Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
He took the
Remington and chambered a round.
Moving
as silently as he could, he left the kitchen and edged along the corridor to
the front hall.
He had two doors to
choose from.
As he deliberated, the door
of the living room opened.
Fitzduane
dropped into a crouch.
Etan stood
there.
"Holy
shit!" exclaimed Fitzduane.
Etan
smiled.
"Shane's idea," she
said.
"The
colonel as matchmaker."
She
looked at the gun.
"He's told me
quite a bit.
Things make more sense
now."
Fitzduane
realized he was still pointing the gun.
He lowered it, replaced the safety catch, and laid it down gently.
He felt weak and happy and scared stiff and
more than a little stupid.
His heart was
pounding.
He couldn't believe how glad
he was to see her.
He sat on the floor.
"Hugo,
are you all right?" she said anxiously.
"For God's sake, say something.
You're white as a sheet."
Fitzduane
looked up at her, and his pleasure was plain to see.
He shook his head.
"Cuckoo," he said.
Etan was
wearing jeans tucked into half boots and an Aran sweater.
He could smell her perfume.
She pushed the gun away with her boot and
then knelt beside him.
"Staying
long?" she said.
She peeled off her
sweater and blouse.
She wasn't wearing a
bra.
Her breasts were firm and full, the
nipples pronounced.
Her voice had gone
husky.
She put her hands on his
shoulders and pushed.
He didn't
argue.
He lay back.
"Soldier from the war returning.
Where have you been?
How has he been?"
She undid his belt and unzipped him and
encircled his organ with her hand.
She
squeezed hard.
"I have a
proprietary interest," she said.
"My mother told me never to put anything in my mouth if I didn't
know where it had been."
She teased
him with her tongue.
"Where has
this little man been?"
She released
her hand and looked.
"On second
thoughts," she said, "he's not so little."
She shucked her boots and wriggled out of her
jeans, then lay on her stomach on the carpet.
"Do it this way," she said, "nice and slow and
deep."
She raised her buttocks
suggestively and parted her legs.
Fitzduane put his hand between them and stroked her where she
liked.
He ran his lips and tongue along
her back and slowly moved down.
It was
only after she had been moaning and quivering for quite some time that he took
her doggie fashion on the floor.
Halfway
through he turned her and entered her from above.
She reached up and sucked his nipples, and he
gasped.
He drove into her again and
again, and their loins became slick.
When it was
over, he took her in his arms and just held her.
Then he kissed her gently on the forehead.
"You know," he said, and there was
laughter in his voice, "this has been a year of tough women."
Etan bit his
ear and then lay beside him, her head resting on one arm.
Her free hand caressed his loins.
"Tell me," she said, smiling
sweetly, "about Erika."
*
*
*
*
*
Kilmara sat in
his office examining yet again the plans of the U.S. Embassy in
arrangements.
Every fresh examination
made him feel unhappier.
The embassy
had been built in the days when a violent protest consisted of a rotten egg or
two thrown at the ambassador's car.
It
seemed to have been designed to facilitate terrorist attacks.
The
three-story circular building — plus basements — had a façade consisting mainly
of glass hung in a prestressed concrete frame.
Offices were positioned around the perimeter of each floor.
The core of the building was a
floor-to-ceiling rotunda overlooked by the circular corridors.
The embassy was located at the apex of a
V-shaped junction of two roads, each lined with houses that overlooked the
embassy building.
Car access to the
basement level was by way of a short driveway guarded by a striped pole.
A terrorist
was faced with a downright excess of viable choices.
The place was so easy to attack that if you
didn't know better — and Kilmara unfortunately did — you might think that there
must be a snag, or else be put off the idea for reasons of sportsmanship
because the target hadn't a chance.
Even
the sewers — thought why any terrorist would choose the sewers when he had such
a range of more hygienic options was beyond Kilmara — were not secure.
Kilmara closed
the file in disgust.
Short of blocking
off the access roads — impossible because one was vital for south Dublin
traffic — and surrounding the place with a battalion of troops — too expensive
considering the state of the nation's finances — full or even adequate security
for the embassy was impossible to achieve against a small well-armed terrorist
unit.
Against a force of seventy, his
efforts would be derisory.
Unless, of course, he got lucky.
With a sigh he opened the file again.
The saying was true.
The harder he worked, the luckier he seemed
to get.
He wondered if the same
principle applied to the other side, and he was not pleased with his
conclusion.
