19
As originally conceived, Project K was to be a low-key support operation, close enough to the people at the sharp end to cut out bureaucratic delay but modest in scope and scale. The killings in Lenk changed things overnight.
Convinced that time was running out, Charlie von Beck had turned Fitzduane's apartment into an around-the-clock command center. When Fitzduane found that a Digital Equipment Corporation multiterminal minicomputer was being installed in his bedroom, he took the hint and moved into a spare room in the Bear's Saali apartment. It didn't have black silk sheets and a mirror over the bed, but the Bear's cuisine would have merited three stars from Michelin if ever its reviewer had dropped in, and besides, the Bear had bought himself a bigger gun — which, the way things were going, was comforting.
Von Beck had encountered some opposition to basing Project K in ‘nonofficial premises,’ but he had countered with the comment that if Brigadier Masson could run the Swiss intelligence service during the Second World War from a floor in Bern's Schweizerhof Hotel the secluded apartment off Kirchenfeldstrasse was good enough for him.
The occupants of the other three apartments in the small block — wholly owned by Beat von Graffenlaub — were amicably moved out by appeals to their patriotism and their pockets. Once the last of them left, von Beck tightened security still further.
* * * * *
As Fitzduane, the Bear, and, from time to time, other members of the Project K team spoke, Beat von Graffenlaub began to look increasingly disturbed. As always, the lawyer was immaculately tailored, but the elegance of his clothes no longer seemed integrated and he had lost weight. The arrogance of wealth was no longer so apparent in his manner.
"And what do you call this man, this corrupter of lives?" he said in a low, angry voice.
Henssen indicated that he would answer. "When he was nothing more than a statistical anomaly, my cynical colleagues in the BKA christened him the Abominable No-Man. Now that is not so funny anymore."
"The Hangman," said the Bear. "We've given him the code name ‘the Hangman’"
Von Graffenlaub looked at Fitzduane.
"We believe the Hangman exists," said Kersdorf quietly, "but it would be idle to pretend that our view is widely held. Conventional investigations parallel the work we are doing. Even your own Chief of Police is skeptical."
"In strict legal terms," sand von Beck, "we have very little proof." His rather formal tone was counterbalanced by his attire. He was wearing a pink sweatshirt labeled SKUNKWORKS. The group of snoozing skunks stenciled on it all wore bow ties.
"And if your heuristics — your intelligent guesses — are wrong," said von Graffenlaub, "you have cumulative error in your deductions increased by the massive power of your computing system."
"Those are the risks," agreed Hanssen.
"The only thing is," said Chief Inspector Kersdorf, "nobody else has come up with any coherent explanation of what has been happening."
Von Graffenlaub drank some Perrier. His hand was shaking slightly as he drank. He put the glass down and bowed his head in thought. The group around him remained silent, and they could hear the faint hiss of bubbles bursting. He raised his head and looked at each man in turn. His gaze stopped at Fitzduane.
"This man, a stranger, was concerned enough to want to know why a young man should die so horribly," he said. "Rudi was my son and, with his twin sister, Vreni, my lastborn. I can assure you that I'm not going to back out now. You'd better tell me everything — both what you know and what you suspect. Don't try to spare my feelings. You had better start with Rudi's involvement with this — this Hangman."
"And your wife's," said Fitzduane.
"Erika," said von Graffenlaub. "Yes, yes, of course." He was whispering, and there were tears running down his cheeks.
Fitzduane felt terribly, terribly sad. He was looking at a man being destroyed, and there was no way anymore to stop what would happen. He put his hand on von Graffenlaub's shoulder, but there wasn't anything he could say.
* * * * *
As if by agreement, the others left Fitzduane alone with von Graffenlaub. What had to be said was unpleasant enough without the embarrassment of having the entire group present.
"I'll be as brief as I can," said Fitzduane, "and I'll concentrate on conclusions rather than reasons. We can go through the logic of our reasoning afterward if you wish. We've already told you about the Hangman, and we'll come to what we know about him — and that's quite a lot — later, but right now I want to focus on one point, the Hangman's method of operation. His objectives seem to be financial rather than ideological — mixed, I suspect, with a general desire to fuck the system and a macabre sense of humor. His method seems to be to tap into, and harness, the natural energies and causes that already exist. He doesn't need a coherent ideology. Each little group is built around its own obsession, and the Hangman creams off the financial result.
"He likes dealing with impressionable people. Many of his followers — and most of them wouldn’t think of themselves as his followers but as members of some specific smaller group — are young and idealistic and sexually highly active. He uses what's available, and we have reason to believe that sexuality is one such tool. It has long featured in secret rites and initiations and is a classic bonding and manipulative lever. Consider, for example, sexuality in satanic rites or pre-Christian ceremonies, or, inversely, the absence of sex in the Catholic orders.
