GAMES OF THE HANGMAN

by VICTOR O'REILLY

  Initially he had considered flying around the keep and smothering each aperture with napalm, but that would have left him vulnerable to the defenders' fire. There was also the problem that the LPO-50 was bulky and almost impossible to use from the Powerchute without modifying the airframe, since the unit was designed to be worn as a backpack. He had also disliked the idea of being so close to all that flaming oil when the only thing that kept him up was a fragile nylon parachute canopy. He could see his wings melting and himself reliving Icarus's unenviable experience.

  He had therefore settled on the simpler plan of landing on the now-deserted roof, breaking through the sandbags to incinerate any defenders below, bringing up reinforcements by rope from the base of the keep, and then blasting his way, room by room, floor by floor, to the hostages. It was a simple, direct plan, and it was going to work because no one can stand and fight when facing a flamethrower. Very soon he would control the keep.

  His mind flashed back to those early, vulnerable, happy days in Cuba when he and Whitney were lovers. He had been naive then, naive and ignorant of the reality of the human condition, which is to control or to be used or to die. He remembered Whitney's death; it hadn't been in vain. That terrible episode had made Kadar strong and invulnerable. He recalled his meticulous plotting and execution of his mother and Major Altamir Ventura. There had been so many since then. It had become easier over time. More recently the violence had become an end in itself. It had become a necessity. It was now an exquisite sensual pleasure.

  The Hangman prepared to attack. Sixty seconds from making a landing on the keep, his Powerchute engine sputtered and cut out. It was out of fuel—the result of a slow leak caused by one of Etan's rapidly fired broom handle Mauser bullets during the flying machine's previous attack.

  Terror and rage suffused Kadar's being. His mood crashed from euphoria to panic. For several seconds he sat in the Powerchute, motionless, incapable of deciding what to do. Then he noticed the craft's forward motion, and his confidence returned. Unlike a helicopter, which went vertical rather quickly when the power was cut off, the Powerchute was a forgiving beast when engineless. It was, after all, no more than a parachute with something like a propeller-equipped lawn mower engine tacked on. The parachute was quite big enough and strong enough to bring both pilot and appendages to the ground in a mild and gentle manner.

  Unfortunately for Kadar—given the chute's forward momentum and the way the wind was gusting—the immediate ground was represented by the burning cavern that had been the great hall.

  Slowly he sailed nearer and nearer to it until he could feel the heat sear his face. The metal of the Powerchute frame became too hot to touch. The flamethrower was going to explode and douse him with burning napalm. Horror overwhelmed him. He began to shake with fear.

  Frantically he tried to free himself of the flamethrower and at the same time to steer away from the conflagration.

  The flamethrower had been clipped to the Powerchute frame with D-shaped carabiners—the things climbers use. They were easy to manage and utterly reliable if handled at the right angle, but in this case Kadar had to twist awkwardly back, and the release of each one of the four carabiners in turn was an endless nightmare. His fingers slipped and skidded and became slimy with blood from his scrabbling fingernails. He was physically sick with fear and panic.

  He undipped three of the carabiners, but the fourth evaded his every attempt. The flamethrower remained tied to the Powerchute as if it had a mind of its own and were determined to go down with its owner and burn him to death.

  Kadar saw that he was not going to make it if he stayed with the doomed aircraft. He hit the quick-release buckle on his safety harness, balancing himself on the edge of the Powerchute's metal frame, and, timing it as well as he could, threw himself through the air toward the edge of the dugout.

  The drifting Powerchute still retained some momentum, which caused him to land hard on a corrugated-iron-reinforced corner of the dugout. The edge of the rusty metal sliced into his torso, and he heard a crack. He felt a terrible pain in his leg, as if his femur were broken. He felt himself sliding, and his hands flailed frantically, trying to find something to grip. He found a makeshift sandbag, but the material, previously slashed by heavy-machine-gun bullets, tore in his hands.

  He was screaming—he couldn't stop screaming—and he couldn't see because blood from a slash on his forehead mixed with earth from the sandbag was streaming into his eyes, and he felt a sudden, terrible rush of heat from the flames when the fire in the great hall burned through the metal casing of the abandoned flamethrower, igniting the whole twenty-three-kilo backpack.

