8
Connemara RegionalHospital
February 1
Kilmara surveyed Fitzduane's hospital room.
Fitzduane, propped up into a sitting position by his bed, was wearing a T-shirt over his bandaged torso and actually did not look medical for a change. He was pale and had lost weight, but there was some color in his cheeks and his eyes were sharp and alert. The T-shirt had a picture of a group of skunks on the front and was printed with the word "SKUNKWORKS!"
Fitzduane noticed his glance. "The Bear sent it over," he said.
Kilmara grinned. "And while we're on that substantial subject, how is the Bear?"
Police sergeant Heini Raufman, the Bear, was a large, overweight Bernese policeman with a heavy walrus moustache, a gruff manner, and a taste for large guns, which. like many Swiss, he shot exceedingly well. He and Fitzduane had become very close during the hunt for the Hangman in Bern, and they had fought together during the siege of Fitzduane's castle. Subsequently, the Bear, a widower, had remarried. Fitzduane had been the best man.
Fitzduane smiled. "He's still officially with the Bernese Kriminalpolizei, but he's got some kind of liaison sweetheart deal with the Swiss federal authorities. He's not doing normal cop work anymore. He's not getting normal pay, either. He is into counterterrorist work and similar exotic territory."
Kilmara was not surprised. The Bear was the kind of man that you might easily pigeonhole as no more than a solid street cop who had reached his level. But appearances were deceptive, though useful in his line of work. The Bear had a subtle brain. It wasn't surprising that it was being used at last.
Mind you, he could be a little short on patience. When Fitzduane had first met the Bear, the detective had been in disgrace for thumping some German diplomat who had got out of line at a reception. Bern, being the Swiss capital, was full of diplomats with nothing to do except fornicate and drink and look at the bears. All the diplomatic action took place in Geneva and the financial in Zurich.
Kilmara remembered Fitzduane's smile. He was still smiling — expectantly. "Am I missing something?" Kilmara inquired politely.
"I need a gun permit," said Fitzduane.
"You've got a gun permit," said Kilmara, "not that the lack of one has ever seemed to worry you." Fitzduane's extensive gun collection in his castle was not quite in conformity with the Irish legal system.
"A rather large gun permit," continued Fitzduane. "Or perhaps I should say I need a permit for a rather large gun."
Kilmara raised his eyebrows as the lightbulb blinked on. "For a rather large man," he said.
"You're razor-sharp today," said Fitzduane agreeably. "The Swiss seem to think I may need some protection, so they are lending me the Bear."
"More likely they smell blood and would prefer the bodies pile up in this jurisdiction than theirs," said Kilmara. "Can't say I blame them." He stood up and started looking in a cabinet that Fitzduane had had brought in for the wandering thirsty. A modest selection of bottles greeted him. There was a small fridge and ice-maker built into the lower half.
"I thought this thing looked familiar," he said. "Want one?"
"Not yet," said Fitzduane. He waited until Kilmara had mixed himself a large Irish whiskey. The General sipped it appreciatively and resumed his seat.
"They tell me alcohol and getting shot don't mix," said Fitzduane. "I'm drinking fizzy water, though I'm not sure how long my resolution will last."
Kilmara looked shocked at this statement of sobriety. He took another drink. There was nothing to beat good Irish whiskey, even if the major Irish distillers were now owned by the French.
He looked back at Fitzduane, then gestured toward a three-inch pile of folders on the bedside table. "You've read the files, Hugo?"
Fitzduane nodded. "At last," he said, with a grimace of impatience. "The medics have not allowed anything more stressful than Bugs Bunny until recently."
"I'd like your perspective," said Kilmara — he smiled — "seeing as how you are intimately involved. There is nothing like being shot at to encourage tight focus."
Fitzduane gave a very slight smile in response. "Very droll," he said. Then he looked down at a yellow legal pad. "Let me start with a summary. There is a lot of stuff here."
"Summarize away," said Kilmara.
"The actual hit," said Fitzduane, "was carried out by three members of a Japanese terrorist group called Yaibo, the Cutting Edge. They would be a run-of-the-mill bunch of extremist nuts except for their track record of viciousness and effectiveness. Whereas most terrorist groups are ninety-five percent talk, Yaibo focuses on action. The secret of their success seems to be their leader, a very smart lady in her mid-thirties called Reiko Oshima.
