"The reactions of us children were quite different. Marta, as the eldest daughter, was always very close to Daddy. She was a classic moody teenager, and she and Mommy had gotten on badly for a few years. So Marta took Daddy's side over the divorce and went to live with him and Erika. Andreas was of two minds. He was close to Mommy but was absolutely fascinated by Erika. He had a real crush on her. He used to get an erection when she was near."
Fitzduane remembered his own initial response to Erika's reeking sexuality. He had every sympathy for Andreas.
"Rudi and I were closest to Mommy. We were both terribly upset over the divorce. All that happy time was over. Rudi took it hardest of all. He took a real dislike to Daddy and, for a time, wouldn't even speak to him. Surprisingly he didn't blame Erika.
"Rudi was fifteen at the time and exceptionally bright. He was also unhappy, frustrated, angry. He wanted to do something, to get revenge, to teach Daddy a lesson. I suppose I felt the same way at the time, though not as strongly. He started to investigate Daddy's life and at the same time to seek out people who were opposed to the system and values Daddy supported.
"Rudi became obsessed. He began to read Daddy's files, and then he grew more daring or reckless and photocopied some of them. I wasn't too keen on that at first, but when I read some of the stuff he found, I began to wonder.
"The companies that Daddy is involved with, either as a director or a legal adviser in most cases, are really big. I mean, put together, they probably employ hundred of thousands of people all over the world, and their combined turnover is in the billions. We found some terrible things."
"Such as?" asked Fitzduane.
"The worst cases involved a company called Vaybon Holdings. Rudi found some confidential minutes in Daddy's own handwriting. I don't remember all the details, but it was a review of their dirty tricks over many years. Many concerned bribery and illegal sales of arms to governments in Africa and the Middle East. Another concerned that tranquilizer they made — VB19 — which was found to have serious genetic side effects. It was withdrawn in the United States and Europe. Under a different name and repackaged, it continued to be sold in the Third World."
"What did Rudi do with the papers he copied?"
"He was going to keep them," said Vreni, "and release them to the press outside Switzerland. That was too much for me. The whole family would have been affected, and Ruid would have gone to prison if he had been discovered as the source. Commercial secrecy is enforceable by law in Switzerland, you know."
Fitzduane nodded.
"It wasn't just me who persuaded Rudi to burn the papers. Mommy also discovered that Rudi had them. She didn't want them released either. She talked to Rudi a lot, and eventually — reluctantly, but mainly to please her — he agreed. Shortly afterward she was killed.
"Rudi was terribly upset. He was quite distraught. He started saying that she had been killed deliberately by Vaybon because she had seen the documents. I don't think he really believed it. It was just an accident, but he was overwrought and wanted to lash out — to blame someone or something. In some strange way I think he also blamed himself."
Fitzduane remembered how Rudi's mother had died. Claire von Graffenlaub had run her Porsche into a truck loaded with spaghetti. It didn't seem the likeliest way to be murdered.
"The things Daddy was involved in, the burning of the papers, Mommy's death, the influence of some of his new friends, all made Rudi more and more extreme. He began to experiment with drugs, not just grass, but with different things like speed and acid. We had moved back to Daddy's, but he was away from home a lot. Rudi stopped arguing with Daddy and seemed to be getting on with him better, but really he was working on some kind of revenge. He wasn't just acting by himself anymore. He was taking advice, responding to some specific influence.
"He made friends with some people who were on the fringes of the AKO — the Anarchistische Kampforganisation. They wanted to destroy the Swiss system, the whole Western capitalist system, through revolution. It was mostly just talk, but some other people in the mainstream of the group had been involved in stealing weapons from the Swiss armories and supplying terrorists. They supplied weapons to order. Machine guns, revolvers, grenades, even panzer mines powerful enough to destroy a tank. They had links with the Baader-Meinhof gang. Carlos, the Basques, many extremist groups. The weapons-stealing group was broken up, and the active members were imprisoned before Rudi came on the scene. Still, there were many sympathizers who got away. Some of them were known to the police and watched."
