"personal demons" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fowler Christopher)

'Then I'm the odd one out.'
'It would appear so.'
'Who do you think killed Elias?'
'When I told him the truth, that he was protecting a man who would eventually be instrumental in destroying civilisation, he was horrified by his misunderstanding of events. Obviously he was murdered by someone who wants to protect you.'
'Your life could also be in danger.'
'I suppose so, but I don't think you'll hurt me. I haven't very long to live.' The priest guided them to an arbour shaded from the fierce valley heat, sat in his favourite armchair and fell into an uneasy doze.

Mara simply refused to listen to her husband, citing his behaviour over the last few weeks as a form of mental breakdown. 'For God's sake, will you just listen to yourself?' she cried, pacing the lounge. 'You're talking about astrology, predictions of fate! It's ludicrous, Brett! Your son is lying upstairs in a state of trauma and you're running about all over town taking advice from these - cranks!' A sudden thought occurred to her. 'Are you giving them money? Are they getting funds out of you for all this mumbo-jumbo?'
'You've seen the signs, Mara! You've been there when it happened!'
'I want you to see someone, Brett, get some professional help. Until you do, I can't talk to you. You're not making any sense. Try to see things from my point of view. I'm as upset about Davey as you, but this is - no way to react.'
'I have to go on with this, Mara.' He shrugged, picking up his jacket. 'I believe it. I just know it's all true.'
That night he stayed in a West Hollywood hotel. The next morning, he began researching the church's accumulated evidence in order to discover how the other three 'horsemen' might unwittingly change the world.
The information was surprisingly easy to come by. All three cases were well-documented in the international press. It was simply that nobody had thought of connecting them.
The Chinese military leader was a member of the new hard right, an anti-Semitic fascist currently precipitating a dangerous conflict with Russia and the USA over failure to declare unofficial chemical warfare sites - there was no doubt that he was the Horseman of War.
The Belgian minister had agreed to allow the creation of an amalgamation of charities that would distribute food mountains to starving areas - but the man he had gullibly entrusted with the task was a crook, now facing trial. The scheme had gone broke, stranding millions without food he had to be the Horseman of Famine.
The woman in Africa was a doctor's assistant, moving from town to town trying to cure sickness, but without realising it she had been causing fresh outbreaks of a particularly virulent form of bilharzia, the second most widespread illness in the world. It was a water-borne germ, and she had been discovered accidentally spreading the lethal new strain as her medical convoy moved across the plains, their jeep-tracks filling with water, the virus following in the path it created. Newspapers reported that the disease had caused such depopulation in certain areas that opportunistic dictatorships
were moving into power - the poor woman who unwittingly started this was without doubt the Horseman of Conquest.
Which made Brett Ellis the Horseman of Death.

Brett realised that the church's idea of a 'fresh start' for the world involved burning away the existing debris of humanity. According to Father Matthew, there were plenty of priests who were perfectly happy with the idea. No wonder Elias could be so easily sacrificed. Uppermost in Brett's mind was the need to discover what single act he could be responsible for that would lead to destruction on a massive scale, but it was hopeless. He had no idea where to begin. He tried using
news networks sited on the internet. He trawled the LA newspaper archives. He attempted to check out the other three 'horsemen', and even managed to reach the medical team travelling with the WHO, but they were unable to return any of his calls. The other two were even less reachable. For all of the world's advances in global communication, it was still virtually impossible for an ordinary citizen to access people in power.
At night he studied Elias's teachings. According to the church's documentation the Awakening of Daniel - the final dying moment of the human world - was due to take place at midnight just five days from the present date.
Tired and heartsick, he was preparing for bed when Mara knocked on the door of his study. 'I thought you might be interested in the health of your son,' she said, remaining on the far side of the room, her hands at her sides. 'The doctor came while you were out. Davey's going to be fine. The shock to his system is subsiding, and it seems likely he'll make a full recovery. I want to take him away from here, Brett. And I don't want you to stop me.'
'I won't do that if you tell me where you're going,' said her husband. 'I don't want to lose what we have as a family.'
'It's a little late for that, don't you think? You don't need us, Brett, you never have. You only ever think about yourself.' Her hands shook. She left the room before she started crying.
She and Davey left the house three days later, on a warm autumn morning with the faintest hint of winter chill in the
shadows.

