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2024-10-29 19:42:56Prologue
June 1991 30 years before...
Supporting his cheeks with his fists, Sasha watched a tiny bird jumping along a thick branch outside the window. The habits of the bird resembled a sparrow, but shone in the sun like a real parrot, shimmering with outlandish ash-rusty plumage. Inflating her red breast, she shook her fiery tail, turning it into a tiny flame.
“Go-ri-tail-ka,” Sasha said quietly, not even realizing that he had guessed her name exactly.
The bird seemed to have heard him, looked at him sideways, like a bird, and, lifting its white-fronted head, gave out a familiar, alarming overflow into the evening heat.
So that's who woke him up in the morning.
Feeling the cold of the radiator with his bare knees, Sasha sat on the bedside table, pushed up to the windowsill, like a hidden hunter, but the object of his interest was by no means a bird. He waited for the footsteps in the hallway to die down. Unfortunately for him, the footsteps died away right behind him.
– What are you! An angry voice rang out.
The boy turned around instantly.
Behind the beds, in the doorway, stood a girl. His plump cheeks were tanned, and his rounded brown eyes shone with the setting sun.
"You can't wear it!"
- Why? Sasha followed her indignant gaze and touched the band under her chin with his bandaged fingers.
- It's only for those who have a birthday!
In truth, he didn't like it himself. Half an hour ago, Irina Petrovna handed him a stupid cap made of colored paper, told him to put it on and go to the sports ground. Today's Saturday turned out to be rich in birthdays. Three people in the whole camp at once, including Sasha. He got the most battered cap, pasted over with faded pink paper and studded with time-blackened silver sequins.
- Today is my birthday.
- At your place?! Today?! - The girl quickly and somehow like a fish, without turning her head, looked around the bedroom of the fourth group, and looked at him again. Sasha saw her wide-set eyes soften. He knew that the reason was in his clear beautiful eyes. People liked them. Especially when he laughed or, as he does now, he raised his eyebrows, trying to understand what was on the minds of others.
- Today.
"Then why are you here alone?"
Sasha thought. It's probably the cap. Of course, it was possible to take it off and go to everyone on the sports ground, where the parents of another birthday boy, Alik, unloaded a whole truckload of treats, including white chocolate that they had never seen before. But Sasha knew that Irina Petrovna was somewhere out there among everyone, who would immediately remember him and make him put on an idiotic cap. All this was difficult to explain to a ten-year-old girl, and Sasha simply shrugged.
- How old are you?
- Nine. Sasha raised his eyebrows again, a habit inherited from his mother that he had never seen before.
- Little one! The girl snorted and stepped into the bedroom. - What is your name?
- Sasha.
- Marina. The girl smiled conciliatoryly, waving her plump hands. - Well? And where are the treats?
Sasha climbed down from the bedside table, took out a torn bag of oatmeal cookies and put it on the bed.
Marina frowned.
- Oatmeal cookies? - Small fingers through the bag touched disdainfully one cookie. - Yes, even stale! Stupid joke!
Semi-circular eyebrows once again flew up over eyes that were too tired for a nine-year-old. He forgot where he was. In this camp, everyone had parents.
Sasha looked at the bag of cookies. His best friend Vadik loved oatmeal cookies. So is Garik. But the situation was such that Sasha would hardly ever have ended up in one of the best pioneer camps in the country if everything that was left of Vadik and Garik had not now been stored in the refrigerator of the main center of forensic examinations in the Moscow region.
Didn't your parents bring you anything? – Marina only now noticed a patch on the sleeve of his shirt.
- He has no parents. A thin, dark-haired boy from the older group appeared in the doorway. The boy gave Sasha an arrogant look and bit off a half-eaten apple. - He is an orphanage.
For Marina, this sounded like a direct attack on her idea of the universe.
- No parents? What's wrong with them?
- They rejected it.
- Why? – Marina stunned looked at Sasha.
“He probably did something bad,” the boy assured with the look of an expert, “and you can’t play with him at all!”
Marina frowned at Sasha's bandaged palms and fingers - everything on both hands, except for the big ones. Sasha was silent, shaking his leg. The untied lace slipped across the linoleum.
- Truth? - Marina clearly wanted to cling to the last attempt to keep her world whole. This boy was too cute to do something "bad". Black wavy, unruly hair and huge, shining eyes made him look like a big puppy. “Why… Why were you rejected?”
The boy with the apple came up to Marina and began to whisper something in her ear. Marina's eyes opened wide, and Sasha saw fear in them. The failed ally finally left his location.
- Alik's parents give everyone a whole pack of chewing gum. – Already in full voice declared a boy.
- Truth?
- Let's run!
Marina threw another distrustful look at Sasha and Sasha's failed friends left him.
