Rules of the Hunt (20 page)
Fitzduane smiled.
"He's still
officially with the Bernese Kriminalpolizei, but he's got some kind of liaison
sweetheart deal with the Swiss federal authorities.
He's not doing normal cop work anymore.
He's not getting normal pay, either.
He is into counterterrorist work and similar
exotic territory."
Kilmara was not surprised.
The
Bear was the kind of man that you might easily pigeonhole as no more than a
solid street cop who had reached his level.
But appearances were deceptive, though useful in his line of work.
The Bear had a subtle brain.
It wasn't surprising that it was being used
at last.
Mind you, he could be a little short on patience.
When Fitzduane had first met the Bear, the
detective had been in disgrace for thumping some German diplomat who had got
out of line at a reception.
capital, was full of diplomats with nothing to do except fornicate and drink
and look at the bears.
All the
diplomatic action took place in
financial in
Kilmara remembered Fitzduane's smile.
He was still smiling — expectantly.
"Am I missing something?
"
Kilmara
inquired politely.
"I need a gun permit," said Fitzduane.
"You've got a gun permit," said Kilmara, "not that the
lack of one has ever seemed to worry you."
Fitzduane's extensive gun collection in his castle was not quite in
conformity with the Irish legal system.
"A rather large gun permit," continued Fitzduane.
"Or perhaps I should say I need a permit
for a rather large gun."
Kilmara raised his eyebrows as the lightbulb blinked on.
"For a rather large man," he said.
"You're razor-sharp today," said Fitzduane agreeably.
"The Swiss seem to think I may need some
protection, so they are lending me the Bear."
"More likely they smell blood and would prefer the bodies pile up in
this jurisdiction than theirs," said Kilmara.
"Can't say I blame
them."
He stood up and
started looking in
a
cabinet
that Fitzduane had had brought in for the wandering
thirsty.
A modest selection of bottles
greeted him.
There was a small fridge
and ice-maker built into the lower half.
"I thought this thing looked familiar," he said.
"Want one?"
"Not yet," said Fitzduane.
He waited until Kilmara had mixed himself a large Irish whiskey.
The General sipped it appreciatively and
resumed his seat.
"They tell me alcohol and getting shot don't mix," said
Fitzduane.
"I'm drinking fizzy
water, though I'm not sure how long my resolution will last."
Kilmara looked shocked at this statement of sobriety.
He took another drink.
There was nothing to beat good Irish whiskey,
even if the major Irish distillers were now owned by the French.
He looked back at Fitzduane,
then
gestured
toward a three-inch pile of folders on the bedside table.
"You've read the files, Hugo?"
Fitzduane nodded.
"At
last," he said, with a grimace of impatience.
"The medics have not allowed anything
more stressful than Bugs Bunny until recently."
"I'd like your perspective," said Kilmara — he smiled —
"seeing as how you are intimately involved.
There is nothing like being shot at to
encourage tight focus."
Fitzduane gave a very slight smile in response.
"Very droll," he said.
Then he looked down at a yellow legal
pad.
"Let me start with a
summary.
There is a lot of stuff
here."
"Summarize away," said Kilmara.
"The actual hit," said
Fitzduane,
"was carried out by three members of a Japanese terrorist group called
Yaibo, the Cutting Edge.
They would be a
run-of-the-mill bunch of extremist nuts except for their track record of
viciousness and effectiveness.
Whereas
most terrorist groups are ninety-five percent
talk
,
Yaibo focuses on action.
The secret of
their success seems to be their leader, a very smart lady in her mid-thirties
called Reiko Oshima.
"Yaibo's motive," continued Fitzduane, "seemed clear
enough at first.
A direct connection has
been traced between Yaibo and the Hangman's group.
And to make it more personal, it looks like
Reiko Oshima and the Hangman were lovers for a while — though scarcely on an
exclusive basis."
"So far so good," said Kilmara.
"And though a bunch of us were involved in the Hangman's demise,
Yaibo picked on you because you did the actual deed.
Hell, you killed their leader's lover with
your very own hands.
This isn't just
business.
She really does not like
you."
Fitzduane sipped some water.
"Well, it all looked fairly straightforward," he said,
"until I read on.
Suddenly, a nice
clean-cut terrorist revenge hit gets complicated.
It turns out that Yaibo is not the freewheeling
bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics they would like us to believe.
Instead we find out that Yaibo had been
involved with a series of killings that seems to have benefited a fast-rising
Japanese group known as the Namaka Corporation.
Your American friends in
So what we have here is an outwardly respectable Japanese
keiretsu
which uses a bunch of
terrorists for its dirty work.
And a
further implication is that the hit was ordered by the Namakas and is not
Yaibo's little notion.
