Games of the Hangman (14 page)

Tina removed
the car rental documents from the glove compartment and passed them, together
with both their driver's licenses, through the window.

"We have
only just arrived in your country," she said.
 
"Last night we stayed in
Dublin
.
 
Now we go to the west of
Ireland
for a
few days.
 
We would like to be away from
crowds and people, to be alone together, you understand."

As she
finished her remark, Tina looked directly into Liam Quirke's eyes — and saw in
them a slight flicker of doubt.
 
Something had him puzzled; something was out of place.
 
There was the faintest hint of something
wrong.
 
She thought quickly, but her
words were reasonable and innocent.
 
It
wasn't something she had said.
 
Something
else had roused his suspicions, but what on earth could it be?
 
The weapons were well concealed.
 
There was nothing else to attract attention.

Quirke looked
at the line of half a dozen cars behind the Escort.
 
He didn't want a major traffic jam on his
hands.
 
He began to hand the documents
back, and then he caught that smell again.
 
His mind flashed back for a split second to his firearms training in
Templemore.

The police
mightn't carry guns, but they had to be prepared.
 
Forty-two practice rounds and the same again
for the proficiency test.
 
The sharp
cracks as the line of police fired.
 
Man-shaped targets ripped and torn.
 
The routine of cleaning
weapons afterward.
 
The unique smell of preservative grease in the armory and the faint
aroma of gun oil as they checked in their Smith & Wesson .38s.
 
Back to relying on the uniform, a pair of
fists, and, on the rarest of occasions, a wooden truncheon to enforce the law.

The odor gun
oil remained in his nostrils.
 
He hefted
the documents and licenses in his
hand,
half thinking
that he was just being overimaginative.
 
The documentation seemed to be in order.
 
Still, he wouldn't mind getting a closer look at the girl.

"Please,
miss," he said pleasantly, "would you mind stepping out of the car
and opening the boot?"

"Certainly,"
said Tina.
 
She removed the keys from the
ignition and let the drop from her hand.
 
As she felt for them on the floor, she slipped her hand under her seat
and moved the fire selector from safe to automatic,
then
she sat up, keys in hand, and smiled apologetically.
 
She unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door,
and walked to the back of the car.
 
The
policeman watched her.
 
Thirty meters
away the two soldiers
eyes
her nylon-clad legs and
gave Quirke ten out of ten for judgment.

Dieter
remained lolling back on the rear seat of the car.
 
His hand reached under the newspaper to the
concealed Skorpion.
 
He couldn't think
why the policeman had decided to search the trunk.
 
It could be just a whim, because they had
done nothing suspicious — and yet something had changed in the policeman's
manner.
 
Of that Dieter, his senses
refined, was sure.
 
He willed himself to
be calm but ready.

In an exercise
of willpower, he withdrew his hand from the actuated machine pistol.
 
He glanced down at the airline bag containing
the spare magazines, which just protruded from under the passenger seat.
 
It was zippered shut.
 
Nothing suspicious showed.

The sense of
danger became more acute, and it became impossible to do nothing but wait.
 
He carefully removed the short-bladed hunting
knife from the sheath on his belt and placed it out of sight in his right
sleeve, ready to drop into his hand in a much-practiced maneuver.

Quirke
completed his examination of the trunk.
 
He had not really expected to find anything, and with a rental car God
knows who had used the vehicle in the past.
 
Probably some hunter had spilled gun oil months ago.
 
It was the kind of smell that tended to
linger.

Quirke laughed
silently at himself.
 
He closed the
trunk, rested an arm on the back of the car, and relaxed.
 
He tried not to stare too openly at Tina's
long, shapely legs.
 
The breeze whipped
at her skirt, and he caught a brief glimpse of her inner thigh.

"Well,
that's it then," he said.
 
"Now
I'll have a quick look inside and you can be about your business."

He opened the
rear door of the car.
 
"Would you
mind stepping out for just a moment, sir?" he said to Dieter, who had been
lazing back as if half asleep.

The German
stretched lazily.
 
"I expect a bit
of fresh air will do me good."

He got out of
the car by the left-side door and closed it behind him with his left hand.
 
His right hand hung at his side.
 
He walked to the driver's side of the car and
stood with Tina to the rear of the policeman.

"Thank
you, sir," said Quirke.
 
He bent his
head and began a cursory search at the rear of the car.

There was
nothing on the back shelf apart from guidebooks and a book by some war
photographer.
 
The rear seat was empty
except for a newspaper.
 
Almost
absentmindedly he turned it over to check the football scores — and screamed in
pure agony as Dieter's hunting knife ripped open his stomach.

The young
policeman sagged back into the road, his two hands gripping his abdomen, vainly
trying to hold his intestines in place.
 
Blood soaked his fingers and his uniform and bubbled from his lips.
 
Still conscious, he collapsed in the middle
of the road, and the tarmac began to turn crimson.
 
Gurgling sounds like those of some dying
animal came from his mouth.

Tina snatched
her Skorpion from under the driver's seat.
 
Her first burst caught the rifle-carrying trooper as he stood, stunned,
his eyes rooted on the dying policeman.
 
Rounds ricocheted off the magazine of his FN and tore into his groin and
thigh.
 
A second burst smashed his rib
cage.
 
