Читать книгу Zombiegrad. A horror novel - Win Chester - Страница 4

The journey to the police station took about fifteen minutes. It was a noisy environment. People walked to and fro, shouting and slamming doors.

A bald policeman with a bushy walrus mustache emptied Ramses’s pockets. They took off his shoelaces and jeans belt. Then they made him go through mug shots and took his fingerprints. No one spoke English here, and his driver’s license was the only piece of information they could use.

The Walrus filled in his police charge sheet, put it before Ramses and offered him a pen.

Ramses pushed the document aside. “Dude, I ain’t signing anything until I get it translated for me, all right? Into English.”

The Walrus lifted his hands in dismay.

Ramses spent the night in a “monkey house”, as they called holding cells in Russia. It smelled of stale urine, puke, and disinfectant. Half a dozen prisoners sat with him on a long wide bunk. Boozers, thieves, abusive husbands.

At the crack of dawn, the door opened, and the Walrus pointed at him and gestured to step out. He clamped his wrists with handcuffs.

The cell door closed with a bang. Ramses winced. “Oh, what a dump!”

He turned and saw a young blond woman in the corridor. A strict suit. Modest make-up. An impenetrable face.

“My name is Ksenia Romanova,” the woman said in English in a cold voice. “I’m going to act as your interpreter.”

“Morning to you, missy,” Ramses said, offering his hand. “God, I’m thrilled to have someone speaking English here. You’re a godsend.”

She ignored his extended hand and started walking. The men followed her. They threaded their way through the five-storied building into the interview room. It was spartan. A table. Three chairs. A lamp over the table. No windows.

An old man in uniform was reading documents at the table.

The interpreter said, “This is Alexander Petrovich Romanov, the police chief of this police station. He will also be the investigator of your case.”

Ramses nodded and sat at the opposite end of the table. He looked at the old man and leaned back in his chair. “Hey, wait a minute. His last name is Romanov, too? So it’s your dad who’s running this funny farm here, ain’t he?”

Ksenia Romanova frowned and turned to her father to interpret the American’s words. The man frowned, too. Even the way they frowned was the same. Father and daughter, no doubt.

“Okay, I got it.” Ramses sat upright. The handcuffs clattered against the table surface. “I’m in no position to open my mouth here. I’ll keep silence, no worries.”

“That would be better,” the Russian woman said with no trace of emotion. She opened her notepad and uncapped her pen.

They asked him all kinds of questions about his name, occupation, relatives, place of residence.

“Did you kill that young man?” the police chief said.

“That heavy mob tried to rob me,” Ramses said. “There were three of ‘em. Armed. That was self-defense on my part. This is my first visit to this country, and it’s been a frosty reception, I gotta admit.”

“The man you killed was a minor. He was under eighteen years.”

Ramses glanced at the interpreter. “Well, a minor on steroids, then. The guy was bigger than a bear. Anyway, they didn’t show me their IDs. Introduced me to their gun instead.”

“We called the hospital. He died this morning.”

“Oh, shit.” Ramses looked at his big hands, which had gotten him in trouble so many times.

“We have already notified your consulate. We’re expecting a US consulate official to arrive soon.”

They kept asking him loaded questions to verify his statement against the information they had received from the US consulate. Then he was led to a solitary confinement cell.

Monkish solitude is all I need now, he thought.

They brought him cabbage soup with bread. He ate it all up.

In a couple hours, he was in the police chief’s office. On the wall, there was a big clock with President Vladimir Putin’s portrait. Ksenia Romanova was ready with her notepad and pen like a straight-A student.

A fortyish man in a suit was sitting beside her. His hair was parted at one side. He folded his hands on his chest and spoke with the American accent, “Are they treating you here well, Mr. Campbell?”

“Can’t complain. Thank you, sir.”

“My name’s Peter Rambler. I’m a US consulate official. Hope you realize that your current situation here is a grave one.”

Ramses gave a nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Let me tell you,” Rambler went on, “that American citizens abroad cannot invoke the U.S. Constitution to defend a criminal prosecution brought by a foreign government.”

“I can see that, sir.”

“But, according to an international treaty, an American individual detained abroad has the right to consular notification and representation.” Rambler paused. “That’s why I am here.”

Rambler put on his glasses and opened his files. He was looking like Clark Kent now. “You’ve committed a murder. On the crime scene, they found a knife with another person’s fingerprints. The Russian police are looking for him. There’s also a gun, but the snow erased all fingerprints. And they found the bottle with the young man’s fingerprints. You claim it was out of defense. But they have no witnesses.”

Ramses looked at the Romanovs. Ksenia was whispering interpretation of the consul’s words for her father.

“How come no witnesses?!” Ramses said with a booming voice that made Rambler sit up. “Did you check the CCTV cameras outside that club?”

“Really sorry,” Rambler said, “but the report says there were no witnesses. And the club hasn’t installed video cameras outside the property.”

“That’s unbelievable!” Ramses said. Then he remembered suddenly. “Ask Roman, the barman. He saw me that night.”

“He saw you leaving. Who saw what you were doing outside?”

The clock on the wall was ticking away the time. The Russians kept silence observing all this like a theatrical play. Birds sang in the trees outside, leaping from branch to branch.

Ramses sighed. “What’s the term of imprisonment gonna be?”

Ksenia Romanova translated the question and gave her father’s reply, “According to the Russian law, between three and five years. But everything will depend on the court adjudication.”

“What can you do for me in my situation?” Ramses asked Rambler.

“We’ll try to arrange for legal representation and find you a good lawyer. And we’ll keep looking for your assailants. But don’t worry. They have separate prison blocks for foreigners.”

