Oppenheimer

The story of Dmitry Glukhovsky about the army grandfather, which we never won

From the editorial office
The story was written nine years ago. He is not about the accuracy of the fact, he is about the truth of life. But the truth of our life is such that the real murder of a soldier Shamsutdinov of his colleagues falls into a long -standing fictional plot so that the vigorous relations of the victory over the army hazing are transferred to the category of beautiful -minded fiction.

And before being indignant at the petition, offering to recognize Shamsutdin’s actions with self -defense, read the story. The petition, meanwhile, scored six thousand signatures.

Stop the pants, the bitch, ”Said spread the wrestling shoulders and, scratching him, took up the buckle of his belt.

- What are you? - Seryoga backed away from him. - What are you? ..

“You will be my daughter,” Said said almost affectionately. “You need a dad here, right?” How are you here without dad, in the taiga? Bears will eat.

- What are you, Said? - Serega Osip from excitement, from horror. - I am boys ... I am to the colonel ...

“You, bitch, try it,” Said resurns, exposed white wolf fangs. - After all, we are with you the day after tomorrow for duty together, to the mine. For a week. You, me and Daud. And your boys will remain here. And Comrade Colonel is here. And we will go to the three years to meet the new year.

“You, Said,” Seryoga repeated desperately.

“I wanted to make friends with you, the bitch,” Said slowly, in the hand, spat with Burem on the concrete floor. “Better, you and I would have gone there,” he unbuttoned the buckle.

Seryoga shook his head and, briefly swinging, poked a powerful Dagestan with his fist into a blue bristly cheek: in the morning he shaved, and by noon already growing again.

He knocked awkwardly, ineptly: he lived in St. Petersburg in the very center, father is a history teacher, mother is a biology; Not childhood, but an incubator.

There would be money - they would have been bought away from the army. But they did not scrape.

Said did not even shake. At once, he grabbed a belt from the ports, crushed Seryoga with a careless blow, wrapped it around his bacon -skinned neck with black, prostrated skin. And he began to boil the belt on the fist.

“Khan to you, bitch,” he whispered hotly - louder than Serega wheezed.

Then a plywood green door, somehow covering the dirty bread of a soldier's toilet, flew to the side and stirred against the wall.

- Magomedov! - Through the smoke curtain giving out Hashish, it was menacingly flew from the entrance. - Here?

“Here, Comrade Major,” Said answered lazily. - So sickening.

- Go, there is a conversation! - The major remained on the threshold and was not going to meddle in.

Said released a suffocating Seryoga out of the loop, kicked into his stomach and whispered:

- Be quiet, understand? What can you tell him - we will hang you with a brave at night. Silent.

The whole part was painted with oil paint in the green waist and white further to the ceiling - in general, as well as painted as the rest of the country. Only in the officer club the walls were sheathed with a lousy lining, smeared with stain as necessary. Nothing, already comfort. In the corner on a nightstand inappropriate here with women's curls-you can see, washed by someone from the house-there was a wretched TV bought from the Chinese in the market or even exchanged on the serf soldier’s work in their Chinese gardens.

A TV - a window into distant Moscow - showed the main channel through snow that was flying snow. Important news all over, under the eyeballs of the final program, conveyed something from America. America from here was much closer. Therefore, the part here was located: to San Francisco from the local places was seven minutes.

Barack Obama spoke to the American base in Kandahar. The military were as a selection - all the colors of the rainbow, women and men equally, are fattened to slaughter, and each with the jaws like the Moscow Watchtower.

The faces are glistening, the shape is from a needle. Bitch.

The President - brown, sports and lopoukhi - explained everything about national interests, did not want to leave Afghanistan and praised heroic men and women who carried the burden of duty with honor. Men and women devotedly staring their tin eyes and chewed reflexively.

- What is he to them, and, Alexander Ivanovich? - Cooking “Malbore” and accelerating the bluish smoke that covered Obama with a clumsy five, Suren asked suspiciously.

“Their Christmas was American this week, Gazarian,” the colonel pulled Harcot. - Conducted to support the morale. Homeland remembers you, everything.

