"Van Lustbader, Eric - Angel Eyes(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

Tori smiled. "No, I don't have to wonder. I know you've never been able to replace me."
Russell sat back, stared up at the ceiling. "That may or may not be true. But I would have thought you would recognize your ro1? in helping us find Solares's murderers." He paused significantly. "If only for his sake."
Tori smiled. "That's right, Russell, give it the old college try. Give me one last shot of team spirit, see if it takes.''
"I think you've misunderstood. Do you really think I'm as completely cynical as that?"
Tori rose, went back to the bar, poured herself some mineral water. "How is Bernard?" she asked. "He's still retired from the Mall?"
"Oh, not retired, never retired." Russell watched her carefully. "Bernard's maintained an unofficial consultancy of sorts. It's an arrangement that is beneficial to all concerned."
"Remember me to him, would you?" Tori said.
"Of course." Russell extracted a mini tape recorder from an inside jacket pocket. He snapped it on. "Now, can we get on with me interview?"
"All right," Tori said. "I'll tell you everything I know."
When she had finished, Russell said, "You're certain that's everything."
Tori said it was. She had not told him about the box or about going to bed with Ariel.
Russell snapped off the tape recorder. "Well, that's over with," he said in the tone one uses when one is finally finished making funeral arrangements. "Do you think we can call a truce of sorts?"
"What makes you think we'll need one?" Tori said, rising.
But as she passed by him, he put his hand gently on her left hip and said, "How does it feel?"
Tori went into prana, breathing deeply and easily. But to regain her equilibrium had cost her time, and the silence was unspooling rapidly, each second increasing Russell Slade's small victory over her. "I rarely think of it anymore," she lied.
"That's good," he said. "It means the healing is complete." He took his hand away, but still she did not move. "Tell me, can you do everything you could do before the, ah, incident?"
And, abruptly, it all clicked into place in her mind, scattered pieces that had made little sense on their own. Only when they were connected did the whole picture emerge. She turned to look at him. "It wasn't just that you sent Ariel after me, was it? You ordered him to test me. That's why he took me down into those tunnels. He knew the Japanese were going to be there. And that's why he was so passive down there, to allow me the opportunity to figure a way out. I was a rat in a maze." She stared wide-eyed at him. "That's it, isn't it?"
Russell smiled at her. ''Well, I see there's nothing wrong with your imagination.'' He pocketed the tape recorder. ''But to put your mind at ease, I have no idea why Solares took you into the tunnels. In fact, he should have known better, "taking you into a Red Sector was a gross breach of security-and I'm afraid he paid for that breach.''
"No you don't," Tori said. "Don't lay this off on Ariel." She came across the room, stood looking down at him. "You have no idea why he was murdered or even who did it, because if you did, you wouldn't be wasting your time debriefing me." No, she thought, you need me, Russell. That's why you're here. I passed your reentrance exams and now you want me back.
Russell was shaking his head. "What a waste. If only you'd consented to allow our specialists to look after you following the incident. Don't you see, by insisting on your own doctors - Japanese doctors who we could neither vet nor vouch for-you put the entire Mall network in jeopardy. I had no choice but to sever our ties at once. You brought on your own fate with us."
"I did what I had to do in order to save myself," Tori said. "I knew nothing about your specialists, but I did know mine. They are friends, and they are the best at reconstructive surgery."
"That all may well be true, but-"
"You still don't get it, do you?'' Tori shook her head. ''Without this body, without it being able to do everything it did before, I would have been nothing. I would not have been able to live with myself."
"I fully understand your concern for your body. But our people were just as good as your Japanese surgeons, and they had the highest security clearance. Who knows what you could have revealed about the Mail under anesthesia? I had all of my people to think about, not just you."
"Clever," Tori said, "but it's not enough. You used that incident, but that wasn't the real reason you severed me. That's the one thing you haven't lied about. We were like siblings. I was your major competition with Bernard, and you wanted me out of the way, and you got what you wanted because in the end the Mall's like every other place, a bastion of male superiority.''
"Control was never a place for you, you're quite right about that." Russell stood. "But now you're not on any missions, either. That must be a source of considerable pain for you." his eyes were on her. "As far as the hip is concerned-"
''The Japanese surgeons put in a prosthesis of a material that's far superior to human bone. It's ten times more flexible and one hundred times as strong." She gave him a cold smile. "But since you asked, there's no pain on wet days, no unusual friction, nothing that reminds me that the hip had once been shattered. Except that I run, jump, and twist better than I did before the implant."
"In any event, you seem to have gotten out of the tunnels in an ingenious fashion." It was his way of saying he believed her, but at the same time he had confirmed her suspicion that Ariel had been ordered to test her. Under the circumstances, she felt it to be an inadequate victory.
She continued to study him. "You'll never admit that I did the right thing by going to my friends instead of using your people."
"The truth is you made a decision-one of many, I might say-with your emotions instead of your brain," Russell said. "Worse, you could not see the danger in putting yourself in the hands of those not under Mall discipline. I'm afraid you left me no choice."
"How convenient memory can be."
"We all believe what we need to believe, Tori."
"Except for Bernard."
"You give Bernard entirely too much credit," Russell said. "But that's no doubt because Bernard Godwin recruited you. He was your mentor. But, you see, Bernard handed the reins over to me. You never understood that, or never wanted to. You mistrusted me from the outset."
''I detested the callous way you used people.''
Russell smiled at her. "You forget that Bernard Godwin was my mentor, as well."
There was a silence for a time. Tori digested both the tone and the thrust of the conversation. At length she said, "There's really nothing you can say that will change my mind."
"About what?"
"About returning to the Mall."
"That's not why I came here."
' 'Isn't it?'' Tori said. She matched his smile, but all the time her heart was beating fast. "Perhaps you're right. In that case, you've got what you came for."
"Right," Russell said. "Don't want to overstay my welcome."
"You never had one.''
He laughed. "Thanks for the drink. You've been the perfect hostess."
Tori said nothing.
"A bientot," Russell said. Until we meet again.
"That'll be the day."

The library, so cozy and snug in the daytime, was now wreathed in the shadows of evening, made gloomy and depressing by her dream as well as by the onset of night.
Tori sat curled in the huge leather chair, still feeling Russell Slade's presence as if it had somehow been imprinted upon her flesh. For a moment she was suddenly overcome by panic. Her hip! What if Russell had mentioned it to her mother? Tori had never told her parents that she had been injured, or that she had a prosthetic hip. She could imagine Russell saying. It's wonderful that your daughter has fully recovered, Mrs. Nunn. But no, she knew him better than that. Always security-conscious, Russell never said any more than he had to. He was the consummate spy; his lies were largely those of omission.