"Yaibo's motive," continued Fitzduane, "seemed clear enough at first. A direct connection has been traced between Yaibo and the Hangman's group. And to make it more personal, it looks like Reiko Oshima and the Hangman were lovers for a while — though scarcely on an exclusive basis."
"So far so good," said Kilmara. "And though a bunch of us were involved in the Hangman's demise, Yaibo picked on you because you did the actual deed. Hell, you killed their leader's lover with your very own hands. This isn't just business. She really does not like you."
Fitzduane sipped some water. "Well, it all looked fairly straightforward," he said, "until I read on. Suddenly, a nice clean-cut terrorist revenge hit gets complicated. It turns out that Yaibo is not the freewheeling bunch of bloodthirsty fanatics they would like us to believe. Instead we find out that Yaibo had been involved with a series of killings that seems to have benefited a fast-rising Japanese group known as the Namaka Corporation. Your American friends in Tokyo have linked the Hangman to the Namakas. So what we have here is an outwardly respectable Japanese keiretsu which uses a bunch of terrorists for its dirty work. And a further implication is that the hit was ordered by the Namakas and is not Yaibo's little notion. It was, you might say, a corporate decision."
"That's supposition," said Kilmara.
Fitzduane shrugged. "The connection between Yaibo and the Namakas might not stand up in a court of law, but it will do for me. But I agree on the issue of who ordered the hit. It could have been the Namakas, but it could equally have been a lower-level initiative by Yaibo."
"Do you have an opinion?" said Kilmara.
"Not yet," said Fitzduane. "There is absolutely no hard evidence one way or another. But what does puzzle me is the orientation of much of this stuff against the Namakas. On the face of it Yaibo is the logical candidate, and yet the main thrust of these reports is that the Namakas should be taken out. Hell, the Namakas are nearly as big as Sony. This is heavy."
Kilmara swirled his ice. "The main accusations against the Namakas," he said, "come from Langley's operation in Tokyo. You may care to know that it is currently headed by the unlovable Schwanberg."
Fitzduane looked puzzled.
"Let's flash back nearly twenty years," said Kilmara, "when you were rushing around South Vietnam with a camera trying to get yourself killed and on the front cover of Time."
"And Schwanberg was racking up the body count under the Phoenix program, only the VC cadres he was having killed weren't VC," said Fitzduane. "I thought the CIA threw him out. Hell, he was an unpleasant piece of work."
"He was connected," said Kilmara, "and ruthless fucks like Schwanberg can have their uses. He worked in Greece under the colonels and did a spell in Chile, then was posted to Japan as an old Asia hand. And the rest is history. The CIA have many good people, but scum floats to the top and does not always get skimmed off."
Fitzduane rubbed his chin. He was suddenly looking very tired. His friend was definitely making progress, observed Kilmara, but there was a long way to go. "So Schwanberg has it in for the Namakas for some reason," said Fitzduane. "So where does that leave us?"
"With you getting some rest," said Kilmara, "and me and my boys doing some more digging. Remember, Schwanberg may have his own agenda regarding the Namakas, but that does not mean he is wrong."
"Watch Schwanberg," said Fitzduane. "I remember him cutting the tongue out of someone he claimed was a VC suspect. She was thirteen years of age. This is not a nice man."
Kilmara stood up and drained his whiskey. "Get some sleep, Hugo," he said. "Don't overdo. We need you fit and well."
Fitzduane smiled weakly. It was maddening how little stamina he had. But it was returning.
He closed his eyes and within seconds was asleep.
* * * * *
The West of Ireland
February 1
Except for certain detective units, the Republic of Ireland's national police force, the Garda Siochana — literally, Guardians of the Peace — are unarmed. They strike many people, who do not know better, as being likable but somewhat traditional and, not to put too fine a point on it, slow.
On the other hand, the gardai, many of whom come from rural backgrounds, have their own ways of doing things, and on the top of the list is knowing exactly who is who and what is what on their own patches.
