“And here is our client,” drawled the Mason, seeing Pustovalov.
The bricklayer winked slyly at Pustovalov, and Lieutenant Ryakhin gently took him by the shoulder.
Meanwhile, the second policeman pushed Pustovalov to the checkpoint doors.
- Let's go. - He said in a businesslike tone.
Pustovalov gladly "surrendered" into the hands of the police.
The bricklayer, meanwhile, took a quick look around the yard, and looked at the hammer in the hands of the guard.
“And what’s going on here with you?” Some kind of repair?
Bearded men approached them.
- We're all right. Look, maybe you can talk to our boss. One of the bearded men pointed to Pustovalov. - This person…
“Don't worry, citizen. The Bricklayer stopped him with a gesture. - This person has already been detained and is not threatening you ... And where do you say your boss is?
- There, - the bearded man extended his hand, - wait, I will call him.
Pustovalov climbed the steps of the checkpoint. Now he was between lieutenants Ryakhin and Bolotny, both holding his hands, as if he were a detainee.
“You know what, buddy…
- BUT? - The bearded man looked in confusion at the farther and farther away Pustovalov.
The police "brought" him to the checkpoint, and he already saw the half-open door, behind which the yellowish snow lit by a lantern shone blindingly. From the direction of the yard, the businesslike voice of the Mason still sounded - it seems that he got a taste.
- Here's what, tell me your Yasin .... or whatever it is... That we'll come tomorrow morning.
- BUT?
- It's eight o'clock.
Pustovalov was already outside the gate. The police "led" him along the road. Soon the Mason caught up with them.
Half a minute later, Pustovalov climbed into the back seat of a police Ford parked right at the spot where he had been waiting for Basurov half an hour earlier.
The car started, and in a minute they were winding along the Enthusiasts driveway.
- Everything is fine? - Turned around from the front seat Mason.
- Thanks. I'm double charged, guys.
“Thank you, old man,” said Kameshchik, “helping good people is not a bad idea. And you look, you landed in a specific serpentarium. Even left the car there?
- Life is full of surprises.
Looking at the snow-covered spruce branches, at the lights of the highway ahead, feeling the flow of fresh air penetrating through the gap of the driver's window, Pustovalov felt relieved. Problems are simply bound to end today. Simply, according to the laws of probability theory.
- Excuse me, - said the Mason, - but we can't give you a lift far.
Pustovalov returned to the idea of "ended problems" and became alert.
- Why?
- We would be glad, Sanya, - Bolotny gave a voice, driving under the railway bridge, - but a general order.
“Maybe after all... I’m late.”
The policemen shook their heads at the same time.
- Will not work.
- A terrorist attack on Serpukhovka. Everyone is driven to amplification.
- And we've been delayed.
“Damn it,” Pustovalov rubbed his neck.
A walkie-talkie wheezed under the standard display.
- Sixth zero one, where you are bl ...
The bricklayer took the transmitter.
- Center, reception six zero one, we are moving along the Highway of Enthusiasts to the center, reception.
"Hurry, motherfucker..."
Pustovalov sighed.
- What's going on today, just pipets ...
We can take you to the subway.
- Underground? - Pustovalov asked puzzled, - it's closed.
“Fifteen minutes before closing.”
- And go two.
- You will succeed.
- What is it, Andryukha? Highway?
- Aircraft.
“Metro,” Pustovalov said, leaning back in his seat.
He hasn't ridden the subway for ten years.
Second passenger. 7608 meters east
Victor looked up from his shabby smartphone and glanced out of the corner of his eye at the girl sitting across the aisle across from him. This time he managed to examine her better than the first time, when he had just entered the car and, pretending to be indifferent, as if by chance sat down on the next seat, despite the abundance of empty seats around.
