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.
In that moment, standing alone in the farmhouse, Cernan saw the way it was. Henkin had arranged the kidnapping of Anna to use her as leverage against Cernan, to force Cernan to kill the one man who had all the secrets about Henkin and the corruption in Prague. It was dirty and cynical and Henkin had used his daughter and… it had worked. That was the worst part of all.
“Yes, Director. I am confused, merely. I do not understand. But I am a soldier of the Republic and we must follow our orders.”
Henkin wiped his lip dry.
“Yes,” Henkin said.
“As you say,” Cernan said. “So it must be done.”
“Yes.”
“Miki must die,” Cernan said.
“Yes. That is my order,” Henkin said. “His finger,” Henkin added, thinking of Jules Bergen. Jules Bergen had wanted proof. Let it be Miki’s finger with the beautiful ring on it. Cernan only grunted an agreement, then he broke the connection.
For a long moment, Henkin waited and then put down the receiver.
Four buildings south, Gorkeho stopped the tape machine. It was little enough but it was enough, he thought. The game with Henkin was not over yet.
Rita saw Cernan stand in the doorway of the farmhouse a moment and then walk out to the car. He opened the door and motioned to Miki.
Miki climbed out. He stood in the rain that fell on his bare head and he was afraid.
Cernan took out his Uzi and pointed it at Miki.
“You are someone who knows too much,” Cernan said. “I have spoken to Henkin. He wants me to kill you. And then he wants me to cut off your ring finger, the one with the big ruby on it, and bring it to him in Prague. What do you think of that, Miki?”
Miki began to plead.
Rita stared out the window of the car. She could not understand the two men speaking in the strange language, but she saw the pale horror on Miki’s face and she thought Cernan meant to kill him and was telling him that he was going to die.
“Please do not kill me,” Miki said.
“What will you say when we get back to Prague? You will say it is all lies, that I tortured you and made you say fantastic things. You will run back to Henkin and ask his protection and Henkin will give it to you. For a little time. Until he can take you out one day and put a bullet in your head and dump you in the Vltava River. What good are you to me?”
“No, no, I will tell them the truth,” Miki said. “Please, let me live.”
“But I have my order now. I am told you must die and I am a soldier of the Republic. I am the servant of the state.”
Miki said, “Then for God’s sake do not kill me.”
“You told Henkin that Anna was my daughter. Why did you tell him this? Who told you this thing?”
“Elena.”
Cernan looked strange, as though he were puzzled. “Why would she say this thing?”
“I don’t know. It was just gossip. Just a rumor. Anna… Anna had no father. You were in the Party. Elena’s brother and cousin were part of the hateful Dubcek regime in 1968, they were unrehabilitated in 1968—”
“They were taken to the Soviet Union when the tanks came into Prague and they were never heard from again,” Cernan said. “So Elena, who was not part of them, had to share their ignominy. She was a woman. She had no place to turn.”
“I never told—”
“You told everyone everything, Miki. You knew everything and you lived on gossip. The only thing you never told was about Henkin and the American companies and how he was bribed and bribed very handsomely to arrange matters. Arms. Arms, Miki. Theft of arms from the Czech people! For what? For money, Miki. Money for you and for Henkin and for a few others, and because of our brilliant bureaucracy, we would never know of the theft. Where did the arms go?”
Miki was trembling, tears ran down his face.
“I should kill you,” Cernan said. “You are loathsome, you are a disease. You steal from your country for what reason? For money? You had enough. You had too much. You have the American disease. You need everything. I should kill you, Emil Mikita.” Cernan spit on Miki in the rain. The spittle washed down Miki’s handsome face and the rain obliterated it.
Miki knelt in the mud by the gray car. Rita put her hand to her mouth. She saw he was crying.
“Please, I beg you, do not kill me.”
“Get up, Miki. You are not even a man—”
“Oh, God, let me live!” he cried. “Mother of God, let me live.”
“Get up,” Cernan said.
Miki was gripped by hysteria. He shook and screamed. His eyes were large and out of control.
One of the men came around the car and pulled him up and pushed him against the fender of the Mercedes.
Cernan said something to the man then and he pulled Miki’s sleeve back and put the cold, strained hand on the hood of the car.
Cernan nodded.
The larger man had a knife that caught the dull light for a moment.
Rita heard Miki’s scream and then, through the windshield, saw the severed finger on the blood-streaked hood of the car.
Cernan held out a handkerchief. Miki wrapped his hand and the blood filled the white of the cloth. The large man picked up the finger and wrapped it in another cloth.
Rita cried then and it was loud but it was not louder than Miki’s screams.
35
The American agent walked up the street, swinging his left leg before him. It was only a little tender now. The bruises were deep and they would color his flesh for a long time but the swelling was nearly all gone. He scarcely felt the pain when he stepped on the leg.
He paused at the little shrine set into the corner of a building; almost hidden. The streets were empty of traffic because it was Saturday morning and it was too early for the stores to open. The sullen sky sprinkled gray light over the shabby blocks of buildings. Toward this part of town, the Arabs settled and the men had their coffeehouses to meet in and the women had nothing but the hostile, wet climate and the frank stares of the Belgians who hated them. But now it was empty and the statue of the Mannekin-Pis smiled impishly on the world he pissed on.
Brussels has become a very sophisticated city and it is slightly embarrassed about the Mannekin-Pis, but the little naked boy with his paunchy baby fat and his perpetual bliss in pissing on the city from his fountain cannot be shut away. The story is that the city was saved from fire in medieval times by the little boy who pissed on the flames. It is a typical Belgian story because it mocks legends and heroes and times past and all that is sacred in the world.
A bell tolled in some church and a taxicab clattered over the uneven pavement on a side street. The streets were wet but it had not rained since just after midnight.
Cernan came down the hill toward the statue. His feet dragged and his button eyes focused on Devereaux from a long way off. When he got near, he did not look at the mocking statue above him.
“Your daughter is safe. She wants to go home.”
“Where is she?”
Devereaux turned from the statue. His face was the color of ashes. “Rita.”
“I have kept the bargain.”
“Where is she?”
“In a car, waiting.”
“And Miki?”
Cernan frowned at that. “Miki is not your concern.”
“I want him.”
“It is not your concern.”
“He has to be.”
“I ask you a question, Devereaux. What is the worth of Miki to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it so?”
“I can tell you what he is worth to other people,” Devereaux said. “To me, he was a little job. A little defection route that ran from Brussels to Zeebrugge and got hit along the way.”