"McCammon, Robert R. - The Wolf's Hour" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCammon Robert R)

УAdolf Hitler,Ф Michael said.
УAh, yes. Of course.Ф Again, that brief show of teeth. They looked like they were good at tearing meat. УI mean your immediate superior in the field.Ф
MichaelТs palms were damp, but his heart had stopped pounding. He was in control of himself, and he would not be rushed. He glanced quickly at the soldier on the other side of the car, still holding the submachine gun ready, his finger on the trigger guard. УI report to Major General Friedrich Bohm, Fourteenth Sector Communications, headquarters in Abbeville. Our radio code is СTophat.Т Ф
УThank you. I can get through to Major General Bohm in about ten minutes on our radio equipment.Ф He motioned toward the armored car.
УBe my guest. IТm sure heТd like to hear why IТm being interrogated.Ф Michael stared up at Johlmann. Their eyes met, and locked. The moment stretched, and in it Gaby felt a scream pressing behind her teeth.
Johlmann smiled and looked away. He studied the photographs of the colonel and his secretary. УAh!Ф he said speaking to Michael, his cold eyes brightening. УYouТre an Austrian! From Braugdonau, yes?Ф
УThatТs right.Ф
УWell, thatТs amazing! I know Braugdonau!Ф
Gaby felt as if sheТd just taken a punch to the stomach. Her Luger. So close. Could she get to it before the soldier sprayed her with bullets? She feared she couldnТt, so she didnТt move.
УI have a cousin in Essen!Ф Johlmann said, still smiling. УJust west of your hometown. IТve been through Braugdonau several times. They have a very fine winter carnival.Ф
УYes, they do.Ф A skier, he decided.
УGood snow on those mountains. Hard-packed. You donТt have to worry about avalanches so much. Thank you, my dear.Ф He returned GabyТs papers to her. She took them and put them away, noting that a couple of other soldiers had wandered closer to have a glimpse of her. Johlmann carefully folded MichaelТs papers. УI remember the fountain in Braugdonau. You know. Where the statues of the Ice King and Queen are.Ф His teeth flashed. УYes?Ф
УIТm afraid youТre mistaken.Ф Michael held out his hand for his papers. УThere is no fountain in Braugdonau, Herr Johlmann. I think itТs time for us to be on our way now.Ф
УWell,Ф Johlmann said with a shrug, УI suppose I am mistaken, after all.Ф He slid the packet into MichaelТs hand, and Michael was very glad heТd listened to all the details McCarren had given him about the layout and history of Braugdonau. MichaelТs fingers closed around the papers, but Johlmann wouldnТt let the documents go. УI donТt have a cousin in Essen, Colonel,Ф he said. УA white lie, and I hope youТll pardon my presumption. But you know, I have been skiing in that area before. Beautiful place. That very famous run about twenty kilometers north of Essen.Ф His smile came back, and it was a horrible happiness. УSurely you know it. The Grandfather. Yes?Ф
He knows, Michael thought. He smells the British in my skin. Michael felt poised on the edge of a precipice, and beneath him were slavering jaws. Damn it, why hadnТt he slid the Luger next to him on the seat? Johlmann was waiting for his answer, his head cocked slightly to one side, the red feather stirring in the breeze.
УHerr Johlmann?Ф the soldier with the submachine gun said. His voice was nervous. УHerr Johlmann, youТd betterЧФ
УYes,Ф Michael said. His stomach clenched. УThe Grandfather.Ф
JohlmannТs smile flicked off. УOh, no. IТm afraid I meant the Grandmother.Ф
УHerr Johlmann!Ф the soldier shouted. Two other soldiers yelled out, and ran for the trees. The armored carТs engine started with a roar. Johlmann looked up. УWhat the hell is goingЧФ And then he heard the high whine just as Michael did, and he twisted around to see the glint of silver diving toward the roadblock.
