Games of The Hangman f-1

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  Pietro slung his submachine gun and walked across to the packing case. He opened the viewing doors. The Picasso in all its arcane beauty was exposed.

  "There's a picture inside — kind of peculiar," said Pietro. "Looks like a load of crap."

  Balac hadn't relaxed his gaze. "So," he said to Paulus, "you have brought me a Picasso. The surprise must lie elsewhere. Keep looking," he said to Pietro. "Check out the back as well as the front."

  The remaining blood drained from Paulus's face. His eyes still fixed on the art dealer, Balac nodded several times.

  Pietro produced a knife and started prying boards away from the front of the packing case around the picture. "Nothing here," he said after a couple of minutes. Splintered wood littered the floor."

  "Look at the back," said Balac.

  The packing case was heavy. It was positioned precisely against the wall, as Paulus had instructed, and Pietro had some difficulty in working it away. He contented himself with moving one side out far enough so that he could prize away a plank. The space was confined, but after a few seconds the nails at the edge were loosened and the plank pulled away. The planks were spaced at close intervals to support an inner casing of thin plywood. Pietro smashed through the plywood with his knife. He ripped away the piece at the corner.

  His eyes bulged as the business end of the shaped charge was revealed. "There's something here, some kind of explosive, I guess." He tried to wriggle back, but his coat was caught on a protruding nail at the back of the packing case.

  Balac leaned forward and kissed Paulus hard on the lips. He pulled back and embraced Paulus with his left arm. "I'm sorry. No more little boys." He thrust his right hand forward. Paulus arched his body and gasped in agony. As Balac stepped back, the handle of a knife could be seen protruding from the wound. Blood spurted, and Paulus collapsed writhing on the ground.

  Balac turned to face Fitzduane, the knife in his hand. Bloody though it was, Fitzduane recognized the short, broad-bladed design. It was a reproduction scua — a Celtic sacrificial knife.

  "See if you can find the detonator," Balac ordered Pietro, who was still struggling to free himself. "Give him a hand," he said to Angelo.

  Despite the distractions, Julius's gun hadn't wavered off Fitzduane for a second. The Irishman felt sick at what had happened to Paulus. Now that same knife was coming toward him, and he had only seconds to make his move — but if he did, he would die. At that range the two-barreled shotgun would blow his head off. The bulletproof vest might protect his torso, but even that depended on the ammunition Julius was using.

  Balac stopped some three paces away. "It's going to be worse for you, Hugo," he said. "It's going to hurt more than you can imagine, and there's going to be no relief except death. How does it feel to knew that it's over?" His eyes were shining. A drop of blood fell from the knife and splashed to the floor.

  Angelo screamed something in Italian. There was desperation in his voice. Julius's gaze still didn't waver. The twin barrels of the shotgun were pointed at Fitzduane.

  "Julius!" shouted Balac.

  Paulus von Beck had somehow risen to his knees. Blood was pouring from his groin. "Sempach, Sempaaach!" he shouted, and the automatic he held in both hands flamed, blowing a neat round hole through Julius Lestoni's head. His brains spattered over the wall.

  Fitzduane watched the twin muzzles of the shotgun slip away from his line of sight. He didn't wait. He closed his eyes and, pressing the firing button, blew the shaped charge. Prepared though he was, the noise was shattering. Three stun grenades went off in a ripple effect, the blast completely drowning the crack of the shaped charge and filling the room with searing light of igniting magnesium. Fitzduane's eyelids went white. There was a roaring in his ears, and he had to fight to avoid being completely disoriented. He shook his head dazedly and opened his eyes.

  Pietro had been half behind the packing case when the charge went off. He had been surgically cut in two from the top of his head to the upper thigh of his right leg. The right-hand side of his body had disappeared in the rubble behind the packing case. The left-hand side still stood propped against the wall. Fitzduane's SIG automatic lay on the ground where it had fallen from Julius's belt as he collapsed. He leaped forward and grabbed it. Balac seemed to have vanished.

  The shaped charge, moved away from its correct positioning against the wall and diluted by Pietro's body, had been only partially successful. One side and the top of a door-shaped aperture had been cut out of the wall, but the remaining vertical had been only half cut through, and rubble blocked the way.

