18


The Bear sat in a private room of Bern's ultramodern InselHospital and waited for the Monkey to die. His once-beautiful face was wrapped in bandages from crown to neck. The Bear had seen what was left underneath and was too appalled even to feel nauseated. Best guess was that some kind of sharpened chain, possibly a motorcycle chain, had been used. His nose, teeth, and much else had been smashed, and the face flayed to the bone.

The Monkey muttered something unintelligible. The sound was picked up by a voice-actuated tape recorder whose miniature microphone lead joined the tangle of tubes and wires that were only just keeping the Monkey alive. There was a harsh rattling sound from the bed, and score was kept by the electric monitor. The uniformed Berp sitting at the other side of the bed held a notebook in his hands and tried to make sense of the sounds. He bent his ear close to the shrouded hole that was the Monkey's mouth. The edges of the bandages around the hole were stained with fresh blood, and the Berp's face was pale. He shook his head. He didn't write anything.

The rattling and sucking sounds culminated in a strangled cough. An intern and a nurse rushed into the room. They went through the motions while the Bear looked out the window, seeing nothing.

"That's it," said the intern. He went to wash his hands at the sink in the corner of the room. The nurse pulled the sheet over the Monkey's head. The Bear untangled the tape recorder and removed the cassette. He broke the tabs to make sure it could not be accidentally recorded over, marked it, and gave it to the Berp.

"Did he say anything?" asked the intern. He was drying his hands.

"Something," said the Bear. "Not a lot. He hadn't a lot left to talk with."

"But you know who did it?"

"It looks that way."

"Is it always like this?" asked the Berp. "That noise when they die?" The young policeman had an unseasoned look about him. Not a good choice, thought the Bear, but then you have to start sometime.

"Not always," he said, "but often enough. It's not called the death rattle without good reason." He gestured at the cassette in the envelope. "Take it to Examining Magistrate von Beck. The fresh air will do you good."

Afterward the Bear went to the Bärengraben for a little snack and a think. There would be a warrant out for Ivo within the hour. This time it would not be a matter of routine questioning. The little idiot would be charged with murder — at least until more information was available. Even if he ended up with a lesser charge, he was going to be locked up for an awfully long time.

The Monkey had not actually died from having his face destroyed but from a one-sided encounter with a delivery truck as he ran in panic through the streets near the Hauptbahnhof. Whether that made Ivo — them man who had wielded the chain and thus induced the panic — guilty of murder was something for the lawyers to decide. But what had possessed Ivo to behave so savagely? He had no track record of violence, and the Bear would have bet modest money that he would never do such a thing. Nonetheless, the Monkey was undoubtedly telling the truth. Ivo had done it. Had he understood the damage he was doing when he struck? Probably not, but such an excuse wouldn't take him very far in court. The Bear doubted that Ivo would survive a long stretch in prison.

The Monkey had been incoherent most of the time, but he had had some lucid moments. The Bear remembered one in particular: "...and I gave them to him. I did. I did. But he wouldn’t stop. He's mad. I gave them to him." What had the Monkey been trying to say? What did he mean by ‘them’?

The Bear enjoyed his meal. He made a list on his table napkin of what the Monkey might have been referring to, but then he needed it to remove the cream sauce from his mustache. He thought the Monkey's demise was one of the better things that had happened to Bern that day. He felt sorry for Ivo. He also thought that the Chief Kripo, with yet another dead body on his hands — albeit the killer identified — would be shitting bricks.

Well, rank had its privileges.


* * * * *


It was Fitzduane's third or fourth visit to Simon Balac's studio after Erika von Graffenlaub had introduced the two men at Kuno Gonschior's vernissage. Simon didn't project the smoldering anger of so many creative artists, or the sense of insecurity heightened by years of rejection. His manner was charming and relaxed, but his conversational style was enlivened by a pointed wit. He was well informed and widely traveled. Good company, in fact.

Simon was often away at exhibitions or seeking creative inspiration, but when in Bern he kept what almost amounted to a salon. This took place every weekday between twelve and two, when the painter broke for lunch and conversation with his friends. For the rest of the day Simon was ruthless in guarding his privacy. The doors were locked and he painted.

Posters of Balac's various exhibitions held throughout Europe and America decorated one end of the converted warehouse down by Wasserwerkgasse. It was said that a Balac routinely commanded prices in excess of twenty thousand dollars. He painted fewer than a dozen or so a year, and many, after one showing, went immediately into bank vaults as investments. His corporate customers, keenly aware of his ability to market his output to maximum advantage, admired his business acumen as much as his artistic talent.

Socially he was much in demand. Balac was a good listener with the ability to draw others out and spend little time talking about himself, but Fitzduane gathered that he was an expatriate American who had originally come to the Continent to study art in Paris, Munich, and Florence and had then moved to Bern because of a woman.

"My affair with Sabine didn't last," he had said, "but with Bern, it did. Bern has been more faithful. She tolerates my little infidelities when I sample the delights of other cities because I always return. To me Bern has the attraction of an experienced woman. Innocence has novelty but experience has performance." He laughed as if to show that he didn't want to be taken seriously. It was hard to know where Balac stood on most issues. His warm, open manner, combined with his sense of humor, tended to conceal what lay beneath, and Fitzduane did not try to dig. He was content to enjoy the painter's hospitality and his company.

Sometimes the Irishman just wanted to relax. The three weeks he'd spent in Switzerland had been busy and dangerous. Apart from the immediate family, he'd interviewed more than sixty different people about Rudi von Graffenlaub. It might all be very interesting, and it might even lead somewhere — but relaxing it was not.

There was also the matter of the language. Most of the people the Irishman was dealing with seemed — seemed — to speak excellent English, but there was still a strain attached to conversation that was absent when both parties spoke a common language. As the day wore on and people got tired and drink flowed, the situation got worse. People reverted to their native tongues. Even the Bear had taken to suggesting he learn Berndeutsch. Fitzduane had replied that since most of the Irish didn't even speak their own language, such suggestions were on the foolish side of optimism.

The attendance at Balac's daily salon varied considerably from several dozen to zero depending on who knew he was back in town, other commitments, the weather, and one's appetite for basic food. Balac discouraged people who liked to treat his place as a handy location for a quick lunch, both by his manner and by minimizing the attractiveness of his table. Balac's was about talk and company — not gourmet cuisine and fine wines. There was a selection of cold meats and cheeses laid out on a table, and you drank beer. The fare never changed.

This was one of the quiet days, and since Fitzduane had come late and the others had departed early, for the first time the Irishman and Balac found themselves alone.

"You like our fair city, eh?" Balac said. He uncapped a Gurten beer and drank straight from the bottle. It seemed to Fitzduane that he cultivated the bohemian image when he was working. In the evenings, by contrast, he was polished and urbane. There was a touch of the actor about Balac.

"Well, I'm still here," said Fitzduane. He ate some Bündnerfleisch, thinly sliced beef that had been cured for many months in the mountain air.

"Are you any the wiser about Rudi?" asked Balac.

"A little, not much," said Fitzduane. He refilled his glass. He spent enough time in countries where either beer or glasses or both were lacking not to have learned to make the most of what was offered.