The girl looked out the window, and Victor greedily probed her with his eyes. A pretty face framed by golden hair. The tendency to be overweight in that ideal form, when there are still many years to the very fullness. A slightly upturned nose and a slightly raised upper lip, a gentle chin said that the “nyakha” was still quite a youngster, maybe only a couple of years younger than him.
The train started, and Victor hurriedly looked away, realizing with shame that at night nothing was visible in the window, except for the reflection. This time he managed to examine not only the face, but also the figure - after all, one second is enough for a man to fully appreciate the female beauty. He read about it in the ancient magazine Men's Health when he was ten years old.
A combination of smooth lines and sharp curves. The girl was obviously doing something, maybe sports dancing or crossfit. Looking at the first-class legs crammed into blue jeans, Victor remembered that this was the type he had always searched for on porn sites. The girl was still wearing a short beige raincoat and a dark red scarf, she was not tall, like a figure skater or a gymnast, and Victor thought that this girl would suit him quite well. Why not? Victor himself was no taller than one hundred and seventy, and even then only when he did not stoop and, according to weight standards, did not gain a couple of kilograms. In general, if you count on a first-class chan, then only this one.
Unable to look at the cracked screen of his smartphone anymore, Victor turned his gaze back to the girl, and was embarrassed to find that she was looking directly at him, and did not even think to look away. Confident, damn it!
Big bright eyes. Victor felt the blow of a warm wave, but pulled himself together - let in a fake indifference and, following the advice of the pickup guru, examined her figure in a consumer way, which, I must say, looked damn seductive.
That's rubbish, no flaws! Victor continued to stare at the faint "Unable to connect to internet" sign as he ran his finger over the scratch. A bright, puppy-like look shone before his eyes. Yes, this is, perhaps, the real "nine", thought Victor, and most importantly - there is no this vile cosmetics, everything is natural.
Victor was an ardent supporter of the "naturalness" of female beauty. True, for the most part, he defended his position in the company of Max and Dimon - his only friends, one of whom recently gave him an unpleasant surprise, telling him that he had not been a virgin for six months.
Everything has been difficult for Victor with “this case”. The idea was especially frustrating that the unprepossessing Max with a speech impediment, who a year ago was not at all interested in girls, no longer had such a problem. And, judging by how his second friend, a nerd and goner Dimon, often went out on dates, Victor threatened to soon become the last loser among losers.
Of course, the chosen ones of Dimon and Max are far from the status of reference chan, but at the age of nineteen, still being a virgin is a very bad ghost. The problem threatened to grow to catastrophic proportions, so Victor began to think about a prostitute.
Victor tried to imagine what would happen if he spoke to this “nyakha” right now, and his jaw immediately cramped with fear.
“Well, what do you have to lose? An inner voice broke through. “Go ahead while no one else is around, and no one will see your disgrace.”
And what if it doesn't recede? After all, even worse. Victor had no idea what to talk about with the girl. It's one thing with Dimon and Max - you can even talk about studies, video games, cars ... heifers. And what about the chicks?
“To hell with internal dialogue! - A voice with a recognizable intonation of a pickup guru said firmly in his head. Don't think - act.
Victor threw a sidelong glance at the girl - she looked out the window again and was beautiful again. Victor felt the familiar roll of the wave and thought how great it was to have such a girl. How jealous Dimon and Max would be, and indeed the whole institute, and how ...
Victor's thought was cut off as someone's skinny ass in saggy pants blocked his angelic appearance. Victor looked up with displeasure and saw a stooped man in the aisle, who was looking at the girl. After standing for a short time, the man sat down on the next seat, slowly took out a filthy notebook, a simple ballpoint pen and began to write something.
Victor felt anger, quickly replaced by relief - now at least his voice will shut up. Now, with all your desire, you will not speak. In the presence of this bastard... What the hell! Victor was always annoyed by the presence of strangers, he could not concentrate, he was lost and, as a rule, did not say what he wanted to say, basically, something similar to the ravings of a madman.
