Fitzduane 02 - Rules of The Hunt

by O'Reilly-Victor

  Kilmara nodded. "There is an element of risk," he added, "but let's not go overboard on it. There will be heavy security."

  "Jesus Christ!" said Kathleen, quite shaken. "Who are these people? Why can't you find them and stop them?"

  Kilmara emptied his hip flask into his mug. "Terrorism is like cancer," he said. "We have our successes, but the enemy mutates and we're still looking for a cure. It is a long, open-ended war."

  "I guess the sooner we get your friend recovered and out of here, the better," said Kathleen.

  Kilmara lifted his mug in a mock salute. "Way to go, Kathleen," he said. "Now you're getting it."

  Kathleen gave a thin smile.

  6

  ConnemaraRegionalHospital

  January 18

  Fitzduane opened his eyes.

  What had awakened him? Who was out there? He must react. He had dropped his guard before and look at what had happened.

  The imperative to move coursed through his body and was counteracted by his painkillers and sedation.

  Still the warning screamed at him.

  Sweat broke out on his forehead. He tired to rise to a sitting position, some body posture from which he could react more forcibly than when lying down helpless and defenseless.

  The effort was terrible. His body did not want to respond.

  He drove it into submission and slowly he could raise his head and bandaged torso, but he was too weak. He screwed up his eyes as the pain hit, and a low cry of agony and frustration escaped from his body.

  He heard a voice, and it was the voice of a friend. There was no threat. He was safe. Boots was safe. Suddenly, he knew where he was.

  And then he saw her and felt her hand soothe his forehead and heard her voice again. "Hugo," she said. "You're safe. Relax. Lie back. There is nothing to worry about. You must rest and get well."

  The digital wall clock read 2:23.

  Kathleen, a warm, dark-haired woman in her early thirties, was changing his drip. On Linda Foley's initiative, she had been seconded from Intensive Care. Burke's patients tended to do better than most. She had the touch.

  She finished her task and checked his pulse. She had an upside-down watch pinned to her uniform and she was looking at it as she counted silently. He liked the touch of her fingers and the clean, warm smell of her body. There was the mark of a recently removed ring on the third finger of her left hand.

  "Can I get you something, Hugo?" she said very softly.

  Fitzduane smiled. It was strange. The pain was still there but somehow remote. He felt rested and at peace. He lifted his hand and took hers. There was nothing sexual in the gesture. It was the kind of thing you might not do in broad daylight but which is somehow appropriate when it is two in the morning and the rest of the world seems asleep.

  "Tell me about it," he said sleepily. His fingers stroked the spot where the ring had been.

  Kathleen laughed quietly. She was a very pretty woman, all the better for the signs of the passing of the years etched on her face. "It doesn't work that way," she said. "You're supposed to do the talking. It doesn't do for a nurse to give away her secrets to a patient."

  "It takes away the mystique," said Fitzduane quietly, with a smile, quoting what a nurse in Dublin had once told him. "Patients want support and strength — solutions, not problems. It doesn’t do to get emotionally involved with a patient." He grinned. "One way or another, we move on."

  He started to laugh out loud. Outside in the corridor, the Ranger on duty heard the sound and felt mildly jealous. It would be nice to recline in bed with a pretty nurse as company. Then he contemplated what he had seen and heard about Fitzduane's injuries and decided that he had the better part of the bargain, after all.

  The nurse came out of the room some ten minutes later and there was a smile on her face. She looked more relaxed, happier somehow. Earlier on, when he had checked her on screen before letting her through the double security barrier, the Ranger could have sworn she had been crying.

  A message sounded in his earpiece, and he responded by pressing the transmit button in the day's coded response. Then he concentrated on the routines that the General had laid down to keep Fitzduane safe from another attack. The Ranger hadn't needed any reminders that lightning can strike as often as it takes. He had been one of the force that had relieved the siege of Fitzduane's castle three years earlier. As far as he was concerned, if you were a player in the war against terrorism, you were in a state of permanent danger.

