The Man Between. Чарльз Камминг

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      ‘What are you so worried about?’ Simakov replied. He was slim and athletic with shoulder-length black hair tied back in a ponytail. ‘Things go wrong, you walk away. All you have to do is eat your borscht, talk to the girl, let me know what time Ambassador Fuck pays his cheque.’

      ‘I know. I just don’t like all the uncertainty.’

      ‘What uncertainty?’ Simakov took one of the Rugers off the table and packed it into the bag. Curtis couldn’t tell if he was angry or just trying to concentrate on the thousand plans and ideas running through his mind. It was always hard to judge Simakov’s mood. He was so controlled, so sharp, lacking in any kind of hesitation or self-doubt. ‘I told you, Zack. This is my city. These are my people. Besides, it’s my ass on the line if things go wrong. Whatever happens, you two lovebirds can stay inside, drink some vodka, try the stroganoff. The Pushkin is famous for it.’

      Curtis knew that there was nothing more to be said about Jeffers. He tried to change the subject by talking about the weather in Moscow, how as a Californian he couldn’t get used to going from hot to cold to hot all the time when he was out in the city. He didn’t want Ivan thinking he didn’t have the stomach for the fight.

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘I said it’s weird the way a lot of the old buildings have three sets of doors.’ Curtis kept talking as he followed Simakov into the kitchen. ‘What’s that about? To keep out the cold?’

      ‘Trap the heat,’ Simakov replied. He was carrying the Glock.

      Curtis couldn’t think of anything else to say. He was in awe of Simakov. He didn’t know how to challenge him or to tell him how proud he was to be serving alongside him in the front ranks of Resurrection. Ivan gave off an aura of otherworldly calm and expertise which was almost impossible to penetrate. Curtis knew that he had styled himself as a mere foot soldier, one of tens of thousands of people around the world with the desire to confront bigotry and injustice. But to Curtis, Simakov was the Leader. There was nothing conventional or routine about him. He was extraordinary.

      ‘I just want to say that I’m glad you got me out here,’ he said.

      ‘That’s OK, Zack. You were the right man for the job.’

      Simakov opened one of the cupboards in the kitchen. He was looking for something.

      ‘I need some oil, clean this thing,’ he said, indicating the gun.

      ‘I could go out and get you some,’ Curtis suggested.

      ‘Don’t you worry about it.’ He slapped him on the back, tugging him forwards, like a bear hug from a big brother. ‘Anyway, haven’t you forgotten? You don’t speak Russian.’

      The bomb detonated six minutes later, at twenty-three minutes past four in the afternoon. The explosion, which also took the life of a young mother and her baby daughter in a corner apartment on the fourth floor of the building, was initially believed to have been caused by a faulty gas cylinder. When it was discovered that Zack Curtis and Ivan Simakov had been killed in the incident, a division of Alpha Group, Russia’s counter-terrorism task force, was dispatched to the scene. Russian television reported that Simakov had been killed by an improvised explosive device which detonated accidentally only hours before a planned Resurrection strike against the American ambassador to the Russian Federation, Walter P. Jeffers, former chairman of the Jeffers Company and a prominent donor to the Republican party.

      News of Simakov’s death spread quickly. Some believed that the founder of Resurrection had died while in the process of building a home-made bomb; others were convinced that Russian intelligence had been watching Simakov and that he had been assassinated on the orders of the Kremlin. To deter Resurrection opponents and sympathisers alike, Simakov’s remains were interred in an unmarked grave in Kuntsevo Cemetery on the outskirts of Moscow. Curtis was buried two weeks later in San Diego. More than three thousand Resurrection supporters lined the route taken by the funeral cortège.

LONDON

       1

      Like a lot of things that later become very complicated, the situation began very simply.

      A few days short of his thirty-sixth birthday, Christopher ‘Kit’ Carradine – known professionally as C.K. Carradine – was walking along Bayswater Road en route to a cinema in Notting Hill, smoking a cigarette and thinking about nothing much in particular, when he was stopped by a tall, bearded man wearing a dark blue suit and carrying a worn leather briefcase.

      ‘Excuse me?’ he said. ‘Are you C.K. Carradine?’

      Carradine had been writing thrillers professionally for almost five years. In that time he had published three novels and been recognised by members of the public precisely twice: the first time while buying a pot of Marmite in a branch of Tesco Metro in Marylebone; the second while queuing for a drink after a gig at the Brixton Academy.

      ‘I am,’ he said.

      ‘I’m sorry to stop you,’ said the man. He was at least fifteen years older than Carradine with thinning hair and slightly beady eyes which had the effect of making him seem strung out and flustered. ‘I’m a huge fan. I absolutely love your books.’

      ‘That’s really great to hear.’ Carradine had become a writer almost by accident. Being recognised on the street was surely one of the perks of the job, but he was so surprised by the compliment that he couldn’t think of anything to say.

      ‘Your research, your characters, your descriptions. All first class.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘The tradecraft. The technology. Rings absolutely true.’

      ‘I really appreciate you saying that.’

      ‘I should know. I work in that world.’ Carradine was suddenly in a different conversation altogether. His father had worked for British Intelligence in the 1960s. Though he had told Carradine very little about his life as a spy, his career had fired his son’s interest in the secret world. ‘You must have too, judging by your inside knowledge. You seem to understand espionage extraordinarily well.’

      The opportunist in Carradine, the writer hungry for contacts and inspiration, took a half-step forward.

      ‘No. I roamed around in my twenties. Met a few spies along the way, but never got the tap on the shoulder.’

      The bearded man stared with his beady eyes. ‘I see. Well, that surprises me.’ He had a polished English accent, un-ashamedly upper-class. ‘So you haven’t always been a writer?’

      ‘No.’

      Given that he was such a fan, Carradine was intrigued that the man hadn’t known this. His biography was all over the books: Born in Bristol, C.K. Carradine was educated at the University of Manchester. After working as a teacher in Istanbul, he joined the BBC as a graduate trainee. His first novel, Equal and Opposite, became an international bestseller. C.K. Carradine lives in London. Perhaps people didn’t bother reading the jacket blurbs.

      ‘And do you СКАЧАТЬ