"So you're saying that Rudi wasn't actively involved," said Fitzduane. "He was more of a terrorist groupie once removed."
Vreni smiled. "That's a funny way of putting it, but I suppose it's about right."
"And where were you in all this?" said Fitzduane.
She looked at him without answering, and then she turned away and stared at the floor, her hands clasped around her knees. "I prefer to be an Aussteiger. I don't want to hurt anyone," she said quietly.
"What's an Aussteiger?"
"What in English you call a dropout," said Vreni. "Actually it's funny. The German word means more like a ‘climb-out.’ Here you can't just drop out like in America. You have to make the effort — to climb."
She yawned. It was past midnight. Her voice was beginning to slur from the combined effects of tiredness and grass. He had many other questions to ask, but most would have to wait until morning. He doubted she would speak so freely in the light of day. Few people did.
He had the sense that what he was hearing was true, but only part of the truth; it was a parallel truth. Something else had been happening at the same time, something that, perhaps, Vreni did not know — or was only partially informed about. He yawned himself. It was pieces, feelings, vibes, guesswork at this stage.
"I'm sleepy," she said. "We can talk some more in the morning."
She uncurled herself from the floor and knelt on her haunches in front of him. Her blouse was unbuttoned, and he could see the swell of her breasts and the tops of her nipples. She brought her face close to his. He could feel her breath, smell her body. She slid an arm around his neck and caressed him. She kissed him on the lips, and her tongue snaked into his mouth for a moment before he pulled back. Her hand flickered across the bulge in his trousers and then withdrew.
"You know, Irishman," she whispered as if to herself, "you know that they're going to kill you, don't you?" Then she vanished through he round hole in the ceiling. In his exhaustion Fitzduane was unsure that he'd heard her correctly.
* * * * *
Small sounds woke him. The room was empty, and the lamp, almost out of oil, sputtered as it quietly died. He saw her legs first, then the V-shaped patch of fawn pubic hair as she slid down from her room onto the warm stone of the choust. The gold bracelet on her left wrist caught the last flickers of light. Then her naked body was shrouded in darkness.
He could hear her moving slowly across the floor toward him. She was sobbing quietly. He could feel the wetness of her cheek against his outstretched hand. Without speaking, he drew her into the bed beside him and held her in his arms. Her tears wet the hair on his chest. He kissed her gently as one would kiss a child, and after a long while she fell asleep.
He remained awake thinking for several hours until the first faint light of dawn eased its way through the curtains. Vreni slept easily, her breathing deep and even. Very slowly he unclasped the bracelet from her wrist, moving it only slightly so he could see what was there. It was hard to discern in the minimal light, but he could see enough. There was no tattoo. Vreni stirred slightly but did not waken.
* * * * *
Across the breakfast table she was silent and subdued. She did not look at him as she made him coffee and placed a bowl of muesli in front of him. To break the silence, he asked her who did the milking. The milk he was pouring was still fresh and steaming.
She looked up at him and laughed a little humorlessly. "Peter arranged it," she said. "We have a neigh
bor. He lives in the village, but his cow byre is close to ours. We take turns to do the milking."
"You're not completely alone then."
"Willi is good with the cows," she said, "but he's over sixty, set in his ways, and to given much to conversation."
"So you get lonely."
"Yes," she said, "I do. I really do." She sat without speaking for a few moments and then stood up and began busying herself around the kitchen. Suddenly, leaning against the sink, her back to Fitzduane, she started sobbing, a violent, unstoppable outpouring.
Fitzduane stood and went to put his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. Her back was corded with tension. He made as if to take her in his arms, but she shook him off angrily. Her hand clenched the edge of the sink, the knuckles white with the force of her grip.
"You don't know what you're dealing with," she said. "I was a fool to talk to you. It's none of your business. You don't understand, this whole thing is too complicated. It's nothing to do with you."
