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GAMES OF  

THE   

HANGMAN   

VICTOR   

O'REILLY   

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK    

This Berkley book contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typeface designed for easy reading and was printed from new film.

GAMES OF THE HANGMAN

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Grove Weidenfeld.

PRINTING HISTORY

Grove Weidenfeld edition published 1991

Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd.

Berkley edition / September 1992

All rights reserved.

Copyright© 1991 by Victor O'Reilly.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address: Grove Weidenfeld, a division of Grove Press, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, New York 10003-4793.

ISBN: 0-425-14960-9

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10   9   8   7   6   5   4

For Alma and my children, Kira, Christian, Shane, Evie, and Bruff—with much love.

For Sterling Lord, my agent—a man who is widely liked, respected, and admired for very good reason.

For Miranda Cowley (Sterling Lord Literistic) and Rose Marie Morse and Marc Romano (Grove Weidenfeld) for much hard work in the salt mines.

For Tony Summers, the best of friends when the chips are down—and the man who introduced me to Sterling.

For the Swiss in general and the people of Bern in particular, who are very far from dull, as you will see.

"From ancient times, most samurai have been of eccentric spirit, strong willed and courageous."

—Yukio Mismima, Hagakure    

"Plumb hell or heaven, what's the difference? Plumb the unknown, to find out something new!"

—Charles Baudelaire     

"If everybody minded their own business," said the Duchess in a hoarse growl, "the world would go round a great deal faster than it does."

—Lewis Carroll, Alice In Wonderland    

"A Swiss Lewis Carroll is not possible."

—Vreni Rutschman, Zurich, March 1981

Prologue   

Fitzduane's Island off the west of Ireland—1981

When he was told he was to hang, Rudi had turned pale and swayed on his feet.

Later he was more composed, and it was clear to the others that he had accepted the inevitability of what was to come. He was given no choice. Either he would accept the verdict and do what was necessary or he would be killed painfully—and so would Vreni and other members of his family. It was one life or several, and either way he would die. There was only one decision he could make. He was told that his hanging would be quick and painless.

He had reached a point where he couldn't take it anymore, where what they were doing and what they planned to do—however valid the reasons—were suddenly abhorrent. He could no longer continue. Physically his body rebelled, and he felt ill and nauseated. His mind was a morass of terrible images and memories, and hope and belief were dead. He had been warned when he joined that he could never leave alive.

He thought of fleeing or going to the authorities or fighting back in some way, but he knew—knew with absolute certainty—that they meant what they said and would do what they had threatened. It must be his life, or Vreni and Marta and Andreas would die.

In many ways he welcomed the prospect of death. Guilt engulfed him and he could see no way out. He knew he would not be forgiven for what he had done already; he could not forgive himself.

The arrangements were made by the others. He had been told where to go and what to do. The rope was already in place when he reached the old oak tree. It was thin and blue and of a type used daily around Draker for myriad tasks. It was hard to believe this mundane object would end his life. He had been told that precise calculations had been made to ensure that his death would be instantaneous.

Four of the others stood around the tree watching and waiting but making no motion to help. He must do this alone.

He climbed the tree with some difficulty because the bark was wet and slippery from recent rain. He stepped out onto the branch and slipped the noose around his neck. He nearly slipped and used the hanging rope to steady himself. His hands were shaking and his skin felt clammy.

He could see two of the watchers below him. A wave of despair and loneliness swept over him and he longed to see some friendly face. In seconds he would be dead. Nobody would truly care. Nobody would ever know the real reasons why. The man in Bern was hanging him as surely as if he had been physically present instead of fifteen hundred kilometers away from this miserable dripping forest.

Rudi suddenly thought of his father and the time when the family had all been happy together. Rudi could see him, and he was smiling. It was the way it used to be. He stepped off the branch toward him.

It wasn't over in seconds. The man in Bern had been explicit: it wasn't meant to be. It took Rudi some considerable time to die.

The watchers—appalled and excited and stimulated—waited until the spasming and jerking and sounds of choking had ceased, and then they left.

It was a small thing compared with what was to come.

BOOK ONE

The Hanging     

"Irish? In truth, I would not want to be anything else. It is a state of mind as well as an actual country. It is being at odds with other nationalities, having a quite different philosophy about pleasure, about punishment, about life, and about death...."

—Edna O'Brien, Mother Ireland

Chapter 1

Fitzduane slept uneasily that night but awoke with no conscious premonition that anything was wrong. It was raining when he climbed out onto the fighting platform of the castle keep and looked across the battlements to the dawn. He reflected that rain was something anyone brought up in Ireland had plenty of time to get used to.

More than seven hundred years earlier the first Fitzduane had stood in much the same spot for much the same reason. Inclement weather or not, the view from the castle keep brought satisfaction, even in the grim, dull month of February. The land they saw was theirs, and the Fitzduanes, whatever their personal idiosyncrasies, shared a "what I have I hold" mentality.

The rain stopped, and the sky lightened.

The castle stood on a rocky bluff, and from his vantage point Fitzduane could see much of the island. It just qualified as an island, a windswept finger of bog, heather, low hills, and rough pasture jutting out into the Atlantic and separated from the mainland by a mere twenty meters. A bridge set well into the overhanging cliff tops spanned the divide.

Farther inland was a freshwater lake by whose edge stood a small white thatched cottage. A trickle of smoke emerged from its chimney. Inside Murrough and his wife, Oona, the couple who looked after the castle and its lands, would be having breakfast. Murrough had been Fitzduane's sergeant in the Congo nearly twenty years earlier.

The Atlantic crashed and spumed against the rocks that formed the seaward base of the castle. Fitzduane savored the familiar sound. He huddled deeper into his heavy waterproof as the gusting wind, even at this height, blew salt spray into his face.

He glanced at his watch. Half past eight. Time to go. He closed the roof door behind him and descended the circular staircase with some care. The stone steps were worn by centuries of use, and it was five flights to the storeroom and the armory below. The old names for the rooms were still used. Although sides of salt-cured bacon no longer hung from the blackened hooks of the storeroom ceiling, any self-respecting Norman knight would still have been impressed by the reserves of weaponry that were on display in the armory. If the same knight had been familiar with firearms and the materiel of modern warfare, he would have been dazzled by the collection of rifles, pistols, and automatic weapons concealed in the deeper recesses of the castle. Illegal though it was under current Irish law, Fitzduane maintained the family tradition of collecting weapons of war.

In its original form the castle had been a rectangular tower of five floors topped by the fighting platform, with the entrance, accessible only by ladder, on the second story. Over the centuries the castle had been adapted, strengthened, and modernized. A three-story slate-roofed extension now nestled up to the original rectangular keep. Stone steps replaced the ladder. A curtain wall surrounded the bawn, as the castle courtyard is known in Ireland, and stables and outhouses had been built inside the enclosed perimeter. A network of concealed tunnels and storerooms had been added in the sixteenth century.

The entrance, always the weakest part of a castle, was through a small two-story tower, known as the gatehouse, or barbican, set into the curtain wall. The floor of the protruding upper story was pierced with openings—murder holes—from which missiles and boiling water could be dropped upon attackers.

The original iron portcullis, the heavy spiked gridiron gate that could be dropped into place at a second's notice like a guillotine, had long since rusted away, but it had been replaced during the Napoleonic Wars. It now hung, its windlass oiled and in working order, awaiting an attack that would never come. Externally the castle was guarded by the sea and the cliffs on two sides, and a deep ditch secured the rest.

Duncleeve, the ancestral home of the Fitzduanes for more than seven hundred years, had never been taken by direct assault. That was reassuring, Fitzduane sometimes thought, but of limited practical advantage in the late twentieth century.

Hooves clattered on the wooden bridge over the defensive ditch. Fitzduane applied a slight pressure with his knees, and Pooka turned to canter up the slope to the cliff top. The sea crashed against the rocks far below, and though the ground was wet and slippery, Fitzduane rode with confidence. Pooka was surefooted and knew her way.

The island was just over ten kilometers long and about four kilometers across at its widest point. Besides Fitzduane and Murrough and his wife, the only other inhabitants lived in the isolated school on the headland.

The school was officially called the Draker World Institute. Originally the site of a monastery destroyed by Cromwell's troops in the seventeenth century, the land had been bought by an eccentric German armaments manufacturer toward the end of the nineteenth century. With his profits from the Franco-Prussian War, he proceeded to design and build his conception of an Irish castle.

The construction lacked certain desirable features. Von Draker forgot to install either bathrooms or toilets. Not realizing his error, von Draker came to stay in his apparently completed castle. Tragedy struck. While relieving himself behind a rhododendron bush, he was drenched by a sudden squall of rain—the weather in Connemara being nothing if not fickle—and pneumonia resulted. After a short struggle for the sake of form, von Draker died. He left behind a large fortune, no children, a wife he had loathed, and the request that his Irish estate be turned into a college for students from all over the world "who will mix together, learn each other's ways, become friends, and thus preserve world peace."

Those who knew von Draker well had been somewhat taken aback at such sentiments from such an unlikely source. His actual words to his lawyer were: "Find a way to keep that hag's filthy paws off my money."

The fortune of the Von Draker Peace Foundation, derived in the main from armaments and explosives, increased and multiplied. In the fullness of time the Draker World Institute opened its doors for business. It took a select group of pupils aged sixteen to twenty from various corners of the globe and subjected them to a moderately difficult academic curriculum heavily leavened with boating, climbing, hill walking, and other physically demanding activities.

Draker was a success primarily because it was so isolated. It was a perfect out-of-sight, out-of-mind location for rich but troublesome youths. It was also coeducational. The children could be dumped there during that difficult phase. All it took to gain entrance to Draker was money and the appropriate connections. Draker parents had both in commendable quantities.

Fitzduane slowed Pooka to a walk. He could feel the wind off the Atlantic in his face and a hint of salt on his lips. He was beginning to unwind. It was good to be home despite the unfortunate weather.

He was getting tired of wars and of what was arguably more unpleasant: the grinding hassle of modern travel. The older he got, the more he thought there was much to be said for peace and quiet, maybe even for settling down.

Fitzduane spent two-thirds or more of each year away from Ireland. This was something he regretted, but the action tended to be in alien climes. For nearly twenty years he had been either a soldier or a war photographer, a hunter of men with either a gun or a camera. The Congo, Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli wars, Vietnam again, Cyprus, Angola, Rhodesia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Chad, Namibia, endless South American countries. His Irish island was his haven, his place to recover, to rest his soul. It might offer little more excitement than watching the grass grow, but it was the one place he knew that was free of death and violence.

Down below, he could see the small beach, boathouse, and jetty of Draker College. The sheer cliffs had made access almost impossible until von Draker had brought over some of his company's explosive experts and had blasted and hacked a diagonal tunnel from the castle gardens down to the beach.

Fitzduane rode between the walled gardens of Draker College and the cliff edge. The gray stone of the Victorian castle loomed in the background. Gargoyles competed with crenellations; flying buttresses crash-landed against half-timbering. A structure loosely modeled on the Parthenon topped the clock tower. Irish history had been complex, but even it was not up to von Draker's creativity.

Ahead lay a small wood, and beyond that was the headland itself. If the weather permitted, Fitzduane liked to turn Pooka loose to nibble at the salty, windswept grass, and then he would lie down near the cliff edge, look up at the sky and the wheeling sea gulls, and think of absolutely nothing.

War and death could be forgotten for a time. Perhaps, he thought, the time had come to hang up his cameras and find a more adult occupation.

*  *  *

Von Draker had had a passion for trees. There had originally been only one oak tree on the spot and, nearby, a peculiarly shaped mound. The locals gave the vicinity a wide berth. They said that the oak was a bille and special, and that no man could remember when it was planted. They said that in the days before St. Patrick and Ireland's conversion to Christianity, terrible things had been done under the shadow of its twisted branches. They said that even after the Church was established throughout the rest of the land, bloody sacrifice continued on the island.

Von Draker had regarded such tales as nonsense. Since none of the Connemara men would help him level the mound and plant the wood, he had brought in a crew from his estate in Germany. He left the old oak tree, not for reasons of superstition but because he just liked trees, even gnarled and twisted specimens like this one. The mound was leveled with his explosives. His workers found pieces of bone in the debris and fragments of what appeared to be human skulls. A small wood was planted. Trees from many parts of the world were brought to the spot, and despite the keen wind off the Atlantic and the heavy rain, an adequate number prospered.

Von Draker did not live to see the success of his project. His death came one year to the day after the demolition of the peculiarly shaped mound. The wind that day around his wood sounded like laughter—or so they said.

Such tales were absurd, Fitzduane thought, yet there was no denying that the overgrown wood was a dismal, depressing place. Rain dripping from the trees made the only noise in an otherwise eerie silence. Obscured by the interlocking branches, the light was dim and gloomy.

The forest reeked of decay and corruption. Pooka had to be urged on, as always in the wood, despite the many times she had walked that path before. The sound of her iron-shod hooves was muffled by the damp mulch of rotting leaves. The place seemed deserted, and Fitzduane realized that he had seen no living soul since leaving his castle nearly an hour before. Halfway through the wood the undergrowth became particularly dense, and the path inclined upward and twisted more than usual. He could see the thick trunk of the bille up ahead.

Horse and rider came level with the tree. He glanced up into its labyrinth of interlocking branches. It was a fine tree, he thought, impressive in its ancient strength.

He saw the rope first, a thin pale blue rope. It hung from a protrading branch of the tree. The end of the rope had been formed into a hangman's noose, and it contained the elongated and distorted neck of a hanged man.

The long, still body formed a silhouette in the gloom. Fitzduane raised his eyebrows and stared for perhaps ten interminable seconds. He thought he'd close his eyes and then open them again because a hanging body on his own doorstep just couldn't be true.

Chapter 2

There was a context to death Fitzduane was used to. In any one of a dozen combat zones he would have reacted immediately, reflexes operating ahead of any conscious rationalization. On his own island, the one place he knew that was free of violence, his brain would not accept the evidence of his own eyes.

He urged Pooka forward.

He could smell the body. It wasn't damp earth or rotting leaves or the decaying flesh of some dead animal; it was the odor of fresh human excrement. He could see the source. The body was clad in an olive green anorak and blue jeans, and the jeans were stained around the loins.

Horse and rider walked slowly past the body, Fitzduane staring despite himself. After a dozen paces he found he was looking back over his shoulder. Ahead lay the familiar contours of the path to the headland and a lazy tranquility; behind him hung death and a premonition that life would never be the same if he turned.

He stopped. Slowly and reluctantly he dismounted and tied Pooka to a nearby tree. He looked ahead along the empty path again. It lay there, tempting him to go away, to forget what he was seeing.

He hesitated; then he turned back.

The head was slightly twisted and angled to one side by the initial shock of the drop combined with the action of the noose. The hair was long; light brown, and wavy—almost curly. The face was that of a young man. The skin was bluish despite a golden tan. The tongue was swollen and thrust out sharply between grimacing teeth. There was a small amount of still-fresh but clotting blood under the mouth and dripping from the chin. A long, thick rope of spittle, phlegm, and mucus hung from the end of the protruding tongue to halfway down his torso. Combined with the stench, the overall impact was revolting.

He approached the body, reached up, and took one of the limp hands in his. He expected it to be cold; though he knew better, he automatically associated death with cold. The hand was cool to the touch but still retained traces of warmth. He felt for the pulse: there was none.

He looked at the hand. There were greenish black marks from the tree trunk on the palms and the insides of the fingers, and mixed in were scratches extending to the fingertips. He thought about cutting the body down but doubted that he could. The knot on the nylon rope was impacted into the dead flesh, and he had no knife. The idea of burning through the rope crossed his mind, but he had no lighter.

He forced himself to think clearly. Cutting down the body wouldn't help at this stage. It would make no difference to the corpse. There was a gust of wind, and the body swayed slightly. Fitzduane started at the unexpected movement.

He made himself react as if he were on assignment: first the story. He slid his backup camera, an Olympus XA he normally carried out of photographer's habit, from the breast pocket of his coat. His actions were automatic as he selected aperture, speed, and angle. He framed each shot, cutting it in his head before releasing the shutter and bracketing, with the old hand's innate conservatism and suspicion of built-in exposure meters.

He was conscious of the incongruity of his actions but at the same time aware of his reasons: he was buying time so that he could adjust. He brushed sweat from his forehead and began to search the corpse. It wasn't easy. The smell of feces was overpowering, and the height of the limp figure made the search awkward. He could reach only the lower pockets.

In an outside pocket of the green anorak he found an expensive morocco leather wallet. It contained Irish pounds, Swiss francs, and several credit cards. It also held a laminated student identity card complete with color photo. The dead youth was Rudolf von Graffenlaub, nineteen years of age, from Bern, Switzerland, and a pupil at Draker College. His height was listed at one meter seventy-six. Looking at the stretched neck at the end of the rope, Fitzduane reflected sadly that he would be taller now.

He walked back to where he had left Pooka. Her uneasiness showed, and he stroked her, speaking softly. As he did so, he realized he now faced the unpleasant task of telling the college authorities that one of their pupils had hanged himself. He wondered why he had automatically assumed that it was suicide. Murder by hanging seemed a complicated way to go about things—but was it possible? Was it likely? If accidental death was required, throwing the victim over a cliff seemed much more practical. It did occur to him that if it was murder, the killer could still be in the wood. It was a disturbing notion.

As they emerged from the dank atmosphere of the forest, Pooka whinnied with pleasure and made as if to break into a canter. Fitzduane let her have her head, the canter became a gallop, and they thundered along the cliff and then swung into the grounds of Draker.

Fitzduane's head cleared with the burst of exercise. He knew that the next sequence of events would not be pleasant. It had crossed his mind to keep on riding. Home wasn't too far away.

The trouble was, although he did not yet fully appreciate it, Rudolf von Graffenlaub's death had moved him deeply. His instincts were aroused. The tragedy had happened on his own ground at a time when he was reassessing his own direction in life. It was both a provocation and a challenge. His peaceful haven in the midst of a bloody world had been violated. He wanted to know why.

It had been years since Fitzduane had visited the college.

He entered a heavy side door that stood ajar. Inside, there was a flagstone hall, a door, and a wide wooden stairway. He climbed the stairs. There was a door off the landing at the top, and through it he could hear the sound of voices and laughter and the clinking of spoons against china. He turned the handle.

Inside the large paneled, book-lined room about two dozen people in the mix of casual and formal clothes beloved of academics were grouped around a blazing log fire, having their morning coffee. He felt as if he were back at school and should have knocked.

An elderly gray-haired lady turned around at his entrance and looked him up and down. "Your boots," she said with a thin smile.

Fitzduane looked at her blankly.

"Your boots," she repeated.

He looked down at his muddy boots. The floor was inlaid with brass in runic patterns. Shades of the Anglo-Irish literary revival and a Celtic Ireland that never was.

"Would you mind removing your boots, sir?" said the gray-haired lady more sharply, the smile now distinctly chilly. "Everybody does. It's the floor," she added in a mollifying tone.

Fitzduane noticed a neat row of outdoor footwear by the umbrella stand at the entrance. Too taken aback to argue, he removed his muddy riding boots and stood there in his wool socks.

"Hi," said a fresh voice. He turned toward a lived-in but still attractive brunette in her mid-thirties. She was tall and slim and wore round granny glasses and had an aura of flower child of the sixties gone more or less straight. She had a delicious smile. He wondered if she had a little marijuana crop in her window box and how it—and she—endured Irish weather.

"Hi, yourself," he answered. He didn't smile back. Suddenly he felt tired. "I'm afraid this isn't going to make your day," he said quietly. As he was telling her his story, he handed her Rudolf's identity card. She stared at him for what seemed to be an age, uncomprehending, and then her coffee cup crashed to the floor.

Conversation stopped, and all heads swiveled in their direction. In the silence that had fallen over the room, it took Fitzduane a moment to realize that the pool of hot coffee was slowly soaking into his socks.

It was not necessary for Fitzduane to return to the scene of the hanging, and he knew it, yet back he went. He felt proprietorial toward Rudolf. He had found the body, so in some strange way he was now responsible for it.

Perhaps a half dozen of the faculty went with Fitzduane to the old oak tree. Rudolf still hung there. Fortunately for the nervous onlookers, the body had stopped swaying in the wind and now hung motionless.

Fitzduane was aware that in all probability some of the people present had some previous experience of death, even violent death. Yet the hanging, with all its macabre history and connotations of ritual punishment, had a very particular impact. It showed on their faces. One teacher who could not contain himself could be heard retching behind the trunk of a sycamore tree. The sound seemed to go on and on. Several others looked about ready to join him.

A long aluminum ladder was brought up at a run by two fit-looking young men. The sight of them reminded Fitzduane that pupils at Draker spent a great deal of their time in outdoor activities.

In a casual conversation some years earlier, one of the lecturers, since departed, had remarked, "We try to exhaust the buggers. It's the only way we can keep them under control."

Many of the students, Fitzduane recalled, came from troubled, albeit rich backgrounds, and a good number were old enough to vote, to be conscripted, or to start a family. Doubtless some had. All in all, it seemed a thoroughly sensible precaution to keep them busy rushing up and down cliff faces and being blown around the cold waters of the Atlantic.

They waited in the gloom of the forest to one side of the old oak tree until the police and ambulance arrived. It took some time. There was no police station on the island. The nearest was at Ballyvonane on the mainland, some fifteen kilometers of potholed road away. There were attempts at conversation governed by some unspoken rule that the hanging itself should not be discussed. Fitzduane, standing slightly apart from the group as befitted the bearer of bad news, chewed on a piece of long grass and made himself comfortable against the supporting contours of a not-too-damp outcrop of rock.

He was curious to see what the police would do. A man was dead, and dead from violence. There had to be an investigation. There wouldn't be one in El Salvador, where bodies were dumped unceremoniously on rubbish dumps by death squads, or in Cambodia, where so many millions had been slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge that one extra body was of no significance. But this was home, where violence was rare and different, more caring standards prevailed.

Two guards arrived: the local sergeant—well known to Fitzduane—and a fresh-faced youngster not long from the training barracks in Templemore by the look of him. Their heavy blue uniform trousers were tucked into farmers' rubber boots, and their faces were shaded and impassive under dark blue uniform hats. The sergeant, Tommy Keane, had his chin strap in position and was puffing slightly.

It would be untrue to say that there was no examination of the scene of the incident; there was. It lasted perhaps sixty seconds and consisted of the sergeant's padding around the tree a couple of times, staring up at the hanging body as he did so, his boots leaving a perfect trail of cleated prints in the soft ground, obscuring with official finality any previous marks.

Fitzduane's gaze drifted back to the body. Its feet, limp and slightly parted, were shod in surprisingly formal dark brown shoes polished to a military gloss. He wondered if Rudolf had spit-shined his shoes that morning—and if so, why?

The ladder was placed against the tree. The sergeant tested it a couple of times, placed the young guard at the foot to hold it securely, and climbed. He removed a bone-handled folding knife from the pocket of his uniform raincoat and opened the blade.

Knife in hand, he surveyed the gathering. Silhouetted in that way above the body, he reminded Fitzduane of a print he had seen of an eighteenth-century execution.

"Hugo, give us a hand," said the sergeant. "Let's cut the lad down."

Automatically Fitzduane moved forward and stood just under the corpse. There was the brief sawing sound of the blade against taut rope, and the body fell into his waiting arms.

He clasped it to him, suddenly more disturbed than he would have thought possible at the absolute waste of it. The torso was still warm. He held the broken body, the head disfigured and hideous, flopping from the extended neck. He would often think of that moment afterward. It seemed to him that it was the physical contact with that once-so-promising young body that forced him into the resolve not to be a bystander, not to treat this death as one more item in a long catalog of observed violence, but to find out, if at all possible, why.

Other hands joined him, and the moment when he had the dead boy in his arms alone was over. They prepared to set the body on the ground; a thick plastic bag had already been laid out. As Fitzduane lowered the shoulders onto the protecting surface, a long moan emerged from the hanged boy's bloodstained mouth.

They all froze, shocked, unwilling to contemplate the same unpalatable thought: Had Rudolf von Graffenlaub been quietly strangling while they all stood around making awkward conversation and waiting for the police?

The long, low moan died away. It was a sound that Fitzduane had heard before, though it was nonetheless unsettling for that. "It's the air," he said quickly. "It's only the air being squeezed out of his lungs as we move him." He looked around at the circle of greenish white faces and hoped he was right.

Half an hour later he sat in front of the sergeant in the library of Draker College, which had been commandeered as an interview room for the occasion, and made his statement. He looked at the mud drying on the guard's heavy boots and the crisscrossing of muddy footprints on the inlaid floor. Standards were dropping.

"You don't look great, Hugo," said the sergeant. "I'd have thought you'd be used to this kind of thing."

Fitzduane shrugged. "So would I." He smiled slightly. "It seems that it's different on your own doorstep."

The sergeant nodded. "Or the last straw." He puffed at an old black briar pipe with a silver top over the bowl to protect it from the wind, and from it emanated the rich aroma of pipe tobacco. He was a big, heavyset man not many years from retirement.

"Tommy," said Fitzduane, "somehow I expected more of an investigation before the body was cut down. The immediate area being roped off. An examination by the forensic people. That sort of thing."

The sergeant raised a grizzled eyebrow. His reply was measured. "Hugo, if I didn't know you so well, I might be thinking there was just the faintest tincture of criticism in that remark."

Fitzduane spread his hands in a gesture of apology. "Perish the thought," he said, and fell silent. The look of inquiry remained on his face.

The sergeant knew Fitzduane well. He chuckled, but then remembered the circumstances and reverted to his professional manner. "Don't go having any strange thoughts, Hugo. The site round the tree had been well trampled by your lot before we ever showed up. Anyway, I've had thirty-four years in the Guards, and I've seen my share of hangings. They've always been suicide. It's just about impossible to kill someone by hanging without leaving signs, and there are easier ways of committing murder."