This is not always so easy in the cities. In rural Ireland, especially outside the tourist season, every stranger is noted and observed by someone. And sooner or later — if the sergeant is doing his job right and knows how to work with rather than against the local population — that information finds its way back to the local police station.
In the case of a Northern Irish accent, which is quite distinctive to an inhabitant of the Republic, that information tends to find its way to the gardai very fast indeed. There are, of course, a few pockets of sympathizers — less than one percent of the population, if the voting rolls are to be believed — but there were no such pockets in the area around Connemara Regional.
Routine radio communications were in the clear. Intelligence reports were treated more carefully and were communicated by secure fax to Garda Headquarters in Dublin and from there to the desk of General Shane Kilmara, commander of Ireland's antiterrorist force, the Rangers.
As it happens, Kilmara was not there when the intelligence report arrived. He was in the West of Ireland.
* * * * *
Kathleen's father, Noel Fleming, had been a successful builder in Dublin for many years before retiring early to the West of Ireland during one of Ireland's all-too-frequent economic downturns.
In his spare time he had liked to paint, and the light and scenery of the West presented a never-ending challenge. His wife, Mary, was from the area and loved horses, so their way of life was convivial and pleasant. They built a large bungalow some miles from the town, and when Kathleen's marriage broke up it seemed only natural that she would live at home for a while. She was an only child. Connemara Regional was nearby, and she applied for a job and was accepted.
Kathleen had married a solicitor in Dublin. He was young and ambitious and did not want children. She had continued working, so when it became clear the marriage was not going to work it had been relatively easy to make a break.
She had left Dublin without regret. The city had its merits, but it seemed to her that it was losing the human values that had made Ireland special without gaining proportionately material advantage. She had found her husband's friends — mostly lawyers, accountants, and bankers — to be narrowly focused yuppies. They lacked dimension and breadth of vision.
She was no fan of modern Ireland. The country was the least socially mobile in Europe. She witnessed the injustice of the structures every day in her work. If you were born underprivileged, the chances were you would die that way. A rich and powerful element guarded the status quo. The majority had lived on the margin. One-fifth of the population was without work. Emigration was the norm for most of the young. And this is the fruit of our independence, she thought. For this we fought; for this so many died.
Ireland's redeeming feature, in Kathleen's opinion, was its land. It had a beauty and a quality that was duplicated nowhere else in the world. And the most beautiful part of Ireland was the West. In the West there was magic. It wasn't just a matter of how the land looked. It was how it felt. It was a place of spirit, of romance, of sadness. It was a land of mystery and past heroes and great deeds and tragedy. It was a land that touched your soul.
Night shift over, she drove her little Ford Fiesta along the narrow country road toward her parents' bungalow and thought about Fitzduane. Though security kept most of the staff from ever actually seeing him, he was something of a conversation piece in the hospital. Occasionally they had a criminal or a mental patient kept under guard while getting medical treatment, but this was the first time anyone could recall that an assault victim was being guarded for his own protection. Also, the security did not consist, as normal, of one rather bored unarmed garda whiling away the time with endless cups of tea.
In this case, there were gardai on the perimeter all right, but there were also armed Rangers carrying weapons of a type she had never seen before.
It was rather scary, but it was also exciting. It would also have seemed unreal, except for the grim evidence of Fitzduane's wounds. It was truly horrifying, the damage two little pieces of metal could inflict.
She braked as she rounded a bend and saw a herd of cows up ahead. Behind them, a farmer and his dog followed. They were taking their cows from a stone-walled field to be milked in the yard half a mile up the road. While this was going on, the road was blocked. It was possible to pass from behind, but it tended to alarm the cattle and they were heavy with milk.
The air was heavy with moisture, but the sun had broken through and droplets sparkled on the spiders' webs in the hedgerow. To the left there was a lake and in the distance the purple silhouettes of mountains. To her right, the hills were closer. Small rocky fields bordered with dry stone walls gave way to bog and heather and lichen-covered rock. Sheep grazed the higher land. Overhead, a kestrel soared.
