Read Games of the Hangman Online
Authors: Victor O'Reilly
All the empty
apartments overlooking the embassy, and quite a few of the occupied locations,
had been bugged in anticipation of some action of this nature.
A relay station was set up in the embassy,
but the actual monitoring was carried out from Ranger headquarters in
The acoustic
monitoring equipment was state-of-the-art, and the quality of the transmission
excellent.
Unfortunately, although there
were a number of linguists in the Rangers who spoke among them some eighteen
foreign languages — including Arabic and Hebrew, both much in demand since Ireland's
involvement with the UN force in Lebanon — none of them spoke Japanese.
Then Günther
remembered that one of the Marine guards he had been chatting with was a
Nisei.
It didn't follow, of course, that
he spoke Japanese — but he might.
He did.
Listening to
the translation, Kilmara started to wonder if maybe he hadn't been too hasty in
assuming the whole embassy thing was a blind; it looked as if something were
going to happen there after all.
Then
the link was made with a convention of travel agents booked into the nearby
Jury's Hotel for the following day.
The
travel agents were coming from the
and there were seventy-two in the party.
Backup units
were alerted.
Ranger leave was
canceled.
The next question was when to
move in.
It looked as if he might have
thrown a scare into Fitzduane for nothing.
Still, better scared than dead.
Kilmara
decided that maybe he was doing too much reacting to events and not enough
thinking.
He tilted his chair back and
set to work on some serious analysis.
After half an hour he was glad he had.
He called up the rosters on his computer and began to do some juggling.
*
*
*
*
*
In the
afternoon the skies abandoned any attempt at neutrality and proceeded to dump a
goodly portion of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of
Etan and Oona
went to work out who would sleep where and with whom, and Fitzduane closeted
himself in his study to plow his way through a two-month backlog of mail.
There were
several communications from
tourist brochure on current and future events in the city.
He flipped through it idly, feeling
surprisingly nostalgic about the place, when one small item caught his eye.
It would normally have interested him about
as much as a dissertation on yak hair, but his increasing feeling of unease
linked with his current thoughts about the Hangman focused his mind.
The item said
that Wednesday, May 20, was Geranium Day — the day chosen that year for all the
good people of
A sudden display of
crimson.
The timing was
too convenient for it to be merely a coincidence, and it fit precisely the
Hangman's macabre sense of humor.
He unpacked
the radio and called Kilmara.
Sound
quality was good, but the colonel wasn't available.
Fitzduane decided that a message about
geraniums passed through an intermediary would only serve to convince Kilmara
that he had temporarily gone round the bend.
"Ask him
to call me most urgent," he said.
"Over and out."
"Affirmative,"
said Ranger headquarters.
Fitzduane went
to help with the bed making.
The Bear
had phoned from the airport.
He had
brought his nurse with him — he hoped Fitzduane wouldn't mind — and Andreas von
Graffenlaub had an Israeli girlfriend in tow.
They were waiting for Henssen and overnighting in
arrive on the island in time for lunch.
Fitzduane
wondered if he had explained that his castle — as castles go — was really quite
a small affair.
The next unexpected guest
was going to have to sleep with the horses.
*
*
*
*
*
The
evening was going splendidly, but try
as he might, Fitzduane
couldn’t get into the right frame of mind to enjoy himself.
He smiled and
laughed at the appropriate times, and even made a speech welcoming his guests
that was received well enough, but Etan wasn't fooled.
His reply was that he was probably suffering
from some kind of reaction to the whole Swiss affair didn't entirely satisfy
her either, but she had Murrough's guest, Harry Noble, on her right to distract
her and de Guevain flirting outrageously across the table, so Fitzduane was
allowed to sit peacefully for a time, alone with his thoughts.
When dinner
had reached the liqueur stage — by which time the fishing tales were growing
ever more incredible — Fitzduane excused himself and retired to his study to
try Kilmara again.
This time he was
patched through immediately.
He was not
reassured by the conversation that followed.
He was still
staring into the fire when Etan came in.
She sat on the floor in front of the fire and looked up at him.
"Tell me
about it," she said.
He did, and
this time he held nothing back.
Her face
was strained and silent when he finished.
*
*
*
*
*
Fitzduane
slept fitfully and rose at dawn.
He rode for
several hours around the island, trying to see if the landscape itself would
yield some clue to the Hangman's intentions.
A picture of idyllic peace and harmony greeted his eyes and made him
doubt for a time the now-overwhelming feeling of foreboding.
The mist of
dawn burned away in the sunlight, and it was shaping up to be a truly
spectacular day.
The sky was
cloudless.
The strong westerly had
abated to the merest hint of a breeze.
Washed by the recent rain, the air was clear and balmy.
Insects buzzed, and birdcalls filled the
air.