  Fitzduane caught a brief glimpse of Angelo Lestoni through the smoke and dust. He fired. Automatic fire scythed through the air in return. He crawled along the ground. Further bursts cut through the air above him. He could see Angelo's legs. He fired again.

  The external wall of the studio seemed to implode. The noise was overwhelming — a growling metallic shrieking mixed with the crash of falling masonry and the rattle of gunfire. The muzzle of a huge machine gun poked into the room, spitting tracers. The bullets found Angelo Lestoni, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the floor, a broken mess.

  Fitzduane caught a brief glimpse of Balac at the end of the studio and fired twice rapidly.

  The tank, rumbling farther forward, blocked his view. There was a string of sharp explosions as prepositioned Claymore antipersonnel mines detonated uselessly, their normally lethal ball-bearing missiles smashing harmlessly against the tank's armor.

  The end of the studio erupted in a sea of flame. Members of the assault unit grabbed Fitzduane and hurried him out of the building and into a waiting ambulance. Paulus, paramedics working on him furiously, lay in the other bunk.

  He heard noises, more explosions, and the sound of heavy gunfire. He felt a pinprick on his arm and a brief glimpse of a man in a white coat standing over him and the Bear behind him wearing some kind of helmet.

  And then there was nothing.

  Book Three

  The Killing

  "The Irish are loose, untamable, superstitious, execrable, whiskey swilling, frank, amorous, ireful, and gloating in war."

  —Giraldus Cambrensis (of Wales), thirteenth century

  23

  Unwisely — but thinking his stay in Switzerland would be a matter of weeks rather than a couple of months — he had left the Land Rover in the Long Stay Car Park of Dublin Airport. Somewhat to his surprise it was still there on his return, though sticky with a thick deposit of unburned aviation fuel mixed with Dublin grime.

  He reached out his hand to open the befouled door with reluctance. A sudden gust of chill north wind angled the rain into his face, drenching his shirt. He suppressed his squeamishness and yanked the door open, threw in his bags, and climbed into the vehicle. A rush of wet cold located around his right foot informed him he had just stepped in a puddle. He slammed the door shut, and the wind and rain were excluded from his cold, damp aluminum and glass box.

  A rat biting at his nerve endings inside his skull reminded him that he had a hangover. God damn the Swiss and their going-away parties.

  Why the hell did he have to live in such a miserable, wet, wind-swept place as Ireland? It was May, and he was bloody freezing.

  * * * * *

  "I thought you were dead," said Kilmara cheerfully, "or dying at least — surrounded by nubile nurses in Tiefenau's intensive care unit." He rubbed his chin and added as an afterthought, "but I've prepared dinner anyway." He led the way into the big kitchen. "I've sent Adeline and the kids away for a while."

  "There was fuck all wrong with me," said Fitzduane dryly, "thought I guess I was a bit dazed by the pyrotechnics. It was the paramedic who put me out — determined to have his moment of glory."

  "Have a drink and relax," said Kilmara, "while I fiddle with pots and pans. You can tell me everything after you've eaten." He handed Fitzduane a tumbler of whiskey. "I assume you're staying the night. You'd better; you look terrible."

  "Swiss hospitality
," said Fitzduane. He slumped in a chair beside the fire. "It feels weird being back, weird and depressing and anticlimactic — and damp and cold."

  "You're always going away to sunnier climates," said Kilmara, "but still you come back; you should know what to expect by now. What's so different this time?"

  "I don't know," said Fitzduane. "Or perhaps I do." He fell asleep. He often did in Kilmara's house.

  * * * * *

  It was five hours later.

  The plates had been cleared. The dishwasher had been loaded. The perimeter alarms had been rechecked. The dogs had bee let loose to roam or shelter as they wished. Kilmara had received a brief report over a secure line from the Ranger duty officer. The day was nearly done.

  Sheets of rain driven by an unseasonable gale-force wind lashed the darkness. Double glazing and heavy lined curtains muted the sound of the storm except for the occasional eerie shriek echoing down the chimney. They sat on either side of the study fire, coffee, drinks, and cigars at hand.