  He felt himself being gripped by his left arm and pulled forward away from the edge and dumped facedown on the sandbagged center of the roof. He slid his right hand under his body and drew his pistol. The weapon was already cocked with a round in the chamber. He slid the safety catch to the off position.

  "Turn around," said Fitzduane, who had decided to reoccupy the top of the keep after the heavy-machine-guns positions had been destroyed. A further incentive had come from a Ranger report of some as-yet-unaccounted-for flying machine that had been seen taking off with a hostile aboard.

  The form lying facedown on the sandbags looked familiar, but Fitzduane couldn't bring himself to believe that it was the Hangman, or Balac or Kadar or Whitney or Lodge or whatever he was calling himself these days.

  Kadar wiped the blood from his eyes and blinked. He could see. It was still possible. It could be done.

  He raised his upper body on his hands, then took most of his weight on one arm and gripped his pistol with the other. He half turned to identify the precise location of his target. His eyes locked on those of his rescuer, and he started in surprise and then burning hatred. Good God! It was his nemesis; it was that damned Irishman. A lust to obliterate Fitzduane swept over him.

  Simon Balac! The Hangman! The shock of recognition hit Fitzduane with equal force. He was momentarily stunned. Somehow he had assumed that the Hangman would remain safe in the background, directing operations. He had never expected that the man would put himself in harm's way. He felt a cold, clinical desire to kill, and then an adrenaline rush. It was a combination he hadn't experienced since seeing Anne-Marie slaughtered in the Congo nearly two decades earlier. It was a killing rage. He moved a step toward Kadar.

  The Bear, who was out of ammunition and had been delayed while looking for an alternative weapon, was climbing the ladder leading to the roof. He called out to Fitzduane. It was a casual shout of inquiry, but it saved Fitzduane's life. The Irishman turned slightly to acknowledge the Bear as the Hangman rolled and fired.

  Fitzduane felt a burning sensation as the round furrowed his cheek. He staggered backward and slipped on a coil of rope. He crashed onto the sandbags as further shots from the Hangman cracked over his head and smashed into the tripod-mounted block and tackle.

  With difficulty the Hangman hauled himself upright.

  Distracted by his agony, his hands shaking, Kadar made a half turn and fired in the direction of this new arrival. His burst of four shots missed, but the Bear lost his original point of aim, and instead of impacting on the Hangman's torso as intended, the crossbow bolt sank into the Hangman's broken leg at knee height, splintering bone and ripping cartilage. He screamed at the sudden crescendo of pain and emptied his magazine in futile rapid fire in the direction of his tormentor.

  The Bear crouched down on the access ladder behind cover and restrung his crossbow and fitted a fresh bolt.

  Kadar sobbed in agony and frustration and groped for a fresh magazine for his automatic. There was nothing there. He remembered his fatigues ripping when he landed. The spare clips must have fallen out of his torn cargo pocket. He glanced around and saw one of the magazines on the edge of the roof. As he limped hesitatingly toward it, a second crossbow bolt smashed into his back. It failed to penetrate his Kevlar body armor, but the momentum of the missile threw him forward, and he stumbled onto his kne
es.

  The impact of the roof on his wounded knee and broken leg caused pain so extreme that he felt cocooned in a miasma of pure horror. Beads of sweat broke out on his face, and it was only through the maximum exertion of his formidable willpower that he was able to remain conscious. He fought to stay in control. His nightmare of suffering was worse than anything he had ever known or could have believed possible. His cries echoed into the flame-lit darkness, and tears ran down his cheeks. He tried to crawl toward the magazine. He whimpered.

  Fitzduane, blood streaming from his furrowed cheek and momentarily disoriented by his fall, took long seconds to recover. Still somewhat dazed and oblivious of the shotgun strapped to his back, he dragged himself to his feet and with both hands grabbed the heavy coil of rope he had tripped over.

  Kadar sensed Fitzduane's approach as he was reloading his automatic. He worked the slide, chambered a round, and cocked the weapon, then turned to shoot the Irishman.