“Who would come to us, yes, Comrade Colonel?” - released the blue cloud Gazaryan.

“... Yna,” he objected.

- No, true! That's why people serve as people, they receive normal grandmas, and even the president for Christmas? I suppose the special trips brought ... - Suren sighed enviously.

They scratched the door.

The colonel did not move: they with a brown president glared at each other, and no one wanted to look away first. Suren rose, pulled out a shirt, took up the handle.

On the threshold stood Sergeant Kolosov, just translated from another part. Drandowed, in appearance, unsociable and here no one is particularly necessary: ​​half -part - dagi, the other half is the Siberians. And this one is a Leningrad. But stubborn: apparently, often beat, but all the nonsense was never knocked out. The colonel loved fundamental: you can’t be friends with them, which means that you can drive into the tail and in the mane. That's just sent, and we at once for a week on the mine with a stuck. For holidays. Nothing, let him get.

- What is needed, sergeant? - looking past Kolosov, Suren asked.

- Comrade Major ... I have a comrade colonel ...

“Report to me,” Gazaryan frowned.

- I ask you ... can I in another shift for duty? I ... you can’t go now. On the mines. Please.

- AAATSIT! Suren barked so that even the interference on the screen intensified. - There is an order, there is an order. Perform!

“To me ... Kayuk to me, Comrade Major, if I go.” I’ll stay there ... I have Dagami ...

Gazaryan turned red and pouted, like someone else's blood.

“There are no dags, sergeant!” We are all military personnel of the Russian army! Go - work in a week!

And, having shoved the sophisticated Kolosov into the corridor, he angrily rumbled the door. He returned to his corner, shook a square curly head and fired an extinct cigarette again. This, of course, is not a “Malbore”, but a Chinese self -firing. I suppose tea, they are stuffed, the crooks are narrow -eyed.

“Be patient,” the colonel said coldly. - I also celebrated the first new year in the mine. And also with the abreks. And nothing. Alive.

On the screen, Barack Obama was already handing out a happy and proud American military gifts. And then like this, it easily went to their soldier's dining room to eat hamburgers.

“The bitch is black ... Paia,” summed up Alexander Petrovich and grunted into the ashtray. “It's not for you, Gazaryan.”

The all -terrain vehicle sailed, swaying, along a freshly loose snow, leaving the very almost boundaries of the regiment: along the Gugl Meps, which was invisible to the magical white taiga - to the guard stabbed in the reserved place. The driver - gloomy and taciturn - was all focused on the road: Mel, and getting out of the way was easier than a lung.

In the cab, in addition to him, Seryoga sat, squeezing the shy to whiteness in his fingers, and in a banking fellow in the back seat of Said and Daud. From the windshield, a national leader in a helmet of a fighter pilot and a vicious woman with an unnatural pink and perpendicular boobs, cut out of AIDS-Info, looked from the windshield with a restrained curiosity.

Serega went to the mine as the last battle; Dagov, he still knew the same part well, and therefore did not count on forgiveness. With witnesses, they will not do anything, but as soon as they find themselves in private in a command post, which was walled up at a depth of thirty meters, is all.

There are things with which it will not work to live further. If they are hit by half a death - nothing, it is getting older. If they do it with a disabled person, it will be sickening, but you can. If they drop it, never forget about this. Better disabled. It’s even better to die.

But here is how lucky ... It will turn out to be the first - it will be necessary to immediately run into the forest. But still, then they will find and either shoot when detained as a deserter who resisted, or they will arrest, and they will plant Daga in the KPZ. It happens.

If it doesn’t work out, it means that he will fly to his mother in zinc, it is impossible to print. They will say - a cold, bilateral inflammation, did not have time to save. Or what kind of diagnosis will be made. The main thing is that mother does not let the lid solder. This is Seryoga in her, in her mother, so fundamental. If it is on the lid is soldered - everything, she will not be more rest. And she will do nothing, she will only get involved.

Seryoga imagined how mothers call their kopeclees in Kupchino on the seventh floor to the left of the garbage chute to say that an accident ...

