Rules of the Hunt (23 page)
There was a dreadful, rattling, gagging sound that was mercifully brief,
and blood fountained from the severed arteries and cascaded over McGonigal and
Kathleen.
When the blood had stopped pumping, McGonigal released his grip on the
dead man's hair and the body sagged to the ground.
Mary Fleming had fainted.
Kathleen looked at him, deep in shock.
He slapped her face.
"I have little time," he said.
"Your mother is next.
It's
your choice."
It was several minutes before Kathleen could speak.
McGonigal used the time to wash himself off
and lay the hospital plans out on a table in the living room.
Then Kathleen told him almost everything she
knew.
Her fingers still smeared with her father's blood, she outlined the
security procedures and marked out the layout of Fitzduane floor and the
location of the control zone and other security procedures.
She was questioned again and again, and
finally McGonigal was satisfied.
It all
tied together with what he already knew.
Kathleen was completely broken.
They always broke.
When it was all over, he placed his pistol against Mary Fleming's head,
but at the last second took his hand off the trigger.
Hostages were handy in this kind of
situation.
They could be disposed of
after the operation had gone down.
Kathleen had stripped off her cloak and uniform and was now huddled in a
terry-cloth bathrobe in a state of shock.
Her skin was cold and clammy.
Her
gaze was unfocused.
McGonigal was looking at her and mentally undressing her when the
telephone rang for the first time since they had arrived.
9
February 1
Fitzduane looked at his visitor with affection.
He was very, very fond of the Bernese detective.
The Bear had slimmed a little after he had met Katia — his first wife had
died in a traffic accident — but had now reverted to his normal shape.
Fitzduane was relieved.
Katia was a lovely woman and meant well, but
the Bear was not really destined by nature to be lean and mean and to dine off
bean sprouts.
He was kind of big — well,
closer to massive in truth — and round and gruff and had a heart of gold.
And he was a good friend.
Fitzduane valued his friends.
The Bear gave him a hug — a gentle hug.
Fitzduane was not wearing his Skunkworks T-shirt that day, so the
visible bandages inspired caution.
Even
so, a ‘gentle’ hug from the Bear caused him to wince slightly.
The main hazard was the Bear's shoulder
holster.
It contained a very large lump
of metal.
"Men don't hug in
said Fitzduane, who enjoyed the cultural contrasts between the Swiss and the
Irish.
We're not really a very
touchy-feely nation.
It's something to
do with the church and sex and guilt, I think.
What's the hardware?"
The Bear removed the largest automatic pistol Fitzduane had ever
seen.
"Everybody in
uses.
The manufacturers are tooled up
for it.
The ammunition is relatively
cheap because of economies of scale.
The
round is easy to shoot because it has a good range and a nice, flat trajectory
and doesn't kick like your mother-in-law.
And you can fit fifteen rounds or more in a magazine, so you can generate
some serious firepower.
Everybody's
happy.
"But the problem with the 9mm," he continued, "is that it
lacks stopping power.
Analysis of actual
gunfights in the States shows that a hit on a vital spot puts the victim out of
action only about fifty percent of the time where 9mm is used, as opposed to
over ninety percent when a .45 is involved."
Fitzduane was beginning to think that this conversation was somewhat
lacking in tact.
He remembered that he
had only recently been shot.
Still, the
subject seemed to be doing the Bear some good.
"So use a .45," he said helpfully.
"Aha!" said the Bear triumphantly, "so one might
think.
But..."
He paused.
"But?" said Fitzduane.
"But..." said the Bear.
He paused again.
Fitzduane felt as if he was in a slow tennis match and should be flicking
his head from side to side to watch the shots.
"But?" he said again.
He couldn't resist it.
"What that English expression about the importance of detail?"
said the Bear.
It occurred to Fitzduane that if any nation should know about detail, it
was the Swiss.
"The devil is in the
detail," he said.
"Exactly," said the Bear.
He raised his huge automatic in demonstration.
A nurse came in carrying a kidney basin containing something
unpleasant.
Fitzduane had developed a profound
dislike of kidney basins.
Either he was
being sick into one or a syringe was being transported in the damn thing, with
some part of his anatomy as its destination.
He was generally off needles.
And
kidney basins were what they used, he had been told, to carry away bits of him
that had been cut out.
These were not
nice thoughts.
The nurse screamed and dropped the tray.
The Bear ignored her.
"The
problem with the .45," he said, "is that it hasn't got the range or
the penetrating power.
It is a big
bullet with loads of shock value, but it doesn't have the velocity."
The door smashed open.
A Ranger
stood there with an Aug Steyr automatic rifle in his hands.
The Bear ignored him, too.
Fitzduane suddenly noticed that he was in the line of fire.
It would be ridiculous to be killed by some
gung-ho idiot in the higher purpose of saving his life.
Also, he had been shot up enough for one
year.
"DON'T FUCKING WELL SHOOT!" he shouted.
