"Dan Simmons - Children of the Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

Printed in the United States of America
First Warner Books Printing: June, 1993
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To the children

Chapter One
We flew to Bucharest almost as soon as the shooting had stopped, landing at Otopeni Airport just-after midnight
on December 29, 1989. As the semiofficial "International Assessment Contingent," the six of us were met at my
Lear jet, escorted through the confused milling that passed for Customs since Romania's revolution, and then
herded aboard' as Office of National Tourism VIP van for the nine-mile drive into town. They had brought a
wheelchair to the bottom of the aircraft ramp for me, but I waved it away and made the walk to the van myself.
It was not easy.
Donna Wexler, our U.S. Embassy liaison, pointed at two bullet holes in the wall near where the van was parked,
but Dr. Aimslea topped that by simply pointing out the window as we drove around the lighted circular drive
connecting the terminal to the highway.
Soviet-style tanks sat along the main thoroughfare where cabs normally would be waiting, their long muzzles
pointed toward the entrance to the airport drive. Sandbagged emplacements lined the highway and airport
rooftops, and the sodium vapor lamps yellowly illuminated the helmets and rifles of soldiers on guard duty
while throwing their faces into deep shadow. Other men, some in regular army uniforms and others in the ragtag
clothing of the revolutionary militia, lay sleeping alongside the tanks. For a second the illusion of sidewalks
littered with the bodies of Romania's dead was perfect and I held my breath, exhaling slowly only when I saw
one of the bodies stir and another light a cigarette.
"They fought off several counterattacks by loyalist troops and Securitate forces last week," whispered Donna
Wexler. Her tone suggested that it was an embarrassing topic, like sex.
Radu Fortuna, the little man who had been hurriedly introduced to us in the terminal as our guide and liaison
with the transitional government, turned in his seat and grinned broadly as if he were not embarrassed by either
sex or politics. "They kill many Securitate," he said loudly, his grin growing ever wider. "Three times
Ceausescu's people tried to take airport . . . three times they get killed."
Wexler nodded and smiled, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation, but Dr. Aimslea leaned into the
aisle. Light from the last of the sodium-vapor lamps illuminated his bald head in the seconds before we entered
the darkness of the empty highway. "So CeausescuтАЩs regime is really over?" he said to Fortuna.
I could see only the slightest gleam from the Romanian's grin in the sudden darkness. "Ceausescu is over, yes,
yes,'.' he said. "They take him and that bitch-cow of a wife in Tirgoviste, you know . . . have, how you call it . . .
trial. " Radu Fortuna laughed again, a sound which somehow sounded both childish and cruel. I found myself
shivering a bit in the darkness. The bus was not heated.
"They have trial," continued Fortuna, "and prosecutor say, `You both crazy?' You see, if Ceausescu and Mrs.
Ceausescu crazy, then maybe the army just send them away in mental hospital for hundred years, like our
Russian friends do. You know? But Ceausescu say, `What? What? Crazy . . . How dare you! That is obscene
provocation!' And his wife, she say, `How can you say this to the Mother of your nation?' So prosecutor say,
`OK, you neither one crazy. Your own mouth say.' And then the soldiers, they draw straws so many want to be
the ones. Then the lucky ones, they take Ceausescus out in courtyard and shoot them in heads many times."
Fortuna chuckled warmly, as if remembering a favorite anecdote. "Yes, regime over," he said to Dr. Aimslea.
"Maybe a few thousand Securitate, they don't know it yet and still shooting peoples, but that will be over soon.
Bigger problem is, what to do with one out of three peoples who spy for old government, heh?"
Fortuna chuckled again, and in the sudden glare from an oncoming army truck, I could see his silhouette as he
shrugged. There was a thin layer of condensation turning to ice on the inside of the windows now. My fingers
were stiff with the cold and I could barely feel my toes in the absurd Bally dress shoes I had put on that
morning. I scraped at some of the ice on my window as we entered the city proper.
"I know that you are all very important peoples from the West," said Radu Fortuna, his breath creating a small