Читать книгу Night Trap - Gordon Kent, Gordon Kent - Страница 16

In a stall of a men’s room in the Brussels airport, the small man stood over the toilet, a cigarette lighter in one hand and the white card in the other. Most days of his adult life, he had gone through this little ceremony, burning the day’s notes to himself, a secret act of defiance and a terrible act of hubris—”wanting to be caught,” the psychologists (whom he despised) would have said. They would have been quite wrong. No part of him, physical or mental, wanted to be caught. The very idea made him smile.

He looked down the list. Two minus signs. He was sorry to have lost them; he would have much preferred those signs to be pluses. The minus signs were like defeats. But they would not discourage him. Depression came more easily with fatigue; he knew himself that well. Still—He flicked the lighter and touched the flame to the corner of the card. As the flame spread toward his fingers he watched Bonner’s name and his question mark disappear, then dropped the burning paper to the water and flushed.

He wished that the question surrounding Bonner could be so easily disposed of. Bonner, to his profound regret, was out of his reach just then.

He pulled himself up and marched to a ticket counter and bought a seat on a flight to Naples.