"Maclean, Alistair - 1970 - Caravan to Vaccares" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

low wall with apparently nothing beyond it and, between church and wall, a high face of vertical rocks with deep man-made apertures cut into it, for reasons that couldn't be
guessed at.
He ran across to the low rock and peered over it. It was
certainly no low rock on the other side: it dropped almost two hundred vertical feet to what looked like scrub trees at the foot.
Ferenc had been cleverer than Bowman thought he
would have been. He was still peering over the wall when
he heard the sound of running feet approaching the
square. one set of feet: they'd split up to investigate both
avenues of escape. Bowman straightened and hurried
soundlessly across the square and hid in the shadows of
one of the deep recesses cut in the natural rock.
Koscis it was. He slowed down on entering the square,
his stertorous breathing carrying clearly in the night air,
walked past the iron cross, glanced at the open doorway of
the church, then, as if guided by some natural instinct,
came heading straight towards the particular niche where
Bowman stood as deeply pressed back in the shadow as he
possibly could. There was a peculiar inevitability about
the unhesitating manner of his approach. He held his knife,
thumb on top of the handle, in what appeared to be his
favourite waist-high level.
Bowman waited until the gypsy was fractionally away
from the point which would make discovery certain, then
hurled himself from the dark niche, managing to grab his
knife wrist more by good luck than good judgment. Both
men fell heavily to the ground, fighting for possession of
the knife. Bowman tried to twist Koscis's right wrist but it
seemed to be made of overlaid strands of wire hawser and
Bowman could feel the wrist slowly breaking free from his grasp. He anticipated the inevitable by suddenly letting go and rolling over twice, rising to his feet at the same instant as Koscis did. For a moment they looked at each other, immobile, then Bowman backed away slowly until his hands touched the low wall behind him. He had no place to run to any more and no place to hide.
Koscis advanced. His face, at first implacable, broke into a smile that was notably lacking in warmth. Kpscis, the expert with a knife, was savouring the passing moment.
Bowman threw himself forward, then to the right, but Koscis had seen this one before. He flung himself forward to intercept the second stage of the movement, his knife arcing up from knee level, but what Koscis had forgotten was that Bowman knew he had seen this one before. Bowman checked with all the strength of his right leg, dropped to his left knee and as the knife hooked by inches over his head, his right shoulder and upper arm hit the gypsy's thighs. Bowman straightened up with a convulsive jerk and this, combined with the speed and accelerating momentum of Koscis's onrush lifted the gypsy high into the air and sent him, useless knife still in hand, sailing helplessly over the low wall into the darkness below. Bowman twisted round and watched him as he fell, a diminishing manikin tumbling over and oyer in almost incredibly slow motion, his passing marked only by a fading scream in the night. And then Bowman couldn't see him any more and the screaming stopped.
For a few seconds Bowman stood there, a man held in thrall, but only for a few seconds. If Ferenc hadn't been afflicted with a sudden and total deafness he was bound to have heard that eldritch fear-crazed scream and come to investigate and immediately.
Bowman ran from the square towards the main street: halfway up the narrow connecting lane he slid into a darkened alleyway for he'd heard Ferenc coming and for a brief moment saw him as he passed the end of the alleyway, pistol in one hand, knife in the other. Whether the pistol had been reloaded or not or whether Ferenc had balked at firing it so near the village was impossible to say. Even in what must have been that moment of intolerable stress Ferenc was still possessed of a sufficient instinct of
self-preservation to keep exactly to the middle of the road where he couldn't be ambushed by an unarmed man. His lips were drawn back in an unconscious snarl compounded of rage and hate and fear and his face was the face of a madman.
CHAPTER THREE
It isn't every woman who, wakened in the middle of the night, can sit bolt upright in bed, sheets hauled up to the neck, hair dishevelled and eyes blurred with sleep and still look as attractive as if she were setting out for a ball, but Cecile Dubois must have been one of the few. She blinked, perhaps, rather more than a would-be dancer would have done, then gave Bowman what appeared to be a rather penetrating and critical look, possibly because as a result of all that climbing in the ruins and falling down scree-covered slopes Bowman's dark broadcloth had lost some of its showroom sheen: in fact, now that he could clearly see it for the first time, it was filthily dirty, stained and ripped beyond repair. He waited for her reaction, sarcastic, cynical or perhaps just plain annoyed, but she wasn't an obvious sort of girl.
She said: "I thought you'd be in the next county by this time.'
'I was almost in another land altogether.' He took his hand from the light switch and eased the door until it was almost but not quite closed. 'But I came back. For the car. And for you.'
'For me?'
'Especially for you. Hurry up and get dressed. Your life'§ not worth a tinker's cuss if you stay here.'
'My life? But why should I—'
'Up, dress and pack. Now.' He crossed to the bed and looked at her, and although his appearance wasn't very encouraging it must have been convincing for she compressed her lips slightly, then nodded. Bowman returned to the door and looked out through the crack he had left. Very fetching though the dark-haired Miss Dubois might be, he reflected, it did not mean that she had to conform to the beautiful brunette pattern: she made decisions, quickly accepted what she regarded as being inevitable and the 'if you think I'm going to get dressed while you're standing
there' routine apparently hadn't even crossed her mind. Not that he would have seriously objected but, for the moment, the imminent return of Ferenc held prior claim to his attentions. He wondered briefly what was holding Ferenc up, he should have posted hotfoot by that time to report to his old man that they had encountered some unexpected difficulties in the execution of their assignment. It could have been, of course, that even then Ferenc was prowling hopefully and stealthily through the back alleys of Les Baux with a gun in one hand, a knife in the other and murder in his heart,
'I'm ready,' Cecile said.
Bowman looked round in mild astonishment. She was, too, even to the extent of having combed her hair. A strapped suitcase lay on her bed. 'And packed?' Bowman asked.
'Last night.' She hesitated. "Look, I can't just walk off without—'
'Lila? Leave her a note. Say you'll contact her Poste Restante, Saintes-Maries. Hurry. Back in a minute—I have to collect my stuff.'
He left her there, went quickly to his own room and paused briefly at the door. The south wind sighed through the trees and he could hear the splash of the fountain in the swimming pool but that was all he could hear. He went into his room, crammed clothes anyhow into a suitcase and was back in Cecile's room within the promised minute. She was still scribbling away industriously.
'Poste Restante, Saintes-Maries, that's all you've got to write.' Bowman said hastily. 'Your life story she probably knows about.'
She glanced up at him, briefly and expressionlessly over