GAMES OF THE HANGMAN

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  The first three members of the entry team reached the top of the ladders and placed a large rectangle of explosive cord on the glass. At the press of a detonator, the focused explosive charges would cut through the glass, blowing any debris into the curtains.

  "Entry team ready," said Burke.

  "Shit, it's really starting to blow," said cherry picker team leader.

  "Stand by, front team," ordered Kilmara.

  "Front team ready," said the team leader. The three Rangers facing the front door had their grenade launchers pointed at the fanlight above the door. The grenades—a mixture of blast and stun—were aimed to explode just below the top of the stairs, creating a lethal wall between Tina and the hostages.

  "Hostages still in the master bedroom in same positions," said Acoustic Surveillance.

  "Very well, we agree," continued Brannigan. "The helicopter will arrive at precisely eight a.m. You will have to wait till that time if it is to be able to reach us from its base. It does not have night-flying instrumentation."

  "You Irish are so backward," sneered Dieter, grinning at Tina. She laughed.

  "It's a German helicopter," said Brannigan inanely. It was clear he thought that he would be unable to sustain the conversation much longer. He signaled a hurry-up sign.

  "We have Dieter in clear shot—and Tina's shoulder," said cherry picker team leader, "and we're steady for the moment."

  "Cherry picker, fire!" ordered Kilmara.

  The apple green bullet entered Dieter's head near the crown and exited through his upper teeth and thick black mustache. He swayed slightly, and blood gushed from his mouth. The telephone was still in his hand, and his eyes were open, but he was already dead.

  The second sniper hit Tina in the upper right shoulder. The high-penetration round drilled straight through the bone, and the Skorpion dropped from her hand.

  All the lights were cut.

  Forty-millimeter grenades exploded on the stairs and in the front hall in a rolling series of eyeball-searing flashes. The front team switched to machine-gun fire and the three belt-fed Minimis poured 750 rounds into the confined space in fifteen seconds.

  Simultaneously the entry team detonated the explosive cord, and with a sharp crack the thick glass of the double-glazed window dropped onto the bedroom floor.

  The cherry picker team poured rifle fire through the skylight. After a couple of seconds, when the tough glass was adequately weakened, the sniper with the grenade launcher opened fire, his grenades punching straight through the remains of the skylight and exploding in the hall below.

  Night-vision goggles in place, the entry team cut through the heavy curtains with razor-sharp fighting knives, and Rangers leaped into the darkened bedroom, covering the open doorway and spraying automatic rifle fire through it onto the landing. Then Lieutenant Burke moved forward and tossed V-40 hand grenades out onto the landing and into the hall below. Each grenade burst into 350 lethal fragments.

  Meanwhile, the second three Rangers of the entry team clipped the top of an emergency escape chute to the window aperture and began sliding the four children to safety with the backup team on the ground below.

  "We're in the bedroom," said Burke into the helmet microphone. "Hostages are alive and being removed now."

  "Cherry picker and front teams, cease fire," said Kilmara. "Restore perimeter lighting. Entry team, secure house."

  The second three Rangers of the entry team slid the last child down the chute. Burke was changing magazines and the remaining two Rangers were checking the bathroom when Tina crawled in.

  No trace of the pretty young Italian girl remained. Her clothes and body were shredded. Her left cheek was gone, exposing the bone. Blood and matter streamed from dozens of wounds. Her right arm hung uselessly, and the fingers of its hand were missing. But she had the Skorpion in her left hand. Its muzzle wavered, and she fired.

  Time seemed suspended. There was nothing the young Ranger lieutenant could do. There was a stab of flame and a huge blow over his heart. Burke spun around and collapsed against the wall.

  The thing that had been Tina gave a gurgling cry, and the Skorpion dropped from her hand. She moved her fingers up to her throat and scrabbled uselessly at the knitting needle that emerged through it, then collapsed onto her back, her heels drumming against the floor in her agony of death.

  Maura O'Farrell, her two hands clenched around the adhesive tape handle of the knitting needle, withdrew the makeshift blade and plunged it in again and again until a Ranger pulled her away.

