"Ahern, Jerry - Survivalist 003 - The Quest" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ahern Jerry)

The door opened. Karamatsov could not see her, only hear the voices.

Piotr said, "Good evening, Comrade."

"Good evening, Piotr," the soft contralto responded.

Karamatsov balled his right fist. He imagined her with closed eyes. She liked white, and she was probably wearing a white robe over a white negligee. She would be impeccably beautiful as she was always, the bright dark-blue eyes, the almost black hair, the ivory white of the skin that lost any suntan almost immediately to return to the almost religious alabaster radiance. She would be smiling at Piotr; she always smiled at people. That was part of why she was the best agent he knew in KGB: she was coldly efficient and deadly, but there was a warmth and humanness in her when business was not the order of the day. Even her enemies had always found it hard to hate her.

He walked up the steps and stopped at the small porch, looking over Piotr as he set down the baggage and staring at Natalia, his wife.

"Good evening, Natalia," he murmured.

"Good evening, Vladmir," she answered, her eyes downcast.

She was wearing white, something with lace that she had not acquired in the Soviet Union, something beautiful. She looked the model wife, elegant, lovely, almost shy and demure. She remained unmoving as Piotr came to attention between them.

"Good night, Piotr," Karamatsov said.

Piotr looked awkward. It had suddenly become common knowledge that Karamatsov and Natalia were married, a fact Karamatsov had concealed for years, and the looks of awkwardness in the eyes of those who knew them, however casually, were something he was becoming accustomed to.

Natalia said nothing. Piotr moved between them and stepped out, saluting as Karamatsov waved him away. The door closed behind Karamatsov's hand as he leaned against it. Natalia was still staring at the floor; he could not see her eyes.

"You are radiant tonight. You are radiant every night, but you know that," he whispered hoarsely. Stepping away from the door, he stripped the black leather gloves from his hands and set them along with his hat and dispatch case on the small leather-covered table by the door. He slipped off the greatcoat and draped it across a French provincial chair beside the table.

"A drink, please?" he asked.

She said nothing, but moved away. Because of the flowing quality of the lace-trimmed floor length robe she wore, it seemed she floated to the kitchen rather than walked, he thought.

He unbuttoned his uniform tunic and removed it, dropping it on the side of a sofa as he stepped down three steps into the living room. He undid the top buttons of his white shirt, automatically checking the tiny S & W Model 36 holstered inside his trouser band on his left hip.

He turned, seeing Natalia re-enter from the kitchen with a tray containing a bottle of vodka and a glass.

"The ever dutiful wife," he remarked as she passed him and bent over a low coffee table to set down the bottle and glass. "You aren't drinking?"

"I don't feel like it, Vladmir," she said quietly.

His hands held her shoulders and he snapped her around to him. Her dark hair fell across her forehead as her head bent back, tossing the hair from her face showing her slender white neck. His right hand moved to her throat and tightened around it.

"You're hurting me."

Karamatsov laughed. "You are a martial arts expert; why don't you stop me?" he asked, then let go of her neck, bent down and poured a glass of vodka for himself and downed half the tumbler. He looked at her. "I want you to have a drink." He knotted the fingers of his right hand in the hair at the nape of her neck and bent her head back, arching her back. Her mouth contorted downward. Karamatsov raised the glass to her mouth, forced its rim between her lips, and poured the vodka from the glass, some of the liquid dribbling down the sides of her mouth. He let go of her hair as she started to cough, choking on the vodka.

Her head bent low over her knees, one hand held her hair from her face as she sat perched on the edge of the sofa.

He bent down, staring at her. "Did you drink with Rourke, Natalia? Do you like American whiskey better than Russian vodka?"

He half stood, poured another glass of the vodka for himself, studied the clear liquid for an instant. He suddenly raked the back of his right hand downward, his knuckles connecting against the miraculously perfect right cheek of the seated woman in front of him. The force of his hand knocked her from the edge of the couch onto the floor.

"I did not cheat on you with Rourke. He wouldn't," she said, staring up at Karamatsov from the floor.