Games of the Hangman (43 page)

"Initially
you were instructed to follow the Irishman and to report his movements,
preferably without being detected.
 
Later
on, when it seemed that he might be becoming aware of your interest, you were
ordered to keep a discreet eye on him from a distance and even then only intermittently
so there would be no risk of your being discovered.
 
You were ordered to do nothing more than that
—
nothing more
!"
 
His voice had risen, and he was almost
shouting.
 
He calmed himself and
continued speaking.
 
"My dear, I'm
forgetting myself and what time it is.
 
I
certainly don't want
to
 
upset
all those sleeping burghers of
Bern
, and as for raising my voice in a lady's
presence, I do apologize.

"The
truth is I can't abide indiscipline.
 
I
expect that's why I made my base in
Switzerland
; despite its many
peculiarities, it's such a disciplined society.
 
Lack of discipline shocks me, this casual disregard of precise
instructions.
 
In your case it was
particularly shocking.
 
I thought you
understood.
 
Then I come back from an
important business trip to find that — on your own initiative — you and that
fool Pierre have decided to exceed instructions and kill the Irishman merely
because he looked alone and vulnerable on the Kirchenfeld Bridge; and you
didn't even succeed, two of you, with surprise on your side."

He shook his
head sadly.
 
"This is not proper
behavior for members of my organization.
 
It is just as well that
Pierre
was killed before I could lay my hands on him.
 
Have you not learned already what happens to those who disobey
orders?
 
Have you forgotten so soon the
lesson of Klaus Minder?
 
An overtalkative boy.
 
I would have thought the manner of his dying would have made you
painfully aware of that I expect my orders to be adhered to."
 
A thought occurred to him.
 
"Perhaps you thought the elimination of
the Irishman would please me."

She met his
gaze for a moment; then her eyes dropped away.
 
A feeling of helplessness swept over her.
 
They had indeed thought he would be pleased
if this unexpected threat to his plans were eliminated.
 
In fact, it was the horrific example of Minder's
ritual killing by Kadar that had persuaded them to act.
 
Now it had all backfired; it was
hopeless.
 
She tried not to think of the
import of what he was saying to her.
 
She
looked down at the ground in front of her and tried to let his words wash over
her.
 
She began to writhe and struggle in
a futile attempt to get free; then she saw that the carpet under and
immediately around her chair was covered with a clear plastic sheet.
 
Horror overwhelmed her when the significance
of this typical example of Kadar's attention to detail sank in.
 
Her body sagged in despair.
 
She knew she was going to die and within
minutes.
 
How remained
the only question.

"The snag
is, my dear," said Kadar, "you cannot see the bigger picture.
 
Fitzduane doesn't even know what he is
looking for.
 
He is working out some male
menopausal hunch based upon his accidental finding of young von
Graffenlaub.
 
He won't discover anything
significant before we are ready to strike, and then it will be too late.
 
There isn't time for him to get into the
game.
 
He doesn't have the knowledge to
make the connections.
 
He's a watcher,
not a player, unless through stupidity we make him into one.

"I wanted
to keep a loose check on what Fitzduane was up to through my various sources,
but certainly not to draw his attention to the fact that he might be on to
something.
 
Now, by trying to kill him,
you've begun to give him credibility.
 
If
you had succeeded, the situation would have been even worse.
 
You would have focused attention on matters
we want left well alone for the next few weeks."

Kadar lit a
thin cigar and blew six perfect smoke rings.
 
He did many such things well; he was blessed with excellent physical
coordination.

"Darling
Esther," he said, "it is good to be able to talk things over with you.
 
Command is a lonely business; it's rare that
I get the chance to explain things to someone who will understand.
 
You do understand, don't you?"

He didn't
bother to wait for a nod of agreement but instead checked his watch.
 
He looked up at her.
 
"Well, it's time for the main
event," he said.
 
"I'd better
explain the program; as a tribute to our past intimacy, it's only fair that you
know the details.
 
I wouldn't want you to
miss something.
 
It's all rather
interesting, with plenty of historical precedent as a method of execution.

"My dear
darling Esther," he said, "you are going to be garroted.
 
It's a technique that was rather popular with
the Spanish, I'm told.
 
I think I've got
the machinery right, though one cannot be sure without field testing, and, as
you may imagine, that is not the easiest thing to arrange.
 
So you are the first with this particular
device; I do hope it all goes well.

"It works
like this:
 
At the back of the metal
collar around your neck is a simple screw mechanism connected to a semicircle
of metal that sits just inside the collar.
 
Turning the screw clockwise, with a lever to make it easier to handle,
forces the inner semicircle of metal to tighten against the back of the neck
and, correspondingly, the front of the collar to constrict and then crush the
throat.
 
This can be done almost
instantaneously or quite slowly; it's a matter of personal preference.

"They
tell me that the physical result is similar to strangulation:
 
Your eyes will bulge, your face will turn
blue, your tongue will stick out, and you will suffocate.
 
Eventually, as the mechanism tightens
further, the force exerted by the screw on the back of your neck will break
it.
 
By then, I expect, you will be
unconscious and either dead or close to it, so you'll miss the final
action.
 
