Rules of the Hunt (16 page)
For a split second, Japanese
giri
and Israeli pragmatism fought a battle, and in the end sheer irritation at
being fucked around by three goons won out.
She heard a cry of fear and, looking over the top of her barrier, caught
a glint of metal.
Iron Box was
struggling in one terrorist's hands, and he was pushing her onto her knees as
the other raised a sword above his head.
The third terrorist still kept a lookout, his weapon traversing the
gloom of the warehouse as he scanned from side to side.
Chifune placed the red dot on the third terrorist and fired four shots
when the combination was pointed well away from her.
In case he was wearing body armor, she aimed
for his head, and all four rounds impacted.
The grenade launcher exploded with its characteristic double blast, and
a pallet of the local version of Scotch whisky at the other end of the
warehouse went up in flames.
Distracted by Chifune's attack, the terrorist with the sword looked away
from his victim toward this new assailant, and Iron Box kicked him very hard in
the balls.
He doubled up in pain just in time to be missed by Chifune's next burst
of fire.
She swore and ducked down, as
the remaining standing terrorist got his automatic weapon into play.
Rice showered in the air.
It was like a wedding.
She sprinted a dozen paces to fresh cover, changing magazines as she ran,
then rolled into the aisle and fired again in a long burst of aimed shots, just
as Metsada, the action arm of Mossad responsible for the more direct approach,
had trained her.
The standing terrorist was ducking down to change magazines as she
skidded on the cooking oil, invisible in the gloom.
Her weapon slid under a pallet.
The surviving terrorist had raised himself to his knees and now brought
his
katana
down in
a
sweeping
blow.
Chifune just managed to roll to one side, but
her left arm was gashed and she felt suddenly weak with shock.
Iron Box cried out a long "Nooooo!" and then there was a dense
dull sound as the terrorist's next blow cut down through the side of Iron Box's
neck and on through her torso to terminate close to her pelvic bone.
Nearly split in two, the informant,
a
look of horror on her face, slumped forward.
The terrorist looked fascinated at her as she collapsed.
Chifune picked up the fallen M16, switched the fire-selector switch to
automatic, and with two bursts forming a rough Y, which she thought was
appropriate, terminated the killer's short career as a swordsman.
Flames were licking up the warehouse, the floor was slick with blood, and
the smell of the slaughterhouse and burning whisky mixed with Vietnamese
fermented fish sauce was indescribable.
Iron Box had been due to tell Chifune about the involvement of Yaibo in a
hit on an Irishman called Fitzduane.
The
terrorist group was indeed ‘The Cutting Edge,’ but the real issue had been who
was wielding the blade.
Chifune had her
suspicions, but proof was in short supply.
It did not look as if Iron Box was going to be of much assistance.
7
January 31
Fitzduane had worked out a routine which — as he thought of it — allowed
the hospital ghouls to do their thing, and him to do his.
In the morning he seemed to be an object for the medics to play
with.
He was woken at an ungodly hour,
washed, fed, and otherwise got combat-ready, and then inspected.
The inspection tended to be detailed.
He now knew what a packaged chicken must feel like as it waited on a
supermarket shelf.
He was getting used
to being poked, prodded, and otherwise examined in the most intimate ways.
He felt like hanging a sign around his neck
saying:
"Despite a little wear and
tear, I am a human being; I am not a dead chicken."
Trying to persuade the medical profession to treat patients as real,
thinking, sentient people seemed an unwinnable battle.
Perhaps a doctor had to have a certain
distance to survive mentally in the midst of a constant stream of damaged humanity.
By thinking of yourself as separate — a
different and superior life-form — you could fool yourself into thinking the
same things you were witnessing daily couldn't happen to you.
Well, that was his benevolent theory.
It was suspect because the nursing staff — who worked in exactly the same
environment — didn't conform.
Almost
without exception, they tended to be warm and caring, even when emptying
bedpans.
Lunch was early.
After it he would
sleep for a couple of hours.
Then,
refreshed, he would work or receive visitors until his evening meal.
Again he would sleep for a few hours and then
awake in the early hours, for what he was beginning to think of as the best
part of the day.
It was quiet.
There were no distractions.
He could think and plan.
And there was Kathleen.
He was growing very fond of Kathleen.
The wall clock read 1:00
A.M.
.
The curtains, at his request, were only
partially drawn, and the room was bathed in moonlight.
The room was on the third floor and could not
be looked into from the ground, but nonetheless this was a breach of
security.
Fitzduane knew it wasn't wise,
but he found the confines of the hospital claustrophobic at times and he loved
moonlight.
Boots was asleep on a camp bed beside him.
He lay sprawled on his back, one arm behind
his head, his eyelashes long,
his
cheeks plump and
full.
His breathing was deep and
regular.
In Fitzduane's opinion, there
was nothing more beautiful than a sleeping child — except his very own child.
Boots's
sleeping over in the hospital was not a nightly routine, but it did happen two
or three times a week.
He had been told
by Oona that it was ‘camping,’ so there was an added spice to the
adventure.