When their clatter finally dissolved into distant screams and laughter, Sasha stood up, noticing out of the corner of his eye how the crumpled top of the cap flickered in the mirror on the wall. The boy was a bit small for his age, but well built. He rested his forearm on a column near his bed and, pressing his forehead against his hand, began to dangle his foot like a boy, describing a semicircle on the floor. A shadow fell for a moment on his pretty face - his plump lower lip and chin trembled, as if he wanted to burst into tears. But only for a moment.
Sasha stopped swinging his leg, straightened up and looked seriously at the bag of cookies.
There is nothing to do here, he thought decisively, and, stepping to the bed, he began to stuff the cookies into his pockets. It's time to do what they always did with Vadik and Garik.
Sniffing, Sasha calmly looked at the open door, listened - nothing but a distant squeal and laughter on the sports ground. Then he went to the far window. He knew that he could not get out through the front door, and the windows of the first floor, like those of the second, were protected from opening by children with special locks with a key. Only transoms open. But in the morning, when everyone left for breakfast, Sasha pulled out the side and top yards that held the glasses with the help of the shackle from the bed. In the orphanage, they often did this. While everyone is frolicking on the sports ground, Sasha will calmly get out of the window - two steps along the gable, from there to the visor of the vestibule and - look for the wind in the field.
Sasha took a towel from the nearest bed and awkwardly bending over, hissed in pain. Wincing and carefully touching his chest, he sat for a few seconds, biting his lip, then carefully planted his foot in the nightstand and tied the shoelace. Then he climbed onto the bed, wrapped a towel around his hand so as not to cut himself, and pulled the glass away from himself. Warm, dusty air blew out of the crack, but Sasha immediately ducked down, scolding himself for his indiscretion. Directly opposite the main vestibule on the street, he saw a black "Volga" and white Zhiguli with a blue stripe and the inscription "Police". A policeman and Irina Petrovna were standing by the car. Both of them had their backs to him, but Sasha reacted differently. It seemed to him that someone in a black Volga was looking at him. Someone huge, with strange white hair. Maybe it just seemed, but Sasha, at the age of nine, already knew very well that his instincts never deceive him.
Sasha sat down on the bedside table, put his hands on the edge of the window sill and rested his chin on them. In any case, even if someone noticed him, he still did not understand anything. Just think - one of the children looked out the window. Sasha shook his head, listening to the voices - low, masculine and sonorous - of Irina Petrovna. It was impossible to make out the words, but by the sound, he realized that they were approaching, passing very close, under his window. Sasha even caught a few words uttered by Irina Petrovna: "this is the smartest child who ...". Then the voices faded away and everything was quiet. They must have entered the building. The boy slowly rose above the windowsill. There was really no one near the cars. Sasha straightened up and immediately his eyes met the eyes of the old man. The old man stood under his window and looked straight at him. Tall, incredibly tall, and... No, not so bald, but on the contrary - with long and straight ashy hair like Werther's robot. And the face - it was alive, not the mask of a dead man. It's too late to hide. The old man looked at the boy carefully. Then he smiled - the same grin that people smile when they are not used to doing this. How did he notice it?! The belated answer came by itself: stupid hat!
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From the panoramic window, Victor can see the San Francisco Bay, but the waters no longer impress him. He still can't get used to the Golden Gate, but the views are much duller in his research center. Somewhere out there, beyond the countryside, he discovered Sunnyvale Pond. This place reminded him of the Moscow region at all. However, this is rather a minus, Victor is too young to be nostalgic for his homeland.Out of habit, everything comes surprisingly easily to him. A psychologist friend said that there was nothing extraordinary in his phenomenon, he just pulled out a lucky lottery ticket called "beautiful parents." Victor won an international competition, and while still a student, he got a job at the Ames Research Center, and on Sunday he met the daughter of emigrants from Lithuania who work in Los Angeles. Dimon without exaggeration would put "ten". Victor never gave grades to girls. Dimon knows that Victor was born with a golden spoon in his mouth and tries to reach for him. Vi
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An old photograph, hitting the slimy walls, slowly spinning like an autumn leaf, slowly falls into a deep well. The well is so deep and bottomless that the round hole at the top has long turned into a bright dot, and is about to completely disappear. And the photo keeps falling and falling. It depicts three boys, three of them are twenty-nine years old. One of them, dark-haired, with curly hair, stands in the middle, hugging his friends. It is slightly lower and seems to hang slightly on their shoulders. All three are smiling. The photo is old, you can see it not only in the crumpled corners, scratches and faded palette, but also in stretched sweaters and old-fashioned shirts with rolled up sleeves.The photo keeps spinning and spinning, and in one of the turns, the image on it changes. Now there are only two boys. They also hug each other and look into the camera with smiles, but the black-haired man standing between them is no longer there. It's like it never happened. Maybe it's a