"WHY THE FUCK NOT?" shouted the Ranger.
Fitzduane looked at him in shock.
He couldn't instantly think of a good
reply.
This was a ridiculous thing to
have to debate.
He just glared at the
Ranger and then relaxed.
The man was
grinning.
It was Grady, who knew the
Bear.
"So," said the Bear triumphantly, "I looked for a cartridge
which would combine the strengths of the 9mm and the .45 without the
disadvantages.
I wanted stopping power,
flat trajectory, good penetration, range, and sheer shootability.
I wanted a nice big magazine."
He released the magazine from his weapon.
"It's a 10mm Desert Eagle.
Trust the Israelis to know their weapons."
It was then he noticed the Calico in its holster clipped to Fitzduane's
bed.
"What's that?" he
said.
Fitzduane showed him.
"And the caliber?" said the Bear.
"I don't want to steal your thunder," said Fitzduane, who
couldn’t help grinning.
"10mm."
"Oh," said the Bear, a little sadly.
*
*
*
*
*
Kathleen, exhausted from the night shift and the shock of her ordeal, was
dozing when the front doorbell rang.
She awoke feeling sick and disoriented, but associating the familiar
sound with help, with good news, with some positive development.
Visitors were a regular feature of the
Fleming household.
Neighbors dropping in
for a cup of tea were always welcome.
Traditional Irish hospitality had not been eroded by television.
In fact, they had no television.
This was not from some deeply felt
conviction.
It was merely that the
nearby mountains made adequate TV reception impossible.
The chair she sat on and the carpet were saturated and sticky with drying
blood.
The body on the floor, half
covered with a newspaper, was her father.
Shock hit her again, and she started to retch.
"Shut up, you cow, if you know what's good for you," said the
terrorist by the window.
There was the sound of animated conversation from the hall, which
continued for several minutes.
Then the
door opened and the leader, Paddy, came in.
He moved to one side and gestured to others behind him to enter.
Two other men entered the room, and then a figure
who
looked singularly out of place.
Unlike
the others, who looked Irish and were dressed in casual clothes, the man
standing in the doorway was smartly dressed in a dark suit and white shirt with
a club tie.
His shoes were highly
polished.
And he was Asian, Chinese or Japanese.
"This is the nurse?" he said.
"The very same," said McGonigal.
"And you are satisfied with her information?" said the
Japanese.
His accent was pronounced, but
he spoke clearly.
McGonigal smiled.
"Oh
yes," he said.
"The wee girl
saw reason" — he reached out and grabbed Kathleen's mother and again the
knife was in his hand — "and there's still one blood relation to
go."
Kathleen swallowed a
scream.
"You told us everything,
didn't you?"
Kathleen nodded weakly.
"And the phone call?" said the Japanese.
"She answered it," said McGonigal, "with me listening
in.
It was the matron inquiring could
she do day shift next week."
Kathleen swallowed the bile in her throat and then spoke hesitantly.
"We work a rota system.
Sometimes someone is sick or needs time off
and the matron makes the arrangements."
The Japanese looked at her for a little time before speaking again.
Something about the phone call bothered
him.
"What time was the call?"
he said to McGonigal.
"Twenty past nine, something like that," answered
McGonigal.
"Why?
I heard the whole conversation.
There was nothing to it.
It was just as the girl said."
The Japanese was still staring intently at Kathleen.
He was about to decide whether the operation
went ahead or not, and this time he was going with the assault team.
He didn't want to put his life on the line if
the operation was blown.
At the same
time, the assignment must be completed.
It was a matter of duty.
"It's a small hospital, the woman had just come off night
shift," said the Japanese.
"The matron would know that and would expect her to be asleep at
the time she called."
He slapped
Kathleen hard across the face.
"Is
that not so?
So why did she call?"
Kathleen spat blood.
It was clear
the bastard had never worked in a hospital, did not understand the pressures,
the need to perform a task
now
.
It was clear he did not know her matron.
Inside herself, she smiled.
He was a clever little sod, but he was on the
wrong track.
"Losing sleep is pretty normal in our business," she said.
"People don't get ill on just a
nine-to-five basis."
"The caller — the matron — apologized when she called," said
McGonigal.
"She said that she had
actually rung up to leave a message with the woman's mother.
Our lady friend here" — he indicated
Kathleen — "actually said very little.
Just ‘it doesn't matter’ and ‘yes’ and a couple of phrases like
that.
Of course, she sounded tired, but
then she would, wouldn't she?
She was
just off duty and games with her boyfriend."
He grinned lasciviously at Kathleen.
Sasada was torn between the logic of what had been said and his
instincts.
In truth, nothing could be
more normal than a brief phone call about a rota change, yet he would have felt
much happier if this woman had never been allowed near the phone at all.
Despite her rough handling and the killing of
her father in front of her and the manifest shock that this had induced, there
was still the faintest spark of defiance in her eyes.
This was a strong, resourceful woman.
Could she somehow have managed to warn the
hospital?