Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
The Picasso,
still hidden from view in the packing case, had arrived at its
destination.
Paulus looked relieved and
started adjusting the lighting to create the right effect.
The Lestonis resumed their positions,
standing well spaced out against the wall so that they could observe the entire
room.
Balac decided that introducing
them to his guests as businessmen interested in his work wasn't going to
play.
The only commercial activity other
than violence that they could credibly be involved in was drug peddling or
maybe pimping.
Or arms dealing — now
there was an occupation the Swiss could identify with.
No, he'd say they were bodyguards hired to
lend a little pizzazz to his next show and he was rehearsing the effect.
The good burghers of
The door
indicator buzzed.
He looked at the TV
monitors set into the wall:
Fitzduane
coming to pay his respects before he returned to that dreary, wet country of
his.
Balac controlled the security doors
with a remote unit.
He pressed the
appropriate buttons in a spaced sequence and watched Fitzduane's progress on
the monitors.
The last door slid shut
behind him, and he entered the room.
What a delicious irony — to entertain a man who was scouring the city
looking for him.
Life was full of simple
pleasures.
They shook
hands.
"I can't stay long,"
said Fitzduane.
"I just wanted to
say good-bye.
I'm off this evening from
and one things to do before then."
Balac
laughed.
"Not the remark of a
Swiss.
A Swiss would be well organized
in advance and would now be going through his travel checklist — for the third
time — before leaving for the airport several hours in advance in case he was
delayed."
Fitzduane
smiled.
Once again he was struck by the
magnetism of the man's personality.
Even
knowing the extent of Balac's sadism and criminality, even remembering the
stomach-turning sight of some of his victims, he found it impossible not to be
affected.
In Balac's presence he easily
understood how Paulus had been corrupted.
The Hangman was an infectious force of truly formidable power.
In his presence you wanted to please, to see
that responsive twinkle in his eyes, to bask in the aura he radiated.
The man had charisma.
He was more than charming; his willpower dominated.
One of the
Lestonis — he thought it was Cousin Julius, on the basis of a quick look at the
file the Bear had thrown into the car — stood to Balac's left, slightly forward
and to one side.
If Fitzduane had been
left-handed, he would have stood to the right — always the side nearer to the
gun hand.
It was a reflex for such a
man.
Fitzduane was beginning to see the
Chief's point.
Even with the element of
surprise, he'd be lucky to get one of them, let alone three — not to mention
Balac.
He began to
feel like a moron for suggesting such an idiotic plan.
It was looking beyond bloody dangerous.
Foolhardy
didn't even begin to describe it.
Now he
knew how the twenty Greeks inside the Trojan
Horse
must have felt while the Trojans discussed whether or not to bring it
inside.
The Trojan equivalent of the
Lestonis had suggested burning the wooden horse.
The Greeks inside must have felt great when
those encouraging words had floated up into their hiding place.
"Let me
introduce Julius," said Balac, indicating the Lestoni on his right.
The gunman nodded.
He made no offer to shake hands.
Balac waved at the two other Lestonis.
"Angelo and his
brother, Pietro."
They
stared at Fitzduane, unblinking.
Fitzduane
thought he'd have a quick glass of beer — his mouth was feeling sand dry — and
fuck off very, very fast.
He poured some
Gurten into a glass and drank through the froth.
It tasted like nectar.
Julius was
whispering something into Balac's ear.
He had a pocket-size bug detector in his hand, and a small red light on
it was flashing.
Balac looked at
Fitzduane and then at Paulus.
How he
realized they were both involved, Fitzduane never fully understood, but from
that moment there was no doubt:
Balac
knew.
*
*
*
*
*
One element of
the plan that had particularly bothered the Bear was the correct functioning of
the shaped charge.
Certainly it had
worked fine on the range at Sand, but that was a test under optimum
conditions.
Real life, in the Bear's
experience, tended to be something less than optimal, often a lot less.
A lot less in relation to the way that meant
either no hole or an inadequate hole, and either way that meant the assault
team couldn’t get in on time, which promised to be exceedingly bad news for Fitzduane
and Paulus.
Of course, Fitzduane was
supposed to have left before the charge was blown so that he, at least, would
be out of the firing line.
But deal or
no deal with the Chief, the Bear's insides told him that things were not going
to work out that way.
All of which
meant that if Fitzduane couldn't get out as planned, the assault force was
going to have to go in — and that suggested a need for a king-size can
opener.
He tossed the problem to Henssen
and Kersdorf and the Nose, and together they came up with an answer that
derived from three of
greatest assets:
snow, the army, and
money.
Strategically
placed out of sight of the entrance to Balac's studio, the Bear waited,
earphones glued to his head, and listened to Fitzduane drinking beer.
Along with a unit of the assault force and an
army driver, he was sitting inside the army's latest and most expensive main
battle tank.
The sharp prow of a
military specification snowplow was mounted on the front of the huge machine.
The tank's engines were already ticking
over.
Both coaxial and turret machine
guns were loaded.
The Bear had
decided it was time to stop pissing around with this psycho.