"In addition to his use of sexuality as a manipulative tool, and perhaps as a consequence of it, we believe that the Hangman has sexual problems of his own. He seems to have both heterosexual and homosexual inclinations, and these are mixed up with pronounced sadomachistic behavior of the most extreme sort."
"In short, he is a maniac," said von Graffenlaub, "a monster."
"Maybe," said Fitzduane, "but if we are to catch him, that's not the way to think of him. He probably looks and behaves quite normally, much like you or me."
"And who knows what unusual behavior lurks beneath our prosaic exteriors?" said von Graffenlaub thoughtfully.
"Just so," said Fitzduane.
* * * * *
Frau Raemy had finished her shopping and was indulging herself with a coffee and a very small pastry, or two, at an outdoor café in the Bärenplatz. She was pleased because she had been able to find on sale the pear liqueur that her husband, Gerhard, so enjoyed, and three bottles of it now reposed in the sturdy canvas shopping bag on the ground beside her.
Gerhard, fed enough liqueur after his evening meal, became quite tolerable, mellow even, and later on, in bed, he tended to fall asleep immediately and what Frau Raemy thought of as ‘that business’ could be avoided. Really, with both of them in their late fifties, it was about time that Gerhard found another activity to amuse himself with — perhaps stamp collecting or carpentry. On the other hand, perhaps it was not so bad after twenty-eight years of marriage her man continued to find her desirable.
She smiled to herself. Sitting in the sun in the Bärenplatz was most pleasant. She enjoyed the passing parade, all these colorful characters.
A figure wearing a large cloak, face obscured by a motorcycle helmet, and with a guitar slung from his neck, glided to a stop in front of her and glanced around. Then, with an abrupt movement, he slid off into the crowd.
Frau Raemy didn't watch him go. There was a blur, a muffled coughing sound, and then she was staring in some confusion at her shopping bag, which had suddenly sprouted a ragged cluster of bullet holes. From the shattered bottles the aroma of pear liqueur filled the air.
Her mind, quite simply, could not cope with what had happened. She didn't got to the police. She placed her shopping bag in a litter bin, holding it at arm's length and keeping her face averted as she did so. Then she bought replacements in Loeb's and took the tram home.
She didn't speak for two days.
* * * * *
"Why did you choose this place?" asked the Lebanese. He glanced around Der Falken. The café was two-thirds full of characters who might have been lifted straight from the set of a Fellini film. Most of the men seemed to have beards and earrings and big black hats and tattered jeans. You could tell the girls because most of them didn't have beards. Both sexes drank beer and milk shakes and smoked hash. There was a relentless conformity to their outrageousness. Almost no one was over twenty-five, and the sunken eyes and general skin pallor suggested that few were aspiring to longevity.
"No mystery," said Sylvie. "I wanted to get you off the street but fast. For fuck's sake, you missed the bastard."
The Lebanese shrugged apologetically. "He moved just as I fired. It couldn't be helped. He moves so fast on those skates. At least no one seemed to notice anything. The Skorpion silencer is most effective."
"We haven't got much time," said Sylvie. You know Kadar."
"Only too well," said the Lebanese grimly.
"Next time we'll get in close," said Sylvie, "and there will be no mistakes."
The Lebanese drained his beer and said nothing. He flicked a speck of dust off his lapel and then examined with pleasure his polished alligator shoes. Fuck Kadar, fuck Ivo, and fuck Sylvie, he thought. He came back to Sylvie and looked at her appraisingly.
She met his gaze and shook her head. "You're the wrong sex."
* * * * *
"Rudi was an almost perfect candidate for manipulation," said Fitzduane, "an accident looking for a place to happen. Most teenagers rebel against their parents to some extent, as you well know. Adolescence is a time of great confusion, of searching for identity, of championing new causes. When teenagers reject one set of values, a need for a replacement is created. Nature abhors an ideological vacuum as much as any other kind.
"Two conflicting views are often expressed about divorce: one is that children are permanently damaged by the whole process; the other is that children are naturally adaptable and have no real problem dealing with two fathers and three mothers or whatever. I don't know what the general pattern is, but I do know that in this specific case your divorce from Claire and your marriage to Erika created chaos. All your children were affected, as best I can judge, but none more so than Rudi — with Vreni a not-so-close second. But I'll concentrate on Rudi.
"Rudi started his lonely rebellion by rejecting your establishment values. His beliefs received an initial impetus from his mother, who was interested, I'm told, in a more liberal and caring society than you."
"We used to share the same views," said von Graffenlaub wearily, "but I had to deal with the real world while Claire had the luxury — thanks to my money — to theorize and dream of Utopia. I had to fight, to do unpleasant things, to make harsh decisions, to compromise my principles because that's the way the world is. I had to deal with facts, not fantasy."
"Be that as it may," said Fitzduane, "the problem was compounded by several other factors. First, Rudi was exceptionally intelligent, energetic, and intense — the classic moody bright kid. He didn't just feel rebellious; he wanted to do something specific. The led to the next development: he started investigating you, reading your files and so on, and lo and behold, he stumbles across Daddy's interest in Vaybon — and Vaybon is just as corrupt as he imagined."
