杰弗里·阿切尔（Jeffrey Archer）毕业于牛津大学，1969年成为英国当时最年轻的国会议员，后曾任保守党副主席，1992年成为上院终身议员。从1974年第一部长篇小说《一分不多，一分不少》问世起，阿切尔陆续发表了10多部作品，包括长篇小说、短篇小说和剧本多种体裁，题材则不离政坛风云、国际冲突、家族争斗，巧妙的悬念设置、情节推进和适度穿插的情色描写则助阿切尔荣登最畅销作家的宝座。

April 18th, t9o6 Slonim, Poland

She only stopped screaming when she died. It was then that

he started to scream.

The young boy who was hunting rabbits in the forest was

not sure whether it had been the woman s last cry or the

child s first that alerted him. He turned suddenly, sensing

the possible danger, his eyes searching for an animal that

was so obviously in pain. He had never known any animal

to scream in quite that way before. He edged towards the

noise cautiously; the scream had now turned to a whine,

but it still did not sound like any animal he knew. He hoped

it would be small enough to kill; at least that would make a

change from rabbit for dinner.

The young boy moved stealthily towards the fiver, where

the strange noise came from, running from tree to tree, feel-

ing the protection of the bark against his shoulder blades,

so/nething to touch. Never stay in the open, his father had

taught him. When he reached the edge of the forest, he had

a dear line of vision all the way down the valley to the

river, and even then it took him some time to realise that the

strange cry emanated from no ordinary animal. He con-

tinued to creep towards the whining, but he was out in the

open on his own now. Then suddenly he saw the woman,

with her dress above her waist, her bare legs splayed wide

apart. He had never seen a woman like that before. He ran

quickly to her side and stared down at her belly, quite

frightened to touch. There, lying between the woman s legs,

was the body of a small, damp, pink animal, attached by