  Simply put, either you killed them or — sooner or later — they would inflict lethal force on you.

  * * * * *

  January 24

  General Shane Kilmara — it was really rather nice being a general at last — thought that Fitzduane looked terrible.

  On the other hand, he looked less terrible than three weeks earlier. The sense that you were looking only at a receptacle for tubes, electronics, and the drug industry was gone. Now Fitzduane looked mostly like a messed-up human who was still being stuck together. Shades of Frankenstein when he needed more work, only Fitzduane was better-looking.

  He was pale, he'd lost a lot of weight, and he was strapped, plastered, and plugged into a drip and a mess of other hardware, but he was sitting up and his green-gray eyes had life in them again. And that was good. Also, he was talking. That, perhaps, wasn't so good. Hugo was a particularly bright human being, and his questions meant work. And tended to have consequences.

  "Who and why?" said Fitzduane.

  "How about ‘Good morning,’" said Kilmara. "I haven't even sat down." He pulled up an armchair to demonstrate his lack and began to nibble at Fitzduane's grapes.

  It was curious how hard it was to talk to the sick. You tended to meet and deal with most people in full, or at least reasonable, health. A person laid low was like a stranger. You no longer possessed a common frame of reference. The same applied to a soldier on the battlefield. When he was mobile, he was fire support and valued. After injury he was a statistic, a casualty — and a liability. It wasn't very nice, but it was true. And like many things in life, there wasn't much you could do about it.

  Fitzduane, it appeared, wasn't going to accept the convention. He might look like something the cat had chucked up behind the sofa, but his brain was working.

  Kilmara formed the view that his friend — actually his closest friend, now he thought of it, except maybe for Adeline, who was his wife and therefore didn't actually count in that particular census — was on the mend; maybe. The medics were still hedging their bets.

  But it was going to be a long haul. Being shot with a high-powered rifle tended to have that effect. As they used to say in Vietnam, "A sucking chest wound is nature's way of telling you you've been hit." Hugo had been hit twice, and it showed.

  "Shane," said Fitzduane. There was something about the tone.

  Kilmara was caught in mid-munch. He swallowed the pits.

  "No speeches," he said. "I embarrass easily."

  Fitzduane was silent. "In case I forgot to mention it," he said, after a very long pause, "thank you."

  "Is that it?" said Kilmara, sounding incredulous. "Is that all?" He grinned. "Truth to tell, we were lucky. Well, relatively lucky."

  Fitzduane raised an eyebrow. "That's a matter or perspective," he said. "Now let's get to work. The white suits have cut back on the pills and needles, so I'm beginning to be able to string together a thought or two, and these first thoughts are not kindly. I want whoever is behind this. You've got some of the puppets and that's nice, but that's not what counts. What really matters is nailing the puppetmaster."

  Two nurses came in and started to do things to Fitzduane before Kilmara could respond. They asked Kilmara to wait outside. When he came back in Fitzduane was paler, but his pillows were puffed up and his bed looked neater.

  Kilmara had been shot in his life and had had malaria and other reasons for being hospitalized. He had formed the view that the medical professionals sometimes had their priorities mixed up. They
liked their patients to look sharp so that they could show them off to the doctors. The patient's rest didn't seem to come into it. Nonetheless, he had a weakness for nurses. He could forgive most nurses most things.

  He switched his mind back to Fitzduane. He had been told in words of one syllable that the patient was not to be worried and that stress was to be avoided at all costs. And now Fitzduane, his medication at last down to manageable proportions so he could think reasonably clearly, wanted to dive straight into the investigation. Tricky. Hard to know what to do.

  "Hugo," he said, "are you sure you're ready for this? You're still a very sick fellow."

  Fitzduane looked at him long and hard, eyes blazing.

  "Shane," he said deliberately, the words punched out, "they nearly killed Boots. I saw the back of my son's head open up and his lifeblood pour out. I thought he was dead. Next time they could succeed. Don't fuck with me. You're my friend. Help me. These" — he paused now, shaking with emotion and weakness, searching for the right word — "these vermin have to be found, fixed, and destroyed. And I will do it, with or without your help."