They used to live on Ligovsk, while mother and father did not divorce, in a spacious old apartment with ceilings almost four meters. Two cut out from one solid apartment, from one common life - three torn. The mother had a gap exactly, along the gaps of his father’s betrayal, and for five -year -old Seryoga he was a thunder among the clear sky, the boy was separated from his father painfully, with meat.

And the New Year has never been so again after moving to Kupchino, as before in Ligovsky. Suddenly he ceased to be a wonderful holiday and became the most runaway, empty day of the year. And the last time Serega saw Santa Claus, was exactly then before a divorce.

He always came to Seryoga half an hour before the chimes. He called the doorbell, and Seryozha ran to open. First, he pushed a stool to Dermatin’s upholstery, looked into the eye, then published a victorious cry and began to unlock the locks. The gray-bearded old man entered-sometimes snow-covered, sometimes completely warm, homely, launched his hand into the bag and took out the same thing from it that Seryoga dreamed more than anything more than anything else. Then he punished to obey his parents when he went to school - to teach the story of a bunch of biology, she said goodbye to as an adult - by the hand - and disappeared. And then just from work or guests the father returned. The last time Santa Claus brought Seryozha a fire truck.

The next year, as soon as Serege stuttering that he was waiting for the New Year's wizard, he was announced by a teacher’s official voice that there was no Santa Claus, that his childhood was over and it would be time for him, a hefty forehead, to grow up. After that, the mother locked herself in the bathroom and turned on the water. Then she, of course, apologized to him, they put up and hugged, but childhood really ended then.

The fire engine survived all the other toys, and when Serega left for the military registration and enlistment office, she was still standing on the chiffonier in his room. Mother, cleaning up, always climbed onto the stool, took her off and, wiping it off from dust, carefully hoisted it in place.

He never saw his father anymore.

- Arrived! - the driver turned around. - Wait a minute, we must contact ours so that the alarm is turned off.

Around the gatekeeper hiding among the scolding fir trees, a minefield spread out, behind it - to the waist, a picket fence with a thorn drowned in the snow. In order to enter the fence, it was necessary to contact the shift on duty - or manually enter a secret code on the inexperienced collars. The gatehouse itself was composed of silicate brick and would most like a garage-suck building, if it was a round turret that did not crown-a large-caliber machine gun controlled from the bottom.

Radio responded whispering, the gates of the gate trembled, but bogged down in deep snow. Cursing, the driver tore off the frozen door and jumped into a snowdrift. Somehow he raked the drifts, released the wings and led the car to the gatehouse.

That's all. Arrived.

In a white brick house is a basement. It contains a staircase of one hundred and fifty steps leading down to the command of the command post. A huge hollow cigar, like a submarine placed on the floor and buried in a frozen local land, just like living, real submarines, divided into compartments. The last, eleventh is inhabited. It contains an ancient computer, a few stomachs, a paved chair with cut gray skin, iron walls, an iron floor, an iron ceiling.

In this compartment, Serega should spend a week with Said and Daud for a week.

Five hundred meters north is another mine, and the third is a kilometer to the west. And in them, two intercontinental ballistic missiles "Topol" are dormant, suspended in the cradle. One is enough to turn the US West Coast to the dust and ashes.

The eight hundred -kilogram door burst and crawled, and pale underground inhabitants appeared from the womb of the mine. Who knows what happened there in a week ...

The pimple lieutenant trumped Seryoga mockingly.

- With coming!

Managed.

It was on New Year's Eve that the colonel quarreled with Colonel. It began with who to clean the potatoes, and ended with ruined youth and vegetating in the god of a forgotten hole, which the tongue would not even turn into an ulus. No, this has not ended yet: there was also more than those who were giving up the engineers and now living in Novosibirsk, and about salaries, and about housing, and in general about the army, including the commander in chief, but especially about Alexander Petrovich. Further, the commander in chief, the colonel did not listen - there was a reason not to endure, he threw wet potatoes into the basin and fell out of the apartment.

The evil club was subsidized by the evil, where the idle captain, lieutenants, and the Gazarians, who joined them, who joined them, had already opened sprats with might and main. Let. With men more sincere.

Vodka, however, turned out to be only a muddy-Chinese, seemingly in rice, but, perhaps, a sabotage. Do not try - you will not recognize. Well, they poured.