A small plastic sword lay on
the floor beside him.
He was now quite
unfazed by either the hospital surroundings or Fitzduane's injuries, but he was
determined that no bad men were going to harm his daddy again.
For his part, Fitzduane had much the same idea but a different taste in
weapons.
Kilmara had left him with a
Calico submachine gun.
This U.S.-made
high-technology weapon held a hundred rounds of 10mm in a tubelike helical
magazine which lay flat on top of the receiver, and which were fed in a
spring-loaded rotary arrangement rather like an Archimedes screw.
It had a folding stock.
The end result, without the traditional
magazine jutting out of the bottom of the weapon, was unsurpassed firepower in
relation to its size.
It was so small
and light, it looked like a toy.
It
rested discreetly in something like a saddle holster clipped to the right side
of the bed.
He could hear Kathleen's footsteps outside.
He had become adept at identifying individual cadences.
Her walk was quiet but firm.
This was not the rapid squeaky walk of an
overworked student or the consciously measured stride of a consultant.
This was the walk of a person of serious
caliber.
Kathleen closed the curtains and put on the monitor light.
Then she went to Boots and potted him.
He was wearing a long T-shirt covered in
small bears.
There was a satisfying
noise as he peed to order.
He was still
fast asleep and warm and pink-cheeked and floppy.
Kathleen gave him to Fitzduane for a kiss and
a quick cuddle and put him back under the duvet.
She emptied and rinsed out the pot in the
bathroom that adjoined the private room.
Then she sat down on the bed beside him.
Their conversation continued virtually where it had left off.
It had become that way with them.
Neither questioned the reasons or where it
was all heading.
Both valued the warmth
and the closeness.
Last night they had been talking about her failed marriage.
It had been a classic case of sexual
incompatibility.
This night, Kathleen
was asking the questions.
Fitzduane interested her.
She had
spent all her life comparatively sheltered in
profession.
Here was a man who had traveled
the world and was an intimate of danger.
Here was a gentle man who had killed.
She looked at him as he lay back against the pillows.
He had a strong yet sensitive face curiously
unlined for his years.
His eyes were an
unusual green-gray and twinkled with humor.
The steel-gray hair was cut
en brosse
.
Wounded
and
weakened as he was, he still
looked formidable.
He was a big man,
lean and well-muscled.
There was gray in
the hair on his chest.
He had clearly
seen much of life, the good and the bad.
Kathleen wanted to ask about Etan but started on another subject.
Despite their growing intimacy, Kathleen
sensed that Boots's mother might be off-limits — or then again, he might want
to talk about her.
She would take her
time.
"How did you meet General Kilmara?" she said.
Fitzduane looked at her a little amused, as if he knew that was not the
question she had intended to ask, but he answered nonetheless.
"He was my commanding officer," he
said, "back in the early sixties.
He was something of a maverick — a fighting soldier rather than a
politician in uniform — but there are times when fighting soldiers are
needed."
"The
questioned Kathleen.
Fitzduane nodded.
"You know,
it's funny.
When most people hear that
you have fought in the
They don't seem to know that a United Nations
force was there and that the Irish Army provided part of the U.N.
manpower."
"The
"I don't know very much about it."
"It's not something I'll forget," said Fitzduane quietly.
"My wife was killed there."
Kathleen took his hand but did not speak.
After a minute or so, Fitzduane continued.
He seemed to want to talk.
"Anne-Marie was a nurse," said Fitzduane.
"She wanted to get some experience of
life and do some good.
Those were
idealistic days.
I met her at a bush
hospital near Konina.
She was tall,
red-haired, and beautiful.
We were
married within weeks.
A couple of months
later, less actually, a group of rebels known as the Simbas started
rampaging.
They took hostages and
assembled them in Konina and threatened to kill them if they were
attacked.
Some they tortured and killed
anyway.
"Well, we mounted a rescue mission and infiltrated a small advance
unit into Konina where they were being kept.
There were only twelve of us and thousands of rebels, so we were under
strict instructions not to fire until the main force arrived.
We were in the upper floor of a house
overlooking a square where the hostages were being kept.
For eight hours we had to watch people being
tortured and killed below — and we could do nothing.
Finally, some Simba kid — he can't have been
more than thirteen or fourteen — hauled Anne-Marie out and, just like that,
hacked her head off.
It was very quick,
mercifully quick."
Fitzduane continued.
"I can't
really describe how I felt.
I was only
fifty meters away, and through binoculars she looked close enough to touch.
I remember getting sick and then just a
feeling of numbness.
Soon afterwards,
the main attack began.
I couldn't stop
killing.
Machine gun, automatic rifle,
grenades, garotte, fighting knife — I used them all that day.
It didn't make me feel any better."
"There was nothing that you could do," said Kathleen.
"I have been told that again and again," said Fitzduane,
"but I have never been quite sure.
Another irony:
her tour of duty
was over.
If she hadn't married me and
signed on again to be near me, she would have gone home before the Simbas
attacked."