"Was there a note?"

"No," said the sergeant, "or at least we haven't found one yet, but the absence of a note means nothing. Indeed, a note is an exception rather than the rule."

"Any idea why he might have killed himself, then?"

"Not specifically," said the sergeant. "I've quite a few people to see yet. But the ones I've spoken to so far said he was very intense, very moody. Apparently there were some difficulties with his family in Switzerland. He's from a place called Bern."

"It's the Swiss capital," said Fitzduane.

"Ever been there?" asked the sergeant.

"No, although I've changed planes in Zurich God knows how many times. My business is photographing wars, and the Swiss have this strange affection for peace."

"Well, the pathologist will conduct his examination tomorrow, I should think," declared the sergeant. "The inquest will be a day or two after that. You'll have to attend. I'll give you as much warning as I can."

"Thanks, Tommy."

They rose to their feet and shook hands briskly. It was cold in the library, and the fire had gone out. As he was about to open the door, the sergeant turned to Fitzduane. "It doesn't do to make too much fuss about these things. Best soon forgotten."

Fitzduane smiled thinly and didn't answer.

As he rode back to Duncleeve, Fitzduane realized that he had forgotten to raise the small matter of his missing goat with the policeman. A goat gone astray wasn't exactly a police matter in itself, but the discovery a few days earlier of its decapitated and eviscerated carcass at the site of an old sacrificial mound up in the hills raised a few questions.

He wondered what had happened to the animal's magnificent horned head.

Chapter 3

She looked down at him. She could feel him move inside her—the faintest caress of love. Her thighs tightened in spontaneous response. His hands stroked her breasts and then moved around to her back. She could feel a tingling along her spine as he touched her. Her head fell back, and she thrust against him, feeling him go deeper inside her.

Their bodies were damp with sweat. She licked her thumb and forefinger and then reached down to her loins and felt through their intertwined pubic hair for where his penis entered her body. She encircled the engorged organ and rotated her fingers gently.

His whole body quivered, and then he controlled himself. She removed her fingers slowly. "That's cheating," he murmured. He smiled, and there was laughter and love in his eyes as he looked at her. "That is a game two can play." She laughed, and then her laughter turned to gasps as his finger found her clitoris and stroked her in the exact place and with the rhythm and pressure she liked. She came in less than a minute, her upper body arched back and supported by her arms, her loins thrust against her lover.

He pulled her down to him, and they kissed deeply and slowly. She ran her fingers across his face and kissed his eyelids. They stayed interlocked, kissing and caressing. He remained hard inside her. He had already climaxed twice in the last hour and a half, and now it was easier.

They separated and lay side by side, looking at each other, still joined together at their loins. She felt him move again. Her juices began to flow once more. She felt sensual and sore, and she wanted him. He is, she thought, the most beautiful and sexy man.

He was a big man. He didn't look it at first glance because his face was finely chiseled and sensitive and his green eyes were gentle, but as he rolled on top of her, she could feel the power and weight of his physique. She drew up her knees and wrapped her legs around him. He kissed and sucked each of her nipples in turn. He was still holding back, but she could sense his control going. Her hands dug into his back and his thrusts increased. She bit the lobe of his ear and reached down to his buttocks and pulled him into her. He raised himself slightly to increase further the friction of his penis against her clitoris. She gasped as he did so and thrust her forefinger into him. She could feel herself coming again and began to moan. He lost all semblance of control and came with frantic bursts into her body. He stayed on top of her and in her when it was over, his face nuzzled against her neck. She hugged him tightly and then stroked him like a child. Now and then she could feel the contours of the scars on his body.

They slept intertwined for several hours.

Fitzduane was entertained by the contrast between a naked woman in the throes of lovemaking and the same woman in the cool, clothed image she presented to the rest of the world. The thought was not without erotic content. He wondered if women have similar thoughts. He thought it likely.

In the morning Etan was the armored career woman once again: ash blonde hair swept back and tied in a chignon; silk blouse with Russian collar, tailored suit from Wolfangel, accessories perfectly coordinated; the glint of gold on ears, neck, and wrists; a hint of Ricci.

"It's as well I know you're a natural blonde," he said. "Or rather, how I know it. Otherwise I'd feel distanced by that getup." He gestured at the laden table on the glassed-in veranda. "Breakfast is ready."

He had bathed and shaved but then had concentrated on preparing the meal. He was wearing only a white terry-cloth bathrobe. The name of its original—and presumably still legal—owner, faded from numerous washings, could just be discerned on the breast pocket.

In the distance, muted by the thick glass, there was the sound of a late-waking city, of traffic grinding through the expensive Dublin residential area of Ballsbridge.

"A little distance is necessary at times," she said with a smile. "I've got a professional image to maintain. I don't want to climax on camera." He raised an eyebrow. She kissed him and sat down across the table. She could see scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, and there were bubbles in the orange juice.

They had met some three years earlier when Radio Telefis Eireann, Ireland's state-owned national broadcasting organization, had sent a camera crew over to do a magazine piece on Fitzduane's exhibition of war photographs in the Shelbourne Hotel. Fitzduane had disliked being on the receiving end of a camera and had been clipped and enigmatic during the interview. Afterward he had been annoyed with himself for making the interview more difficult and less interesting than it might have been. He went over to apologize and was mildly surprised when Etan had responded by inviting him out to dinner.

They were lovers who had become friends. It might have become more, perhaps had become more—neither admitted it—but their careers kept them apart. Program deadlines kept Etan confined to the studios in Dublin for much of the time, and Fitzduane was out of Ireland so much. Though Etan was very fond of Fitzduane and had a growing sense that this might be more than an affair, she found it hard to understand how a man of such apparent gentleness and sensitivity engaged in such a dangerous and macabre occupation.

He had once tried to explain it. He had a beautiful, rich voice with scarcely a trace of an Irish accent—a characteristic of his class and background. It was his voice above all, she thought, that had attracted her initially. She had rejected his rationale with some vigor, but she remembered his words.

"War is about extremes," he had said, "extremes of violence and horror, but also extremes of heroism, of compassion, and of comradeship. It's the ultimate paradox. It's feeling utterly, totally alive in every molecule of your body because of—not in spite of—the presence and the threat of death. Often I hate it, and often I'm afraid, yet after it's over and I'm away from it, I want to go back. I miss that sense of being on the edge."

He had turned to her and stroked her cheek. "Besides," he had added with a grin, "it's what I know."

He decided he would take a raincheck on pointing out to her that virtually every day, she presented, from a warm, safe studio, the sort of violent news stories she criticized him for covering. But then again, maybe she wasn't being so inconsistent. Eating meat didn't automatically make you want to work in a slaughterhouse.

She remembered her temper flaring and her sense of frustration. "It's like hearing a drug addict trying to rationalize his heroin," she had said. "To me it doesn't make sense to make your living out of photographing people killing each other. It's even crazier when that puts you at risk as well. You're not immune just because you carry a press card and a camera, you know that bloody well. I miss you horribly when you go. Like a damn fool, instead of putting you out of my mind, I worry myself sick that you may be killed or maimed or just disappear."

He had kissed her gently on the lips, and despite herself she had responded. "The older I get, the less chance I have of being killed," he had said. "It's mostly the young who die in war; that's the way the system works. You mightn't be considered old enough to vote, but they'll make a paratrooper out of you."

"Bullshit," she had retorted, and then she had made love to him with tenderness and anger, sobbing when she had climaxed. Afterward she had held him in her arms, her cheeks wet, while he slept. It didn't change anything.

Etan finished her coffee and looked at her watch. She would have to leave for the studios in a few minutes. Even though RTE in Donnybrook was not far away, she would be driving in traffic.

Fitzduane had scarcely touched his breakfast. He smiled at her absentmindedly when she got up, and then he went back to staring into the middle distance. She stood behind his chair and put her arms around his neck. She pressed her cheek to his. Beneath the banter and the tenderness he was troubled.

"You're doing your thousand-yard stare," she said.

"It's the hanging."

"I know," she said.

"We cut him down, cut him open, put him in a box, and sent him airmail back to Bern; nineteen years of age, and all we seem to want to do is get rid of the scandal. Nobody cares why."

She held him tightly. "It's not that people don't care," she said. "It's just that they don't know what to do. And what's the point now? It's too late. He's dead."

"But why?" he persisted.

"Does it make a difference?"

He moved his head so he could look at her and suddenly smiled.

He took her hand in his and moved her palm against his lips; it was a long kiss. She felt a rush of love, of caring.

"Maybe it's male menopause," he said, "but I think it does."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Lay the ghost," he answered. "I'm going to find out why."

"But how?" she said, suddenly afraid. "What will you do?"

"I'll follow the advice of the King to Alice in Wonderland."

She laughed despite herself. "What was that?"

" 'Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.' "

Etan had been sleeping with Fitzduane for nearly a year before she discovered he had once been married. He had never mentioned it. She had assumed that his way of life was the primary reason he hadn't settled down, but what she learned was more complicated. It helped explain his reluctance to make a further commitment. It also cast some light on her lover's growing obsession with this latest tragedy. Perhaps, once again, in his mind he had been too late.

The name in the yellowed press clipping was Anne-Marie Thormann Fitzduane. Etan had been putting together a documentary on Ireland's involvements with the various United Nations peacekeeping forces when a researcher dropped a series of thick files on the Congo operation on her desk.

The Belgian Congo—now known as Zaire—had been granted independence at the beginning of the sixties but had been ill prepared by its former masters for its new role. Trained administrators were virtually nonexistent. A handful of doctors was incapable of dealing with a population of more than thirteen million. Central government authority collapsed. Civil war broke out. Massacres and pillaging and wholesale wanton destruction became the order of the day.

A United Nations force was sent in to restore order and keep the peace. Before long, to many UN troopers the peacekeeping mission seemed more like a war. Elite combat units like the Indian Gurkhas were seconded to the UN. Fitzduane was a young lieutenant in Ireland's contribution, an Airborne Rangers battalion under the leadership of Colonel Shane Kilmara.

Etan was able to piece much of the story together from the clippings files. She learned that Anne-Marie had been a nurse with the Red Cross and had met Fitzduane at a mission in the bush when he was out on long-range patrol. They had been married within weeks. There was a photo of the wedding, which had taken place in the provincial capital. The honor guard consisted of Irish troops, and the bridesmaids were Red Cross nurses. The accompanying story told of the whirlwind romance. The couple looked very young and carefree and happy. The troops in the honor guard were smiling. Only their combat uniforms and sidearms gave a hint of the bloodbath to come.

The Congo was a vast land, and the UN forces were sorely stretched. Fitzduane's unit moved on to another trouble spot, leaving the provincial capital lightly guarded and under the care of central government troops. The troops revolted and were joined by an invading column of rebels—Simbas, they were called. Hostages were taken.

Etan heard the rest of the story from Fitzduane. Holding hands, they had walked slowly from his castle to the lake nearby. They sat on a log and looked out across the lake and the intervening strip of land toward the sea and the spectacular sunset. The log had been covered with moss and damp, and the air had a chill to it. She could still vividly recall the texture of the mossy bark.

Fitzduane had looked into the setting sun, his face aglow, and had murmured, "A world of cold fire." He had been silent for some moments before continuing.

"The UN Secretary-General had been killed in a plane crash a few weeks earlier. Everything was confused. Nobody could decide what to do about the hostages. We were ordered to hold fast and do nothing. The Simbas were threatening to kill the hostages, and we knew firsthand they weren't bluffing. Kilmara decided on his own initiative to go in and asked for volunteers. Just about the whole unit stepped forward, which was no surprise. Under Kilmara we thought we could walk on water.

"Anyway, we went in—the place was called Konina—by land, water, and air. Some of us sneaked in ahead at night and set up a position in a row of houses overlooking the square where the hostages were. There were about seven hundred of them—blacks, whites, Indians, men, women, and children. The town was packed with Simbas. There were masses of them; estimates ran as high as four thousand. Most of them were looting the town, but there was a guard of several hundred around the hostages in the square.

"The Simbas had threatened to kill all the hostages if attacked, and God knows, they had had enough practice at massacres. They were often compared with the siafus, the soldier ants of Africa, destroying everything in their path. The Simbas believed they couldn't be killed. They were mainly primitive tribesmen stiffened by Force Publique deserters and led by witch doctors. Each recruit was put through a ritual that was supposed to give him dawa—medicine. If he then chanted, 'mai, mai'—'water, water'—as he went into battle, enemy bullets would turn to water."

"What happened to this belief when some of them got killed?" Etan had asked.

"The witch doctors had an answer for that." Fitzduane smiled wryly. "They just said that the slain had lost face and broken one of the taboos. You had to follow the witch doctors exactly to keep your dawa."

He continued. "The job of my command was to lie low until the attack came and then prevent the Simbas from killing the hostages until the main force could punch its way through. There were only twelve of us, so it was vital we didn't make a move until the attack started. We knew we couldn't hope to hold out for more than a matter of minutes unless reinforcements were right on hand. There were just too many Simbas, and though quite a few still had only spears or bows and arrows, most had FALs and other automatic weaponry captured from the ANC, the Congolese Army. So our orders were crystal-clear: No matter what the provocation, unless actually detected—and we weren't—do nothing until the main force opens fire.

"For eight hours we watched the scene below. Most of the hostages were left alive under guard, just sitting or trying to sleep on the ground, but a steady trickle was taken for the amusement of the Simbas and tortured to death. The torturing took place in a small garden at one end of the square. There was a statue there commemorating some explorer, and they used the plinth to tie their victims to.

"We lay concealed no more than fifty meters away on the second floor of the house, and we could see it all clearly by the light of huge bonfires. With field glasses, it seemed close enough to touch. We couldn't do a damn thing. We had to wait; we just had to. They screamed and screamed and screamed; all goddamn night they screamed. Men, women, and children were raped. It made no difference. Then they were killed in as many disgusting ways as the Simbas could devise.

"They put one little child—she couldn't have been more than four or five—between two jeeps, tied ropes to her arms and legs, and pulled her apart like a rag doll. One guy, with a beard and longish hair, they crucified. They shouted at him: 'Jesus, Jesus, le roi des juifs.' He was still alive after four hours, so they castrated him.

After they raped them, they made some nuns drink gasoline. Then they cut their stomachs open and set fire to their intestines. That was a big favorite. We could smell them burning from where we lay. And we could do nothing, absolutely nothing to help. We lay there with our GPMGs and FNs and rocket launchers and grenades and knives and piano wire, and we didn't even move when little babies died.

"Oh, we were a well-trained outfit, the best the Irish Army had to offer. We had discipline, absolute discipline. We had our orders, and they were sensible orders. Premature action would have been military suicide.

"And then the Simbas pulled one young nurse out of the crowd. She was tall and red-haired and beautiful. She still wore her white uniform. It happened so quickly. One of the young Simbas—some were only thirteen or fourteen and among the cruelest—picked up a panga and almost casually hacked her head off. It took only a few blows. It was quite a quick death. The nurse was Anne-Marie. We'd been married just seven weeks."

Etan had not known what to say or do. What she was hearing was so truly terrible and so much beyond her experience that she just sat there motionless. Then she put both arms around her lover and drew him to her. After he'd finished speaking, Fitzduane had remained silent. The sun was now a dull semicircle vanishing into the sea. It had grown much colder. She could see the lights of the castle keep.

Fitzduane had kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tight. "This is a damp bloody climate, isn't it?" he had said. To warm themselves up, they played ducks and drakes with flat stones on the lake in the twilight. Night had fallen by the time they made it back to Duncleeve, debating furiously as to who had won the game. The last few throws had taken place in near darkness.

Chapter 4

The new Jury's Hotel in Dublin looked like nothing so much as the presidential palace of a newly emerging nation. The original Jury's had vanished except for the marble, mahogany, and brass Victorian bar that had been shipped in its entirety to Zurich by concerned Swiss bankers as a memorial to James Joyce, Fitzduane wended his way through a visiting Japanese electronics delegation, headed toward the new bar, and ordered a Jameson. He was watching the ice melt and thinking about postmortems and life and the pursuit of happiness when Gьnther arrived. He still looked baby-faced, so you tended not to notice at first quite how big he was. Close up you could see lines that hadn't been there before, but he still looked fit and tough.

A wedding party slid in through the glass doors. The bride was heavily swaddled in layers of white man-made fiber. She was accompanied by either the headwaiter or the bridegroom, it was hard to tell which. The bride's train swished into the pond and began to sink. Fitzduane thought it was an unusual time of year for an Irish wedding, but then maybe not when you looked at her waistline.

The bride's escort retrieved her train and wrung it out expertly into the fountain. He did it neatly and efficiently, as if it were a routine chore or he were used to killing chickens. The train now looked like a wet diaper as it followed the bride into family life. Fitzduane ignored the symbolism and finished his Jameson.

"You're losing your puppy fat, Gьnther," he said. "You're either working too hard or playing too hard."

"It's the climate here, and I'm getting older. I think I'm rusting."

The accent was German and pronounced, but with more than a hint of Irishness to it. He'd been in Ireland for some considerable time. The government had once borrowed him from Grenzschutz-gruppe 9 (GSG-9), the West German antiterrorist force, and somehow he'd stayed.

"Doesn't it rain in Germany?"

"Only when required," replied Gьnther. "We're a very orderly nation."

"The colonel coming?" asked Fitzduane. He patted the airline bag slung from Gьnther's shoulder and then hefted it, trying to work out the weapon inside. Something Heckler Koch at a guess. Germans liked using German products, and Heckler Koch was state of the art. The weapon had a folding stock, and if he knew Kilmara, it was unlikely to be a nine millimeter. Kilmara had a combat-originated bias against the caliber, which he thought lacked stopping power. "The model thirty-three assault rifle?"

Gьnther grinned and nodded. "You keep up-to-date," he said. "Very good. But the colonel is upstairs. You're dining in a private room; these days it's wiser." He led the way out of the bar and along the glass-walled corridor to the elevator. They got out on the top floor. Gьnther nodded at two plainclothes security guards and opened the door with a key. There were two more men inside, automatic weapons at the ready. Gьnther ushered Fitzduane into the adjoining room.

Colonel Shane Kilmara, security adviser to the Taoiseach—the Irish prime minister—and commander of the Rangers, the special Irish antiterrorist force, rose to meet him. A buffet lunch was spread out on a table to one side.

"I didn't realize smoked salmon needed so much protection," said Fitzduane.

"It's the company it keeps," answered Kilmara.

Whenever Ireland's idiosyncratic climate and the Celtic mentality of many of its natives began to get him down, Kilmara had only to reflect on how he had ended up in his present position to induce a frisson of well-being.

Kilmara had been successful militarily in the Congo, and the saving of most of the hostages at Konina had been hailed as a classic surgical strike by the world press; but the bottom line had a political flavor, and back in cold, damp Ireland Kilmara was court-martialed—and found guilty. He did not dispute the finding.

He had initiated the Konina stride against orders, and eighteen of his men had been killed.

On the credit side of the ledger, the operation had been a success. More than seven hundred lives had been saved, and world public opinion had been overwhelmingly favorable, so he did dispute whether charges should have been brought at all. Many others, including the officers judging him at his court-martial, felt the same way, but the verdict, once the court was convened, was inevitable. The sentence was not. It could have involved a dishonorable discharge and imprisonment or even the extreme penalty. It did not. The members of the court demonstrated their view that the institution of such proceedings against one of their own was ill judged and motivated by political malice by settling for the minimum penalty: a severe reprimand.

Kilmara could have stayed on in the army, since most of his peers regarded the verdict as technical, but a more serious shock was to follow. Under the guise of economy measures, the elite airborne battalion he had selected and trained to such a peak of perfection was disbanded.

Although both the court-martial and the disbanding of Kilmara's command were publicized as being strictly military decisions made by the chief of staff and his officers, Kilmara was under no illusions as to where they actually originated or what he could do about them. He assessed the situation pragmatically. For the moment he was outgunned. There was nothing he could do. His antagonist was none other than one Joseph Patrick Delaney, Minister for Defense.

"It's realpolitik," said Kilmara to a disappointed chief of staff when he resigned. Two days later he left Ireland.

Many in the Irish establishment—political and civil—were not unhappy at Kilmara's departure. He had been outspoken and abrasive about conditions in the army and had an unacceptably high profile in the media. His very military success had made him into a greater threat. The establishment in conservative Ireland was fiercely opposed to change. It was glad to see the back of the outspoken colonel and was confident he would never return in an official capacity. Any alternative was unthinkable.

It was assumed by his colleagues in the cabinet that the minister's active hostility toward Kilmara was merely the normal conservative's dislike of the outspoken maverick, leavened by a not-unnatural jealousy of the military man's success—and as such it was understood. They were right, up to a point. However, the real reason Joseph Patrick Delaney wanted Kilmara discredited was more serious and fundamental. Kilmara was a threat not just to the minister's professional ambitions but, if ever the soldier put certain information together, to the politician's very life.

To put it simply, Delaney was a traitor. He had passed information about the plans and activities of Irish troops in the Congo to a connection in exchange for considerable sums of money, which had resulted in the frustration of some of the Airborne Rangers battalion's operations—and in the death and wounding of a number of men.

The minister had not set out to be a traitor. He had merely put his ambitions before his integrity, and circumstances had done the rest. The minister was convinced that Kilmara suspected what he had done—though, ironically, he was wrong. Kilmara's undisguised contempt for him was based on no more than the typical soldier's dislike of a corrupt and opportunistic political master.

After his resignation from the Irish Army in the mid-sixties, Kilmara should have vanished from Irish official circles for good. But then, in the seventies, the specter of terrorism began to make itself felt. It had been largely confined to British-occupied Northern Ireland and to Continental Europe, but violence, unless checked, has a habit of spreading, and borders are notoriously leaky.

The Irish government was concerned and worried, but it was the assassination of Ambassador Ewart Biggs that made the critical difference.

In 1976 Christopher Ewart Biggs, ex-member of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, writer of thrillers—all of them banned by the Irish censors—and wearer of a black-tinted monocle, was appointed British ambassador to the Republic of Ireland. It was a controversial choice at best, and it was to end in tragedy.

Cm the morning of July 21, Ewart Biggs seated himself on the left-hand side of the backseat of his chauffeur-driven 4.2-liter Jaguar. He was to be driven from his residence in the Dublin suburb of Sandyford to the British Embassy near Ballsbridge. Behind the Jaguar drove an escort vehicle of the Irish Special Branch containing armed detectives.

A few hundred meters from the residence, the ambassador's car passed over a culvert stuffed with one hundred kilograms of commercial gelignite. The culvert bomb was detonated by command wire from a hundred meters away. The Jaguar was blasted up into the air and crashed back into the smoking crater. Ambassador Ewart Biggs and his secretary, Judith Cooke, were crushed to death.

The killings sent a cold shudder through the Irish political establishment. Whom might the terrorists kill next? Would the British start revenge bombings, and who might their targets be? It wasn't a cheerful scenario.

The Irish cabinet went into emergency session, and a special committee was set up to overhaul Irish internal security. It was decided to appoint a special security adviser to the Taoiseach. It was an obvious prerequisite that such an adviser be familiar with counterinsurgency on both an international and a national basis.

Discreet inquiries were made throughout Europe, the United States, and places much farther afield. The replies were virtually unanimous. In the intervening decade, working with many of the West's most effective security and counterterrorist forces, Kilmara had consolidated his already formidable reputation. His contempt for most bureaucrats and politicians was well known. The cabinet committee was unhappy with the appointment, but having Kilmara around was preferable to being shredded by a terrorist mine. Just about.

Kilmara drove a hard bargain. It included an ironclad contract and a substantial—by Irish standards—budget. Ninety days after his appointment, as stipulated in his contract, Kilmara set up an elite special antiterrorist unit. He named it "the Rangers" after his now-disbanded airborne battalion. The entire unit numbered only sixty members. Some were drawn from the ranks of the army and the police. Many had been with Kilmara in the Congo. A number were seconded from other forces like the German GSG-9 and the French Gigene. There were others whose backgrounds were known only to Kilmara.

The performance of the Rangers exceeded expectations. Success did not mellow Kilmara. He remained cordially disliked—and, to an extent, feared—by much of the political establishment and, above all, by the present Taoiseach, a certain Joseph Patrick Delaney.

But he was needed.

They lunched alone. Their relationship had been that of commanding officer and young lieutenant—mentor and disciple—during the early days of their service together in the Irish Army, but shared danger in the Congo and the passage of time had made it a relationship of equals. They had been comrades-in-arms. They had become close friends.

The cold buffet was excellent. The wine came from Kilmara's private stock, and its quality suggested that he was putting his French associations to good use. They finished with Irish coffees. They had been talking about times past and about the Ireland of the present. The matter of the hanging had been left by mutual consent until the meal was over.

Kilmara finished lighting his pipe. "Ah, it's not a bad life," he said, "even in this funny little country of ours—frustrations, betrayals, faults, and all. It's my home, and we're a young nation yet."

Fitzduane smiled. "You sound positively benign," he said. "Dare I add complacent?"

Kilmara growled. "Sound, maybe; am, no. But enough of this. Tell me about Rudolf von Graffenlaub."

Fitzduane told his story, and Kilmara listened without interrupting. He was a good listener, and he was intrigued as to why the death of a total stranger had so affected his friend.

"An unfortunate way to start the day, I'll grant you," said Kilmara, "but you're not exactly a stranger to death. You see more dead bodies in a week in your line of work than most people do in a lifetime. I don't want to sound callous, but what's one more body? You didn't know the young man, you don't know his friends or his family, and you didn't kill him"—he looked at Fitzduane—"did you?"

Fitzduane grinned and shook his head. "Not that I remember."

"Well then," said Kilmara, "what's the problem? People die. It's sort of built into the system. It's what they call the natural order of things. What is Rudi von Graffenlaub's death to you?"