He collapsed against the Land
Rover and rolled face-down onto the muddy road.

Dieter plunged
his knife into the back of the second policeman and, without waiting to
withdraw it, grabbed his Skorpion from the rear seat, extended the collapsible
butt, and with great speed but practiced accuracy began to pump three-round
bursts into the rear of the Land Rover, at the radio and the shadowy figure of
the operator.

The corporal
manning the radio back-rolled out of the Land Rover just as a burst of fire
from Dieter blew the high-powered transceiver apart in a shower of sparks and
disintegrating electronics.
 
The canvas
cover of the Land Rover caught fire, and flames licked along the vehicle.

The corporal
crawled behind the empty patrol car as the combined fire of the two terrorists
tore through the thin metal of the bodywork and shattered its windows in a
cascade of glittering fragments.
 
Blood
began to stream from cuts
on
 
his
face.
 
A bullet ripped
open the calf of his right leg, sending a spasm of agony through his body and
paralyzing him with shock for several precious seconds.

In stark desperation,
scarcely believing what was
happening,
the soldier
unslung the Carl Gustav submachine gun from his shoulder and worked the cocking
handle.
 
A high-power nine-millimeter
round slid into the breech.

Bullets
pierced the fuel tank of the police car, and gasoline drained into a spreading
pool across the road.

There was a
lull in the firing.

Dieter changed
magazines.
 
Tina waited.
 
The collapsible butt of her machine pistol
was now fully extended and nestled into her shoulder.
 
She steadied herself against the rented
Ford.
 
As the corporal raised his
pain-racked body into firing position from behind the police car, she fired
twice on single shot.
 
His neck pumping
blood and his collarbone smashed, the corporal spun backward and slid into the
ditch.
 
Tina changed magazines.

For a few
moments there was silence.
 
Then the two
terrorists became aware of the crackle of the flames from the burning Land
Rover and the gurgling and intermittent screams of the dying Lima Quirke.
 
Tina walked across to where he lay.
 
His agonized moans were getting on her
nerves.
 
She pointed her machine pistol
at his head and blew away his jaw.
 
She
saw that he was still alive, but the noise had ceased.

"Fool,"
she said quietly, and walked away.

Dieter removed
his hunting knife from the back of the other policeman.
 
The body did not stir.
 
He paused reflectively, then, without
bothering to turn the body over, he jerked back the policeman's head and cut
his throat.
 
A gout
of arterial blood spread across the middle of the road and made islands of the
empty cartridge cases.
 
Dieter cleaned
his knife on the corpse's blue uniform and replaced it in the sheath clipped to
his belt.
 
He shivered in the chill March
wind.
 
He felt excited and feverish,
almost omnipotent.
 
He felt the same kind
of exhilaration after a particularly difficult off-piste ski jump, but this was
even better.
 
He put his right hand into
the pool of blood next to the policeman and then brought it, dripping, very
close to his face.
 
It was visible proof
of his power to kill.
 
He could smell
it.
 
He could taste it.
 
He stood mesmerized for several long seconds.

The wounded
corporal could see her legs under the car from where he lay on the ground.
 
Those long, tanned, nylon-clad limbs were
unmistakable.
 
Slowly he inched the
leather ammunition case containing spare Gustav clips to his front.
 
It seemed to take forever.
 
The rough surface of the road caught at the
thick leather, and he had little strength left.
 
Pain dominated his every movement.

HE rested the
submachine gun on its side, using the ammunition case as a firing
platform.
 
It would give him a few
centimeters of ground clearance.
 
It
would have to be enough.

He aimed.
 
Blood and sweat dripped into his eyes, and
his vision became blurred and uncertain.
 
HE blinked several times and sighted again.
 
The wooden pistol grip was slippery with
blood.
 
His vision was going.
 
He lost all track of time.

He could hear
voices.
 
He could see the long legs
again.
 
He squeezed the trigger, and the
shuddering weapon leaped against his riven body.
 
The hot brass of ejected cartridge cases
scorched his face.
 
He held the trigger
until the magazine was empty.
 
Just a moment too late he thought of the leaking gasoline.
 
He slipped into unconsciousness before the
pool of fuel, ignited by the muzzle blast of his Gustav, exploded — and patrol
car and
army
Land
Rover were engulfed in flames.

Black smoke
fouled the sky.

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

Fitzduane
replaced the telephone receiver with a sense of relief.
 
He had been working on the von Graffenlaub file
for more than eleven hours almost without a break, and he was tired and hungry.

The contents
of the file and related papers lay scattered across the top of the polished oak
slab on trestles that Etan used as a desk.
 
The information was helping build up a more complete picture of the von
Graffenlaub family and its circumstances, but it was slow work.
 
Despite the extensive network of sources and
contacts typical of a successful working journalist and the advantage of an
initial file from Kilmara, he was having a harder time putting together a
comprehensive picture of Rudi's Swiss background than he had expected.

Most of his
difficulties seemed to have to do with
Switzerland
.
 
He had been reluctant to call Guido.
 
His other contacts could tell him — at times
in the most intimate detail — about such matters as the latest financial
scandal in the Vatican or who was bribing whom in Tanzania or which ballet
dancer was sleeping with which member of the Politburo in Moscow, but any
question to do with any aspect of Switzerland seemed to result in a resounding
yawn.