Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
The consensus
seemed to be that
clichés:
cheese, chocolate, cuckoo
clocks, mountains, banks, other people, and hot money.
Nobody seemed to like either
the Swiss.
As for
Fitzduane
doubted the investigation of a hanging would be dull even if the Bernese did
their worst, and he wondered whether any of his traditional contacts really
knew very much about the Swiss.
It was
also clear that there was a palpable element of jealousy underlying many of the
comments made about the country.
No
wars, virtually no unemployment, one of the highest standards of living in the
world, and a healthy and beautiful country.
It was, indeed, enough to make you sick.
He rose,
stretched, and went into the kitchen to open a bottle of chilled white
wine.
He carried the wine and cheese and
crackers into the living room, kicked the open log fire into life, and settled
down in an armchair.
He moved the
television remote control near to hand.
In a few
minutes he would watch the nine o'clock evening news and then Etan's program,
"Today Tonight."
It was
strange watching this different, professional Etan through the cold medium of
television.
He drank some wine, the fire
flickered and glowed, and he thought yet again about the von Graffenlaubs.
The file was
thin on fact and short on explanation.
The hanged boy's father was sixty-one-year-old Beat von Graffenlaub, a
lawyer with extensive business interests.
He lived in Junkerngasse and had offices in Marktgasse.
He was a member of the old Bernese
aristocracy, a Bernbürger, and a Fürsprecher (whatever that was).
He was a director of various companies,
including one of the big four banks, an armaments conglomerate, and a chemicals
and drugs multinational.
In his youth he
had been a skier of Olympic caliber.
He
was extremely, but discreetly, rich.
He
seemed to be what is sometimes described as an overachiever.
But what was a Bernbürger?
The Bernbürger
had married another Bernbürger, a certain Claire von Tscherner — another
aristocrat to judge by the “von” — in 1948, and together, after a slow start,
they had produced lots of little Bernbürgers, four to be precise.
Daughter Marta appeared on the scene in 1955,
son Andreas followed in 1958, and then, after four years of limbering up, the
Beat von Graffenlaubs really got to work and in 1962 produced twins, Rudolf
(Rudi) and Verena (Vreni).
Twins.
How had Vreni
felt at the news of her brother's death?
Had they been close?
Most twins
were.
The probability was high that if
anyone knew why Rudi had done it, she did.
Fitzduane wondered if Vreni would look like her brother.
In 1976 Beat,
by then aged fifty-six, had done something that wouldn't win him any brownie
points for originality.
He divorced
Claire and married a younger woman, a much younger woman.
Erika Serdorf — no “von” — was twenty-eight
and his secretary.
Exit Claire, duty done,
to Elfenau and death two years later in a car accident.
The new Mrs. Beat von Graffenlaub would now
be thirty-three to Beat's sixty-one, and the couple had no children.
An interesting situation.
What did Erika do with her day, given Beat's
work load,
other
than spend his money?
Fitzduane
tried to figure out whether the bottle of wine was now half full or half
empty.
He poured himself another glass
to help resolve the problem.
A great deal
was going to depend on the attitude of Beat von Graffenlaub.
On the face of it, a stranger's investigation
into the death of the lawyer's son was unlikely to be welcome, but without his
support significant progress would be problematic.
It was clear that the Bernbürger was well
connected.
Fitzduane's knowledge of
Switzerland might be limited to little more than changing planes at Zurich
Airport, but he did seem to have heard somewhere about the Swiss fondness for
deportation as a solution to those who made waves.
But back to Rudi.
Why
had he been sent to finish his secondary education at Draker?
The Wiesbaden computer, in a printout that
reeked of being fine-sieved prior to being issued, talked of ‘incipient
undesirable political associations’ and advised contacting the Swiss Federal
Police and the Bern police.
Titillating but not very helpful.
The Swiss police were rumored to be about as
outgoing on sensitive matters as Swiss bankers.
The Bible said, "Seek and ye shall find."
According to Kilmara, the authors were
planning a rewrite since the invention of the Swiss.
Fitzduane
picked up the television remote control.
It was almost nine o'clock, and the electronic image of Etan doing the
promo for her program materialized in crisp color.
He pressed the
button for sound and caught her in mid-pitch.
"...Later on, as security forces surround the house in which five
hostages are being held by an unknown number of gunmen, we look at the brutal
murder of four victims and ask:
What are
the causes of terrorism?
That's ‘Today
Tonight’ after the news at nine-thirty."
The causes of
terrorism all explained in forty minutes, less commercials.
Television was a neat trick.
He watched an advertisement and reflected
that there were times when television alone provided an adequate motive for
terrorism.
It was only as
he listened to the newscaster and saw film of the shocked faces of what the
reporter was calling "the Kinnegad Massacre" that he realized the
import of Etan's words:
Kilmara and his
Rangers would be busy.
