Читать книгу The Way to Dehradun. A detective adventure story - Tatiana Sokoloff - Страница 4

Roman Petritsky first flew to India. The Indira Gandhi Airport in Delhi was very large and beautiful, and what surprised Roman the most was its almost sterile cleanliness, as he had been warned to be prepared for unsanitary conditions on the streets. He passed through passport control quickly enough, however, he could not take fingerprints in any way, for some reason they were not readable, but on the third attempt he succeeded, and he went into the luggage compartment. After getting a suitcase and changing some currency for the first case to Indian rupees, he went to the reception area. No one was holding the sign with his name on it, so after waiting for about fifteen minutes, he decided to find a car with a driver who could take him to Dehradun city, and then deal with the company why no one met him. Going out into the street, he asked a Hindu standing there:

– I need to go to Dehradun city to hotel Central Palace, – and showed him the hotel voucher with the address.

The Hindu thought for a moment, then muttered:

– OK, I will help you.

Three minutes later, he brought a young boy to Roman, who said:

– Will you go to Dehradun for 200 dollars?

Roman agreed, the weather was hot, and he wanted to get to the hotel by the evening.

The car turned out to be quite cool, Indian-made, Mahindra Thar, which very much resembled a Jeep Wrangler.

The guy sat down on the seat next to the driver. There was also a young, sporty-looking, rather good-looking European-looking man in the backseat, wearing a baseball cap pulled down over his forehead and dark glasses, but he completely ignored Roman, did not seek to communicate.

Roman didn’t get much sleep, because the flight was early in the morning, and he didn’t get much sleep on the plane either, because there was a woman sitting next to him with a crying baby. Roman dozed off and soon fell into a deep sleep. He had a nightmare, as if he was walking in the desert and was being sucked into a sand crater. He screams, but there’s no one around, and he sinks deeper. He awoke with horror and realized that he had been on the road for more than four hours.

– How far to Dehradun?

The kid mumbled.

– Don’t worry, only one hour.

Roman began to look at the road outside the window, passing small buildings, shops. Stray very thin cows were often seen right on the road. Motorists carefully drove around them, because in India the cow is a sacred animal.

There were also incredibly thin dogs, apparently some kind of purely Indian breed. And there were people everywhere, shouting, gesturing, cooking street food.

In general, life was booming and boiling.

Meanwhile, it was getting dark. The European-looking guy was napping and never tried to make contact with Roman.

Soon the car pulled up in front of a long, one-story building. The kid suggested to go out for a bite to eat and to stretch our legs. Roman followed the young Indian man into the house. The atmosphere here was quite ascetic, Roman was invited to enter the guest room. He found himself in a small room with a table, a chair, and a small cot. And then, suddenly, the door closed. At first, Roman did not realize that he was in danger, but after just two minutes, he remembered his dream.

“That was a warning,” he thought.

Roman started banging on the door and shouting in Russian:

“Open it now, you won’t get away with it! I will contact the Russian Embassy!”

But no one responded. Roman realized that he was trapped.

The should have be done something, but what?

His cell phone was dead, and the charger was left in his bag in the car.

“Calm down, the main thing is to keep calm,” thought Roman, lying down on the cot and began to think about his situation.