  "Found, fixed and destroyed."

  The military phrase brought back a flood of memories to Kilmara. Fitzduane as a young lieutenant in the Congo. His first recon mission. The brutal firefight that had followed. Other missions. Other demonstrations of his effectiveness at the skills of deadly force. The man had a natural talent for combat. But then, that was his heritage.

  Kilmara picked his words to ease the tension.

  "There were three men who attacked you," he said. "Unfortunately, all were killed. Their identification papers were all false. Their clothing had been recently purchased and revealed nothing. There were no distinguishing marks."

  Fitzduane still looked at him. It has been three weeks, the look implied.

  "The one characteristic they all had in common was that they were Asian, or at least looked Asian. More specifically, they looked Japanese," continued Kilmara. "We put in an inquiry worldwide through Interpol and specifically to Japan through the Tokyo Metropolitan police. We trawled through other sources as we normally do when a terrorist profile is involved. And we phone our friends and called in a few favors and otherwise did a little rousting along the

  Information Highway

  ."

  "And?" said Fitzduane.

  "The replies have been a little slow in coming. Of course, Interpol is not renowned for its reflexes and the Japanese are likely to chew things over before they swallow. Finally, it emerged that the three were members of a right-wing extremist group that had supposedly been broken up nearly three years back. Our three had been locked up on some technicality but were released about eight months ago."

  "The timing is about right," said Fitzduane. The motive would have stemmed from his encounter with Kadar, the Hangman. If this was a revenge mission, he would have expected it to happen earlier. The designated hitters' being out of circulation at the Japanese government's pleasure could explain the timing. "But why Japanese?"

  "The only thing," said Kilmara, "is that according to Tokyo our three violent friends shouldn't have turned up on your island."

  "And why not?" said Fitzduane.

  "They are supposed to be in the Middle East," said Kilmara cheerfully. "That's what the computer said. But what do computers know? More to the point, there is a slightly strange rhythm to the way some of the other sources have been responding. Silence, then the absolute minimum, and then a veritable feast. It's as if some people have figured out that we might be able to make a contribution to their particular game. As to who these people are..."

  He looked at Fitzduane with some concern. The man was looking decidedly strange. "Hugo," he inquired tactfully, "are you sure you want to get into this?"

  "Aahh!" said Fitzduane, in what sounded like a long sigh of understanding or acknowledgment.

  "Adeline says that sometimes," said Kilmara cheerfully, "and I'm never quite sure if it's good or bad. It's a contextual noise."

  "Aahh!" said Fitzduane again. He was propped up by pillows in an uncomfortable-looking hospital bed. He had turned frighteningly pale. Now he leaned forward, as if propelled from the back, and was violently sick.

  Kilmara hit the emergency button, conscious that even medical help would be delayed for precious seconds by the security he had put in position. To die because of your own security, what an irony. Hugo would certainly appreciate that.

  He looked at his friend. Fitzduane had sunk back against his pillows. He was now more green than pale. "Apologies," he muttered. His eyes closed and he slid to one side, unconscious. Some color came back into his cheeks.

  The door burst open and white-clad bodies filled the room. Fortunately, they seemed to know what they were doing.

  It's not nice being shot, thought Kilmara; it's not nice at all. And it's about basic things we don't like to think about — like the spilling of blood and the discharge of mucus, and splintered bone and traumatized flesh and time and pain.

  The room smelled of vomit and things medical. But there wasn't the faintest trace of the smell that accompanies the passing of a life, the reminder of each and every human's mortality. The air was clean of the smell of fear.

  Kilmara, sitting in the visitor's armchair, temporarily ignored by the focused emergency team, felt immensely relieved. He knew at that moment that Fitzduane was really going to make it. Hope became certainty. He felt curiously weak, as the reaction to endless days of tension set in. He wanted to laugh or cry or shout out loud, or just lie down and sleep. His face showed no change of expression.

