Games of the Hangman (54 page)

"We
haven't got much time," said Sylvie.
 
You know Kadar."

"Only too
well," said the Lebanese grimly.

"Next
time we'll get in close," said Sylvie, "and there will be no mistakes."

The Lebanese
drained his beer and said nothing.
 
He
flicked a speck of dust off his lapel and then examined with pleasure his
polished alligator shoes.
 
Fuck Kadar,
fuck Ivo, and fuck Sylvie, he thought.
 
He came back to Sylvie and looked at her appraisingly.

She met his
gaze and shook her head.
 
"You're
the wrong sex."

*
         
*
         
*
         
*
         
*

"Rudi was
an almost perfect candidate for manipulation," said Fitzduane, "an
accident looking for a place to happen.
 
Most teenagers rebel against their parents to some extent, as you well
know.
 
Adolescence is a time of great
confusion, of searching for identity, of championing new causes.
 
When teenagers reject one set of values, a
need for a replacement is created.
 
Nature abhors an ideological vacuum as much as any other kind.

"Two
conflicting views are often expressed about divorce:
 
one is that children are permanently damaged
by the whole process; the other is that children are naturally adaptable and
have no real problem dealing with two fathers and three mothers or whatever.
 
I don't know what the general pattern is, but
I do know that in this specific case your divorce from Claire and your marriage
to Erika created chaos.
 
All your
children were affected, as best I can judge, but none more so than Rudi — with
Vreni a not-so-close second.
 
But I'll
concentrate on Rudi.

"Rudi
started his lonely rebellion by rejecting your establishment values.
 
His beliefs received an initial impetus from
his mother, who was interested, I'm told, in a more liberal and caring society
than you."

"We used
to share the same views," said von Graffenlaub wearily, "but I had to
deal with the real world while Claire had the luxury — thanks to my money — to
theorize and dream of Utopia.
 
I had to
fight, to do unpleasant things, to make harsh decisions, to compromise my
principles because that's the way the world is.
 
I had to deal with facts, not fantasy."

"Be that
as it may," said Fitzduane, "the problem was compounded by several
other factors.
 
First, Rudi was
exceptionally intelligent, energetic, and intense — the classic moody bright
kid.
 
He didn't just feel rebellious; he
wanted to do something specific.
 
The led
to the next development:
 
he started
investigating you, reading your files and so on, and lo and behold, he stumbles
across Daddy's interest in Vaybon — and Vaybon is just as corrupt as he imagined."

"He
misunderstood what he found," said von Graffenlaub.
 
"Vaybon is a massive organization, and
most of what it does is quite aboveboard.
 
He happened to discover a summary of wrongdoings — exceptions to the
general pattern of behavior — that I was trying to clean up.
 
Instead of appreciating that he was looking
at only a small piece of the picture, he assumed that my entire world was
corrupt.
 
He wouldn’t listen to reason."

"You're
not at your most rational in your teens," said Fitzduane, "and you're
feeding me a fair amount of bullshit about Vaybon, but I'll let it pass for the
moment because I want to talk about Rudi and
not
 
a
multinational whose collective
executive hands are very far from clean."

Von
Graffenlaub flinched perceptibly but didn't speak
.
He
was thinking of the initial idealism he had shared with Claire and then of the
seemingly inexorable series of compromises and decisions — always for the
greater good — that had led to such a debasement of his original values.

Fitzduane
continued.
 
"We then come to the
burning of the papers Rudi had stolen, and Claire's death.
 
His mother's death changed the scale of
Rudi's rebellion and removed a restraining influence.
 
He blamed you, the system, and the world for
his unhappiness, and he began to believe that the most extreme measures would
be needed to change things.
 
Also, he
wanted more than change; he wanted revenge, and for that he needed help.
 
He started with the AKO and other extremist
elements.
 
They don't mess about with
inefficient old democracy.
 
They cut to
the heart of the matter:
 
The existing
Swiss system has to be destroyed completely, and violence is the only way.

"I don't
know how deeply Rudi got involved with the AKO," continued Fitzduane,
"but I suggest that he was more involved than even his twin sister
suspected.
 
I believe he was being
cultivated as a sleeper.
 
Given his
position, your position, if you will, he was too valuable to lose to routine
police infiltration, so it was made out that he was only a sympathizer — a
terrorist groupie, as I said to Vreni.
 
I
think he was almost certainly much more, or, at least, was destined for
frontline activity.

"But
police action cut deep into the heart of the AKO and other terrorist
organizations, and this left Rudi with a problem.
 
He needed a framework in which to operate,
and his original mentors were in prison or dead or in hiding.
 
It was at this stage that Erika entered the
scene, no doubt after a series of initial plays.
 
In Rudi we have a mixed-up, sexually active
young man reacting against conventional values, who wants revenge on his father
and to destroy the system.
 
In your wife
Erika — and you're not going to like this — we have a rich, bored, amoral, and
sexually voracious woman of stunning physical attractiveness, who likes to indulge
her whims and is constantly looking for new thrills, fresh excitement, to
satisfy an increasingly jaded appetite.
 
In addition, we suspect that she is involved with the singularly
dangerous individual we have called the Hangman."

"Are you
sure of this?"

"Am I
sure that your wife is rich, bored, amoral, and sexually voracious?
 
