Games of the Hangman (39 page)

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In his dream
the Bear was happy.
 
He and Tilly had gone
to the little castle at Spiez to pick up some wine.
 
There were those who said that Spiez wine was
far too dry and was made out of dissolved flints, but the Bear did not
agree.
 
Anyway, they always enjoyed the
whole business of actually getting the wine, the drive out by the Thunersee,
lunch at a lakeside restaurant, and then going down into the cellar and joining
the line to watch one's own wine bottles being filled.
 
He wondered why the telephone was ringing so
loudly in the wine cellar.
 
Nobody else
seemed to notice.
 
He looked at Tilly and
she smiled at him, and then she was gone.
 
He felt lost.

He lifted the
telephone receiver.
 
"Sergeant
Raufman," said the voice.
 
It
sounded excited.

"Yes,"
said the Bear, "and it's two o'clock in the fucking morning in case you're
interested."

"I'm
sorry to disturb you, Sergeant Raufman," said the voice, "but it is
important.
 
I am the night duty manager
at the Hotel Bellevue."

"Good for
you," said the Bear.
 
"I like
to sleep at night; some of us do."

"Let me
explain," said the voice.
 
"A
man has come into the hotel.
 
He is
bleeding for one arm onto our carpets, and he has a gun.
 
What should we do?"

"Haven't
a clue.
 
Try putting a bucket under the
arm.
 
Call the police.
 
Who the fuck knows?"

"Sergeant
Raufman, this man says he knows you—"

"What a
second," said the Bear, "who is this man?"

"He says
his name is Fitz something," said the voice.
 
"I didn't want to ask him again.
 
He looks" — there was a pause —
"dangerous."
 
Three was
a wistfulness
in the voice.

"What's
your name?"

"Rolf,"
said the voice, "Rolfi Müller."

"Well,
listen, Rolfi.
 
I'll be over in ten
minutes.
 
Bandage his arm, get him what
he wants, don't call anyone else, and don't make a pass at him,
capisce?
"

"Yes,
Sergeant," said Rolfi.
 
"Isn't
it exciting?"

There was no
reply from the Bear.
 
He was already
pulling his trousers over his pajama bottoms.
 
Somehow he wasn’t entirely surprised at the news.

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An hour later
the Bear was letting the doctor out of Fitzduane's apartment when the phone
rang.
 
He closed and locked the door and
slipped two heavy security bolts in place; then he took the call in the
study.
 
Fitzduane
lay
back against the pillows of the king-size bed and let the lassitude of reaction
take over.

The Bear came
in.
 
He stood with his hands in his
pockets and looked down at Fitzduane.
 
The collar of his pajama top protruded above his jacket.
 
The stubble on his cheeks made him look
shaggier than ever.

"The
doctor thinks you'll live," said the Bear.
 
"The cut on your arm was bloody but not deep.
 
On your chest you'll just have a good-size
bruise, and I guess you'll need a new tape recorder."

"I'm
beginning to float," said Fitzduane.
 
"Whatever
that doctor have
me, it
works."

"They
found him," said the Bear.
 
"Or
what we assume is him.
 
He just missed
the river.
 
There's the body of a young
male who answers your description.
 
He's
at the edge of the sports ground under the bridge."

"Dead?"

"Oh, yes,
very much so.
 
I'm afraid this is really
going to complicate things."

"It was
self-defense," protested Fitzduane.
 
"He seemed keen on one of us leaving the bridge, and it was bloody
close as it was."

The Bear gave
a sigh.
 
"That's not the
point," he said.
 
"You've
killed someone.
 
There are no witnesses.
 
There will have to be an investigation.
 
Paperwork, statements, an
inquiry by an examining magistrate, the whole thing."

Fitzduane's
voice was sleepy.
 
"Better
investigated than dead."

"
You
don't have to do the
paperwork," was the grumpy rejoinder.
 
"By the way, there is a Berp outside.
 
Technically you are under arrest."

Fitzduane did
not reply.
 
His eyes were closed, and his
breathing was regular and even.
 
The top
half of his body was uncovered, and his bandaged arm lay outstretched.
 
There were signs of severe bruising on his
torso just below the rib cage.
 
The
detective reached out and covered the sleeping figure with the duvet.
 
He switched off the light and quietly closed
the bedroom door.

The Berp was
making coffee in the kitchen.
 
He gave
the Bear a cup, liberally laced with von Graffenlaub's brandy.
 
The Bear knew he would have to get some sleep
soon or he'd fall down.

The uniformed
policeman rocked his kitchen chair back and forth on its rear legs.
 
He was a veteran of more than twenty years on
the force, and for a time before the Bear donned plain clothes, they had shared
a patrol car together.

"What's
it all about, Heini?"

He could see
the pale light of false dawn through the kitchen window.
 
The apartment was warm, but he shivered with
the chill of fatigue.
 
"I think our
Irishman might have a tiger by the tail."

The Berp
raised an eyebrow.
 
"That doesn't
tell me a lot."

"I don't
know a lot."

"Why are
detectives always so secretive?"

The Bear
smiled.
 
It was true.
 
"We live off secrets," he
said.
 
"Otherwise, who'd need a
detective?"