"He misunderstood what he found," said von Graffenlaub. "Vaybon is a massive organization, and most of what it does is quite aboveboard. He happened to discover a summary of wrongdoings — exceptions to the general pattern of behavior — that I was trying to clean up. Instead of appreciating that he was looking at only a small piece of the picture, he assumed that my entire world was corrupt. He wouldn’t listen to reason."
"You're not at your most rational in your teens," said Fitzduane, "and you're feeding me a fair amount of bullshit about Vaybon, but I'll let it pass for the moment because I want to talk about Rudi and not a multinational whose collective executive hands are very far from clean."
Von Graffenlaub flinched perceptibly but didn't speak. He was thinking of the initial idealism he had shared with Claire and then of the seemingly inexorable series of compromises and decisions — always for the greater good — that had led to such a debasement of his original values.
Fitzduane continued. "We then come to the burning of the papers Rudi had stolen, and Claire's death. His mother's death changed the scale of Rudi's rebellion and removed a restraining influence. He blamed you, the system, and the world for his unhappiness, and he began to believe that the most extreme measures would be needed to change things. Also, he wanted more than change; he wanted revenge, and for that he needed help. He started with the AKO and other extremist elements. They don't mess about with inefficient old democracy. They cut to the heart of the matter: The existing Swiss system has to be destroyed completely, and violence is the only way.
"I don't know how deeply Rudi got involved with the AKO," continued Fitzduane, "but I suggest that he was more involved than even his twin sister suspected. I believe he was being cultivated as a sleeper. Given his position, your position, if you will, he was too valuable to lose to routine police infiltration, so it was made out that he was only a sympathizer — a terrorist groupie, as I said to Vreni. I think he was almost certainly much more, or, at least, was destined for frontline activity.
"But police action cut deep into the heart of the AKO and other terrorist organizations, and this left Rudi with a problem. He needed a framework in which to operate, and his original mentors were in prison or dead or in hiding. It was at this stage that Erika entered the scene, no doubt after a series of initial plays. In Rudi we have a mixed-up, sexually active young man reacting against conventional values, who wants revenge on his father and to destroy the system. In your wife Erika — and you're not going to like this — we have a rich, bored, amoral, and sexually voracious woman of stunning physical attractiveness, who likes to indulge her whims and is constantly looking for new thrills, fresh excitement, to satisfy an increasingly jaded appetite. In addition, we suspect that she is involved with the singularly dangerous individual we have called the Hangman."
"Are you sure of this?"
"Am I sure that your wife is rich, bored, amoral, and sexually voracious? In a word, yes. Bern is a small town, and I've talked to a lot of people. Am I sure about her connection with the Hangman? No, I have no proof. I merely have a series of linking factors which point that way."
"Please continue," said von Graffenlaub quietly.
"The next major incident was sexual," said Fitzduane. "As best I can reconstruct it, it occurred during what was officially a normal family holiday in Lenk. Erika, Rudi, Vreni, their friend Felix, and, I believe, the Hangman were involved. A seduction, an orgy, a series of orgies — I don't have the details, and they are not important except that you should know that your wife undoubtedly slept with your son, and so did one or more of the men. I don't know whether he was naturally homosexual or whether this was part of his rebellion against conventional values, but homosexuality was certainly a factor in his life-style, and physical evidence was certainly a factor in his life-style, and physical evidence from the autopsy confirmed this. As for his sleeping with Erika, this was revenge in its sweetest form."
"Oskar must have suspected something," said von Graffenlaub. He spoke to me, but he was embarrassed, and the subject was dropped. I didn't know what he was talking about. I never considered such a possibility in my wildest dreams. It's... it's incredible."
"Poor Oskar," said Fitzduane. "Imagine his dilemma. He probably suspected a great deal, but what could he know for sure? And how could he voice his suspicions without insulting you? Would you have believed him if he had been more specific?"
"No," said von Graffenlaub, "of course not. Not without proof."
"And now Oskar is dead."
"And so is Felix Krane," said von Graffenlaub heavily. "What is happening? Are there no limits to this lunacy? What is this Hangman trying to do?"
"To understand the Hangman, you've got to think in different terms," said Fitzduane. "At the present time we think he is tidying up loose ends, though we don't know why. His behavior is not consistent. One explanation for what he is doing now is his need to eliminate those who could identify him, but at the same time he is taking unnecessary chances. His behavior is marked by a combination of cold rationality and what one might describe as impetuous arrogance. This latter quality seems to extend to his people. They are willing to take extraordinary risks to accomplish their objectives. It seems clear that they are far more afraid of failing the Hangman than of being caught by us. On the basis of what we know of the Hangman, maybe they've got a point.