  Fitzduane slashed down hard and at an angle with the rope, lacerating Kadar's face and knocking his gun hand to one side. He then dropped the rope and seized Kadar's hand as it moved back toward him. Groggy from his wounds and the near-unendurable pain, Kadar tried to fire but could not; Fitzduane had his thumb inserted between the hammer and the firing pin, and he gripped the slide tightly. Slowly Fitzduane forced the weapon away from where it had been pointed, but he had to remove his thumb as the Hangman twisted the automatic. Kadar fired repeatedly in a frenzy of desperation, but the round blasted futilely into the night.

  Fitzduane waited until the Hangman's weapon was empty and then butted him in the face with his head, smashing his opponent's nose. As the Hangman reeled and cried out in agony, Fitzduane loosened his grip on the man's arms and drew his fighting knife. He plunged it under the body armor into the terrorist's stomach and twisted and ripped with the blade. A terrible keening moan filled the air.

  The Bear came up, another bolt fitted into his crossbow, and fired point-blank at Kadar's threshing, contorted face. The Hangman's head was twisted to one side at the moment of being struck, so the bolt cut through both cheeks, clefting the palate and smashing teeth. His whole body convulsed at the impact, but frenzied, he fought on. Blood and mucus frothed from his lips and bubbled from the holes in his cheeks, and terrible gagging animal sounds came from him. The Bear felt nauseated as he strained to reload his weapon.

  Fitzduane withdrew his fighting knife, angled it toward the vitals, and then thrust it hard into Kadar's side and left it there. Without a pause he flicked open the coil of rope, knotted it around the Hangman's neck, and kicked the spasming body over the side of the keep. The rope hissed through the pulley and then snapped taut.

  Fitzduane lay down on the roof and looked over the edge. The rope from the block and tackle ended in a shape twisting and turning in the glow of the fire from the great hall. It hung just a few feet from the ground.

  Fitzduane hauled himself off the roof and descended the circular stairs to the bawn below. The Bear followed him.

  When they reached the courtyard, Fitzduane turned and looked up at the hanging form. A Ranger shone a light on the distorted and bloody head. The crossbow wounds dripped blood and matter. The damage done to the face was extensive. Nonetheless, they could see that it was, without question, the Hangman. The body was still twitching.

  Fitzduane looked across at his friend and then back at the Hangman. The killing rage had subsided. What he saw sickened him.

  "It must be finished," said the Bear.

  The Irishman hesitated for a moment, and then he thought of Rudi and Vreni and Beat von Graffenlaub and Paulus von Beck and of all the pain and bloodshed and horror that this man—this man he had once liked—had been responsible for. He thought of the time he had gone to Draker to tell them of the hanging and how he had stood there in his wool socks talking to a lived-in but still attractive brunette in her mid-thirties who wore granny glasses. He thought of the carnage in Draker when they had gone to rescue the students, and of a blood-smeared body perforated with Uzi fire, one hand still holding her granny glasses. He thought of Ivo and Murrough and Tommy Keane and Dick Noble and of the woman he loved, her thigh pumping blood. He thought that he was tired and that the Bear was right and that this thing must come to an end. He didn't care about the reasons anymore.

  The body twitched again and swung slightly on the rope.

  Fitzduane slid his automatic shotgun into firing position and released four XR-18 rounds into Kadar's form, smashing the torso completely, ripping the heart from the body, but leaving the head and hands intact.

  "Dead?" he said to the Bear.

  "I think it is quite probable," said the Bear, going very Swiss and cautious all of a sudden. There was a pulpy mess where Kadar's middle body had been. "Yes," he' said, nodding. "Yes, he is very definitely dead."

  "Swiss timing," said Fitzduane.

  "So it is over," said the Bear. He was looking at Fitzduane with compassion and not a little awe. The business of killing was a tawdry activity, whatever the need, but it was a business, like most human activities, that demanded talent. Fitzduane, sensitive and sympathetic though he was by nature, had a formidable talent for violence, a hard and bloody edge to his character. Here was a decent man who had tried to do a decent thing and who had stumbled into a blood-bath, had participated in that slaughter. What scars would his friend's soul now carry? The Bear sighed quietly. He was weary. He knew that he, too, was tainted.