Fighter plane, Michael realized. Coming down fast. The soldier with the submachine gun shouted, УTake cover!Ф and ran for the roadside. Johlmann, sputtering with anger, called, УWait! Wait, you!Ф But the soldiers were running for the trees and the armored car was scrambling like an iron roach for cover, and Johlmann cursed and dug into his coat for his pistol as he whirled back to face the false colonel.
But MichaelТs hand had grown a Luger. As JohlmannТs pistol rose, Michael thrust the LugerТs barrel into JohlmannТs face and pulled the trigger.
There was a whoosh like an oncoming avalanche, a chatter of machine-gun bullets from an aircraftТs wing guns, and in that instant the sound of the Luger going off was silenced by the larger weapons. Two columns of bullets marched alongside the road, straddling the Mercedes and sending sparks flying, and Heinz Richter Johlmann, ex-Gestapo, staggered back with a single smoking hole in the center of his forehead, just below his jaunty hat. Michael had his papers gripped in his other hand, and as the fighter planeТs shadow swept across the earth Johlmann fell to his knees with blood beginning to run down his shock-frozen face. His head sagged forward. His hat, full of gray brains, fell off, and the fighter planeТs fierce hot breeze blew the red feather before it like a bloody exclamation mark.
УKrabell!Ф Michael shouted. The young lieutenant had been about to run for the trees, his driver unable to get the motorcycleТs engine started. He turned toward the Mercedes. УThis manТs been hit!Ф Michael said. УGet a medicЧbut first move that damned barricade!Ф
Krabell and the driver hesitated, wanting to run for cover before the fighter came back for another strafing pass. УDo as I say!Ф Michael commanded, and the two Germans scrambled to the wooden barricade. They moved it aside, Krabell searching the sky with his goggled eyes, and then Michael heard the deadly whine of the plane coming down for a second attack. УGo!Ф he told Gaby. She pressed her foot to the floorboard, and the car lunged forward, passing Krabell and the motorcyclist and roaring through the opened barricade. Then the two Germans fled for the trees, beneath which the others had thrown themselves to the ground. As Gaby raced them along the road, Michael glanced back and saw the bright glint of sun on the planeТs wings. It was an American aircraft, a P-47 Thunderbolt, and it looked to be headed right for the Mercedes. He saw the fireflash of the machine guns, bullets marching along the road and throwing up gravel. Gaby swerved the car violently to the left, its tires going off the road into grass. There was a wham! that Michael felt at the base of his spine, and Gaby fought to keep control of the wheel. WeТre hit! she thought, but the engine was still roaring, so she kept the speed up. Dust boiled into the car, blinding Michael for a few seconds. When it cleared, Michael saw two shafts of sunlight entering the roof through jagged holes in the metal, and a chunk of the rear windshield the size of his fist had been blown away. Fragments of glass were scattered all over the seat beside him and glittered in the folds of his coat. Gaby saw the glint of sun along the ThunderboltТs wings as the aircraft turned in a tight circle. УComing back again!Ф she shouted.
He had not come all this distance to be killed by an American fighter pilot. УThere!Ф he said, grasping GabyТs shoulder and pointing toward an apple orchard on the right.
Gaby spun the wheel, veering the Mercedes across the road and into a flimsy wooden fence that banged the front fender but burst apart to give them passage. She drove past an abandoned hay wagon into the shadows of the orchard, and three seconds later the Thunderbolt zoomed overhead, its bullets chopping branches and white buds from the trees but none of them hitting the Mercedes. Gaby stopped the car and put on the hand brake. Her heart was hammering, her throat scratchy with dust. She looked at the bullet holes in the roof, their exits marked by a hole in the passenger seat and another hole in the floorboard. She felt a vague, dreamy sensation that she thought might be the first cat-feet creepings of shock. Then she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel.
The plane screamed above them again. No guns were fired this time, and MichaelТs muscles untensed. He watched the Thunderbolt turn west and dart toward another target, possibly a movement of soldiers or the armored car. The Thunderbolt dove, its guns firing, then it quickly gained altitude and zoomed away, heading west toward the coast.


