"Higgins, Jack - Prayer For The Dying" - читать интересную книгу автора (Higgins Jack)

"A Czech Ceska," Kristou told him. "Seven point five mm. Model twenty-seven. The Germans took over the factory during the war. This is one of theirs. You can tell by the special barrel modification. Made that way to take a silencer."

"Is it any good?"

"SS Intelligence used them, but judge for yourself."

He moved into the darkness. A few moments later, a light was turned on at the far end of the building and Fallon saw that there was a target down there of a type much used by the army. A life-sized replica of a charging soldier.

As he screwed the silencer on to the end of the barrel, Kristou rejoined him. "Any time you're ready."

Fallon took careful aim with both hands, there was a dull thud that outside would not have been audible above three yards. He had fired at the heart and chipped the right arm.

He adjusted the sight and tried again. He was still a couple of inches out. He made a further adjustment. This time he was dead on target.

Kristou said, "Didn't I tell you?"

Fallon nodded. "Ugly, but deadly, Kristou, just like you and me. Did I ever tell you that I once saw a sign on a wall in

Derry that said: Is there a life before death? Isn't that the funniest thing you ever heard?"

Kristou stared at him, aghast, and Fallon turned, his arm swung up, he fired twice without apparently taking aim and shot out the target's eyes.

2

Father da Costa

... the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. Father Michael da Costa spoke out bravely as he led the way up through the cemetery, his words almost drowned in the rush of heavy rain.

Inside, he was sick at heart It had rained heavily all night, was raining even harder now. The procession from chapel to graveside was a wretched affair at the best of times, but this occasion was particularly distressing.

For one thing, there were so few of them. The two men from the funeral directors carrying the pitifully small coffin between them and the mother, already on the point of collapse, staggering along behind supported by her husband on one side and her brother on the other. They were poor people. They had no one. They turned inward in their grief.

Mr.. O'Brien, the cemetery superintendent, was waiting at the graveside, an umbrella over his head against the rain. There was a gravedigger with him who pulled off the canvas cover as they arrived. Not that it had done any good for there was at least two feet of water in the bottom.

O'Brien tried to hold the umbrella over the priest, but Father da Costa waved it away. Instead, he took off his coat and handed it to the superintendent and stood there in the rain at the graveside, the old red and gold cope making a brave show in the grey morning.

O'Brien had to act as server and Father da Costa sprinkled the coffin with holy water and incense and as he prayed, he noticed that the father was glaring across at him wildly like some trapped animal behind bars, the fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching convulsively. He was a big man -almost as big as da Costa. Foreman on a building site.

Da Costa looked away hurriedly and prayed for the child, face upturned, rain beading his tangled grey beard.

Into jour hands, O Lord,

We humbly commend our sister,

"Lead her for whom you have

Shown so great a love,

Into the joy of the heavenly paradise.