The bottom
line in this situation meant:
one, he
had to obey orders; two, out of his full complement of sixty Rangers, roughly a
third were assigned to full-time embassy duty, and given that there were three
shifts per day, that meant that almost the full command was committed; three,
they were operating in exactly the wrong way for a force of this type — tied
down and waiting to be attacked rather than staying flexible and keeping the
initiative; four, training time was being seriously eroded (to keep to their unusually
high standard of marksmanship, Rangers shot for several hours a day at least
three days a week and often more); five, his own time was being used up running
this screw-up of an operation; six, God knows what else was happening while
this was going on.
It was a
crock.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
stayed another night in Kilmara's house and left for home the following
afternoon, his body satiated from a night of lovemaking and the long, deep
sleep that had followed.
Kilmara had
called to say he wouldn't be back and the couple could have the house to
themselves.
"Couple?
"
Fitzduane had queried, stroking Etan's nipples with
the tips of his fingers.
"Lucky
guess," said Kilmara dryly.
Fitzduane
laughed.
"We're getting
married."
"About
time," said Kilmara.
"I've got
to go."
He phoned back about two
minutes later.
"Don't forget what I
said," he added.
"People in
love are dangerous; they forget things."
"I don't
feel dangerous," said Fitzduane.
"I'd feel
a little better if you did.
Check in by
radio when you get home.
The signal is
automatically scrambled.
You'll be able
to talk freely."
Fitzduane was
thoughtful as he replaced the phone.
Etan ran her tongue over his penis.
"Pay attention," she said.
He did.
*
*
*
*
*
The Pillars of
Hercules — better known in more recent times as the
Gibraltar, if
one forgets for a moment the slightly paranoid local population of some
twenty-eight thousand crammed into a land area the size of a parking lot,
consists of surveillance equipment, weaponry, hollowed-out rock, military
personnel, and apes in roughly that order.
Despite all
this concentration of spies, people, apes, and matériel, it was nonetheless
scarcely surprising that the passing through the Strait of Gibraltar of an
Italian cattle boat, the
Sabine
, en
route from Libya to Ireland to pick up a fresh cargo of live meat for ritual
slaughter on return to Tripoli, should be logged but attract no further
attention.
The Irish cattle
trade with
The
sight of the
Sabine
was routine.
The only change that might have been
commented on, but was not, was that the
Sabine
failed this time to refuel in
She had, apparently, braved the bureaucracy
and chronic insufficiency of Qaddafi's
desperate).
An inquirer —
if there had been one — would have been told, with a shrug, that it was a
matter of an arrangement, and the thumb and forefinger would have been rubbed
together.
Such an answer would have
sufficed.
The
Sabine
left the Pillars of Hercules
behind and set a course for
24
In the old
Land Rover, allowing for a stop in Galway to pick up supplies and eat, they
took nearly seven hours to reach the island from
It rained solidly until early evening, and then they were treated by the
weather to such a spectacular display of changing light and mood that Fitzduane
forgave all and wondered why he had ever left.
It was so bloody beautiful.
His spirits
lifted — and then the rain returned in full force as they were approaching the
castle, as if to remind them to take nothing for granted.
"This is
a fickle country," he muttered to himself while unloading the
vehicle.
He had been tempted to leave
things where they were till morning, but the contents of the four long, heavy
boxes and other containers Kilmara had given him were better placed under lock
and key as soon as possible.
During the
drive he had told Etan much of what had happened.
Now he gave Murrough, who was having a drink
inside with Etan, a short summary.
He
had kept his reservations about the Hangman's demise to himself.
He didn't want to be unnecessarily alarmist.
Murrough and
Oona had lit fires and aired the place, and the heating had been turned on
earlier in the day.
The castle was warm
and comfortable.
It felt good to be
back.
Murrough was
quiet for a while after Fitzduane had finished.
Fitzduane refilled their glasses.
"You'll have a chance to meet some of these people in a couple of
days," he said.
"I guess I got
carried away during my last week in
when we had one long round of celebrations to see the Hangman off in
style.
Heini Raufman is still supposed to
be convalescing, so I invited him to see how civilized people live, and then
somehow Henssen got added to the list — and then young Andreas von
Graffenlaub.
Andreas needs some
distraction.
He's bearing up well, but
this whole business has been rough on him.
His father's death hit him particularly hard."
"Poor
lad," said Etan.
"Heini
Raufman is the one you call ‘the Bear’?" said Murrough.
"You'll
see why when you meet him," said Fitzduane.
"It will
be nice to have this place full of people," said Etan.
She had been eyeing the castle and its
furnishings with a definite proprietorial air since they arrived.
It was dawning on Fitzduane that there were
going to be more changes in his life than he had anticipated.
He had to admit that the present décor was
overheavy on stuffed animal heads, wall hangings, and medieval weapons.
Still, what else would you expect in a
castle?
He was uneasy about the
alternatives Etan might have in mind.