3

УHeТs gone,Ф Michael said at last, when he was certain of it. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, and smelled dust, his own sweat, and sweet apple buds. White blossoms lay all over the car and were still floating down. Gaby coughed, and Michael leaned forward, grasped her shoulder, and pulled her back from the wheel. УAre you all right?Ф His voice was strained with tension. Gaby nodded, her eyes glazed and watery, and Michael sighed with relief; heТd feared that a bullet had hit her, and if that had happened, the mission was in dire jeopardy. УYes,Ф she said, regaining some of her strength. УIТm all right. Just dust down my throat.Ф She coughed a few more times to clear it out. What had terrified her most about the encounter was the fact that sheТd been at the mercy of God, and unable to shoot back.
УWeТd better go. It wonТt be long before they find out Johlmann was shot by a Luger instead of a machine gun.Ф
Gaby pulled herself together, a simple matter of willpower over scorched nerves. She took the brake off and backed the Mercedes along its path of plowed grass to the road again. She got up on the gravel and drove east. The radiator was making a little tinkling noise but all the gauges indicating that gas, oil, and water were okay. Michael watched the sky with a wolfТs undivided attention, but no more planes swept out of the blue. Neither were they being followed, and he assumedЧhoped, reallyЧthat the soldiers and the second Gestapo man were still in shock themselves. The road unwound beneath the MercedesТs tires, and abruptly the gravel turned to pavement and a sign announced that Paris was eight kilometers ahead. There were no more roadblocks, which relieved both of them, but they passed several truck-loads of soldiers going in and out of the city.
And then the road was lined with tall, graceful trees and it widened into an avenue. They passed the last wooden farmhouse and saw the first of many brick and stone houses, then met gray buildings decorated with white statuary like sugar frosting on a cake. Paris gleamed in the sunlight before them, the towers of its cathedrals and monuments glowing like golden needles. Its ornate buildings crowded together much as the structures of any metropolis, but these with the dignity of centuries. The Eiffel Tower stood against a background of drifting clouds as fragile as French lace, and the vaulted roofs of Montmartre were the varied, burnished reds and browns of an artistТs palette. The Mercedes crossed the pale green waters of the Seine over a bridge decorated with stone cherubs, and Michael smelled moss and mud-stranded fish. The flow of traffic was heavier once they crossed the Boulevard Berthier, one of the grand avenues that circled the City of Light and was named for NapoleonТs marshals, but Gaby was undaunted. She merged into the contest of CitrЎens, horse wagons, bicyclists, and pedestrians, and most of them gave way before the imposing black staff car.
As Gaby drove through the streets of Paris, one hand on the wheel and the other motioning other vehicles and people out of their path, Michael smelled the aromas of the city: a commingling, heady festival of a thousand scents, from a whiff of smoky perfume through the croissants and coffee of a sidewalk cafщ to the grassy manure being raked by a street cleaner. Michael was near being overwhelmed by scents, as he was when he visited any city. The smells of life, of human activity, were sharp and startling here, none of those damp, foggy odors he associated with London. He saw many people talking, but few smiling. Fewer still were laughing. And that was because there were German soldiers on the streets, carrying rifles, and German officers drinking espresso in the cafщs. They reclined in their chairs with the relaxed postures of conquerors. Nazi banners flew from many of the buildings, unfurled in the breeze over the upraised arms and imploring faces of marble, French-carved statues. German soldiers directed traffic, and some streets were blocked by barricades with signs marked ACHTUNG! EINTRITT VERBOTEN! Adding insult to injury by not using the native language, Michael thought. No wonder so many faces scowled at the Mercedes as it swept past.
Compounding the traffic problems were many laboring, swastika-emblazoned trucks, creeping along and backfiring in the midst of bicyclists like bomb blasts. Michael saw several troop trucks, loaded with soldiers, and even a couple of tanks pulled over to the side, their crews sunning themselves and smoking cigarettes. The whole picture said that the Germans believed they were here to stay, and while the French could go about their daily lives it was the conquerors who kept the reins tight. He saw a group of young soldiers flirting with girls, a stiff-backed officer getting his boots shined by a little boy, another officer shouting in German at a waiter who frantically mopped up a carafe of spilled white wine. Michael sat back in his seat, drawing in all the sights, sounds, and aromas, and he felt a heavy shadow over the City of Light. The Mercedes slowed, and Gaby hit the horn to hurry a few bicycling citizens out of the way. Michael smelled horseflesh, and he looked to his left at a military policeman astride a horse that wore blinders with Nazi symbols on them. The man saluted.