In a word, yes.
 
Bern
is a small town, and I've talked to a lot of people.
 
Am I sure about her connection with the
Hangman?
 
No, I have no proof.
 
I merely have a series of linking factors
which point that way."

"Please
continue," said von Graffenlaub quietly.

"The next
major incident was sexual," said Fitzduane.
 
"As best I can reconstruct it, it
occurred during what was officially a normal family holiday in Lenk.
 
Erika, Rudi, Vreni, their friend Felix, and,
I believe, the Hangman were involved.
 
A
seduction, an orgy, a series of orgies — I don't have the details, and they are
not important except that you should know that your wife undoubtedly slept with
your son, and so did one or more of the men.
 
I don't know whether he was naturally homosexual or whether this was
part of his rebellion against conventional values, but homosexuality was
certainly a factor in his life-style, and physical evidence was certainly a
factor in his life-style, and physical evidence from the autopsy confirmed
this.
 
As for his sleeping with Erika,
this was revenge in its sweetest form."

"Oskar
must have suspected something," said von Graffenlaub.
 
He spoke to me, but he was embarrassed, and
the subject was dropped.
 
I didn't know
what he was talking about.
 
I never
considered such a possibility in my wildest dreams.
 
It's... it's incredible."

"Poor
Oskar," said Fitzduane.
 
"Imagine his dilemma.
 
He
probably suspected a great deal, but what could he know for sure?
 
And how could he voice his suspicions without
insulting you?
 
Would
you have believed him if he had been more specific?"

"No,"
said von Graffenlaub, "of course not.
 
Not without proof."

"And now
Oskar is dead."

"And so
is Felix Krane," said von Graffenlaub heavily.
 
"What is happening?
 
Are there no
limits
 
to
this lunacy?
 
What is this Hangman trying to do?"

"To
understand the Hangman, you've got to think in different terms," said
Fitzduane.
 
"At the present time we
think he is tidying up loose ends, though we don't know why.
 
His behavior is not consistent.
 
One explanation for what he is doing now is
his need to eliminate those who could identify him, but at the same time he is
taking unnecessary chances.
 
His behavior
is marked by a combination of cold rationality and what one might describe as
impetuous arrogance.
 
This latter quality
seems
 
to
extend
to his people.
 
They are willing to take
extraordinary risks to accomplish their objectives.
 
It seems clear that they are far more afraid
of failing the Hangman than of being caught by us.
 
On the basis of what we know of the Hangman,
maybe they've got a point.

"One
thing we are not sure of:
 
If you've
crossed the Hangman's path, you're at higher risk, which is why we recommend
you retain security for yourself and the rest of your family, particularly your
children.
 
What you do about Erika is
something you'll have to work out for yourself.
 
Just make sure you tell her as little as possible.
 
Remember, her games may not be confined to
sex.
 
They could extend to
violence."

"There
are limits to what I can accept," said von Graffenlaub.
 
"Since the time you called from Lenk, I
have arranged for armed guards to look after every member of my family, and
that includes my wife.
 
She may be
promiscuous, but she is not a killer."

Fitzduane was
silent.
 
He looked at von
Graffenlaub.
 
"Think of your
children, and think carefully.
 
You're
all in greater danger than you have ever been in before.
 
Don't try to be noble at the risk of your own
flesh and blood."

Von
Graffenlaub shrugged helplessly.
 
"What else can I do?
 
I will
consider what you are saying, of course, but
...
I
cannot, I cannot abandon my wife just like that."

"Thee
will be some police protection as well," said Fitzduane, "but the
police don't have the manpower to protect everyone individually without more
proof than we've got."

"You have
already talked to my wife?"
 
In von
Graffenlaub's tone it was half a question, half a statement.

"She
hasn’t told you?"

"She said
you had dinner together after the vernissage," said von Graffenlaub,
"nothing more."

"Hmm,"
said Fitzduane, feeling vaguely uncomfortable as he recalled that epic
evening.
 
He pulled himself
together.
 
"Actually we have talked
together on several occasions," he continued, "and most recently she
has been questioned officially by Sergeant Raufman.
 
She is alternately charming and dismissive,
perhaps even a little cynical.
 
She looks
amused and denies everything, and she's most convincing."

Von
Graffenlaub sat mute, appalled at the idea of hearing more, yet compelled by
his own desperate need for the truth to stay and listen.

"The
island where I live," said Fitzduane, "where Rudi's college is, has
been my family seat since the twelfth century.
 
Getting established on the island initially was a bloody business.
 
The land was conquered by force, and the main
opposition was a druidic cult known as the Sacrificers.
 
They used to wear animal head masks while
practicing their rituals.
 
Rather like
the thugs of
India
,
the Sacrificers preyed on innocent people, robbing and killing them, as a way
of worshiping their gods.
 
Over the
centuries dozens of mass graves filled with the bones of their victims have
been found, which helps to explain why the island is so deserted even now.
 
Fitzduane's
Island
,
even in our supposedly enlightened times, is considered cursed and no fit place
for a good Christian to live."

"I read
something about it," said von Graffenlaub, "in a section of a
brochure put out by
Draker
College
.
 
But what does a long-dead cult have to do
with all this?
 
The Sacrificers were
wiped out more than seven hundred years ago."