"Do you think you ever will find out more? Is it possible to know what truly motivates someone to take his own life — when he leaves no note? Surely all you can do is speculate, and what good does that do?"

"No," said Fitzduane, "I don't think I ever will find out the truth. I'm not sure I'll even come close to an intelligent guess. As to what good it does, I'm beginning to wonder. Perhaps all I wanted to do was bury a ghost, to put an unpleasant event in context. I don't really know." He smiled. "I guess if I can't work out my own motives, I'm not going to have much luck with Rudi. On the other hand, I have to admit that coming over here has made me feel better. I expect it is just being in a different environment."

"I'm a little surprised," said Balac. "I've read your book. You're an experienced combat photographer. Surely you've become accustomed to the sight of a violent death?"

"Aren't I lucky I'm not?" said Fitzduane

The conversation drifted on to art and then to that topic beloved by the expatriate: the peculiarities of host countries, in this case of the Swiss, and the Bernese in particular. Balac had a seemingly bottomless store of Bernese jokes and anecdotes.

Just before two o'clock Fitzduane stood up to go. He looked at the clock. "This is sort of like Cinderella in reverse," he said. "She had to leave because she switched images at midnight and didn't want to be found out. So what happens here after the doors close?"

Balac laughed. "You’ve got your stories mixed up," he said. "Having drunk the potion — in this case a liter of beer — I turn from Dr. Jekyll, the gregarious host, into Mr. Hyde, the obsessional painter."

Fitzduane looked at the large canvas that dominated the wall in front of him. No art expert, he would have called the style a cross between surreal and abstract — descriptions Balac rejected. The power of his imagery was immediate. It managed to convey suffering, violence, and beauty, all interrelated in the most astonishing way. Balac's talent could not be denied.

As he left, Fitzduane laughed to himself. He heard the multiple electronic locks of Balac's studio click behind him. He could see television monitors watching the entrance. Twenty thousand dollars a picture, he thought. Van Gogh, when he was alive, didn't need that kind of protection.

A little later as he window-shopped, the signs of Easter, from colored eggs to chocolate rabbits, everywhere, he thought about Etan, and he missed her.


* * * * *


Fitzduane watched the Learjet with Irish government markings glide to a halt.

The Lear was the Irish government's one and only executive jet, and it was supposed to be reserved for ministers and those of similar ilk. But Kilmara, he knew, liked to work the system.

"They wanted to send a reception committee," said Kilmara. "Good manners, the Swiss, but I said I'd prefer to use the time to talk to you first." He held his face up to the sky. "God, what beautiful weather," he said. "It was spitting cats and dogs when I left Baldonnel. I think I'll emigrate and become a banker."

"I take it you haven't flown over to wish me a Happy Easter," said Fitzduane.

Kilmara grinned. "An interesting Easter," he said. "Let's start with that."

They left Belpmoos, Bern's little airport, and drove to the apartment. They were followed by two unmarked police cars, and a team carrying automatic weapons guarded the building as they talked. At Belpmoos the Lear was held under armed guard and searched for explosive devices. It would be searched again prior to takeoff.

The Chief Kripo had enough embarrassing incidents piling up without adding the killing of Ireland's Commander of the Rangers to the pile.


* * * * *


"You've got to remember," said Kilmara, "that the Rangers are not mandated to be an investigation unit in Ireland." He grinned. "We're in the business of applying serious and deadly force when our nation-state requires it. We're considered a little uncouth to deal directly with the public. Detective work is the job of the police. Of course, we stretch things a bit, and we have our own contacts, but we're limited in what we can do directly." His mood changed. "It can be fucking frustrating."

"What was the reaction to the video?" said Fitzduane. It had been described to him by Kilmara after the Ranger colonel had first viewed it, but sight of the real thing added an extra dimension. People in animal masks running around his island didn't please him. It reminded him of the bloody history of the place when the first Fitzduane had moved in. What had that cult been called? The Sacrificers. They had been wiped out in fierce fighting. Stories of the conquest of the Sacrificers in the twelfth century were part of the Fitzduane family folklore.

Kilmara sighed. "I'm not too popular with our prime minister," he said, "which means his appointed flunkies, including our brain-damaged Minister for Justice, read the way the wind is blowing and think it good politics to fuck me around a little when the opportunity arises."

"Meaning?" said Fitzduane.

"Meaning that any further investigation of Draker is out," said Kilmara. "I did twist an arm or two earlier, and a couple of Special Branch friends spent a day there asking discreet questions, but to no avail — and then the minister received a phone call from the acting headmaster, and that was that. Besides, I have to say that I'm buggered if I know what we're supposed to be looking for. Sure, there have been three deaths, but there isn't a hint of foul play. Your intuition might have currency with me, but I can tell you it's a thin argument when dealing with the inertia of the average Irish politician. The parents of Draker kids are some very important people, and the school spends good money in the area. No one wants to upset a bunch of international movers and shakers and lose jobs into the bargain. It pains me to say it, but they have a point."

Fitzduane shrugged. "Rudi and one of the terrorists you took out in Kinnegad had the same tattoo. It now looks as if Vreni's absent boyfriend, Peter Haag, is the late and unlamented Dieter Kretz. We are talking serious linkage here. Then there is the matter of a bunch of guys dressed up like a druidic sacrificial cult."

"I've been through all this ad nauseum," said Kilmara. "We have to create a distinction between facts and the interpretation of those facts. At present the party line is that the Kinnegad business should be investigated with vigor but that it has nothing to do with Draker. Rudi's tattoo is only hearsay evidence since there is nothing actually on it in the file, and as for our animal-headed friends — so what? Dressing up in funny masks is part of every culture and certainly isn't ether a crime or even suspicious. Look at Halloween or the Wren boys at Christmas. The bottom line is that Draker is off limits, but other avenues we can pursue. And are."

"The idle thought occurs to me," said Fitzduane, "that your ongoing feud with the Taoiseach is becoming no small problem. I wonder why he does dislike you so. This thing has been going on since the Congo. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?"

"I took this job," said Kilmara, "because I hoped to find out who betrayed us back then. My friend the Taoiseach, Joseph Patrick Delaney, had the means, the motive, and the opportunity — but I have no proof. And meanwhile, I have to protect and work with the man."

"He has a certain Teflonlike quality," said Fitzduane. "I guess you could try tact."

"I do," said Kilmara. "I don't call him shithead to his face."

Fitzduane laughed. "Politicians," he said, and he was quoting. "‘Fuck ‘em all — the long and the short and the tall.’"

Kilmara smiled. "The Congo — the dear-old-now-called-Zaire fucked-up Congo. You bring back memories. But we were naïve then. You can't write off politicians that easily. Hell, everything's political. You're no mean politician yourself."

Fitzduane grunted.

Kilmara broke new ground. "Speaking of politics," he said, "remember Wiesbaden?"

"The BKA and its giant computer, the Kommissar," said Fitzduane. "Sure."

"Large organizations like the BKA are coalitions," said Kilmara, "lots of little factions pushing their own particular points of view, albeit within a common framework."

"Uh-huh," said Fitzduane.