Michael nodded absently and wished he had that bastard alone in the forest for one minute.
Gaby drove east on the Boulevard des Batignolles, through an area crowded with apartment buildings and rococo houses. They stayed on that boulevard, crossing the Avenue de Clinchy and then turning north. Gaby turned right onto the Rue Quenton, and they entered a district where the streets were made of rough brown paving stones and clothes hung on lines across windows. The buildings here were painted in faded pastels, some of their faчades cracked and the ancient clay bricks exposed like yellow ribs. Here the bicyclists were fewer, there were no sidewalk cafщs or street-corner Van Goghs. The structures seemed to lean drunkenly against each other, as if in forlorn support, and even the air smelled to Michael of bitter wine. Shadows held figures who watched the black car glide past, their eyes dead as counterfeit coins. The MercedesТs breeze stirred old newspapers from the gutters, and their yellowed pages drifted over the littered sidewalks.
Gaby drove fast through these streets, hardly pausing at the blind intersections. She turned left, then right, then left again a few blocks ahead. Michael saw a crooked sign: RUE LAFARGE. УWeТve arrived,Ф Gaby said, and she slowed down and blinked the headlights.
Two men, both middle-aged, unlatched a doorway and threw it open. It led into a cobblestoned alley just a few inches wider than the Mercedes, and Michael braced for a scrape but Gaby entered the alley with clearance on either side. The two men closed the doorway behind them. Gaby continued up the alley and into a green garage with a sagging roof. Then she said, УGet out,Ф and cut the engine. Michael did. A man with a brown, seamed face and white hair strode into the garage. УFollow me, please,Ф he said in French, and began to walk rapidly away. Michael followed, and glanced back to see Gaby unlocking the MercedesТs trunk and removing a brown suitcase. She closed the trunk, then the garage door, and one of the first two men locked a chain and padlock and pocketed the key.
УHurry, please,Ф the white-haired man urged Michael, his voice pleasant but firm. MichaelТs jackboots clattered loudly on the cobblestones, the noise echoing in the silence. Around him, the windows of the crooked buildings remained shuttered. The white-haired man, who had the thick shoulders and arms of a heavy laborer, unlatched an iron gate with spear tips on the top, and Michael followed him across a small rose garden into the back door of a building as blue as a robinТs egg. A narrow corridor stretched before them, and a set of rickety stairs. They went up to the second floor. Another door was opened, and the white-haired man motioned him in. Michael entered a room that had a carpet of intertwined, multicolored rags and smelled strongly of fresh bread and boiled onions.
УWelcome to our home,Ф someone said, and Michael found himself looking at a small, frail old woman with snowy hair pulled back into a long braid. She wore a faded blue dress and a red-checked apron. Behind her round glasses she had dark brown eyes that took in all and revealed nothing. She smiled, her heart-shaped face folding into a mass of wrinkles and her teeth the color of weak tea. УTake off your clothes, please.Ф
УMyЕ clothes?Ф
УYes. That disgusting uniform. Please remove it.Ф
Gaby came in, escorted by the man whoТd locked the garage. The old woman glanced at her, and Michael saw the womanТs face tighten. УWe were told to expect two men.Ф
УSheТs all right,Ф Michael said. УMcCarrenЧФ
УNo names,Ф the old woman interrupted crisply. УWe were told to expect two men. A driver and a passenger. Why is it not so?Ф Her eyes, as dark as pistol barrels, returned to Gaby.
УA change in plans,Ф Gaby told her. УI decided toЧФ
УChanged plans are flawed plans. Who are you to decide such things?Ф