"One thing we are not sure of: If you've crossed the Hangman's path, you're at higher risk, which is why we recommend you retain security for yourself and the rest of your family, particularly your children. What you do about Erika is something you'll have to work out for yourself. Just make sure you tell her as little as possible. Remember, her games may not be confined to sex. They could extend to violence."
"There are limits to what I can accept," said von Graffenlaub. "Since the time you called from Lenk, I have arranged for armed guards to look after every member of my family, and that includes my wife. She may be promiscuous, but she is not a killer."
Fitzduane was silent. He looked at von Graffenlaub. "Think of your children, and think carefully. You're all in greater danger than you have ever been in before. Don't try to be noble at the risk of your own flesh and blood."
Von Graffenlaub shrugged helplessly. "What else can I do? I will consider what you are saying, of course, but... I cannot, I cannot abandon my wife just like that."
"Thee will be some police protection as well," said Fitzduane, "but the police don't have the manpower to protect everyone individually without more proof than we've got."
"You have already talked to my wife?" In von Graffenlaub's tone it was half a question, half a statement.
"She hasn’t told you?"
"She said you had dinner together after the vernissage," said von Graffenlaub, "nothing more."
"Hmm," said Fitzduane, feeling vaguely uncomfortable as he recalled that epic evening. He pulled himself together. "Actually we have talked together on several occasions," he continued, "and most recently she has been questioned officially by Sergeant Raufman. She is alternately charming and dismissive, perhaps even a little cynical. She looks amused and denies everything, and she's most convincing."
Von Graffenlaub sat mute, appalled at the idea of hearing more, yet compelled by his own desperate need for the truth to stay and listen.
"The island where I live," said Fitzduane, "where Rudi's college is, has been my family seat since the twelfth century. Getting established on the island initially was a bloody business. The land was conquered by force, and the main opposition was a druidic cult known as the Sacrificers. They used to wear animal head masks while practicing their rituals. Rather like the thugs of India, the Sacrificers preyed on innocent people, robbing and killing them, as a way of worshiping their gods. Over the centuries dozens of mass graves filled with the bones of their victims have been found, which helps to explain why the island is so deserted even now. Fitzduane's Island, even in our supposedly enlightened times, is considered cursed and no fit place for a good Christian to live."
"I read something about it," said von Graffenlaub, "in a section of a brochure put out by DrakerCollege. But what does a long-dead cult have to do with all this? The Sacrificers were wiped out more than seven hundred years ago."
"Well, imagine the appeal of such an organization to young people like Rudi. An independent structure, secret and violent and dedicated. To a rebellious adolescent, you can see the attractiveness of it. To a man like the Hangman, such an organization would be ideal."
"Preposterous," said von Graffenlaub. "These are wild surmises."
Fitzduane nodded. "You're quite right. Much of this is guesswork. I have no proof that Rudi was a member of any cult, much less one involving the Hangman. But the fact of his tattoo, which has been associated with the Hangman, remains. Otherwise the object of all this — game playing or something more serious — is far from clear. Now let me show you something."
Fitzduane clicked the video made by the Rangers into place and pressed the play button. On its completion he placed a slim plastic folder containing letters in front of the momentarily speechless von Graffenlaub.
"That video was made after Rudi's death," said Fitzduane. "That pleasant-looking little group was observed coming from Draker. The masks, need I say, make identification impossible."
"So why do you think Rudi was involved?" Von Graffenlaub's voice was weary. "His tattoo — except for the circle of flowers, it is a common enough design. It signifies protest, nothing more. He could have picked it up anywhere."
Fitzduane opened the file of letters. He showed one to von Graffenlaub. "You recognize the writing?"
Von Graffenlaub nodded. "Rudi's," he said sadly. He rubbed the paper between his fingers as if this would somehow bring his dead son closer.
"Rudi was alienated from you," said Fitzduane, "and his mother was dead. He was almost too close to Vreni. He needed someone to confide in who had some perspective. He started writing to Marta. What he wrote is neither entirely clear nor totally incriminating, but if you put it together with what we now know through other means, a reasonable interpretation is that he joined some sort of cult, found himself involved in something he couldn’t handle, tried to leave — and then found there was no way out."
"So he killed himself."
"No," said Fitzduane. "I don't think so, or at least not willingly. I think he was either murdered or forced to commit suicide, which amounts to the same thing. Probably we shall never know."
"May I have his letters?"
"Of course." Fitzduane had already made copies in anticipation of this contingency. They made depressing reading. He remembered an extract from the last letter, written less than a week before Rudi's death:
Matinka,
I wish I could tell you what is really going on, but I can't. I'm sworn to secrecy. I thought it was what should be done, but now I know more, and I'm not sure it's right anymore. I've been doing a lot of thinking. This is a good place to think. It's so empty compared with Switzerland, and there is always the noise of the sea. It's surreal, not like real life.
But I have to get away. You'll probably see me sooner than you expect. Perhaps things will look better when I'm back in Bern.