Fitzduane gathered his thoughts.

Kilmara spoke again. "Of course I'll help," he said. "But I am curious about your rationale for what seems, on the face of it, a somewhat arcane project."

Fitzduane laughed. "I don't have one neat reason," he said. "More like a feeling that this is something I should stay with."

"You and your instincts," said Kilmara, shaking his head. "They are, as I remember full well from the Congo, downright spooky. So what's on your mind?"

Fitzduane refreshed his memory from his notes. "I'd like to talk to the pathologist who carried out the postmortem on our freshly dead friend. The normal pathologist for the area was away at a conference, and Harbison was tied up on some thing or other. A Dr. Buckley drove up from Cork for the occasion."

"I know Buckley," said Kilmara. "A smallish man with salt-and-pepper hair. Originally from West Cork. Now based in the South Infirmary."

"That's the boyo," said Fitzduane.

"Buckley's a good man," said Kilmara. "He's first-rate, but he's like a clam when it comes to professional matters unless there are good reasons for him to talk."

"That ball is in your court," said Fitzduane. "I tried ringing him off my own bat and got nowhere. He was affable but firm."

"Ah, the people of West Cork have great charm," said Kilmara. "It must go with the scenery. I'll see what I can do. What's next?"

"I'd like copies of all the relevant reports: police, forensic, coroner's. The lot," said Fitzduane.

"It's certainly improper and arguably illegal to give that sort of thing to a civilian. But okay. No problem."

"I need some sort of introduction to the authorities in Bern," said Fitzduane. "That's where Rudolf von Graffenlaub came from. That's where his parents and friends live. I want to go over and ask some questions, and I don't want to be politely deported on the second day."

Kilmara grinned. "This one calls for a little creative thinking."

"Finally, what do you know about Draker College?" asked Fitzduane. "And I don't mean have you got a copy of the college prospectus."

"I thought you might get to that one sometime," said Kilmara. "Now it's my turn for a question. Do you have any idea what you're looking for?"

Fitzduane smiled gently. "No," he said, "but I expect I'll know when I find it."

They were silent for a few moments. Kilmara rose and stretched and walked over to the window. He peered through the Venetian blinds. "The rain isn't so bad," he said. "It's only spitting now. What about a stroll in Herbert Park?"

"It's winter and it's March and it's cold," said Fitzduane, but his movements belied his words. He shrugged into his still-damp coat. "And there are no flowers."

"There are always flowers," said Kilmara.

They walked the short distance to Herbert Park and turned onto the deserted grounds.

The four security guards moved in closer, though they were still out of earshot. They were perceptibly edgy. The light was dull, and the shrubbery provided cover for a possible assailant. It was unlike the colonel to expose himself for this length of time in what could not be made, with the manpower available, a secure area. The bodyguard commander called in to Ranger headquarters for backup. He wondered what the two men were talking about. He hoped the rain would get heavier so they'd return to bricks and mortar and a defensible perimeter.

They were talking about terrorists.

"Take our homegrown lot," said Kilmara. "We hunt them and imprison them, and occasionally we kill them, but I still have a certain sympathy for, or at least an understanding of, the Provos and other splinter groups of the IRA. They want a united Ireland. They don't want Britain hanging on to the North."

"By exploding bombs in crowded streets, by killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children, by murdering part-time policemen in front of their families?" broke in Fitzduane.

"I know, I know," said Kilmara. "I'm not defending the IRA. My point is, however, that I understand their motives."

They left the ponds and gardens of Herbert Park and crossed the road into the area of lawn and tennis courts. Wet grass squelched underfoot. Neither man noticed.

Kilmara continued. "Similarly, I understand other nationalist terrorist organizations like ETA or the various Palestinian outfits, and the Lord knows there are enough of those. But I have great difficulty in grasping the motives of what I tend to think of as the European terrorists—the Bader-Meinhof people, the 'Red Army Faction,' as they call themselves, Action Directe—or gangs like the Italian Brigate Rosse.

"What the hell are they after? Most of the members come from well-to-do families. They are normally well educated—sometimes too well. They don't have material problems. They don't have nationalistic objectives. They don't seem to have a coherent political philosophy. Yet they rob, kidnap, maim, and murder. But to what end? Why?"

"What are you leading up to?"

Kilmara stopped and turned to face Fitzduane. He shook his head. "I'm buggered if I know exactly. It's a kind of feeling I have that something else is brewing. We sit on this damp little island of ours with mildew and shamrock corroding our brains and think all we have to worry about, at least in a terrorist sense, is the IRA. I'm not sure it's that simple.

"I've no time for communism, which is self-destructing anyway, but all is far from well in Western democracies. There is a gangrene affecting our values that gives rise to terrorists like the Red Army Faction, and I'm beginning to get the smell in this country."

They started walking again. To the great relief of the bodyguard commander, the heavens opened, and rain descended in solid sheets. The colonel and his guest headed toward a Ranger car.

"Is this instinct or something harder?" asked Fitzduane. "Is this academic discussion or something that crosses what I'm up to?"

"It's not academic," said Kilmara, "but it's not hard. It's bits and pieces sifted from intelligence reports and interrogations. It's the presence of elements that shouldn't be there. It's stuff on the grapevine. It's the instinct of someone who's been a long time in this game. As for whether it affects you, I don't see how—but who knows? Suicide is about alienation. There are other ways to show society you're pissed off. And there is a lot about our society to piss people off."

Kilmara stopped as they approached the car. The sky was black, and thunder rumbled. Rain poured down and cascaded off the two men. Lightning flashed and for a moment illuminated Kilmara's face. He started to say something, then seemed to change his mind. He reverted to what they had just been discussing. "In this new modern Ireland of ours—and for Ireland you can substitute the Western capitalist world—our idea of progress is a new shopping center or video machine. It just isn't that simple. Life can't be that hollow."

Fitzduane looked at his friend.

"I've got children," said Kilmara, "and I'm not sure I like the view in my crystal ball."

They returned to the hotel and dried off and had a hot whiskey together for the road. They drank in companionable silence. The hotel's central heating was as usual too hot, but their coats and hats, draped over the radiators and dripping onto the carpet, were drying out. The room smelled like an old sheepdog.

"I wonder what you've got into this time, Hugo," said Kilmara. "You and your fucking vibes." He swirled the clove in his hot whiskey. "Tell me," he said, "do they still call you the Irish samurai?"

"From time to time," replied Fitzduane. "The media have picked it up, and it's in the files. It livens up a story."

Kilmara laughed. "Ah," he said, "but the name fits. There you are with your ideals, your standards, your military skills, and your heritage, looking for a worthwhile cause to serve, a quest to undertake."

"The idea of a samurai," said Fitzduane, "is a warrior who already serves, one who has already found his master and has his place in the social order, a knight in the feudal system answerable to a lord but in charge of his own particular patch."

"Well," said Kilmara, "you've certainly got your own particular patch—even if it is in the middle of nowhere. As to whom you are answerable"—he grinned—"that's an interesting question."

The thunderstorm was working itself up to a climax. Rain drummed against the glass. Lightning split the sky into jagged pieces.

"It's the weather for metaphysics," said Fitzduane, "though scarcely the time."

Fifteen minutes later Kilmara was connected by telephone to a white-tiled room in Cork.

A smallish man with salt-and-pepper hair and the complexion of a fisherman was given the phone by the lab technician. The smallish man was wearing a green smock and trousers and rubber apron. His white rubber boots were splashed with blood.

"Michael," said Kilmara after the proprieties had been observed, "I want you to take a break from cutting the tops off Irish skulls with that electric saw of yours in a fruitless search for gray matter. I'd like you to take a friend of mine out to dinner and do a wee bit of talking."

"What about?" asked the smallish man. There was the sound of dripping from the open body into the stainless steel bucket below.

"A Bernese hanging."

"Ah," said the smallish man. "Who's paying for dinner?"

"Now, is that a fair question from a friend to a friend about a friend?"

"Yes," said the smallish man.

"The firm."

"Well now, that's very civilized of you, Shane," said the smallish man. "It will be the Arbutus, so."

He decided he would have a nice cup of tea before returning to the corpse.

Kilmara phoned Switzerland.

*  *  *

Fitzduane soaked in the bath, watching his yellow plastic duck bob around in the suds. There was the weakness of showers. There was nowhere to float your duck.

The music of Sean O'Riada wafted through the half-open door.

Fitzduane didn't hear the phone. He was thinking about O'Riada—an outstanding composer who was dead of drink by early middle age—and Rudi von Graffenlaub and the fact that killing yourself, if you included drugs and alcohol, wasn't really such an uncommon human activity. It was just that hanging was rather more dramatic. The duck caught his eye. It was riding low in the water. He had a horrible feeling that it had sprung a leak.

He heard Etan laughing. She entered the bathroom and pulled a towel off the heated rail. "It's Shane. He asks would you mind leaving your duck for a moment. He wants to talk to you."

Fitzduane picked up the phone in a damp hand. There were bubbles in his hair. He leaned over and turned the music down lower. "Still alive?" he said into the mouthpiece.

"You're a real bundle of laughs," said Kilmara. It was late on a wet March evening, and it would take him well over an hour to get to his home in Westmeath. He was feeling grumpy, and he thought it quite probably he was coming down with a cold.

"Developments?" asked Fitzduane. "Or are you just trying to get me out of the bath?"

"Developments," said Kilmara. "The man in Cork says yes, but you'll have to drive down there. The man in Bern says well-behaved tourists are always welcome, though he gargled a bit when he heard the name von Graffenlaub. And I say, if I'm not in bed with acute pneumonia, will you take a stroll over to Shrewsbury Road in the morning? I want to talk about the dead and the living. Clear?"

"In part," said Fitzduane.

Three hours later, Kilmara felt much improved.

Logs crackled in the big fireplace. An omelette fines herbes, a tomato salad, a little cheese, red wine—all sat especially well when prepared by a Frenchwoman. He heard the whir of the coffee grinder from the kitchen.

He lay back in the old leather wing chair, the twins snuggled in close. They were cozy in pajamas and matching Snoopy robes, and they smelled of soap and shampoo and freshly scrubbed six-year-old. Afterward, when the cries and the squeals and the "But, Daddy, we can't go to bed until our hair is really, really dry" had died down, he talked with Adeline. As always when he looked at her or thought about her, he felt a fortunate man.

"But why, cheri, does he want to do this thing?" said Adeline. She held her balloon glass of Armagnac up to the firelight and enjoyed the flickering rich color. "Why does Hugo go on this quest when nothing is suspicious, when there seems to be no reason?"

"There's nothing suspicious as far as the authorities are concerned," said Kilmara, "but Hugo marches to the beat of a different drum. The point is that it doesn't feel right to him, and that, to him, is what counts."

Adeline looked skeptical. "A feeling—is that all?"

"Oh, I think it's more than that," said Kilmara. "Hugo is something of a paradox. He's a gentle man with a hard edge—and the hard edge is where much of his talent lies. It's no accident that he's spent most of his adult life in war zones. In the Congo he was a natural master of combat while in action, though he had qualms of conscience when it was all over. Combat photography was his compromise. Well, now he's heading toward middle age, and that's a time when you tend to take stock of where you've been and where you're going. I suspect he feels a sense of guilt about having made a living for so many years out of photographing other people's suffering, and I think this one death on his doorstep is like a catalyst for his accumulated feelings. He seems to think he can prevent some future tragedy by finding out the reasons for this one."

"Do you think anything will come of all this?" said Adeline. "It seems to me he's more likely to have a series of doors slammed in his face. Nobody likes to talk about a suicide—least of all the family."

Kilmara nodded. "Well," he said, "ordinarily you'd be right, of course, but Fitzduane is a little different. He'd laugh if you mentioned them, but he's got some special qualities. People talk to him, and he feels things others do not. It's more than being simpatico. If I believed in such things, I'd call him fey."

"What is this word fey?" asked Adeline. Her English was excellent, and she sounded mildly indignant that Kilmara had come up with a word that she did not recognize. Her nose tilted at a pugnacious angle, and there was a glint of amusement in her eye. Kilmara thought she looked luscious. He laughed.

"Oh, it's a real word," he said, "and a good word to know if you are mixing with Celts." He pulled a Chambers dictionary from the bookshelves behind the chair. He leafed through the pages and found the entry.

" 'Fey,' " he read. " 'Doomed; fated to die; under the shadow of a sudden or violent death; forseeing the future, especially a calamity; eccentric; slightly mad; supernatural.' "

Adeline shivered and looked into the firelight. "Does all of that apply, do you think?"

Kilmara smiled. He took her hands between his. "It isn't that terrible," he said. "The son of a bitch is also lucky."

Adeline smiled, and then she was silent for a while before she spoke. Now her voice was grave. "Shane, my love," she said, "you told me once about Hugo's wife: how she died; how she was killed; how he did nothing to save her."

"He couldn't," said Kilmara. "He had orders, and his men were grossly outnumbered, and frankly, there wasn't even the time. It was quite terrible for him—hell, I knew the girl and she was quite gorgeous—but there was nothing he could do."

Adeline looked at him. "I think Anne-Marie is the reason," she said. "She is the reason he can't let this thing go."

Kilmara kissed his wife's hand. He loved her greatly, and it was a growing love as the days passed and the children grew. He thought Adeline was almost certainly right about Fitzduane, and he worried for his friend.

Chapter 5

Fitzduane drove and decided he'd better think about something more cheerful than conditions on the Dublin to Cork road, because the alternative was a heart attack. He decided to review the aftermath of the hanging.

The obvious place to start his quest was Draker College—only it wasn't that simple. The impact of the tragedy of Rudolf von Graffenlaub's death on the small, isolated community of the college had been considerable. Immediately, it had been made quite, quite clear to Fitzduane that the sooner the whole episode was forgotten, the better. Nobody in the college wished to be reminded of Rudi's death. The attitude was that these things happen. It was pointed out, as if in defense, that suicide was the most common cause of death among young people. Fitzduane, who had never thought twice about the matter in the past, found this hard to believe, but investigation showed it to be true.

"Actually, statistically speaking, it's amazing that something like this didn't happen before," said Pierre Danelle, the principal of the college and a man Fitzduane found it hard to warm to.

"All the students at Draker are normally so happy," said the deputy principal. He was a Danelle clone.

The inquest took less than an hour. Sergeant Tommy Keane drove Fitzduane to the two-centuries-old granite courthouse where it was held. In the trunk of the sergeant's car was fishing tackle, a child's doll—and a length of thin blue rope culminating in a noose stained with brownish marks. Fitzduane found this juxtaposition of domesticity and death bizarre.

During the inquest Fitzduane was struck by the one emotion that seemed to grip everyone present: the desire to get the whole wretched business over and done with.

Fitzduane gave his evidence. The pathologist gave his evidence. Tommy Keane gave and produced his evidence. The principal of the college and some students were called. One of the students, a pretty, chubby-faced blonde with a halo of golden curls, whose name was Toni Hoffman, had been particularly close to Rudi. She cried. No one, in Fitzduane's opinion, advanced any credible reason why Rudi had killed himself, and cross-examination was minimal. Fitzduane had the feeling they were in a race to beat the clock.

The coroner found that the hanged man had been properly identified and was indeed Rudolf von Graffenlaub. He had died as a result of hanging himself from a tree. It was known he was of a serious disposition, prone to be moody, and had been upset by "world problems." His parents, who were not present, were offered the condolences of the court. The word suicide—for legal reasons, Fitzduane gathered—was never mentioned.

As they drove back in the car, Sergeant Keane spoke. "You expected more, didn't you, Hugo?"

"I think I did," said Fitzduane. "It was all so rushed."

"That's the way these things normally are," said Keane. "It makes the whole affair easier for all concerned. A few little white lies like saying the lad died instantly do nobody any harm."

"Didn't he?"

"Lord, no," said the sergeant. "It wasn't read out in open court, of course, but the truth is the lad strangled to death. Dr. Buckley estimated it took at least four or five minutes, but it could have been longer—quite a bit longer."

They drove on in silence. Fitzduane wondered if the blue rope was still in the trunk.

The duty lieutenant came into Kilmara's office. He was looking, Kilmara thought, distinctly green about the gills.

"You asked to be informed of any developments on Fitzduane's Island, Colonel?"

Kilmara nodded.

"We've had a call from the local police superintendent," said the lieutenant. "There's been another hanging at Draker." He looked down at his clipboard. "The victim was an eighteen-year-old Swiss female, one Toni Hoffman—apparently a close friend of Rudolf von Graffenlaub. No question of foul play. She left a note." He paused and swallowed.

Kilmara raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"It's sick, Colonel," said the lieutenant. "Apparently she did it in front of the whole school. They have an assembly hall. Just when all the faculty and students had gathered, there was a shout from the balcony at the back of the hall. When they turned, the girl was standing on the gallery rail with a rope around her neck. When she saw everyone was looking, she jumped. I gather it was very messy. Her head just about came off."

"Did she say anything before she jumped?" said Kilmara.

"She shouted, 'Remember Rudi,' " said the lieutenant.

Kilmara raised the other eyebrow. "I expect we shall," he said dryly. He dismissed the lieutenant. "Obviously a young lady with a theatrical bent," he said to Gьnther.

Gьnther shrugged. "Poor girl," he said. "What else can one say? It sounds like a classic copycat suicide. One suicide in a group has a tendency to spark off others. Many coroners think that's one good reason why suicides shouldn't be reported."

Kilmara gave a shudder. "Ugh," he said. "This is gloomy stuff. Until our green lieutenant came in with the tidings, I was geared to go home early and bathe the twins."

"And now?" said Gьnther.

Kilmara waited a beat and grinned. "I'm going to go home early and bathe the twins," he said. He put on his coat, checked his personal weapons, and slid down the specially installed fireman's pole to the underground garage. He'd tell Fitzduane about this second hanging tomorrow. Hugo would have to get by on one hanging this night.

He was unmercifully splashed by the twins.

The city of Cork, Ireland's second largest, had been sacked, burned, pillaged, looted, and destroyed so often since its foundation in the sixth century by St. Finbar that it now seemed laid out with the primary objective of stopping any invader in his tracks.

Its traffic problem was impressive in its turgid complexity, and on a dark, wet March evening it had reached a pinnacle of congestion that was a tribute to the ingenuity of its corporation's planning committee.

Fitzduane had a manic private theory that the reason the city's population had expanded was that none of the inhabitants could get out, and so they stayed and became traders or lawyers or pregnant or both and conversed in a strange singsong that sounded to the uninitiated like a form of Chinese but was, in fact, the Cork accent.

Fitzduane actually quite liked Cork, but he could never understand how a city that stood astride only one river could have so many bridges—all, apparently, going the wrong way. In addition, there seemed to be more bridges than during his last visit, and some seemed to be in different locations. Maybe they were designed to move secretly in the dead of night. Maybe the reason the British had burned the city—yet again—in 1921 was just to find a parking space.

He was agreeably surprised when the South Infirmary Hospital loomed through the sleet.

Fitzduane transferred the slides of the hanging to the circular magazine of a Kodak Carousel projector and switched it on.

The screen was suddenly brilliant white in the small office. He pressed the advance button. There was a click and a whir and a click. The white of the screen was replaced by a blur of color. He adjusted the zoom lens and the focus, and the face of the hanged boy, much enlarged, came sharply into view.

Buckley held an illuminated pointer in his hand, and from time to time, as the slides clicked and whirred and clicked, he would point out a feature with the small arrow of light.

"Of course," said the pathologist, "I didn't see the locus—the place it actually happened—so these slides of yours help. They should really have been handed in to me before the inquest, but no matter.

"Now, under our system, the decision as to whether the pathologist sees the deceased at the locus depends on the police. If they have any reason to be suspicious, the body is not disturbed in any way until the fullest investigations are carried out. In this particular case the sergeant used his judgment. A youth was involved, and his death occurred on the grounds of his own college. A very fraught situation, and the sight of a victim of hanging can be quite traumatic, as you know. There were no signs of foul play, and the sergeant knew that hanging almost invariably means suicide. There was also the matter of determining that the lad was actually dead. All these factors encouraged the sergeant to take the view that he should cut down the deceased immediately, and I have to say that it is my belief that he acted correctly."

Fitzduane looked at the grimacing figure on the screen. He had an impulse to wipe away the blood and mucus that so disfigured the face. He tried to make his voice sound detached as he spoke. "He must have been dead, surely. I checked his pulse when I found him, and there was nothing—and just look at him."

The pathologist cleared his throat. "I must point out, Mr. Fitzduane," he said, "that given the position of the hanging body, I doubt that you could have carried out an adequate examination. The absence of a pulse alone, especially considering a normal layman's limited experience, is by no means a sufficient determination of death."

"Are you saying that he could have been alive when I found him—even without a pulse and looking like that?"

"Yes," said Buckley in a matter-of-fact voice, "it's possible. Our investigations, based upon when he was last seen in the college, when the rain stopped and so on, plus, of course, your own testimony, indicate that the hanging must have taken place between half an hour and an hour of your finding him. He could have been alive—just—in the same way that a victim of drowning can survive a period of total immersion and can be brought around by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

As Buckley spoke, Fitzduane tried to imagine giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to that bluish face. He could almost feel those distorted lips stained with spittle, mucus, and blood. Had his revulsion killed the boy? Had it really been so impossible to cut the body down?

"For what it's worth," said Buckley, "and this is not a scientific opinion, merely common sense, he was almost certainly dead when you found him. And anyway, I fail to see how you could have cut him down single-handed, since the evidence stated, as I recall, that you had no knife or similar item. In addition, there would have been the probability of further damage to the boy when the body dropped. Finally, if any trace of life did remain, the brain would have been damaged beyond repair. You would have saved a vegetable. So do not harbor any feelings of guilt. They are neither justified nor constructive."

Fitzduane smiled faintly at Buckley.

"No, I'm not a mind reader," said the pathologist. "It's just that I've been down this road many times before. If suicides realized the trauma they inflict on those who find their damaged remains, some might think twice." He turned back to the business at hand.

"Our friend here," he said, "is a classic example of a victim of asphyxial death resulting from suspension by a ligature. You will note the cyanosed complexion and the petechiae—those tiny red dots. The petechiae are more pronounced where the capillaries are least firmly supported. Externally they show here as a fine shower in the scalp, brow, and face above the level of compression. You will observe the tongue, lifted up at the base and made turgid and protruding. You will observe the prominent eyeballs. You will observe that the level of the tightening of the ligature—the blue nylon rope in this case—does not circle the neck horizontally as would tend to be the case in manual strangulation. Instead, it is set at the thyroid level in front and rises to a suspension point just behind the ear. The impression on the body tissues, incidentally, conforms exactly to what you see here. Such would not be the case if he had been manually strangled beforehand or indeed hanged elsewhere. There are invariably discrepancies.

"Now, hanging normally causes death in one of three possible ways: vagal inhibition, cerebral anoxia, or asphyxia."

Fitzduane made a gesture, and Buckley paused.

"Forgive me," said Fitzduane. "I'm familiar with some of these terms, but I think it would be wiser to consider me an ignorant layman."

Buckley chuckled apologetically. He selected a pipe from a rack on his desk and began to fill it with tobacco. There was the flare of a match followed by the sounds of heavy puffing. "Rudolf died from asphyxia," continued Buckley. "He strangled himself to death, though I doubt that was his intention. The tree he chose and the branch he jumped from gave him a drop of about one meter eighty. We can't be quite sure because he may have jumped up and off the branch, thus increasing the drop.

"To use layman's terminology, I expect he intended to break his neck. He would have wanted the cervical segments to fracture, as happens, or is supposed to happen, in a judicial hanging. In reality, outside official executions, where the hangman has the advantage of training or practice, the neck rarely breaks. Rudolf was a strong, fit young man. His neck did not break.

"You will recall, of course, that I stated during the inquest that death was instantaneous. That was not the truth, merely a convention we tend to adhere to for the relatives' sake. The true facts are always in the written report given to the coroner."

"What about the marks on his hands?" asked Fitzduane. "There are scratches on the fingertips as well. They look like the signs of a struggle."

"Perhaps they do," said Buckley, "but if there was a struggle that resulted in the victim being hanged by another, it's virtually certain there would be some sign on the victim's body. In this case I examined the body with particular care for the very good reason that I was working in another man's territory and didn't want to leave any possibilities unchecked—and I had rather more time than I tend to have with the work load here. Be that as it may, there were no signs of the bruising you might expect if another party were involved. The marks on the hands and fingers are entirely consistent with two things: first, the victim's ascent of the tree, which marked the palms of his hands and the insides of his fingers." He paused to puff at his pipe.

"And second?" prompted Fitzduane.

"Second, the convulsing of the victim as he hung there and slowly asphyxiated. The distance between the trunk of the tree and the body, based now upon my observation of these slides, but originally on the sergeant's measurements, indicates that the body would indeed have brushed against the tree as it spasmed or, more specifically, that the fingertips would have rubbed against the bark of the trunk. Such convulsions can be quite violent."

"I'm sorry I asked," said Fitzduane.

Buckley smiled slightly. "In addition, I took samples from under the deceased's fingernails and subjected them to various tests and microscopic examinations. The findings were consistent with what I have just said. Also, I should point out that in the event of a struggle it is not uncommon to find traces of the assailant's skin, tissue, and blood in the nail scrapings. No such traces were found in this case." He looked toward Fitzduane. Half glasses glinted through the smoke.

Fitzduane marshaled his thoughts. "Very well. If we accept that there is no evidence of strangulation, forcible hanging, or indeed any sort of physical pressure, how about the possibility that he killed himself while drugged or even while under hypnosis?"

Buckley grinned. "Great stuff," he said. "I mentioned earlier that I had taken particular care with this fellow. The fact is that I did a number of things I wouldn't normally do on the basis of the evidence available, and it wasn't only because I was off my patch. It was also because the fellow was a foreigner and, as like as not, there would be another autopsy when his body arrived home. There would be hell to pay if our verdicts differed, as has happened before—to a colleague, in fact. Very embarrassing.

