Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
"Doesn't it
rain in
"Only
when required," replied Günther.
"We're a very orderly nation."
"The
colonel coming?" asked Fitzduane.
He patted the airline bag slung from Günther's shoulder and then hefted
it, trying to work out the weapon inside.
Something Heckler & Koch at a guess.
Germans liked using German products, and
Heckler & Koch was state of the art.
The weapon had a folding stock, and if he knew Kilmara, it was unlikely
to be a nine millimeter.
Kilmara had a
combat-originated bias against the caliber, which he thought lacked stopping
power.
"The model thirty-three
assault rifle?"
Günther
grinned and nodded.
"You keep
up-to-date," he said.
"Very good.
But
the colonel is upstairs.
You're dining
in a private room; these days it's wiser."
He led the way out of the bar and along the glass-walled corridor to the
elevator.
They got out on the top
floor.
Günther nodded at two
plainclothes security guards and opened the door with a key.
Three were two more men inside, automatic
weapons at the ready.
Günther ushered
Fitzduane into the adjoining room.
Colonel Shane
Kilmara, security adviser to the Taoiseach — the Irish prime minister — and
commander of the Rangers, the special Irish antiterrorist force, rose to meet
him.
A buffet lunch was spread out on a
table to one side.
"I didn't
realize smoked salmon needed so much protection," said Fitzduane.
"It's the
company it keeps," answered Kilmara.
*
*
*
*
*
Whenever
idiosyncratic climate and the Celtic mentality of many of its natives began to
get him down, Kilmara had only to reflect on how he had ended up in his present
position to induce a frisson of well-being.
Kilmara had
been successful militarily in the Congo, and the saving of most of the hostages
at Konina had been hailed as a classic surgical strike by the world press; but
the bottom line had a political flavor, and back in cold, damp Ireland Kilmara
was court-martialed — and found guilty.
He did not dispute the finding.
He had initiated the Konina strike against orders, and eighteen of his
men had been killed.
On the credit
side of the ledger, the operation had been a success.
More than seven hundred lives had been saved,
and world public opinion had been overwhelmingly favorable, so he did dispute
whether charges should have been brought at all.
Many others, including the officers judging
him at his court-martial, felt the same way, but the verdict, once the court
was convened, was inevitable.
The sentence
was not.
It could have involved a
dishonorable discharge and imprisonment or even the extreme penalty.
It did not.
The members of the court demonstrated their view that the institution of
such proceedings against one of their own was ill judged and motivated by
political malice by settling for the minimum penalty; a severe reprimand.
Kilmara could
have stayed on in the army, since most of his peers regarded the verdict as
technical, but a more serious shock was to follow.
Under the guise of economy measures, the
elite airborne battalion he had selected and trained to such a peak of
perfection
was
disbanded.
Although both
the court-martial and the disbanding of Kilmara's command were publicized as
being strictly military decisions made by the chief of staff and his officers,
Kilmara was under no illusions as to where they actually originated or what he
could do about them.
He assessed the
situation pragmatically.
For the moment
he was outgunned.
There was nothing he
could do.
His antagonist was none other
than one Joseph Patrick Delaney, Minister for Defense.
"
It's
realpolitik," said Kilmara to a disappointed chief
of staff when he resigned.
Two days
later he left
Many in the
Irish establishment — political and civil — were not unhappy at Kilmara's
departure.
He had been outspoken and
abrasive about conditions in the army and had an unacceptably high profile in
the media.
His very military success had
made him into a greater threat.
The
establishment in conservative
It was
glad to see the back of the outspoken colonel and was confident her would never
return in an official capacity.
Any
alternative was unthinkable.
It was assumed
by his colleagues in the cabinet that the minister's active hostility toward
Kilmara was merely the normal conservative's dislike of the outspoken maverick,
leavened by a not-unnatural jealousy of the military man's success — and as
such it was understood.
They were right,
up to a point.
However, the real reason
Joseph Patrick Delaney wanted Kilmara discredited was more serious and
fundamental.
Kilmara was a threat not
just to the minister's professional ambitions but, if ever the soldier put
certain information together, the politician's very life.
To put it
simply, Delaney was a traitor.
He had
passed information about the plans and activities of Irish troops in the Congo
to a connection in exchange for considerable sums of money, which had resulted
in the frustration of some of the Airborne Rangers battalion's operations — and
in the death and wounding of a number of men.
The minister
had not set out to be a traitor.
He had
merely put his ambitions before his integrity, and circumstances had done the
rest.
The minister was convinced that
Kilmara suspected what he had done — thought, ironically, he was wrong.
Kilmara's undisguised contempt for him was
based on no more than the typical soldier's dislike of a corrupt and
opportunistic political master.
