The assembled terrorists were drawn up in two ranks in a semicircle facing Kadar. It was night, and the dusty parade ground was brightly lit with powerful floodlights, though Kadar himself was in shadow. To one side a shapeless figure was spread-eagled against a metal frame embedded in the hard ground.
Kadar was further concealed by an Arab headdress made of camouflage material; his mouth and nose were covered, and his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. Though some of his people had worked with him before, none had ever seen his face or knew his real name. They knew him as a hooded figure, a voice, and a consummate planner. The implementation was almost always left to others.
"Brothers and sisters," he said, "followers of the Revolution. For years you have been fighting to destroy the Jews and to free your native land. You have fought in many glorious battles and have killed many of your enemies, but always final victory has eluded you. You have been cheated out of what is your due not just by the accursed Israelis but by the support they receive from godless America and the might of Western imperialism. You have been brought to this camp to train and prepare for an action directly targeted at the soft underbelly of the decadent West. Your deeds will echo around the world, and the pain and shock of the rulers of the West will be terrible."
There were shouts and applause from the guerrillas. Several fired automatic rifles in the air in a display of enthusiasm. Kadar thought he had spent enough time on the ritual condemnation of Israel and the West. It was time to deal with more practical matters. Terrorists — at least Kadar's pragmatic kind — didn't fight on idealism alone. They liked to be paid in hard currencies.
"Fellow freedom fighters," he continued, "this is not yet the time for me to tell you the precise details of our mission. For reasons of security you will all understand, that information must be withheld until shortly before the day of action. Meanwhile, though you are all experienced and battle-hardened veterans, you will be trained to a peak of even greater combat effectiveness. As you do this, you may care to reflect not only on the glory that will be attained from this mission but on the one hundred thousand American dollars you will each receive upon its successful completion."
This time the applause was considerably more enthusiastic. There were further bursts of Kalashnikov fire. Kadar reflected that experienced and trained by the liberation camps though his men might be, too many of them had become lax and overemotional in their reactions. The raw material was there, but it needed to be subjected to ruthless discipline if his plan was to succeed. His orders must be followed unhesitatingly; obedience must be absolute. The only way to achieve this within the limited time available was to instill a terrible fear of the alternatives. He had dangled the carrot in front of them; now was the time for the stick. He had stage-managed the demonstration for maximum impact.
He held up his hand for silence, and the cheering ceased. He spoke again. "Brothers and sisters, we are faced with implacable enemies. Our war is unceasing. Constantly they try to destroy us. They send their warplanes against us; they raid us from the sea; they fill the airwaves with their foul propaganda; they manipulate the media to distort the truth of our cause; they send spies and sowers of discord among us."
There was a ripple of reaction from the ranks of fighters: fists were shaken; weapons were raised in the air.
"Silence!" he shouted. A hush fell over the terrorists. The group was still. They were used to savage and sometimes arbitrary discipline but also to the informality and frequently free and easy life of guerrilla units that, whatever they boasted to their womenfolk, spent little of their time in actual combat. They sensed that this mission would be different.
Kadar raised his right hand. Instantly the floodlights illuminating the parade ground were extinguished. The group was gripped by fear and an awful curiosity. Something terrible was about to happen. It would concern the figure spread-eagled on the metal frame, but what it might be nobody knew. They waited.
Kadar's voice came out of the darkness, hard, ruthless, and resonant with authority. "You are about to witness the execution of a Zionist spy who foolishly attempted to infiltrate our ranks. Watch and remember!" His voice rose to a shout and echoed around the parade ground.
A single spotlight came on and illuminated the figure stretched out on the frame. He was naked and gagged; his eyes bulged with fear. A tall man in the white coat of a doctor came out of the darkness. He had a syringe in his hand. He held it up in front of him and pushed the plunger slightly to clear the needle of air; a thin spray of liquid could be clearly seen by the onlookers. Carefully he injected the contents of the syringe, then stood back and consulted his watch.
Several minutes passed. He stepped forward and examined the naked man with a stethoscope, followed by a close inspection of his eyes with the aid of an opthalmoscope. He left the stethoscope hanging around his neck and replaced the opthalmoscope in the pocket of his white coat. He nodded to Kadar.
Kadar's voice rang out in the darkness: "Proceed."
The man reached into the pocket of his white coat and held an object in front of him. There was a perceptible click, and the harsh light of the single spotlight glinted off the white steel of the blade. He held the knife in front of the prisoner's eyes and moved it to and for; the panic-stricken eyes followed it as if hypnotized. The assembled terrorists waited.
Kadar's calm voice could have been describing a surgical operation. "You may care to know the significance of the substance injected into the bloodstream of the prisoner. It is a highly specialized drug obtained from our friends in the KGB. It is called Vitazain. It has the effect of heightening the sensitivity of the body's nervous system. In one situation the gentlest caress results in intense pleasure. In a situation of pain the effect is at least as extreme. It magnifies pain to a depth of horror and suffering that is almost impossible to comprehend."