He started to say something, but she turned on him, screaming. Her face was distorted by anger and fear. Her voice broke as she shouted at him. "You idiot! Don't you know it's too late? It's gone too far! I can't go back, and no one can help me. No one!" Vreni rushed out of the kitchen into the main room, slamming the door behind her. A bag of brown rice balanced on one of the kitchen shelves thudded to the floor. He heard the phone ring and then Vreni answer. She did not seem to speak much. Once he heard a single word when she raised her voice; it was repeated several times. It sounded like nay, Swiss-German dialect for no. He went back to the kitchen table to finish breakfast.
Some minutes later Vreni walked slowly back into the kitchen. Her face was ashen. He could scarcely hear her as she spoke.
"You'd better go," she said. "Now." She pressed a small package into his hand. It was wrapped in paper and was about the size of a screw-top coffee jar. She held her lips to his cheek for a few moments and clasped him tight.
"Thank you for trying," she said, "but it's too late." She turned and left the room. She had scarcely looked at him while she was speaking. Her face was streaked with tears. Fitzduane knew that to push her further would be worse than useless.
He walked back down the track to Heiligenschwendi. The snow and slush had frozen in the night and crackled underfoot. There was ice on the mountain road, too, so he drove slowly and with particular care. He checked his mirror often and several times stopped to admire the view. Once he broke out a telephoto lens and took some photographs of the twisting road and of a motorcyclist demonstrating his skill gliding around a corner. The biker accelerated when he saw Fitzduane's camera and did not acknowledge the Irishman's wave.
Fitzduane had lunch in Interlaken, did the things that tourists do, and drove back sedately to Bern. When the biker turned off at the outskirts of the city, Fitzduane was almost sorry to see him go. Still, It might be a good idea to find out who was following him. He was beginning to be sorry he had left his Kevlar vest back in Ireland. Switzerland was turning out to be rather different from what he had expected.
He thought he might just buy himself a gun.
13
Fitzduane was interested in weapons — training in them had formed part of his upbringing — and in the isolation of his castle and grounds he interpreted the restrictive Irish gun laws rather liberally. In Ireland a permit was needed for something as relatively nonlethal as an air rifle, and obtaining a license for a handgun was almost impossible. Also, there were few gun shops in Ireland, and the selection of weapons in them was limited.
He was intrigued by the Swiss approach to firearms and had already found out that the Swiss just loved guns, all kinds of guns from black-powder muskets to match-precision rifles. They also made them and shot them with impressive skill and consistent application.
Fitzduane found the gun shop by the simple expedient of following a respectable middle-aged burgher in a business suit who was carrying an assault rifle with much the same nonchalance as a Londoner might carry an umbrella. Passersby were equally unmoved by the sight. It did occur to Fitzduane that the good citizen might be returning to his office to shoot his boss or taking a midafternoon break to perforate his wife's lover. Both these options, on reflection, seemed to promise a certain entertainment value.
After only a few minutes — and it was a fine afternoon for a stroll — the burgher led him to a shop in Aarbergasse. The façade bore the words SCHWARZ, BÜCHSENMACHER, ARMURIER, and the window was nicely decorated with a display of firepower that would have done credit to a South American dictator's personal arsenal.
"I'd like to buy a gun," said Fitzduane.
The man behind the counter nodded in agreement. Nothing could be more sensible. Fitzduane looked around the shop. There were guns everywhere, a quite astonishing variety: revolvers, automatics, muskets, shotguns, army rifles, carbines. They hung from racks, stared at him from display cabinets, leaned casually against the walls. Any unoccupied space was filled with ammunition boxes, crossbows, books on guns, even catapults. It was terrific. He wished he had come there when he was fourteen. Still, he wasn't quite sure of the ground rules for this sort of thing.
"What are the gun laws in Switzerland?"
The man behind the counter was unfazed. It was clear that the Swiss legal system was not going to stop him from making a sale.
"For a foreigner?"
Fitzduane thought that speaking in English must be a dead giveaway. "It depends where I am," he said. "I feel quite at home in Bern."
The shopkeeper seemed to have scant interest in repartee. His business was guns. He picked a Finnish Valmet assault rifle off a rack behind him and idly mowed down half a dozen passersby through the plate glass shopfront. He made a “tac-tac-tac” sound: three-round bursts, good fire control.