They began to drink from the patriotic, under the raw-captive and two-short-and-one-prone hurra-ura-uraaaa!

Soon we went to the last voyage along the sprot fiery river, the blue screen blossomed in the dressed marshmallows of the Moscow pederasts, after a couple of hours he had to penetrately look into the soul of the president - our, desired, not their cheburashka.

The festive atmosphere was heated. Soul pain was like sunflower oil: the vodka of a potential enemy fell on her imperceptibly and seems to be without a trace. But this dam was destined to break through, and then the rice alcohol surged at once threatened with terrible disasters. Like a spill of Juanhe. Bitch are narrow -eyed.

He broke through before he managed to take the commander in chief. And very unexpected.

- Oppenheimer invented the nuclear bomb. Robert. The Americans had the main one in the nuclear program - in the suddenly coming silence - like the wind verse before the storm hit - Suren was not very confident and not too confidently. - I read. And here he, when he blew the first bomb, know what he said? I, he says, is from now on death, the destroyer of the worlds ... I realized how?

“X ... I am your OP ... Penheimer,” Alexander Petrovich said measuredly from the Neanderthal almost superfluous arcs. - We have any sergeant here - both death and the destroyer of the worlds. And nothing.

“Oppenheimer, by the way, as Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw, the rest of his life fought against nuclear weapons,” Suren added completely inappropriately.

- Which was required to prove! - The colonel knocked out the stopar and the fellow grunted. - They will still meddle with us with their sword, the gut is thin!

“I'm sure,” Captain Simonov supported the authorities,

-Some Magomedov will shine from the face of the earth once or twice and it will only worry about the dismissal, so that he was released in the city for the manifested valor.

- Well, what is it? - Alexander Petrovich translated his pood look at the captain. “And I would have erased this Los Angeles, if the Motherland orders.” I would have erased. For not ..!

The officers were somewhat laughed. The unauthorized destruction of Los Angeles seems to be impossible to support, but it was undesirable to violate subordination. The Commander -in -Chief has not yet spoke out.

- Gazaryan! Let's go to eat! - ordered the colonel.

Standing under a deaf taiga sky, Alexander Petrovich poured yellow on a snowy parade ground, a couple of times touching the shepherd who ran out of mischief. Gazaryan stood beside, but kept independently. I urinated more out of respect for the senior in rank than necessary.

He urinated and anticipated the inevitable frankness. I was not mistaken.

“I looked at their Obama today,” the colonel sighed, fastened. - And it became a shame for the homeland ... We stuck out where, Suren ... a fighting watch, blah ... “Topols” of our ones is enough for the hairdryer and Europe and Asia ... and no one needs. Nobody, Suren ... - He whispered bitterly.

Gazaryan played with nodules, but in the semi -thumbnail, sparingly lit by yellow squares of windows, this was not visible. The wolves turned out very close, and the shepherd running around the perimeter was indistribly.

- Nobody needs anything, Suren ... The country does not need an army, you and I do not need army, we do not need our soldiers ... I, when that New Year, the very first, met at the mine ... There was such a longing. I met with chocks ... I am not about you, Suren ... And I just thought: not to have a hacking. Be patient for business. The homeland remembers. The homeland knows ... x ... those on! - Alexander Petrovich shook his fist against a icy door jamb. - So I sit, where I was sitting, and I will sit here before the gray guns. And we do not protect anything, Gazarian. We just short life. We will wait until we can. And there is no homeland anymore. We have long been sore ...

“More vodka, comrade Colonel?” - Suren asked sympathetically.

“That's for sure,” Alexander Petrovich died Sivukha.

The major ran away, took out a tied bottle, suggested that the colonel be attached first, then clinging himself.

- Here you are about Oppenheimer Davech ... He was an adult man, right? And ours? Boys, e ... t! Их из домов повыдергивали — ​кто белый, а зверьков — ​из аулов, это я не про тебя, и сюда, к нам, на край земли… Молокососы… Дети! И вот Новый год, а эти там торчат в шахте… Хоть бы их поздравил кто… Хоть бы нас кто… Никому ничего…

А вот тут дамба пошла трещать по швам уже по-настоящему. Нет, недобрая была водка… Измена! Измена!