The voice really shut up, and Victor began to look out the window, although he was drawn to look in the other direction.
Chapter 8The last train rushed to the Kazan station through the snowfall, and Victor returned to his unhappy thoughts. He only had two hundred left in his pocket. On the map, it's even worse. Thank God, at least there is separate housing - his mother and his new family drove him to a communal apartment, where Victor inherited a room from his father. The apartment was located near Komsomolskaya. In the kitchen, under the table, there are two kilograms of potatoes that can be fried in the neighbor's oil. He will buy beer at the Bill at a discount, only one cigarette, well, a vape will blow for a couple of days. Internet paid. Basically you can live.Of course, when this Sunday was just beginning and Victor went to work in Lyubertsy, he expected to finish it in a more pleasant mood. After spending eight hours in the office of a construction company with the solid name Roden House, Victor thought of getting five thousand for debugging printers, but the manager, having uncorked a bottle o
Chapter 9“Well, everything is Khan,” flashed through my head. Victor had never been beaten by grown men with pood fists before. With anguish and some caustic haze in his throat, he hopelessly looked deep into the car. The pensioner was still sitting in his pharaonic pose, the teenagers behind the glass door were poking their fingers at his bald head and laughing loudly. Dudes, help, I wanted to shout to Victor.– Heavy pi…ts bitch bl…! Victor heard a very low and at the same time quite clear voice. - Pi ... ts, a gang of native grandfather and mother took away the apartment.Victor looked at Squealer in surprise.- What?- Threatened to kill! I once already paid a million for my disposal to bandits and other werewolves from the FSB. Here we saw a recording of a mother saying I need to be killed urgently.With each word, Squealer's speech accelerated, he himself got excited, hysterical notes appeared in his meaningless stream of words, and a semi-familiar word "schizophasia" surfaced
- Moron! - Victor shouted after him, believing that the incident would be over, but the back of the "short man", well covered in a black bomber jacket, suddenly froze in front of the doors themselves. Something in Victor's chest broke off and fell down, and meanwhile the teenager was walking back, squinting in a smile on his puffy face.- What did you say? - Victor has heard this phrase hundreds of times in cheap TV shows, YouTube videos, jokes, and so on, but for the first time in his life he heard it addressed to him and immediately felt the unbearable burden of responsibility, which implies an answer to it.The outburst of anger had long since faded, and Victor did not want to repeat what he had said. He avoided looking "shorty" in the face. For some reason, his eyes didn't rise above his shoulders.- Get out from here! Victor said ruefully.- What did you say?! - "Shorty" began to fiddle with the slightly dented remains of the "Underkat" on Victor's head again.– What are you, a m
- Nazaritch, get it!- Yes, you go! - "Horse" laughed somewhere very close, - Look, he's different right now."Then I'm on my own." Hold on!Again horse rzhach.Right in front of him, Victor saw worn gray jeans. Is he really going to do it now? He will unzip his fly while they hold him by the hands and .... Feeling the pungent smell of stale sweat, Victor sniffed and saw how a thin black snake was rushing down the short man's crotch, and after it, even before he realized what kind of "snake" it was, a deafening wild scream.Startled, Victor looked up and saw the face of the "short man" with a simple ballpoint pen sticking out of his left eye.- Aaaaaa! - The guy squealed, shaking his shoulders, as if he wanted to shake off this hellish pain.- Five thousand! Five thousand! Five thousand! - It hissed somewhere nearby.Victor's hands fell, he immediately wiped his face with his sleeve and saw that from the bloodied eye of the "short man" a bloody stream snaked through the whole body in
Unsuccessfully trying to open a pack of "Vogue Aroma" with frozen fingers, Katya could not restrain herself:- Dima, I'll be in time if you don't call every minute! Crap! I could have called a taxi.The iPhone flew into her purse, and Katya finally fished out a thin cigarette. About the taxi, of course, she said rashly. Lately, taxis have become dangerous, and she can do without them, calmly taking the subway in fifteen minutes. Unlike Dima, Katya has lived all her life a stone's throw from the metro, and right up to the second she knew at what time she had to go through the glass doors in order to catch the last train leaving Novokosino without running around on the escalators.Now she has about five minutes left, which she will spend on a smoke break. She just needs a good dose of nicotine. Firstly, she must come to her senses after a heavy quarrel with her mother, and secondly, Katya wanted to take a last look at the place where twenty years of her life had passed.Now a new, much