After his
resignation from the Irish Army in the mid-sixties, Kilmara should have
vanished from Irish official circles for good.
But then, in the seventies, the specter of terrorism began to make
itself felt.
It had been largely
confined to British-occupied
Ireland
violence, unless checked, has a habit of spreading, and borders are notoriously
leaky.
The Irish
government was concerned and worried, but it was the assassination of
Ambassador Ewart Biggs, ex-member of
Secret Intelligence Service, writer of thrillers — all of them banned by the
Irish censors — and wearer of a black-tinted monocle, was appointed British
ambassador to the
It was a controversial choice at best, and it
was to end in tragedy.
On the morning
of July 21, Ewart Biggs seated himself on the left-hand side of the backseat of
his chauffeur-driven 4.2 liter Jaguar.
He was to be driven from his residence in the
Embassy near Ballsbridge.
Behind the
Jaguar drove an escort vehicle of the Irish Special Branch containing armed
detectives.
A few hundred
meters from the residence, the ambassador's car passed over a culvert stuffed
with one hundred kilograms of commercial gelignite.
The culvert bomb was detonated by command
wire from a hundred meters away.
The
Jaguar was blasted up into the air and crashed back into the smoking
crater.
Ambassador Ewart Biggs and his
secretary, Judith Cooke, were crushed to death.
The killings
sent a cold shudder through the Irish political establishment.
Whom might the terrorists kill next?
Would the British start revenge bombings, and
who might their targets be?
It wasn't a
cheerful scenario.
The Irish
cabinet went into emergency session, and a special committee was set up to
overhaul Irish internal security.
It was
decided to appoint a special security adviser to the Taoiseach.
It was an obvious prerequisite that such an
adviser be familiar with counterinsurgency on both an international and a
national basis.
Discreet
inquiries were made throughout Europe, the
further afield.
The replies were
virtually unanimous.
In the intervening
decade, working with many of the West's most effective security and
counterterrorist forces, Kilmara had consolidated his already formidable
reputation.
His contempt for most bureaucrats
and politicians was well known.
The cabinet
committee was unhappy with the appointment, but having Kilmara around was
preferable to being shredded by a terrorist mine.
Just about.
Kilmara drove
a hard bargain.
It included an ironclad
contract and a substantial — by Irish standards — budget.
Ninety days after his appointment, as
stipulated in his contract, Kilmara set up an elite special antiterrorist
unit.
He named it “the Rangers” after
his now-disbanded airborne battalion.
The entire unit numbered only sixty members.
Some were drawn from the ranks of the army
and the police.
Many had been with
Kilmara in the
A number were seconded from
other
forces
like the
German GSG-9 and the French Gigene.
There were others whose backgrounds were known only to Kilmara.
The
performance of the Rangers exceeded expectations.
Success did not mellow Kilmara.
He remained cordially disliked — and, to an
extent, feared — by much of the political establishment and, above all, by the
present Taoiseach, a certain Joseph Patrick Delaney.
But he was needed.
*
*
*
*
*
They lunched
alone.
Their relationship had been that
of commanding officer and young lieutenant — mentor and disciple — during the
early days of their service together in the Irish Army, but shared danger in
the
They had been comrades-in-arms.
They had become close friends.
The cold
buffet was excellent.
The wine came from
Kilmara's private stock, and its quality suggested that he was putting his
French associations to good use.
The
finished with Irish coffees.
They had
been talking about times past and about the
The matter of the hanging had been left by
mutual consent until the meal was over.
Kilmara
finished lighting his pipe.
"Ah,
it's not a bad life," he said, "even in this funny little country of
ours — frustrations, betrayals, faults, and all.
It's my home, and we're a young nation
yet."
Fitzduane
smiled.
"You sound positively
benign," he said.
"Dare I add
complacent?"
Kilmara growled.
"Sound maybe; am, no.
But enough of this.
Tell me about Rudolf von Graffenlaub."
Fitzduane told
his story, and Kilmara listened without interrupting.
He was a good listener, and he was intrigued
as to why the death of a total stranger had so affected his friend.
"An
unfortunate way to start the day, I'll grant you," said Kilmara, "but
you're not exactly a stranger to death.
You see more dead bodies in a week in your line of work than most people
do in a lifetime.
I don't want to sound
callous, but what's one more body?
You
didn't know the young man, you don't know his friends or his family, and you
didn't kill him" — he looked at Fitzduane — "did you?"
Fitzduane
grinned and shook his head.
"Not
that I remember."
"Well
then," said Kilmara, "what's the problem?
People die.
It's sort of built into the system.
It's what they call the natural order of things.
What is Rudi von Graffenlaub's death to
you?"