Games of The Hangman f-1

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  The Chief Kripo would have preferred to keep Lodge's place under observation for some days before taking more dramatic action, but practical realities intervened. First, the Hangman was simply too dangerous to leave on the loose any longer than necessary, and second, they had to find out as fast as possible whether they were on the right track. After all, the computer wasn't infallible. Lodge might not be the right man. He might be a totally innocent run-of-the-mill privacy-loving billionaire.

  The Chief wished that there were a better way of checking out Lodge, but he couldn’t think of one. Once again he was going to lead the raid, and this time he was sweating under his body armor even before the assault team went into action. His skin felt cold and clammy, and there was an unpleasant taste in his mouth. He had a very bad feeling about what was to happen. He swallowed with difficulty and issued the command. The team started in.

  * * * * *

  Henssen replaced the receiver slowly and stared into the middle distance. "What a bloody business."

  Kersdorf's legs were hurting him. "What happened?" he asked. "Is Lodge our man?"

  Henssen shrugged helplessly. "The assault team lost two men going in plus another half dozen wounded. Lost as in dead. The Chief was scratched, but he's okay."

  Kersdorf was silent, shocked. Then he spoke. "So Lodge is our man. Did they get him?"

  "They don't even know whether he was there when the assault began," said Henssen, spreading his hands in a gesture of frustration, "but he certainly wasn't by the time they secured the house. Their best guess is that he wasn't there at all. They sweat that nobody got through their cordon and that the house was empty."

  "So how come the casualties?"

  "A variation on a theme. Explosives concealed in the floors and ceilings were triggered by a series of independent but mutually supporting automatic sensors: heat, acoustic, and pressure. The explosives were wrapped in some material that neutralized the sniffers."

  "What about Claymores?" said Kersdorf. "We warned them to expect Claymores."

  "It seems that our people just weren't good enough," said Henssen, "or at least the Hangman was better. Of course, he's had more practice, God rot him." He paused and massaged his temples. He felt acutely depressed, and light-headed from lack of sleep. He continued. "Oh, they found Claymores as expected and defused them. They followed our briefing in that respect, but then they thought they were safe — and boom."

  "He's a creature of habit," said Kersdorf. "There is always a surprise within a surprise: the Chinese doll syndrome."

  "Russian doll," corrected Henssen. "Those doll-within-a-doll-within-a-doll sets are Russian. They call them matrushkas; there can be three, four, or five, or six, or even more little surprises inside."

  Kersdorf sighed. There was silence in the room before he spoke. "Let's get some sleep." He gestured at the computer. "At least we now know how he operates. It won't be long before we get him."

  "But at what cost?" said Henssen.

  * * * * *

  The Bear was in a private room of the Tiefnau. Ten days of first-class medical care and the special attentions of one particular ward nurse with a gleam in her eye had left him, if not as good as new, at least in excellent secondhand condition. He pushed aside his tray with a satisfied sigh and split the last of the Burgundy between them..

  Fitzduane picked up the empty bottle. "Hospital issue?"

  "Not exactly," said the Bear, "though I suppose you might call it medically selected."

  "Ah," said Fitzduane. He looked at the label. "A 1961 Beaune. Now what does that suggest to you about the lady who bought you this? This is real wine. You don't use ‘61 Beaune to take the paint off your front door."

  "Hmm," said the Bear, growing a little pinker. "Do you mind if we don't talk about Frau Maurer?"

  Fitzduane grinned and drained his glass.

  "What's been happening?" asked the Bear. "Rest and relaxation are going to be the death of me. I'm not allowed near a phone, and the news I'm being fed is so scrappy that if I were a dog, I'd be chasing sheep."

  "Don't exaggerate."

  "Any progress with Vreni?"

  "None. She's alive, she's physically almost recovered, but her mind is the problem. She talks little, sleeps a lot, and any attempt to question her has proved disastrous. It sends her into a fit each time. The doctors have insisted that she be left alone."