The tragedy of Ireland, she thought, is that with all this beauty in our laps we can't seem to find a way to make a living here. The Irish did well enough abroad. There were supposed to be over forty million of Irish descent in America. There were more first- and second-generation Irish in Britain than in Ireland. Meanwhile, back at home, lack of vision, corruption, begrudgery, an inadequate education system, horrendous taxation, poor communications, and straightforward bad government played havoc with the prospects of generation after generation of Irish men and women.
She remembered the James Joyce quotation: "Ireland is an old sow that eats her own farrow." In her experience and observation, it was all too applicable.
Her thoughts switched back to Fitzduane.
He attracted her more than any many she had ever met. Unlike many Irish of their generation, her parents were tolerant and enlightened; she was not inexperienced sexually and had slept with several men before her marriage. She had met other men who had attracted her strongly and aroused her physically.
What was different about Fitzduane was that he combined a strong physical presence and sex appeal with a keen intellect and an approach to life she found deliciously refreshing. The man was not constrained by the dead hand of custom and practice which seemed to stultify so much of Irish society. He had an open and inquiring mind, and he did not seem to care a damn for convention.
Despite its reputation for great conversation and friendliness, Ireland was an indirect culture in which it was the custom to say what people wanted to hear rather than the truth. Accordingly, much of the friendliness was a surface patina rather than the manifestation of a relationship based on mutual understanding. In contrast, though his timing and manner belied any offense, Fitzduane tended to be direct and to cut to the heart of the matter. He was not glib or witty in the surface manner that tended to be a success in Irish pubs. He was kind and amusing, and he was so damn interesting.
She wanted him, but she was not at all sure she was going to get him. Still, she had a window of opportunity, and that in itself was rather fun. Night shift didn't use to be like this.
Ahead of her, the last cow raised its tail and deposited one of the less attractive aspects of rural life on the road before plodding into the yard. Washing a car in the country was something of a pointless exercise.
Kathleen accelerated slowly and skidded through a succession of cow pats as the farmer closed the gate and raised a hand in salute. She took a hand off the steering wheel in a casual wave of reply. Everybody saluted everybody in this part of the world, which was pleasant enough, though not entirely conducive to safety.
A car, a white Vauxhall Cavalier, had come up behind her when she had stopped for the cattle. She noticed idly that there were two — no, three — men in it and it did not look local. It drove behind her for the next two miles until she came to her parents' isolated bungalow, and as she turned into the tree-shaded drive it followed her.
She parked and got out. She could smell wood smoke. Inside, her mother would be preparing breakfast. She felt tired, but it was very pleasant to chat with her parents over a cup of tea before heading off to get some sleep.
She walked toward the Cavalier. The roads were not well sign-posted, so this was probably people lost again. The network of minor roads was quite confusing.
As she approached the car, the two front doors opened and two men got out. The driver had crinkly reddish hair and pleasant open features. He was smiling. He put a hand inside his coat. When it reappeared, it was holding an automatic pistol.
Kathleen looked at the gun in shock and a terrible, all-encompassing fear gripped her. She was about to scream when the smiling man kicked her very hard in the stomach. Roughly, he pulled her up and hit her again hard in the face. "Let's go inside, Kathleen," he said. "We'd like a wee word with your parents."
* * * * *
Kilmara did not take kindly to using such scarce and expensive resources as his elite Rangers on something as mundane as static guard duty.
He liked to take the initiative. Guard duty, he believed, wasted the expertise of his men. A Ranger on guard duty was just one more target with scant opportunity to utilize his unique skills. Waiting for something to happen left the terrorist with the freedom to strike when and where he wished, and to have local firepower superiority even when outgunned on a national basis.
He had to look no further than Northern Ireland across the border to have this truth demonstrated. There, a few hundred IRA activists kept thirty thousand British troops and armed police fully stretched — and still the killing went on.
In the case of providing security for Fitzduane, Kilmara was prepared to make an exception. The official justification was the Fitzduane held a reserve commission in the Rangers — he had the rank of colonel — and therefore they were merely looking after one of their own. Actually, it had more to do with friendship and a long history together. Kilmara did not like to see his friends getting shot. Over a long and turbulent military career, it had happened more than a few times, and now he valued those close to him who were left.