Von Graffenlaub had been scanning the letter. "Why didn't Marta show this to me?" he said.
Fitzduane sighed. "By the time that particular letter arrived, Rudi was dead," he said. "I guess she thought, what's the point."
* * * * *
The Bear and Charlie von Beck were sitting in the next room when Fitzduane came in after his talk with von Graffenlaub. The Bear removed his headphones and switched off the tape recorder. "Has he gone?"
"Yes," said Fitzduane. "He's got a plane to catch, some negotiations in progress in New York. He'll be away for a week."
"Plenty of time to think," said von Beck.
"Yes, poor sod," said Fitzduane. "I don't like what we're doing."
"We apply pressure where we can," said the Bear, "and hope that something gives. It's crude and it isn't fair, but it's what works."
"Sometimes," said Fitzduane.
"Sometimes is enough," said the Bear.
"I don't think von Graffenlaub is involved," said von Beck.
"No," agreed the Bear, "but who is better placed to lean on Erika?"
"Aren't you afraid of what may happen?" said Fitzduane.
"Do you mean, do I think von Graffenlaub may attack her, perhaps kill her? Not really. But even if he does, do we have a choice? The Hangman isn't a single case of murder; he's a plague. He's got to be stopped."
"The greater good."
"Something like that," said the Bear. "but if it helps you any, I don't like it either."
Fitzduane poured himself a drink. He was drained after the long session with von Graffenlaub, and the whiskey felt smooth against his throat. He poured himself another and added more ice. The Bear was lighting his pipe and looking at him over the top.
"‘How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’" quoted Fitzduane.
"Not once," said the Bear, "since you're asking."
"Sherlock Holmes. Don't they teach you Bernese anything apart from languages?"
"Good manners, for one," said the Bear. "Let me remind you of another Holmes dictum: ‘It is a capital mistake to theorize before one had data.’"
"That was before computers," said Fitzduane, "not to mention expert systems. Anyway, the trouble with this case isn't lack of data. We're drowning in it. What we're short of are conclusions, not to mention proof."
"They also teach us patience in Bern," said the Bear.
"That's not one of Ireland's national characteristics."
"But what's this about the elusive Ivo?" von Beck broke in. "What headway is being made there?"
"Sir Ivo," said Fitzduane. "He thinks he's a knight in shining armor. I didn't recognize him at first. I was coming out of a bank on the Bärenplatz when this weird figure in a cloak and crash helmet slid up on roller skates and started to talk to me. Before I could say much more than a social ‘Who the hell are you?’ he'd vanished again. He did much the same thing twice more as I was crossing the square and then pressed a note into my hand. I damn nearly shot him."
Von Beck shuddered. "I wish you wouldn’t say things like that," he said. "Shooting people is un-Swiss. Which reminds me — the authorities in Lenk want to know who's going to pay for the iron door you blasted. Apparently it doesn't belong to the cheese maker; it's Gemeinde property."
Fitzduane laughed. Von Beck tried to look serious and authoritarian, which wasn't so easy in his SKUNKWORKS sweatshirt.
"Wait till you see the bill," he said. "It's no laughing matter. The Gemeinde claims it was an antique door of considerable historical value. They also want to give you an award for saving Sergeant Franze's life — but that's a separate issue."
"You're kidding me."
"Certainly not," said von Beck. "In Switzerland we take the destruction of property most seriously."
"Ivo," said the Bear.
"Ah, yes," said von Beck. "What does the note say?"
"It's a typical Ivo message," said the Bear, "not straightforward. He uses drawings and poetry and so on. But the meaning is clear. He wants to meet Fitzduane tomorrow at High Noon, the café at the corner of the Bärenplatz, at midday. He must come alone. No police. And it's about Klaus Minder. Ivo has information about his killer."
"Ivo's a screwball," said von Beck, "and he's already killed one man. Is it worth the risk? We don't want our Irishman slashed to death before he's paid for the door in Lenk — even if it would make our Chief of Criminal Police happy."
"It's a risk," said the Bear, "but I don't think a serious one. It's clear that Ivo has taken a liking to Fitzduane, and I don't think he's essentially violent. I'll lay odds what happened to the Monkey was provoked in some way."
"Want to risk it?" said von Beck to Fitzduane. "We'll have you well covered."
"If the city pays for the door in Lenk."
Von Beck looked pained.
Henssen came in, smiling. "Progress," he announced. "We've done another run. If all our heuristics are correct, we've narrowed down the suspect list to only eight thousand."
Von Beck looked depressed. "I hate computers," he said as he left the room.
"What's up with him?" said Henssen. "I was only joking."
"Budget problems," said the Bear.
* * * * *
Fitzduane put down his glass. The shotgun, an XR-18 round chambered, safety on, lay concealed in the tripod case beside the beer. There was no sign of Ivo. He checked his watch: three minutes to noon. He remembered what Charlie von Beck had said: "Ivo might be a screwball, but he's a Swiss screwball." Ivo would be on time.