  Fitzduane was still suffering from reaction to events in Bern. His fatigue was deep and lasting, and he felt only marginally refreshed after his sleep despite the fact that Kilmara, seeing his friend's torpor, had delayed eating until very late.

  He could hear the sound of a clock chiming midnight. "Hell of a time for a serious discussion," he said.

  Kilmara smiled. "I'm sorry about that. I'm tight for time, and it's important I talk to you."

  "Fire away."

  "The Hangman," began Kilmara. "Let's start with his death."

  "The Hangman," repeated Fitzduane thoughtfully. "So many different names; but it's funny, you know, I'll always think of him as Simon Balac."

  "Different aliases and personas are still coming out of the woodwork," said Kilmara. "Whitney seems to have been another of them. Best guess is that that particular name was inspired by his late-lamented blond CIA boyfriend in Cuba. Still, it does look as if Lodge was his real name. The background fits, took or at least the psychiatrists seem to think so. You read the stuff that was prized out of the CIA?"

  Fitzduane nodded. He remembered the clipped sentences describing Lodge's upbringing in Cuba: a brilliant, scared, lonely little boy maturing into a psychopath of genius. Fitzduane doubted that they had been supplied with the full story. The CIA didn't like to talk too much about Cuba.

  "We'll call him the Hangman," said Fitzduane. "The press seems to have picked up on the name anyway. ‘Death of a Master Terrorist. Major success for joint Bernese / Bundeskriminalamt task force. The Hangman slain.’"

  "The Bernese cops had to say something," said Kilmara. "they couldn't turn part of the city into a war zone and then burn down a complete block and say nothing. So tell me about it. I need to get a feel of the situation. The Hangman may be dead, but do his various enterprises live on? A friend of mine in the Mossad has suggested a few things that make me uneasy."

  "The Mossad?" said Fitzduane.

  "You go first," said Kilmara.

  Fitzduane did.

  "So you didn't actually see the Hangman killed?" said Kilmara.

  "No," said Fitzduane. "Things happened very fast after Paulus shouted ‘Sempach!’ and shot Julius Lestoni. It was all over in a matter of seconds. The last I saw of Balac he was headed toward the end of the studio. I got off a couple of rounds, but I don't think I hit him. Then the assault group and the Bear's fucking tank took over. When I woke up in the Tiefenau, they told me the rest. The assault team had seen the Hangman through a door at the end of the studio. They blasted him with everything short of things nuclear, and then some kind of embedded thermite bombs went off and the whole place went up in flames. The entire block was sealed off, and when things were cool enough, they went in and dug through the wreckage. They found various bodies. The Hangman was identified by his dental records. Apparently he had tried to destroy them and had succeeded, but the dentist kept a duplicate set in his bank vault.

  "Anyway, that, according to the powers that be, was the end of the Hangman. I stayed on a week to answer a whole lot of questions a whole lot of times and get drunk most nights with the Bear. And now here I am."

  "Why did Paulus von Beck shout, ‘Sempach’?" asked Kilmara, puzzled.

  Fitzduane smiled. "Love, honor, duty. We're all motivated by something."

  "I don't follow."

  "The von Becks are Bernese aristocracy," said Fitzduane. "Paulus felt that he had besmirched the family honor and that he was redeeming it by facing up to the Hangman. The Battle of Sempach took place when Napoleon's troops invaded Switzerland. The defending Bernese lost, but the consensus was that they had saved their honor. One of the heroes of the battles was a von Beck."

  Kilmara raised his eyebrows and then shook his head ruefully. He looked at his friend in silence for a short while before speaking. "So what's troubling you? The Hangman's dead. Isn't it over?"

  Fitzduane looked at Kilmara suspiciously. "Why shouldn't it be over? The Chief Kripo says it's over. He even paid for my going-away party — and drove me to the airport. He thinks Bern is returning to normal. He'll have a seizure if I go back."

  Kilmara laughed, then he turned serious again. "Hugo, I've known you for twenty years. You've got instincts I have learned to listen to — and good judgment. So what's bugging you?"