  "Poor kid," said the Bear. "What about Lodge?"

  "Vanished — not that he ever appeared, now I think about it. The house has been taken apart by the army and made safe, which was no small task itself. There were booby traps everywhere. Afterward the forensics people had a field day. There is no doubt that Lodge is the Hangman, but the question is, is Lodge really Lodge?"

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Questioning of the neighbors hasn't yielded much," explained Fitzduane. "He is a recluse. He comes and goes at irregular intervals. He is absent for long periods. It's consistent with what we expected. We have had some small luck in terms of physical description, though few people have seen him up close. Mostly quick glimpses through a car window."

  "I thought all his various cars have tinted windows."

  "Sometimes, on a hot day, a window might be wound down," said Fitzduane. "He has also been seen walking on a couple of occasions — both times while it was raining so he was huddled under an umbrella."

  "Blond, bearded, medium build, et cetera," said the Bear.

  "Quite so," said Fitzduane. "And that tallies with the photo and other personal details filed with the Bern Fremdenpolizei."

  "So what's the problem?"

  "We've traced some of Lodge's background in the States," said Fitzduane. "We haven't been able to lay our hands on a photograph — his father was a senior CIA man and apparently for security reasons didn't allow either himself or his family to be photographed — but the physical descriptions don't tally. Hair and eyes are a different color. Lodge in his youth had dark brown hair and brown eyes."

  "A good wig and contact lenses are all you need to solve that problem."

  Fitzduane shook his head. "Not so simple. Normal procedure for an alien coming to live in Switzerland involves the Fremdenpolizei, as you know. In Lodge's case, he was interviewed several times by an experienced sergeant who swears that the man he spoke to — for several hours in all — had naturally blond hair, was not wearing contact lenses, and is the man in the photo in his file, which in turn pretty much tallies with the neighbors' description."

  "Fingerprints?"

  "None," said Fitzduane. "None on file in the States anyway. The Fremdenpolizei apparently don't taken them if you're a well-behaved affluent foreigner, and the jury is still out on the house in Muri. The forensics people have picked up some unidentified prints, but without a match they're not much use. I wouldn’t bet on the Hangman's prints being among them. He seems to skate near the edge, but in fundamental things he's damn cautious."

  "So Lodge is the Hangman," said the Bear, "but maybe Lodge isn't Lodge — and the Lodge that isn't Lodge isn’t to be found."

  "Hole in one," said Fitzduane.

  The Bear looked out the full-length window. Despite protestations about security, he had insisted on being on the ground floor and on having direct access to the garden. The window was slightly open, and he could smell freshly cut grass. He could hear the mower in the distance. "I hate hospitals. But I'm developing a certain affection for this one. Dental records?" he added.

  "Like the marriage feast at Cana, I'm saving the best for last."

  "So?" the Bear said impatiently.

  "The Nose has been set up to monitor any incident in Bern that might conceivably relate to the activities of the Hangman. A couple of days ago a dentist's surgery was completely destroyed by fire — as was the dentist, who had been bound into his own chair with wire."

  "That sounds like the Hangman's sense of humor," said the Bear. "Though I guess there might be a few other candidates among the patients."

  "Needless to say
, all of the dentist's records were destroyed, and that would have been that except it turns out he kept a backup set in his bank."

  "I'm sure his widow will enjoy looking through them. And I presume Mr. Lodge's full frontals are among them?"

  "Exactly."

  "Matrushka," said the Bear, "if I can quote Henssen's latest obsession."

  "Gesundheit," said Fitzduane.

  * * * * *

  The Chief Kripo was contemplating the computer screen. His face had been gashed unpleasantly, if not severely, during the Muri raid, and the scars itched. The stitches had been taken out several days before, and he had been told he was healing well. He had also been told the scars would be permanent unless he had plastic surgery. He was unenthusiastic about the idea; he thought he'd prefer to remain scarred and dangerous-looking than have some quack peel skin off his bottom and try to stick it on his face. He didn’t like strangers attempting to rearrange his bit — which brought him right back to the Hangman, who had damn nearly succeeded in disassembling him into his component parts.