  They picked their way through the wreckage. It seemed inconceivable to Fitzduane that anyone could have survived the destruction in the hallway. There was scarcely a square centimeter of the floor, walls, and ceiling that was not scarred with shrapnel or pocked with the huge bullet holes of the modified Glaser rounds.

  A Ranger technical team was meticulously photographing the scene with both video and still cameras. There was always something to be learned for the next time.

  Dieter lay facedown. The pool of blood he lay in was sprinkled with fallen plaster and pieces of debris. His whole back was pitted with wounds from the salvo that had followed the initial fatal shot. Fitzduane bent down and examined first the right wrist, which bore a gold identity bracelet, and then the left, after removing a heavy gold wristwatch. The glass was intact, and the watch was still working. He dropped it on the body. "Nothing," he said to Kilmara.

  The staircase had been shot almost to pieces.

  "Beats me how she got up," said Kilmara. "We'll get a ladder. I'm buggered if I'm going to break my neck at this stage of the game."

  Two Rangers brought one of the scaling ladders and placed it against a protruding joist of the landing.

  The body of the once-pretty young Italian terrorist—if, indeed, her stated nationality was not as much a lie as her stated name—lay just inside the doorway of the master bedroom. It looked as if it had been hacked and chopped by some sort of infernal machine. The blood from a dozen or so puncture marks in her neck and throat had run together in an obscene halo around her head. Prepared though he was, Fitzduane felt the bile rise in his throat.

  Kilmara emerged from the bathroom, a damp washcloth in his hand. "My turn," he said.

  He lifted the corpse's right arm and wiped away the thick crust of congealing blood. The body smelled of blood, feces, and perfume. He saw that a grenade fragment or bullet had sliced into the wrist and carved a furrow in the soft surface flesh. He sponged around the rough edges. The light wasn't good. They were depending on external floodlights shining through the window. He removed a flashlight from the right thigh pocket of his combat uniform and shone the beam on the lifeless wrist.

  The mark was very small and partially obliterated by the furrow. Nonetheless, most of the small tattoo could be seen: the letter "A" surrounded by what looked like a circle of flowers. He looked up at Fitzduane, and their eyes met. The Ranger colonel nodded and rose to his feet. He tossed the bloodstained washcloth through the open bathroom door and then bent down to pick up several of the small cartridge cases lying beside the corpse. He put them in his pocket.

  They descended the ladder and picked their way through the organized chaos of snaking floodlight cables and departing security force vehicles. Engines roared, and vehicle after vehicle drove away.

  "How do you do it?" asked Kilmara. Fitzduane smiled, spread his arms and shrugged.

  "Do you know what Carl Gustavus Jung wrote?" said Kilmara.

  "I didn't know he was called Carl Gustavus."

  "A rough translation," said Kilmara, "and I quote: 'There are no coincidences. We think they're coincidences because our model of the world doesn't account for them. We're tied up in cause and effect.' "

  "And now you're going to tell me Jung's nationality."

  "Sharp lad," said Kilmara with a smile, "so you tell me."

  "Swiss."

  They walked across to the Mobile Surgery trailer. Inside, an army doctor was playing cards with a Ranger lieutenant
. A bottle of Irish whiskey and two glasses beside them displayed evidence of current use. Kilmara removed two more glasses from a wall rack and poured generous measures, then topped up the glasses of the doctor and the lieutenant. He removed the cartridge cases from his pocket and placed them in front of the lieutenant. "Souvenirs," he said. "How are you feeling?"

  "I've got a sprained wrist, and I'm bruised as hell," said Burke. "It's no fun being shot."

  "Lucky she was using a Skorpion," said Kilmara. "It uses a piss-poor underpowered pistol cartridge. It'll kill well enough, but it's got little penetrating power."

  "There is a lot to be said for being dressed right for the occasion," said Burke, indicating the scarred but otherwise undamaged Kevlar bullet-resistant vest hanging on a hook on the wall. He suddenly went pale and rushed to the adjacent toilet. They could hear the sounds of retching through the door.