The Valmet was replaced. A Colt Peacemaker appeared in the man's hand. He held it, arm outstretched, in the single-handed shooting position that was all the rage for handguns before a California sheriff called Weaver started winning all the shooting competitions in the 1950s by shooting with two hands like a woman.
"The laws vary from canton to canton," he said. "In Bern, for instance, you can carry a pistol without a permit. In Zurich it is not so."
There were twenty-six cantons and half cantons in Switzerland, Fitzduane recalled. He wasn't quite sure of the difference between a canton and a half canton, but considering the gun law variations, it sounded as if it might be a good idea to carry something a little less vulnerable to local complications than a handgun.
"But it is not difficult to buy a gun," the shopkeeper continued. "It depends on what you want. There are some restrictions on automatic weapons and pistols. Otherwise it is easy."
"Without a permit?"
"Except for the restrictions I have mentioned, no permit is required," said the man. He twirled the Peacemaker expertly and returned it to the showcase. He selected a small .32 Smith & Wesson, looked at Fitzduane, and then put it back. Somehow the Irishman didn't seem the .32-caliber type.
Fitzduane reluctantly abandoned the idea of buying an M-60 machine gun and towing it around Bern on roller skates. He looked at his camera tripod case, which was resting on the counter while he talked, and little wheels started turning in his brain.
He pointed at a Remington folding shotgun in a rack behind the man. It was a short-barreled riot gun and was stamped, in large, clear letters: FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ONLY.
"But of course," said the shopkeeper, offering the gun to Fitzduane. The weapon was a folding pump-action shotgun equipped with a pistol grip. Fitzduane had used a similar weapon on special operations in the Congo. With the appropriate ammunition, up to a maximum of forty meters, though preferably at half that distance, it was an effective killing machine with brutal stopping power. With the metal stock collapsed, the gun fit neatly into the tripod case, leaving room for spare ammunition in the zippered accessory pocket where Fitzduane normally kept his long remote extension cord.
The man behind the c
ounter placed a box of twelve-gauge 00 shells beside the holstered gun. Each shell contained nine lead balls, any one of which could be fatal at close range. It was clear he didn't think Fitzduane might need birdshot. As an afterthought the man added a tubular magazine extension. "We take credit cards," he said. Fitzduane smiled and paid cash. The bill came to 918 francs 40.
He left the gun shop and went looking for a photography store where he could have some film developed and some enlargements made in a hurry. He was successful and arranged to make the pickup the following morning.
There was a café called the High Noon off the Bärenplatz, just next door to the prison tower. It seemed like the right place for a beer after buying a gun. Afterward Fitzduane strolled back to his hotel. As far as he could tell, he was no longer being followed, though it was difficult to be sure. The streets were crowded with evening shoppers and the arcades made concealment by a tail easy. As he neared the Hospiz, the crowds thinned, and he noticed a keffiyeh-shrouded skater detach himself from an arcade pillar and glide after him. He changed direction and entered a small bar called the Arlequin. He had another beer and wondered what had happened to the “H.”
Outside, the skater glided, twirled, and, finally fatigued, adopted a storklike position, supported on one leg with the other drawn up and looped behind the knee. So positioned, the skater watched the Arlequin door. He was gone, apparently, by the time Fitzduane left. This is all very fucking weird, thought Fitzduane.
* * * * *
Back in his hotel room, Fitzduane loaded the shotgun. With the magazine extension fitted, it held seven rounds. He checked the safety catch and replaced the weapon in its carrying case.
He had almost forgotten about the small parcel that Vreni had pressed into his hand. He borrowed a pair of scissors from reception and carefully cut open the package. Inside was a glass jar containing gingerbread. He unscrewed the top, and the rich aroma brought him back to the old farmhouse on the side of the hill and a girl with flour on her cheek. He ate one of the gingerbread men. It broke crisply as he bit into it. There was a hint of butter and spices.
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