GAMES OF THE HANGMAN

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  A consistent theme in the Hangman's behavior—and a jarring counterpoint to his undoubted sense of humor, albeit rather sick humor—was savagery. He seemed to enjoy inflicting pain on society, as if trying to avenge himself for the slights he had undoubtedly received in earlier life.

  Revenge was part of his motivation.

  But the Hangman was dead. The Bernese weren't amateurs. The entire studio area had been sealed as thoroughly as possible. A body had been found. The autopsy would have been carried out with typical Swiss thoroughness. No error would have been made over the dental records. But were they the Hangman's dental records? The man specialized in switching identities, and obtaining a body would scarcely be a problem for him. Could he have anticipated the possibility of being detected and have turned such an apparent disaster into another misleading dead end?

  The trouble was, everybody wanted to believe that the Hangman was dead. They were sick and tired of the whole business; scared, too. The man was unpredictable and dangerous. He could turn on them at any time. Wives and children would be in danger. They would live in a climate of unending fear. No, of course he was dead. Massive resources had been deployed against him. No individual could win against the concentrated might of the forces of law and order.

  Like hell.

  An image of Balac came into Fitzduane's mind, as sharp and clear as if he were physically present: his eyes gleamed with amusement, and he was smiling.

  It was at that moment that Fitzduane knew for certain that it wasn't over—and that the Hangman was very much alive. Fear like pain ran through him, and Pooka whinnied and bucked in alarm. His face went white, and Etan stared at him in consternation. He looked ill, but they were almost back at the castle.

  When they rode into the bawn seconds later, they were met by the sight of Christian de Guevain, a Paris-based merchant banker who shared Fitzduane's interest in medieval weaponry—de Guevain's specialty being the longbow—getting out of a taxi festooned with fishing rods and other impedimenta.

  He gave a shout of greeting when he saw them, and then his expression changed as he saw Fitzduane's face.

  "But you invited me," he said anxiously, "and I wrote to you. Is there a problem?"

  Fitzduane smiled. He had forgotten completely about his invitation to his friend.

  "No problem," he said. "Or at least you're not it."

  He looked at de Guevain's tweed hat and jacket, which were covered with hand-tied flies in profusion. Their brightly colored feathers gave the impression that the Frenchman was covered with miniature tropical birds.

  An embassy's grounds and building are considered by the host country to be the territory of the country concerned. Translated into security arrangements, that meant that Kilmara's Rangers had to confine their activities to the U.S. Embassy's external perimeter. Internal security remained the responsibility of the U.S. Marines and of State Department security personnel.

  Kilmara and his CIA counterpart, the cultural attaché, disliked this artificial division in the deployment of their forces—especially in view of the vulnerability of the location—but neither the U.S. ambassador nor the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs was of a mind to waive the protocols of the Treaty of Vienna governing such arrangements.

  The initial breakthrough came when one of the rental agents—previously primed by the police at Kilmara's request—notified them that one of the apartments overlooking the embassy had been let for a short period to four Japanese who were going to be in Ireland for a limited time while looking for a suitable site for an electronics factory. They would like to move in immediately. The substantial advance payment requested by the agent proved to be no problem. References were given to be taken up at a later date.

  All the empty apartments overlooking the embassy, and quite a few of the occupied locations, had been bugged in anticipation of some action of this nature. A relay station was set up in the embassy, but the actual monitoring was carried out from Ranger headquarters in Shrewsbury Road.

  The acoustic monitoring equipment was state-of-the-art, and the quality of the transmission excellent. Unfortunately, although there were a number of linguists in the Rangers who spoke among them some eighteen foreign languages—including Arabic and Hebrew, both much in demand since Ireland's involvement with the UN force in Lebanon—none of them spoke Japanese.

  Then Günther remembered that one of the Marine guards he had been chatting with was a Nisei. It didn't follow, of course, that he spoke Japanese—but he might.

