"Ian Watson - Stalin's Teardrops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

He inclined his cross-hatched hill-top head.
"You, Valentin, you. What you have come to." He sighed deeply.
"Still, I know what you meanтАж Colonel."
He mentioned my rank to remind me. We might wear sober dark
suits, he and I, but we were both ranking officers.
"With respect, General, theseтАФahтАФorders are practically impossible
to carry out."
"Which is why a new deputy-chief cartographer has been assigned to
you."
"So here is the younger officer you mentionedтАФalready!"
He gripped my elbow in the manner of an accomplice, though he
wasn't really such.
"It shows willing," he whispered, "and it's one way out. Let the blame
fall on her if possible. Let her seem a saboteur." Aloud, he continued,
"Come along with me to the restaurant, to meet Grusha. You can
bring her back here yourself."

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ian%20Watson%20-%20Stalin's%20Teardrops.html (3 of 30) [1/3/2005 11:18:53 PM]
Stalin's Teardrops


I should meet my nemesis on neutral territory, as it were. Thus Mirov
avoided direct, visible responsibility for introducing her.

Up here on the eighth floor we in cartography had the advantage of
being close to one of the two giant restaurants which fed the
thousands of men and women employed in the various branches of
secret police work. The other restaurant was down in the basement.
Many staff routinely turned up at eight o'clock of a morningтАФa full
hour earlier than the working day commencedтАФto take advantage of
hearty breakfasts unavailable outside: fresh milk, bacon and eggs,
sausages, fresh fruit.
As I walked in silence with Mirov for a few hundred metres along the
lime-green corridor beneath the omnipresent light-globes, I reflected
that proximity to the restaurant was less advantageous today.
At this middle hour of the morning the food hall was almost deserted
but for cooks and skivvies. Mirov drank the excellent coffee and
cream with almost indecent haste so as to leave me alone with the
woman. Grusha was nudging forty but hadn't lost her figure. She was
willowy, with short curly fair hair, a large equine nose, and piercing
sapphire eyes. A nose for sniffing out delays, eyes for seeing through
excuses. An impatient thoroughbred! An intellectual. The privileged
daughter of someone inclined to foreign and new ways. Daddy was
one of the new breed who had caused so much upset. Daddy had used
influence to place her here. This was her great opportunity; and his.
"So you were originally a graduate of the Geographical Academy," I
mused.
She smiled lavishly. "Do I take it that I shall find your ways a little
different, Colonel?"
"Valentin, please."