"Ludlum, Robert - The Parcifal Mosaic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

for he had seen the truth. Even in her eyes he had seen it.
The two executioners bent down to grab the corpse and drag it away-her once
graceful body to be consigned to fire or chained for the deep. He would not
interfere; the evidence had to be felt, touched, reflected upon later when
the trap was revealed, another lesson taught. Futility-geopolitically
required.
A gust of wind suddenly whipped across the open beach-, the killers braced
themselves, their feet slipping in the sand. The man on the left raised his
right hand in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the visored fishing cap on
his head; it blew away, rolling toward the dune that was the shoulder of
the road. He released his hold on the corpse and ran after it Havelock
watched as the man came closer. There was something about him- About the
face? No, it was the hair, seen clearly in the moonlight. It was wavy and
dark, but not completely dark; there was a streak of white above his
forehead, a sudden intrusion that was startling. He had seen that head of
hair, seen that face somewhere before. But where? There were so many
memories. Files analyzed, photographs
 THE PARsiFAL MosAic9

studied-contracts, sources, enemies. Where was this man from? KGB? The
dreaded Voennaya? A splinter faction paid by Moscow when not drawing
contingency funds from a CIA station chief in Usbon?
It did not matter. The deadly puppets and the vulnerable pawns no longer
concerned Michael Havelock-or Mikhail Havlf&-k, for that matter. He would
route a cable to Washington through the embassy in Madrid in the morning.
He was finished, he had nothing more to give. Whatever his superiors wanted
in the way of debriefing he would permit. Even going to a clinic; he simply
did not care. But they would have no more of his life.
That was history. It had ended on an isolated beach called Montebello on
the Costa Brava.
 2

Time was the true narcotic for pain. Either the pain disappeared when it ran
its course or a person learned to live with it. Havelock understood this '
knowing that at this moment in time something of both was applicable. The
pain had not disappeared but there was less of it; there were periods when
the memories were dulled, the sear tissue sensitive only when prodded. And
traveling helped; be had forgotten what it was like to cope with the
compleidties facing the tourist.
"If youT note' sir, it's printed here on your ticket. 'Subject to, change
without notice.'
"Where?"
"Down here."
"I can't read it'
"I can."
"You've memorized it."
"I'M familiar with it sir."
And the imn-dgration lines. Followed by customs inspections. The
Intolerable preceded by the impossible; men and women who countered their
own boredom by slamming rubber stamps and savagely attacking defenseless