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Before saying goodbye to life, Dasha managed to become a witness to strange events that replaced each other with kaleidoscopic speed. First, something flew from above right in the center and with a disgusting thud plopped behind the makeshift spectator box. Dasha could not see anything in such a short time, but for some reason she was sure that this was a human body. More terrible than the blow itself were the frightened cries.And here is how a deaf-mute worker jumped from the upper gallery, and with inhuman speed slipped somewhere into the darkness, she saw very well.Just then, a strange movement began. On the right, something overturned with a crash, and someone very frightened shouted something in an incomprehensible language. Apparently it was a command, because right there from the depths of the hall there was a coordinated stomp of feet.Dasha saw four of the six burner paws, above her, the other two were located on either side of her head. From above, the bright light of hang
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206
Only one person directly looked at her - a stern, gloomy old man from the gallery on the second floor. She had seen him before, I think in the ninth block - an ordinary mute worker with the right of free movement. He seemed to her out of his mind, but in his current “hawkish” look there was some kind of repulsive meaningfulness, without a hint not only of compassion, but even of curbed hatred. He looked at her just like a log, dissatisfied with the fact that the log was too thin and would not give the required warmth. There was no life in that look, only cold. This is how a dead man who managed to challenge life itself would look.However, all this, even the dumb old man, she saw fragmentarily, as in a painful dream, and then completely disappeared, only the darkness above her head remained - real or in her imagination. She stopped hearing conversations, footsteps, and the creak of the wheels of the gurney; only dull pops were heard in her head, reminiscent of explosions of a gas-air
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205
- Stole?Boris nodded, pointing to the picture.- On the day of the visit to Novikov, Colonel Basurov, a well-connected former member of the procurement commission of the Ministry of Defense, was with Pustovalov. Most likely, he played the role of an intermediary. He went missing that day. Since Pustovalov himself is a ghost and it is impossible to track his movements, we tracked Basurov's movements before he disappeared in the warehouse. And through him they came across a certain Dementiev. We interrogated him. Dementiev is a professional safecracker, it was he who helped Pustovalov steal the installation. He also said that there were two installations. That is, one working sample, and a spare case without filling - in fact, a dummy. But it looks like the real one. He confirmed that Pustovalov was going to sell the unit to Yasin after learning that he was behind her order on the black market. In addition to Basurov, another person went missing that day, previously in contact with Pus
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204
The car ran into a minibus lying on its side, Boris opened the door, leaned half out of the passenger compartment, exposing his haggard face to the frosty wind. There was a false peace here. Distant screams and shots were drowned out by unobtrusive music, but this tiny lane adjoining Frunzenskaya Embankment bore little resemblance to the island of former life. Rather, the coldness of the future blew from him - the very one that none of them would ever find. Desolation oozed from the planed poplars gathering darkness, from the mangled cars sprinkled with snow, forever left after yesterday's accident, from under the architraves of the shifted "stalinok", from the black windows of the buildings deprived of power supply.Boris looked at the piece of paper with the address and saw how it was distorted by a five-centimeter wall, carved from a dark space ice floe. With a crackling, cascading arc, the wall passed through Windman and, outlining the front facade of a two-story Chinese restauran
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He appeared on the bridge in a couple of minutes. Maurice, who was sitting under the window of a high tower, calmly rose and aimed his rifle at him:- One, two, three, and well, freeze! - He said cheerfully.Pustovalov obeyed and, without raising his head, said:“Using your man as bait?” Clever.“You used yours to get out too, didn’t you?”Pustovalov raised his head. Maurice saw through the eyepieces of the night vision device that Pustovalov was without night vision devices and knew that he only saw the outline of a dark silhouette in the window.- Komsomolskaya, - Maurice nodded with a smile, - now I understand why Daniker began to be so lucky before his death.- You're confusing me with someone else. I happened to be there.“Just a subway passenger?”- Exactly.Maurice burst out laughing and at that moment Pustovalov disappeared. He quickly figured out that he just jumped through a hole in the bridge.Still laughing, Maurice jumped lightly onto the bridge and called out:"You're br
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202
Coming up to him, Maurice found a crumpled fireman's heat-reflecting suit and smiled. We must pay tribute, although Maurice was not upset at all. He could have guessed right away that the trick with heat guns only made sense if you were already inside. It didn't matter now. Maurice knew that infrared sensors would not be a problem for him, like everything else that they had already prepared. He knew that the one they were waiting for would go very far, perhaps even manage to reach the very end. Of course, to the end, to which he is allowed to reach. That's why Maurice was here. And Maurice was rather upset if the one they were waiting for deceived his expectations.After walking a few more meters, Maurice saw a shining helmet with a visor-mirror in the bushes, and his smile grew wider. No, as long as he did not deceive his expectations.***Having reached the northern section of the bypass route, Kruchina quieted down and took a step. Moving along the trodden path, he soon came to two