  "He's physically okay," said the doctor, "but there may be post-traumatic stress involved. He was bloody lucky."

  "Jung also wrote: 'Every process is partly or totally interfered with by chance,' " said Fitzduane. "Not everybody knows that."

  "Good grief," said the doctor, and drained his glass.

  As Fitzduane and Kilmara left the trailer, the two dead terrorists were carried by on stretchers on the way to the morgue. Fitzduane felt the good mood induced by the banter inside the Mobile Surgery trailer vanish. "A depressing waste," he said soberly.

  "I'd feel a lot more depressed if it was us in those body bags," said Kilmara cheerfully. "You've got to see the up side in this game."

  They arrived at Kilmara's house at just after five-thirty in the morning. Inside the security perimeter all was quiet until the Saab crunched to a halt on the gravel. Then two Irish wolfhounds came bounding around the corner of the big Georgian house.

  "One would wonder if they were dogs or elephants with hair," said Fitzduane. "They're enormous bloody brutes."

  "You'd know if you visited more often," said Kilmara. "Now stay quiet until I identify you."

  Fitzduane did not need to be told twice. He watched while Kilmara called the two hounds to heel. Each dog was well over a meter and a quarter high and, he guessed, weighed as least as much as a fully grown man. Long pink tongues lolled over sharp rows of teeth.

  "Ailbe and Kilfane," said Kilmara. "Fairly recent acquisitions."

  The two men entered the house through the courtyard door and made their way to the large country-house kitchen.

  "Do you know the story of the original Ailbe?"

  "Remind me," said Fitzduane.

  "There was a renowned Irish wolfhound called Ailbe in the first century," said Kilmara, "owned by MacDatho, King of Leinster. Now Ailbe was such a remarkable dog that he could travel from one side of the kingdom to the other in a single day, and of course he was unsurpassed in hunting and war. Ailbe became so famous that both the King of Ulster and the King of Connaught coveted him, and an offer of no less than six thousand milch cows, a chariot with two fine horses, and the same again after a year was made. This was an offer MacDatho could hardly refuse. At the same time he knew he still had a problem because the king who did not get the hound would give MacDatho a most difficult time. It was a real dilemma."

  "So what did MacDatho do?"

  "MacDatho promised the hound to both kings," said Kilmara. "When they arrived to conclude the deal, no sooner did they see one another than they forgot all about the hound and fell to fighting. MacDatho, in the manner of a politician, watched the battle from a nearby hill, and an excellent battle it was, with heroics and bravery all over the place and regular pauses for light refreshment and harp playing. However, Ailbe, the bionic wolfhound, was no voyeur. He tossed a coin and entered the fray on the side of the King of Ulster—and had his head chopped off."

  "Is there a moral to this story?"

  "Pick your battles."

  Kilmara gestured Fitzduane to a seat at the big kitchen table and then strode across to the cast-iron range. He poked the cooker into life and stood for a moment enjoying the waves of heat coming from the stove. He donned an apron over his combat fatigues and hummed as he cooked.

  Fitzduane dozed a little. It was nearly dawn. Images flickered ' through his mind. He awoke with a start when Kilmara put a plate of food in front of him.

  "Bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding, white pudding, and fried bread," he said. "You won't see the likes of this in Switzerland." He poured them both coffee from an enamel pot that looked as if it had been around since MacDatho's time.

  Fitzduane picked up his mug of coffee. "That book of mine you found in the terrorists' car—"

  "Uh-huh," said Kilmara.

  "You thought it had to do with me?"

  "It's a possibility," said Kilmara. "Maybe on one of your foreign forays you photographed some local supremo from his bad side or something, and our friends were sent to teach you a permanent lesson. They didn't seem to be slap-on-the-wrist types. Well, who knows? I'll worry about reasons after I've had some sleep."

  "I've got another idea," said Fitzduane. "Since you took this job, no photographs of you have been published. Right?"