The Bear, von Beck himself, and six detectives, including one borrowed from the Federal Police, had been allocated to back up Fitzduane, and it had seemed like overkill when they were running through the plan. Now, looking at the teeming crowds and the area to be covered, he wasn't so sure.
He ran through the plan again. The Bärenplatz was a large, rectangular open space with outdoor cafés lining the sunny side. The center of the space had been closed off to traffic and was filled with market stalls. Today seemed especially busy. There were flower stands in profusion, hucksters selling leatherwear and homemade sweets and organically grown just-about-everything. About thirty meters away a crowd had gathered to watch some jugglers and a fire-eater perform.
The Bärenplatz wasn't a nice neat shoebox with one entrance. Far from it: it was impossible to seal off without much greater manpower than was available. One end led into Spitalgasse, one of the main shopping streets, providing endless opportunities for escape; the other end of the square bordered the Bündesplatz, the even larger open area in front of the Federal Parliament building. To cap it all off, Ivo would probably be on roller skates, which meant he could move considerably faster than the police. Fitzduane had raised the matter with von Beck, who had laughed and said that an earlier suggestion that some detectives might wear skates had nearly given the Chief Kripo a heart attack.
The compromise was two detectives on motorcycles. Fitzduane looked at the jugglers and the fire-eater and the dense crowds and had bad vibes about the whole thing. On the other hand, he admitted to himself, he was biased. He would have liked to have seen the Bear on skates.
The High Noon was in one corner of the Bärenplatz within a few yards of the Käfigturm, the PrisonTower, which divided what was essentially one street into Spitalgasse and Marktgasse.
Ivo had stipulated no police, and the Bear, who knew him well, had been adamant. If Ivo wasn't to be frightened away, the backup force would have to be well concealed. "Ivo," the Bear had said, tapping his nose, "may be odd, but he's no fool. He can smell a cop — and he's got a good sense of smell. Believe me."
They did. All of which put the onus on Fitzduane and good communications. The idea was that Ivo wouldn't be arrested until he had had a chance to say whatever was on his mind. Only then, at Fitzduane's signal, would the trap be sprung. Fitzduane drank some beer and tried to feel less uneasy with his role. He felt like a Judas. Ivo, a lonely soul who needed help more than anything else, trusted him.
The taped wires of the concealed transmitter itched, but he resisted the temptation to scratch under his shirt. He pressed the transmitter switch that was taped to his left wrist under his shirt cuff. The gesture looked as if he were consulting his watch. He heard an answering click from the Bear, who, together with the federal policeman, was sitting on the second-floor veranda of a tearoom more or less directly across from where Fitzduane sat. This gave the Bear a bird's-eye view of the operation, and it kept him out of Ivo's sight. He was, however, too far away from the High Noon to make the actual arrest. That would be the responsibility of the two detectives concealed in the kitchen. The task force was linked by two radio nets. One channel was restricted to Fitzduane and the Bear. The second channel was netted between the Bear and all the other members of his team. The setup should work fine unless the Bear go this transmission buttons mixed up.
The clock in the PrisonTower struck noon.
* * * * *
Frau Hunziker looked up in surprise as the door opened.
"Herr von Graffenlaub," she said, a little flustered. "I didn't expect you until next week. I thought you were in New York. Is something wrong?"
Beat von Graffenlaub smiled at her gently. The smile was incongruous because his eyes were hollow from lack of sleep and his whole demeanor projected stress and worry. He had aged in the past few days. My God, he's an old man, she thought for the first time.
"You and I, Frau Hunziker," he said, "have some arrangements to make."
"I don't understand," said Frau Hunziker. "Everything is in order as far as I know."
"You do an excellent job, my dear Frau Hunziker, excellent, quite excellent." He stood in the doorway of his office. "No interruptions until after lunch. Then I will need you. No interruptions at all. Is that quite clear?"
"Yes, Herr von Graffenlaub." She heard the lock click in the door. She was concerned. Herr von Graffenlaub had never behaved this way before, and he was looking terrible. Perhaps she should do something. She looked up at the clock on the wall. It was just after midday, two hours until her employer would need her. But training and discipline reasserted themselves, and she returned to her work.
* * * * *
Moving at speed, Ivo emerged from behind the jugglers, sideslipped gracefully between a mother and her dallying gaggle of children, looped around a flower stall, and glissaded to a halt in front of Fitzduane. He slid his visor up with a click. Behind him the fire-eater started to do something antisocial. Fitzduane hoped the mother was keeping count of her children: the smallest looked as if he were planning to get fried.
"Hello, Irishman," said Ivo. "I'm glad you came."
"I hope I am," said Fitzduane. "The last time we met I nearly got shot."
"Nothing will happen today," said Ivo. "I am invisible to my enemies. I have special powers, you know."