"One of the factions within the BKA, a unit known as the Trogs — they work troglodyte fashion, underground in an air-conditioned basement — has been experimenting for some time with an expert system to work with the Kommissar. They call it the Kommissar's Nose." He smiled. "We have a special relationship with the Trogs."

Fitzduane was beginning to see the light. "A back channel?" he said. "You're not just getting the routine reports from the BKA. The Trogs give you chapter and verse."

"We trade," said Kilmara. "They wanted access to our files for a project they were working on, and then I was able to help them out through some contacts in other countries. It took off from there. We have most-favored-nation status with the Trogs."

He looked at Fitzduane and took his time continuing. "They think we may be able to help each other," he said.

"Who are they?"

"The computer guru of the unit is a Joachim Henssen. He's one of these people who work twenty-four hours at a stretch on the keyboard, live on junk food, and shave but once a month. He's a fucking genius. Administration is handled by a seconded street cop of the old school, a Chief Inspector Otto Kersdorf. Surprisingly they get on."

"An expert system," said Fitzduane, "If memory serves, is a kind of halfway house on the road to artificial intelligence — a computer thinking like a human."

Kilmara nodded. "Artificial intelligence is an aspiration. Expert systems are reality right now. Basically you figure out how humans do things and then program their approach into the computer. Human experts tend to reach conclusions through a series of intelligent guesses called heuristics. An expert system is based on a series of heuristics."

He grinned. "Here endeth the lesson — because here endeth my knowledge. I belong to a pre-Pac-Man generation."

"So the Trogs," said Fitzduane, thinking it through, "have come up with a software package that can analyze the mass of data accumulated by the Kommissar in much the same way as a bunch of smart, experienced policemen — something no human could do because there is too much computerized data to crunch through."

"With one qualification," said Kilmara. "It's not a proven system yet. That means the BKA top brass won't go public on it in case they end up with egg on their faces — which means what the Komissar's Nose is sniffing out isn't seeing the light of day. The Trogs are going nuts."

"But they've told you?"

"Unofficially," said Kilmara. "It could explain a lot if they are right — but there are many uncertainties involved."

"But you want to take a flier of the whole thing?"

Kilmara nodded. "They started off trawling through the Kommissar's data banks and noticed patterns," he said. "This led them to look at things on a more global basis — the U.S., the Middle East, and so on. Their findings have evolved into the hypothesis that one person has been behind a series of seemingly separate terrorist incidents over about a ten-year period. Common denominators include an excessive use of violence, a sick sense of humor, and a healthy respect for the bottom line. There is also a fondness for certain types of weaponry, including Skorpion machine pistols and Claymore directional mines.

"The Trogs call the mastermind a terrorist multinational. They say — and maybe they're not joking — that he thinks, operates, and organizes like a Harvard M.B.A. and probably has a gold American Express Card and his accounts audited by one of the Big Eight. They claim his pattern is to work globally through a variety of different subsidiary organizations."

He grinned. "Cynics in the BKA call this hypothetical master terrorist the Abominable No-Man. They say it's a wild theory and that Henssen is spaced. The Trogs reckon the only way to vindicate themselves is to track down this mythical being, and to do that, they need to bypass the bureaucracy and be closer to the action. They think there's a chance he may be based in Bern. It's a place to start, and there are quite a few pointers in this direction, including the gentleman you threw off the KirchenfeldBridge and his girlfriend, the chessboard girl.

"Anyway, the Trogs have proposed setting up a small unit here. All they want is a couple of rooms, good communications, and a computer terminal or two. They'll supply the secure modems to link with the Kommissar and the rest of the gear."

He looked around Fitzduane's borrowed apartment and smiled.

"You devious son of a bitch," said Fitzduane. "Where do the Bernese cops come into all this?"

"It's an unofficial operation with unofficial blessing," said Kilmara. "Chief Max Buissard is skeptical. Examining Magistrate von Beck is enthusiastic. The deal is that von Beck heads it up with your friend the Bear. The one proviso is that we row in with an official representative. That way, if anything goes wrong, the forces of law and order of three countries — Switzerland, Germany, and Ireland — will be in the shit together and the fallout will be better dissipated. It's an old bureaucratic trick."

"So who are you assigning? Günther? He likes computers."

"A newcomer would take time to get acclimatized," said Kilmara.

"Anyway, von Beck and the Bear want you in on this thing. The Chief Kripo says you've brought a crime wave with you and is muttering about your screwing up his statistics but will support your involvement if you have official status. The Federal Police are kind of morbidly curious to find out what you're going to come up with next. A bit of terrorism does wonders for their funding, and the Feds think they're deprived if they don't' have Porsches and this year's chopper to run around in.

"I want you in — officially now — because I think we're all holding on to different bits of the dragon without knowing quite what we've found. I want a man on the spot who already knows his way around and whom I can trust. Besides, I don't have anyone else who isn't gainfully employed. So what do you say? You'll have official status, which may prove handy the way the bodies are piling up."

Fitzduane sighed and spread his hands in resignation. There was a glint in his eyes.

"This all started with a morning constitutional," he said. "It's turning out like Vietnam."

"Don't complain," said Kilmara. "Vietnam was a photographer's war. Now, will you do it?"

"Why not?" said Fitzduane. "I've never worked with a Bear and an intelligent computer before."

"We'll call the operation Project K," said Kilmara, "on account of your upmarket location."

He tossed Fitzduane a bulky package.

"An Easter present," he said.

The package contained a bottle of Irish whiskey, fifty rounds of custom-loaded shotgun ammunition, and a lightweight Kevlar bulletproof vest.

"It's our standard How-to-get-on-in-Switzerland kit," said Kilmara.

Fitzduane looked up at him. "How did you know about the shotgun?"

"Von Beck told me you were lugging one around in your tripod bag," said Kilmara. "Besides, I remember your taste in weapons from the Congo."

"I gather you think I'll need this stuff."

"Haven't a clue, but it's no use running out with your Visa card when the shooting starts."

Fitzduane picked up one of the shotgun rounds. It was stenciled with the marking “XR-18.”

"What's this?"

"It's an experimental round," said Kilmara, "that we've cooked up ourselves. As you know, a shotgun pattern is useless against a man above fifty yards — and if you've any sense, you'll fire at less that half that distance. A solid slug has more range but poor accuracy. Well, we ran across a new discarding-sabot slug that will enable you to hit a torso-size target at up to two hundred yards. We combined it with some of the characteristics of the Glaser slug by filling it with liquid Teflon and other material. It works" — he paused — "rather well."

"Any good against dragons?" said Fitzduane.


* * * * *


Kadar held a flower in his hands. He plucked the petals one by one and watched them flutter to the ground. Already they have begun to decompose, he thought. Soon they will be part of the earth once more, and they will feed other flowers. More likely some developer will grab the location and stop the cycle with a few tons of concrete. Even beautifully preserved Bern was being nibbled at around the edges. But the old town, he was delighted to say, maintained it charmed life.