  He tapped the computer keyboard a couple of times with his forefinger. "It works," he said. "You've proved that it does. Why is it that now, when we're so close, it's of no help anymore?"

  Henssen shrugged helplessly. "It has to be asked the right questions."

  The Chief glared at the VDU. He had a totally irrational desire to climb inside the machine with a screwdriver and wrench and force the dumb beast to cough up some answers. Somewhere inside that electronic monster lay the solution. He was convinced of that. But what to do about it? He had no idea. He was certain he was missing something — something obvious. He walked back and forth across the room, glancing frequently at the computer. After ten minutes of this, to Henssen's great relief, he stopped and sat down.

  "Tell me more," he said, "about how this machine thinks."

  * * * * *

  Fitzduane found walking in the Marzili pleasant but distracting. The Marzili was a long, thin park sandwiched between the River Aare and a well-to-do residential area of Bern, both of which were overlooked by the Bundeshaus bad a plethora of government buildings, including the Interpol building and the headquarters of the Federal Police.

  The Marzili's proximity to the center of things meant that even this early in the year, as the day was warm and sunny, a generous sprinkling of nearly naked women was scattered across the lawn. Topless sunbathing was the norm in the Marzili, and hundreds of secretaries and computer operators and other government workers were busy making up for a long, cold winter. Serried ranks of nipples were pointed at the sun like solar cells on an energy farm.

  Fitzduane, encased in a bulletproof vest under a light cotton blouson jacket, felt overdressed. He glanced across at the Bear, who was humming. Externally the detective seemed little the worse for wear after his two weeks in the hospital, and his cheeks had the ruddy glow of good living. On second thought Fitzduane decided that more than good food and wine were reflected in the Bear's demeanor. Love and the Bear? Well, good for Frau Maurer. Her first name, he had learned, was Katia.

  "Don't you find all this distracting?" he asked. Fitzduane's eyes followed a spectacular redhead as she loped across the grass in front of them and then lay down on a towel, eyes closed, face and body toward the sun, knees drawn up and slightly apart. Tendrils of pubic hair escaping from the monokini confirmed that she was the genuine article. She looked edible.

  "On the contrary," said the Bear, "I find it riveting."

  Fitzduane smiled. They walked toward the path that ran along the bank of the river. Downstream, minutes away, was the KirchenfeldBridge, and just below that was the spot where Klaus Minder's body had been fished out.

  The Bear sat down on a bench. Suddenly he looked tired. He threw a small branch into the water, and his eyes followed it until it bobbed out of sight. He extracted a creased envelope from his pocket and smoothed it on his knee.

  "Your guess as to the Hangman's identity," he said. "I found it in my pocket when I was getting dressed in the hospital this morning."

  "It seems I was wrong," said Fitzduane dryly. "There doesn't seem to be much doubt that Lodge is our man, and God knows where he is now. Your people have checked every square millimeter of Bern over the last couple of weeks."

  "Why did you think it was Balac?"

  Fitzduane picked up a handful of pebbles and slowly tossed them one by one into the river. He liked the faint plop each stone made. He wondered how many people had sat on the riverbank over the years and done the same thing. Had a vast bed of pebbles built up in the river as a result? Would the river eventually be choked up by ruminating the river watchers?

  "A number of reasons. For starters, just sheer gut feeling that he is a person who is not what he seems. Next, a number of small things. He is the right age. He was an intimate of Erika's. He has the right kind of charming but dominant personality. His artist's training would give him an excellent knowledge of anatomy. His work habits allow him to travel extensively without suspicion, to have unexplained absences, and so on. He's paranoid about security. His studio is near where Klaus Minder's body was found. There are other pointers, but none conclusive, and in any case it all appears a little academic at this stage. We've identified our man, and he isn’t Balac."