"So in this case," continued Buckley, "although there was no evidence of foul play and no suspicious circumstances, I took extensive samples of blood, hair, urine, stomach contents, and so on, and sent them for examination in Dublin. I thought there was some possibility that he might have been under the influence of some self-administered drug, and I requested the toxicological tests as an extra precaution."

"And?" said Fitzduane.

"Nothing found," said Buckley. "A very healthy young man, apart from being hanged, that is. Mind you, I'm not saying it was absolutely impossible. There are a staggering number of drugs and chemicals available today. What I am saying is that we found no evidence that he was drugged or poisoned in any way. The lab people are well practiced and expert, and it is unlikely they would have missed an alien substance in the body. A more likely possibility would be that a more remote substance might take longer to identify. But let me repeat, no alien substance was found."

"What about hypnosis?" Fitzduane wasn't sure he believed in such a possibility himself, but Buckley was the expert, and he'd seen some decidedly odd things in the Congo.

"I don't know," said Buckley in a deadpan voice. "There could have been a witch doctor hidden in the tree. All I can say is that I didn't find a shiny gold watch dangling in front of his eyes when I carried out the examination."

Fitzduane didn't feel particularly amused. He knew pathologists had a reputation for ghoulish humor, but the blown-up images of Rudolf on the screen weren't doing much for his own sense of fun.

Buckley was not insensitive to his reaction. "More seriously," he went on, "the evidence available suggests that it is most unlikely an individual will deliberately cause himself harm even when under hypnosis. The survival instinct is strong. Of course, there are recorded circumstances of quite extraordinarily happenings in Africa, India, and so on, but in those cases the victim was normally preconditioned for his whole life to accept that a witch doctor or whoever had the power to put a spell on him that could result in his death."

"Preconditioned?"

"Preconditioned," said Buckley. "An unlikely happening for a young man brought up in the heartland of Western capitalism."

Fitzduane smiled. "Unlikely."

Buckley switched the projector off and allowed it to cool for a few minutes. The room was now lit only by the reflecting glow of an angle desk lamp. Fitzduane stood up and stretched. One way or another he had been sitting for most of the day, and he was tired and stiff from the long drive.

Click! The lower two-thirds of Rudolf von Graffenlaub filled the screen. Buckley pressed the button on the illuminated pointer, and the little arrow of light indicated the stained area around the crotch of the dead youth's jeans.

"You will observe," said Buckley in his lecturer's voice, "that the deceased's bowels evacuated as he was dying. You may think that this indicates poisoning or something of that sort. Such is not the case. In fact, it is reasonably common, though not inevitable, for such an occurrence to take place during the convulsions of dying. It is also not uncommon in the case of a male for ejaculation to take place. As it happens, in this case there was no evidence of ejaculation.

"Police inquiries disclosed that the deceased attended breakfast in the college refectory a couple of hours before his death. This gave me a little concern when I read the report before making my examination, since it's my experience that suicides rarely eat much in the period immediately prior to the taking of life. However, on examination of the stomach contents, I was relieved to find that he had not actually eaten at breakfast, though he had drunk some tea."

"Yet another indication of suicide," said Fitzduane.

"Well, if that was what he was contemplating, it was scarcely surprising that Mr. von Graffenlaub's mouth felt somewhat dry at the time." Buckley reverted to his lecturer's monotone. "You will observe that the zip of the jeans is fully done up and the penis is not exposed. That tends to eliminate the possibility of a sexual perversion that went wrong."

"Of what?" said Fitzduane, taken aback.

"It's part of the world of bondage, masochism, and similar perversions," said Buckley mildly, "and it's not confined to high fliers in London or Los Angeles. It happens wherever there are people, such as in this good Catholic city of Cork. You see, partial asphyxia can be a sexual stimulant. This is often discovered accidentally, such as when schoolboys are wrestling. The next thing you know some youngster is locking himself in the bathroom or lavatory and playing games with ropes or chains around his neck as an aid to masturbation. Then something goes wrong, and he slips or puts the rope in the wrong place. He just nicks the vagus, and that's it. He's work for the likes of me. His parents have forced the bathroom lock or whatever, and there is little Johnny, cyanosed, looking just like Rudolf here except for his penis hanging out and dribbling semen. And often porno magazines all over the place."

"This is all news to me," said Fitzduane, "and I never thought I lived a sheltered existence."

"Well," said Buckley, "to each his own. Your average person knows more about football than hanging."

Fitzduane followed the pathologist's Volvo across the city, along Macurtain Street, and turned left up the hill to the Arbutus Lodge.

The box of slides and a photocopy of the pathologist's file on the dead Bernese lay on the seat beside him. There seemed to be little doubt that the hanging had, in fact, been suicide. The matter of the motive was as obscure as before.

It never seemed to be easy to park in Cork. The cramped hotel forecourt jammed full of cars made maneuvering difficult, and it took some minutes and rather more frustration before they were able to squeeze through to the hotel's lower parking lot, where a corner was still free.

The sleet had stopped, though the wind was viciously cold. For a brief moment, after they had locked their cars, Fitzduane and Buckley stood side by side and looked across to where the River Lee rolled by below them. Its route was outlined by streetlights on its banks. There was the occasional glint of reflected light on the black, oily surface of the river, and below and to their right they could see the lights of merchant ships tied up at the quays.

"Many of my customers are fished out of that river," said Buckley. "Cork people do so love to drown themselves. We had so many drownings last year that one of the mortuary attendants suggested building a special quay for suicides and supplying them with marker buoys and anchors."

"I guess it's the parking problem," said Fitzduane.

Buckley looked at the last morsel of carefully aged Irish beef with a slight hint of sadness. With due ceremony he matched it with the remaining sliver of buttered baked potato. The carefully loaded fork made its final journey.

"There is an end to everything," he said as he pushed his plate away. He looked across the table at Fitzduane and grinned benevolently.

"What I'm saying," said Buckley, "is that it doesn't do to make too much of a suicide. In the small patch of Cork I cover, I dealt with about a hanging a fortnight last year. There is some poor sod making his greatest gesture to the rest of mankind, and all it adds up to is a few hours' work for us employees of the state."

Fitzduane smiled. "An interesting perspective."

"But you're not persuaded?"

Fitzduane sipped his port and took his time answering. "I have a tight focus," he said, "and it isn't how Rudolf killed himself that primarily concerns me. It's where and why. He did it on my doorstep."

Buckley shrugged. For the next few minutes the cheese board became his primary concern; then he returned to the subject of suicide. "It's a funny business," he said, "and we know nothing like enough about the reasons." He grinned. "Dead people don't talk a lot. One survey in London in the fifties analyzed nearly four hundred suicides and estimated that either physical or mental illness was the principal cause in about half the cases. Well, I can tell you that Rudolf was in excellent health, there was no evidence of early cancer or venereal disease or anything like that, and the reports I received would tend to rule out mental illness. So, according to the researchers, that leaves what they term social and personal factors."

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"Hanged if I know."

"Jesus!" groaned Fitzduane.

"Suicide statistics," continued Buckley, "leave a lot to be desired. For instance, if I am to believe what I read, Ireland has a suicide rate so low as to be almost irrelevant. So where, I ask myself, do all those bodies I work on come from? Or is Cork unusually suicide-prone?" He shook his head. "The reality is that people are embarrassed by suicide, so they fudge the figures. A suicide in the family is considered a disgrace. As recently as 1823, for example, a London suicide was buried at a crossroads in Chelsea with a stake through his body. Now, there is a nice example of social disapproval."

Fitzduane put down his glass. "Let's get back to Rudi. Is there anything—anything at all—that you noticed about him or the circumstances of his death?"

"Anything?" said Buckley.

Fitzduane nodded.

The port decanter was finished. They left the now-empty dining room and retired to have a final brandy by the log fire in the annex to the bar. Fitzduane was glad that he was staying the night. How Buckley remained upright with so much alcohol inside him was a minor mystery. The pathologist's face was more flushed, and he was in high good humor; otherwise there was little overt sign that he had been drinking. His diction was still perfect. "Anything at all?" he repeated.

"Think of it as the classic piece in the jigsaw," said Fitzduane.

Buckley picked up a fire iron and began poking the fire. Fitzduane waited, his brandy virtually untasted. Suddenly Buckley stood up, removed his jacket, rolled up his left sleeve, and thrust out his arm. For a moment, Fitzduane thought that the pathologist was going to hit him and that he was unlucky enough to be spending an evening with someone whom drink turns violent.

"Look at this," said Buckley.

Fitzduane looked at the proffered arm. A snarling bulldog's head wearing a crushed military cap was tattooed on the forearm; under it were the words "USMC 1945."

"The Marine mascot," said Fitzduane. "I saw it often enough in Vietnam."

"You don't have any tattoos?"

"Not that I've noticed," said Fitzduane.

"Do you know the significance of the bulldog to the Marines?"

"Never gave it much thought," said Fitzduane.

Buckley smiled. "The choice of a bulldog as their mascot goes back to the name the Germans gave the Marines in France in 1918. They were called Teufelhunden, devil dogs. It was a tribute to their fighting qualities. Well, jobs were scarce in Ireland when I was a young lad, so I ended up serving a hitch in the U.S. Navy as a medic and being attached to the Marines. The tattoo was a present from my unit. It means more to me than a Navy Cross."

"Rudolf had a tattoo?" asked Fitzduane.

Buckley rebuttoned his shirtsleeve. "If you've ever been tattooed yourself, you tend to be more interested in such things. They often have great significance. For a time I used to collect photos of unusual tattoos off the cadavers as they paraded through. I built up quite a collection. Gave it up years ago, though. Well Rudolf had a tattoo, a very small one but unlike any I've seen before. It was more like a love token or a unit badge or some such thing, and it was positioned where it couldn't be seen unless the wearer wished."

"The mind boggles," said Fitzduane.

Buckley smiled. "Not that dramatic but clever all the same. It was his outer wrist, just under where you would wear a watch. It was very small, about a centimeter and a half across, and it showed a capital 'A' with a circle of what looked like flowers around it."

"So maybe Rudi had a girlfriend whose name or nickname began with 'A,' " said Fitzduane.

"Could be," said Buckley, "but you had better widen your horizon to include boyfriend in your search. Rudolf may have swung both ways, but he had the unmistakable physical characteristics of someone who engaged regularly in homosexual activities."

"You'd better explain," said Fitzduane.

Buckley drained his brandy and replaced his jacket. He remained standing. "The small matter of a somewhat dilated and keratinized anal orifice. There isn't much privacy on a pathologist's slab."

Fitzduane raised his eyebrows. "I'll keep that in mind."

"By the way," said Buckley, "there was a second postmortem in Bern, and the Bernese agreed with my findings. Suicide, no question."

"Looks like it," said Fitzduane, "but if I run across something, would it be practicable to exhume the body and run more tests? How long has one got in this kind of situation?"

Buckley laughed. "You're back to witch doctors," he said, "because conventional pathologists won't be much use to you. The remains were cremated."

Chapter 6

Fitzduane's Land Rover splashed through the town of Portlaoise. A few miles farther on he stopped at a hotel to stretch his legs and phone Murrough on the island. He heard the news about the second hanging with a sense of shock and foreboding. He remembered Toni Hoffman from the inquest. She had been a close friend of Rudi's and had been summoned to give evidence about his state of mind. When she had been called by the coroner, she hadn't been able to speak. She had just stood there, ashen-faced, shaking her head, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.

The coroner had been sympathetic and had dismissed her after a brief, abortive effort at questioning. Fitzduane had thought at the time that she looked as much petrified with fear as grief-struck, but then they had moved on to another witness with more to say, and he had put the incident out of his mind.

He tried to avoid thinking what she must have looked like at the end of a rope with her head half off. He wasn't successful.

Pierre Danelle, principal of Draker College, was not pleased. It was a not uncommon state with him, since he could not, even charitably, be described as a happy man. The word misanthrope would be closer to the mark. He was, in the view of most of his students, a miserable son of a bitch.

On this particular day Danelle was even more miserable than normal, and he was also annoyed. He read the school charter again. It incorporated various clauses taken from von Draker's will, and unfortunately the founder had been quite specific in his instructions, which for greater clarity were expressed in French, German, and English.

The trouble lay with the tree. Common sense dictated that it should be cut down. A tree from which one of your students had hanged himself was not the sort of thing one wanted to keep on the school grounds. It would provoke memories and impinge on school activities, and it would be a no-no on parents' day. And it might tempt someone else to experiment with the blue rope and a short jump. Danelle shuddered at the thought. One hanging was a tragedy. Two hangings were a major headache. Three hangings would knock hell out of his budget. The Draker tuition was, not small. Three sets of fees would be missed.

The hanging tree had to go—but then again it couldn't. Von Draker had gone to the most elaborate lengths to establish his little forest in the first place, and he had clearly stated in his will that under no circumstances whatsoever were any trees on the estate to be cut down. The whole clause was then repeated in more extreme language to make sure that the trustees of the Von Draker Peace Foundation got the point, and to demonstrate the founder's faith in human nature, a relationship with their remuneration was referred to. Danelle got the point. Even in his grave, von Draker liked trees. It was infuriating. He was being dictated to by a dead man.

Danelle decided that he would write to the trustees in Basel. Surely they would understand that you just can't have a freshly used gallows hanging—growing—on campus.

Like fuck they'd understand. Those hollowheads in Switzerland weren't going to put their stipends at risk to save a not madly popular principal from embarrassment. He racked his brains, and then an idea blossomed, an idea that was dazzling in its scope and simplicity. An accident. Lightning, a forest fire; a maverick with a chain saw; a pyromaniac Boy Scout. The mind boggled. The possibilities were endless.

He decided he would take a walk over the old oak tree to see what could be arranged. He pulled on his Wellington boots and waterproofs. It was raining.

"St. Patrick's Day apart," said Kilmara idly, "people tend to forget about March in this country. I mean, everyone knows about January. It's the month when the first bank statement arrives after Christmas and bank managers decide to cut off your overdraft. Everyone remembers February. It's the Toulouse-Lautrec of months, and all the tennis club set go skiing with each other's wives. Everyone likes April. People skip around and procreate like mad and pick daffodils and eat chocolate Easter eggs. But March—March sort of sneaks in and hangs around and confuses the issue. I'm not sure I approve of March. It's a month with a lot of cold puddles—and it's too bloody long."

He switched off the computer terminal and the screen went dull. Elsewhere, in air-conditioned, dust-free isolation, the mainframe's brain was still actively following its instructions, fine-tuning the duty roster and carrying out the myriad other tasks of an operational unit. "Gьnther," said Kilmara, who had been thinking laterally about his manpower problems and then about Fitzduane's proposed trip to Switzerland, "why didn't you join the Swiss Guards at the Vatican instead of the French Foreign Legion? The pay would have been better, the uniform more colorful, and no one shoots at you—though anything is possible in Rome."

"Ah, but I'm not Swiss," said Gьnther, "and I am not celibate."

"You amaze me," said Kilmara, "but what has celibacy got to do with it?"

"Well," said Gьnther, "to qualify as a Swiss Guard, you have to be Swiss, have received Swiss military training, be Catholic, be of good health, be under thirty, be at least one hundred and seventy-four centimeters in height—and be celibate and of irreproachable character."

"I can see your problem," said Kilmara.

Pierre Danelle decided—too late—that the waning afternoon was the wrong time to be wandering around in a forest. He should have postponed his little expedition until the morning despite the fact that it was blindingly clear that the sooner that damned oak tree met with an accident, the better.

He cursed von Draker for choosing to build his eccentric construction in such an out-of-the-way location as the west of Ireland. Marvelous scenery, it was true, if you liked a fickle and eerie landscape, but the weather! It was enough to choke the Valkyries. When an Irishman said it was a nice soft morning, he meant you didn't actually need an aqualung to keep from drowning in the rain.

And apart from the weather—not that you could ever get apart from the weather in Ireland—there were the Irish, an odd lot who didn't seem to speak English properly and their own tongue not at all. Irish English seldom seemed to mean the same thing as English English. So often there seemed to be nuances and subtleties and shades of meaning he failed to grasp, most of which seemed to end up to his financial disadvantage.

Thinking of financial disadvantage reminded him of the alimony he'd been saddled with, and then of his mother-in-law in Alsace. On reflection, perhaps he was better off in Ireland after all.

"Do you ever miss the mercenary life, Gьnther?" asked Kilmara. He decided to light his pipe. It was that hour of day, and he was in that sort of mood.

"I'm not sure the Legion qualified as mercenary," replied Gьnther. "The pay was terrible."

"I wasn't referring to the Legion," said Kilmara. "I was thinking of that little interlude just afterward."

"Ah," said Gьnther, "we don't talk about that."

"I merely asked you if you missed it."

"I've matured, Colonel," said Gьnther. "Before, I fought purely for money. Now I have higher ideals. I fight for democracy and money."

Kilmara was busy for a few moments with pipe cleaners and other gadgets. Pipe smoking is not an impetuous activity. "What does democracy mean to you?" he asked when order was restored.

"Freedom to make more money," said Gьnther with a smile.

"I like a committed idealist," said Kilmara dryly. "Pearse would have been proud of you."

"Who was Pearse?"

"Padraig Pearse," said Kilmara, "Irish hero, poet, romantic, and dreamer. He was one of the leaders of the 1916 uprising against the British that led to independence in 1922. Of course, he didn't live to see the day. He surrendered after some bloody fighting and was put up against a wall and shot. He had company."

"Romantics and dreamers tend to get shot," said Gьnther.

"Good evening," Fitzduane broke in from the doorway.

"Speak of the devil," said Kilmara.

Danelle did not like to admit, even to himself, that he felt uneasy. There was no good reason for a highly educated, rational, cosmopolitan twentieth-century man to be prey to such a feeling so close to home on land he knew well. Nonetheless, there was a certain atmosphere in the wood that was, at best, unsettling. Oddly, there were no bird sounds, and indeed, everything was quite remarkably silent. His boots made no noise on the thick mulch. It was ridiculous, of course, but it was as if he could hear his heart beating.

There was, from time to time, a sudden rustling of what must have been a large animal—either a fox or a badger—but otherwise the oppressive silence continued.

Danelle wished he had brought a colleague. He was not fond of his fellow faculty members, but they had their uses, and on this occasion even the most obnoxious of his fellows would have been welcome. Slowly he recognized the unsettling sensation that gripped him. It was an old ailment of humankind and could be swelled as well as felt. Fear.

It was darker in the wood than he expected. These short, gloomy March evenings of Ireland. He wished that he were somewhere farther south, somewhere warm and sunny and dry—especially dry. A raindrop slithered down the back of his neck, and soon there were others. He began to feel cold and shivery.

The feeling he had was changing. It was no longer fear. He stumbled on through the gloom and gathering darkness, branches and briars whipping and dragging at his face and body. The feeling identified itself. There remained little doubt about it. It bore a distinct resemblance to absolute, all-encompassing, mind-dominating, blind panic.

He stopped and tried to get his nerves under control. With great deliberation, his hand shaking as if he had malaria, he removed a white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the cold sweat and rain and streaks of dirt from where the branches had whipped him. The action, calmly carried out, made him feel better. He felt more in control. He told himself that he was being ridiculous and that there was no rational reason for this extraordinary terror.

He walked on. The undergrowth became particularly dense, and the twisty path began to incline upward. He realized he was near the old oak tree, God rot it, the source of all his trouble. His feeling of relief was canceled abruptly when his foot caught on a protruding root and he tumbled headlong into the dank mulch. He rose slowly, his heart pounding from the shock.

A sudden vile stench assailed his nostrils, and he gagged. It was like rotting flesh mixed with the acrid smell of sulfur, the tang of hell.

There seemed to be light coming from behind the old oak tree. He thought at first that it was the last gesture of the setting sun, but he realized now that it was too late for the sun, and anyway, this was different, a strange glow, and its source was from below, not from the sky. He wanted to turn and run, but he felt compelled to move forward. He walked as if in a trance, his steps slow and faltering.

What he saw, as he rounded the thick trunk of the old oak tree, was more than his brain could—or wanted to—grasp. In the clearing ahead, a large circle had been made out of stones, and the spaces between the stones were filled with greenery and flowers. Inside the circle of stones and flowers was another shape. It looked like a vast letter "A," its extremities touching the inside of the circle at three points. In the center of the circle a fire burned and flickered and slowly devoured something that had once been living. Entrails spilled in yellowing coils from the ripped-open stomach. The small, hot flame of the fire hissed and spit—and close up, the smell was nauseating.

There was a flash and a sudden, sharp smell of sulfur from the fire, and the lower branches of the oak tree were lit up in the glow. Danelle raised his eyes. It was the last conscious vision of his life, and it was utterly horrible. Through the smoke of burning flesh and sulfur, he beheld the horned head of the devil.

He was still unconscious when they threw him off the edge of the cliff onto the rocks and the waters of the Atlantic far below.

Fitzduane slept a sound, dreamless sleep and woke up the following morning feeling cheerful and rested.

After Etan had left for the studios, he made himself a large pot of black coffee, put his feet up in front of the crackling fire, and began reviewing what he had learned so far. It came to him that if you're the kind of person who turns over stones—and most people learn not to early in life—what comes crawling out can be disconcerting.

He started with his meeting with Kilmara the previous evening. A computer search had thrown up the fact that Draker was more than a select school for the children of the rich and powerful. Out of a full complement of sixty pupils—now fifty-eight—no fewer than seventeen were designated "PT" on the Ranger computer printout.

"Computer people prefer to talk in bits and bytes," Kilmara had said, "but one of the advantages of getting in at the start of the Rangers was that I was able to twist the buggers' arms to make them take some cognizance of the English language. 'PT' stands for 'possible target.' It's not a high-level classification, but it means that, in theory, you take some precautions and you think twice when some incident occurs involving someone with 'PT' after his or her name."

"Tell me more," said Fitzduane.

"Do I detect a flutter of interest, Hugo?" said Kilmara. "Relax, my son. Thousands of people in Ireland have a designation of 'FT' or higher: politicians, businessmen, diplomats, visiting absentee landlords of the English variety, and God and the computer only know who else."

"But why these particular seventeen students?" asked Fitzduane.

"Oh, it has nothing to do with them as such," said Kilmara. "It has to do with families and backgrounds and the like. For instance, included in the Draker seventeen at present are a minor Saudi princeling—and there're thousands of those knocking around—a cousin of the Kennedy clan, two children of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the son of a Japanese automobile tycoon.... Well, you get the drift."

"How about Rufolf von Graffenlaub and the girl, Toni Hoffman?"

"In our baby computer system, nada" said Kilmara. "But that doesn't mean there shouldn't have been. It's a rough-and-ready classification. Deciding who might be a terrorist or criminal target is very much a matter of judgment. To make life more confusing, fashions change in the terrorist business. It's politicians during one phase and businessmen the next. For all I know, it will be garbage collectors after that—or pregnant mothers. It's all show biz in this game. It's the media impact that counts."

"So what do you do about these PTs, apart from giving them a couple of initials on computer input?"

"Well," said Kilmara, "if one of them drowns in the municipal swimming pool, we drain it a bit faster, but that's about the size of it. Basically it's the government contribution to the media game. It's called taking every reasonable precaution. It helps to cover the official ass if something does happen."

"Were you always so cynical," said Fitzduane, "or did someone salt your baby food?"

Kilmara turned his cigarette lighter into a small flamethrower to work on his pipe. Success achieved, he stood up from his chair and walked across to a whiteboard screwed to the wall. He picked up a black dry-wipe felt pen and started to write.

"You find it odd, Hugo, that we don't do much more? Well, let me throw a few figures at you. They're a little rough, but they're accurate enough to make the point, and the same situation applies to most other Western European countries.

"We have about ten thousand police in this country to deal with about three and a half million people. Police work is a twenty-four-hour-a-day business and involves a great many things other than guarding against terrorism, so at any one time the force would be stretched to the extreme to free up from routine duties any more than a thousand, and even that would mean drawing manpower from all over Ireland. In the wee hours manpower resources are even more limited. At such times it's an interesting thought that the entire country's internal security is looked after by a mere few hundred.

"Now, to set against the resources I've described—and I have left the army out of the equation to keep things simple—we have more than eight thousand names classified 'PT' or higher, and remember 'PT' is only a judgment. We could probably triple that number if we did our homework. Now, it takes at least six trained personnel to provide reasonable security for one target. That means we would need a minimum total of forty-eight thousand trained bodyguards.

"We don't have them. We can't afford them. And we really don't need them. As I have mentioned before, there just aren't that many terrorist incidents—just enough to keep the likes of Gьnther and me in reading and drinking money."

"Amen to that," said Gьnther. He closed his copy of the book he had been reading, Winnie-the-Pooh, with a snap. "Great book," he said. "No sex and no violence. I'd be out of a job in Pooh Corner."

"Shut up and have a drink," said Kilmara, "and let's see if we can make sense out of our Wiesbaden friends' enigmatic communication."

"Wiesbaden?" asked Fitzduane. "How does Wiesbaden enter the picture?"

Kilmara slid open the top drawer of his desk and removed his service automatic. Fitzduane noticed with some relief that the safety catch was on.

Kilmara gestured with his pistol. "People think this is how we fight terrorism. Not so." He tossed the weapon back into the drawer and closed it with a flourish. "Firepower plays a part, of course, but the real secret is intelligence, and the key to that, these days, is the computer."

He looked across at Gьnther. "You tell him, Gьnther. It's your Heimat, and you like the things."

"Wiesbaden is the headquarters of the BKA, the Bundeskriminalamt," said Gьnther. "The BKA is, very roughly, the German equivalent of the FBI. It has primary responsibility for counterterrorism, with my old outfit, GSG-9, providing muscle when terrorists have been identified and located. The BKA has been very successful at hunting down terrorists, and one of the secrets of this success is the Wiesbaden computer"—he grinned—"better known as the Kommissar."