  He did.

  Listening to the translation, Kilmara started to wonder if maybe he hadn't been too hasty in assuming the whole embassy thing was a blind; it looked as if something were going to happen there after all. Then the link was made with a convention of travel agents booked into the nearby Jury's Hotel for the following day. The travel agents were coming from the Middle East, and there were seventy-two in the party.

  Backup units were alerted. Ranger leave was canceled. The next question was when to move in. It looked as if he might have thrown a scare into Fitzduane for nothing. Still, better scared than dead.

  Kilmara decided that maybe he was doing too much reacting to events and not enough thinking. He tilted his chair back and set to work on some serious analysis. After half an hour he was glad he had. He called up the rosters on his computer screen and began to do some juggling.

  In the afternoon the skies abandoned any attempt at neutrality and proceeded to dump a goodly portion of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland.

  Etan and Oona went to work out who would sleep where and with whom, and Fitzduane closeted himself in his study to plow his way through a two-month backlog of mail.

  There were several communications from Bern of no particular significance except that one correspondent had included a tourist brochure on current and future events in the city. He flipped through it idly, feeling surprisingly nostalgic about the place, when one small item caught his eye. It would normally have interested him about as much as a dissertation on yak hair, but his increasing feeling of unease linked with his current thoughts about the Hangman focused his mind.

  The item said that Wednesday, May 20, was Geranium Day—the day chosen that year for all the good people of Bern to festoon their city with that particular flower. A sudden display of crimson.

  The timing was too convenient for it to be merely a coincidence, and it fit precisely the Hangman's macabre sense of humor.

  He unpacked the radio and called Kilmara. Sound quality was good, but the colonel wasn't available. Fitzduane decided that a message about geraniums passed through an intermediary would only serve to convince Kilmara that he had temporarily gone round the bend.

  "Ask him to call me most urgent," he said. "Over and out."

  "Affirmative," said Ranger headquarters.

  Fitzduane went to help with the bed making. The Bear had phoned from the airport. He had brought his nurse with him—he hoped Fitzduane wouldn't mind—and Andreas von Graffenlaub had an Israeli girlfriend in tow. They were waiting for Henssen and overnighting in Dublin, then planned to leave early and arrive on the island in time for lunch.

  Fitzduane wondered if he had explained that his castle—as castles go—was really quite a small affair. The next unexpected guest was going to have to sleep with the horses.

  The evening was going splendidly, but try as he might, Fitzduane couldn't get into the right frame of mind to enjoy himself.

  He smiled and laughed at the appropriate times, and even made a speech welcoming his guests that was received well enough, but Etan wasn't fooled. His reply that he was probably suffering from some kind of reaction to the whole Swiss affair didn't entirely satisfy her either, but she had Murrough's guest, Harry Noble, on her right to distract her and de Guevain flirting outrageously across the table, so Fitzduane was allowed to sit peacefully for a time, alone with his thoughts.

  When dinner had reached the liqueur stage—by which time the fishing tales were growing ever more incredible�
�Fitzduane excused himself and retired to his study to try Kilmara again. This time he was patched through immediately. He was not reassured by the conversation that followed.

  He was still staring into the fire when Etan came in. She sat on the floor in front of the fire and looked up at him.

  "Tell me about it," she said.

  He did, and this time he held nothing back. Her face was strained and silent when he finished.

  Fitzduane slept fitfully and rose at dawn.

  He rode for several hours around the island, trying to see if the landscape itself would yield some clue to the Hangman's intentions. A picture of idyllic peace and harmony greeted his eyes and made him doubt for a time the now-overwhelming feeling of foreboding.

  The mist of dawn burned away in the sunlight, and it was shaping up to be a truly spectacular day. The sky was cloudless. The strong westerly had abated to the merest hint of a breeze. Washed by the recent rain, the air was clear and balmy. Insects buzzed, and birdcalls filled the air. Faced with this image of rural tranquility, Fitzduane found it hard to anticipate what the Hangman could have in mind, and he wondered if he wasn't letting his imagination run away with him.

