Hunter

Europe, Austria, 21st century. Here, a world-famous celebrity, singer Leon Etinger, meets with Nathan Kaldman, the head of the Israeli secret services, whose agent the hero has been for many years. Leon is slim, flexible, with panther plastic, ironic, sarcastic, smart. Under the pseudonym "Kenar of Russia" (Russian canary), he is characterized by special services as risky, reckless and successful.

Leon says that his grandmother Esther played the piano 100 years ago, so he loves to be here. Men talk about the fate of Europe and Asia, about the “Arab spring” of the 10s of the 21st century, about modern intelligence methods, but meanwhile they are served by a strange, pierced waitress with an eccentric look with a tense face. So there was the first meeting of Leon and Aya, which they both remembered.

Leon and Kaldman are old friends, the counterintelligence is the father of Meir, a classmate of Leon, who was once his friend. Heroes recall the moment of their acquaintance: Nathan was then a military officer, and Leon was a schoolboy; they were immediately drawn to each other. How they both admired their teacher Immanuel, an old intelligence officer, to whom the state of Israel owes its existence.

Immanuel - a relative of Magda and Nathan, knew Leon from childhood and called Tsutsik. The boy liked to listen to stories about the secret operations of a heroic, already paralyzed old man, who was looked after by two Thais: Vinay and Tassna. Nathan says that when Immanuel died, a Russian businessman Krushevich bought his company and illegally sold weapons and uranium to terrorists. When the Israeli secret services became interested in his activities, Krushevich disappeared. Leon is asked to go to Southeast Asia and, under the guise of a tourist, look for Krushevich, and especially his accomplice Kazakh, an invisible man who created a criminal network of illegal trade in various weapons.

After many years of service in reconnaissance, the hero is now an almost free man, a freelancer, reluctantly agreeing to exchange art for "dirty" work. In memory of Immanuel, Leon takes on this cause. Along the way, he surrenders to Nathan the Iranian nuclear scientist he has tracked down here, creating a "dirty" bomb.

Kaldman reflects on Leon and concludes that he is a true hunter, persecutor in his soul, and this passion is comparable in strength to his main love of art.

Meir, Leon, Gabriela

It tells about Leon’s childhood, about his best friends, classmates Meir Kaldman and Gabriel.

A boy and his mother live in poverty in a poor quarter for social benefits. Vlada teaches the language and still leads a disordered life, Leon earns money and manages family finances, not trusting a dissolute mother. A local merchant, the widower Abram, wooed her. Despite her refusal, a man takes care of a single mother with her son. He relocates them to a decent area, to a basement, helps to furnish an apartment, arranges Leon in a decent school at the university, and Vlad - a manager at Kneset (the government). Earning money, the boy dreams of resuming music classes. He is endowed with a talent for reincarnation and a love of antique and vintage surroundings.

At school, Leon falls in love with classmate Gabriela and begins to make friends with class leader Meir Kaldman. The hero shows his wonderful voice when friends try to create a school music group; others are shocked. Then Leon met Magda, Meir’s mother: “Between these two different people throughout, there was a long, inexplicable, but true spiritual connection, for which both of them stubbornly held on.”

Magda begins to patronize Leon and introduces him to his uncle Immanuel, a millionaire scout. Thanks to him, the boy is again engaged in his favorite music - playing the clarinet and singing. The old man introduces him to the "Shepherd" - the head of counterintelligence, he composes a secret dossier on the boy-singer and gives the pseudonym - "Russian Canary".

After sixteen years, Leon’s voice mutates: he says baritone, but sings a high counter-tenor.

Leon and Gabriel are physically attracted to each other, although the girl is completely unbearable, taller and larger than him, flirting insidiously. Later the hero will be attracted by just such women - large and bitchy. Gabriela tells Leon about the Kaldman family secrets, vilely speaking about Magda. Despite everything, the hero is in love and suffering.

Leon has yet another talent: ability to speak foreign languages; He especially succeeds in Arabic.

After the graduation party, three friends get drunk and spend the night at the Caldman, where Gabriela seduces both classmates. She chooses Meir and secretly triumphs; friends fight because of her and forever part. Later, Gabriela and Meir get married, contrary to the will of Magda, who never loved her daughter-in-law.

Now Leon’s life is devoted to revenge for this loss on the personal front: he passionately trains his slender body, doing several sports, to forget his former friends forever and to prove to himself and everyone that he is the best.

The hero serves in the army, in combat units, performing secret special missions in Arab settlements. He made friends with the Parsi (Iranian) Shauli, a two-meter tall jerk, and received the nickname “Kenar”. Of these, spies and killers are trained, not all can withstand, but the will and anger help the hero to bear the hardships of service.

After the army, Leon works with Nathan and the “Shepherd” in special services - “... he became a specialist in tracking down, prosecuting and killing bad guys, interrogating, cheating, recruiting, eliminating, changing clothes and building deadly dangerous moves and situations ...” .

Leon works with recruited Arab agents, he is friends with some of them. For example, with an antique dealer Adil, a disabled old man, in whose shop the hero discovered stolen family rare books sold to the ancestors of the old man, Jacob Etinger. The hero uses the book to communicate with agents.