  "Hmm," mused the Bear. He was no longer looking so tired.

  "Anyway, I can't see him doing something as provocative as the chessboard girl."

  "We're dealing with a player of games," said the Bear. "The Hangman isn't rational by normal standards. He has his own logic. Tweaking our collective official nose appeals to him. Actually it’s not so uncommon. I once picked up a car thief who had operated freely for years until he stole a police car — and to an unmarked one, but the full painted-up job with radio and flashing lights and all the trimmings. When I asked him why he'd done such a stupid thing, he said he couldn’t resist it."

  Fitzduane laughed. "How are you feeling?"

  "Good considering this is my first day out of the hospital, but I do get a little wobbly now and then. I'll take a good long rest when this is over."

  "I'm not sure you should go to this meeting."

  "You couldn’t keep me away if you tried," said the Bear. "Don't forget I've a very personal interest these days. I want the Hangman dead."

  "What about civil rights and due process of law?" said Fitzduane, smiling.

  "The Bear shook his head. "This isn't a normal case. Normal rules don't apply. This is like stamping out a plague. You destroy the source of the infection."

  They walked along the Aare to the Dalmazibrücke. By crossing it and cutting up Schwellenmattstrasse, they could have made it to Project K in ten minutes, but Fitzduane took another look at the Bear and called a Berp car by radio. The Bear didn't argue. He was silent, lost in thought.

  * * * * *

  The Chief surveyed the assembled Project K team; then his gaze fixed on the Bear.

  "You shouldn’t be here, Heini, as you damn well know. If you collapse, don't' expect me to hold one end of the stretcher. You're too damn heavy."

  The Bear nodded. "Understood, Chief. You're not a young man anymore."

  "Needs his strength for other things," said Charlie von Beck.

  "Shut up, the lot of you," said the Chief, "and listen carefully. A short time ago we had our first major breakthrough. We paid a heavy price, but we identified the Hangman's base in Bern, and we now have a fair idea who he is, though I admit there are some problems in that area. On the negative side, a couple of weeks after the Muri find, the investigation is virtually at a standstill. We are at an impasse in terms of the Hangman's identity, and the man himself seems to have vanished despite the fact that we now have a photograph of him — and dental records — to work with. To add insult to injury, the death of that dentist occurred after the Muri raid, so it looks very much as if the Hangman is still in Bern. We know what he looks like, yet this psychopath seems to come and go with impunity — and not just to look at the sights. He is still killin
g.

  "I've called you all together to suggest that we change the way we're approaching this investigation. Since Muri we've been concentrating on trying to find Lodge to the virtual exclusion of all else. We haven't been successful. Now I think we need a more creative approach, and I include in that our use of the computer." He nodded at Henssen.

  Henssen stood up and then propped himself against a desktop. He looked as if he needed the support. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice hoarse. "The Chief thinks that we may have the solution in the computer but that we're not asking the right questions. He may well be right, so let me explain a little more about what we have done — and can do.

  "Our identification of Lodge was the result of a mixture of computer activity and human judgment. We tapped into a vast amount of data and then constructed a theoretical profile of the Hangman, and then, using a technique known as forward chaining, we filtered through the data. We were lucky. One of our two prime suspects was our man."

  "May I interrupt here?" the Bear broke in. "I thought it was agreed that the initial profile would look for someone who wasn't Swiss. If so, why did the machine cough up Beat von Graffenlaub? His age wasn't right either."

  Henssen looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, Heini, I owe you something of an apology. I second-guessed you. The program allows parameters to be graded according to the confidence rating because there wasn't a shred of hard evidence to back it up; it was outweighed by other material. The same applied to the age factor. In neither case were we dealing with hard facts, only with guesses."

  "Fair enough," said the Bear, "but I would like to have been told that at the time."

  "The system is totally transparent to the user," said Henssen. "Any of the parameters can be looked at whenever you wish. After this I'll show you how it's done."