Six Rangers had been assigned to guard Fitzduane. Allowing for shifts, this meant that two were on duty and two on standby at any one time, and the remaining two were off station. Perimeter security consisted of an armed plainclothes detective in the grounds below Fitzduane's window, and another detective in the hospital reception area monitoring the front stairs and elevator.
Primary internal security consisted of a control zone on the private ward where Fitzduane was located. Two sets of specially installed doors sealed off the corridor. The rule was that only one set of doors could be opened at once. Visitors were checked through one door, which was closed behind them, then checked in again in the control zone before being allowed through the second set of doors. There was a metal detector in the control zone. All staff who had right of access had been issued special passes and a daily code word. Their photographs were pinned up by the internal guard, but by this time all the regulars were known by sight.
There were six private rooms off the central corridor once you got through the two sets of doors. Initially, four of these had been occupied, but after an epic battle with the hospital authorities, Kilmara had managed to get them cleared after the first week. Now one room was occupied by Fitzduane, a second one was used for sleeping by off-duty Rangers, and a third functioned as a makeshift canteen. The other three were empty.
It seemed a reasonably secure arrangement and the police were quite happy, but the whole setup made Kilmara nervous. It might be good enough to keep a conventional killer at bay, but a terrorist threat was of a different order of magnitude. Terrorists had access to military grade weapons. They used grenades, explosives, and rocket launchers. They had been known to use helicopters and microlights and other esoteric gadgetry. They were often trained in assault tactics.
In the face of a sudden commando raid and terrorist firepower, the defenders — security zone or no — would not have an easy time. Just one rocket fired through Fitzduane's window would not do him much good either. Sure, they had bolted in place some bulletproof glass, but an RPG projectile would cut through that like butter. The things had been designed to take on tanks. Unfortunately, there were a number of such weapons on the loose in Ireland. Quadafi had supplied several shiploads of rifles, explosives, heavy machine guns, and rocket launchers to the IRA. He had even thrown in some handheld anti-aircraft missiles. There were arms caches all over the country. Many had been found. Many others had not.
Kilmara tried to console himself with the thought that most of the time nothing ever happens. Many threats are made; very few are implemented. Most potential targets die in their beds of old age and good living. Such thoughts seemed logical until he applied them to Fitzduane. Then his instincts screamed. The man was a magnet for trouble.
In the second week of Fitzduane's stay in the hospital, when the basic precautions had been in place and the man himself out of intensive care, Kilmara had sent the problem to Ranger headquarters in Dublin. There the scenario had been evaluated by two teams. One team had worked out how to defeat the security and kill Fitzduane. The second had looked at current and past terrorist methodology and current and past counterterrorist protection techniques.
The findings had been pooled and the exercise repeated several times. The final conclusions had led Kilmara to implement several more security measures. Above all, he wished he could move Fitzduane, but that would have to wait a few weeks longer. He was recovering, but needed — absolutely had to have — the specialized care of the hospital. Set against that certainty, the possibility of another assassination attempt was a minor risk. Or so said the computer.
Kilmara looked at the screen when the finding came up. He remembered a game he used to play with his girlfriends as a teenager. You'd pluck the petals from a daisy one by one. “She loves me; she loves me not; she loves me; she loves me not.” The last petal would decide the issue.
"I don't trust computers any more than I trusted daisies," he said to the screen. The cursor winked back at him. "Nothing personal," he added.
The first finding of the Ranger attack-scenario exercise had been that the maximum point of vulnerability at the hospital was not the security deployment as such, but the people.
"Between you and me, and these four walls," said Kilmara to the screen, "I really didn't need a computer to tell me that." He rubbed the gray hairs in his beard. "Life has a habit of instilling that lesson."
The computer continued to wink at him. He quite liked the beasts and they were damn useful, but sometimes they got on his nerves.
He pressed the off switch and, with some satisfaction, watched the monitor die a little death.
* * * * *
They had opened the door with Kathleen's key and then pushed her down the hall in front of them.
Her parents were in the large kitchen at the back, her mother at the Aga stove stirring porridge, her father sitting at the table reading yesterday's Irish Times. ‘The Pat Kenny Show’ was on the radio in the background.