— Ну да… Трындеть-то мы все горазды… — ​слушая себя будто со стороны и холодея от только что самим собой произнесенного, залепил Газарян. — ​А сделать… Вот поехать к ним сейчас… На шахту поехать и…

— Страх потерял? — ​сурово икнул полковник. — ​Слово офицера, морда, под сомнение?! Да я прямо сейчас! Да я, едрить, хоть в костюме Деда Мороза! Хочешь на спор?! — ​завелся он.

— Хо… Хо… — ​сначала покивал, потом помотал башкой Сурен. — ​Товарищ полковник… Тут это… С елки осталось… Ну, детям в военгородке делали… В общем… Ну, халат там красный, борода…

— Тащи сюда! — ​свирепо выкатил глаза полковник. — ​Поздравим пацанов! Новый… Эх… Новый год. Прокатимся. Шахту… Проинспек… Проинспек… Ек…

Прикатилась и встала на свое место восьмисоткилограммовая дверь, лязгнули засовы. Где-то наверху поехал, тарахтя, резать фарами буран вездеход, увозя с собой отдежуривших бойцов. Закрылись ворота.

— С наступающим тебя, сучонок, — ​улыбнулся Саид и толкнул Серегу вниз. Сегодня праздновать будем. В душе был?

- Yes, you went!

Серега сорвал с плеча автомат, но дагестанец легко выдернул ствол из его пальцев и пинком отправил парня кубарем катиться по ступеням. Спустился неторопливо на площадку, ухватил Серегу за ворот, тряхнул в воздухе, как куклу, и бросил дальше вниз. Кровь потекла из рассеченной брови, от боли потемнело в глазах. Дауд спускался последним; не участвовал, но и не мешал.

— Тут сто пятьдесят ступеней, — ​нагнал пытающегося уползти Серегу Саид. — ​Ты, сучонок, все их своим рылом пересчитаешь. А потом я тебя выиграю… А потом взбесишься и на нас при исполнении кинешься. А потом, уже сам понимаешь… Мы что, мы при исполнении…

Серега выиграл секундочку, успел подняться и изо всех оставшихся сил впечатал Саиду сапог в топорщащуюся уже промежность. Саид охнул, присел, но тут подлетел Дауд, схватил Серегу за волосы — ​и о стену, о бетон.

— А потом мы маму твою найдем и выиграем… — ​смрадно засипел он Сереге в самую душу.

Колосов изловчился, крутанулся и вцепился зубами Дауду в подбородок, ухватил за бушлат — ​что-то осталось в руке, потом рванул пальцами ухо и со всех ног бросился вниз по ступеням.

В горле клокотало, в сердце кипяток, в голове барабаны. Hatred! Страх звериный и звериная ненависть!

Глубже, глубже! Клацнул сзади затвор, но стрелять они не решились. Проклиная Серегу, бросились вслед, но у того уже была фора. Первым добежал до одиннадцатого отсека и в перекошенную рожу Саида хлопнул стальной дверью.

Раскрыл ладонь — ​а в ней ключ. Second. Первый ему прыщавый лейтенант передал. With coming.

А всего-то и надо для запуска, что два ключа и код. Только ключи одновременно повернуть… Но тут есть способ, нужно просто швабру и проволоку.

Серега щелкнул тумблером.

— Лучше сейчас открой, — ​глухо из-за стальной толщи пробубнил Саид. — ​Ты живым не выйдешь отсюда, понял?

— Пошел ты, — ​Серега прикусил губу.

— Мы тебя как барана… Глотку тебе… Потом в Питер твой поедем… — ​не унимался Саид.

Колосов молчал. Пытался успокоиться и изучал аппаратуру.

— Все равно вылезешь рано или поздно! Жрать захочешь и вылезешь! А мы дождемся! У нас есть как время скоротать!

Сереге вдруг послышался легкий, неуловимый почти запах гашиша. Ненадолго Саид замолк — ​видно, затягивался. Потом сквозь сталь донеслось — ​сдавленное, прибалдевшее:

— Что притих там, сучонок? Сдавайся!