He stood up in the turret and pulled back the
cocking handle on the .50 caliber.
One
of the huge machine-gun rounds slid into the breech.
This time, he thought, he had a big enough
gun.
He felt sick
at what he heard coming over his earphones.
"Go!" he shouted into his throat microphone to the driver.
The huge
machine rumbled forward.
*
*
*
*
*
Eyes narrowed,
Balac stared at Fitzduane as if reading his mind.
The aura of bonhomie had vanished.
Implacably Balac's face was transformed into
something vicious and malevolent.
The
features did not change, but the image they projected was so altered that fear
struck Fitzduane like a knife in the guts.
Stripped of
its mask, the face of the Hangman was diabolical.
The man radiated the power of evil.
It assaulted Fitzduane's senses like
something physical.
He could smell the
stench of corruption and depravity, of the blood of his many victims, of their
flesh rotting in disparate places.
All the
Lestonis had drawn their weapons.
Julius
had a sawed-off shotgun.
The other
Lestonis both had automatic weapons, an Ingram and a Skorpion.
All the weapons pointed at Fitzduane.
He raised his hands slowly in defeat and
clasped them on top of his head.
Through
the light material of his jacket, with the forefinger of his right hand, he
could feel the button controlling the shaped charge in the Picasso frame.
The muzzles of three multi-projectile weapons
faced him.
Stun grenades or not, they
would fire as a reflex, wouldn't they?
It was an option he didn't want to check out.
He relaxed his finger but kept it in place.
"Where is
the wire, Hugo?" said Balac.
"Clipped inside the front of my shirt."
Balac stepped
forward and ripped the microphone from Fitzduane and ground it under his
heel.
He removed the SIG from
Fitzduane's shoulder holster and gave it to Julius, who stuck it in his belt.
Balac stepped back, sat down on a sofa, and
looked at Fitzduane thoughtfully.
He
uncapped a bottle of Gurten and drank from it, then wiped his mouth with his
hand.
He stood up and stretched like an
animal.
He was in superb physical
condition.
He looked at Paulus, then at
Fitzduane, then at the packing case.
"Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
Paulus
flinched, almost imperceptibly, but Balac noticed the reaction.
"So, friend Paulus, you've sold me
out.
Thirty pieces of silver, thirty
little boys, what was the price?"
Paulus stood
there pale-faced and trembling.
Balac
walked toward him and stopped just in front of him.
He looked into Paulus's eyes, holding his
gaze even while he spoke.
"Pietro," he said to one of the Lestoni brothers, "check
out that packing case."
Pietro slung
his submachine gun and walked across to the packing case.
He opened the viewing doors.
The Picasso in all its arcane beauty was
exposed.
"There's
a picture inside — kind of peculiar," said Pietro.
"Looks like a load of crap."
Balac hadn't
relaxed his gaze.
"So," he
said to Paulus, "you
have
brought me a Picasso.
The surprise must
lie elsewhere.
Keep looking," he
said to Pietro.
"Check out the back
as well as the front."
The remaining
blood drained from Paulus's face.
His
eyes still fixed on the art dealer, Balac nodded several times.
Pietro
produced a knife and started prying boards away from the front of the packing
case around the picture.
"Nothing
here," he said after a couple of minutes.
Splintered wood littered the floor."
"Look at
the back," said Balac.
The packing
case was heavy.
It was positioned
precisely against the wall, as Paulus had instructed, and Pietro had some
difficulty in working it away.
He
contented himself with moving one side out far enough so that he could prize
away a plank.
The space was confined,
but after a few seconds the nails at the edge were loosened and the plank
pulled away.
The planks were spaced at
close intervals to support an inner casing of thin plywood.
Pietro smashed through the plywood with his
knife.
He ripped away the piece at the
corner.
His eyes
bulged as the business end of the shaped charge was revealed.
"There's something here, some kind of
explosive, I guess."
He tried to
wriggle back, but his coat was caught on a protruding nail at the back of the
packing case.
Balac leaned
forward and kissed Paulus hard on the lips.
He pulled back and embraced Paulus with his left arm.
"I'm sorry.
No more little boys."
He thrust his right hand forward.
Paulus arched his body and gasped in
agony.
As Balac stepped back, the handle
of a knife could be seen protruding from the wound.
Blood spurted, and Paulus collapsed writhing
on the ground.
Balac turned
to face Fitzduane, the knife in his hand.
Bloody though it was, Fitzduane recognized the short, broad-bladed
design.
It was a reproduction scua — a
Celtic sacrificial knife.
"See if
you can find the detonator," Balac ordered Pietro, who was still
struggling to free himself.
"Give
him a hand," he said to Angelo.
Despite the
distractions, Julius's gun hadn't wavered off Fitzduane for a second.
The Irishman felt sick at what had happened
to Paulus.
Now that same knife was
coming toward him, and he had only seconds to make his move — but if he did, he
would die.
At that range the
two-barreled shotgun would blow his head off.
The bulletproof vest might protect his torso, but even that depended on
the ammunition Julius was using.