The kitchen had picture windows on two sides and there were no blinds. One of the gunmen went instantly to close the curtains, but the leader, the man with the smile, shook his head.
"Doesn't look natural," he said. "Bring them into the front room." He pushed Kathleen and grabbed her mother. She was still stirring the porridge, as yet unable to take in what was happening. The pot crashed to the floor. A third man came into the room and pulled the chair out from under Kathleen's father and half-pushed, half-kicked the gray-haired man out through the door.
Social life in the home in rural Ireland tends to revolve around the kitchen. The front room is kept for visitors and special occasions and tends to have the heating turned off and to feel somewhat unlived-in. The Flemings' sitting room was fairly typical in this respect. The room was chilly and the venetian blinds half closed. There were family photographs on the mantelpiece and a fire was laid but not lit. There were drinks on a low cabinet for visitors. The main seating consisted of a sofa and two armchairs, with several upright chairs set against the wall to deal with any overflow. An oil painting of Kathleen in nurse's uniform with her parents, Noel and Mary, hung over the fireplace.
Kathleen's parents were pushed onto the sofa, where they tried to regain some composure. Noel put his arm around his wife's shoulders. Kathleen was thrust into one of the armchairs, and the man who appeared to be the leader took the other. Sitting back in the chair, he reached into an inside pocket and removed a cylindrical object, which he attached to the barrel of his automatic.
"Fuck, it's bloody freezing," he said. "Jim, will you turn on the heating or something."
Jim, a heavyset man in his late twenties with black hair and facial stubble to match, turned on the radiator controls and then lit the fire. The firelighters caught and the kindling crackled. It was a sound that Kathleen associated with home and safety and comfort.
The sight of the silencer being screwed into place made her feel sick. None of the men wore masks. They did not seem to be worried about being identified later. The conclusion was all too obvious.
"My name's Paddy," said the leader. He pointed at the others. "That's Jim." Jim was now leaning against the radiator, soaking up the spreading warmth. He didn't react. "And the baldy fellow behind me" — he gestured with his left thumb over his shoulder — "is Eamon."
Eamon nodded. He looked to be only in his early twenties, but his bald head shone with a patina of sweat. He had an automatic rifle cradled in his arms. Kathleen recognized it as an AK-47 assault rifle. There had been a great deal about them on the news when a ship bringing in weapons for the terrorists had been arrested off France. Apparently, the armaments aboard had originated in Libya.
Paddy leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. The pistol was now clasped loosely in both hands between his legs. He looked straight at Kathleen and spoke softly, almost intimately. If the occasion had been different, he might have been addressing a lover. "Kathleen, my darling," he said, "I need your help."
Kathleen's mouth had gone dry. She was nauseous, her stomach ached from where she had been kicked, and her terror was so great that she felt paralyzed. At the same time, her brain was in overdrive.
This must have to do with Fitzduane. So this was the reality of his world. It was worse than anything she could have imagined. What could she do? How could she help? What did these frightening men want? Silently, she determined to resist when and how she could. If everybody fought these kind of people as best they could, they would be defeated.
Paddy McGonigal looked into her eyes. He could read the pain and the defiance. How little these people know, he thought. How fragile their lives are. How irrelevant in the scheme of things.
I bend my finger and she dies. An effortless physical act. That is all there is to it. And they think they matter, that somehow they can resist. The dreams of fools. He felt anger. Why do they not understand how fucking unimportant they are, these little people, these pawns of fortune?
"I need to know about the hospital," he said. "There is a fellow called Hugo Fitzduane I want to visit. I want to know where he is. I want to know about the security. I want the routines and the passwords and all the little details."
Kathleen had removed her nurse's headgear on going off duty but was still wearing her uniform under her cloak. The cloak was navy, but the lining was of some scarlet material. The effect over the crisp white of her one-piece garment was striking.
For the first time, McGonigal looked at her as a woman. She was, he realized, a very beautiful woman. Her eyes were particularly striking, her breasts were full, her legs were long and slender. He noticed that her dress buttoned up the front. The skirt had risen above her knees.
