"Smith, Martin Cruz - Red Square" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

RED SQUARE

BY

Martin Cruz Smith



for Em



Acknowledgments

I must acknowledge the guidance I received in Moscow from Vladimir Kalinichenko, Alexander Stashkov, Yegor and Chandrika Tolstyakov; in Munich from Rachel Fedoseyev, Jorg Sandl and Nougzar Sharia; and in Berlin from Andrew Nurnberg and Natan Federowskij. Generous assistance was also given by Nan Black and Ellen Irish Smith, courage by Knox Burger and Katherine Sprague.

Once again, the compass of this book was Alex Levin.

The errors are all mine.


Part One



MOSCOW

6 August Ц 12 August 1991


Chapter One

In Moscow, the summer night looks like fire and smoke. Stars and moon fade. Couples rise and dress and walk the street. Cars wander with their headlights off.

'There.' Jaak saw an Audi passing in the opposite direction.

Arkady slipped on headphones, tapped the receiver. 'His radio's out.'

Jaak U-turned to the other side of the boulevard and picked up speed. The detective had askew eyes set in a muscular face and he hunched over the wheel as if he were bending it.

Arkady tapped out a cigarette. First of the day. Well, it was one a.m., so that wasn't much to brag about.

'Closer,' he said, and pulled the phones off. 'Let's be sure it's Rudy.'

Ahead were the lights of the ring road that circled the city. The Audi swung on to the ramp to merge with ring road traffic. Jaak edged between two flatbed lorries carrying steel plates that clapped with every undulation of the road. He passed the lead lorry, the Audi and a tanker. On the way, Arkady had caught the driver's profile, but there were two people in the car, not one. 'He picked someone up. We need another look,' he said.

Jaak slowed. The tanker didn't pass, but a second later the Audi slid by. Rudy Rosen, the driver Ц a round man with soft hands fixed to the wheel Ц was a private banker to the mafias, a would-be Rothschild who catered to Moscow's most primitive capitalists. His passenger was female, with the wild look achieved by Russian features on a diet, somewhere between sensual and ravenous, with short, stylishly cut blonde hair brushed back to the collar of her black leather jacket. As the Audi passed, she turned and sized up the investigators' car, a two-door Zhiguli 8, as a piece of trash. In her thirties, Arkady thought. She had dark eyes, and a wide mouth and puffy lips, parted slightly as if starving. As the Audi swung in front, it was followed by the sound of an outboard engine and the appearance of a Suzuki 750 that inserted itself between the two cars. The motorcycle rider wore a black dome helmet, black leather jacket and black hightop shoes that sparkled with reflectors. Jaak eased off. The biker was Kim, Rudy's protection.

Arkady ducked and listened to the headset again. 'Still dead.'