"It's quite an installation," interjected Kilmara. "I was there a year or so ago. It's all glass and concrete and sits on a hill that, appropriately enough, used to be a place of execution. More than three thousand acolytes feed the beast in Wiesbaden alone, and the budget runs to hundreds of millions of deutsche marks. They don't just record information. They positively vacuum it up. Names, descriptions, addresses, relatives, ancestors, contacts, personal habits, food preferences, sexual idiosyncrasies, speech patterns—you name it, anything that might in some way contribute to the hunt gets entered."

"Twelve million constantly updated files, and the number is climbing," said Gьnther with pride.

George Orwell's 1984 has arrived, thought Fitzduane. It just hasn't been noticed. He took the whiskey Kilmara had poured him.

"Very interesting," he said, "but what has the Kommissar got to do with my modest investigation?"

Kilmara held up his glass. "Slбinte!"

"Prosit!" said Gьnther, similarly equipped. "Olй!" said Fitzduane a little sourly. Games were being played.

Kilmara slid a file across the desk. "One of the twelve million," he said. "Reads kind of sanitized."

Fitzduane picked up the thin film. It was labeled: rudolf von graffenlaub (deceased).

Chapter 7

The young German tourist and his pretty Italian girlfriend had flown into Dublin the night before on the direct Swissair flight from Zurich. The German checked his Japanese watch when they landed. In the predictable, boring way of the Swiss, the flight had been on time.

At the Avis desk in the arrivals area they rented a small, navy blue Ford Escort for a period of one week at the off-season rate. They opted for unlimited mileage and full insurance. They identified themselves as Dieter Kretz, aged twenty-four, from Hamburg, and Tina Brugnoli, aged nineteen, from Milan. They paid their deposit in cash.

Armed with maps, guidebooks, and copious directions, Dieter and Tina drove into the center of Dublin and checked into a double room at the Royal Dublin Hotel on O'Connell Street. They ate in the hotel restaurant and retired early. A fly on the wall would have noticed that they spoke little as they undressed, and though they slept together naked in the large double bed, they did not make love.

When Dieter awoke in the morning, he could hear Tina in the bathroom. Its door was open, and light spilled into the curtained bedroom. He threw back the bedclothes and stretched like a cat, his body lithe and strong, his chest covered with curly black hair. A thick black mustache drooped above shining white teeth. He looked with pleasure at his penis jutting hard and erect. Moisture gleamed at the tip of his organ, and it was throbbing, crying out for relief.

He rose from the bed and walked the few paces to the bathroom. Tina's hair was tied loosely on top of her head, and she was bent over the basin. Her young body was olive gold in color, and she was naked except for skimpy black panties. He could see the down on the back of her neck. He rested his fingers on the top of the cleft of her buttocks and slowly moved them down, taking the black panties with them. He pushed the thin panties down to just above her knees.

Tina scarcely stirred. She gripped the sides of the basin with long, slim hands as he slowly parted the cheeks of her buttocks, and then there was the sweet smell and cool, smooth touch of hand cream. She gave a muffled cry when he entered her constricted passage, and her knuckles turned white as she gripped the basin. She sucked on his finger. There was so much pain and so much pleasure. It was the way of the Circle. It was so ordained in The Grimoire.

It was so enforced by the Leader.

The package was somewhat longer than a shoe box, and it was heavy. Its outer wrapping was of several layers of thick brown paper held securely in place with shiny brown adhesive tape. The contents didn't move or rattle. Whatever was inside was well padded.

The package was addressed to Mr. Dieter Kretz and had been left at the reception desk of the Royal Dublin Hotel just a little after eight in the morning. The messenger was dressed like a Dublin taxi driver and was unremarkable in appearance. Afterward nobody could remember much about him except that he spoke like "a typical Dub."

The young couple had breakfast in their room, hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, and, as was common enough with young "couples, did not emerge until nearly midday. The receptionist handed them the package when they checked out. She had almost forgotten about it until she was gently reminded by the young German. He smiled at her when he received it and made a remark about there not being that much time for reading. He had his right arm around his girlfriend's shoulders and was relaxed and confident—satiated even.

The porter carried the bags to the car, though the German kept the package tucked firmly under his left arm. He placed it in the trunk of the car. The porter wondered why anyone would want to take a holiday in Ireland in March. He returned to his desk in the warm hotel with relief.

Dieter, who normally had the German's belief that accelerators exist to be kept pressed to the floor, this time drove cautiously. It was his first visit to Ireland, and he was unused to driving on the left-hand side of the road. Fortunately he had been well briefed on Dublin's inconsistent signposting system and relied instead on Tina's map-reading skills. Despite the random one-way systems that were not shown on the map, they became lost only once before they found the road to Galway and the west of Ireland. It was also a route that led toward the home of Colonel Shane Kilmara.

On the outskirts of Dublin they entered the sprawling green acres of Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed urban parkland in Europe. Hundreds of deer roamed the rolling, tree-dotted landscape, and the sheer scale of the area ensured relative privacy for its few visitors.

Dieter left the main through road and turned onto a side road, where he stopped the car and switched off the engine. For a few minutes they sat quietly, took stock of their surroundings, and watched the deer grazing under the trees. Then, satisfied they were not observed, he opened the trunk, removed the heavy package, and climbed into the backseat of the car. Using a short, thin-bladed knife he had taken from his suitcase, he cut through the layers of tape and outer wrappings of the package, then removed the layers of corrugated paper and the final layer of oiled cloth. There lay two compact Czech-made machine pistols—the model known as the Skorpion VZ-61. There were also eight twenty-round magazines of 7.65 mm ammunition, cleaning materials, and a copy of the Automobile Association's Touring Guide to Ireland.

Tina switched on the radio, and to a background of traditional Irish music the pair began to clean the weapons and prepare them for action.

After they left Phoenix Park, Tina drove.

She was a better driver than Dieter, and as she became used to the narrow potholed road that passed for a main highway, she gradually increased her speed almost to the legal limit—whenever, that is, road conditions permitted. They wanted to arrive close to their destination during daylight. It was their experience that darkness brought an increase in police patrols.

Dieter, his Skorpion ready for action at the flick of the fire selector lever but concealed under a newspaper, lay across the backseat and dozed. Tina's weapon rested in a plastic shopping bag under her seat.                            '

She rounded a long curve in the road and slowed when she saw the cars stopped up ahead. At first she thought there might have been an accident, but then, as the traffic moved forward in a series of stops and starts, a large orange sign came into view. It read, unambiguously: stop! police checkpoint.

Almost at the same time she saw the two policemen in their heavy navy blue greatcoats standing back to back in the middle of the road, desultorily checking the traffic flowing from either direction. A muddy police car was parked by the side of the road, and its blue light flashed intermittently. Just behind it was a long-wheelbase Land Rover painted a dull army green. A soldier wearing earphones sat by a radio in the back. Another soldier leaned against the door, his rifle held casually, his bored eyes scanning the long lines of cars and trucks.

A brief feeling of alarm came over Tina before training and common sense came to her aid. They were innocent tourists. They had committed no crime in Ireland. This was just a routine check that could not affect them. She tried not to think of the concealed Skorpions but had already noted that the majority of cars and trucks were being waved through unsearched.

She turned around and shook Dieter. He woke instantly.

"You think ...?" she began, pointing ahead to the roadblock.

Dieter watched the policemen. In most cases there was no more than a brief discussion through the window and now and then the producing of documents. The policeman covering their side of the road was young, with an open, friendly face tanned a reddish brown by the wind. Sometimes he laughed. There was no urgency in his manner, no tension.

"A routine check, no more," said Dieter. "It is of no concern." He grinned sardonically at Tina. "Remember, we are harmless young lovers."

Tina looked at him coolly for a moment. "We may fuck," she said. "We are not lovers." She let out the clutch, and the Ford moved forward again.

The bulletin had stipulated a black or navy blue Ford Escort, and this was Quirke's ninth navy blue Ford Escort of the day. The first two or three had set the adrenaline going, but now he was only marginally interested in the car. He was considerably more interested in the pretty girl driving it.

Tina rolled down the window and smiled up at the large policeman. "Good afternoon, Officer," she said. Her accent was Italian, her tone friendly and just slightly provocative. She was the most exciting thing he'd seen all day, and if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that under normal circumstances she could have been too exotic to have anything to do with the likes of Liam Quirke. But there were some consolations to checkpoint duty.

"Afternoon, miss," said Quirke. He peered into the front and then the back of the car, trying not to stare too hard at the Italian girl and being irrationally disappointed that she had a companion in the back. He felt a pang of loss, the knowledge of a beauty that could never be his. "Afternoon, sir," he added. "Nothing to worry about. Just a routine check."

"We thought at first that there was an accident," said Tina. She smiled directly at him.

"No accident, miss," said the young policeman, his cheeks pink under her gaze. "A bank robbery in Dublin. One of them got away. It's not too likely that he'd come in this direction, but you never know."

"I suppose not," interjected Dieter from the back of the car. His voice broke the spell that for a few seconds had bound the Italian girl and the policeman together."

"Could you tell me where you've come from and where you're going?" asked Quirke, his official manner partially restored. "And I'd like to look at your driver's license and insurance."

Tina removed the car rental documents from the glove compartment and passed them, together with both their driver's licenses, through the window.

"We have only just arrived in your country," she said. "Last night we stayed in Dublin. Now we go to the west of Ireland for a few days. We would like to be away from crowds and people, to be alone together, you understand."

As she finished her remark, Tina looked directly into Liam Quirke's eyes—and saw in them a slight flicker of doubt. Something had him puzzled; something was out of place. There was the faintest hint of something wrong. She thought quickly, but her words were reasonable and innocent. It wasn't something she had said. Something else had aroused his suspicions, but what on earth could it be? The weapons were well concealed. There was nothing else to attract attention.

Quirke looked at the line of half a dozen cars behind the Escort. He didn't want a major traffic jam on his hands. He began to hand the documents back, and then he caught that smell again. His mind flashed back for a split second to his firearms training in Templemore.

The police mightn't carry guns, but they had to be prepared. Forty-two practice rounds and the same again for the proficiency test. The sharp cracks as the line of police fired. Man-shaped targets ripped and torn. The routine of cleaning weapons afterward. The unique smell of preservative grease in the armory and the faint aroma of gun oil as they checked in their Smith Wesson .38s. Back to relying on the uniform, a pair of fists, and, on the rarest of occasions, a wooden truncheon to enforce the law.

The odor of gun oil remained in his nostrils. He hefted the documents and licenses in his hand, half thinking that he was just being overimaginative. The documentation seemed to be in order. Still, he wouldn't mind getting a closer look at the girl.

"Please, miss," he said pleasantly, "would you mind stepping out of the car and opening the boot?"

"Certainly," said Tina. She removed the keys from the ignition and let them drop from her hand. As she felt for them on the floor, she slipped her hand under her seat and moved the fire selector from safe to automatic, then she sat up, keys in hand, and smiled apologetically. She unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door, and walked to the back of the car. The policeman watched her. Thirty meters away the two soldiers eyed her nylon-clad legs and gave Quirke ten out of ten for judgment.

Dieter remained lolling back on the rear seat of the car. His hand reached under the newspaper to the concealed Skorpion. He couldn't think why the policeman had decided to search the trunk. It could be just a whim, because they had done nothing suspicious—and yet something had changed in the policeman's manner. Of that Dieter, his senses refined, was sure. His skin prickled with the sense of approaching danger. He willed himself to be calm but ready.

In an exercise of willpower, he withdrew his hand from the actuated machine pistol. He glanced down at the airline bag containing the spare magazines, which just protruded from under the passenger seat. It was zippered shut. Nothing suspicious showed.

The sense of danger became more acute, and it became impossible to do nothing but wait. He carefully removed the short-bladed hunting knife from the sheath on his belt and placed it out of sight in his right sleeve, ready to drop into his hand in a much-practiced maneuver.

Quirke completed his examination of the trunk. He had not really expected to find anything, and with a rental car God knows who had used the vehicle in the past. Probably some hunter had spilled gun oil months ago. It was the kind of smell that tended to linger.

Quirke laughed silently at himself. He closed the trunk, rested an arm on the back of the car, and relaxed. He tried not to stare too openly at Tina's long, shapely legs. The breeze whipped at her skirt, and he caught a brief glimpse of inner thigh.

"Well, that's it then," he said. "Now, I'll have a quick look inside and you can be about your business."

He opened the rear door of the car. "Would you mind stepping out for just a moment, sir?" he said to Dieter, who had been lazing back as if half asleep.

The German stretched lazily. "I expect a bit of fresh air will do me good."

He got out of the car by the left-side door and closed it behind him with his left hand. His right hand hung at his side. He walked to the driver's side of the car and stood with Tina to the rear of the policeman.

"Thank you, sir," said Quirke. He bent his head and began a cursory search at the rear of the car.

There was nothing on the back shelf apart from guidebooks and a book by some war photographer. The rear seat was empty except for a newspaper. Almost absentmindedly he turned it over to check the football scores—and screamed in pure agony as Dieter's hunting knife ripped open his stomach.

The young policeman sagged back into the road, his two hands gripping his abdomen, vainly trying to hold his intestines in place. Blood soaked his fingers and his uniform and bubbled from his lips. Still conscious, he collapsed in the middle of the road, and the tarmac began to turn crimson. Gurgling sounds like those of some dying animal came from his mouth.

Tina snatched her Skorpion from under the driver's seat. Her first burst caught the rifle-carrying trooper as he stood, stunned, his eyes rooted on the dying policeman. Rounds ricocheted off the magazine of his FN and tore into his groin and thigh. A second burst smashed his rib cage. He collapsed against the Land Rover and rolled facedown onto the muddy road.

Dieter plunged his knife into the back of the second policeman and, without waiting to withdraw it, grabbed his Skorpion from the rear seat, extended the collapsible butt, and with great speed but practiced accuracy began to pump three-round bursts into the rear of the Land Rover, at the radio and the shadowy figure of the operator.

The corporal manning the radio back-rolled out of the Land Rover just as a burst of fire from Dieter blew the high-powered transceiver apart in a shower of sparks and disintegrating electronics. The canvas cover of the Land Rover caught fire, and flames licked along the vehicle.

The corporal crawled behind the empty patrol car as the combined fire of the two terrorists tore through the thin metal of the bodywork and shattered its windows in a cascade of glittering fragments. Blood began to stream from cuts on his face. A bullet ripped open the calf of his right leg, sending a spasm of agony through his body and paralyzing him with shock for several precious seconds.

In stark desperation, scarcely believing what was happening, the soldier unslung the Carl Gustav submachine gun from his shoulder and worked the cocking handle. A high-power nine-millimeter round slid into the breech.

Bullets pierced the fuel tank of the police car, and gasoline drained into a spreading pool across the road.

There was a lull in the firing.

Dieter changed magazines. Tina waited. The collapsible butt of her machine pistol was now fully extended and nestled into her shoulder. She steadied herself against the rented Ford. As the corporal raised his pain-racked body into firing position from behind the police car, she fired twice on single shot. His neck pumping blood and his collarbone smashed, the corporal spun backward and slid into the ditch. Tina changed magazines.

For a few moments there was silence. Then the two terrorists became aware of the crackle of the flames from the burning Land Rover and the gurgling and intermittent screams of the dying Liam Quirke. Tina walked across to where he lay. His agonized moans were getting on her nerves. She pointed her machine pistol at his head and blew away his jaw. She saw that he was still alive, but the noise had ceased.

"Fool," she said quietly, and walked away.

Dieter removed his hunting knife from the back of the other policeman. The body did not stir. He paused reflectively, then, without bothering to turn the body over, he jerked back the policeman's head and cut his throat. A gout of arterial blood spread across the middle of the road and made islands of the empty cartridge cases. Dieter cleaned his knife on the corpse's blue uniform and replaced it in the sheath clipped to his belt. He shivered in the chill March wind. He felt excited and feverish, almost omnipotent. He felt the same kind of exhilaration after a particularly difficult off-piste ski jump, but this was even better. He put his right hand into the pool of blood next to the policeman and then brought it, dripping, very close to his face. It was visible proof of his power to kill. He could smell it. He could taste it. He stood mesmerized for several long seconds.

The wounded corporal could see her legs under the car from where he lay on the ground. Those long, tanned, nylon-clad limbs were unmistakable. Slowly he inched the leather ammunition case containing spare Gustav clips to his front. It seemed to take forever. The rough surface of the road caught at the thick leather, and he had little strength left. Pain dominated his every movement He rested the submachine gun on its side, using the ammunition case as a firing platform. It would give him a few centimeters of ground clearance. It would have to be enough.

He aimed. Blood and sweat dripped into his eyes, and his vision became blurred and uncertain. He blinked several times and sighted again. The wooden pistol grip was slippery with blood. His vision was going. He lost all track of time.

He could hear voices. He could see the long legs again. He squeezed the trigger, and the shuddering weapon leaped against his riven body. The hot brass of ejected cartridge cases scorched his face. He held the trigger until the magazine was empty. Just a moment too late he thought of the leaking gasoline. He slipped into unconsciousness before the pool of fuel, ignited by the muzzle blast of his Gustav, exploded—and patrol car and army Land Rover were engulfed in flames.

Black smoked fouled the sky.

Fitzduane replaced the telephone receiver with a sense of relief. He had been working on the von Graffenlaub file for more than eleven hours almost without a break, and he was tired and hungry.

The contents of the file and related papers lay scattered across the top of the polished oak slab on trestles that Etan used as a desk. The information was helping build up a more complete picture of the von Graffenlaub family and its circumstances, but it was slow work. Despite the extensive network of sources and contacts typical of a successful working journalist and the advantage of an initial file from Kilmara, he was having a harder time putting together a comprehensive picture of Rudi's Swiss background than he had expected.

Most of his difficulties seemed to have to do with Switzerland. He had been reluctant to call Guido. His other contacts could tell him—at times in the most intimate detail—about such matters as the latest financial scandal in the Vatican or who was bribing whom in Tanzania or which ballet dancer was sleeping with which member of the Politburo in Moscow, but any question to do with any aspect of Switzerland seemed to result in a resounding yawn.

The consensus seemed to be that Switzerland was a boring bloody country full of boring bloody people who lived off their clichйs: cheese, chocolate, cuckoo clocks, mountains, banks, other people, and hot money. Nobody seemed to like either Switzerland or the Swiss. As for Bern—dull, dull, dull was the general view.

Fitzduane doubted that the investigation of a hanging would be dull even if the Bernese did their worst, and he wondered whether any of his traditional contacts really knew very much about the Swiss. It was also clear that there was a palpable element of jealousy underlying many of the comments made about the country. No wars, virtually no unemployment, one of the highest standards of living in the world, and a healthy and beautiful country. It was, indeed, enough to make you sick.

He rose, stretched, and went into the kitchen to open a bottle of chilled white wine. He carried the wine and cheese and crackers into the living room, kicked the open log fire into life, and settled down in an armchair. He moved the television remote control near to hand.

In a few minutes he would watch the nine o'clock evening news and then Etan's program, "Today Tonight." It was strange watching this different, professional Etan through the cold medium of television. He drank some wine, the fire flickered and glowed, and he thought yet again about the von Graffenlaubs.

The file was thin on fact and short on explanation. The hanged boy's father was sixty-one-year-old Beat von Graffenlaub, a lawyer with extensive business interests. He lived in Junkerngasse and had offices in Marktgasse. He was a member of the old Bernese aristocracy, a Bernbьrger, and a Fьrsprecher (whatever that was). He was a director of various companies, including one of the big four banks, an armaments conglomerate, and a chemicals and drugs multinational. In his youth he had been a skier of Olympic caliber. He was extremely, but discreetly, rich. He seemed to be what is sometimes described as an overachiever. But what was a Bernbьrger?

The Bernbьrger had married another Bernbьrger, a certain Claire von Tscherner—another aristocrat to judge by the "von"—in 1948, and together, after a slow start, they had produced lots of little Bernbьrgers, four to be precise. Daughter Marta appeared on the scene in 1955, son Andreas followed in 1958, and then, after four years of limbering up, the Beat von Graffenlaubs really got to work and in 1962 produced twins, Rudolf (Rudi) and Verena (Vreni).

Twins. How had Vreni felt at the news of her brother's death? Had they been close? Most twins were. The probability was high that if anyone knew why Rudi had done it, she did. Fitzduane wondered if Vreni would look like her brother.

In 1976 Beat, by then aged fifty-six, had done something that wouldn't win him any brownie points for originality. He divorced Claire and married a younger woman, a much younger woman. Erika Serdorf—no "von"—was twenty-eight and his secretary. Exit Claire, duty done, to Elfenau and death two years later in a car accident. The new Mrs. Beat von Graffenlaub would now be thirty-three to Beat's sixty-one, and the couple had no children. An interesting situation. What did Erika do with her day, given Beat's work load, other than spend his money?

Fitzduane tried to figure out whether the bottle of wine was now half full or half empty. He poured himself another glass to help resolve the problem.

A great deal was going to depend on the attitude of Beat von Graffenlaub. On the face of it, a stranger's investigation into the death of the lawyer's son was unlikely to be welcome, but without his support significant progress would be problematic. It was clear that the Bernbьrger was well connected. Fitzduane's knowledge of Switzerland might be limited to little more than changing planes at Zurich Airport, but he did seem to have heard somewhere about the Swiss fondness for deportation as a solution to those who made waves.

But back to Rudi. Why had he been sent to finish his secondary education at Draker? The Wiesbaden computer, in a printout that reeked of being fine-sieved prior to being issued, talked of "incipient undesirable political associations" and advised contacting the Swiss Federal Police and the Bern police. Titillating but not very helpful. The Swiss police were rumored to be about as outgoing on sensitive matters as Swiss bankers. The Bible said, "Seek and ye shall find." According to Kilmara, the authors were planning a rewrite since the invention of the Swiss.

Fitzduane picked up the television remote control. It was almost nine o'clock, and the electronic image of Etan doing the promo for her program materialized in crisp color.

He pressed the button for sound and caught her in mid-pitch. "...Later on, as security forces surround the house in which five hostages are being held by an unknown number of gunmen, we look at the brutal murder of four victims and ask: What are the causes of terrorism? That's 'Today Tonight' after the news at nine-thirty."

The causes of terrorism all explained in forty minutes, less commercials. Television was a neat trick. He watched an advertisement and reflected that there were times when television alone provided an adequate motive for terrorism.

It was only as he listened to the newscaster and saw film of the shocked faces of what the reporter was calling "the Kinnegad Massacre" that he realized the import of Etan's words: Kilmara and his Rangers would be busy.

He hoped Kilmara had enough sense to keep his head down. He was getting too old to lead from the front.

Kilmara wore the dull blue-black combat uniform, black webbing, and jump boots of the Rangers. The humor was gone from his face, and his expression was controlled and intent as he took one last look at the bank of eight television monitors that dominated the end of the Mobile Command Center. "Give me a search on main screen by five," he said.

The Ranger sergeant sitting at the control panel operated the array of buttons and sliders with easy familiarity. At five-second intervals the picture on the main screen switched to images from each of the six surveillance cameras surrounding the house.

The windows of the modern two-story farmhouse were curtained. No sign of life was visible, yet inside, Kilmara knew, four children and their mother were being held hostage by two killers of singular ruthlessness. To demonstrate their seriousness and disregard for human life, the two terrorists had already killed the farmer in cold blood. His body lay where it had fallen, barely two meters from his own front door. His wife and children had been forced to watch as the young German with the drooping black mustache and gleaming white teeth had neatly cut his victim's throat.

Kilmara turned from the bank of television monitors and walked down the aisle of the command center. On each side of him combat-uniformed Rangers manned sophisticated electronic audio surveillance and communications equipment. To aid screen visibility, the overall light level was dim, with individual spot lamps providing illumination as required. There was the faint background throbbing of a powerful but sound-deadened generator.

He entered the small conference room and closed the door behind him. In contrast with the surveillance area, the room was brightly lit. "Anything?" he asked.

Major Gьnther Horst and a Ranger lieutenant looked up from their examination of the two terrorists' belongings, which they had found in the hastily abandoned Ford Escort.

"Personal belongings, maps, and guidebooks," said Gьnther. "Nothing that looks likely to help our immediate problem, though the forensic boys may find something in time." He paused and then picked up a hardback book from the table. He handed it to Kilmara. "But I think you might be interested in this."

The impact of the photo on the front cover of the book was total. In grainy black and white, against a background of swirling dust and smoke, there was the tired, strained, unshaven profile of a soldier. He held a dove in his hands very close to his face and was looking at it with obvious tenderness. Tied to his webbing belt, just next to his water bottle, were two severed human heads.

The book was entitled The Paradox Business. It was subtitled "A Portrait of War by One of the World's Top War Photographers—Hugo Fitzduane."

"Well, I'll be buggered," said Kilmara. He looked at Gьnther. "Let's find him and get him here. Perhaps he can make some connection we've missed."

"And where might he be?"

"At a guess, still in Dublin," said Kilmara. "Try Etan's flat or any good restaurant with a decent wine list in the area." He looked at his watch. It read 9:40 p.m., which without conscious thought Kilmara translated automatically into military twenty-four-hour time. "You could also try RTE. He sometimes picks up Etan there after her show."

"I'll give it a shot," said Gьnther.

Kilmara smiled. "I've faith," he said. He turned to the lieutenant. "Give me a shout when the house plans come."

Fitzduane sat against the back wall of the small control room of RTE Studio Two and watched Etan do useful damage to the selfpossession, credibility, and viewpoints of an eminent churchman, the Minister for Justice, and an associate professor of sociology from UCD.