  An intern turned around to get something from a nurse and noticed Kilmara. The intern had been on duty for some ridiculous length of time and was tired, unshaven, irritable, and short on words. "Out," he ordered. "You there — get out of here."

  "Get out of here, General," said Kilmara agreeably.

  He exited. Fitzduane was clearly back in the ballgame, but it was going to take a little time before he became a serious player. But, knowing his friend, not too long.

  * * * * *

  Tokyo, Japan

  January 24

  Wearing fatigues to avoid the distinctive smell of propellant clinging to her street clothes, Chifune shot for forty-five minutes on the Koancho Number Three internal range, working mostly under low-light conditions.

  She fired at least a hundred rounds a day five days a week to keep her edge.

  The work demanded total concentration. The scenarios she had selected to be projected on the target screen covered hostage-taking and similar complex situations where, apart from shooting accurately, only brief seconds — and sometimes even less — were allowed in which to determine who were the targets and who were the victims. The poor light made the work even harder, but she was practicing this way because it was the nearest thing to the environment where she was going next.

  She practiced both with and without an optical sight. The EPC subminiature optical sight, of British design — the U.K. had considerable expertise in the manufacture of counterterrorist equipment — allowed her to keep both eyes open, and replaced the conventional sight with a prismatically induced red dot which automatically adjusted to the infrared level of ambient light. The sight was passive — it did not project a line of red light like a laser sight — so it was ideal for covert operation. It was proving to be particularly effective under low-light conditions. The optics gathered the light like a pair of high-quality binoculars, and where the large red dot was placed, so went the rounds.

  Using the EPC optical sight on her Beretta, Chifune found she could aim and fire accurately — hitting a nine-inch plate at twenty meters — in one third of a second. The qualifying standard was double that time.

  Chifune Tanabu was an exceptional shooter.

  * * * * *

  Adachi was going through the standard checklists that were used for a murder investigation and then updating his personal operational plan on his word processor.

  The investigat
ion of the last few weeks seemed to indicate that Hodama had met everyone and been everywhere. And he had lived too damn long. The classic routines of interviewing all friends and acquaintances and cross-checking their stories was taking forever. And as for trying to work out who had a motive to kill him, well, who didn't? Hodama had schemed and manipulated and bribed and double-crossed all his life. His list of enemies must be endless.

  Somewhere, Hodama must have records. The house was clean and, more important, there was no indication that any volume of papers had been removed. There were no empty shelves or open filing cabinets or safes with doors open. No, Adachi was of the opinion that he had kept his goodies elsewhere. He was a devious, cautious son of a bitch, and that would be in character. Alternatively, the place had been sanitized by a true professional; and that in itself was food for thought.

  They had discovered the security video — the recorder had taped all the comings and goings at Hodama's house — but could not read it. Evidently, Hodama liked to keep a permanent record of his visitors, but in such a way that it was secure. The video recording was scrambled and needed a decoder to work. Right now, the technical boys were trying to decode the thing. It was bloody frustrating; they might have a complete recording of the killers, but they could not view it. But why had the killers not removed the tapes? Elsewhere, their preparation had been so meticulous. Would they slip up on a visual record? For some reasons of their own, did they deliberately want to leave a record?

  "Boss!" shouted Fujiwara.

  Adachi looked up.

  Inspector Fujiwara was waving his telephone handset around and grinning. "Progress. We turned over the homes of all of Hodama's people, and we've hit pay dirt at Morinaga's."

  "Who the fuck is Morinaga?" said Adachi. He was tired and felt drowned in paper. Reports written on the heat-sensitive paper used by the built-in printers of the little word processors used throughout Japanese officialdom seemed to be curled up everywhere, interspersed with even curlier faxes. Adachi longed for good, old-fashioned plain paper. Apart from being horrible to handle, heat-sensitive paper had an annoying habit of fading when exposed to direct sunlight. He could just see the crucial report. "And the murderer is..." fading as he looked.