He hoped
Kilmara had enough sense to keep his head down.
He was getting too old to lead from the front.
*
*
*
*
*
Kilmara wore
the dull blue-black combat uniform, black webbing, and jump boots of the
Rangers.
The humor was gone from his
face, and his expression was controlled and intent as he took one last look at
the bank of eight television monitors that dominated the end of the
"Give me a search on main screen by
five," he said.
The Ranger
sergeant sitting at the control panel operated the array of buttons and sliders
with easy familiarity.
At five-second
intervals the picture on the main screen switched to images from each of the
six surveillance cameras surrounding the house.
The windows of
the modern two-story farmhouse were curtained.
No sign of life was visible, yet inside, Kilmara knew, four children and
their mother were being held hostage by two killers of singular
ruthlessness.
To demonstrate their
seriousness and disregard for human life, the two terrorists had already killed
the farmer in cold blood.
His body lay
where it had fallen, barely two meters from his own front door.
His wife and children had been forced to
watch as the young German with the drooping black mustache and gleaming white
teeth had neatly cut his victim's throat.
Kilmara turned
from the bank of television monitors and walked down the aisle of the command
center.
On each side of him
combat-uniformed Rangers manned sophisticated electronic audio surveillance and
communications equipment.
To aid screen
visibility, the overall light level was dim, with individual spot lamps
providing illumination as required.
There was the faint background throbbing of a powerful but
sound-deadened generator.
He entered the
small conference room and closed the door behind him.
In contrast with the surveillance area, the
room was brightly lit.
"Anything?" he asked.
Major Günther
Horst and a Ranger lieutenant looked up from their examination of the two
terrorist's belongings, which they had found in the hastily abandoned Ford
Escort.
"Personal
belongings, maps, and guidebooks," said Günther.
"Nothing that looks likely to help our
immediate problem, though the forensic boys may find something in
time."
He paused and then picked up
a hardback book from the table.
He
handed it to Kilmara.
"But I think
you might be interested in this."
The impact of
the photo on the front cover of the book was total.
In grainy black and white, against a
background of swirling dust and smoke, there was the tired, strained, unshaven
profile of a soldier.
He held a dove in
his hands very close to his face and was looking at it with obvious
tenderness.
Tied to his webbing belt,
just next to his water bottle, were two severed human heads.
The book was
entitled
The Paradox Business
.
It was subtitled “A Portrait of War by One of
the World's Top War Photographers — Hugo Fitzduane.”
"Well
I'll be buggered," said Kilmara.
He
looked at Günther.
"Let's find him
and get him here.
Perhaps he can make
some connection we've missed."
"And
where might he be?"
"At a
guess, still in
said Kilmara.
"Try Etan's flat or
any good restaurant with a decent wine list in the area."
He looked at his watch.
It read 9:40 p.m., which without conscious
thought Kilmara translated automatically into military twenty-four-hour
time.
"You could also try RTE.
He sometimes picks up Etan there after her
show."
"I'll
give it a shot," said Günther.
Kilmara
smiled.
"I've faith," he
said.
He turned to the lieutenant.
"Give me a shout when the house plans
come."
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane sat
against the back wall of the small control room of RTE Studio Two and watched
Etan do useful damage to the self-possession, credibility, and viewpoints of an
eminent churchman, the Minister for Justice, and an associate professor of
sociology from UCD.
From the looks
she was receiving toward the end of the program, it appeared that the assembled
panel of experts on the causes of terrorism were
more
afraid of Etan than of terrorists.
The
Minister for Justice had no real answers, and it showed visibly as a thin sheen
of sweat fought a winning battle with his makeup.
The program
was due to be over in a few minutes.
Fitzduane looked at the bank of ten monitors and listened to the
producer and the production assistants plotting camera movements while the
seconds ticked by.
Idly he noticed that
they all wore dark stockings and ate mints and chain-smoked while they stared
at the monitors, controls, and running order with intense concentration.
It didn't seem like the kind of occupation
that would lengthen your life.
The credits
rolled, there was a blast of theme music, and the show was over.
Back to the commercials.
For a moment the sheer disability of the
medium shook him, and he was glad he worked in print.
The monitors
were still live.
The studio floor
cleared.
The monitors featured only the
image of Etan, who had remained behind alone to tidy up her notes.
She bowed her head, suddenly looking tired
and vulnerable.
It made Fitzduane what
to take her in his arms and wonder what the hell he was doing going away yet
again.
Perhaps the time had come to
settle down.
He felt tired enough
himself.
The production
team looked from Fitzduane to the monitors and back again.
He seemed unaware of their existence.
The producer put her hand on his shoulder.
"Come and
have a drink," she said.
"Etan
will be along in a few minutes."
*
*
*
*
*