"Steven Popkes - Holding Pattern" - читать интересную книгу автора (Popkes Steven)

Coban ached for a cigarette. As far as he knew, it had been six years since he'd had one--if he, in fact,
had ever smoked at all. Perhaps, Tomas had smoked and bequeathed the addiction to him without
tobacco ever staining his lips.

Coban looked back at Tikal. He had not aged well. He was heavier and his cheeks sank from his face as
if the skin were disconnected from the tissue beneath. Maybe he had been older than the rest of them.
This could be the result of mere aging.

"So this is what you are doing now? Crossing the country to speak with old friends?"

Tikal blew through his teeth and said nothing for a moment. "Tulate is dead. Heart attack. Dolores would
only speak with me if I bought him dinner and then he didn't say much. Pasion wouldn't speak to me at
all. I spent an hour shouting through his closed door. San Jose was in the hospital for a gallstone
operation. He had trouble speaking but he had no difficulty making it clear to me I was to leave him
alone. Livingston was the only one glad to see me. He wanted to borrow money. So, no. I can't say I've
been a popular visitor." He glanced furtively at Coban, then returned to watching the drones.

"Cheer up." Coban smiled. "I'm not displeased to see you."

"Such an enthusiastic greeting for your brother."

Coban shrugged. "Take what you can get."

Tikal said in a low whisper. "Did you remember anything?"

"Nothing," Coban replied in a normal voice. He gestured toward the drone. "They hear everything
whether you want them to or not. I remember nothing more than I did the day I was captured."

The boundaries of Coban's memory were precise. They began when he took power and ended just
before he altered them himself. Memories of his childhood, his country of origin, his original ethnic
heritage, were absent. Only the method of the alteration could be determined. Any record of additional
manipulation, any pirate changes or traps, had been removed. When he awoke, he knew only that he
was Tomas, had turned Guatemala into a bloody police state for fifteen years only to be deposed by the
Americans. His last memory was his own face, shining down on him from a mirror over the table, his
smile rigid, his jowls heavy, his mustache narrow and dark, his head shaved and shrouded in a nest of
cables. Then, his face had dissolved into a formless brown mist, eyes, ears, cables, and finally that smile.
The memory was obviously contrived: a signature to the changes in his mind and a defiant insult thrown at
the Americans who would inevitably be able to retrieve it.

"Maybe you're right," Tikal said. "Maybe they should have killed us. Or kept us in prison."

"Even genocidal tyrants suffer changes in fashion," snapped Coban. "For God's sake, Tikal. It's been six
years since we were released and you're sniffing around me now? What do you want?"

"I've come to apologize."

"Apologize?" Coban shook his head. "What for?"

"I am the real Tomas," he said matter-of-factly. "I can say it now. I am allowing myself to say it now."