Читать книгу Fly Hunter: The Story of an Inquisitor онлайн

– Sniper! – the pilot praised him. – Look for more, maybe you'll find some.

He said it in jest, but Aman-Jalil seriously searched for flies and, to the pilot's surprise, found another six and calmly shot them down.

Ahmed, upon hearing the joyful news, jumped and clapped his hands.

– Ah, you've done it skillfully, ah, you've done it skillfully. Well done, jigit, the inquisition is all yours, with guts. Take it, command it, just remember: every word of mine is law for you.

– Why offend, father, every breath of yours is law for me… Oh, sorry, boss, got carried away…

– It's okay, it's okay, it's from an excess of feelings… Listen, were there any papers with Sardar Ali?

– None, chief. I reported to you that he first visited Nadir; if there were any, he left them there, but I think there weren't any, Sardar Kareem intended to discuss everything with Nadir first, but he wasn't there.

– He wasn't there, he wasn't there… But what if there were?.. Okay, can't reach Nadir anyway for now… Apples on the table, help yourself.

Aman-Jalil turned to the small table to take an apple and paled: a small human head crowned the pyramid of apples…

…In the daytime, a soldier brought a bag of apples, telling the mother:

– A gift from Renk, just sift through them, they've been sitting a while, might be some wormy ones…

And he left. Mother spread out the sack in the courtyard and poured the apples out… Her wild cry tore little Aman-Jalil away from his game. Running to his mother, he found her lying unconscious near the apples, and his father was sleeping, buried in the apples so that only his head was visible on top of the apple mountain. The boy pushed his mother away and asked her, when she opened her empty eyes:

– Why is daddy sleeping so uncomfortably?

And before his mother could stop him, Aman-Jalil rushed to his father and struck him on the forehead. The head rolled down the apple hill. Aman-Jalil screamed so loudly that his cry startled a flock of pigeons into the air, where they circled for a long time, hesitant to descend to the ground… And his father's head was already swarmed with flies…