Games of the Hangman (71 page)

"Who is
the owner supposed to be?' asked the Chief.

"The
owner is a diplomat who had gotten a girl in trouble and needs some quick cash
to hush the whole thing up.
 
He thinks
his painting is worth useful, but not big, money."

"What is
the painting supposed to be?" asked Charlie von Beck.

"I'm not
going to say over the phone.
 
I want to
whet Balac's appetite.
 
He will be
intrigued; he likes games."

"Don't we
know it," said Charlie, looking at his watch again.

"It's a
Picasso collage," said Paulus.
 
"The question is, is it a genuine Picasso or from the school
of?"

"Well, is
it?" said Charlie.

"Yes."

"What's
it worth?" asked the Chief.

"About half a million dollars.
 
It's not mainstream Picasso, and not
everybody likes collages."

"Half a
million dollars!" exclaimed the Chief.
 
"I hope there's no shooting or the Swiss franc gets stronger.
 
Where did you get it?"

"I'd
prefer not to say."

"And
you're sure Balac has never seen it?" said Charlie.

"It's
been in a vault for the past twenty years.
 
There was a small matter of avoiding British inheritance taxes."

"Ah,"
said the Chief, who liked clear-cut motives.
 
"So much money.
 
I used to make collages myself as a
child.
 
I've still got some, too."

"Pity
your name's not Picasso," said Charlie von Beck.
 
His watch started to beep.

"You're
on," said the Chief to Paulus.
 
Paulus lifted the phone.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The man on the
third floor of the warehouse that overlooked the entrance to Balac's studio
spoke into his radio.
 
His partner
emerged from the freight elevator as he completed his call.
 
He was still tucking his shirt into his
pants.
 
"Anything?"

The man with
the high-power binoculars nodded.
 
"A Merc with
Zurich
license plates dropped off three men and drove away.
 
One of them said something into the door
loudspeaker, and Balac let them in.
 
They
were all carrying sports bags.
 
I've got
it on video."
 
He pointed at the
prefocused video camera mounted on a heavy-duty tripod.

"Odd,"
said the arrival.
 
"I thought they
told us that Balac had some special painting regimen whereby he locks himself
away all day except during lunchtime."

"They
did," said the watcher.
 
His
companion completed rewinding the tape.
 
He pressed ‘play’ and stared intently at the video images.
 
There were impressions, but the faces could
not be clearly seen.
 
Then the last man
turned and looked around before the steel door closed behind him.
 
The arrival grunted.
 
"What do you think?"

"Same as
you," said the watcher.
 
"The
last man is Angelo Lestoni, which makes the other two his brother Pietro and
his cousin—"

"Julius,"
said the other man.
 
"You radioed it
in?"

"Affirmative."

The other man
replaced his bulletproof vest and started checking his tripod-mounted sniper
rifle.
 
It was a self-loading model from
Heckler & Koch, designed for both high accuracy and rapid follow-on
fire.
 
It occurred to him that it cost
about as much as a secondhand Porsche.
 
He stroked the handmade stock and dull steel of the weapon and reflected
that, on balance, he would prefer the rifle.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

The Bear and
Fitzduane
were
in the tiered conference room of the
police headquarters on Waisenhausplatz.
 
The news had just come in.
 
Balac
was too busy to leave his studio, but he'd be delighted to look at Paulus's
picture if he would bring it around during lunch.
 
They could talk when the rest of the guests
had gone.

The Hangman
wouldn't leave his lair.
 
It was going to
have to be Plan B.
 
Fitzduane wasn't
surprised.

The Bear was
going through the details of the operation yet again with the ten-man assault
team.
 
Blueprints of Balac's studio
obtained from the city planning office were pinned up on a large bulletin
board.
 
The key phases of the plan were
carefully hand-lettered on a flip chart, and the Bear, pointer in hand, was
talking.

"Most of
you were on the Muri operation.
 
You know
what can happen if we try to blast our way in.
 
We are likely to take casualties, and there is no guarantee we'll end up
with the Hangman.
 
In fact, the track
record suggests that we won't.

"The
intention here is to get a man in to immobilize the Hangman before he can
activate any of his defenses.
 
That man
is Hugo Fitzduane, whom you see beside me.
 
Take another good look at him.
 
I
don't want him shot by mistake."

He looked at
Fitzduane, who smiled and said, "Neither do I."
 
There was laughter.

"We've
got the plans of Balac's warehouse, but if precedent is anything to go by, the
inside of the building will have been extensively modified.
 
God knows what surprises he's built in.
 
It's vital, therefore, that he be neutralized
before he leaves the main studio area; that's the large room on the ground
floor immediately off the entrance, where he has a combined studio and
reception area.
 
Fortunately, since he
runs this lunchtime open house between midday and two, we do know the geography
of that room.
"
He pointed at the scale drawing
behind him.

"Balac's
routine is to remain incommunicado — except by phone, and often that's
connected to an answering machine — until noon.
 
He then entertains friends who call in on a casual basis until 1400
hours, when he locks himself away again.
 
It's a credible routine for a painter and damn handy for a terrorist.