From the looks she was receiving toward the end of the program, it appeared that the assembled panel of experts on the causes of terrorism were more afraid of Etan than of terrorists. The Minister for Justice had no real answers, and it showed visibly as a thin sheen of sweat fought a winning battle with his makeup.

The program was due to be over in a few minutes. Fitzduane looked at the bank of ten monitors and listened to the producer and the production assistants plotting camera movements while the seconds ticked by. Idly he noticed that they all wore dark stockings and ate mints and chain-smoked while they stared at the monitors, controls, and running order with intense concentration. It didn't seem like the kind of occupation that would lengthen your life.

The credits rolled, there was a blast of theme music, and the show was over. Back to the commercials. For a moment the sheer disposability of the medium shook him, and he was glad he worked in print.

The monitors were still live. The studio floor cleared. The monitors featured only the image of Etan, who had remained behind alone to tidy up her notes. She bowed her head, suddenly looking tired and vulnerable. It made Fitzduane want to take her in his arms and wonder what the hell he was doing going away yet again. Perhaps the time had come to settle down. He felt tired enough himself.

The production team looked from Fitzduane to the monitors and back again. He seemed unaware of their existence. The producer put her hand on his shoulder.

"Come and have a drink," she said. "Etan will be along in a few minutes."

The "Today Tonight" hospitality room served the same general purpose as the emergency room of a hospital, except that experience had taught the editor of the program that alcohol, if administered in large quantities soon enough, guaranteed a faster recovery rate.

Interviewers on the program tended to go for the jugular, yet it was important, if the victim was to come back for more, that he have some element of self-esteem restored. The effect of the hospitality room was to ensure that many a politician or bureaucrat, whose dissemblings and incompetence had been revealed only minutes before on prime-time television, soon felt, after a couple of Vincent's gins, that he had carried off the ordeal with the aplomb of a David Frost—and was raring to come back for a second round.

This pleased the editor, who knew that in a small country like Ireland there was only a limited supply of political video fodder. Also, he was a nice man. He liked people to be happy except when being interviewed on his program.

So as not to set a bad example, Fitzduane accepted an oversize gin, a drink he normally never touched, and thought thoughts he had avoided for close on twenty years.

Etan came in freshly made up, the professional mask on again. He checked her legs. She, too, was wearing dark stockings. Full house. He maneuvered her into the corner of the small room for a minute of privacy. "I've been thinking," he said.

Etan looked at him over the top of her glass and then down at the melting ice and slice of lemon. "Of what?"

"Our future together, settling down, things like that," he said.

"Good thoughts or bad thoughts?"

"The very best thoughts," he answered. "Well, I think they are the very best thoughts, but I'm going to need a second opinion." He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

"Is this a consultation?" she asked. She had gone a little pale.

Across the room, which meant no distance at all, given its size, a very drunk Minister for Justice went into shock at the sight of his erstwhile tormentor displaying human emotion. It was clear that he would have been less surprised had she breathed fire.

The telephone rang. Less than thirty seconds later Fitzduane was gone.

The minister came over to Etan and put a beefy arm around her shoulders. He was pissed as a newt. "Young lady," he said, "you should learn which side your bread is buttered. You work for a government-owned and -licensed station." He leered at her.

Etan removed his arm with two fingers as if clearing away something unpleasant. She looked him up and down and wondered, given that Ireland was not short of talent, why such scum so often floated to the top. "Fuck off, birdbrain," she said, and it coincided with a general lull in the chatter.

The editor choked on his drink.

Geronimo Grady had not acquired his name for nothing.

In his hands the modified Ranger Saab Turbo screamed through the streets of Dublin and out onto the Galway road in a blurred cocktail of flashing blue light, burning tire rubber, and wailing siren. When the traffic ahead failed to give way fast enough, Grady drove the wrong way up one-way streets, cut through the front lots of garages, or took to the sidewalks with equal ease. Fitzduane regarded him as a skilled maniac and gave thanks that Ranger regulations stipulated four-point racing harnesses and antiroll bars in pursuit vehicles. He winced as Grady roared through a set of red traffic lights and sideslipped around a double-decker bus. He kept his hand tight over the top of his gin and tonic glass and tried to retain the sloshing liquid.

They covered the thirty-eight miles to the mobile command center in half an hour. Fitzduane was glad his hair was already silver. He unclipped his safety harness and handed Grady his now-empty glass.

"You really deserve the ears and the tail," he said.

Chapter 8

"Legs," said Gьnther. "They might have got away if it hadn't been for the girl's legs. The corporal in the back of the Land Rover was enthusing about them over his radio to a buddy of his stationed at another roadblock a few kilometers away. And then came gunfire and screaming for split seconds, and then silence.

"The warning was enough. The terrorists' car was intercepted in less than three kilometers, and there was an exchange of fire. The terrorists abandoned their car and made a run for it under cover of a driveway hedge. At the end of the drive they burst into a farmhouse located a few hundred meters off the main road. The army, in hot pursuit, surrounded the house and kept them pinned down until reinforcements arrived.

"So far two policemen, one soldier, and the farmer are dead. Another soldier looks likely to die, and a nurse who went to help got shot to pieces. As best we can determine, the corporal must have mistaken her for a terrorist and put a burst of Gustav fire into her legs. That makes a total of four dead—and two pending." He was silent for a moment. "That we know about," he added.

"An obvious question," said Fitzduane. "Why?"

Gьnther shrugged. "We are pretty sure they aren't IRA, but other than that, we don't know who they are, what they were up to when they were intercepted, or anything much else about them."

Kilmara stood in the doorway. "We thought you might be able to help, Hugo," he said. He placed two plastic-covered bloodstained rectangles on the table in front of Fitzduane. "Look at them closely and think very hard."

Fitzduane picked up the first of the international driver's licenses. The face was smiling into the camera, displaying shining white teeth under a drooping mustache. He studied the photograph carefully and shook his head. He picked up the second license. This time the expression on the face looking into the camera was completely serious, almost detached. Again he shook his head.

Kilmara leaned over and placed the licenses side by side on the table. "Try looking at them together," he said, "and take your time."

Fitzduane looked down at the small photographs and racked his brain for even the slightest hint of familiarity. Mentally he ticked off the assignments he had been on during the last few years. The girl was supposed to be Italian, but she could be Arab—or Israeli, for that matter. The facial types were often very similar. For his part, the man was dark enough to be of Middle Eastern origin, but despite the mustache he looked European.

Fitzduane pushed the two licenses across the table to where Kilmara and Gьnther sat. "The facial types are familiar enough, so I could be tempted to say maybe I've seen them before. It's possible—but if so, it must have been in the most casual way. Certainly I don't recognize them." He shrugged.

A Ranger came in and set three mugs of coffee on the table. Wisps of steam rose in the air.

Kilmara placed a heavy book in front of Fitzduane. "Hugo," he said, "we found this in the terrorists' baggage. It could be coincidence...." He smiled. "But when you're involved, I tend to believe in coincidence just a little less."

"Nice friendly reaction," said Fitzduane dryly, looking at the familiar volume. It had sold surprisingly well, and he still saw it in bookshops and in airport newsstands when he traveled. The soldier with the dove had been killed two days after the photo had been taken. He'd heard that the bird had survived. He indicated the book. "May I handle it?"

"Sure," said Kilmara. "Forensics have done their thing."

Fitzduane examined the book slowly and methodically. He turned back to the flyleaf. On it was written in pencil a price, a date, and a code: Fr 195—12/2/81—Ma 283. "A recent fan," he said.

"A recent purchase anyway, it would appear," said Kilmara.

"Francs?" asked Fitzduane.

"French, Swiss, Belgian, or indeed from a whole host of French colonies," said Kilmara. "We're looking into it."

"Any ideas," asked Gьnther, "why two killers should have bought your book? It's a heavy volume to carry if you're flying."

"No," said Fitzduane, "but I'll think about it."

"Hmm," said Kilmara. "Well, we've other things to worry about right now. Thanks for coming. I'll get Grady to drive you home."

Fitzduane shuddered. "I think I'll be safer here. Mind if I hang around?"

Kilmara looked at his friend for a moment and then nodded. "Gьnther will give you some ID," he said. "You know the form. Keep a low profile and your head down. It's going to be a bloody night."

Fitzduane expressed surprise. "I thought a waiting game was the policy in a hostage situation."

"It is," said the Ranger colonel, "when you have a choice. Here we don't have a choice. The nice young couple in the farmhouse have issued an ultimatum: a helicopter to take them to the airport at dawn and then a plane to some as yet unspecified destination—or they kill one hostage every half hour, starting with the youngest child, aged two, name of Daisy."

"A bluff?"

Kilmara shook his head. "We think they mean what they say. They killed the little girl's father for no other reason than to make a point. Well, they made it, and we can't let them get away and we can't let the hostages die—so in a few hours we're going in."

A Ranger poked his head through the doorway. "Colonel," he said, "the cherry picker has arrived."

The children were asleep at last. The three younger ones were sprawled on the king-size bed under the duvet. Rory, the eldest at nearly sixteen, lay in a sleeping bag on the floor. A large bloodstained bandage on his flushed forehead marked where the German with the black mustache had struck him savagely with the butt of his machine pistol.

The master bedroom was dimly lit by one bedside lamp. Maura O'Farrell, her eyes betraying the classic symptoms of extreme shock, sat knitting in an armchair near the curtained windows. The knitting needles moved automatically with great speed, and the nearly completed double-knit scarf coiled around her knees and draped down to the floor. The scarf had been meant for Jack to keep him warm as he worked the four hundred acres of their prosperous farm. He would be so cold now. She knew they wouldn't let her, but she wanted to go out and wrap the scarf around his neck. It would at least cover the wound.

She rose and went into the bathroom, whose door opened onto the master bedroom. Everywhere there were signs of Jack. His razor lay in its accustomed place, and his dressing gown hung behind the door. She unscrewed the cap of his after-shave and smelled the familiar, intimate odor; then she replaced the cap. She brushed her hair and checked her appearance in the mirror. She was a touch pale and drawn, which was understandable, but otherwise neat and well groomed. Jack was fussy about such things. He would be pleased.

She took a roll of adhesive tape from the medicine chest and returned to her chair. The knitting needles began to flash once more, and the scarf grew even longer.

At regular intervals the young Italian girl checked her and the room and peered out of small observation holes cut in the thick curtains. Maura O'Farrell paid her no heed. From time to time the children moaned in their sleep but did not wake. The makeshift sedative of brandy and aspirin mixed with sweetened warm milk had done its work. For a few hours they could rest, oblivious of the memory of seeing their father slaughtered like a pig.

For her part the young Italian girl felt tired but not too unhappy with their situation. They had been unlucky, but now things would work out. Those fools outside would have to give in. Killing the farmer had been a stroke of brilliance. It would cut short futile negotiations. At the agreed time of 3:30 a.m. the phone would ring and the authorities would announce their capitulation: a helicopter at dawn to the airport and then a requisitioned plane to Libya.

The Irish government would never allow a mother and her four children to be killed. Tina was looking forward to that phone call. She could feel the warmth of the Libyan sun on her face already. Ireland had the most beautiful countryside, but the wind and the rain and the damp cold were just too much for a hot-blooded woman.

The final preassault briefing took place in the twelve-meter-long Special Weapons and Equipment trailer. The walls of the mobile unit were lined with row after row of purpose-designed weaponry. Ammunition, scaling ladders, bullet-resistant clothing, and hundreds of other items of specialized combat equipment were stored in custom-built racks and cabinets. At one end of the trailer there was a giant high-resolution television screen flanked by huge pinboards covered with maps, drawings, and photographs. A long table ran for a third of the length of the trailer. On it, a scale model of the farmhouse and vicinity had been roughly constructed, using sand and children's building kits.

Kilmara stood to one side of the giant screen, which was connected to the surveillance system controlled by the separate Mobile Command Center. The twelve Rangers of the assault group sat in folding chairs facing their colonel. Army and Special Investigations Branch liaison personnel swelled their numbers to more than twenty. A digital clock flashed away the seconds. Fitzduane sat discreetly in the background, thinking of how many times before he had watched the trained, attentive faces of troops being briefed—and afterward photographed their corpses. He wondered who in the room this night was going to die.

Kilmara began the briefing. The twelve men in the assault group listened intently. "We're going in. Our objective is to release the hostages unharmed, using only such force as is necessary to achieve that objective. It is my judgment that this will entail killing or, at the minimum, very seriously wounding the terrorists. For the last two hours you have been practicing against a similar house a few miles away. What I'm telling you now incorporates the lessons learned during that exercise.

"There are five hostages in all—specifically, Mrs. Maura O'Farrell and her four children. As best as we can determine from acoustic surveillance, they are being kept in the second-floor master bedroom. We believe that the windows of that room are locked and that the windows and the heavy tweed curtains have been nailed in place. Since there is a bathroom directly off the master bedroom, the terrorists can keep the hostages quite conveniently in one place under close observation and at the same time have freedom of movement themselves.

"The farmhouse, as you've discovered, is a modern two-story building with one feature of particular interest to us, the hallway. That hallway is a small atrium. It runs the full height of the house and is lit from the top by a sloping skylight—which can open, incidentally, but is kept closed and locked this time of year. The hallway contains both the stairs to the second floor and the telephone.

"Most of the time the two terrorists prowl the house and keep watch on us—and the hostages—on pretty much a random basis. However, our surveillance has shown that a pattern has developed during the negotiating sessions on the phone. During these times the German, Dieter Kretz, according to his papers, is in the hall near the front door, using the phone. He has no choice. The phone is directly wired in on that spot, and there are no other extensions in the house. Of course, the hall door and adjacent hall windows are covered with blankets nailed into place. They started to do this after O'Farrell was killed, and while they were hammering away, we used the opportunity to insert acoustic probes into all key external areas of the house; That means that while we cannot see the terrorists—with one notable exception that I'll talk about in a moment—from the sounds they make we do have a precise idea where they are at any time. I'm also pleased to be able to say that the equipment is sufficiently sensitive for us to be able to determine not only the presence of a person in a particular location but the identity of that person, provided he or she talks or moves around.

"While the telephoning is going on, the girl normally sits halfway up the stairs so that she is near enough to the hostages and yet at the same time can talk with Dieter and put her two cents' worth into the negotiations. Sometimes she actually descends the stairs and listens in on the incoming call. The crucial time is, therefore during telephone contact. Not only is Dieter in a predictable location then—and Tina, too, with luck—but we can actually see him."

Kilmara spoke quietly into a miniature microphone attached to a compact earpiece. Almost immediately the picture on the screen changed from a medium shot of the whole house to a small yellow rectangle. Kilmara spoke into his microphone again, and the yellow rectangle blurred and increased in size until it filled the whole screen. There was an adjustment of focus, and suddenly the assembled men realized they were looking directly through the skylight into the hall of the besieged farmhouse. They saw Dieter come into camera view, pause, look at the phone, and then walk out of sight in the direction of the front sitting room. The long-focus lens gave the picture an unreal, ethereal quality.

Kilmara continued. "The terrorists have said that if we attempt to approach any closer than the agreed perimeter of about two hundred meters from the house, they will kill a hostage. On the terrorists' instructions, we have floodlit the area up to about ten meters from the house. This allows the terrorists to see out without being dazzled. Now, the effect of all this is that although it is exceedingly difficult for us to cross that floodlit perimeter area undetected—and we have not yet been willing to take that risk because of the hostages—at the same time our friends inside cannot see beyond the wall of light surrounding them. They look out into the perimeter, no problem. But if they look up, then they just see the glare of the wall of floodlights."

The Ranger colonel spoke into the microphone again, and the picture on the screen changed. It now showed a giant metal arm with a platform on the end, the whole device being mounted on a self-propelled chassis.

"That picture of the hall," he said, "was taken from the top of that cherry picker crane. There is enough space on the platform for at least three people; the range into the hall from the platform is about two hundred and eighty meters. The problem is that the skylight is double-glazed and made out of toughened glass set at an angel to the direction of fire. It will deflect a conventional rifle round.

"So there are the main elements of our problem—and this is exactly what we're going to do."

Fitzduane watched the assault group select and check its weapons. His profession made him more knowledgeable than most about tactical firepower. Of the three Rangers in the cherry picker, two were armed with accurized M-21 automatic rifles fitted with high-magnification image-intensifier sights. Early models of these sights had "whited out" when exposed to a sudden increase in light—say, a room light being switched on—but the current version was microprocessor-controlled and could adapt without the marksman's losing his aim. The ammunition had the lethal apple green tips of special-purpose TKD high-penetration rounds. The Teflon-coated rounds lost stopping power as a corollary of their penetrating ability, but with the massive tissue destruction effect of the high-velocity 7.62 mm bullets, that problem would be a little academic.

The third Ranger on the cherry picker team selected a semiautomatic GLX-9 grenade launcher actually custom-built in the Ranger armory. Inspired by the original single-shot M-79 launcher, this weapon held four rounds in a rotary magazine and could hurl a stream of grenades with considerable accuracy for up to four hundred meters.

The actual entry into the house would be made by a team of six Rangers under the command of Lieutenant Phil Burke. They took British-made SA-80 5.56 mm assault rifles and Dutch V-40 hand grenades. The rifle ammunition was" a derivation of the Glaser safety round and had the unusual characteristic of expending virtually all its energy in the target. It inflicted the most appalling wounds on the victim and yet did not ricochet.

The task of the third group was to provide intensive fire support from the front of the house. They took grenade launchers and Belgian-made 5.56 mm belt-fed Minimi light machine guns.

The plan provided that the cherry picker team would take out Dieter first, and then Tina if she was by the phone. If she kept to her normal position on the stairs, it was calculated that the combined firepower of grenades and concentrated machine-gun fire would cut her to pieces before she could reach the hostages in the master bedroom. Meanwhile, Phil Burke's team would cross the perimeter and enter the master bedroom using lightweight scaling ladders. There three of them would pour covering fire out through the bedroom door into the hall toward the stairs while the balance of the team hurled the hostages down a chute to safety below.

The danger lay with Tina. If she climbed the stairs to the hostages without being incapacitated by the volume of fire and before Burke's team made it into the bedroom, the hostages would die in a burst of Skorpion fire. It was that simple.

In Fitzduane's opinion it was going to be very close—or as Kilmara put it to the assault group: "If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving."

The men on the cherry picker team moved off first. They needed time to maneuver into the best firing position and to attach the rifle mounts to the platform rail. Their main fear was that a gust of wind would jar the platform ever so slightly at the crucial moment. Kilmara had requested stabilizing cables with hydraulic mounts, but the truck carrying them had suffered a double flat tire and would not arrive in time. Fortunately, the night so far had been calm.

The six men of the Ranger entry team were hideous in blackface camouflage and night-vision goggles. They wore light mat black helmets made of ballistic material and containing miniature radios. Fitzduane was reminded of the head of a deformed fly.

With twenty minutes to zero, all units had completed checking in. The digital clock in the command center flashed second by second through the remaining time.

Outside, a stiff breeze sprang up, and the waiting perimeter of security forces cursed at the effect of the windchill factor in the damp cold and huddled into their parkas.

At 3:30 a.m. the negotiator, Assistant Commissioner Brannigan, picked up the phone to tell the terrorists that the government, reluctantly, would agree to their terms. It was the signal to commence the assault. Now a series of different actions had to mesh together. Seconds were critical. A twenty-round Skorpion magazine can be fired in under two seconds.

It could take even less time to kill a defenseless woman and four young children.

"This is Kretz," said Dieter.

"He's in the hall," said Acoustic Surveillance.

"We see him," said the cherry picker team leader. "A clear shot but no sign of Tina."

"Tina is moving," said Acoustic Surveillance. "She's leaving the second-floor landing and moving down the stairs. She's stopped."

"Entry team—go!" said Kilmara into his microphone.

On the giant screen the six Rangers of the entry team could be seen sprinting across the two hundred meters of the perimeter. Each pair carried a single rubber-covered titanium alloy scaling ladder.

"...but in exchange for our providing a helicopter at first light to take you to the airport, you must agree to release the hostages before entering the helicopter," continued Brannigan. His face was creased with strain.

"Tina's moving," said Acoustic Surveillance.

"Can't see her," said cherry picker team leader.

"Where?" said Kilmara.

"Can't tell exactly," said Acoustic Surveillance. "The noise doesn't sound right. Hell, I think she's just kicking her leg against the banister. Wait! She's definitely moving now—down the stairs."

"Dieter still a clear shot," said cherry picker team leader.

"Du Arschloch!" shouted Dieter. "Do you think we're idiots? You'll agree to our terms immediately, or I will kill one of the children here and now. You understand, huh?"

Brannigan waited a few seconds before replying. His face was dripping sweat, and he looked ill. "Kretz," he said, "Kretz, for God's sake, hold it. Don't touch another hostage."

"I spit on your God," said Dieter. "You'll follow our terms exactly." He gave a thumbs-up sign to Tina and beckoned for her to come over and listen.

The entry team had made it across the floodlit section of the perimeter and was now crouched in the ten meters of shadowy darkness immediately surrounding the house. The men placed the three ladders outside the rear window of the master bedroom, and the first three Rangers started to climb. The balance of the unit hunkered down in firing position, ready to give covering fire.

"She's definitely going for the phone," said Acoustic Surveillance.

"We can see the edge of her shoulder," said cherry picker team leader. "Not enough for a shot."

The first three members of the entry team reached the top of the ladders and placed a large rectangle of explosive cord on the glass. At the press of a detonator, the focused explosive charges would cut through the glass, blowing any debris into the curtains.

"Entry team ready," said Burke.

"Shit, it's really starting to blow," said cherry picker team leader.

"Stand by, front team," ordered Kilmara.

"Front team ready," said the team leader. The three Rangers facing the front door had their grenade launchers pointed at the fanlight above the door. The grenades—a mixture of blast and stun—were aimed to explode just below the top of the stairs, creating a lethal wall between Tina and the hostages.

"Hostages still in the master bedroom in same positions," said Acoustic Surveillance.

"Very well, we agree," continued Brannigan. "The helicopter will arrive at precisely eight a.m. You will have to wait till that time if it is to be able to reach us from its base. It does not have night-flying instrumentation."

"You Irish are so backward," sneered Dieter, grinning at Tina. She laughed.

"It's a German helicopter," said Brannigan inanely. It was clear he thought that he would be unable to sustain the conversation much longer. He signaled a hurry-up sign.

"We have Dieter in clear shot—and Tina's shoulder," said cherry picker team leader, "and we're steady for the moment."

"Cherry picker, fire!" ordered Kilmara.

The apple green bullet entered Dieter's head near the crown and exited through his upper teeth and thick black mustache. He swayed slightly, and blood gushed from his mouth. The telephone was still in his hand, and his eyes were open, but he was already dead.

The second sniper hit Tina in the upper right shoulder. The high-penetration round drilled straight through the bone, and the Skorpion dropped from her hand.

All the lights were cut.

Forty-millimeter grenades exploded on the stairs and in the front hall in a rolling series of eyeball-searing flashes. The front team switched to machine-gun fire and the three belt-fed Minimis poured 750 rounds into the confined space in fifteen seconds.

Simultaneously the entry team detonated the explosive cord, and with a sharp crack the thick glass of the double-glazed window dropped onto the bedroom floor.

The cherry picker team poured rifle fire through the skylight. After a couple of seconds, when the tough glass was adequately weakened, the sniper with the grenade launcher opened fire, his grenades punching straight through the remains of the skylight and exploding in the hall below.

Night-vision goggles in place, the entry team cut through the heavy curtains with razor-sharp fighting knives, and Rangers leaped into the darkened bedroom, covering the open doorway and spraying automatic rifle fire through it onto the landing. Then Lieutenant Burke moved forward and tossed V-40 hand grenades out onto the landing and into the hall below. Each grenade burst into 350 lethal fragments.

Meanwhile, the second three Rangers of the entry team clipped the top of an emergency escape chute to the window aperture and began sliding the four children to safety with the backup team on the ground below.

"We're in the bedroom," said Burke into the helmet microphone. "Hostages are alive and being removed now."

"Cherry picker and front teams, cease fire," said Kilmara. "Restore perimeter lighting. Entry team, secure house."

The second three Rangers of the entry team slid the last child down the chute. Burke was changing magazines and the remaining two Rangers were checking the bathroom when Tina crawled in.

No trace of the pretty young Italian girl remained. Her clothes and body were shredded. Her left cheek was gone, exposing the bone. Blood and matter streamed from dozens of wounds. Her right arm hung uselessly, and the fingers of its hand were missing. But she had the Skorpion in her left hand. Its muzzle wavered, and she fired.

Time seemed suspended. There was nothing the young Ranger lieutenant could do. There was a stab of flame and a huge blow over his heart. Burke spun around and collapsed against the wall.

The thing that had been Tina gave a gurgling cry, and the Skorpion dropped from her hand. She moved her fingers up to her throat and scrabbled uselessly at the knitting needle that emerged through it, then collapsed onto her back, her heels drumming against the floor in her agony of death.

Maura O'Farrell, her two hands clenched around the adhesive tape handle of the knitting needle, withdrew the makeshift blade and plunged it in again and again until a Ranger pulled her away.

They picked their way through the wreckage. It seemed inconceivable to Fitzduane that anyone could have survived the destruction in the hallway. There was scarcely a square centimeter of the floor, walls, and ceiling that was not scarred with shrapnel or pocked with the huge bullet holes of the modified Glaser rounds.

A Ranger technical team was meticulously photographing the scene with both video and still cameras. There was always something to be learned for the next time.

Dieter lay facedown. The pool of blood he lay in was sprinkled with fallen plaster and pieces of debris. His whole back was pitted with wounds from the salvo that had followed the initial fatal shot. Fitzduane bent down and examined first the right wrist, which bore a gold identity bracelet, and then the left, after removing a heavy gold wristwatch. The glass was intact, and the watch was still working. He dropped it on the body. "Nothing," he said to Kilmara.

The staircase had been shot almost to pieces.