He decided he would make a donation to ProBern. Just because he was a terrorist didn't mean he couldn’t be concerned about the environment. Good grief, Europe was in danger of becoming an ecological desert — everything from mercury in the water to acid rain killing the trees. Half the men in the RuhrValley area were said to be sterile. There were too many people wanting too much in too small a space. Really, killing a few people was for the long-term good. Mother Earth needed some supporting firepower. He decided to send some money to Greenpeace, too. He had no desire to spend his retirement building up his radioactivity level so that he could read at night by the glow. Besides, he liked whales.

"It's tidying-up time," he said. "You know I like neat projects. Well, I want Geranium to be especially neat."

"How long do we have?" asked one of the five people sitting in a semicircle before him. He was a Lebanese who had freelanced for the PLO until the Mossad blew up his contact and two bodyguards and their armor-plated, totally untamperable-with Mercedes in Spain. He knew Bern well — they all did — and he traveled on a false Turkish passport. He had developed a strong bias against German cars and flinched inwardly every time a Mercedes taxi went by. He liked Bern because you could walk to most places or take a tram if time was pressing. You could kill to a schedule. Working for Kadar you soon learned to meet your deadlines.

"You each have your own timetable," said Kadar, "but the whole operation must be completed inside two weeks. Then we will rendezvous in Libya and finalize preparations for Geranium. By the end of May you will all be quite rich."

Kadar opened his rucksack and a large carryall and removed five packages. He gave one to each of the terrorists. "Each package contains your weapon, a and the envelope contains details of your targets, travel arrangements, tickets, and so on. I suggest that you read these details here so that I can answer any questions."

There was the rustle of paper as the envelopes were opened. One of the two women present used a switchblade that she wore strapped in a quick-release mechanism on the inside of her left forearm. Her name was Sylvie, and she had trained with Action Directe in France. Sylvie read her operations order and looked up at Kadar. His face was expressionless. He looked at the group.

"Perhaps you would like to examine your weapons," he said.

Each terrorist bent forward and began to open the package. Inside the external wrapping was a layer of polyethylene followed by waxed paper. Sachets of silica gel had been added to absorb any surplus moisture. The weapons were free of protective grease and, though unloaded, were otherwise ready for use. Soon one Czech-made VZ-61 Skorpion lay exposed, then two more. Sylvie had a 9 mm Ingram fitted with a silencer. She clipped a magazine into place and cocked the weapon.

The remaining terrorist — a Swiss who operated under the name of Siegfried — sat looking at the jagged half-meter splinter of polished stone he had unwrapped. Letters had been cut into it. His face was ashen. He looked up at Kadar. "You're playing a joke with me?"

"Well, yes — and then again, no," said Kadar. "It's not just any piece of stone, though I admit it's not the size it should be. I couldn’t carry the whole thing. Still, I'm sure you can work out the point."

Siegfried felt a fear he had never thought possible. It penetrated every fiber of his being. He knew he was shaking, but he was no longer able to control his body. His vision blurred; his mouth went dry. He thought of the people he had killed. He had always wondered what it felt like to be a victim. What did they think and feel when they looked down the barrel of his gun and knew that there was no way out, that nothing they could do or say would make any difference? Then he thought of all the work he had done for Kadar, and a wave of anger restored in him some slight ability to act.

"What — what do you mean?" The words came out in a jerky whisper so quiet they were almost drowned out by the sound of buzzing insects. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the treetops and flooded the clearing. "Why?" he said. "Why, why?"

"I pay well, as you know," said Kadar, "but I do demand obedience. Absolute obedience." He stressed every syllable.

"I haven't disobeyed you," said Siegfried.

"I'm afraid you have," said Kadar. "You were questioned two days ago by the Kripos. You were held for twenty-four hours and then released. Under those circumstances you should not have come to this meeting. You might have led the police to us."

"It was only a routine investigation. I told them nothing. They know nothing."

"You should have reported being held. You did not. A sin of omission, as Catholics would say."

"I wanted to work for you," said Siegfried. "Geranium is so close."

"Well, we can't have everything we want. Didn't they teach you that in nursery school?" Kadar looked at Sylvie. "In about thirty seconds." He looked back at Siegfried. "I thought you'd have recognized it," he said, indicating the polished stone. "It's a piece of gravestone. There wasn't time to have it properly inscribed."

The Ingram fires at the rate of twelve hundred rounds a minute — roughly twice the speed of the average hand-held automatic weapon. Sylvie blew her victim's head off with half of the thirty-two-round magazine in a fraction of a second.

Kadar was already on his feet. He pointed at the envelopes and wrapping paper that littered the ground in front of the four remaining terrorists. "As you know, I am concerned about the environment. I would take it kindly if you would remove this litter when you go."

"What about him?" asked the Lebanese, looking at Siegfried's splayed body.

"Not to worry," said Kadar, "he's biodegradable." With that Kadar vanished into the wood.


* * * * *


Ivo was still in Bern, no great distance from police headquarters, in fact, but the Kripos and Berps of the City of Bern could scarcely have been blamed for failing to recognize him: plain Ivo no longer existed. He had been replaced by someone much better suited to the task at hand, a figure of legendary courage and valor who would pursue his quest to the ends of the earth. What had started as a pleasing notion while waiting for the Monkey in the Hauptbahnhof had metamorphosed, in Ivo's drug-blasted mind, into fact. He was Sir Ivo, noble knight and hero.

In keeping with his new status, Sir Ivo had adopted a new mode of dress. Since armor and other knightly accoutrements were not readily available in downtown Bern, he had to improvise with a little judicious pillaging. In place of chain mail, he wore a one-piece scarlet leather motorcycle suit festooned with enough zippers and chains to clink and clank appropriately. Over it he wore a surcoat made from a designer sheet featuring hundreds of miniature Swiss flags and a cloak fashioned from brocade curtain material. Roller skates served as his horse, and a motorcycle helmet fitted with a tinted visor did service as his helm.

Sir Ivo knew that he had enemies, so he decided to disguise himself as a harmless troubadour. He slung a Spanish guitar around his neck. It was missing most of its strings, but that was somewhat irrelevant since the sound box had been cut away to serve as a combined scabbard, arms store, and commissary. The guitar itself contained a bloodstained sharpened motorcycle chain — referred to by Sir Ivo as his mace and chain — and half a dozen painted hard-boiled eggs.

In his new outfit Sir Ivo was bulkier, taller, and — with his helmet visor down — faceless. The valiant knight raised his visor and lit up a joint. He was giving serious thought to his next move. He was getting closer to the man who had killed Klaus, but the question was what he should do with the information he had already acquired. He thought it would be nice to have some help. He missed having Klaus to talk to. Working out what one should do next was a difficult business by oneself. He liked the idea of a band of knights, the Knights of the Round Table.

He now knew quite a lot about the killer, thanks to the Monkey, and he might have found out more if the knave hadn't tried to knife him. The Monkey had thought that Ivo wouldn't know how to fight. He might have been right about mere Ivo — but Sir Ivo was a different story. He had blocked the knife thrust effortlessly with his shield (the much-abused guitar, whose remaining strings were lost in the encounter) and then had cut the varlet down with a few strokes of his mace and chain. He had been somewhat aghast at the effects of his weapon but had suppressed his squeamishness with the thought that a knight must be used to the sight of blood.