Ramses slumped back in his chair. “Some consolation.”

Rambler turned to the Russians. “Please see to it that Mr. Campbell is contained in a single cell. We have to keep him away from more trouble.”

After a moment of thought, Ramses asked, “Can my relatives or ex-wife bail me out? Can’t they send me back to the States? My friend Steven Clayton is in this city right now. He could contact them.”

“I’m afraid, you can’t leave this country,” Rambler said. “You’re subject now to its laws.” He looked into his files. “Especially after you’ve served a similar prison sentence in the US. Sorry, but you’ll have to serve your sentence in a prison facility within this country.”

Ramses slammed his fist on the desk. “Damn!”

Rambler rose from his seat and started collecting his papers. “We’ll do what we can possibly do, Ramses. In the worst-case scenario, I’m not afraid for you. I watched a couple of your fights on HBO. They were great. In other circumstances, I’d ask for your autograph.”

“Yeah, man, thanks,” Ramses said. “For nothing.”

The light in the office became very bright.

Ramses looked at the lamps above, wondering what was wrong with the illumination. The lights were off. It was a sunny morning, and it was bright enough to do without switching the lights on.

The light was getting brighter. The Russians followed his glance and froze with surprise. Rambler looked up too. The blinding bright light reflected in the American consul’s spectacles and flooded the room. It was too dazzling to look at. Shadows moved around the room rapidly.

“The hell is that?” Ramses said.

A huge fireball streaked across the sky at a fast speed. Making no sound. The glowing orb was of irregular shape, and its contours were constantly shifting. It was brighter than the sun.

Rambler dropped his files on the desk and came up to the window.

All of them turned their heads toward the window.

In a few seconds, the monstrous fireball flew away at breakneck speed. It was gone as if it was just a trick of a magician.

In a moment the light became normal again.

“Un-fucking-believable!” Ramses said as the weird phenomenon vanished. He was seeing rainbows floating before his eyes. He blinked to adjust his eyesight.

“Oh, my God! What was that?” Ksenia Romanova said. It was the first time Ramses saw her showing any sign of emotion.

“A falling plane, maybe,” Rambler suggested. He looked concerned. Even anxious.

The Walrus looked in. He confirmed that everything was all right and closed the door. He probably had not seen a thing.

Ramses heard noise from the corridor. Someone was running. Heavy boots were shaking the building.

“Never seen anything like that,” Rambler said. “Hope it’s nothing serious. You guys better call the emergency and check if everything’s okay.”

Ksenia Romanova interpreted Rambler’s words for the police chief. He nodded and took out his cell phone. He pressed the cell to his ear, looking through the window. Then he clicked it shut.

He shook his head. No connection.

A deafening explosion broke out in the sky. The windows rattled in their frames. The birds soared up from the tree branches and flew away in panic.

The curtain blew in. Slivers of glass splashed over Rambler.

The police chief dropped his cell phone and swore in Russian. But he was not hurt.

“Shit!” Ramses ducked under the desk. Years of living in California taught him how to react during an earthquake to save his ass.

There came more explosions, three or four in a row. It looked like the city was being attacked by missiles. His ears were ringing. He felt the smell of sulfur in the air. Somewhere in the distance, car alarms started whining.

Rambler was screaming.

Ramses glanced at the windows. Some were shattered. Other window frames had withstood the shock wave but buckled.

Rambler pressed his hands to his cheek, which was cut by the flying glass. Blood dripped through his fingers on the floor littered with wooden splinters and broken glass.

The police chief sprang to his feet, rushed into the corridor and called out something in Russian. A medical officer came in.

Rambler took a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it to his cheek. He backed away from the windows as far as he could. He tried his cell phone. No signal.

“There’s no cell service.” He turned to Ksenia Romanova. “How about trying the landline?”

The girl came up to the desk and picked up the receiver. “Nothing. It’s dead.”

“Shouldn’t we leave the building?” Rambler said.

“No,” the police chief said through the interpreter. “There could be a gas attack. It’ll be safer if we stay here.”

Ramses came up to the window. “Hey! Look at that!”

Their eyes glued to the window. The fireball had left behind a long white-and-yellow smoky trail. It was stretching across the sky.

Cars stopped on the curb. People got out of the cars and looked up at the sky in wonder. Everyone was pointing up at the double trail of smoke. Passersby yanked out their cell phones and started shooting videos and snapping pictures.

The police officers came out of the police station and joined them.

“Them dumb-ass aliens are trying to invade Russia,” Ramses said.

Ksenia Romanova looked at him ruefully.

The police chief opened the door and asked the duty officers to come in. They handcuffed Ramses.

“Where am I going now?” Ramses looked at Rambler.

“To a solitary confinement cell,” Rambler said and flinched in pain as the medic was treating his wound. “Until we receive further evidence, I can’t do anything for you. We’ll be in touch.”

The police officers convoyed him out of the office. The corridor was a mess. There were glass shards everywhere. One vent window had been completely knocked out off its frame. An overturned flower pot had scattered flowers, leaves and earth all over the floor.

In his cell, the Russian cops removed the handcuffs. The massive door banged shut behind him. The key turned four times in the lock.

Ramses turned around and looked at his cage. Heavy metallic door. A worn bunk on the dull gray cement floor. A john in the corner. Dark green walls. A tiny barred window under the high ceiling. There was a crack on the glass. Apparently, after the strange explosions. He could see the large trail of smoke coming across the patch of sky.

The morning sun shone brightly.

He sat on the bunk, clutched his forehead and closed his eyes.

“Welcome to Mother Russia,” he said to the empty cell.