  He shook his head, depressed, then pulled himself together and gave a quiet growl and stared at the remains of the Hangman. Fuck him anyway; he deserved to die. It had to be done.

  Fitzduane looked out over the glowing remains of the great hall and beyond the bawn. There were no lines of tracer, no explosions, no screams of pain or sounds of gunfire. Rangers were moving into the sandbagged emplacements on the battlements. Kilmara in his Optica still circled in the sky above.

  Fitzduane reached out for his radio. "You still up there?"

  "Seems like it," said Kilmara. "It's really quite beautiful from the air, but there's nowhere to pee."

  "The Hangman's dead," said Fitzduane.

  "Like the last time?" said Kilmara. "Or did you manage a more permanent arrangement?"

  "I shot him," said Fitzduane, "and knifed him and the Bear shot him and we hanged him and he's still here—well, most of him. Enough to identify anyway."

  "How often did you shoot him?" said Kilmara for no particular reason. Stress reaction was setting in. He suddenly felt very tired.

  "Quite a lot," said Fitzduane. "Why don't you come down and take a look?"

  "So the fat lady has finished singing," said Kilmara.

  "Close," said Fitzduane.

  Duncleeve— Fitzduane's CASTLE—0300 hours

  Fitzduane and Kilmara finished their tour of inspection, and then Kilmara was called away to take a radio message from Ranger headquarters in Dublin.

  Kilmara was limping but otherwise in good shape. He had sent the Optica back to refuel an hour ago and had parachuted into the bawn. It had been a perfect jump, but he had landed on one of the cannon and twisted his ankle.

  The immediate threat seemed to be over, but until the island had been thoroughly searched by daylight, they couldn't be sure, and it was prudent to play safe. Accordingly the exhausted defenders and the only marginally fresher Rangers stood to and manned the full castle perimeter again but left the territory outside to the dead and whatever else chose to roam around at that hour of the morning.

  Ground transport brought regular army units to the mainland end of the island road, and a company of troops was sent over by rope while the engineers set to work building a Bailey bridge. Mortar and light artillery emplacements were set up to give fire support if needed. As dawn was breaking, around five in the morning, the first regular army unit arrived on the island.

  Kilmara had been absent longer than expected. He returned looking distinctly annoyed, sat on a sandbag, and poured some whiskey into the mug of co
ffee a trooper brought in.

  "I've got good news and ridiculous news," he said. "What do you want to hear first?"

  "You choose," said Fitzduane. He was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the wall. His wounded cheek had been tended to by a Ranger medic. It appeared quite likely there would be a scar. Etan was nestled in his arms, half asleep. Without conscious thought he was stroking her gently, as if seeking reassurance that she was indeed alive. "I'm too bloody tired. I don't think I've ever been so tired. If this is what a siege is like, I'm glad I missed out on the Crusades. Imagine this kind of caper going on for months on end in a temperature like a furnace while you're wearing the equivalent in metal of half a car body under a caftan with a cross painted on it for the other side to shoot at. They must have had iron balls in those days."

  "Or died young," said the Bear.

  "Start with the good news," said Etan, who was bandaged and in slight pain but cheerful; she was just glad to be—more or less—unharmed. The Ranger medic had said the wound wasn't serious and would heal quickly.

  "We've got a prisoner—a guy called Sartawi, one of their unit commanders," said Kilmara, "and nearly in one piece for a change. And he's talking. It will make explaining away all these dead bodies a lot easier if we have the background. All I can say so far is that it's just as well you had your shit together, Hugo; otherwise we really would have been headed for a bad scene. The Hangman didn't intend to leave any survivors. There was a hidden agenda, and Sartawi was in the know. All the students were to go in the exchange. It was the Hangman's idea of a little joke."

  "What's the ridiculous news?" asked the Bear.

  "We're having a visitor," said Kilmara. "He's flying in by chopper—piloting the damn thing himself—in less than an hour, and he's being tailed by a press helicopter. This is all going to be a media event."