Still, it was unfortunate that he had been forced to cut down the Monkey so soon. He now had a jumble of facts and impressions of the killer — possibly enough to identify him — but these were mixed up with the Monkey's lies and with information on other clients. In his panic the Monkey had spewed out everything that came to mind, and sifting the useful from the irrelevant wasn't easy.

Sir Ivo knew that thoroughness was part of knightliness, so he had written everything down and had even attempted various rough sketches based on the Monkey's descriptions. He knew what the inside of the room was like where the blindfolded Klaus and the Monkey — sometimes separately, sometimes together — had been taken. He knew what the man with the golden hair wanted sexually and, in detail, what they did. He knew that the golden hair was not real, but a wig that was not only a disguise but a representation of someone called Reston. He knew that the man spoke perfect Berndeutsch but was probably not Swiss. He knew many other things. He had a list of license plates, but the Monkey had made his ill-fated move before he had explained them.

Sir Ivo reached into his guitar and removed a hard-boiled egg. This one was painted bright red, the color of blood. It reminded him of the Monkey's face after the chain had hit, but he suppressed this faintheartedness and decided instead to regard it as an omen, a good omen. He was going to get his man — but he needed help.

He thought of the Bear, one policeman who had treated him like a human being. But no, the Bear wouldn’t do. A policeman might not understand about the Monkey. Questions would be asked. He couldn’t waste time with the police until this was all over.

He thought about the last person who had helped him, the Irishman. That was a good idea. He'd find the Irishman again and sound him out. If he reacted as expected, he'd show him his notes on what the Monkey had said, and they could find the killer together. Two knights weren't a round tableful, but it was a start. The Irishman would be easy to find. He had seen him around before, and Bern was a small town. His Swiss upbringing coming to the fore, Sir Ivo carefully placed the handful of scarlet pieces in a nearby litter bin and skated away on his mission.


* * * * *


The Kripos had questioned the old man, but he told them nothing. He had known Ivo for some time and had helped him and other dropouts with food and, occasionally, small sums of money. He had prospered in Bern, and since his wife had died and his children left, he had decided the time had come to put something back into the city that had been good to him. Quietly he had pursued a one-man campaign to help the less fortunate.

The Kripos knew what he did and respected him for it. They also knew, the way you do when you have been a policeman for some time, that he was lying when he said he hadn't seen Ivo, but there was little they could do except thank him for his time and leave, noting their reservations in their reports and resolving to try again in a week or two if nothing else turned up.

Kadar's two-strong team did not suffer from the same scruples. With the lessons of Siegfried's death still clear in their minds, they didn't fold their notebooks and depart when they saw that the old man was lying. The bound him and gagged him, and for the next ten minutes of his life they inflicted more pain on him than he had experienced in all his seventy-three years.

When he wanted to talk, they wouldn’t let him. The made him write out what he knew in a shaking hand, the gag still in his mouth. The apartment was small, and they wanted to make sure that he'd have no chance to cry for help. Then they tortured him again to confirm his story. It didn't change. His physique, despite his age, was strong. He endured the second bout of agony with his heart sill beating but with his guilt at having betrayed Ivo almost a greater pain.

Satisfied that at least they now had a description of Ivo in his newer image and that the old many had told them all he knew, they hanged him. They didn’t think it would take too long to find Ivo. Bern, after all, was a small town.


* * * * *


The Chief Kripo had been daydreaming. It was an understandable lapse given the hours he had been working recently, combined with the glow of sexual satisfaction resulting from a quick twenty minutes with Mathilde in her Brunnengasse apartment. He was still in a good mood when he picked up the phone. He recognized the pathologist's voice, which, he had to admit, he did not associate with good news. Cutting up corpses wasn't a very upbeat line of work.

"Ernst Kunzler," said the pathologist.

The Chief racked his brains. Then he remembered. Bern averaged about two suicides a week. This was the most recent. "The old man who hanged himself. Yes, I remember. What about him?"

"He didn't hang himself," said the pathologist. "He was helped on his way, but it's much worse than that."

His good mood suddenly vanished, the Chief Kripo began to feel sick.


* * * * *


Fitzduane had three people to see in Lenk, and besides, he had never actually been to a real live ski resort. Lenk wasn't a jet set sort of place where you got crowded off the ski slopes by ex-kings, movie stars, Arab sheikhs, and rumbles of bodyguards; it was more of a family place for the Swiss and certain cognoscenti. It was also off season and felt like it. Fitzduane was mildly shocked when he arrived in the valley where Lenk nestled. Something normally associated with ski resorts was missing. There were cows, there was brownish grass that looked as if it still had not decided that winter was quite over, there were chalets nestling into the hillside the way chalets should, and there were alpine flowers in profusion — but no snow.

The sun blazed down. He shaded his eyes, looked around and then upward, and instantly felt reassured. All those picture postcards hadn't lied. The village might be two-thirds asleep, but as his gaze rose, he could see ski lifts still in action. Farther up, the thin lines of the cables, the grass, and the tree line blended into the white glare of snow, and higher up still, multicolored dots zigged and zagged.

He thought he'd better get some sunglasses. As he paid, he remembered that inflation came with the snow line. Or, as Erika had put it, "Why should we have to pay twenty percent more for a few thousand meters of altitude?" The air was clear, the day warm, and the thin air invigorating. On balance Fitzduane thought it was a silly question.


* * * * *


Marta von Graffenlaub looked the part of the firstborn. In contrast with Andreas, Vreni, and Rudi, who were still in the transition stage into full maturity, Marta had arrived. She was no longer a girl but very much a woman: poised, assured, and cautiously friendly.

It was hot two levels up, where they met by arrangement, and they sat on the veranda of the chalet-style restaurant, watching the skiing and listening to the distinctive swish and hiss of wax against snow.

The bottom half of Marta wore padded ski trousers and bright red composite material ski boots. The top half wore a designer T-shirt that consisted mainly of holes. Fitzduane wondered if one or the other half wasn't too hot or too cold. She had a creamy gold tan and an almost perfect complexion. She radiated good health and energy, and her nipples were nearly as prominent as Erika's. Funny, he'd never thought of the Swiss as sexy before.

He suppressed an impulse to nibble a nipple and looked across the snow to where a cluster of tiny skiers was making him feel inadequate. He thought they were probably still in diapers. They all wore mirrored sunglasses and skied as if they had learned how inside the womb. He cheered up when one of the supertots suddenly sat down and started to cry like a normal child. The little monster was probably a part-time major in the Swiss Army.

"You're very quiet," said Marta with a smile. She had the disconcerting ability to keep her distance while sounding intimate. "You drive from Bern and then climb a mountain to see me, and then you don't speak."

"I'm in shock," said Fitzduane. He was drinking hot Glühwein, which seemed like the right thing to do when you were surrounded by snow but unwise when sweat was dripping off your Polaroids. "Those things remind me of helicopters" — he pointed at the ski lifts clanking past quietly about a hundred meters away — "and I don't like helicopters."

"Oh, they're quite safe," said Marta. "We are very experienced in these things here." She saw the Fitzduane's Polaroids had angled to nipple height, and she blushed faintly.