"Herr
Fitzduane, who's been to several of these buffet lunches, says that people
normally don't turn up until about 1220.
 
It's our intention, therefore, to have the whole thing wrapped up before
then.
 
We don't want any innocent
burghers caught in the crossfire.

"Let's go
through the sequence.
 
One — just after
1200 hours Paulus von Beck will arrive in a delivery van with the picture in a packing
case.
 
He'll have two deliverymen with
him.
 
If we're in luck, they'll be
allowed into the studio with the picture, and they'll grab Balac there and
then.
 
However, most likely — this is
Balac's normal routine — they'll be asked to leave the packing case inside the
first door.
 
You will recall that he has
an extensive security system that involves a three-door entrance hall.
 
Only one door is opened at one time.
 
It's a kind of double air lock, a classic
installation in secure buildings and a bitch to overcome since all three doors
are of armored steel.
 
It was because of
the entrance problem that we came up with this Trojan
Horse
idea.

"Two — a
couple of minutes after Paulus's arrival Fitzduane will turn up.
 
If the deliverymen aren't allowed in, as we
expect, he will offer to give Paulus a hand, and together they will move the
packing case into the studio and lean it against the wall.
 
According to Paulus, there is one particular
spot that Balac normally used to hang pictures he's assessing — something to do
with the right lighting — and that's marked on the diagram here.

"Three —
we are now into the area of discretion, but the basic plan is for Fitzduane to
neutralize Balac and blow the shaped charge.
 
The we
come storming in as rehearsed and
instantly remove Balac into custody.
 
Any questions?"

The
second-in-command of the assault unit, an intelligent-looking police lieutenant
in his late twenties, spoke.
 
"Will
Paulus von Beck be armed?"

"No,"
said the Bear.
 
"He has been
associated with Balac in the past.
 
We
aren't suggesting serious criminal involvement, but we don't want to run any
risks."

"
Supposing
 
people
arrive before Herr Fitzduane is going to have to use his discretion.
 
He'll have to pick his time.
 
It's not a perfect plan, merely the least
objectionable."

The questions
continued,
double- and triple-checking aspects of the
plan.
 
The fact that the assault team
members were intelligent and well trained gave Fitzduane some degree of
comfort, but he still had to face the stark reality that they would be outside
the building when he made his move, and for a vital few seconds — he'd be on
his own with Paulus, unarmed and unproven, and a multiple killer.
 
It didn't promise to be a fun lunch.

The question
and answer session had finished.
 
The
assault unit filed past Fitzduane, the commander of the unit bringing up the
rear.
 
He held out his hand.
 
"Herr Fitzduane, my men — and I — we
wish you well."

"A drink
together when it's over," said the Bear.
 
"I'll buy."

Fitzduane
smiled.
 
"It'll cost you."

The unit
commander gave a small salute and left the room.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Anxiously
Paulus von Beck supervised the loading of the packing case containing the
Picasso collage.
 
He was less concerned
about the safety of the painting itself —although that was a factor — than he
was about Balac's noticing something unusual about the moving men.
 
The overalled policemen weren't used to the
finer touches involved in handling a painting worth about as much as the
average policeman would earn in a lifetime.
 
The exercise was repeated several times until they looked like trained
moving men — at least to a superficial glance.

He was
thinking that every job has its own visual style in addition to expertise.
 
You'd imagine anybody in the right coveralls
could look like a deliveryman, but it just wasn't so.
 
A man who carries things for a living soon
works out certain ways of lifting and carrying that make even difficult jobs
seem easy.

To his
critical eye, the policemen didn't look quite right.
 
They were using too much muscle and not
enough brains to lift the heavy case.
 
Well, what else could you expect from policemen
? he
said to himself.
 
He walked back to his
office briskly.
 
There was barely enough
time for him to get ready.
 
My God, in a
matter of minutes he might be dead or horribly wounded.

He could feel
his heart pound, and sweat broke out on his forehead.
 
He looked at the Valium on a saucer beside a
glass of water.
 
The Chief Kripo had left
it, and it was sorely tempting.
 
He
picked up the pill and held it between his thumb and forefinger.
 
So that's how you get addicted, he
thought.
 
Physiological
dependency.
 
Was that what they
would call his sexual needs?
 
Was that at
the root of his relationship with Balac?

Angrily he
flung the Valium away from him.
 
What was
done was done.
 
Now he must keep his
brain as clear as possible and do what was necessary.
 
He unlocked his briefcase and removed a compact
.45-caliber Detonics automatic pistol.
 
The weapon closely modeled on the U.S. Army Colt .45 and fired the same
effective man-stopping ammunition, but it was smaller and lighter and had been
specifically designed for concealment.

He slid a
round into the chamber and placed it, cocked and locked, in the small of his
back, where it was held in place by a spring-clip skeleton holster.
 
He knew from past experience that the flat
weapon wouldn't show.
 
He had carried it
many times when transporting valuable works of art — art collectors liked their
security to be there but discreet — and he knew how to use it.
 
This was
Switzerland
.
 
Paulus von Beck, art expert and sculptor, was
also a captain in the Swiss Army and was being groomed for the general staff.