  The obvious target was Draker, and given the Hangman's proclivities, the objective would be kidnapping. God knows—and the Hangman surely did—that the students' families were rich enough to make the game well worth playing.

  There was some security now. Discreet lobbying by Kilmara meant that six armed plainclothes policemen had been temporarily assigned to the college. They lived in the main building and should be able to deal with any threat—or at least buy time until help could be summoned. The Achilles' heel of that arrangement was, of course, the length of time it would take to get assistance to the island. The location was isolated—none more so in Ireland—and it would be several hours at best before specialist help could arrive. The local police might get there sooner, but what they could do against terrorist firepower was another matter.

  Fitzduane had suggested to Kilmara that the parents, if they were so rich, might be persuaded to finance some extra security. He hadn't been thinking when he made the suggestion. The facts of life were explained to him: If the parents received the slightest hint of danger, all the students would be whipped away back to Mommy and Daddy in Saudi or Dubai or Tokyo faster than a bribe vanishes into a politician's pocket. No students would mean no college, and no college would mean no income for the local community. Without proof to back up these vague theories of a threat, it was not a good suggestion; downright dumb, in fact.

  The sea, often so gray and menacing, now presented an image of serenity. The color of the day was a perfect Mediterranean blue—a deceptive ploy, Fitzduane thought, since the temperature of the Atlantic waters, even at this time of year, was only a few degrees above freezing.

  "All this peace and harmony is an illusion," he said to Pooka. "But how and when the shit is going to hit the fan is another matter." The horse didn't venture a reply. She went on chewing at a tuft of grass.

  Smoke was trickling from the chimney of Murrough's cottage. He distracted Pooka from her snack and cantered toward the house. Murrough leaned over the half door as he drew near, and Fitzduane could smell bacon and eggs. He suddenly felt ravenously hungry.

  "You're up bright and early," said Murrough. "What happened? Has Etan slung you out?"

  Oona's face appeared over Murrough's shoulder. "Morning, Hugo," she said. "Don't mind the man—he's no manners. Come on in and have some breakfast."

  Fitzduane dismounted. "I'm persuaded," he said. "I'll be in in a minute. I just want to pick Murrough's brains for a moment."

  Oona grinned and vanished toward the kitchen. "Best of luck," she called over her shoulder.

  Murrough opened the bottom half of the door and ambled out into the sunlight. "I must be dreaming," he said. "There's not a cloud in the sky."

  "Murrough," said Fitzduane, "last night, when you were bringing me up-to-date on the local gossip, you mentioned that a plane had landed here recently. I didn't pay much heed at the time, but now I'm wondering if I heard you right. Did you mean that a plane landed on the mainland or right here on the island?"

  Murrough took a deep breath of morning air and snapped his braces appreciatively. "Oh, not on the mainland," he said. "The feller put it down on this very island, on a stretch of road not far from the college, in fact."

  "I didn't think there was room," said Fitzduane, "and the road is bumpy as hell."

  "Well," said Murrough, "bumpy or not, the feller did it—several times, in fact. I went up to have a look and talked to the pilot. He was a pleasant enough chap for a foreigner. There were two passengers on board—relatives of a Draker student, he said."

  "Remember the student's name?" said Fitzduane.

  Murrough shook his head.

  "What kind of plane was it?"

  "A small enough yoke," said Murrough, "but with two engines. Sort of boxy-shaped. They use the same kind of thing to fly out to the Aran Islands."

  "A Britten-Norman Islander," said Fitzduane. "A cross between a flying delivery van and a Jeep. I guess with the right pilot one of those could make it. They only need about four hundred yards of rough runway, sometimes less."

  "Why so interested?" said Murrough.