Faced with this image of rural
tranquility, Fitzduane found it hard to anticipate what the Hangman could have
in mind, and he wondered if he wasn't letting his imagination run away with
him.
The obvious
target was Draker, and given the Hangman's proclivities, the objective would be
kidnapping.
God knows —and the Hangman
surely did — that the students' families were rich enough to make the game well
worth playing.
There was some
security now.
Discreet lobbying by
Kilmara meant that six armed plainclothes policemen had been temporarily
assigned to the college.
They lived in
the main building and should be able to deal with any threat — or at least buy
time until help could be summoned.
The
Achilles' heel of that arrangement was, of course, the length of time it would
take to get assistance to the island.
The location was isolated — none more so in
hours at best before specialist help could arrive.
The local police might get there sooner, but what
they could do against terrorist firepower was another matter.
Fitzduane had
suggested to Kilmara that the parents, if they were so rich, might be persuaded
to finance some extra security.
He
hadn't been thinking when he made the suggestion.
The facts of life were explained to him:
If the parents received the slightest hint of
danger, all the students would be whipped away back to Mommy and Daddy in Saudi
or
politician's pocket.
No students would
mean
no
college, and no college would mean no income
for the local community.
Without proof
to back up these vague theories of a threat, it was not a good suggestion;
downright dumb, in fact.
The sea, often
so gray and menacing, now presented an image of serenity.
The color of the day was a perfect
since the temperature of the Atlantic waters, even at this time of year, was
only a few degrees above freezing.
"All this
peace and harmony is an illusion," he said to Pooka.
"But how and when the shit is going to
hit the fan is another matter."
The
horse didn't venture a reply.
She went
on chewing on a tuft of grass.
Smoke was
trickling from the chimney of Murrough's cottage.
He distracted Pooka from her snack and
cantered toward the house.
Murrough
leaned over the half door as he drew near, and Fitzduane could smell bacon and
eggs.
He suddenly felt ravenously
hungry.
"You're
up bright and early," said Murrough.
"What happened?
Has Etan
slung you out?"
Oona's face
appeared over Murrough's shoulder.
"Morning, Hugo," she said.
"Don't mind the man — he's no manners.
Come on in and have some breakfast."
Fitzduane
dismounted.
"I'm persuaded,"
he said.
"I'll be in in a
minute.
I just want to pick Murrough's
brains for a moment."
Oona grinned
and vanished toward the kitchen.
"Best of luck," she called over her shoulder.
Murrough
opened the bottom half of the door and ambled out into the sunlight.
"I must be dreaming," he said.
"There's not a cloud in the sky."
"Murrough,"
said Fitzduane, "last night, when you were bringing me up-to-date on the
local gossip, you mentioned that a plane had landed here recently.
I didn't pay much heed at the time, but now
I'm wondering if I heard you right.
Did
you
meant
that a plane landed on the mainland or right
here on the island?"
Murrough took
a deep breath of morning air and snapped his braces appreciatively.
"Oh, not on the mainland," he
said.
"The feller put it down on
this very island, on a stretch of road not far from the college, in fact."
"I didn't
think there was room," said Fitzduane, "and the road is bumpy as
hell."
"Well,"
said Murrough, "bumpy or not, the feller did it — several times, in
fact.
I went up to have a look and
talked to the pilot.
He was a pleasant
enough chap for a foreigner.
There were
two passengers on board — relatives of a Draker student, he said."
"Remember
the student's name?" said Fitzduane.
Murrough shook
his head.
"What
kind of plane was it?"
"A small
enough yoke," said Murrough, "but with two engines.
Sort of boxy-shaped.
They use the same kind of thing to fly out to
the
A
Britten-Norman Islander," said Fitzduane.
"A cross between a flying delivery van and a
Jeep.
I guess with the right
pilot one of those could make it.
They
only need about four hundred yards of rough runway, sometimes less."
"Why so
interested?" said Murrough.
"I'll
tell you after we've eaten," answered Fitzduane.
"I don't want to spoil your
appetite."
He followed Murrough
into the cottage.
Harry Noble was
sitting at the pine table with his hands wrapped around a mug of tea.
"Good
morning, Mr. Ambassador," said Fitzduane.
Harrison
Noble's jaw dropped.
"How on earth
do you know that?" he said in astonishment.
Fitzduane sat
down at the table and watched appreciatively as Oona poured him a cup of
tea.
"Friends in high places,"
he said.
Ambassador
Noble nodded his head gloomily.
He had
enjoyed being incognito.
Now
a
bunch of U.S.
Embassy protocol officers would probably parachute in.
So much for
a quiet
time fishing.
"I want
to share a few thoughts with you," said Fitzduane, "which you may
well find not the most cheerful things you've ever heard."
Oona brought
the food to the table.
"Eat up
first," she said.
"Worry can
wait."