Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Leave
it," said the Bear.
"There are
too many people."
He spoke into
the radio again.
With the aid of Mobile
One it looked as if they might just be able to get the assassin.
He hadn't seen Mobile One's unfortunate
encounter with the
His other teams were converging as directed,
albeit more slowly than he would have liked.
He kept Mobile Two in Spitalgasse to backstop any sudden changes in
direction.
Reinforcements were being
rushed from police headquarters only a few blocks away in Waisenhausplatz, but
he guessed the whole affair would be over by the time they arrived.
Covered in the
blood and tissue that had been Ivo, and holding the Remington at high port,
Fitzduane presented a truly fear-inspiring sight.
Rage pumping energy through his entire being,
he ran across the square behind the killer, followed by one of the detectives
who had been concealed in the High Noon's kitchen.
It was no contest.
No matter how fast they ran, the twisting and
turning killer, seen in brief glimpses as he maneuvered through the crowd,
was
gaining.
Once he
reached the emptier part of the square, he could put on more speed and be out
of sight in seconds.
Fitzduane
crashed into a flower stall, spilling hundreds of impeccably arranged blooms to
the ground.
His breath rasping in his
throat, he picked himself up and ran on.
Behind him, the detective, his gun drawn,
skidded on the carpet of petals and pitched into a stall selling organic bread
, sending
loaves cartwheeling in every direction.
"I can
get him," said the federal detective on the balcony.
He cursed when a crying child ran behind the
killer, causing him to hold his fire for a split second.
It was
all the
margin the killer needed.
He could see
the federal detective clearly outlined as he leaned out across the balcony.
He pivoted as
the detective
fired,
the round smashing into the
ground beside him, and in an extension of the same elegant movement, he brought
up his weapon and fired a long burst along the balcony, causing the Bear to
dive for cover and stitching a bloody counterpoint across the federal
detective's diamond-pattern sweater.
He
slumped across the balcony, a stream of scarlet pouring from his mouth.
Glass from the shattered tearoom windows
tinkled to the ground.
Moving at
lightning speed, the killer skated toward the ground-floor doorway of the
tearoom, changed magazines, and recocked his weapon.
He was now directly under the Bear, who swore
in frustration and ran for the stairs, knowing he'd be too late but forced to
do something.
The killer
scanned the square for pursuers and fired a wide burst over the crowds,
shattering more windows and causing almost all the onlookers to fling
themselves to the ground.
Satisfied that
he had bought himself the time he needed for his final dash to the corner of
the Bärenplatz, where Sylvie waited with a motorcycle, he sprint-skated toward
safety.
The killer's
suppressing fire had given Fitzduane the clear shot he needed.
From a range of 120 meters, using the XR-18
sabot rounds, he fired twice, blowing the killer's torso into a bloody mess all
over the front of the Union Bank of
*
*
*
*
*
Oblivious of
the carnage taking place just a short distance from his Marktgasse office, Beat
von Graffenlaub paused in his writing and put down his pen.
Hands clasped in front of him, he sat back in
his chair for several minutes without moving.
So much wealth, so much power and influence, so much
failure.
An image of Erika, young
and fresh and beautiful as he had first known her, dissolved into the distorted
face of his dead son.
Sweat broke out on
his brow.
He felt sick and alone.
His movements
neat and precise despite his nausea, he took a small brass key secured by a
chain from his vest pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk.
Inside
lay
a
lightweight shoulder holster and harness and a 9 mm Walther P-38 German Army
service pistol.
He had killed to get it
and killed to keep it, but that was forty years ago, when his ideals were still
fresh, before the corrosion of life had set in.
He checked the
pistol, pleased to see that it was in perfect working order.
He inserted a clip of ammunition and a round
in the chamber and placed the weapon on the desk beside him.
He picked up his pen again and continued
writing.
Tears stained his cheeks, but
he wiped them away before they marked the paper.
20
Sangster was
thinking about the assassination of Aldo Moro, a classic case history of the
down side of the personal protection business that had taken place some three
years previously.
The Moro killing was
not an encouraging precedent.
Granted,
there were certain obvious errors.
His
original bulletproof Fiat had become unreliable because of the weight of its
additional armor, and pending the delivery of a new armored automobile, Moro
was being driven in an unarmored Fiat sedan; second, he was using the same route
he had traveled for the last fifteen years, so even the most slow-witted of
terrorists could have put together a reasonable strike plan; third, although
the police bodyguards were carrying their personal weapons, it struck Sangster
as being less than inspired to have all their heavy firepower locked away in
the escort car's trunk.
Still,
mistakes or not, the fact remained that Aldo Moro, ex-prime minister and senior
statesman of Italy, had been protected by no fewer than five experienced
bodyguards — and the entire escort had been wiped out in seconds, with only one
man even getting his pistol out to fire two shots in vain.
The moral of the story, thought Sangster, is
that you're a sitting duck against automatic-weapons fire if you are operating
from an unarmored vehicle.