  Fitzduane sighed. "I'm not sure it's over, but I really can't tell you why, and I'm not sure I want to know. I'm so bloody tired. I had a bellyful of trouble in Bern. I just want to go home now, put my feet up, twiddle my thumbs, and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. I'm not going to photograph any more wars. I'm too old to get shot at and too young to die — and I don't need the money."

  "What about Etan?" said Kilmara. "Does she come into the equation? You know she hauled me out to lunch a couple of times when you were away. I have the feeling I'm supposed to act as some sort of middleman. I wish you two would talk to each other directly. This habit of not communicating when you're away on an assignment is cuckoo."

  "There was a reason for it," said Fitzduane. "The idea was for both of us to keep a sense of perspective, not to let things get out of hand."

  "As I said," said Kilmara, "cuckoo. Here you are, crazy about each other, and you don't communicate for months. Even the Romans used to send stone tablets to each other, and now we have something called a telephone." He shook his head and relit his pipe. "But why do you think it may not be over?" he said. "Are you suggesting the Hangman didn't die in that fire?"

  Fitzduane took his time answering. "The Hangman's whole pattern is one of deception," he said eventually. "And I would feel a whole lot happier if we had had a body to identify. Dental records can be switched. On the other hand I was there, and I don't see how he could have escaped. He certainly couldn't have lived through a fire of that intensity. So the guy must be dead, and I'm not going to spend my hard-earned rest in Connemara worrying about what might happen next. Almost anything might happen. My concern is with what probably will happen."

  "The evidence suggests that the Hangman is dead," said Kilmara, "but that is no guarantee his various little units will vanish or take up knitting. Remember, he operated through a series of virtually autonomous groups, and it's likely that new leaders were waiting in the wings. Another thought that nags away concerns Rudi von Graffenlaub's hanging and the other peculiar happenings on your island. There are a lot of rich kids there, and the Hangman never seems to do anything without a reason. He has a track record of kidnapping. Were Rudi and his oddly dressed friends being psyched up to provide some inside support for a kidnapping, maybe of the whole school? The place is isolated, and the parents are richer than you and I can imagine."

  "Geraniums," said Fitzduane sleepily.

  "What?" said Kilmara.

  "Geraniums keep popping up," said Fitzduane, "on the tattoos and in Ivo's notes, and the word was actually written down in Erika's apartment —but I'm fucked if I know what it means."

  Kilmara drained his brandy and wondered if there was any point in talking to
Fitzduane when he was this tired. He decided he'd better make the effort since time seemed to be a commodity in distinctly short supply.

  "Leaving flowers out of the equation," he said dryly, "I've got some other problems worth mentioning." He refilled Fitzduane's glass.

  The effort of holding his glass steady forced Fitzduane to pay reasonable attention. He was almost awake. "And you're going to tell me about them," he said helpfully.

  "My friend the prime minister," said Kilmara, "is fucking us around."

  "Have you ever considered another line of work? I fail to see the attraction in working for a bent machine politician like our Taoiseach. Delaney is a prick — a bent prick — and he isn't going to get any better."

  "Kilmara privately agreed with Fitzduane's comment but ignored the interruption. "A good friend of ours in the Mossad — and they're not all such good friends — has told me of a Libya-based hit team, some seventy plus strong, that has unfriendly intentions toward an objective in this country."

  "The PLO coming here?" said Fitzduane. "Why? Unless they've been out in the sun too long and want a real rain-drenched holiday to relax in. What has the PLO to do with Ireland?"

  "I didn't say PLO," said Kilmara. "There are PLO in the group but as mercenaries, and the objective, if you can believe what the Israelis found on a rather abortive preventive raid, is the U.S. Embassy in Dublin. The timing is put at some time in May."

  "How would seventy armed terrorists get into the country," said Fitzduane, "and what has an attack on the U.S. Embassy got to do with me? The embassy is in Dublin. I'm going to be as far away as one could possibly be without falling into the Atlantic. I'm going to be sleeping twelve hours a day and talking to the sea gulls and meditating on higher things and drinking poteen and generally staying as much out of trouble as a human being possibly can."