— Ты из какого города, Саид? — ​прижавшись лбом к двери, спросил вдруг Серега.

— Какая тебе разница? Под Махачкалой!

— Разницы нет, Саид! — ​чувствуя, как поднимается внутри, распирает грудную клетку злобное ликование, почти закричал Серега. — ​Сейчас весь Дагестан накроет!

— Врешь, гад! Где ты код возьмешь?! Где второй ключ возьмешь?!

Зачем распинаться, объяснять про боевую тревогу в прежней части, где он служил до перевода в эту, проклятую? Сказали потом, был компьютерный сбой. Хорошо, успели все отменить — ​в последний момент, когда уже код запуска сообщили ему и второму дежурному. Часть расформировали, офицеров и солдат распихали как придется.

А код Серега наизусть запомнил навсегда. Такие моменты врезаются в память. Может, тот код больше не действовал. А может, действовал вполне.

Его все еще трясло.

Он хотел одного: чтобы эти подонки сдохли. <...> Всех выжечь, всех до седьмого колена. В пыль и пепел… В пыль и пепел! В пепел Саида, Дауда, полковника, майора и всю их базу, в пепел самого Серегу, всю его пошедшую вкривь жизнь. Лучше сдохнуть, чем жить уродом.

Экран ожил, и Серега зашарил по кнопкам пальцами. Где находится Дагестан, он знал очень приблизительно. Ничего, в этом деле точность не нужна…

Здесь ведь есть ручное управление. На тот случай, если главный командный пункт в подмосковном Одинцове перестанет существовать. На тот случай, если Москва перестанет существовать. Если командовать станет некому, и дежурный офицер сам будет должен принять решение, стать ли ему уничтожителем миров.

Он принял. Прости, мама.

Включилась система оповещения, загудел сигнал. Два ключа — ​вставить и повернуть одновременно… Рассинхронизация не должна быть больше полутора секунд… Теперь код…

Кровь неслась по жилам, обжигая, бурля. Перед глазами в багровом мареве маячила рожа Саида, его осоловелые неживые глаза, затянутые занавесом дурмана, белозубая нахальная улыбка…

Убью, падла… Сам сдохну, но и тебя, и всю твою родню, и город… Всех.

— Ты что делаешь? — ​уже испуганно раздалось из-за двери. — ​Ты что такое делаешь?

The code came up.

Это тебе не «Виндоуз». Никакой генерации случайных чисел… Технология шестидесятых. Почти стимпанк. И даже поменять после той тревоги, раздолбаи, забыли.

Теперь только последнюю кнопку нажать. Сережа положил палец на пластмассу: она была очень гладкой, почти нежной и холодной. Как щека Наташи Ростовой какой-нибудь.

— Ты не посмеешь! Мы потом в Питер… Мы всех твоих… И маму, и папу, и бабушку, и дочку… — ​надрывался Саид.

— Ничего не сделаешь! — ​привалился к двери Серега. — ​Тут две ракеты! Две, Саид! Одну — ​твоему аулу, другую — ​нам с тобой сюда!

— Открой дверь, с-сукааа! — ​страшно заорал дагестанец. — ​Открой!!!

И вдруг заткнулся.

По ту сторону двери воцарилась совершенная, ватная, невозможная тишина. Будто ракета уже упала.

Серега насторожился.

— Это че там такое? — ​еле слышно и совершенно ошалело спросил Саид.

Не к Сереге обращался. То ли к Дауду, то ли сам к себе, то ли с богом уже говорил.

— Ты видел, Дауд? — ​голос у этого каменного человека был такой, будто он только что увидел свою маму. Или призрака.

— Вижу… — ​так же приплюснуто отозвался второй.

— Это же этот… Дед Мороз… Смотри, прямо у входа…

Выманивают его? Или гашиш уже слил для них измерения, прирастил наш мир к параллельному? В отсеке, где застряли дагестанцы, находится пульт охраны. На него выведена вся сигналка с периметра, кондовые мониторы дают неверное серое изображение с кондовых камер наружного наблюдения. Камеры, ясное дело, немые… Что они там, черт возьми, показывают?! Серега вжался ухом в холодное железо.