When detained, Leon cripples an Arab terrorist, is temporarily suspended from service, and after an investigation, he visits his mother. It was then that she confesses that she gave birth to him from a Palestinian Arab. Shaken and not knowing how to live further, he reveals the secret of his origin to Immanuel, whose opinion he values. The old man reassures the hero and convinces that “the blood of consciousness is what matters. This is what we have managed to preserve and nurture for generations. This kind of courage: remember, not relaxing and not softening! .. "

On the advice of an old intelligence officer, Leon is leaving to study at the conservatory in Moscow. An experienced teacher Kondrat Fedorovich teaches the hero to use his rare voice correctly. The teacher introduces Leon to the impressionario Philip Geshard, who later became his friend.

Having finished his studies, Leon lives in Paris and sings in opera around the world, he is a freelance employee of the Israeli counterintelligence in Europe, who maintains contact through Nathan.

Leon again draws closer to the Kaldmans, visits them in the villa and sings to them in the evenings, enthralling them. The singer does not believe in love, remembering the insidiousness of Gabriela, and is not seriously attached to anyone. Magda tells the hero the secret of his past, convincing him that love exists. On his next visit to Leon’s villa with his friend Nicole, Gabriela rushed there. Having confessed to Leon in love, she again seduces him. Nine months later, Magda sends the hero a photo of a newborn red-haired grandson.

Jum Island

Leon performs the task of special services - travels around Thailand in search of Andrei Krushevich.On the beach of the island of Jum, a deaf girl photographer Aya met him, mentioned in a conversation “Faceted Glasses” and Zheltukhin, and said that she remembered him from the first chance meeting. Having heard symbolic names from the history of his family, the singer becomes interested in the girl. The heroes smoothly unwind the spiral of the past of their families and finally converge at the starting point - Nikolay Kablukov, who gave Esther Etinger the kenar Zheltukhin. Heroes are the heirs of that incredible mystical connection between the two families: “Zheltukhin tied them, Uncle Kolya-Zverolov and“ Faceted glasses ”... The heroes begin a romance.

Lovers travel on Leon’s yacht, telling each other about their past and their families. The emotional manner of speaking a lot Aya reminds Vladyka, but unlike the one, she speaks the truth.

Aya recalls her life in London in the family of Uncle Friedrich, the hostility of his wife Elena and the affection for their servant Bert, who also knew Muhan and German Gertrude. Berta told the girl about the love of the parents of Frederick - a Kazakh soldier and a German, saved by him from rape. Running away from them, the girl traveled a lot, traveled half the world with a camera in her hands, inheriting a passion for vagrancy from her grandmother. Aya’s computer has a whole series of photographs - stories, as she calls them, are all highly artistic.

Leon admits that the girl is close in spirit and very brave: "And in general, what does this constant effort cost her to be like everyone, how much courage, how much strength she needs ...". He does not want this rapprochement, fearing to be deceived again in feelings, but the girl with her sincerity melts the ice of his soul.

From the story of Aya about his uncle Friedrich, Leon concludes that he is the Kazakh intelligence wanted by Krushevich’s companion, who illegally sells weapons and plutonium. Heroes break up, thinking that forever. Leon informs special services about Kazakh.

Aya ponders whom Leon reminds her of and concludes that her English relatives are Uncle Friedrich and his son Gunther. Those are also secretive and dangerous. The girl lived with them for several years, while studying at art college. The members of that family are not close to each other, unlike the Ayi family. Nobody loved the girl except Frederick, considering him a burden. Uncle was selling Persian carpets, Gunther was almost not at home, traveling around the world, but the family’s main occupation was secret, illegal, which the girl guessed by reading scraps of conversation on her lips and noticing some secret lists. Relatives are selling weapons.

Bert's servant warned the heroine that it was dangerous for her to stay in the family, and she disappeared, moving from country to country. Everywhere she seems to be tracking herself. And if she believes in Uncle Friedrich's sentimental affection for her, then she is not deceived about Gunther - he is a dangerous person. The son of Frederick was brought up in the East, in the family of his uncle Bahram, he is a polyglot. She felt a similar danger in Leon.

Ryu Obrio, Port Gardens

Leon returns to Paris, on the rue Aubrio. His apartment is full of vintage and antique items. He buys them at flea markets and from a friend of Button Lu, an old Ethiopian, a former terrorist. Liu talks about his long-standing acquaintance with Frederick at an Arab militant training camp. and warns Leon that he is extremely dangerous.

Leon gets to work, keeps in touch with intelligence, but constantly thinks about Aya. Having realized that he cannot live without her, he flies to Kazakhstan, to the port gardens, meets with her father Ilya, leaves his address, asks him to inform his daughter about him, and buys the canary Zheltukhin. Ilya tells Leon about his old friend Krushevich, whom the hero is looking for around the world, and reports on the unusual effect of plutonium on canaries.

Aya is hiding in Thailand, where a girl has a lingering dream, during which she is robbed.

Leon meets with Nathan and Shauli, who ask to introduce them to Aya, hoping to make her an informant with Frederick.They tell the hero that Gunter is hunting the girl, suspecting her of excessive curiosity. Israeli counterintelligence believes that Gunter “an absolute shadow, a brilliant conspirator - all in a halo of secrecy. We don’t even know what he looks like. ” He is the secret coordinator for plutonium trade, who has long been interested in counterintelligence. Leon refuses to betray his beloved, wanting to protect her from “spy games”. He is about to secretly leave Paris and look for Aija when, unexpectedly, she comes to him.