"Beats me how she got up," said Kilmara. "We'll get a ladder. I'm buggered if I'm going to break my neck at this stage of the game."

Two Rangers brought one of the scaling ladders and placed it against a protruding joist of the landing.

The body of the once-pretty young Italian terrorist—if, indeed, her stated nationality was not as much a lie as her stated name—lay just inside the doorway of the master bedroom. It looked as if it had been hacked and chopped by some sort of infernal machine. The blood from a dozen or so puncture marks in her neck and throat had run together in an obscene halo around her head. Prepared though he was, Fitzduane felt the bile rise in his throat.

Kilmara emerged from the bathroom, a damp washcloth in his hand. "My turn," he said.

He lifted the corpse's right arm and wiped away the thick crust of congealing blood. The body smelled of blood, feces, and perfume. He saw that a grenade fragment or bullet had sliced into the wrist and carved a furrow in the soft surface flesh. He sponged around the rough edges. The light wasn't good. They were depending on external floodlights shining through the window. He removed a flashlight from the right thigh pocket of his combat uniform and shone the beam on the lifeless wrist.

The mark was very small and partially obliterated by the furrow. Nonetheless, most of the small tattoo could be seen: the letter "A" surrounded by what looked like a circle of flowers. He looked up at Fitzduane, and their eyes met. The Ranger colonel nodded and rose to his feet. He tossed the bloodstained washcloth through the open bathroom door and then bent down to pick up several of the small cartridge cases lying beside the corpse. He put them in his pocket.

They descended the ladder and picked their way through the organized chaos of snaking floodlight cables and departing security force vehicles. Engines roared, and vehicle after vehicle drove away.

"How do you do it?" asked Kilmara. Fitzduane smiled, spread his arms and shrugged.

"Do you know what Carl Gustavus Jung wrote?" said Kilmara.

"I didn't know he was called Carl Gustavus."

"A rough translation," said Kilmara, "and I quote: 'There are no coincidences. We think they're coincidences because our model of the world doesn't account for them. We're tied up in cause and effect.' "

"And now you're going to tell me Jung's nationality."

"Sharp lad," said Kilmara with a smile, "so you tell me."

"Swiss."

They walked across to the Mobile Surgery trailer. Inside, an army doctor was playing cards with a Ranger lieutenant. A bottle of Irish whiskey and two glasses beside them displayed evidence of current use. Kilmara removed two more glasses from a wall rack and poured generous measures, then topped up the glasses of the doctor and the lieutenant. He removed the cartridge cases from his pocket and placed them in front of the lieutenant. "Souvenirs," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"I've got a sprained wrist, and I'm bruised as hell," said Burke. "It's no fun being shot."

"Lucky she was using a Skorpion," said Kilmara. "It uses a piss-poor underpowered pistol cartridge. It'll kill well enough, but it's got little penetrating power."

"There is a lot to be said for being dressed right for the occasion," said Burke, indicating the scarred but otherwise undamaged Kevlar bullet-resistant vest hanging on a hook on the wall. He suddenly went pale and rushed to the adjacent toilet. They could hear the sounds of retching through the door.

"He's physically okay," said the doctor, "but there may be post-traumatic stress involved. He was bloody lucky."

"Jung also wrote: 'Every process is partly or totally interfered with by chance,' " said Fitzduane. "Not everybody knows that."

"Good grief," said the doctor, and drained his glass.

As Fitzduane and Kilmara left the trailer, the two dead terrorists were carried by on stretchers on the way to the morgue. Fitzduane felt the good mood induced by the banter inside the Mobile Surgery trailer vanish. "A depressing waste," he said soberly.

"I'd feel a lot more depressed if it was us in those body bags," said Kilmara cheerfully. "You've got to see the up side in this game."

They arrived at Kilmara's house at just after five-thirty in the morning. Inside the security perimeter all was quiet until the Saab crunched to a halt on the gravel. Then two Irish wolfhounds came bounding around the corner of the big Georgian house.

"One would wonder if they were dogs or elephants with hair," said Fitzduane. "They're enormous bloody brutes."

"You'd know if you visited more often," said Kilmara. "Now stay quiet until I identify you."

Fitzduane did not need to be told twice. He watched while Kilmara called the two hounds to heel. Each dog was well over a meter and a quarter high and, he guessed, weighed as least as much as a fully grown man. Long pink tongues lolled over sharp rows of teeth.

"Ailbe and Kilfane," said Kilmara. "Fairly recent acquisitions."

The two men entered the house through the courtyard door and made their way to the large country-house kitchen.

"Do you know the story of the original Ailbe?"

"Remind me," said Fitzduane.

"There was a renowned Irish wolfhound called Ailbe in the first century," said Kilmara, "owned by MacDatho, King of Leinster. Now Ailbe was such a remarkable dog that he could travel from one side of the kingdom to the other in a single day, and of course he was unsurpassed in hunting and war. Ailbe became so famous that both the King of Ulster and the King of Connaught coveted him, and an offer of no less than six thousand milch cows, a chariot with two fine horses, and the same again after a year was made. This was an offer MacDatho could hardly refuse. At the same time he knew he still had a problem because the king who did not get the hound would give MacDatho a most difficult time. It was a real dilemma."

"So what did MacDatho do?"

"MacDatho promised the hound to both kings," said Kilmara. "When they arrived to conclude the deal, no sooner did they see one another than they forgot all about the hound and fell to fighting. MacDatho, in the manner of a politician, watched the battle from a nearby hill, and an excellent battle it was, with heroics and bravery all over the place and regular pauses for light refreshment and harp playing. However, Ailbe, the bionic wolfhound, was no voyeur. He tossed a coin and entered the fray on the side of the King of Ulster—and had his head chopped off."

"Is there a moral to this story?"

"Pick your battles."

Kilmara gestured Fitzduane to a seat at the big kitchen table and then strode across to the cast-iron range. He poked the cooker into life and stood for a moment enjoying the waves of heat coming from the stove. He donned an apron over his combat fatigues and hummed as he cooked.

Fitzduane dozed a little. It was nearly dawn. Images flickered ' through his mind. He awoke with a start when Kilmara put a plate of food in front of him.

"Bacon, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding, white pudding, and fried bread," he said. "You won't see the likes of this in Switzerland." He poured them both coffee from an enamel pot that looked as if it had been around since MacDatho's time.

Fitzduane picked up his mug of coffee. "That book of mine you found in the terrorists' car—"

"Uh-huh," said Kilmara.

"You thought it had to do with me?"

"It's a possibility," said Kilmara. "Maybe on one of your foreign forays you photographed some local supremo from his bad side or something, and our friends were sent to teach you a permanent lesson. They didn't seem to be slap-on-the-wrist types. Well, who knows? I'll worry about reasons after I've had some sleep."

"I've got another idea," said Fitzduane. "Since you took this job, no photographs of you have been published. Right?"

"Right."

"So two things," said Fitzduane. "First, our terrorist friends were killed no more than ten miles from this house while heading in this direction. Second, my book contains a large photo of you at that reunion in Brussels. It's probably the most up-to-date picture of you that's freely available."

"You're suggesting that I could have been the target?" Kilmara had a forkful of bacon and black pudding and fired bread poised for demolition.

"You're sharp this morning," said Fitzduane.

Kilmara munched away. "Ho and hum," he said. "You really should leave such suggestions until after breakfast."

The first shading of dawn appeared through the windows. Outside, a cock began to crow.

BOOK TWO

The Hunting

"The distance is nothing; it is only the first step that is difficult."

—Marquise du Deffand,

concerning the legend that

St Denis, carrying his head in his

hands, walked two leagues

"Crime in Switzerland is rare.... And the law is clear. The traffic directions, for example, are clear enough for a blind man to read, but, as a precaution, I have heard, though I cannot consider my source reliable, they are considering writing them in braille."

—Vincent Carter, The Bern Book, 1973

Chapter 9

A large harp, comfortably secured by its safety belt, occupied the front first-class passenger seat of the plane to Zurich. Fitzduane was curious. Eventually he asked, and was not reassured by the answer. The harp, he was informed, belonged to the pilot.

Fitzduane raised an eyebrow, then fell asleep. He hoped he would wake up. Thirty-three thousand feet up was more of a head start toward heaven than he really cared for, even without a pilot who seemed more prepared for the afterlife than made for good airline public relations. Fitzduane flew a great deal and did not like it much. In the Congo he had been shot down. In Vietnam he had been shot down. In a series of other wars he had gotten used to the idea that everybody shot at aircraft; whose side they were on seemed to have nothing to do with it.

He awoke when the BAC 111 was over the Bristol Channel, and looked out the window. The wing was still there, which made him feel better, and there were no fresh holes. There was the crackle of a microphone, and an android voice announced that they were flying at five hundred miles an hour and that it was five degrees Celsius in Zurich. Fitzduane closed his eyes and slept again.

The man they soon were to call the Hangman stood naked in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection. His face and upper body were encrusted with drying blood. His chest and pubic hair were matted and sticky with it. He had fallen asleep after the sex and the killing that had accompanied their orgasms. The room smelled of blood and semen and sweat and, he liked to think, their victim's fear. The mutilated body still lay in the room, but neatly in one corner in a body-fluid-proof body bag.

The woman—she had done the actual killing this time—lay sprawled on the bed, fast asleep, exhausted after her endeavors. Her satiety, he knew, wouldn't last long.

The man smiled and stepped into the shower. He looked down at his body as the needles of pulsing water washed the last traces of the boy's life off the gridded porcelain floor and then down through the drain into the sewers of Bern. So much for beautiful Klaus.

The man—one of his many names was Kadar—dried himself and donned a light robe of silk. The activity and the sleep that had followed had done him good. He went into his study and lay back in his Charles Eames chair for his first session with Dr. Paul.

The solution had been so simple: Since he could not visit a psychiatrist without risk, he would do the job himself. He would tap into his own considerable resources. He would be his own expert. He would be able to speak absolutely frankly in a way that would otherwise be impossible. And, as always, he would be in control.

Since childhood Kadar had invented imaginary friends. The first had been Michael, who had been pale-skinned with sun-bleached golden hair. He looked the way Kadar wished to be but was not. Other creations followed.

As the years passed, Kadar refined the process of creating a new person to a ritual. Always the process started with his lying back, his eyes closed and his body relaxed. He would focus his mind in a way he could not even describe to himself. It was something akin to fine-tuning his natural life-force. When he was ready to begin, he would see a wall of thin gray mist swirling gently. The mist would have a glow as if lit from within.

Slowly a shape would appear in the mist, its details obscure. Only one factor would be clear: the height of the figure. Kadar's creations, regardless of their eventual age or sex or external appearance, always started with height.

He often thought that this first stage was the hardest. It required such an infusion of energy. Sometimes he would lie there for hours, his body drenched in sweat, and the wall of mist would stay blank. Once the basic shape had appeared, the work would be easier and more pleasurable. He would mold and paint in the details as if in an artist's studio, but use his tightly focused mind instead of brushes or tools to achieve the result. He would adjust the height and then work on the general build. Features would become defined. He would work on the posture. Clothing would be added, then texture and color. Finally the creation would be complete but lifeless. Then, in his own time, he would breathe life into it—and it could talk and move if that was his wish.

Most of the men he created had pale skin and sun-bleached hair and were beautiful. Most of the women he created were more utilitarian, although there were exceptions.

Over time he had learned to modify his ritual to mold and change real people. There wasn't the same totality of control, but there was more challenge. There was a higher wastage factor, but that in itself yielded benefits.

It was in the process of killing that he reasserted control.

Fitzduane patted the harp on its little head, then left the plane. The flight had taken under two hours. It was on time. He pushed his luggage cart through the nichts zu deklarieren and looked for a public telephone.

There were times when having intuition and perception could be a disadvantage, even a curse.

They had not parted well. Etan lay next to him, their sweat mingled, yet there had been a distance between them. Different people, different ways, different goals, and, for the moment, no bridge. Love and desire, but no bridge. That bridge was commitment, not just talk about marriage but the serious practical business of changing their lives so they could be together. There would be small people to nurture and care for. That meant being around, not departing yet again on another quest. It meant choices and some hard decisions. He smiled to himself. He missed her already, but hell, growing up was harder when you were an adult.

In the end Guido was the obvious man from whom to obtain background information on the von Graffenlaubs. He and Fitzduane either had covered assignments together or had competed for them in half a dozen different countries. Since being wounded in Lebanon and subsequently contracting a severe liver infection, the Swiss journalist had been deskbound and was currently filling in the time with a research job in the records section of Ringier, the major Swiss publishing house.

And yet Fitzduane hesitated by the phone; Guido had been Etan's lover for several years. Lover—familiar with her body in the most intimate of ways. A kaleidoscope of explicit sexual images crowded his mind. Another man, his friend, in the body of the woman he loved—in the past perhaps, but in his mind now.

Life, he thought, is too short for this kind of mental shit. He began to dial.

Dr. Paul had pale, aristocratic features, and his blond hair was silky smooth. "Are you comfortable?" he asked. He managed to sound genuinely concerned. The tone of his voice was reassuring, and its timbre projected professional confidence.

Kadar thought he'd got Dr. Paul about right. He relaxed in the Charles Eames chair. He nodded.

"Then tell me about yourself," said Dr. Paul. "Why don't we start with your name?"

"Felix Kadar. But that's not my real name."

"I see," said Dr. Paul.

"I have many names," said Kadar. "They come and go."

Dr. Paul smiled enigmatically. He had beautiful white teeth.

"My birth certificate," said Kadar, "states that I was born in 1944. My place of birth is given as Bern. Actually I was born in a small apartment in Brunnengasse, just a couple of minutes' walk from here. My mother's name was listed as Violeta Consuela Maria Balart. My father was Henry Bridgenorth Lodge. She was Cuban, a secretary with the diplomatic mission. He was a citizen of the United States of America. They were not married. It was wartime. Even in Switzerland, passions were running high.

"Father worked for the OSS. He never got around to mentioning to Mother that he had a wife and young son back in the States. When Mother explained that it wasn't the high standard of Swiss wartime cuisine that was thickening her waist, Dad had himself parachuted into Italy, and by all accounts he had a very good war.

"Mother and I were shipped back to Cuba and banished to a small town called Mayari in Oriente Province. The area has one claim to fame: the biggest hacienda for miles around—it was over ten thousand acres—was owned by a man with a singularly inappropriate name. Angel Castro. He sired seven children, and one of them was Fidel.

"Many people say that they have no interest in politics because no matter who is in power, it seems to make no difference. Life just goes on grinding them down. Well, I can't agree with that view. The Batista government meant a great deal to me. All of a sudden—I was about eight at the time—I had new clothes to wear, shoes on my feet, and there was enough to eat. Mother had a new hairstyle and smelled of perfume. Major Altamir Ventura, the province head of Batista's secret police, had entered our lives. He wore a uniform and had shiny brown boots and smelled of sweat and whiskey and cigars and cologne. "When he took off his jacket and draped his belt and holster over the chair, I could see that he had another, smaller pistol tucked into the small of his back."

"How did you feel about your mother at that time?" asked Dr. Paul.

"I didn't hate her then," said Kadar, "and of course, it's pointless to hate her now. At that time I merely despised her. She was stupid and weak—a natural victim. Whatever she did, she seemed to come out second best. She was one of life's losers. She was abandoned by my father. She was treated abominably by her family. She had to scrimp and scrape to make a living, and then she became Ventura's plaything."

"Did you love her?"

 "Love, love, love," said Kadar. "What an odd word. It is almost the antithesis of being in control. I don't know whether I loved her or not. Perhaps I did when I was very small. She was all I had. But I grew up quickly."

"Did she love you?"

"I suppose," said Kadar without enthusiasm, "in her own stupid way. She used to have me sleep in her bed."

"Until Major Ventura came along?"

"Yes," said Kadar.

"Was your mother attractive?"

"Attractive?" said Kadar. "Oh, yes, she was attractive. More to the point, she was sensual. She liked to touch and be touched. She always slept naked."

"Did you miss sleeping with your mother?"

"Yes," said Kadar. "I was lonely."

"And you used to cry and cry," said Dr. Paul.

"But nobody knew," said Kadar.

"And you swore never to rely on anybody again."

"Yes," said Kadar.

"But you didn't keep your promise, did you?"

"No," Kadar whispered. "No."

Fitzduane had several hours to kill before he met Guido at the close of the working day at Ringier. He took a train the short distance into the center of Zurich and left his luggage at the central station. He shrugged his camera bag over his shoulder and set off to explore. Wandering around a new city on foot was something he loved to do.

Zurich was as sleek and affluent as he had expected, but to his surprise there were signs of discord amid the banks, the expensive shops, and the high-rise office buildings. At first it looked like a few isolated cases of vandalism. Then he began to notice that the damage, albeit superficial, was widespread. There were clear signs of recent rioting on a substantial scale. Plate glass windows had been cracked and were neatly taped up pending repair. Other windows had been smashed and were boarded up, again in the same painstaking and professional manner. Shards of broken glass glittered from the gutters. Spray-painted graffiti festooned the walls. A church just off Bahnhofstrasse was smeared with red paint as if with gobbets of blood. Under the red streaks were the words euthanasie = religion. On another side street he found two empty tear gas canisters. He bought a map and walked to Dufourstrasse 23.

Ringier was one of the largest publishing houses in Switzerland, and its success showed in the sleek modernism of its headquarters building. The foyer was large and dominated by a bunkerlike reception module; desk hardly seemed the appropriate term. There was a magazine shop built into the ground floor. While Guido was being located, Fitzduane browsed idly through some of the Ringier output. A miniature television camera whirred quietly on its mobile mount, following his movements.

The last time he had seen Guido, the Swiss had been fit and noticeably handsome, with a deep, confident voice and a personality to match. The overall effect was to project credibility, and it was not a misleading impression. Over the years Guido had built up a considerable network of sources and contacts who confided in him with unusual frankness.

This time, as Guido stepped from the elevator, Fitzduane felt a sense of shock and then sadness. He knew that look all too well. Guido's face seemed to have shrunk. It was newly lined and an unhealthy yellow. His eyes were bloodshot and cloudy. He had lost weight. He walked slowly, without his normal vigor of stride. Even his voice had changed. The warmth was still there, but the assurance was lacking, replaced by pain and fatigue. Only his smile was the same.

"It's been a long time, Samurai," he said. He grasped Fitzduane's hand with both of his and shook it warmly. Fitzduane felt a rush of affection but was at a loss for words.

Guido looked at him in silence for a moment; then he spoke. "I had much the same reaction when I looked in my shaving mirror every morning. But you get used to it. Anyway, it won't be long now. I don't want to talk about it. Come on home and tell me all."

The last Batista presidency, as far as Major Ventura was concerned, was an opportunity for both career advancement and the acquisition of serious wealth.

Ventura's ambitions were furthered by the international political climate of the period. The Cold War was at full chill. The Dulles brothers were in charge of the State Department and the CIA, and they did not look kindly on even the hint of communism on their doorstep. Batista's approach to upward mobility mightn't exactly be the American Way, but at least the son of a bitch couldn't be accused of being a Red.

Within two years Major Ventura was Colonel Ventura and posted back to Havana to become the deputy director of BRAC, the special anti-Communist police. He stopped wearing a uniform and instead dressed in immaculately tailored cream-colored suits cut generously under the left armpit. He was fond of alligator-skin shoes. He took vacations in Switzerland. He investigated, arrested, interrogated, tortured, and killed many people who were said to be Communists. He had close working links with the CIA, which was how Kadar met Whitney Reston, the only person Kadar truly loved, and by whom he was seduced.

"We'd been in Havana for a few years," said Kadar. "Ventura still lived with Mother, but he was getting bored with her. He had other women—many other women.

"Whitney worked for a CIA man called Kirkpatrick. He used to come to the house regularly to see Ventura. The CIA had set up BRAC with Batista, and they funded it. They liked to keep an eye on where the money was going. Ventura was their man within BRAC, probably one of many. He was paid a regular monthly retainer by the CIA on top of his BRAC salary and the money he made in other ways. One of his favorite techniques was to arrest someone from a rich family, rough him up a bit, and then have the family buy the prisoner out."

"How did you know all this?"

"Various ways," said Kadar. "The house we lived in was big and old. I had time on my hands—I had made the decision not to have any friends—and I had already discovered that I was smart, really smart. I found if I could get a book on how to do something, I only had to read it a couple of times and I could become proficient in whatever it was. In this way I learned some basic building skills and how to plant microphones and organize spy holes. I stole much of what I needed from BRAC and the CIA. I learned how to tap phones. To tell the truth, it wasn't difficult.

"I learned early that knowledge is power. I made it my business to know everything that went on in that house, and from that I learned much of what BRAC and the CIA were up to elsewhere. I learned that words such as good and bad are meaningless. You are either master or victim.

"I used to look at Ventura and my mother in bed together. That was easy to arrange because my room was over theirs and all I had to do was make a hole from my floor to their ceiling. I put in a monocular so I could see every detail, and I had the place wired, of course. He made her do some disgusting things, but she didn't seem to mind. I thought she was pathetic."

"Tell me about your affair with Whitney Reston," said Dr. Paul. "Did you have homosexual inclinations to start with?"

"I don't think I was either homosexual or heterosexual," said Kadar, "merely sexually awakening and alone. I hadn't yet mastered how to mix with people and to take what is needed without being involved. I was still vulnerable.

"When I was small, I had an imaginary friend called Michael. Whitney looked like an older version of Michael. He had the same blond hair, pale skin, and fine features. And he was nice to me and gentle, and he loved me. It lasted for a year. I was so happy.

"I spent so much time with Whitney that I stopped monitoring all the activities of the house. I still kept an eye on Ventura, but provided I knew where she was, I left Mother unsupervised. I didn't think she was important. I was wrong. Even a pathetic figure like Mother could be dangerous.

"I don't remember all of it, but I remember too much. Whitney and I had driven out to the beach at Santa Maria-Guanabo. As far as other people were concerned, Whitney was just being a family friend giving a lonely teenager an outing. We had been very discreet. Whitney knew he'd be in real trouble if the CIA found out. He said that the Company was obsessed with homosexuality.

"The beach, a ribbon of white sand some ten kilometers long bordered by pine trees, was only about twenty kilometers from Havana. We liked it because it was easy to get to, yet during mid-week it was always possible to find a private spot. Most people used to cluster near the few bars and restaurants. Ten minutes' walk, and you'd think you had the world all to yourself.

"It was a hot, hot day—hot and humid. The sea was calm, and the sound of white-topped rollers was beautifully relaxing. I was nearly asleep in the shade of an awning we had rigged up. There was the smell of the sea and of pine from the groves behind us.

"I heard voices—not a long conversation, just a quick exchange of words. I opened my eyes a little. The glare off the sea and the white sand was dazzling. I was drowsy from drinking half a bottle of cerveza. Whitney used to limit me to half a bottle. He said I was too young to drink more.

"Whitney had gone for a swim to cool off, but he wasn't far out. I put my sunglasses back on to cut the glare, and as my eyes adjusted, I could see two men walking down to the water's edge. They were wearing loose cotton shirts and slacks. Both men wore wide-brimmed hats like those of cane cutters.

"One of the men called to Whitney. I couldn't hear what was said, but Whitney waved and shouted something. He swam toward shore and rose to his feet in the shallow water. He looked across at me and smiled. He ran his fingers through his hair to remove the water. His tanned, wet body gleamed in the sun.

"The two men stepped forward a few paces, and my view of Whitney was momentarily obscured. One of the men moved, and I heard two bangs very close together. The sound was muffled by the noise of the sea.

"I sat up, but I was still not seriously alarmed. What I was seeing was unreal. None of the actions I was observing seemed to have any relevance to me. They were pictures in the landscape—nothing more. Sweat trickled into my eyes, and I had to take my sunglasses off for a second to wipe it away.

"The two men separated. One was reloading a short, thick weapon. I could see the sun glinting off cartridge cases. The other man had an automatic pistol in his right hand. He stepped into the shallow surf and pointed the weapon toward Whitney but didn't fire immediately. For some moments he stared at Whitney, his weapon extended as if he were shocked into stillness by what he saw.

"Whitney's body remained upright, but where his face and the top of his head had been there was nothing. A fountain of arterial blood gushed from his head and cascaded down his torso and lower body and stained the water around his feet.

"Then the man with the pistol fired. The first shot hurled the body back into the water in a cloud of pink spray. The man went on firing shots into the bundle at his feet until the gun was empty and the slide locked back. He pulled a fresh clip from his pocket and pulled back the slide to insert a round into the breech and recock the weapon. He looked toward me. The other man said something, and the two of them walked away into the woods."

Kadar looked up at Dr. Paul. "I think I'd like a rest now," he said.

They took a taxi from Ringier, picked up Fitzduane's bags from the station, and traveled the short distance to Guido's apartment on Limmatstrasse.

The River Limmat was a dull steel gray in the evening light. The rush-hour traffic was heavy but moved easily. Trams were filled with tired faces heading homeward.

As they turned into Guido's street, they passed a factory or warehouse that looked as if it had been involved in a minor war. It was covered with banners and graffiti. Stones and other discarded missiles littered the ground. The place was surrounded by coils of barbed wire. Police, some in uniform; some in full riot gear, occupied every strategic point. Outside the barbed wire, knots of people stood looking and talking.

"As you can see," said Guido, "my apartment is well placed. I can walk to the war zone, even in my present state of health, only a modest three hundred meters."

"What is this war zone?" asked Fitzduane.

"It's the highly controversial Autonomous Youth House," said Guido. "I'll tell you about it over a drink." He looked amused. "Not exactly what you expected of placid Switzerland, Hugo."

"No," said Fitzduane.

The apartment was on the second floor. As Guido was about to place his key in the lock, the door opened. A handsome but studious-looking dark-haired woman in her early thirties gave him a hug. He rested his arm around her shoulders. "This is Christina," he said. "She tries to see I behave myself; she pretends I need looking after, thinks I can't boil an egg." He kissed her on the forehead. She squeezed his hand.