— Как он через ворота прошел? — ​тупо спрашивал Дауд.

— Да че это вообще за черт? — ​вторил ему Саид.

— Бери его на мушку суку эту!

У них там управление крупнокалиберным пулеметом заведено… Сейчас они наведут на чудака ствол, прижмут гашетку, и его тут же раздерет в клочья. Просто попав в руку, пуля из такой машины отрывает ее от тела.

— Слышь, брат… — ​неуверенно произнес Дауд. — ​Может, погодим? Это же… Ну… Дед Мороз…

— Какой Дед Мороз, брат?! Это посторонний на объекте!

— Откуда здесь постороннему быть, брат? Taiga! До части десять километров, брат! До города двести… Минное поле! Signaling! А тут Новый год все-таки…

Серега машинально взглянул на часы. Времени было без четверти двенадцать. Ему нестерпимо захотелось отпереть дверь и самому взглянуть в мутный экранчик… Вдруг… Вдруг и вправду… Вдруг?

— Дай сюда! — ​прикрикнул Саид. — ​Ты мужик или у тебя на губах не обсохло? Ты не можешь, я его пристрелю!

Нельзя сказать, что случилось с Серегой. Словно поплыла, преломилась перед ним железная комната, словно он сам уменьшился в три раза, а мир вдруг вырос, и время застыло, и воздух остекленел. Только утихшее было сердце снова скакнуло…

— Не смей, Саид! — ​сорвавшись в отчаянный скрип, крикнул он. — ​Не стреляй!

И против всего открыл дверь.

В отсеке было трудно дышать из-за густого конопляного дыма. Два могучих дагестанца вцепились друг другу в глотки и замерли так, словно Серега сейчас вдруг попал на финал мирового первенства по вольной борьбе.

На экране была довольно отчетливо видна силикатная сторожка и прямо у входа, четко в перекрестье пулеметного прицела — ​рослая человеческая фигура. Долгополый тулуп, шапка, отороченная белым, посох и мешок за плечом. Чужак стучал в дверь. Потом повернулся и глянул в камеру… Лица было не разобрать, только кустистые белые брови были видны и долгая снежная борода.

— Помоги мне его… — ​прохрипел Дауд Колосову.

Серега, не в силах отлепить взгляд от экрана, машинально подобрал валяющийся на полу калаш и приложил его с размаху прикладом о складчатый Саидов затылок. Саид хрюкнул нехорошо и обмяк.

— Прости, брат, — ​вздохнул Дауд. — ​Это он неправ был. Курит много. Ум совсем потерял. Я скажу братве… Чтобы тебя не трогали, в общем, скажу.

Серега рассеянно кивнул.

В глазах щипало.

На циферблате было пять минут первого.

— С Новым годом, — ​беззвучно прошептал он.

Дед Мороз потоптался-потоптался да и двинул куда-то в чащу.

— Мы правильно сделали, да? — ​как-то беззащитно спросил Дауд. — ​Только ты никому не говори. Will you not?

— Не успели? Твою наискось! — ​печально отрыгнул полковник, оттягивая и отпуская болтающуюся на резинке ватную бороденку. — ​Ладно… Мы… Это… Ну как? Все равно давай поздр! Слово офицера надо!

Вездеход, съехавший одной гусеницей в кювет, пыхтел и дымился. До ворот не доехали метров тридцать. Полковник кувырнулся в снег, выдернул валенки и заковылял к сетчатым воротам периметра. Сурен вызывал по радио командный пункт, но тот не откликался.

Александр Петрович добрался до ворот, потыкал непослушными пальцами в кодовый замок, да так ничего от него и не добился. Совершенно изможденный, он плюхнулся задницей в мягкий сугроб и тихо загрустил.

Через металлическую сетку он наблюдал недостижимую сторожку, и убранные инеем ели, и яркое пятно света у входа… И кряжистую фигуру в заснеженном тулупе, вразвалку уходящую в лес, в никуда. Кажется, увидел даже посох и мешок за плечом.

Было и кануло.

— Еп-пенгеймер… — ​харкнул полковник.