"Nothing personal," said Fitzduane, "but it's not you I'm worried about. I don't have any magic skates, not even a broomstick, and there are people out there with decidedly unpleasant habits."
Ivo sat down across the table from Fitzduane and with the grace of a conjurer produced two brightly painted eggs from the depths of his guitar and began to juggle with them. His special powers obviously didn't extend to juggling, and Fitzduane waited for the accident to happen. He hoped that Ivo had used an egg timer, or he was likely to need a fresh shirt. The display was morbidly fascinating. One egg went unilateral and thudded onto the table in front of Fitzduane.
There was no explosion of yellow; it just lay there cracked.
Ivo shrugged and began removing the shell. "I can never decide which color to eat first," he said.
Fitzduane pushed the salt cellar across the table. "It's one of life's great dilemmas," he said. "Something to drink?"
A waiter was standing by their table, looking at Ivo with ill-concealed distaste. He wrinkled his nose as the light breeze demonstrated the less visible aspects of knightly behavior, and he looked around to see if the other customers seemed to have noticed the smell. Fortunately it was late for morning coffee and early for lunch. The tables were nearly empty. In his own idiosyncratic way, Fitzduane decided, Ivo was a smart screwball, and polite, too. He was sitting downwind of Fitzduane.
"One of those," said Ivo, pointing at Fitzduane's beer.
Fitzduane looked up at the waiter, who seemed to be debating about accepting the order. Fitzduane was not entirely unsympathetic, but the time didn't seem right for a discussion of personal hygiene. "My eccentric but very rich and influential friend," he said, "would like a beer." He smiled and placed a hundred-franc note on the table, weighting it in place with his empty beer bottle.
The waiter's scruples vanished at much the same speed as the hundred-franc note. Fitzduane thought that with such manual dexterity the waiter would be a safer bet with the colored eggs than Ivo.
"Would the gentleman like anything else?" asked the waiter. "Perhaps something to eat?"
"The gentleman's diet permits only a certain type of egg, which, as you can see, he carries with him, but more salt would be appreciated." Fitzduane indicated the nearly empty cellar.
Ivo moved on to the second egg. "I've written a book," he said, his mouth half full. "a book of poems." He reached inside the guitar and produced a soiled but bulky package, which he pushed across the table to Fitzduane. "It's about my friend Klaus and the man who killed him."
"Klaus Minder?"
"Yes," said Ivo, "my friend Klaus." He was silent. Then he put some salt on the side of his left thumb. He drank some beer and licked the salt. "Like tequila," he said.
"You're missing the lemon," said Fitzduane.
"Klaus is dead, you know. I miss him. I need a friend. Will you be my friend? We can find out who killed Klaus together."
"I thought you knew who killed Klaus."
"I know some things — quite a lot of things — but not all things. I need help. Will you help?"
Fitzduane looked at him. Sir Ivo, he thought, was not such a bad invention. There was a noble and sturdy spirit inside that slight physique, though whether it would ever have a chance of fulfillment was a very moot point. He thought of the loaded gun on the table beside him and the police team waiting and the years in prison or in some mental institution that Ivo faced, and he hated himself for what he was doing. He held his hand out to him. "I'll do what I can," he said. "I'll be your friend."
Ivo removed his helmet. He was smiling from ear to ear. He seized Fitzduane's hand in both of his. "I knew you would help," he said, "I knew it. It will be like the Knights of the Round Table, won't it?"
Then his head exploded.
The long burst had hit him in the back of the skull, perforating and smashing the bone into fragments and blowing these and blood and brain matter out through the front of his mouth in a fountain of death. Fitzduane flung himself to the ground as a second burst of fire smashed into Ivo's back and threw him across the table. Arterial blood sprayed into the air and formed a pink, frothy puddle with the spilled beer.
The attacker, on roller skates, shrouded in a long brown robe, and with face concealed, slid forward and grabbed Ivo's package from the table, stuffed it inside his robe, and darted away into the crowd, a silencer-fitted machine gun in his hands.
There was a spurt of flame and cries of agony as the fire-eater was brutally shouldered aside by the fleeing assassin and burning liquid spewed inadvertently over a crowd of onlookers. People screamed and scattered in every direction. Baby carriages were overturned, stalls were crushed in the press of bodies, and complete pandemonium broke out.
The Bear looked on aghast, barking instructions into the radio and trying to deploy his people but constrained by the chaos below. From his vantage point he could see what was happening, but he was temporarily powerless to intervene.
If the police deployment was hindered by the panicking crowd, the attacker was having his own problems weaving in and out of the mêlée. His very speed was at times a hindrance, and several times he crashed into an obstacle or fell. Frustrated in the center of the Bärenplatz, the attacker, who had been heading in a roughly diagonal line toward the Bündesplatz, cut back to cross the square at an angle that would bring him almost directly below the balcony where the Bear and the federal detective were stationed.