The atmosphere was electric. One figure in the rear rank began to sway but was instantly gripped by his comrades on either side. The most hardened terrorists there — used to the carnage of the battlefield — were chilled by the cold, deliberate voice.
The man in the white coat stepped forward. His knife approached the eyes of the panic-stricken man again, and its tip rested just under the eyeball for several seconds. It pulled back and flashed forward again; this time the blade severed the cloth gag that had prevented the prisoner from screaming. The man in the white coat removed the gag and dropped it on the ground. He took a flask from his pocket and held it to the man's parched lips; he drank greedily. Faint hope flickered in his eyes. The flask was removed, and the prisoner was left alone in the pool of light.
A second spotlight came on, spreading an empty circle of light about thirty meters in front of the prisoner. All eyes looked at the space. They heard a faint shuffling sound, like a man struggling with a heavy burden. A shape appeared in the pool of light and came to a halt. He turned to face the prisoner. He lifted the riflelike launcher and pointed it at the condemned man. The watchers looked from one lighted area to the other. Screams of terror, unending screams, filled the air, and the prisoner's body bent and twisted as he tried in vain to get loose.
The operator of the Russian LPO-50 manpack flamethrower readied his weapon; with the thickened fuel he was using, he could blast the flaming napalm up to seventy meters. He was carrying three cylinders of fuel — enough firepower for nine seconds of firing, far more than would be necessary. He waited for Kadar's signal.
"Kill him," said the voice.
The man with the flamethrower fired.
16
Ambassador Harrison Noble, deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office to Combat Terrorism (OCT), put down the report with a gesture of disgust.
He was a tall, thin career diplomat with more than a passing physical resemblance to the economist, author, and sometime ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith. In his late fifties, his hair now thinning and silver gray, he was a distinguished-looking man. Women still found him attractive.
Before joining the
State Department in the 1950s, Noble had been a much-decorated fighter pilot in Korea with eleven confirmed kills to his credit, palpable proof to his recruiters at the time — who were still smarting from the witch-hunting of the McCarthy era — that here was one man who certainly wasn't soft on communism and, by implication, anything else un-American.
The ambassador sighed at the possible implications of the report that lay on the polished surface of his otherwise empty desk. He leaned back in his soft leather swivel chair and looked at his assistant. He could just see her knees from this angle, and very pretty they were, too. At least his was a comfortable way to fight terrorism. "An execution by flamethrower," he said. "Quite revolting. What is the source of this report?"
"The Israelis have one of the instructors in the camp on their payroll," said the assistant. "Since the Israelis told us that, and since they have little respect for our security, it probably isn't true; but at lest they seem to be taking the situation seriously."
"Does nobody in this business tell the truth?"
"Its' about the same as diplomacy," said the assistant dryly. She was a determinedly ambitious woman in her late thirties. She had made it clear that she had a certain interest in the deputy director, who for his part was still debating the issue. A discreet affair surely qualified as quiet diplomacy. However, he was far from sure it was possible to do anything discreetly in Washington.
He eased his chair up for full tilt, and more of her elegant legs slid into view. It was proving to be a satisfyingly sexual conversation.
"So what do you make of it?" he asked, gesturing at the TOP SECRET folder in front of him. It seemed a ridiculous way to label something that was really secret. "A hijack?"
"Unlikely. There are at least seventy being trained in that camp."
"Maybe a series of hijacks?"
"Perhaps, but it doesn't seem likely. They're being trained as an integrated team. It's more like a commando raid."
"An embassy?" He hoped not. Well over a hundred million dollars had recently been spent on improving security at U.S. diplomatic missions abroad, but he knew full well that this had been designed with security as a top priority, and modifications were difficult to implement while at the same time staff carried out traditional diplomatic and consular duties. There was also the problem of modern firepower: bulletproof glass in windows and reception areas and armor plate on vehicles were not enough when a pocketful of explosives, properly placed, could bring down the front of a building or transform an armored vehicle and its occupants into bloody scrap.
It's still a large group for an embassy," she said. "The normal practice is to infiltrate small picked teams. It's just not that easy to deploy seventy armed terrorists. In fact, that's one of the most puzzling aspects of this thing: how are so many people going to be put in place without being spotted at the airport checks and borders? It is not as if these seventy are all new faces; on the contrary, it's a select team. We have records on many of them."
"If I weren't a diplomat," said Noble, "I'd suggest we take them out at source — a preemptive surgical strike, Israeli style."
"Bomb Libya?" said the assistant. "No way. The President would never agree."
"Not to mention the political fallout that would result. Our European allies do so much business with Libya and the rest of the Arab world that they regard a certain toleration of terrorism as an acceptable price. And they have a point: terrorism gets publicity, but it doesn't actually kill many people or cost an impossible amount. Seen on a wider scale, it is tolerable."
"Unless you're a victim," said the assistant.