Sangster
looked at the Hertz symbol on the windshield of his rented Mercedes.
It didn't exactly make his day to know that
he was making an even worse mistake than Moro's team.
At least their vehicles had been moving.
He was parked at the head of the track that
led to Vreni von Graffenlaub's house, semiblind with the steamed-up car windows
and furious that the bitch wouldn't let him and Pierre into her home, where
they could do a decent protection job.
Woodsmoke
trickled from Vreni's chimney.
She was a
pretty little thing, he had to admit.
He
tried to think of Vreni naked and willing in the farmhouse under a cozy
duvet.
Bodyguarding sometimes worked out
that way.
He picked up the field glasses
and tried to catch a glimpse of her through the windows.
He could see nothing.
He scanned the rest of the area.
There was still snow on the ground though it
was melting.
At night it would freeze
again.
He raised the radio and checked
with Pierre, who was doing a mobile on the other side of the farmhouse.
merde
was the
politest expletive he used.
The exchange
cheered Sangster up a little.
Sangster
doubted that Vreni von Graffenlaub was in any serious danger.
Most likely it was Dad trying to put some
pressure on a wayward daughter; it wouldn’t be the first time a protection team
had been so employed.
Not that it made
any difference to them.
The conditions
might be variable, but the money was excellent.
Moro's
bodyguards had been hit with an average of seven rounds each.
Funny how details like that
stick in your mind.
Sangster
raised the field glasses again.
Bloody nothing.
*
*
*
*
*
The Chief
Kripo was busy fishing a fly out of his tea when he heard the news of the
Bärenplatz shootings.
He stopped thinking
about the fly and started thinking about crucifying the Irishman.
Easter was over, but it was that time of
year, and three crosses on top of the Gurten would not look amiss.
Fitzduane could have the place of honor, with
the Bear and von Beck standing in for the thieves.
There would be none of that rubbish about
taking them down after three days either.
They would hand there until they rotted — an example to all not to stir
up trouble in the normally placid city of
The Chief
Kripo spread a protective cloth on his desk and hunted through his desk drawers
for some guns to clean.
He found four
pistols and lined them up on his left, with the cleaning kit to his right.
Everything was in order.
He picked up the SIG 9 mm and stripped it
down.
It was immaculate, but he cleaned
it anyway.
He liked the smell of gun
oil.
In fact, he liked everything about
guns except people using them on people.
He did some of
his best thinking while cleaning his guns.
Today was no exception.
Perhaps
he'd better stop contemplating a triple crucifixion and have a serious look at
what was happening off Kirchenfeldstrasse.
Certainly his conventional investigation wasn't coming up with any
answers.
It could be that the time had
come to take Project K seriously.
The four guns
were now cleaned but still broken down into their component parts.
He mingled the pieces at random, then closed
his eyes and reassembled the weapons by touch.
After that he strapped on the SIG and rang for a car.
*
*
*
*
*
After
forty-five minutes with the Project K team, the Chief Kripo decided that life
was too short and he was too old to have the time to get fully familiar with
artificial intelligence and expert systems.
The principles weren't too hard to grasp, but once Henssen got technical
and started talking about interference engines and consistency checking and the
virtues of Prolog as opposed to LISP, the Chief's eyeballs rolled skyward.
Soon afterward, his chair being exceeding
comfortable, he fell asleep.
Henssen
could believe what he was seeing and chose to think that the Chief's eyes were
closed in deep concentration.
The Chief
started to snore.
It was such a
melodious sound with some of the cadence and lilt of Berndeutsch, and it
prompted Fitzduane to wonder
whether
the
language one spoke affected the
sound produced when snoring.
Did a
Chinese snore like an Italian?
The Chief's
eyes snapped open.
He glared at Henssen,
who was standing there bemused, mouth half agape, pointer in hand, flip chart
at the ready.
"All that stuff might
be a barrel of laughs to a bunch of long-haired, unwashed, pimple-faced
students," the Chief barked, "but I'm here to talk about
murder!
We've got dead bodies turning up like geraniums all over my city, and I
want it stopped — or I may personally start adding to the list."
"Um,"
murmured Henssen, and sat down.
"Look,"
said von Beck in a mollifying tone, "I think it might be easier if you ask
us exactly what you want to know."
The Chief
leaned forward in his chair.
"How
close are you people to coming up with a suspect, or at least a short
list?"
"Very
close," said Chief Inspector Kersdorf.
"Days, minutes, hours?
Give me a time frame."
Kersdorf
looked at Henssen, who cleared his throat before he spoke.
"Within forty-eight
hours at the outside, but possibly as soon as twelve."
"What are
the main holdups?" asked the Chief.
"I thought your computers were ultrafast."
"Processing
time isn't the problem," said Henssen.
"The main delays are in three areas: getting the records we want
out of people, transferring the data to a format the computers can use, and the
human interface."
"What do
you mean by the human interface?
I
thought the computer did all the thinking."