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.
The boarding area had a red rug, fake mahogany check-in desk, and no destination listed on the board. Hanley stood at the desk.
“I forgot my ticket, can I pay on the plane?” Devereaux said.
“This is not a joke.”
“No.” Devereaux held Anna by the arm.
“How did you arrange it?” Hanley said.
“Are you going along?”
“No. You’re cleared out of here. I’ll go back commercial and face the music at midnight.” Hanley looked glum.
“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Devereaux said.
“Aiding and abetting a kidnapping? This girl has rights.”
“She has the right to live,” Devereaux said. The smile faded. “So do I. You forfeited a lot of your rights back in Chartres. You should have told me.”
“I cannot tell you what I do not know. Miki is valuable but I don’t know why.”
“I do,” Devereaux said.
“What do you know?” Hanley said.
“The tip of the iceberg. Are we ready to go?”
“Yes.”
“You have the supplies?”
“Money and a weapon. Where is the other weapon?”
“In the trash bin right by the men’s urinal just as you get out of this corridor.”
“All right. I have to return it.”
“Yes. See to the details, Hanley, and let the big things take care of themselves.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t help your case.”
“But Miki will.”
“He’s not going to return him, you know.”
“Yes. I know. That’s what he thinks now.”
They stared at each other. “I wish this had never happened,” Hanley said. His face looked gray beneath the lights.
“Yes,” Devereaux said. “But beggars still walk, don’t they?”
And he led the child by her arm into the umbilical cord that linked the building with the plane beyond. The pilot had gotten two kinds of pizza from the delivery service in Rosemont — pepperoni and cheese and sausage. There were cans of Coca-Cola as well, but they were not very cold.
34
They were in a car and it was raining.
Rita huddled in her jacket and held her arms across her breast. She stared at the rain. There is a way to be a prisoner and this is one of the ways: You sleep, even when you’re awake. You hold yourself in. You don’t scream in your mind about the constrictions or the injustices. You hold yourself in and endure this moment and the next moment. The rain beat down on the steel roof, and the car was intimate with breaths, smells, body heat. The motor was running and it growled very low, very steadily. If she listened hard to it, it made a voice and was saying the same thing over and over. She realized she could imagine any number of combinations of words. She closed her eyes.
Cernan was in the house at the end of the drive. When he came out, they would go to another place and wait. He had received the signal from Brussels just before dawn. He had gone into the bedroom where she slept huddled in her clothes under a blanket. He had touched her shoulder and she started awake. “He arrived in England. He has Anna. In a little while it will be over.”
It will be over, she thought. She opened her eyes because they were bringing Miki to the car from the shed where they had kept him. Miki staggered a little between the two men who held him up. They shoved him into the backseat next to Rita. His hands were manacled.
“I need a cigarette,” Miki said in very good English. “This is absolutely disgusting.” He put on a brave front. Cernan had hurt him over a long period of time until he told Cernan everything and then it had been all right. He had told Cernan about Henkin and about the American companies. Cernan had been satisfied then and Miki had regained a little of his old self-confidence, even if one eye was blackened. He had even flirted with Rita over the past two days. She had to hit him finally and he pouted. Some men were worse than women.
At that moment, it was clear and calm in Prague. Henkin sat at his famous desk in the corner office of the Ministry and waited for Cernan to be put on the line. When he heard Cernan’s voice at last, he felt such relief that he scarcely was able to speak at all.
“You have Miki.”
“At last, I have Miki,” Cernan said. Why had the secret call to Gorkeho been transferred to Henkin’s office? What had happened in the last twenty-four hours in Prague?
“And why does this take so much time?”
“Because it was a difficult matter. I can tell you when I bring Miki back.”
“No,” Henkin said. “We have different orders. I have orders for you now. Is Miki safe?”
“Yes, Director.”
“Cernan, you are authorized as a member of the Secret Service to execute Emil Mikita now and to return immediately to Prague.”
Cernan said nothing.
“Are you there, pan Cernan?”
“Yes, Director. I am not authorized to—”
Henkin raised his voice. “Do you hear me? I am Conrad Henkin, I have ordered you—”
“I am not authorized,” Cernan began again. It was the weary, nagging voice of the eternal bureaucrat.
“Cernan. I am speaking to you man to man. I have learned many things. I have learned things about Miki that would make you sick and you are a man of the world, yet I want to tell you—”
“Director,” Cernan began.
“Be quiet, Cernan. Miki has arranged the kidnapping of Anna Jelinak. That is your daughter. No, don’t deny it. I know this; more, Miki knows this thing and it was arranged by him and his American conspirators. That is why Anna ‘defected’ in Chicago despite your excellent security arrangements. Everyone was in it. I suspect even Gorkeho. I know that the man you trusted, Anton Huss, he was an agent for Miki. It was no coincidence that Anna defected on the day Miki defected. It was arranged as insurance. So that if Miki… if Miki did not defect, then you would lose your daughter. Don’t deny it again, Cernan; I know she is your daughter. Miki told me this thing.”
Cernan said nothing. Henkin nearly smiled.
“I have made my own… contacts. I want to get to the bottom of this, Cernan. That is why I trusted you with this assignment. I have located Anna and I can arrange her release. It is in the process of happening. But if Miki comes back to Prague to work with his old gang — and I mean with your superior, Gorkeho — then, I am afraid, they will make me powerless.
“You must do as I order you. I am your superior. Miki must be dead and you must see to it at once and then return to Prague. Anna will be safe and we will confront this gang of conspirators.”
Cernan said, “I do not understand.”
“It is enough that I understand. You must believe me in this and trust me,” Henkin said. “I love Anna as you do, as a daughter. She is a bright star on the Czech stage. I am her mentor, she is my protégée. I wish her every good thing, you know this.”
“Yes, Director,” Cernan said. The voice was soft, almost in awe.
“Eliminate Miki now. Eliminate the problem and return to Prague and we shall see about cleaning up this corruption,” Henkin said.
Another long pause.
“Cernan. I know you were to call Gorkeho.” Softly, with just the hint of menace. “I have arranged for Gorkeho’s calls to be transferred. I have issued a warrant for the arrest of Gorkeho. He is part of a conspiracy against the state. Against me. Against our precarious position in international commerce.”
So there it was, Cernan thought. Gorkeho had played for time, played against Henkin from the beginning. Everything Cernan had learned from Miki — about Henkin’s corruption, his involvement with the American interests — somehow, in the much more intricate and ruthless world of internal politics in Prague, Henkin had beaten Cernan’s man. And Henkin was explaining that to Cernan.