"Charles Stross - Red, Hot and Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

Red, Hot and Dark
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Moscow: Monday morning, August the 20th, 1991:

The soldiers on the back of the personnel carriers stared around, wide-eyed, clutching
their rifles like drowning men hanging on to buoyant life-rafts. They were out of their
depth, teen-age conscripts from the sticks being trucked in by the Grey Men in the
Kremlin, none of them sure what they were meant to be doing here. The emigre group
seemed to be taking it quite well as the BMP's rumbled past their hotel. They clustered in
the bar, talking quietly in small groups, occasionally pestering a vodka out of the
distracted staff. Reporters swarmed and darted everywhere, like wasps around a rubbish
bin in summer. And Oleg Meir ...

Oleg Meir ignored the soldiers as he left the temporary safety of the hotel. The phones
were down, only international calls from the city's contingent of foreign correspondents
getting through. They must be crazy, he thought: cutting off communications at a time like
this. Trembling with a chill, he thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets as he walked
back towards the University. He glanced up at the clock jutting from the face of one of
the office buildings on the opposite side of the road. It was almost ten o'clock! He'd have
to hurry. Oleg increased his pace until it was little short of a trot. Got to get the papers,
destroy them or something. Change myself, get lost in the crowd. That way they won't
find me. If I can do it before Andrei catches up with me ...

Yesterday's events had brought everybody out onto the streets; everyday life had ground
to a halt. The air was filled with tension, as if an abscess was about to burst. Never had
he seen crowds of people who all looked so angry; it scared him almost as much as the
horror of a remembered guilt, the phone call in the early hours from his mysterious patron
-- just before the public lines went down.

Tanks were drawn up in the square outside the University, their engines ticking over,
soldiers milling around uncertainly in front of a throng of defiant youths; they made no
attempt to detain the bespectacled professor as he made his way past them towards the
concrete monolith of the Institute of Space Sciences. Nobody stopped him as he went in,
but he noticed a few anomalies: a distinct shortage of staff, a surfeit of students milling
around the foyer and chattering.

Can't be good. Oleg made for the elevator, half-remembered skills blending him with the
shadows like a third element of light and darkness. Too many people about. The elevator
began to rise. He yawned uncontrollably. The elevator stopped; its brass gate slid open.
"Professor Meir?"

Oleg jumped. "Who is -- oh, Anatoly. What is it?"

The student stared at him. "You looked a bit preoccupied, is all," he said. "About the
coursework, I know it's overdue --"

"Don't worry about it." Oleg looked away. "Heard the news?"

"Which news?"