The phone rang
again.
 
There was a wall extension in the
kitchen.
 
The Berp answered it and handed
it to the Bear.
 
"Yours.
 
The duty officer at the
station."

The Bear
listened.
 
He asked a few questions, and
a smile crossed his face; then he replaced the phone.
 
"Lucky bugger."

"Do you
want to expand on that?"

"There
was a witness," said the Bear.
 
"It seems one of the guests staying at the
Bellevue
— a visiting diplomat — saw the
whole thing from his bedroom window.
 
He
says he saw the attack on Fitzduane and tried to report it, but no one on duty
could understand him, so eventually he got an interpreter from his embassy and
made a statement.
 
He confirms the
Irishman's story."

"I
thought diplomats were good at languages."

The Bear
laughed.
 
"I think the delay here
had more to do with his having to get rid of the woman in his room first,"
he said.
 
"That's what the word is
from the night staff at the hotel."

"Somebody's
wife?" said the Berp.

"No,"
said the Bear.
 
"That wasn't the
problem.
 
It was one of the local
hookers."

"So?"

"Our
visiting diplomat is from the
Vatican
,"
said the Bear.
 
"He's a Polish
priest."

The Berp
grinned.
 
His chair was tilted back as
far as it would go.
 
"Sometimes I
enjoy this job."

"You'll
fall," warned the Bear.
 
He was too
late.

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Kilmara read
the telex from
Bern
a second time.
 
He looked out the
window:
 
gray skies, rain falling in
sheets, damp, cold weather.

"I hate
March in
Ireland
,"
he said, "and now I'm beginning to hate April.
 
Where are the sunny days, blue skies, and
daffodils of my youth?
 
What have I done
to April for it to behave like this?"

"It isn't
personal," said Günther.
 
"It's
age.
 
As you get older, the weather seems
to get worse.
 
Older bones cry out for sun
and warmth."

"Cry out
in vain in this bloody country."

There was a
slight click from the video machine as it ceased rewinding.
 
"Once more?" said Günther.

Kilmara
nodded,
then
looked again at the high-resolution
conference video screen.
 
The video had
been taken by a four-man Ranger team that had been instructed to treat the
whole matter as a reconnaissance exercise.

They had
parachuted onto the island at night using HALO — high altitude, low-opening —
techniques.
 
Equipped with oxygen face
masks and miniature cylinders clipped to their jump harnesses, they had jumped
from an army transport at 22,000 feet.
 
They were using black steerable rectangular ramjet parachutes but had
skydived for most of the distance, reaching forward speeds of up to 150 miles
per hour and navigating with the aid of night-vision goggles by comparing the
terrain with the map they had studied and the video made by a Ranger
reconnaissance plane the night before.
 
Electronic altimeters clipped to the tops of their reserve parachutes
flashed the diminishing height on glowing red LED meters.
 
At 800 feet the Rangers pulled their D rings
and speed-opened their parachutes.

The fully
flared parachutes had the properties of true airfoils and could be turned,
braked
, and stalled by warping the trailing edge with the
control lines.
 
Even so, this high degree
of maneuverability was scarcely enough.
 
Reports had forecast low wind for the time of year in the area, but
there was heavy gusting, and it was only with great effort and not a little
luck that the team landed near the drop zone on a deserted part of the
island.
 
Making use of their night-vision
equipment, the men had then hiked across the island to
Draker
College
.
 
They had constructed two blinds and by dawn
were completely concealed, with the two entrances to the main building under
observation.

For five days
and nights they saw nothing unusual, but on the sixth night their strained
patience was rewarded.
 
The video had
been shot using a zoom lens and a second-generation image intensifier.
 
It had been raining heavily at the time, so
detail was not good, though it was reasonable given the conditions.
 
Nevertheless, what the observation team had
photographed was startling enough.

Shortly after
midnight, with one more night of long and monotonous observation to go, a
single figure was seen slipping out of the side entrance of the college.
 
The image was scarcely more than a blurred
silhouette at first, since the camera lens was set at normal pending a specific
target.
 
The figure reached the cover of
some gorse bushes and crouched down, blending into the surroundings.
 
One disadvantage of the image intensifier was
its inability to show colors; everything showed up in contrasting shades of
greenish gray.

The camera
operator began to zoon in to get a closer look with the powerful telephoto lens
but then paused to pull back slightly to cover two more figures,
who
left the side entrance and ran, crouched down, to
cover.
 
There was a wait of perhaps half
a minute before two more figures appeared.
 
Several minutes passed.
 
The
camera zoomed in to try to get a close-up, but the bushes were in the way, and
only small glimpses of human forms through the gaps in the foliage indicated
that they were still there.

Kilmara
imagined what it was like for the Rangers waiting in the blinds.
 
Holes had been dug in the ground, making use
of any natural features that could be turned to the diggers' advantage, such as
an overhang to prevent observation from the air or a fold in the ground to hide
the entrance.
 
The top sods had been
removed intact, and the undersoil dug out carefully and concealed.
 
The holes were covered with a frame of
reinforced chicken wire, which in turn was surfaced with the original sods to
match the surrounding terrain.
 
The
result could be stood upon without detection and would be virtually invisible
from even a few yards away.