"Van Lustbader, Eric - Linnear 04 - The Kaisho" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

During his workout, the cordless phone at one end of

the gym rang several times and, even though he knew the calls must be for him, he ignored them. His staff was used to his eccentric schedules, and they understood that if he did not answer he should only be disturbed in case of a full-scale emergency.
He stood beneath a cold shower, took a steam, then showered again, and dressed in new clothes. Even the terrible image of his infant daughter as she took her last gasping breath had been expunged for a time.
Seiko was waiting for him outside the gymnasium. True to her work ethic, she had taken several folders of paperwork, and while she sat on a low rung of the spiral stairs, she industriously made notes, corrections and scheduling rearrangements for her boss.
'Seiko,' Nicholas said.
She jumped up, slammed her folders shut and bowed deeply, then pulled her gleaming hair back from her cheek. Her beauty, seeming so fragile because of her translucent skin, actually appeared to have deepened during the time she had worked as his assistant.
'Linnear-san,' she said, 'I have received faxes of the litigation our New York lawyers have prepared against Hyrotech-inc. I think you should review them before you leave.'
'Have you looked at them?' Nicholas asked as they mounted the stairs toward his offices.
'Yes, sir. I have questions on clauses 6a and 13c.'
'Seiko, I don't know how long I'm going to be away,' he said as they reached the landing. 'You've got to get used to relying on your own good judgement. Just remember I trust you.' He smiled at her as he led the way to his office. 'Now tell me your concerns on how the lawsuit is worded.'
She answered him in clear, concise phrases, and he saw immediately that she had a facility for cutting through the mind-numbing legalese.
'I agree,' he told her when she had finished. 'Let me see how you would solve the problems in a revised draft before I leave the office this afternoon. If I agree with you, we'll

run it by the legal department in New York,' Before she left, he added, 'And tell Nangi-san that I need to see him as soon as possible.'
Here I am in a sleazy motel off Highway 95, Margarite Goldoni thought. What am I doing here? I must have lost my mind. No, not your mind, she reminded herself. Your freedom.
They were ten miles from Marine on St Croix, Minnesota. This small town was where WITSEC, in their infinite wisdom, had chosen to transport Dominic Goldoni. They had given him new identity documents, a house, two cars, a consultancy job that fit in with his background as a construction engineer, the whole nine yards.
Robert had insisted she bring Francine with them, which had quite naturally terrified her, but she could see his point. Holding her and Francine hostage would keep Tony quiet.
Of course Dominic's first reaction was to kill Tony. Slowly, he had said to her. I'll kill the sonuvabitch so slowly his eyeballs will pop out with pain. A very Venetian response. But then she had said. We both need Tony, Dom, and he had gone quiet, ruminating, she was quite certain, on hatred and ambition. And when she had suggested they meet alone, he had agreed. Under the circumstances, it made sense, and he knew it.
All the way out to Minnesota she had begged Robert to let Francine go. Robert had merely turned to her, smiling into her face as if he were her lover instead of her captor.
If it had been just the two of them they could have taken a plane, she supposed, but there was Francine to think of - so he had her drive them in her BMW. Besides, she came to see that any other means of transportation would have left a more distinct trail. In the car, Robert could see a tail and take evasive measures. On the other hand, he had had her write out a message to her husband. In it, she had written that if her captor even suspected that Tony had posted surveillance, he would kill Francine. She