  "Right."

  "So two things," said Fitzduane. "First, our terrorist friends were killed no more than ten miles from this house while heading in this direction. Second, my book contains a large photo of you at that reunion in Brussels. It's probably the most up-to-date picture of you that's freely available."

  "You're suggesting that I could have been the target?" Kilmara had a forkful of bacon and black pudding and fired bread poised for demolition.

  "You're sharp this morning," said Fitzduane.

  Kilmara munched away. "Ho and hum," he said. "You really should leave such suggestions until after breakfast."

  The first shading of dawn appeared through the windows. Outside, a cock began to crow.

  BOOK TWO

  The Hunting

  "The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult."

  —Marquise du Deffand,

  concerning the legend that

  St Denis, carrying his head in his

  hands, walked two leagues

  "Crime in Switzerland is rare.... And the law is clear. The traffic directions, for example, are clear enough for a blind man to read, but, as a precaution, I have heard, though I cannot consider my source reliable, they are considering writing them in braille."

  —Vincent Carter, The Bern Book, 1973

  Chapter 9

  A large harp, comfortably secured by its safety belt, occupied the front first-class passenger seat of the plane to Zurich. Fitzduane was curious. Eventually he asked, and was not reassured by the answer. The harp, he was informed, belonged to the pilot.

  Fitzduane raised an eyebrow, then fell asleep. He hoped he would wake up. Thirty-three thousand feet up was more of a head start toward heaven than he really cared for, even without a pilot who seemed more prepared for the afterlife than made for good airline public relations. Fitzduane flew a great deal and did not like it much. In the Congo he had been shot down. In Vietnam he had been shot down. In a series of other wars he had gotten used to the idea that everybody shot at aircraft; whose side they were on seemed to have nothing to do with it.

  He awoke when the BAC 111 was over the Bristol Channel, and looked out the window. The wing was still there, which made him feel better, and there were no fresh holes. There was the crackle of a microphone, and an android voice announced that they were flying at five hundred miles an hour and that it was five degrees Celsius in Zurich. Fitzduane closed his eyes and slept again.

  The man they soon were to call the Hangman stood naked in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection. His face and upper body were encrusted with drying blood. His chest and pubic hair were matted and sticky with it. He had fallen asleep after the sex and the killing that had accompanied their orgasms. The room smelled of blood and semen and sweat and, he liked to think, their victim's fear. The mutilated body still lay in
the room, but neatly in one corner in a body-fluid-proof body bag.

  The woman—she had done the actual killing this time—lay sprawled on the bed, fast asleep, exhausted after her endeavors. Her satiety, he knew, wouldn't last long.

  The man smiled and stepped into the shower. He looked down at his body as the needles of pulsing water washed the last traces of the boy's life off the gridded porcelain floor and then down through the drain into the sewers of Bern. So much for beautiful Klaus.

  The man—one of his many names was Kadar—dried himself and donned a light robe of silk. The activity and the sleep that had followed had done him good. He went into his study and lay back in his Charles Eames chair for his first session with Dr. Paul.

  The solution had been so simple: Since he could not visit a psychiatrist without risk, he would do the job himself. He would tap into his own considerable resources. He would be his own expert. He would be able to speak absolutely frankly in a way that would otherwise be impossible. And, as always, he would be in control.

  Since childhood Kadar had invented imaginary friends. The first had been Michael, who had been pale-skinned with sun-bleached golden hair. He looked the way Kadar wished to be but was not. Other creations followed.

  As the years passed, Kadar refined the process of creating a new person to a ritual. Always the process started with his lying back, his eyes closed and his body relaxed. He would focus his mind in a way he could not even describe to himself. It was something akin to fine-tuning his natural life-force. When he was ready to begin, he would see a wall of thin gray mist swirling gently. The mist would have a glow as if lit from within.

  Slowly a shape would appear in the mist, its details obscure. Only one factor would be clear: the height of the figure. Kadar's creations, regardless of their eventual age or sex or external appearance, always started with height.