"Mmm," said Fitzduane. Apparently it was true that alcohol hit harder the higher the altitude. He went into the bar to get another Glühwein and a scotch for Marta. Everybody was clumping along the wooden floor with the rolling gait of B-movie gunslingers. He seemed to be the only person not wearing ski boots. The five-year-old in front of him selected what looked like a beer. He shook his head. Sometimes he missed Ireland. He squeezed his way back through the gunslingers and gave Marta her drink. "Do you yodel?" he said.

"Oskar used to yodel," she said very quietly.

"I thought it was like riding a bicycle," said Fitzduane, "once learned, never forgotten." He had been looking at a particularly spectacular demonstration of skiing prowess by an adult of indeterminate sex. For a moment he had missed the change in Marta's tone of voice. The skier misjudged his approach to the chalet and slammed into the wooden railings.

"Olé!" exclaimed Fitzduane. He started to clap, and others on the veranda followed. A furious-looking mid-European face, dignity severely dented, surfaced from the snow. He shouldered his skis and clomped off toward the ski lift.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Oskar Schupbach, you mean."

"Yes." There were tears in her eyes. "Damn," she said, and wiped them away. A little troop of ski boppers went past, chattering like sparrows.

"‘The man with the face that looked as if it were carved out of solid mahogany,’" quoted Fitzduane. "Vreni told me about him, and so did Andreas. I'm going to see him while I'm here."

"You can't," said Marta. "Oskar is dead."

"He's dead? But I spoke to him only yesterday!" said Fitzduane, taken aback. "I arranged to meet him this evening in the Simmenfälle, the place beside the waterfall."

"He liked the Simmenfälle," said Marta. "He often went there for a glass of wine and a game of jass. He used to meet clients there. He was a guide, you know."

"I know."

Marta was pensive. She ran a long golden finger around the rim of her glass. She stared out at the skiers on the slopes. "He taught me to ski. He taught us all. He was part of our growing up here. Always while we were here in Lenk, there was Oskar. We skied with him, we climbed with him, in summer we walked with him. It's almost impossible to believe he's gone. Just gone."

Marta was silent, and Fitzduane waited. He remembered Vreni's talking about Oskar in much the same way. What had the man known? Being so close the von Graffenlaub family, what had he seem or surmised — and who might have been aware of his suspicions? Perhaps he was jumping to conclusions. There might be nothing irregular about the guide's death.

"How did he die?"

Marta gave a slight start as Fitzduane's question broke into her reverie. "I don't know the details. All I know is that he had gone to meet a client in Simmenfälle. The client didn't show up, and while he was walking home, he was knocked down by a car. It was a hit and run."

"Did anyone see the accident?"

"I don't think so," said Marta, "but you'd have to ask the police."

Fitzduane watched his Glühwein getting cold. The he went inside and called the Bear. There was a pause at the other end before the Bear spoke. "I'll check with the local police," he said. "When are you seeing Felix Krane?"

"Tomorrow if I can," said Fitzduane. "I haven't managed to track him down yet."

"I'll arrange for one of the local cops to go with you," said the Bear. "It may cramp your style, but I don't like what's going on. "Where are you staying? I'll call you later."

"At the Simmenfälle."

There was another silence at the end of the line. Then the Bear sighed. "Don't go for any midnight walks," he said, "and keep your back to the wall."

"And don't talk to strangers," said Fitzduane.

"That's not so funny."

"No, it isn't."


* * * * *


The canton policeman was a good-humored sergeant named Franze, with a tanned round face setting off an impressively red nose. He had the work-roughened hands of a farmer, which, indeed, he was in his off-duty hours. He arrived in a Volkswagen Beetle, a near-twin of the antique that had transported Fitzduane to the Swiss Army base at Sand. It wheezed to a halt in front of the Simmenfälle as Fitzduane was finishing breakfast. The Irishman ordered an extra cup of coffee and, upon further reflection, a schnapps. The gesture was not unappreciated. Franze talked freely. Since Kilmara's visit, Fitzduane had official status, and the sergeant treated him as a policeman.

It transpired that Oskar Schupbach had been related to Sergeant Franze. Talking about Oskar's death visibly depressed the good sergeant, and Fitzduane ordered him another schnapps for purely medicinal reasons. It crossed Fitzduane's mind that breakfasts with Swiss police sergeants were beginning to fall into a pattern.

"Oskar," said Sergeant Franze, his good humor resurrected by the second schnapps, "was a fine man. I wish you could have met him."

"So do I," said Fitzduane. He was annoyed at himself for to having come to Lenk sooner. "But accidents will happen."

"It was no accident," said Franze angrily, "unless you can be accidentally run over twice by the same car."


* * * * *


On the short drive to Lenk and the cheese maker's where Felix Krane was working, they passed the spot where Oskar Schupbach had been killed. Sand had been sprinkled over the bloodstains, and Franze crossed himself as he pointed out the spot where the guide had died. Fitzduane felt cold and grim and had a premonition of worse things to come. Then the mood passed, and he thought about the making of cheese.

Fitzduane was fond of good cheese and regarded the master cheese maker's business with more than passing interest. A compact but expensively equipped shop in front — featuring a lavish array of mostly Swiss cheeses, each one shown off by a miniature banner featuring the coat of arms of the region of origin — led through to a miniature factory in the rear. Stainless steel vats and electronic monitoring equipment contrasted with a young apprentice's portioning butter by hand, using wooden paddles shaped like rectangular Ping Pong paddles. Each cheese was hand-stamped with the master cheese maker's mark.

The master cheese maker was a big, burly man with a luxuriant mustache to set off his smile. He was tieless, his shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he wore a long, white, crisply starched apron. Fitzduane thought he would do nicely in a barbershop quartet. Sergeant Franze spoke to him briefly, and then he turned to Fitzduane. "His name is Hans Müller," he said. He introduced Fitzduane. Müller beamed when he heard his name mentioned and pumped Fitzduane's arm vigorously. To judge by the size of the cheese maker's muscles, he had served his apprenticeship churning butter by hand.

"I have told him you are a friend of Oskar's," said Franze — Müller's face went solemn — "and that you want to see Felix Krane on a private matter."

"Is Krane here?" asked Fitzduane, looking around.

"No," said Franze, "he no longer works here regularly but does odd jobs. Now he is in the maturing store just outside of town. It's a cave excavated into the mountainside. Without any artificial air-conditioning, it keeps the cheese at exactly the right temperature and humidity. Krane turns the cheeses, among other jobs he does there."

Müller spoke again, gesturing around the building to where half a dozen workers and apprentices were carrying out different tasks. He sounded enthusiastic and beamed at Fitzduane. The sergeant turned toward Fitzduane. "He has noticed your interest in his place, and he wants to know if you would like to look around. He would be happy to explain everything."

Fitzduane nodded. "I would be most interested." Afterward Fitzduane had good reason to recall that informative hour and to speculate on what might have happened if they had left to find Felix Krane earlier. On balance, he decided it had probably saved his own life.

Unfortunately, in view of what he was about to find, he never felt quite the same way about cheese again.


