*
Colonel wore black smoky glasses, pulled out the first-aid kit, as he was injured by bullets in two places and washed scratches. Changed his jacket and put some makeup. He was in a hurry before in all airports, railway stations and police stations will be hung his photos as a dangerous criminal. Dux paid the taxi driver and entered the airport. It was a completely different person.
"You can track me only by my smell," – thought Colonel - "so this is my job." Some touches of makeup, putting the balls into his mouth, handling the muscles in motion and you see an unrecognizable werewolf.
Rest of time he spent in the toilet treating scratches, finished reading Marion and dozing a little bit and at half past six AM, he met Anna Ivanova, as she introduced, with a nice boy named Kolya.
- Cool! – Colonel gave a broad smile. - Now I have to present you a bottle of red wine, my dear shadow.
Tall and slender, like a wild cat with black flowing taut hair with the tint, she seemed to handle all kinds of seduction, such as: manicure, pedicure and peeling. She is always well-groomed and washed, a mysterious oriental beauty from the book "Thousand and One Nights", she lived in some far crystal world. A charming girl was hiding behind the mask of inaccessibility from the real cruel world in which the maniacs were chasing round-the-clock.
She was groping the boy, asked to run to the information desk, suddenly wanted cappuccino, said that she didn’t like waiting and has been making make-up for half an hour.
- A crazy girl - decided Dux - this is a Schumacher!
The check-in was lasting. A huge Boeing was filled by holidaymakers to Phuket and Pattaya like sardines. Colonel was hiding from the cameras as he could, because they were everywhere, and tried hide in the crowd. There were few minutes left till the passport control. He said goodbye to his freedom, just in case, probably with life, being well aware of the cruelty of his obstinate homeland. Ivanova with a child passed easily and Colonel stayed quite alone, in front of naked truth, trying to think about something good. About five minutes the frontier was looking at him, typing on the computer. Intuition didn’t deceive her and she studied different flourishes, but did not find something to cavil at and at last, made a cheerful salutary click of freedom with indifference.
In Dux’s enjoy, he bought Anna a mascara and most expensive perfume in the free shop, and boy a car-transformer.
- Let's paint the town red- thought Colonel- although they can arrest me in the plane.
*
He remembered how major Megera, who wanted to escape to Mozambique, then across freemasonry in South Africa and then to the United States, was arrested. The major used Dux, a twenty years old greenhorn corporal, as an interpreter, because Megera spoke only Russian, that’s why, no one could escape without him. His plan, as it turned out, was as follow.
Looking like revolutionaries from Mozambique to fly together with Russian transport worker AN-12, Ann, from the warehouse in city Bie, to be lost and surrendered to local separatists of the US intelligence services. Megera with a soldier was already on a board and the plane was taxing to the runway. And he, with joy, drank a glass of a straight whiskey, which he always carried in his jodhpurs. Then, he offered the corporal to drink, but, fortunately, he didn’t refused but he didn’t have time to agree, because Megera was arrested. Of course, the boy was arrested too, there were arrested six people. The investigation showed that the major Megera, a few days before the escape, had got deadly drunk and started inclining a senior lieutenant Yakovlev, a blond vigilant morally stable platoon leader, to drink with him and to betray his country. Yakovlev betrayed the major. He was tortured terribly at the warehouse near Luanda, and a couple of months later, he was shot as they said, somewhere near Izhevsk. His patron, a silent Colonel Kuznetsov, also left the contingent, Colonel Aristov and even someone else were sent with their families in the twenty-four hours to their native land. The corporal was also arrested and he has been also tortured in Luanda for two weeks. He was saved because he had met with Megher, and the last took him as an interpreter right before the flight, but there was another guy who had to fly, he was a little bit elder, a stuck demobilized man from the philological faculty of the Leningrad State University.
Dux was knocked out four teeth, was broken two ribs, was bet kidneys, was tortured by lack of sleep, hunger, thirst, tying up with ropes in a pit with flies and shooting simulation. They made him the most terrible torture called "a drip". A potential traitor was firmly tied to a chair in a way he couldn’t move, and they were dripping water from above on his Skull every two seconds for Dux to die in painful torment. Fortunately, he had to spend under the drip not so long, about four hours. It was wonder, that the corporal endured stoically all the tortures. Even the deputy chief of Zaitsev commandant's office, who was previously demoted from captain to the senior lieutenant for the sadistic leaning, said: "he is patient." That person was told about that he, beside himself with rage, cut off two phalanxes of the soldier’s fingers, having quickly closed the tank hatch and after that, he was sent as a staff executioner.
*
- Yes, - thought Colonel- I can’t relax yet but there is no time for being sad.
Anna lit up with incredible play from unexpected pleasant gifts and desires and he suddenly felt fireworks of young sparks and crazy languor. For a moment, she looked at him with a long gentle look and he felt a moment of delusion. However, as soon as Colonel tried to approach the beautiful girl, she abruptly looked at him coldly. While the crowd was passing the holding room, tunnel-like room and sitting in a standard Jumbo Jet, Boeing 747, Dux established good relations with Kolya for the last not cry, and, just in case, returned to his usual black and white life.
The plane roared as a dragon and took off into the high morning blue with white downy clouds. Moscow was squinting with the early morning, full of the sun and memory of hundreds corners of this magnificent city, where they love and kill.
*
The first couple of hours everything was, as usually, there were served the first breakfast. Kolya slept soundly. Colonel took out off his bag a small laptop.
- Show the photos - she said.
- Sit down, - he said, indefinitely inviting her with his hand.
She carefully carried a sleeping baby and sat next to him. Anna almost didn’t watch the photos, she looked them through. He went hot and cold all over and he began plunging into some awkward stupor. When he tried to approach the forbidden border, she made the Titanic with icebergs, killing any his wish. However, as soon Dux confusing trying to leave a new sudden captivity, deliberately and indifferently looking at white passing clouds and dark foggy contours of the land, at that moment she turned into a soft, weak and beloved girl with an attractive favourable look. And he again was next to her exiting eternity that was at the same time the inaccessibility and proximity, going mad from accidental touches of suffocating madness. In the end, he was saved by Kolya who woke up and cried. The second mini lunch was served and Colonel returned to reality.
*
They were met by an ultramodern Airport Suvarnabhumi, with unimaginable shops everywhere, dragons with waves of hot air full of Thailand special spices smell that, probably, weren’t anywhere else. The crowd passed in the opposite direction: visa, passport office, invisible customs, luggage, money exchange and transfer. He could gave her a lot of gifts: a sprig of white orchids, a blouse, white shoes with ultra platform, which she immediately put on and became completely inaccessible with her divine beauty.