  "I'll tell you after we've eaten," answered Fitzduane. "I don't want to spoil your appetite." He followed Murrough into the cottage. Harry Noble was sitting at the pine table with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

  "Good morning, Mr. Ambassador," said Fitzduane.

  Harrison Noble's jaw dropped. "How on earth do you know that?" he said in astonishment.

  Fitzduane sat down at the table and watched appreciatively as Oona poured him a cup of tea. "Friends in high places," he said.

  Ambassador Noble nodded his head gloomily. He had enjoyed being incognito. Now a bunch of U.S. Embassy protocol officers would probably parachute in. So much for a quiet time fishing.

  "I want to share a few thoughts with you," said Fitzduane, "which you may well find not the most cheerful things you've ever heard."

  Oona brought the food to the table. "Eat up first," she said. "Worry can wait."

  They ate, and then Fitzduane talked.

  "Hmm," said the ambassador when he'd finished. "Do you mind if I'm blunt?"

  "Not at all," said Fitzduane.

  "Lots of gut feeling and not much fact," said the ambassador, "and your law enforcement authorities have been informed of your suspicions. It seems, on the face of it, most unlikely that anything at all will happen. You're probably jumpy because of your recent experiences in Switzerland."

  Fitzduane nodded. "A reasonable reaction," he said, "but I run on instinct—and it rarely lets me down."

  Murrough went to a cabinet and removed a bolt-action rifle equipped with a high-power telescopic sight. It was a .303 Mark IV Lee-Enfield customized for sniping, a version of the basic weapon of the Irish Army until it was replaced by the FN in the early sixties. He had used one just like it in combat in the Congo. He stripped down the weapon with practiced hands. Noble noticed that he didn't look at what he was doing, but his touch was sure.

  "Mr. Noble," said Murrough, "sometimes we don't know how things work even though they do." He indicated Fitzduane. "I've known this man a long time, and I've fought with him—and I've been glad we were on the same side. I've learned it pays to listen to him. It's why I'm alive."

  The ambassador looked at Murrough's weather-beaten face for some little time. He smiled slightly. "Only a fool ignores the advice of an experienced gillie," he said. Murrough grinned.

  The ambassador turned to Fitzduane. "Any ideas?" he asked.

  "Some," said Fitzduane.

  The Bear had to admit that his initial reaction to Ireland was—to put it mildly—not exactly favorable. The grim weather didn't help, of course, but it merely served to exacerbate his views. Even allowing for the depression induced by a cold wind and a sky the color of lead—it had been warm and sunny in Swi
tzerland when they had left—the most charitable observer of Dublin (all he had seen of the country on that first evening) would have to agree that it was—he searched for the right word—"scruffy."

  On the other hand, the city had a vitality and a bounce that were not so apparent in Bern. The streets were full of young people radiating disrespect and energy and a sense of fun, and the whole place reeked of tradition and a volatile and unsettled history. Some of the old buildings were still pocked with bullet marks from the rising against the British in 1916.

  Their first evening out was marked by friendly and erratic service, excellent seafood, music that aroused emotions they didn't even know existed—and too much black beer and Irish coffee to drink.

  They got to bed in the small hours and didn't breakfast until eight in the morning. The Bear woke up confused and decidedly unsure what a couple of weeks of Ireland was going to do to him. The others said they hadn't had so much fun in years. It was all decidedly un-Swiss.

  When they drove onto the island, pausing by the bridge to look down at the Atlantic eating away at the cliffs below, Fitzduane's castle lay ahead of them against a backdrop of blue sky and shimmering ocean.

  "Incredible!" said the Bear as they climbed out of the car to greet Fitzduane.

  Fitzduane grinned. "You don't know the half of it."

  "The thought occurs to me," said Henssen, "that we don't actually have to do anything even if the Hangman does show up. We start off with two advantages: we're not the target, and we have a castle to hide away in. All we've got to do is drop the portcullis and then sit drinking poteen until the good guys arrive."