* * * * *


They were on the shaded side of the valley, driving slowly up a side road set in close to the base of the mountains. Out of the sun the air was chill. Across the valley mountain peaks loomed high, causing Fitzduane to feel vaguely claustrophobic and to wonder what it must have been like before railways and mountain tunnels and roadways opened up the country. No wonder there was such a strong sense of local community in Switzerland. The terrain was such that for centuries you had little choice but to work with your neighbors if you were to survive.

Sergeant Franze was driving slowly. "What are you looking for?" asked Fitzduane.

"It's easy to miss," said Franze. "All you can see from the road is a gray painted iron door set into the mountain."

They could see a dark blue Ford panel truck parked up ahead. "There it is," said Franze, "about thirty meters before that truck."

Fitzduane couldn't see anything at first. The entrance was recessed and had weathered into much the same texture as the mountain. Then, when he was practically parallel and Franze was pulling in to park, he saw the iron door. It looked old, from another century, and there was a small grating set in it at eye level.

Franze walked ahead to the truck and peered inside, then walked back to where Fitzduane stood beside the iron door. "Nobody in it," he said. "Probably some deliveryman gone to have a pee."

An unlocked padlock hung from the hasp. Franze eased the door open. It was stiff and heavy but not too hard to handle. It was balanced so that it closed slowly behind them. Ahead lay a corridor long enough for the light from the door grating to get lost in the gloom. Franze looked around for a light switch. He flicked the switch but nothing happened.

"Shit," he said, "I didn't bring a flashlight. Still, it's not far."

It was cool but dry in the corridor. Fitzduane felt something crunch underfoot. It sounded like glass from a light bulb. "What's the layout?" he asked. The corridor curved, and the last vestiges of light from the grating vanished.

"This passage runs for about another forty meters and then splits into three," said Franze. "The cheese storage is on the right, so if you hug the right-hand wall, you can't miss it."

"What about the other passages?"

"The middle cavern is empty, I think," said Franze. "The one on the left is used by the army. You know there are weapons dumps, thousands of them, concealed all over the country."

Fitzduane digested the idea of storing cheese and armaments together and decided it was a nonrunner for Ireland. "Why not give Krane a shout?" he said. "We could do with some light. There seems to be glass everywhere." He thought he could hear voices but very faintly. He paused to listen.

Suddenly there were screams, a series of screams, all the more unsettling for being muffled. The screaming abruptly terminated in a noise that brought memories jarring back into Fitzduane's brain. There was no sound quite like the chunk of a heavy blade biting into human flesh.

"Mein Gott!" said Franze in a whisper. Three was silence apart from his breathing. "Herr Fitzduane, are you armed?"

"Yes." He slid the shotgun from it s case and extended the collapsible metal stock. He pumped an XR-18 round into the chamber and wished he had an opportunity to test-fire a few rounds first. He heard Franze, ten paces ahead of him, work the slide of his automatic.

The darkness was absolute. He tried to picture the layout in his mind. They must be close to where the passage widened and split into three. That would mean some kind of lobby first, more room to maneuver. He felt vulnerable in the narrow passage. There was a slight breeze on his face, and he heard a door opening ahead of him.

"Krane!" shouted Franze, who seemed to have moved forward another couple of paces. He shouted again, and the noise echoed from the stone walls. "Maybe he has had an accident," he said to Fitzduane. "One of those cheese racks may have fallen on him. You stay where you are. I'm going ahead to see."

Fitzduane kept silent; he did not share Franze's optimism. Every nerve ending screamed danger, and he concentrated on the elemental task of staying alive. When it happened, it would happen fast. There was the sound of fumbling. Fitzduane guessed that Franze was looking for a lighter. He moved from crouching on one knee to the prone position and began to wriggle forward in combat infantryman's fashion, using his elbows, holding his weapon ready to fire. Every two or three paces he held his weapon in one hand and with his free hand felt around him. The passage was widening. He moved toward the middle so that he could maneuver in any direction.

Franze's lighter flashed and then went out. Fitzduane could see that Franze, who was right-handed, was holding the lighter in his left hand far out from his body. His automatic was extended at eye level in his right hand. It was not the posture of a man who thought he was investigating a simple industrial accident. Fitzduane hoped that Franze had the combat sense to change positions before he tried the lighter again. As he thought this, he rolled quickly to a fresh location, painfully aware of how exposed they were. Darkness was their sole cover.

He had a sense that there was someone else in the tunnel with them. He could hear nothing, but the feeling was strong and his skin crawled. He wanted to warn Franze, but he remained silent, unwilling to reveal his position, ad prayed that the policeman had detected the intruder as well. He heard the faintest sound of metal rubbing against stone. The sound was to his left, roughly parallel with Franze. His imagination was playing tricks. He heard the sound again and thought he could hear breathing. The hell with appearing a fool, he thought. He heard the sound of Franze's lighter again. The policeman hadn't moved from his original position.

"Drop right, Franze!" he shouted, rolling right as he did so. In a blur of movement he saw that Franze's lighter had flared again. For a split second its light glinted off bloody steel before the lighter tumbled to the ground, still gripped in the fingers of the policeman's severed left arm. Franze screamed, and Fitzduane's mind went numb with shock. The sound of movement down the corridor toward the outer door snapped him back to his senses.

He pushed Franze flat on the cold stone floor as a flash of muzzle blast stabbed toward them and bullets ricocheted off stone and metal. He tried to sink himself into the solid stone. Two further bursts were fired, and he recognized the sound of an Ingram fitted with a silencer. The outer door clanged shut. His left hand was warm and sticky, and Franze was breathing in short, irregular gasps.

He felt again with his left hand. He touched inert fingers and the warm metal of the lighter top. He placed the shotgun on the ground and with his two hands removed the lighter from the severed arm. He needed help. It seemed probable that whoever else had been there, Krane perhaps, was gone. He had thought that there had been two people, but he couldn’t be sure. Christ, it was like Vietnam again, yet another fucking tunnel. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he could feel the vibration of bombing in the distance. He fought to control himself and realized that the vibration was a heavy truck grinding up the road outside, where it was daylight and life was normal.

He flicked the lighter, and the flame caught immediately. Franze was slumped on the ground where he had been pushed, conscious but in shock. Blood was pouring from the stump of his left arm. It had been severed above the elbow.

Fitzduane removed his belt and tightened it above the stump until the flow had almost stopped. It was tricky work because he needed both hands for the tourniquet, so he had to let the lighter go out and work in darkness. His hands and clothing became saturated in blood. He spoke reassuringly to Franze, but there was no response, and the policeman's skin felt cold. He needed medical attention immediately. The wound itself wasn’t fatal, but Fitzduane had seen lesser casualties go into deep shock and die after the loss of so much blood, and the sergeant was no longer young.

He helped the policeman back along the passage to the outer doorway. His spirits lifted when he saw the glimmer of light that signaled they were approaching the iron door and the road. It was difficult work. Franze was heavy. He lacked the strength of help himself, so in the end Fitzduane carried him in a fireman's lift. When he tried to open the iron door, he found with a sickened feeling that it was locked on the outside.

He moved the policeman back about ten paces and then went to retrieve his shotgun. Franze's arm lay close by. He left it where it lay and then, not sure what could be accomplished with microsurgery, took off his ski jacket, wrapped the arm in it, and, with the shotgun in his other hand, returned to Franze. "Keep your head down," he said. The policeman barely reacted.