He tried calling Lisa half a dozen times, but there seemed to be something wrong with her phone. In the afternoon he drove over to her apartment and found the front door wide open. The hallway was deserted. It was the kind of condominium where nobody ever saw or heard anything. In the bedroom a chair was upturned, and clothes were hanging from closet drawers. There was broken glass on the floor of the kitchen. It didn't take a genius to work out that Lisa had either been abducted or had left in a hell of a hurry. He wondered if the same zealots who had murdered Elias had now made off with the old man's most attractive disciple. He called the police on his mobile, told them what he thought had happened and asked them to check out the building. He refused to leave his name and address, which was stupid; they could easily trace his mobile.
He arrived back at his house to find the lounge filled with the members of the Church of the Phoenix. The maid had let them in. The praying men and women were now wearing white robes, in accordance with their instructions from the Book of Revelations. There were even little kids draped in cut-off bedsheets. Their numbers had certainly grown. It seemed more and more people were being converted as the foretold time approached.
'Join us!' they cried as he tried to disperse them. 'Stay and pray! Stay and pray!' Listening to their cries made him realise that there was a simple way for him to defeat the prophecy and forestall his fate. All he had to do was leave town. He couldn't influence history if he wasn't in the foretold place at the right time, could he?
Shoving the tiniest bedsheeted members of the church from his front door, he returned to the lounge and tried to call the police, but all the LAPD emergency lines were busy. Next he tried to purchase a flight out of the city, only to find that his credit card numbers had apparently been changed on the booking computer.
'That's impossible!' he complained to the girl at the airline office. 'Check them again, will you?' As he held on, he accessed his personal identification numbers on his home PC files. They all seemed in order. But as he watched, the numbers of his accounts flickered into serials of random lettering, and these in turn were replaced with a single word - PHOENIX.
He stared at the word in disbelief. It was as if everyone and everything pointed in one direction, toward the fulfilment of his destiny, no matter how terrible that might prove to be.
Stopping only to throw some clothes into a suitcase, he descended to the garage and revved up his Mercedes. There was more than one way to get out of town. He drove down from the hills, across Hollywood heading for the Santa Monica Freeway, and was just approaching the on-ramp when he saw a motorcycle cop approaching in his rear-view mirror. The cop gave a whoop of his siren and made a gesture to pull over.
Brett wearily coasted the car to the side of the road and turned off the engine. The cop dismounted and approached, shaking his pant-legs free, taking his time.
'I wasn't speeding, officer,' Brett called out, leaning from the window.
'Maybe not, sir, but you weren't telling anyone where you were going, either. You just changed lanes back there without any indication.'
'Did I? I'm sorry, I didn't realise - I'm in kind of a hurry...'
The cop made no move to write him a ticket, but just stood there, staring down at the car. His glasses reflected Brett's sweating face. 'I'm afraid I'm going to have to take you in,' he said finally.
'What do you mean?' he asked, incredulous. 'Can't you just write me out -'
'"And I looked, and beheld a pale horse,"' said the cop, '"and his name that sat on him was Death." Get out of the car, sir.'
Brett had only a second to make his decision. He slammed his foot on the accelerator and fishtailed on to the freeway ramp in a plume of blue smoke before the cop had a chance to run back to his bike. As he tacked across the busy lanes and the Mercedes' powerful engine gave a guttural roar, he knew he had to get out of town fast, but how? Heading down the freeway, it seemed as if everyone was watching him. The guy in shades in the convertible, the gardeners in the truck with rakes on the roof, the family of Born-Agains in their RV, everyone was goading him on. Who could he trust? Worse still, it looked as if the other drivers were laughing at him, knowing that he couldn't escape. Was he losing his mind?
There was no time to think. Behind he could see the flashing blue lights of two motorcycle cops as they wove smartly through the traffic toward him. Ahead, two lanes of the freeway were closed for repairs. Pulsing electric arrows were redirecting columns of vehicles. Already, the traffic was starting to back up. He slowed down and swung hard right on to a downtown off-ramp, his tyres screaming as they fought to grip the edge of the curve. Before the bikes had a chance to catch up, he pulled down into the shadows beneath the freeway bridge and killed the engine. Dust sprayed around the car. He stayed there for some while with his head resting on the wheel, sweat dripping into his eyes.

Brett punched out the number of his office and waited for his secretary to answer, but the call was switched over to her voicemail. That was strange - Irene hardly ever left her post during the day. Suspicious, he quickly rang off. He rolled the Mercedes into a backstreet and tried to formulate a game plan. He had no functioning credit cards and about forty dollars in his pocket. It was 11.45 a.m. He had until midnight to prevent the prophecy of the Book of Daniel from fulfilling itself.
The owner of the used car lot was naturally suspicious, but not so suspicious that he was going to pass up the bargain of a lifetime. After all, the guy's papers were all in order, every Mercedes service scrupulously entered in the logbook. If he wanted to trade it for a clapped-out '79 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible and a fistful of bills, why argue?
Brett headed for the airport in his downgraded new car, tearing the price stickers off as he drove, but the freeway was at a standstill. It seemed as if the whole city was gridlocked. In desperation he considered driving to Long Beach and chartering a boat, but even that option proved impossible. The traffic was flowing in one direction only, and it was not the direction he wanted to go. Resigned to being grounded in LA, he figured that the best thing would be to find Lisa; she seemed to be the only one who might have an idea of what would happen to him. As he headed into Miracle Mile, he was amazed to see the church's symbol painted everywhere - on buildings, cars, sidewalks, even on people's clothing. The cryptic symbol looked more and more like a giant bird in a ring of flame. It was as if the entire city was going crazy, as if everyone wanted this cleansing apocalypse to occur.
The Cutlass coasted past crowds of worshippers gathered along the sides of the road. They made the salute of the church as he passed, the sign of Daniel Waking. It was almost as if they had been expecting him to pass along this route. He tried tuning the radio. LAX was shut for some reason. Airport security hoped to have the terminals open soon. According to an international news report, China had made a threatening gesture toward the West, expelling all US diplomats. A local news report said that mobs were stoning the office buildings in Century City because they were shrines to Mammon, places that would not survive the coming cleansing. The news announcers didn't even sound that worried.