It's a pity, but that's just the
way it is."

Kadar hauled
himself out of his chair, stretched, and yawned.
 
He patted her on the head,
then
walked around behind her.
 
"It's all
about discipline, my dear," he said.
 
"And the bottom line."

He began to
tighten the screw.

17

Colonel Ulrich
Hoden (retired) had risen early.
 
He had
a problem.
 
Major Tranino (retired), his
old wartime companion, and over the intervening decades his chess partner —
normally by post but twice a year in person — was on a winning streak.
 
He had beaten the colonel twice in a
row.
 
Something had to be done if a hat
trick was to be staved off.

Over a game of
jass, the Swiss national card game, he had posed the problem to his
companions.
 
After much deliberation and
several liters of Gurten beer, they had suggested that what the colonel needed
was perspective:
 
to study the chess
problem from a new angle.
 
One of his
companions suggested that he work it out on one of the giant open-air
chessboards scattered around
Bern
.
 
He particularly recommended the board next to
the Rosengarten.
 
It was only twenty
minutes from where the colonel was staying with his grandchildren in the
Obstberg district, and apart from the pleasures of the garden itself, the view
of
Bern
from
the low hill on which the garden was located was spectacular.

The colonel
took the steep path up to the Rosengarten instead of the longer but gentler
route.
 
At the top there was a
glass-fronted café, still closed at this hour, with an outside eating area
bordered by a low wall.
 
He rested there
for a few minutes, catching his breath after the steep climb and taking in the
sight of old
Bern
laid out below.
 
He could see the course
of the River Aare, the red-tiled roofs of the old buildings, the spire of the
Münster against the distant skyline of snowcapped mountains, and all around him
trees and flowers were coming into full bloom as if in special haste to make up
for their long sleep under the snows of winter.
 
A robin landed on the wall beside him, peered up inquisitively, hopped
around a couple of times,
then
flew away about its
business.

The colonel
decided that he had better follow the robin's example.
 
Major Tranino's problem was a tricky
one.
 
The sooner he laid it out on the
giant chessboard, the sooner inspiration might strike.

As he neared
the chessboard, he was surprised to see the pieces all laid out ready to
play.
 
They were normally stacked away at
night, and it now looked as if someone might have beaten him to it despite the
early hour.
 
Ah, well, he had enjoyed the
walk, and there might be the chance of a game.
 
Perhaps two heads could solve the colonel's little difficulty.
 
But would that be ethical?
 
Probably not.
 
It was supposed to be strictly
mano a mano
when the colonel and the
major were playing, notwithstanding the geographical separation.

Something
about the chessboard looked odd, and he could see no other players.
 
He came closer.
 
The blue and white chess pieces were nearer
to him, the tallest of them the size of a small child, reaching halfway up his
thigh.
 
He put on his glasses; there was
nothing wrong with the blue and white pieces.
 
He turned his gaze to the red and black pieces and walked forward onto
the board itself to study the pieces one by one.

The pawns
gleamed in their new paint, and the contrasting slashes of color reminded him
of nothing so much as a file of Swiss Guards on parade in the
Vatican
.
 
He knew that there was something wrong and
that he should have seen what it was by now, and he admitted to himself that
even with his glasses his eyes were not what they had been.
 
He really should get a stronger pair; vanity
be
damned.

He stepped
forward again to study the back row.
 
The
rook seemed fine; the knight and the bishop were normal; nest
came
the queen — and it was the queen that killed him.

There was no
queen.
 
In her place, propped upright,
was the upper half of the body of a young woman.
 
She seemed to be smiling at him, then he
realized that her lips had been cut away to expose her teeth.

The pain was
immediate and massive.
 
He swayed briefly
and then fell back on the hard slabs of the chessboard.
 
His last thought before the heart attack
killed him was that Major Tranino (retired) looked as if he would win three
times in a row, if only by default in the case of the third game — and that was
a pity because Colonel Hoden (retired) thought he just might have found the
answer.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Fitzduane
supposed that his ideas of what an Autonomous Youth House should look like were
conditioned by his recollection of the one in
Zurich
.
 
He remembered a battered and litter-strewn industrial building covered
with graffiti and still freshly scarred from recent riots, and everywhere
around it broken glass and empty tear gas canisters and twitchy policemen.
 
He was almost disappointed by what he found
in
Bern
.

Taubenstrasse
12 was a large, solid three-story construction with a distinctly
nineteenth-century feel about it.
 
Its
style positively radiated probity, bourgeois values, and the merits of the
Bernese establishment.
 
In contrast with
the sober image projected by the building, half a dozen spray can-inscribed
sheets fluttered their calls for freedom, anarchy, and pot for all from the
front of the house.
 
In counterpoint,
less than a hundred meters away was the gray, multistory, modernistic box that
housed the Federal Police administration.

As Fitzduane
approached, a young couple rushed from the building.
 
The man's face was red and swollen, as if he
had been on the losing side of a fight, and blood was gushing from his nose.
 
The girl with him was crying.
 
They pushed past Fitzduane and ran out into
the small park that bordered the other side of Taubenstrasse.