanley thought he seemed very young and he wondered if he really wanted to watch this.
The plane took its turn in line and rumbled across the tarmac of National and lifted off at the last moment before it would have crashed into the Potomac River. Washington spun off to the right at a dizzy angle, the Washington Monument blinking its ugly red eyes at the plane, with the White House glowing and tiny below. The plane veered across Virginia and the Maryland panhandle, climbing over the Appalachians before leveling out at thirty-five thousand feet. Hanley noticed he was gripping the chair arms tightly and he did not remove his seat belt. The navigator belched. The pilot flipped three switches, turned and stuck out his feet. The plane flew on above the clouds. The night was very clear from here, beneath the moon and stars. It was a Nebraska night for a boy, Hanley thought, remembering himself as he wanted to have been. Dream on the stars, the old man said to the boy of himself.
He thought of Devereaux.
I need a plane and a Europe landing site, not far from Belgium. The west of Belgium. I need medical supplies, just in case.
Hanley had held the receiver of the red phone calmly and listened. The cold voice at the other end was simple and direct, pronouncing each word carefully.
I can’t do this, Hanley said at last.
If you won’t, then I won’t play for your team.
You are trying to blackmail me.
You set me up, Hanley, you and Mrs. Neumann, and you didn’t tell me what this was about. This was no simple defection train, was it? If I have to take her out myself, I’ll do it, but it will cost you more than you’ll want to pay.
Each word in memory is cold, precise, each syllable is pronounced. The words are cut and dried, without texture or emotion. The words have no feelings left in them.
Are you threatening?
Of course he was. He had no time left. He had already sent the signal to Cernan. ANNA. One word. It cost him four hundred dollars. The woman was absolutely reliable. She sat at the phone and dialed the number in Belgium once every fifteen minutes. The phone rang precisely nine times. Then the woman in Chicago hung up. Fifteen minutes later she dialed again. She dialed and dialed for two hours and thirty minutes. On the first ring of the eleventh dial someone completed the connection in Europe. There was no sound, just the ether. The woman in Chicago said: “Anna.” The connection was broken. The message was complete.
But Devereaux did not have Anna. Not yet.
Devereaux said the plane should be ready to go at eleven, precisely, from gate F12. Section could arrange this with O’Hare. If no one showed at eleven, then they weren’t coming. It was that simple.
Hanley sat in the cockpit as the night became clear and Indianapolis glowed orange and white in the middle of the Indiana prairie blackness. The pilot was reading a paperback novel by Ed McBain. The navigator was still busy before a green scope, looking at the world through electronic eyes.
Hanley stared out at the reality of the earth from the cockpit windows. The earth glowed at the horizon and the land was black below, beneath stars and moon. Now and then there would be a city and all would be light and then it would fade again and the night took over the earth. The earth was unchanged at night in all the centuries of man, except for the glow of cities. Hanley thought suddenly of the Cathedral at Chartres.
“You’ve flown to Europe,” he said to the pilot.
“Sure.” The pilot turned the page and marked it by bending the page at the corner. He put the book away and stretched and yawned. He looked at his watch. “Long flight across. Need some grub. I’ll fetch us some good old ORD cooking when we get into O’Hare. When we going to Europe?”
“At eleven. Gateway F12,” Hanley said.
“Gotta go with my trusty navigator to plot a route. Hey, Randy, you want to send out for pizza?”
“Sure, I’ll go for some pizza,” said the navigator.
“You like pizza?” said the pilot to Hanley.
Hanley saw the immense brightness of Chicago loom at the horizon. The brightness was exactly cut off at the lake and defined the shoreline around the south end of Lake Michigan. He noticed then that the plane had been descending.
The pilot was back to business now, flipping switches, talking to O’Hare.
The earth came up slowly and the stars were lost in the redness of the sky above the city. Hanley felt the strap of the seat belt locked around his waist. He watched the sprawling city fill the windows of the plane. He closed his eyes and was surprised to think he might have uttered a prayer.
33
“Do you trust this man?” Denisov said in French to Devereaux. They sat in the back of the rental Ford that had been stolen from the shuttered Avis dealership on Western Avenue.
“He knows how to drive.”
“He provided the information.”
“That was another man.”
“How can they be certain?”
“There are only five or six operators who can pull something like this off. You use logic. If it was in Chicago, they have to be out of Chicago. There are two operators in Chicago. They do snatches, assassinations, the major antipersonnel stuff. It is one or the other. The source checks and pinpoints it. Then he fixes the focus by putting money out. Everyone is for sale.”