It was, you might
say, a corporate decision."
"That's supposition," said Kilmara.
Fitzduane shrugged.
"The
connection between Yaibo and the Namakas might not stand up in a court of law,
but it will do for me.
But I agree on
the issue of who ordered the hit.
It
could have been the Namakas, but it could equally have been a lower-level
initiative by Yaibo."
"Do you have an opinion?" said Kilmara.
"Not yet," said Fitzduane.
"There is absolutely no hard evidence one way or another.
But what does puzzle me is the orientation of
much of this stuff against the Namakas.
On the face of it Yaibo is the logical candidate, and yet the main
thrust of these reports is that the Namakas should be taken out.
Hell, the Namakas are nearly as big as
Sony.
This is heavy."
Kilmara swirled his ice.
"The
main accusations against the Namakas," he said, "come from
You may care to know that it is currently headed by the unlovable
Schwanberg."
Fitzduane looked puzzled.
"Let's flash back nearly twenty years," said Kilmara,
"when you were rushing around
to get yourself killed and on the front cover of
Time
."
"And Schwanberg was racking up the body count under the Phoenix
program, only the VC cadres he was having killed weren't VC," said
Fitzduane.
"I thought the CIA threw
him out.
Hell, he was an unpleasant
piece of work."
"He was connected," said Kilmara, "and ruthless fucks like
Schwanberg can have their uses.
He
worked in
colonels and did a spell in
then was posted to
an old
And the rest is history.
The CIA
have
many
good people, but scum floats to the top and does not always get skimmed
off."
Fitzduane rubbed his chin.
He was
suddenly looking very tired.
His friend
was definitely making progress, observed Kilmara, but there was a long way to
go.
"So Schwanberg has it in for
the Namakas for some reason," said Fitzduane.
"So where does that leave us?"
"With you getting some rest," said Kilmara,
"and me and my boys doing some more digging.
Remember, Schwanberg may have his own agenda
regarding the Namakas, but that does not mean he is wrong."
"Watch Schwanberg," said Fitzduane.
"I remember him cutting the tongue out
of someone he claimed was a VC suspect.
She was thirteen years of age.
This is not a nice man."
Kilmara stood up and drained his whiskey.
"Get some sleep, Hugo," he said.
"Don't overdo.
We need you fit and well."
Fitzduane smiled weakly.
It was
maddening how little stamina he had.
But
it was returning.
He closed his eyes and within seconds was asleep.
*
*
*
*
*
The West of
February 1
Except for certain detective units, the
national police
force, the Garda Siochana — literally,
Guardians of the Peace — are
unarmed.
They strike many people, who do not know better, as being likable but
somewhat traditional and, not to put too fine a point on it,
slow
.
On the other hand, the
gardai
,
many of whom come from rural backgrounds, have their own ways of doing things,
and on the top of the list
is knowing
exactly who is
who and what is what on their own patches.
This is not always so easy in the cities.
In rural
especially outside the tourist season, every stranger is noted and observed by
someone.
And sooner or later — if the
sergeant is doing his job right and knows how to work with rather than against
the local population — that information finds its way back to the local police
station.
In the case of a Northern Irish accent, which is quite distinctive to an
inhabitant of the
Republic, that
information tends to
find its way to the
gardai
very fast
indeed.
There are, of course, a few
pockets of sympathizers — less than one percent of the population, if the
voting rolls are to be believed — but there were no such pockets in the area
around Connemara Regional.
Routine radio communications were in the clear.
Intelligence reports were treated more
carefully and were communicated by secure fax to Garda Headquarters in
Kilmara, commander of
antiterrorist force, the Rangers.
As it happens, Kilmara was not there when the intelligence report
arrived.
He was in the West of Ireland.
*
*
*
*
*
Kathleen's father, Noel Fleming, had been a successful builder in
Ireland during one of
all-too-frequent economic downturns.
In his spare time he had liked to paint, and the light and scenery of the
West presented a never-ending challenge.
His wife, Mary, was from the area and loved horses, so their way of life
was convivial and pleasant.
They built a
large bungalow some miles from the town, and when Kathleen's marriage broke up
it seemed only natural that she would live at home for a while.
She was an only child.
Connemara Regional was nearby, and she
applied for a job and was accepted.
Kathleen had married a solicitor in
He was young and ambitious and did not want
children.
She had continued working, so
when it became clear the marriage was not going to work it had been relatively
easy to make a break.
She had left
The city had its merits,
but it seemed to her that it was losing the human values that had made
without gaining proportionately material advantage.
She had found her husband's friends — mostly
lawyers, accountants, and bankers — to be narrowly focused yuppies.
They lacked dimension and breadth of vision.