Face-Off. Chris Karsten
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Название: Face-Off
Автор: Chris Karsten
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Триллеры
isbn: 9780798167321
isbn:
Danny glanced at the countdown: 08:50, H minus 10 minutes.
The informant had said that the funeral – the mock funeral – was taking place at six in the afternoon. By that time everyone would be there, the target as well: the thin man, Nasir Raza, new leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban in the FATA tribal areas.
On the CIA screens all eyes were on the man walking to the truck.
“That him?” someone asked.
“No, the target is younger, about thirty,” said Danny. “A scar on his cheek. Look for a stab wound.”
“Look for a stab wound under his beard?” Frank asked.
The thin one leant in at the open window of the truck, talking to a man behind the wheel. He straightened up and squatted in the shade of a tree, as if tired of standing.
“They’re waiting for someone. Perhaps the target is late?” said Danny.
“Two others are walking to another truck,” said Frank.
“They’re leaving,” said an agitated voice in Danny’s earphones.
“Frank, that guy squatting under the tree, stay on him, try to get his face,” said Danny.
“He’s looking down; his face is in shadow.”
“Stay with him!”
They leant closer to their screens, screwed up their eyes and scrutinised the features of the man in the shade. The man stood up, motioned to the others. Some of the men in the group looked up at him and the profiles of their faces were now lit up by the late-afternoon sun.
“That’s him!” said Danny. “Third from the left.”
“Does he have a scar?” asked Frank. “I don’t see anything.”
“He has a scar; it’s him.”
“Are you sure?” asked another voice.
“Take them out!” came the command.
Danny, right hand on the joystick, listened to the countdown. “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”
A slight tremor in his hand as muscles tensed, then his thumb pressed the red button on the lever.
He lifted his thumb and waited, listened to the second countdown by the same voice: “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”
No one in the graveyard looked up at the sky; no one heard death approach. On the screens hell hit them soundlessly in a swirl of flames, followed by dust and smoke and debris.
In Langley, Khost and Jalalabad the satellite voices were quiet. Waiting. Danny glanced at the time: H minus 1 minute – one minute to nine a.m. in Washington, one minute to six p.m. in Kanigoram.
Silence. The smoke drifted away and Frank zoomed in the nose camera, the Predator now barely a thousand metres above the scene.
Of the truck only wreckage remained. A gearbox here, an engine block there, wheels still attached to a piece of the rear axle. Scattered human remains.
“Bring it back,” said a voice.
Danny sat back and took the last sip of his Red Bull. I must remember to stop for milk and bread on my way home, he thought. And I mustn’t forget to ask Jill about the barbeque on Sunday to watch the game with Frank.
8.
“I . . . er . . . imagined you differently,” Ignaz Bouts said in the car on their way back from the station.
“Differently?”
“You know, without a beard.”
“I couldn’t shave, with all the wounds,” said Abel. “After the accident I told you about in my e-mail. They’ve healed now; only the scars remain. I’ll have to live with them. But I’ll shave the beard. I’m not used to it.”
“So, the accident that disfigured your face, they say it was your fault, is that what they say? And everything had been so carefully planned for your visit.”
“Yes, and I had to flee like a common thug. I didn’t want to go to prison, not in South Africa. You don’t know what South African prisons are like. Hellholes.”
Ignaz nodded. “I’ve had a run-in or two with the law in my time; I know how they can harass you . . . The police.”
Abel wondered about the run-ins. In the years of their cyber friendship Ignaz had never mentioned anything about altercations with the law.
Ignaz parked the car. “The house I found for you is just off Katelijne Street. A short alley, central but private. No one will disturb you, just as you asked. Reasonable rent, furnished – I hope you like it.”
Abel muttered his thanks and they got out.
With the bag containing his clothing in one hand, the violin case in the other, Abel fell into step beside Ignaz. They crossed Katelijne to the deli on the corner, turned into Stoofstraat, a small pedestrian alley, terraced houses on either side, two and three storeys high with old stepped gables.
Ignaz fumbled with the key and they stepped into the living room with old-fashioned wallpaper and worn floorboards. They creaked up the wooden staircase to a single bedroom and bathroom at the top. The curtains at the windows were muslin and lace. His mother would have approved.
“What do you think?” asked Ignaz.
“I’ll take it,” said Abel.
“You can put your personal stamp on it, decorate it yourself.”
“Can I see the stars from here at night?” In the house where he and his mother had lived, his ethnic masks had been the only adornment on the walls of his room.
“Away from the city is always better for stargazing,” said Ignaz.
The masks hadn’t been décor, but company. Abel could talk to the masks, listen to their stories while the sounds of the violin suffused the room and fed his spirit. They’d been a good team: Paganini, the masks and he. He could do the same here: he’d packed the Idia from Benin between his clothing. He would take it out and hang it on the wall, the Idia mask his mother had worn over her face.
Through the Idia he could talk to his mother, as the Punu did in their white masks – dancing round the fire, calling into being the spirit of an ancestor. He wasn’t planning on dancing, but he was planning to call upon his mother, the only familiar being in this strange new world.
“I want to buy a telescope. I’m unfamiliar with the stars and constellations of the northern skies.”
“You can take the bus to the Beisbroek Observatory,” said СКАЧАТЬ