Noble glanced at the report again. "I see our source thinks this thing will probably go down in May." He smiled. "Every cloud has a silver lining. If the source is right, I won't be here. The hot seat will be all yours. I'm going away from all this hassle to visit my son at school and do a little quiet fishing." He played an imaginary fishing rod back and forth and mentally landed his fly precisely on target. He could almost feel the wind on his face and hear the faint splash of an oar and the squeak of an oarlock as the gillie adjusted the drift of the boat.
"Where are you going?"
"Ireland," he said, "the west of Ireland."
"Aren't you worried about security there?"
"Not for a moment. There is major terrorist activity in Ireland all right, but it's mostly confined to the North and strictly the Irish versus the Brits, or variations thereof. Even in the North foreigners are left alone, and the rest of Ireland is peaceful. If I may draw a parallel, being worried about the crime rate in New York is no reason not to visit this country; you just steer clear of New York."
What a pity he's going away so soon, thought the assistant; he's almost hooked. The softly-softly technique was working, but a month apart could overstrain it. Well, she still had three weeks or so to land her catch. She crossed her legs slowly and with a perceptible rustle. His eyes flicked up to hers.
Good. Now she had his full attention.
* * * * *
Absentmindedly Ivo circled his right wrist with the fingers of his left hand and felt for the silver bracelet Klaus had given him. He twisted the bracelet backward and forward against his wrist until the skin was red. He didn’t notice the pain. He was thinking about the man he had seen with Klaus, the man who had disappeared with Klaus, the man who had probably killed him.
Over the last few days he had talked to everyone he could think of who had known Klaus in the hopes of identifying the man with the golden hair, but without success. Now he sat in the Hauptbahnhof waiting for the Monkey to return from Zurich. The Monkey had worked much the same market as Klaus, and from time to time they had sold their services together when that was what the customer wanted. The Monkey had one great talent apart from those he displayed in bed: he had a photographic memory for numbers — any sort of number. Klaus used to say he could keep a telephone book in his head. His record of the license plates of all his past clients could be a gold mine when they got older and fading looks forced them to diversify into a bit of blackmail. Ivo couldn't imagine being older.
The only trouble with dealing with the Monkey was that he wasn’t just stupid; he was stupid, stubborn, and a congenital liar. If he wasn’t treated just right, he might clam up even if he did know something. And if he didn't, he might pretend to, and that could be just as bad. The Monkey could well need some persuading to tell the truth, thought Ivo. He didn't like violence and wasn't very good at it, but finding Klaus's killer was a special case. He stopped rubbing the silver bracelet and put his hand in his pocket. He touched the half meter of sharpened motorcycle chain nestled there snugly in a folded chamois. He would threaten to scar the Monkey for life. The Monkey would listen to that; his looks were his stock in trade.
Passersby gave the grubby figure sitting cross-legged on the floor a wide berth; his clothes were ragged, he looked dirty, and he smelled. Ivo didn't mind. He didn't even notice. He thought of himself as a knight-errant, a knight in shining armor on a quest for justice. He would succeed and return to Camelot.
Sir Ivo. It sounded good.
* * * * *
She kept her eyes closed at first; her head throbbed and she felt nauseated. She was conscious of something wet and cool on her forehead and cheeks. It gave some slight relief, thought the effect was transitory. Confused and disoriented as she was, it struck her that her position was uncomfortable. She thought she was in bed, or should be in bed, but when she tried to move, she could not, and it didn't feel like bed.
A wave of fear ran over her. She tried to make herself believe it was a dream, but she knew it was not. As calmly as she could she made herself come fully to her senses. She began to accept what initially her mind had rejected as impossible: she was bound, hand, foot, and body, to an upright chair — and she was naked.
The damp cloth was removed from her face. She had expected to feel it against her throat and neck, but its cool caress was withheld. Instead, she felt something cold and hard around her neck. Ther
e was a slight noise, and it became tighter. She could still breathe, but there was some constriction; it felt rigid, like a collar of metal.
Panic gripped her. For a moment she choked, but as she fought to bring herself under control, she found she could breathe, albeit with difficulty. She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her mouth was sealed with layers of surgical tape. She recognized its faint medicinal smell. It was an odor she associated with care, with the dressing of wounds and the relief of pain; for a moment she felt reassured as she tried to believe what she did not believe: that she was safe. The seconds of sanctuary passed, and suddenly her whole being was suffused with terror. Her body shook and spasmed in panic but to no avail. Her bonds were secure, immovable in the face of her every effort. Resistance was pointless. Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.
Kadar — she knew him by another name — was sprawled in the Charles Eames chair in front of her. His legs were stretched out, feet up on the matching footstool. His hands were clasped around a brandy snifter. He lifted the glass and swirled the contents around, then sniffed the bouquet appreciatively. He sipped some of the golden liquid and returned the glass to his lap. He was wearing a black silk shirt open to the navel and Italian-cut white trousers of some soft material. His feet were bare. He looked easygoing and relaxed, the master of the house at leisure; his eyes glinted with amusement.
Fitzduane 01 - Games of The Hangman Page 24