"I'm sorry," she said, shaking her head. "I'm afraid you've got the wrong person. I don't know who you're talking about."
McGonigal reached out with his automatic and placed the silencer and barrel under her skirt and lifted it. He undid the bottom button of her skirt with his left hand and then started on another button. There was the hint of lace.
Noel Fleming leaped to his feet at the same time that Kathleen's hand cracked full force against McGonigal's face. He could taste blood. Jim, the terrorist leaning against the radiator, jumped forward and smashed her father back onto the sofa with the butt of his gun.
Mary Fleming screamed and clasped her husband. A long gash had opened in his skull, and crimson leached into his silver hair and soaked his wife's blouse. He lay against her, dazed and in pain and bewildered by what was happening.
McGonigal put a hand to his lip. There was blood on his finger when he took it away. He licked his lips and swallowed, but the metallic taste remained in his mouth. The left side of his face hurt. This was a strong woman. But vulnerable.
"Kathleen," he said "you're brave and you're beautiful, but you're foolish. How does it help you if you make me angry? Now answer me that."
Kathleen shook her head. The feeling of paralysis had left her since she had struck this man in front of her. She no longer felt quite so helpless, so afraid. She remembered that she hadn't called in. She had to buy time.
McGonigal stood up. He transferred the automatic to his left hand and removed from his pocket what looked, at first, like a large pen-knife. There was a click and a longer thin blade glittered dully in a shaft of light coming through the blinds. He looked at the portrait.
"You've a nice family," he said, looking down at Kathleen. "Close-knit is the phrase, I think." He transferred his gaze back to the portrait and slowly cut a large X through her image. The sound of the canvas parting under the pressure of the blade was unsettling. To Kathleen it was an obscene, wanton gesture.
"I could hurt you, Kathleen," he said, "but where would that get me? It's you I need to hear from." He turned back to the portrait. "Life is about choices," he said. "It just isn't possible to have everything."
He brought the blade up again and seemed to hesitate. He turned and looked carefully at her parents, then nodded to himself. His gaze reverted to the portrait.
He raised the blade again. "It wouldn't surprise me at all," he said, "if you weren't just a little bit keen on Hugo. He a wounded hero and all that. Romance has blossomed at many a bedside — and has died in many a bed." He laughed. "But the thing is, darling, you can't have it all." The blade sliced through the image of her father.
Kathleen cried out. The terrible fear had returned.
Her mother screamed. "No! No!" she said. "This is — this is wrong. It's all wrong. You must go. You can't do this."
Anger flared in McGonigal. He turned and thrust the automatic pistol in his hand at the bald-headed terrorist, then grabbed Kathleen's father by his bloodied white hair and hauled the elderly man to his feet.
"Fuck you," he said. "Fuck all you little people. You know nothing." He placed the edge of his knife under Kathleen's father's ear and cut and pulled, severing his throat from ear to ear.
There was a dreadful, rattling, gagging sound that was mercifully brief, and blood fountained from the severed arteries and cascaded over McGonigal and Kathleen.
When the blood had stopped pumping, McGonigal released his grip on the dead man's hair and the body sagged to the ground. Mary Fleming had fainted. Kathleen looked at him, deep in shock. He slapped her face.
"I have little time," he said. "Your mother is next. It's your choice."
It was several minutes before Kathleen could speak. McGonigal used the time to wash himself off and lay the hospital plans out on a table in the living room. Then Kathleen told him almost everything she knew.
Her fingers still smeared with her father's blood, she outlined the security procedures and marked out the layout of Fitzduane floor and the location of the control zone and other security procedures. She was questioned again and again, and finally McGonigal was satisfied. It all tied together with what he already knew. Kathleen was completely broken. They always broke.
When it was all over, he placed his pistol against Mary Fleming's head, but at the last second took his hand off the trigger. Hostages were handy in this kind of situation. They could be disposed of after the operation had gone down.
Kathleen had stripped off her cloak and uniform and was now huddled in a terry-cloth bathrobe in a state of shock. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her gaze was unfocused.
McGonigal was looking at her and mentally undressing her when the telephone rang for the first time since they had arrived.