Читать книгу The Other Woman - Daniel Silva - Страница 8

The car was a Zil limousine, long and black, with pleated curtains in the rear windows. It sped from Sheremetyevo Airport into the center of Moscow, along a lane reserved for members of the Politburo and the Central Committee. Night had fallen by the time they reached their destination, a square named for a Russian writer, in an old section of the city known as Patriarch’s Ponds. They walked along narrow unlit streets, the child and the two men in gray suits, until they came to an oratory surrounded by Muscovy plane trees. The apartment house was on the opposite side of an alley. They passed through a wooden doorway and squeezed into a lift, which deposited them onto a darkened foyer. A flight of stairs awaited. The child, out of habit, counted the steps. There were fifteen. On the landing was another door. This one was padded leather. A well-dressed man stood there, drink in hand. Something about the ruined face seemed familiar. Smiling, he spoke a single word in Russian. It would be many years before the child understood what the word meant.