"He's doubled back," said the Bear into his radio. "He's going to pass under us. I think he's headed up this side toward the Bündesplatz. Mobile One, corner of the Bärenplatz and Schauplatzgasse. Go!"
Mobile One, an unmarked police BMW motorcycle ridden by a detective who did hill climbing in his spare time, roared up Amthausgasse toward the corner as instructed, only to fall foul of a diplomatic protection team that was escorting a delegation from the Upper Voltan Embassy making an official visit to the Bundeshaus, the Federal Parliament.
The diplomatic protection team, seeing the unmarked motorcycle cut through the uniformed police outriders toward the official-flag-flying Upper Voltan Mercedes full of diplomats in tribal robes, performed as trained. An escorting police car swung across in front of the BMW, sending it into a violent skid that culminated under the nose of the Swiss foreign minister, who was waiting, together with a retinue of officials, to greet his distinguished guests. The hill-climbing detective, clad in racing leathers, rose shakily to his feet, his pistol butt protruding from the half-open zipper of his jacket. The first reaction of the dazed man when faced by all this officialdom was to reach for identification, whereupon he was shot in the shoulder.
The Bear's side of the square, being out of the sun and gloomy, was less crowded. "I think I can get a shot at him," said the federal detective. He leaned out across the balcony, wrecking a window box, and clasped his 9 mm SIG service automatic in both hands.
"Leave it," said the Bear. "There are too many people."
He spoke into the radio again. With the aid of Mobile One it looked as if they might just be able to get the assassin. He hadn't seen Mobile One's unfortunate encounter with the Upper Voltans. His other teams were converging as directed, albeit more slowly than he would have liked. He kept Mobile Two in Spitalgasse to backstop any sudden changes in direction. Reinforcements were being rushed from police headquarters only a few blocks away in Waisenhausplatz, but he guessed the whole affair would be over by the time they arrived.
Covered in the blood and tissue that had been Ivo, and holding the Remington at high port, Fitzduane presented a truly fear-inspiring sight. Rage pumping energy through his entire being, he ran across the square behind the killer, followed by one of the detectives who had been concealed in the High Noon's kitchen. It was no contest. No matter how fast they ran, the twisting and turning killer, seen in brief glimpses as he maneuvered through the crowd, was gaining. Once he reached the emptier part of the square, he could put on more speed and be out of sight in seconds.
Fitzduane crashed into a flower stall, spilling hundreds of impeccably arranged blooms to the ground. His breath rasping in his throat, he picked himself up and ran on. Behind him, the detective, his gun drawn, skidded on the carpet of petals and pitched into a stall selling organic bread, sending loaves cartwheeling in every direction.
"I can get him," said the federal detective on the balcony. He cursed when a crying child ran behind the killer, causing him to hold his fire for a split second. It was all the margin the killer needed. He could see the federal detective clearly outlined as he leaned out across the balcony.
He pivoted as the detective fired, the round smashing into the ground beside him, and in an extension of the same elegant movement, he brought up his weapon and fired a long burst along the balcony, causing the Bear to dive for cover and stitching a bloody counterpoint across the federal detective's diamond-pattern sweater. He slumped across the balcony, a stream of scarlet pouring from his mouth. Glass from the shattered tearoom windows tinkled to the ground. Moving at lightning speed, the killer skated toward the ground-floor doorway of the tearoom, changed magazines, and recocked his weapon. He was now directly under the Bear, who swore in frustration and ran for the stairs, knowing he'd be too late but forced to do something.
The killer scanned the square for pursuers and fired a wide burst over the crowds, shattering more windows and causing almost all the onlookers to fling themselves to the ground. Satisfied that he had bought himself the time he needed for his final dash to the corner of the Bärenplatz, where Sylvie waited with a motorcycle, he sprint-skated toward safety.
The killer's suppressing fire had given Fitzduane the clear shot he needed. From a range of 120 meters, using the XR-18 sabot rounds, he fired twice, blowing the killer's torso into a bloody mess all over the front of the Union Bank of Switzerland.
* * * * *
Oblivious of the carnage taking place just a short distance from his Marktgasse office, Beat von Graffenlaub paused in his writing and put down his pen. Hands clasped in front of him, he sat back in his chair for several minutes without moving. So much wealth, so much power and influence, so much failure. An image of Erika, young and fresh and beautiful as he had first known her, dissolved into the distorted face of his dead son. Sweat broke out on his brow. He felt sick and alone.
His movements neat and precise despite his nausea, he took a small brass key secured by a chain from his vest pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer of his desk. Inside lay a lightweight shoulder holster and harness and a 9 mm Walther P-38 German Army service pistol. He had killed to get it and killed to keep it, but that was forty years ago, when his ideals were still fresh, before the corrosion of life had set in.
He checked the pistol, pleased to see that it was in perfect working order. He inserted a clip of ammunition and a round in the chamber and placed the weapon on the desk beside him. He picked up his pen again and continued writing. Tears stained his cheeks, but he wiped them away before they marked the paper.