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.
“Yes,” Denisov said. He had checked his bag through because it contained a nine-millimeter automatic with three cartridge packs that would not have made it through the X-ray machine at Los Angeles International Airport. The weapon was in the right-hand pocket of his dark blue raincoat. He sat behind the driver.
“You guys talking French?” said Anthony Riolli.
“He is certainly a genius,” Denisov said in good French.
“Twenty-two hundred,” Devereaux said in English. “You know.”
“I know.”
They got out of the car. They were in a deserted stretch of West Adams Street in the heart of the black ghetto on the West Side.
“Why can’t the FBI find her?”
“Because they don’t know how to look for people,” Devereaux said. He took the weapon out of his pocket. A black face appeared at a window across the street and stared at the two white men with guns.
“They talk to police,” Denisov grunted.
“They’re always the last to know. You want to know about bad people, you talk to bad people. You explain it as business. There are always enough snitches and a few of them actually know something.”
“Why do you think she was kept here?”
“Why not? They going to take her all over the country?”
“What do we do?”
Devereaux stared at the Russian. The night was breathless and dead cold. The streets were lined with sticks of trees. The old houses seemed to lean against each other for support. The black face disappeared at the window and a light went out. It was a wooden house and there was no point in going through the alley because there was a huge Doberman pinscher in the backyard. All the backyards in the poor neighborhoods had dogs. They were an alarm signal and they were hard to get through. Devereaux had thought about the backyard but they would have had to shoot the dogs and waste ammunition.
Denisov checked the safety and tried the action. He and Devereaux stood in front of the wooden door.
“Steel plate?” Denisov said.
“I hope not,” Devereaux said. He tried the handle. The door was locked. He looked at the lock. He ran his hand along the seam of the door.
“These guys have confidence,” he said. “One deadbolt. A Lawson. Not more than an inch and a half. One kick,” he said.
And kicked.
The rotted wood splintered with the blow and the door blew in and Devereaux threw the stun grenade into the hall. The grenade shook the ancient house and windows blew out. He and Denisov went in crouching, guns extended.
The first man was on the stairs.
Denisov shot him twice. They didn’t use silencers. There was no point to it really.
Devereaux shot the tall man with white hair who came out of the back door beneath the staircase. The bullet hit his shoulder. Devereaux kept firing.
Denisov was on the stairs and shot the man at the top of the stairs. The man fell and dropped his Uzi and the gun went off, spraying a round of bullets into the plaster of the stairwell.
Devereaux finished White Hair with a bullet in the face and went into the back room. Anna Jelinak was sitting at a table with cards in her hand. Other cards were face up on the table. She stared at Devereaux.
Devereaux swept the room with his gun hand, crouching at the door. The dog in the backyard barked and hurtled itself against the back door. The back door had two bolts and a chain on it because it was the preferred point of entry for burglars.
The shot came behind him. He turned and the black man was staring right at him with a red smudge on his white shirt. Devereaux fired point blank but he was already dead. He fell forward.
Denisov came down to the landing. His face was white and his eyes glittered. “Everyone is dead,” he said in Russian.
Devereaux looked at Anna.
“Come on.”
The girl got up. She held the cards in her hand: a king, an ace of spades, a seven. He walked around the table and saw the hallway cluttered with bodies. There was the smell of cordite mixed with the instant, putrid smell of death, of urine and feces and warm blood flowing. They were all deaf from the shock of the grenade and gunfire.
“Come on,” Devereaux said again and grabbed her arm and dragged her over the bodies.
She screamed once and he slapped her as hard as he could and the blow dazed her. They brought her outside and pushed her into the back of the car. Denisov sat next to her, Devereaux next to the driver.
Tony was listening to the portable police radio he had mounted on the dashboard. “They haven’t even made a call yet. You know what that is? Good old 911. You call 911, it’ll take hours to get a cop out there. Especially this neighborhood.”
“Change cars,” he said.
“This is good for hours.”
“Change cars,” Devereaux said.
The next one was a bright red Pontiac Bonneville with a white interior. They picked it up on Irving Park Road, near Shulian’s Tavern on the north side.
The girl said nothing because she had felt the sting of the slap and she could not hear very well.
Tony knew his driving. He wheeled the Pontiac like an MG.
“Not fancy, Tony,” Devereaux said. “Be slow. This isn’t a bank job and they aren’t in hot pursuit.”
The radio squawked on: “Reports of gunfire at 2218 West Adams. A neighbor calling…”
“See?” said Tony.
Denisov said, “I expect to receive payment in my box by the end of December.”
“You’ll have to report it then on this year’s tax,” Devereaux said.
“Yes. That is my concern.” The departure level at O’Hare was nearly empty and the planes were taking two or three minutes between takeoffs now.
“Let him off at American,” Devereaux said. “We get out here.”
He pushed open the door and reached for the seat lever and pulled it. Anna climbed out. She had no coat and the night air plucked at her bare arms. She wore a dirty blouse and jeans. She held the three Bicycle playing cards in her hand and stared at the large man with gray hair and gray eyes.
“I don’t have time to play with you, Anna,” he said in a soft voice. “We walk to the plane and if you shout or attract any attention, I kill you just like I killed those men. Do you understand?”
Anna stared at him.
The car was already pulling away.
“Do you understand?”
The planes bombed the air overhead.
“Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“Do you see the gun?” He slipped it a little out of his pocket.
“Oh, please, sir, I will not—”
“All right. We go now.”
All the clocks in Terminal Two read nine minutes to eleven.
They walked by a kiosk and he touched her arm. “Buy that jacket.” She picked up the navy and orange Bears football jacket and slipped it on over her blouse. Devereaux gave the woman behind the register a fifty-dollar bill. The terminal had the insomniac look of an updated Edward Hopper painting. Fluorescent lights made everything daytime bright; only the faces were gray.
Devereaux slipped the pistol into the white metal wastebasket by the washroom entrances when Anna turned to stare at a bag lady curling up for the night on one of the vinyl chairs.
They crossed the terminal and passed through the metal detectors and Anna did not seem to notice anything. Her face was blank with shock and her eyes were tired. A Chicago policeman stared at Devereaux as though he knew him from someplace.
“Keep going, Anna,” he said, and the voice was not meant to be friendly.
They walked down the wide, bright corridor all the way to F12 near the end. The terminal was quiet down here. The nearest passenger boarding area in use was F6. The clock read 10:59.