Fitzduane had little faith that the shotgun would have much effect against the iron door, but it was worth trying. He stood about two meters back and pointed his weapon at the lock. He fired twice, working the slide quickly to deliver two concentrated blows in the minimum time.

The results lived up to Kilmara's promise. The brittle iron of the door shattered like a shell casing when the XR-18's 450-grain sabot rounds struck it. Shards of iron clanged onto the roadway, and light flooded into the passage. Fitzduane pushed the remains of the door open and helped Franze outside.

A few yards up the road Müller had just gotten out of his car. The master cheese maker had a presentation box in his hand. He looked at Fitzduane, shotgun still smoking, covered in blood and supporting the policeman. His brain couldn’t take in the situation at first, his face registering total disbelief; then he dropped the presentation box and ran forward. Together they helped Franze into the car and covered him with a blanket.

"A flashlight?" said Fitzduane. Have you got one?" He searched for the right word in German and cursed his lack of languages. He pantomimed what he wanted. Müller nodded, opened the trunk of his car, and extracted a powerful battery searchlight. Fitzduane grabbed it and pushed Müller into the driver's seat.

"Hospital and police — Hospital und Polizei — go!" shouted Fitzduane. He banged on the roof of the car, and Müller roared away, one arm extended in a wave of acknowledgment.

Fitzduane replaced the two spent cartridges and moved back into the passage. He advanced up it in combat fashion, the Remington held at the ready. He doubted that there was any remaining danger, but he could see no reason for behaving like a total fool. He knew if he had any real sense of self-preservation, he would have waited for the police, but he hadn't the patience.

He saw that every light along the passageway had been systematically broken. This served the double purpose of providing the cover of darkness for an escape and an early-warning system; any new arrival would have to crunch across the glass. The door into the cheese maturing room was open. It was a long, narrow room filled with row after row of wooden racking, each rack filled with wheels of cheese and graded by type and age and size.

There was a pair of large porcelain sinks in the far corner of the room. He shone the powerful light toward them. The sinks and the tiling around them were splashed with fresh blood. He played the beam downward, following the splash marks. A body, dressed in a once-white overall now sodden with blood, lay slumped on the floor. The corpse was headless. Fitzduane moved closer to examine the body but remained several paces away. The tiled floor was sticky with blood. It looked as though the victim had been bent headfirst over the sink as if for a ritual execution. Fitzduane could imagine the horror of the doomed man as his neck was pressed against the cold surface.

He looked into the sinks, but there was no sign of the head. He examined the floor, also with negative results, and began to wonder why the head had been taken away. As proof of a job completed? To the bizarre sense of humor displayed there, and he knew what he would find. He moved the light back to the racks of cheeses and began examining each row of impeccably aligned wheels. It didn't take long. Though he was prepared for the sight, the reality made his stomach turn. Felix Krane's head stared at him from between two maturing wheels of Müller's Finest High Pasture.

Fitzduane went back to the road and waited for the police. The parked van was gone. He didn’t remember its being there when he had emerged from the tunnel with Franze. The presentation box of cheese lay on the ground where Müller had dropped it. Fitzduane left it there.


* * * * *


"Be prepared," said Kadar to no one in particular, for he was alone, and he gave a three-fingered Boy Scout salute.

The deep freeze, a catering-size chest unit over two meters long, was kept in a concealed and locked storage room in the adjoining premises, owned by Kadar but registered to a cutout. In fact, in keeping with his normal practice of having an escape route always available, Kadar owned the entire small block. By way of hidden doors, he could travel from one end of the block to the other without ever having to use the street. Kadar wasn't entirely happy having the freezer with its incriminating contents so near, but he considered his precautions reasonable, and the important point was that he could get at what he wanted without delay.

He entered the small, brightly lit room and closed and relocked the door behind him before punching in the code that would release the freezer lid. He glanced at the abundance of food inside. The top layer was sorted by category in wire baskets. He liked things neat. He removed a wire basket of frozen vegetables and then one of fish. The next contained poultry. The last basket was filled with game birds, mainly pheasant although quail and several other species were also represented. He had gone though a pheasant phase not so long ago, until he chipped a tooth on a piece of buckshot — the idiot hunter must have thought pheasants were the size of vultures because the shot was from a number four load — and was forced to visit the dentist. This boring experience had not been without its advantages, though it had put him off pheasant for a while. While lying back in the dentist's chair, he had begun to plan his own death. This exercise was not unenjoyable, despite the circumstances, for it involved the dentist's death, too.

He admitted to himself that the basic idea wasn't original, but he didn't suffer from the classic engineers' disease of NIH — “Not Invented Here,” and therefore useless. In any case he had improved on the original pattern, thanks to his casual discovery — through the one-sided small talk that dentists enjoy while the victim lies gagged and helpless — that this particular dentist, the appallingly expensive but highly successful Dr. Ernst Wenger, was an unusually prudent man. Swiss to the core and Bernese from toe to toupee, he not only kept excellent dental records in his office — what else would you expect of someone who was also a supply officer, a major in fact, in the Swiss Army? — but kept a reserve set, updated weekly, in his bank. Dr. Wenger kept a substantial portfolio of bearer bonds and other securities in the same location, but considering the success of his practice, if he had been asked to choose which he would prefer to lose — dental records or financial papers — it would have been no contest. His dental records were the key to what he called his “private gold mine.” Dr. Wenger enjoyed his little jokes. His patients, on average, did not.

Kadar placed the last basket on the floor beside the deep freeze, then looked back into the unit. Nothing had changed since his last inspection, which was reassuring if scarcely surprising. He didn't really expect the occupant to be found munching frozen peas or to have grown a mustache to while away the time. Frozen corpses tended to be low on the activity scale. Kadar leaned on the insulated rim of the freezer and spoke encouragingly. "Your time will come, have no fear." He smiled for good measure.

Inside the deep freeze, well frosted over, Paul Straub lay unmoving. The expression of horror, panic, despair, and downright disbelief on his face, frozen into perpetuity, indicated his general lack of enthusiasm for his fate. He had been drugged, bound into immobility, then place alive in the deep freeze. His last sight before the lid and darkness descended was of a basket of frozen chickens. As a vegetarian he might have particularly objected to this. He had been frozen to death, his only offense being a certain similarity in height, weight and general physiognomy to Kadar — and the fact that he had been a patient of Dr. Wenger's.

Kadar leaned farther over, reached into the freezer, and tapped the corpse. It felt reassuringly solid. The refrigeration was working fine. He had considered using supercold liquid nitrogen, which would minimize tissue destruction — it was used for semen and strawberries, to name but two critical applications — but when he considered what was going to happen to the corpse, Kadar settled for a more conventional solution.

He straightened himself and began replacing the baskets. Just before he replaced the last one, he looked at the late Paul Straub's frozen head. The eyes were frozen open but iced over. "Don't blame me," said Kadar. "Blame that damn pheasant." He dropped the basket into place. He felt quite satisfied as he left the room and heard the locks snap into place behind him. All in all, given the imperfections of the material he was working with, things were going quite well.


Загрузка...