Fly Hunter: The Story of an Inquisitor - страница 22

And the trucks calmly unloaded at the base managed by Jumshid, who specially cleared a warehouse for them. Satisfied, Jumshid didn't leave the base until each crate was weighed, stacked in piles in the warehouse, and the documents were processed.

Meanwhile, Aman-Jalil "stopped by" at Jumshid's house, surprised that he lingered at work so long: "he doesn't take care of himself," stayed for tea, and seized the moment when Jumshid's wife busied herself in the kitchen, slipped a bundle of foreign currency under Jumshid's mattress. Then Aman-Jalil lingered over tea with his favorite cherry jam, praised the hostess, and left without waiting for his brother, citing urgent matters. From a nearby phone booth, he called the Inquisition, the narcotics control department, changing his voice with a candy in his mouth, he said:

– A loyal subject reports: there's a large batch of drugs at Jumshid's first warehouse, a few crates of oranges. They will go to Duitsland in the morning.

And, satisfied, he hung up. The car would start, he knew that well…

Exhausted like never before, Jumshid was already leaving for home when the base perimeter was surrounded by soldiers, and three plainclothes men approached Jumshid, demanding the keys to the first warehouse. Jumshid didn't even bother asking for their documents; each of the inquisitors was recognizable by their kind and responsive gaze. He returned to the office, grabbed the keys, reached into his pocket for something, and was immediately seized by one of the plainclothes men. He was quickly searched and released.

– Why? – Jumshid was offended. – I've never owned a weapon in my life.

– It's better to be safe than sorry, – the inquisitor apologized softly.

In the warehouse, a squad of soldiers clumsily but swiftly opened crates of oranges, more breaking than opening, slashing each fruit with combat knives and greedily destroying them. When this squad had their fill, they called in a second, and the rampage continued.

Jumshid attempted to protest.

– What are you doing? This is our currency, the shipment is headed to Deutschland.

– Shut up! – the inquisitor gently hushed him. – It's going to Animaland.

Jumshid sat on an empty crate that once held oranges and helplessly watched this savage feast… By the time crates of narcotics were finally discovered towards dawn, he was beyond surprise, in a daze, everything swirling before his eyes like in a fog. After signing the confiscation report for a large shipment of narcotics from the first warehouse of the base entrusted to him, Jumshid accompanied the inquisitors home, still in a fog. In a daze, he saw his wife's pale frightened face, numbly acknowledged the stacks of foreign currency found under the mattress. And so, in a daze, he lived for many years on the distant island of Bibir in Antarctica, until he accidentally got involved in a drunken brawl among criminals and received a fatal knife wound in the midst of the fighting. The pain dispelled the fog, and the last thing Jumshid saw before him wasn't his daughter's face, his wife's, his father's, or mother's, but his brother's smile. Aman-Jalil smiled kindly, warmly, friendly. But his eyes bore the cold muzzle of a gun.

Aman-Jalil came to Gyaurov early in the morning, before work had begun. He knew his uncle usually arrived an hour early, before everyone else, to work in peace, undisturbed by personal requests, which he had to learn to refuse since many were unlawful.