thought that was a directive Tony the Sicilian could take to heart.
To be truthful, she didn't really mind the driving; the endless miles of the interstates lulled her into a false sense of security. Here on the American roads they seemed unbound by time, lost in a wilderness of strip malls, convenience stores and used car lots, and it seemed to her that she almost forgot that they had a destination, could push it into the furthest reaches of her mind as if it only existed in some nightmare realm that had lost the immediacy of reality. Besides, there was a relief, vivid as hunger pangs, at being away from Tony.
Then they entered Minnesota and the future became inescapable. She wept bitter tears in the mean motel by the side of the highway. The inconstant hum of the passing cars took the place of the drone of insects. It no longer mattered whether she was in the city or the country because she existed in a twilight world, a fly trapped in amber, consumed by what was about to take place.
Francine, who was drugged throughout the entire trip, lay on the cot provided by the motel owner. Robert sat on his side of the bed reading an issue of Forbes magazine just as if he was her husband, Tony. He appeared unmoved by her tears, but as she dragged herself beneath the sheets he had put away the magazine and said, Tomorrow we'll see your brother and it will all be over.'
Margarite, shivering so much that she drew the covers up to her chin, said, 'What will happen?'
For a long time Robert did not answer. She could feel him, his heat, hear his slow tidal breathing, smell his peculiar though not unpleasant scent, but she could not look at him. To give him such reality, she knew, would be too much for her to bear.
'Go to sleep.' His voice was soft, almost gentle, so that in the end she felt compelled to turn her head, look at him.
His face was handsome in the light endemic to motels at night - a pallid violet'blue from the neons and bug-

zappers that seeped through the flyblown curtains like ash. In another, all too imaginable reality he might have been her lover, tenderly turning to her as she extinguished the lights.
She closed her eyes, trying in vain to imagine such a reality, as if by that mental effort she might be able to conjure it up and escape the terrible trap that had been laid for her.
On that last night of their journey to the nexus point that would forever alter her, she thought again about the vicissitudes of escape. Of course, Dom had insisted that Francine come to see him, but now Margarite saw what Robert had known all along: that escape with a drugged girl was impossible.
He knew what she was thinking.
Margarite was left with this one unalterable fact: in order to escape, she would have to kill him.
She did not know whether she had it in her - not whether she had the courage to put a bullet into his brain or a knife into his heart, but whether she was smart enough to get the opportunity to do it.
He carried with him an old-fashioned straight razor. She had caught a glimpse of him their first night on the road, shaving his arms while she was tied to the bed, twisting on one side so that part of the mirror over the sink in the bathroom brought her his reflection. He had very little hair on his body, but apparently he was happier with none.
The bathroom was the only place he allowed her to be alone, but she could not lock the door, could not even close it all the way. And, squatting on the seat, she was always aware of his breathing, his bulk just out of her sight.
Also, she worried about Francine, who was sleeping in the grip of the liquid he would force down her throat each morning. He had a bag of phials and small canisters tucked away in the kit bag in which resided, like a death's-head, her savior the razor. Every night, he would spend an hour

or so grinding what looked to her to be roots and herbs and unidentifiable dried things in a stone mortar, adding at times liquids from his phials. What was he doing? These alchemical constructs which, by degrees, perfumed the dose air of their mean motel rooms seemed the most menacing part of him. She was certain she could feel an almost primitive heat emanating from them, a kind of power which frightened her.
She was not, by nature, a superstitious person, but his almost cabalistic absorption in these ceremonies in the dark unnerved her. It was as if he possessed a power to make real the stuff of nightmare. She could imagine him extending himself into a dark corner, wrenching out a shadow and, turning it inside out, making it real.
'Lights out,' he had said to her, stretching toward the bedside lamp.
'Wait,' she had whispered. 'I have to use the bathroom.'
Her face taut with fear, she had crossed the room, shut the bathroom door just enough to block him out. As she lifted her nightgown, she could hear him getting out of bed, padding after her to stand, breathing shallowly, behind the door. Hearing him without seeing him was in some ways worse because her imagination, working overtime, conjured up his presence, ghostly and evil, as if he had the power to drift through solid objects to reach her.
She peed noisily, wiped herself, then flushed the toilet. Under that meager cover, she twisted toward the sink, turned on the tap with her left hand. With her right, she picked out the straight razor from his open kit bag.
She experienced an instant of panic then, because she had not thought it through. Where was she going to secrete the thing so that he would not see it? She could only imagine one place, and she quickly bent her knees and spread her legs, inserting it into her warmth. It was not easy, but the pain served as a tangible confirmation of her will to do this terrible thing.

With a trembling hand she turned off the tap, went out to where he waited for her in the semi-dark.