Well, let's say for now she will continue to go to work, but Dima's parents will return on Friday. He has his own room, of course, and he, for example, will be able to convince his parents to stay. In the end, they were fine with her, but it's one thing to visit, another to live permanently. Katya remembered the lustful looks of Dima's father and the sidelong glances of her mother. No, this is definitely not the "new life" that she imagined in her dreams.Katya frowned again and looked at the Toyota.She noticed that all her windows were "tightly" tinted. She didn't like tinted windows, not only because they hid someone who could see you perfectly, but also because it was illegal to tint windows on the driver's side. And this meant that the person behind the wheel either could afford to break the law or had a liquid crystal tint. Considering that LCD tinting cost almost the same as a new Toyota Camry, the first option was in the car.Katya knew she looked stunning, especially in tight
Dasha is a thin, petite twenty-three-year-old girl with a charming face that radiates cold beauty and eyes the color of ice. These are not lenses, as many people think. Her eyes are really so light that they seem like a pair of ice floes. The same color can be seen under the feet of the frozen Lake Peipsi. Dasha never smiles. All Dasha's acquaintances know about this, but few people know that this is not true. As an adult, Dasha smiled three times, and three different people happened to witness it. Two of them were young men of seventeen and twenty-nine. Both at the same moment fell in love with Dasha. The third witness of her smile was the forty-two-year-old photographer Bernard Bertin, who at that moment lowered the camera, tilted his head to one side and silently watched until his assistant called him twice.It is not known why this girl smiled so rarely, but when she did, the cold beauty seemed to begin to melt, transforming into something so divine that the tongue did not dare to
Kharitonov was hot. And tight. With a mighty hand, he scratched his chest under the shirt with buttons torn off after the fight and yawned loudly. Small bearish eyes on a huge head stared blindly into the dirty glass, behind which the whitened Kalinin Square shone. In the light of the lanterns, a drifting snow rushed along the empty paths and benches.It was uncomfortable for him to sit - like a real bear, he constantly tossed and turned on a round chair, made a lot of sounds - rustled clothes, moved neighboring trays with his elbows, yawned at the top of his voice. Kharitonov was drunk.From behind appeared a strong mustachioed man.– Vano, it was only light.In his hands the man held a tray with two glasses of beer, a sandwich and a bucket of Basket-25 for company.Kharitonov frowned at the tray, pursed his lips, pressing them to his nose like an elephant. Exhaled. Then he took a glass, sipped about a third.“Grey, why the hell did you drag me here?So everything is closed right now
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
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
The old man, Makarov, rushed after him, and only after them did the special forces pour out.Still running up, Boris saw a square hole in the center of the site - not at all like what he saw on the day of his last visit to the plant. Perfectly smooth, carved into cubes that were stacked near the tractor. Next to them lay a completely black device, which he saw in the photographs sent by the Special Metals Research Institute.Boris was the first to run up to the edge of the hole.Below, he saw what he had seen before - the shaft of the mine, only at the bottom of the bowl there was now a well. There was absolute bedlam going on: corpses, blood, weapons, overturned chairs, pieces of collapsed stairs and galleries. He did not immediately notice living people, but when he saw a figure crawling away from the wall, he immediately recognized it, although he had never seen it alive.- Daria! he shouted. - Daria Afanasyeva!The girl raised her head.Makarov, running up, heard Vindman's scream,
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
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
- 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
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
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
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