The apartment was spacious and comfortable. Guido ushered Fitzduane into his study and poured them both a glass of dry white wine. "I should be hard at work, preparing the salad," he said, "but Christina knows we want to talk. I have a reprieve."

"An attractive woman," said Fitzduane. "I never thought to see you so domesticated."

"Made it by a short head," said Guido. "If I had known it was so enjoyable, I might have tried it earlier in my life."

"You did try it earlier," said Fitzduane, "or had you forgotten?"

Guido gazed at him directly and took his time before answering. "No," he said.

They were both silent for a little while; then Guido spoke. "I've been doing some work on Beat von Graffenlaub, as you asked. You have found yourself a formidable subject. Don't cross him, or you'll find yourself leaving Switzerland sooner than you might wish."

"How so?"

"Von Graffenlaub is very much an establishment figure," said Guido, "and the Swiss establishment looks after its own. You rock the boat too much, they ship you out. Very simple."

"What constitutes rocking the boat?"

"That's the random factor; you won't necessarily know," said Guido. "They make the rules. It's their country."

"Yours, too," said Fitzduane.

"So my papers say, but I don't own a big slice of it like von Graffenlaub. That makes a difference."

"To your perspective?"

"To my perspective, sure," said Guido, "but mostly I'm talking about power, real power." He smiled cheerfully. "The kind you don't want to be on the receiving end of," he added.

Fitzduane looked at him and nodded.

Guido laughed. "Don't pack yet," he said.

"I'd like to know more about the general Swiss setup," said Fitzduane, "before you go into detail on von Graffenlaub. What constitutes the establishment? How does the system work? Why has this haven of peace and prosperity got to rioting in the streets? What is an Autonomous Youth House?"

Guido lit a Brissago, a long, thin, curly cigar with a straw as a mouthpiece. It looked not unlike a piece of gnarled root. Smoke filled the air. The room was warm, and the sounds of dinner being prepared emanated from the kitchen.

"I'll start with the basics," he said. "Population, 6.3 million. Currently one of the most prosperous nations in the world. Inflation minimal, and unemployment almost nonexistent. Trains, buses, aircraft, and even joggers run on time. In many ways not a nation at all so much as a collection of diverse communities; in many cases these communities do not even like each other or, in terms of language and culture, would appear to have little in common. Yet they are linked together for mutual advantage.

"Four different languages are spoken—German, French, Italian, and Romansh—and God alone knows how many dialects. The Swiss are further divided by religion. Nearly fifty percent are Catholic, and about forty-eight percent Protestant of various shades. I'm not too sure about the balance.

"Unlike most other countries, which are strongly centralized, power in Switzerland, at least in theory and in many cases in practice, comes from the bottom up. The core unit is the Gemeinde, or community. A bunch of Gemeinden together make up a canton, and there are twenty-six cantons, or half cantons, making up what the outside world knows as Switzerland.

"Central government in Bern is kept very weak. The constitution strictly limits its powers, and the voters make sure it does not get too much of the tax revenue. Control of money is power: little money, little power."

Guido smiled cynically, yet his expression belied his tone. Guido had a certain pride in being Swiss.

"Different languages, different dialects, different religions, different geography, different neighbors, different customs," said Fitzduane. "What holds it all together?"

"Different things," said Guido, smiling. "A damn good constitution, nearly seven hundred years of precedent, a shared affluence—though not shared equally—and one very strong element in the social glue, the army."

"Tell me about the Swiss Army," said Fitzduane.

"Time to eat," said Christina, appearing in the doorway. "It's not good for Guido to eat late." She moved forward to help Guido out of his chair. The gesture was discreet, but well practiced. As he grew tired, he needed assistance but still must be seen to be in command of his faculties. It was a caring action, one of love.

Fitzduane resisted the impulse to help. He stayed back and busied himself moving the wineglasses to the dining room table and, with a little encouragement from Guido, opening another bottle of wine.

Kadar was silent, lost in his recollections. Whitney Reston's death had been blamed on Castro and his rebels. As a CIA man helping Batista's anti-Communist police, Whitney was an obvious target.

After Whitney's death Kadar had gone back to his little world of microphones and tape recorders and spy holes. He fitted time switches and experimented with voice actuation. He made his own directional mike and experimented with using the electrical circuitry as a transmission medium. He even managed to install bugs in both Ventura's and his mother's cars.

It might have been thought that all this surveillance activity was dedicated to finding out more about who had killed Whitney. Ironically, that was not the case. At the time Kadar was in shock. He had accepted Ventura's claim that the killers had been caught and executed. Even when he learned—it was from a conversation in the car—that the people who were actually executed were innocent of that specific killing, he had still accepted that the killers were rebels.

In truth he was looking for nothing in particular. The work was an end in itself. It stopped him from thinking about what he had lost. It helped prepare him for his future on his own. It helped him feel in control.

One day Ventura called Kadar. He said that somebody wanted to see him and that he wasn't to tell his mother. He told Kadar to clean himself up and put on a suit and tie, then drove him to a house on Calle Olispo in Habana Vieja. On the way Ventura told Kadar that this man had something very important to say and that if Kadar knew what was good for him, he'd pay attention, be polite, and respond favorably to anything that was suggested.

Kadar was shown into a sparsely furnished room on the second floor, then left alone. The windows were closed, and the place had an unlived-in feel to it. A few minutes later a distinguished-looking American came in. He locked the door and motioned Kadar to take a seat.

Kadar knew immediately who he was. Mother had kept a photograph of him and had talked about him many times. Of course, he was older now, and there was gray in his hair, but he had one of those spare New England faces that age well.

He took a cigarillo out of a silver cigarette case and lit it. He wore a pale gray lightweight suit, a club tie, and a shirt of blue oxford cloth with a button-down collar. His shoes were the kind that bankers wear. He couldn't have been anything but an American of a certain privileged class.

"I think you know who I am," the man said.

"My father," Kadar answered, "Henry Bridgenorth Lodge."

"Your English is good," Lodge noted. "Your mother, I guess?" Kadar nodded.

"I haven't got a lot of time," Lodge said, "so listen carefully to what I have to say. I know I haven't been any kind of father to you.

I won't try to apologize. It would be a waste of time. These things happen—especially in wartime. That's all there is to it.

"When I met your mother, I had a wife and a small son already. When I got back to America, I didn't even want to hear about Europe for a while. It was all a bad dream. I wiped out the last few years from my mind—and that included your mother and you. I never gave you a thought.

"Peace and quiet were fun for a while, but soon the juices began to flow. There's a high you get from action, and I missed the excitement. The OSS was officially disbanded at the end of the war by Truman, who hadn't much time for spooks. After a year or so of being outmaneuvered by Stalin on every front and with country after country being grabbed by the Reds, Truman did an about-face, and the CIA was born. Because of my OSS background, I got in on the ground floor. I had field experience; I speak several languages, including Spanish. I got promoted fast.

"About seven years ago I was asked to take a look at our Cuban operations. The Company had taken over Cuba from the FBI, and there were some questions about the reliability of a number of the agents we inherited. It all got straightened out, but in the process something made me track down your mother and you.

"Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't thinking of rekindling an old passion. I was happily married. I'm one of those lucky people for whom it has worked. No, it was more like curiosity.

"I found the pair of you weren't doing too well. You were stuck in some nothing town in the toughest province in Cuba. You were barely surviving.

"I have learned to be cold-blooded over the years—this job doesn't leave you with much faith in human nature—but something pushed me into trying to help. I figured what you needed was a guardian—some kind of protector—and some money."

"Ventura," Kadar muttered.

Lodge looked at Kadar appraisingly. "Smart boy. Ventura always said you were bright. You've probably guessed the rest of it. He's been one of our people for a long time. I didn't tell him to make your mother his mistress; that was Ventura mixing business and pleasure and saving on travel time. I told him to look after the pair of you, and I paid him a retainer. It was my money—not CIA funds. He received those as well. Ventura knows how to work the angles."

"Why have you sent for me now?" Kadar said. "Do you expect thanks?"

Lodge smiled thinly. "I can see we're going to have a loving relationship. No, it's got nothing to do with my expecting gratitude, and it's not for any feeling I have for you. I don't even know whether I'm going to like you. But that's not the issue. I need you for my wife. Two years ago our son died—of meningitis, of all stupid things. She can't have any more children, and neither of us wants to adopt a complete stranger. You're a solution. She's been seriously depressed since Timmie's death. You could make all the difference."

"Does she know about me?" Kadar asked.

"Yes," Lodge said. "I told her about you a year ago. She was upset at first, but now she has come around to the idea that it would be wonderful. She's a religious lady, and she sees your filling the gap as something preordained by God. You have Bridgenorth Lodge blood of the right shade of blue flowing in your veins."

"What about my life here?" Kadar asked. "What about Mother? Does she know about this?"

"Listen kid," Lodge said, "in a few weeks' time Castro and his Commie friends are going to take over, and Cuba is going to sink even farther into the sewers. This country isn't much now. Under the Fidelistas it's going to get a whole lot worse. They talk about democracy. They mean a one-party dictatorship controlling every second of every Cuban's life. People will remember the Batista years as the good old days.

"In contrast, if you come to the States to live with my wife and me, you're going to have a chance to really make it. You'll lose that accent. You'll go to the best schools and the best universities. You'll be able to follow whatever career you want. I ask you, which is the better deal?"

"And what about Mother?" Kadar repeated. "Does she know what you're proposing?"

"Not yet," Lodge answered. "But don't pretend you care what she thinks. Don't try to bullshit me. I know about your relationship with your mother. Don't forget Ventura's my man."

"Are you rich?" Kadar said.

"You're a sentimental young fellow, aren't you? I see you've inherited some of our family traits." Lodge smiled slightly. "Comfortable."

"How comfortable?"

"I'll give you a million dollars when you are twenty-one if you agree to my proposition. Does that help?"

"Yes, Father," Kadar said.

It had become clear to him that he was going to need a great deal of money. Lodge's million would not be enough, and there were sure to be terms and conditions. Besides, he wanted money that no one would know about. Money is power, but secret money is control.

Kadar was lying on his bed that same evening, listening to Ventura and his mother through headphones, when he heard something that determined what he had to do—and then all the little pieces would fall into place.

"Well, my sweet," Ventura was saying, "you are more stupid and more dangerous than I thought."

Kadar's mother didn't say anything.

"Last night," continued Ventura, "my men picked up a certain Miguel Rovere, an enforcer for those American friends of ours who like to support our economy by financing gambling, prostitution, drugs, and similar examples of the American Dream. Apparently he was better at inflicting pain than receiving it. By morning he was screaming for mercy. He said he had some very important information fit for my ears only. It was about a Seсor Reston—the late Seсor Reston.

"Rovere said that he and an imported hitman from Miami had killed Whitney Reston—and that the contract had been put out by you. You know, I'm so used to hearing lies from prisoners—people say anything to stop the pain—that I find myself quite taken aback by veracity. I find the truth extraordinary in the literal sense of the word. Because it is extraordinary, it is distinctive and immediately recognizable. Rovere's smashed, bloody lips whispered the truth."

Kadar's mother started to cry. Then she shouted at Ventura that if he had been willing to do something about Whitney in the first place, none of this would have been necessary. Was she supposed to do nothing when her only son was being turned into a woman by some perverted American? And so it went on—an outpouring of hate, frustration, and pent-up rage. Much of it was garbled. But Kadar didn't think Whitney was killed simply for what he was supposed to have done to him. No, Whitney's killing had come to symbolize for her a way of getting back at all the people who had used and discarded her over the years.

"So she knew," Dr. Paul broke in. "Did she speak to you about it?"

"Not a word."

"I suppose she knew it wouldn't have done any good."

"I suppose she did," said Kadar. "When the significance of what was being said began to sink in, my reactions were disparate. Part of me was so stunned I had difficulty breathing. Another part of me went very calm. I was not altogether surprised at what I had heard. The two killers had dressed like campesinos, but their body language had been wrong. They had borne themselves like city people. I had trained myself to notice such things.

"Mother sniveled for a while and then spoke. She sounded frightened. She asked Ventura what he was going to do. He answered that for the moment he would do nothing except keep her out of circulation until he could figure out some answers. Then she asked if he was going to tell the CIA. He said he would have, but to be frank, he was afraid of being included in their tidying-up process.

"Mother had to go—I was sure of that. Soon it became equally inevitable that Ventura must be killed, too. I had nothing against him personally—indeed, I admired and had learned much from his single-minded ruthlessness—but he had something I needed, and with him dead I knew how to get it.

"For the next few days I considered a wide variety of plans and methods. I decided for security reasons not to involve anyone else—look at how Rovere had implicated Mother. Besides, I knew that I was going to have to kill again in the future if I was going to make my way as planned. I might as well make a good start. I was aware that I suffered from squeamishness—I disliked intensely the sight of blood—but I was determined to eliminate such weaknesses from my makeup.

"Don't get the idea that I was a total stranger to violence. Quite the contrary, it would be hard to be around Ventura for long without being exposed to one of the major realities of life. Nonetheless, seeing someone killed is not the same as doing it yourself. It was important to get hands-on experience.

"It began to dawn on me that I had picked a tough target to begin with, and of course, Mother shared in Ventura's protection. Ventura himself was a physically formidable man and was always armed. The house was heavily guarded at all times, and when Ventura traveled, he was driven in a car fitted with bulletproof glass and armor plating. In addition, heavily armed security police rode in Jeeps in front of and behind him. The same level of security was maintained at BRAC headquarters. Many people wanted Ventura dead, and he knew it. He was an intelligent man. His precautions were well thought out and implemented.

"In the final analysis I abandoned all my complex plans and high tech methods and opted for a scenario that would exploit the one major security weakness, the lack of guards indoors, and at the same time would allow me to lose my virginity and exact retribution in a most direct manner. It was a simple scheme, and it depended heavily on precise timing.

"I thought of blaming the killings on either the CIA or the Fidelistas—either would have represented a certain natural balance to the affair—but in terms of access, neither was very credible without taking out some of the perimeter guards. I would have the advantage of coming from inside, something they would not be expecting, but even so, it was a tall order for a novice.

"By a process of elimination—and yes, I did think of the Mafia, which doubtless was not too pleased by Rovere's disappearance—I came up with a traditional motive, with Cuban in its fire and passion.

"Day after day I practiced Ventura's signature. I have always had considerable artistic ability, so the results were good. Meanwhile, Ventura and Mother played into my hands. They fought in front of the guards and servants. There were long periods of icy silence between them, and both drank heavily. The tension increased as it became clear that Batista was going to be overthrown. The exodus of Batista followers had started. Mother screamed publicly that Ventura was planning to leave her to be executed by the Fidelistas. This was good stuff. It provided a credible motive. Now it was down to nerve and timing.

"The house was a large three-story building. The guards protected the gate, the walls, and the various entrances to the house itself. There were five servants, but only two lived in. Their quarters were over the garage, with an access door leading directly to the first floor. That door was padded to cut down noise. It didn't seem likely that the sound of shots would penetrate, but sound carries at night, and I had to be sure.

"I typed a note on Ventura's study typewriter, signed it with his signature, and addressed it to Mother. I placed the note in my pocket. I had already taken a small .22 caliber automatic pistol that Ventura had given my mother several years before. I checked that and placed it in the other side pocket of my robe.

"They tended to go to bed late. Through my spy hole, headphones in place, I monitored their progress. As I watched each action, I thought, there, they are doing that or that for the last time. It gave me an odd feeling, almost of omniscience.

"Ventura climbed into bed naked. He drank some brandy and leaned back against the pillows. He was smoking a cigar. His automatic pistol lay, cocked and locked, on the bedside table. Mother sat in front of the dressing table. I knew she would be there for several minutes. She no longer enjoyed sharing a bed with Ventura.

"I left my door open and descended to the floor below. I knocked tentatively on the door and announced myself. Mother let me in. 'I need to talk,' I said.

"Ventura looked both irritated and amused. His glass was nearly empty. I walked over to his side of the bed and refilled it. His chest was matted with black hair, and he was sweating. 'Thanks, kid,' he said. His voice was friendly.

"My mother had her back to us as she finished at the dressing table. I replaced the brandy bottle on the bedside table. Beside it there was a hand towel that Ventura had been using. It was damp with his sweat. I wiped my own hands with it and reached into my pocket for the .22.  I shot Ventura twice in the chest.

"I turned as Mother turned and in three swift steps was in front _ of her. I went down on one knee. Over my shoulder she could see Ventura. She stared, mouth open, too shocked to scream. I placed the pistol in her mouth, angled toward her brain, and squeezed the trigger. There was less noise than you'd expect.

"I heard a faint gasp and walked back to Ventura. He was still alive, though his eyes were going dull. Blood mixed with brandy was staining the sheets. He was saying something. I leaned over to hear, being careful to avoid the mess. 'But why me?' he whispered. 'Why me?'

"I pulled the note from my pocket and showed him his signature. A look of understanding crept into his eyes. I recited a number to him and an amount: 'One million, three hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars.'

" 'I was aiming for two,' he whispered. 'but that fucking Castro has screwed things up.'

"I shot him again, twice, this time in the head, then tore up the note and scattered the pieces over his body. It announced, in my best version of Ventura's style, that he was leaving Cuba and that Mother would have to look after herself. I placed the pistol in Mother's hand.

"Nobody heard a thing. I didn't have to be found screaming as if I'd run into the room after having heard the shots. I waited ten minutes and adopted the second option. I locked their bedroom door and went upstairs to sleep. I slept like a log. In the morning the guards broke down their door, and the crashes and shouting awoke me. It was easy to drop Mother's door key where it would have been flung out of the lock as the door was burst open.

"I met my new mother three days later. Father gave me a strange look when I shook hands with him, but he didn't say anything."

"What did you feel after you had killed your mother?" asked Dr. Paul.

"I wished I'd used a shotgun."

They dined simply: salad, potatoes, cheese, and fruit. There were candles on the table. Throughout the meal they talked about memories, mutual friends, food, and wine, but rarely about the future. From time to time, in unguarded moments, Fitzduane perceived a flash of sadness in Christina's eyes. Mostly she projected warmth, tenderness, and a deep, caring affection. He realized that Guido, despite his pain and approaching death, was quietly content.

They talked about the recent riots in Zurich and the youth movement.

"Consider me confused," said Fitzduane. "Apart from no unemployment, virtually no inflation, and the highest standard of living of any European nation, what other problems haven't you got? Who exactly is rioting, and what are they breaking windows about?"

"They are not just breaking windows," said Guido. "Thousands of young people also paraded through the streets of Zurich stark naked."

Fitzduane grinned.

"It's very difficult to say precisely what they are protesting about," continued Guido. "Basically it's a rather ill-defined reaction against much of the Swiss system by a certain percentage of Swiss youth. Whatever the merits of this country, there is no denying that there is tremendous social pressure to conform. Most of the rules make sense by themselves. Put them all together, and you have a free Western democracy without a lot of freedom—or at least that is what they say."

"It sounds not unlike the 1968 protests in France."

"There are similarities," said Guido, "but 1968 was much more organized and structured. There were leaders like Daniel Cohn-Bendit, and specific demands made. This is much more anarchistic and aimless. There are few precise demands. There is no one to negotiate with. The authorities don't know who to talk to or what to do, so they respond with overreaction and the riot police: clubs, tear gas, and water cannon instead of thought."

"Is the youth movement throughout Switzerland?" asked Fitzduane.

"In various forms it is throughout Europe," said Guido. "Here in Switzerland I think many of the youth are concerned, but only a small percentage riot, and that is concentrated in the cities."

"Bern, too?"

"A little," said Guido, "but not so much. The Bernese have their own ways of doing things. They don't like confrontation. I think, perhaps, the authorities in Bern are handling it better."

"I thought you were suggesting that the Bernese were a little stupid," said Fitzduane, recalling an earlier remark by Guido.

"Slow; I said the Bernese had the reputation of being slow," said Guido. "I didn't say they weren't smart. But I'd like to show you something." He smiled, then stood up and went over to a closet and removed a bulky object. He placed the assault rifle on the dining room table against a backdrop of cheese and empty wine bottles. The weapon glistened dully in the candlelight. The bipod was extended in the forward position. The slightly curved box magazine was in place.

"The SG-57," said Fitzduane. "Caliber 7.5-millimeter, magazine capacity twenty-four rounds, self-loading or fully automatic, effective range up to four hundred and fifty meters. No dinner table is complete without one."

"Always the weapons expert," said Guido.

Fitzduane shrugged.

"About six hundred thousand Swiss homes contain one of these rifles," said Guido, "together with a sealed container of twenty-four rounds of ammunition. Just about every male between the ages of twenty and fifty is in the army. Over six hundred and fifty thousand men can be fully mobilized within hours. We are prepared to fight to stay at peace. The army is the one major social organization that binds the Swiss together."

"Supposing you don't want to join?"

"Provided you are in good health," said Guido, "at twenty years of age, in you go. If you refuse, it's prison for six months or so—and afterward there can be problems in getting a federal job, and other penalties. But there are more important things to know about the army. It's not just an experience common to all Swiss males between the ages of twenty and fifty. It is also one of the main meeting grounds of the power elite.

"You start off in the army as an ordinary soldier. You do your seventeen weeks of basic training and then return to civilian life with your uniform and rifle—until next year, when you do a couple of weeks' refresher course, and so on until you are fifty.

"However, the best of the recruits are invited to become corporals and then officers, and later, conceivably, they end up on the general staff. There are about fifty thousand officers, and only two thousand of these are general staff—and it is officers of the general staff who dominate the power structure in this country. The higher you go in the Swiss army, the more time you have to put in away from your civilian job. We call it 'paying your grade.' That's especially difficult for an ordinary worker or a self-employed businessman. As a result, the general staff and, to a lesser extent, the officer corps as a whole are dominated by senior executives of the large banks, industrial corporations, and the government."

"In Eisenhower's phrase, 'the military-industrial complex,' " said Fitzduane.

"He was talking about America," said Guido, "and collusion between the military and big business. Here it is not just collusion. The senior army officers and the senior corporate executives are the same people. They don't just make the weapons; they buy them and use them."

"But only for practice," said Fitzduane.

"That's the good part."

Later, when the exhausted Guido had retired, Christina showed Fitzduane to his room. By the window there was a huge potted plant that was making a serious attempt to reach up and strangle the light bulb.

"It's doing well," Christina said proudly. "It came from England in a milk bottle."

"A two-meter-high milk bottle?" said Fitzduane.

"It grew since then."

"What's it called?"

"It's a papyrus," said Christina. "The same thing that's at the head of your bed."

"Jesus!" exclaimed Fitzduane. "How fast do these things grow?"

Kadar did not speak. He was remembering.

He wondered if he should have felt remorse. In truth he hadn't felt much of anything immediately after the event except an overwhelming feeling of fatigue mixed with a quiet satisfaction that he had been able to do it. He had passed the test. He had an inner strength possessed by few people. He was born to control.

He tried not to remember how he had felt one day later. From the time he had woken he had been unable to stop shaking, and the spasms had continued for most of that day. "Classic reaction to shock," the doctor had said sympathetically. Kadar had lain there in quiet despair while his body betrayed him. In later years he had undergone training in a variety of Eastern combat disciplines to fuse his mental and physical strength, and the post-action shock had not manifested itself again. Very occasionally he wondered if such stress symptoms were nonetheless there, but in a more insidious, invisible way, like the hairline cracks of metal fatigue in an aircraft.

The silence continued for several minutes. Kadar was caught up in the excitement of that time and the almost unremitting stimulation offered by his new life in the States. The greatest surprise of that period had not been the luxury of his new home, or access to all the material goods he could reasonably want, or the effect of an environment in which almost anything seemed to be possible. It had been the attitude of his father.

At their first meeting in Havana, Henry Bridgenorth Lodge had been cold, hard, and cynical—almost dispassionate. He needed a son to satisfy his wife. So be it. Subsequently, although his manner remained superficially distant and though the hardness and cynicism proved to be real enough, Lodge displayed a concern for and attention to his son's well-being that almost made Kadar drop his guard and develop an affection for him.

Kadar had to exert all his formidable sense of purpose and self-discipline to resist an emotion that threatened to overwhelm his sixteen-year-old frame. He reminded himself again and again that to be in control, truly in control, he must remain above conventional emotions. He repeated this constantly in the privacy of his room at night even while the tears trickled down his cheeks and his body was suffused by feelings he could not, or would not, begin to understand.

Shortly after he had settled into his new home—a comfortable twenty-minute drive from Langley—he was subjected to what seemed like a barrage of examinations and tests to help determine how the next phase of his education might best be carried out.

It emerged that he was unusually gifted. His IQ was in the top 0.1 percent of the population. He had an ear for languages. He showed considerable artistic promise. His physical coordination was excellent. He was an impressive if not outstanding athlete.

It was clear that a conventional school would not be adequate.

For the first year he was tutored privately. Lodge tapped into the immense pool of highly qualified academics and analysts that were part of the CIA community, and Kadar was exposed to a quality of mind and a sharpness of intellect that up until then he had only read about. It was exciting. It was fun. And he flourished both intellectually and physically.

For his second academic year he was sent to a special school for the gifted, supplemented by private tutoring, a routine that was to remain constant until he left Harvard. It was during this second year that he discovered he had charm and a naturally magnetic personality—and that he could use these qualities to manipulate people to his own ends.

He was conscious that his experience in dealing with people was inadequate and that such a deficiency could be a weakness. He studied other people's reactions to him and worked hard to improve his overt personality. The public persona became further divorced from the inner reality. He became one of the most popular boys in his class.

Lodge had some instinctive understanding of the nature of the son he was nurturing. He knew there were risks, yet his perception was counterbalanced by a weakness: Lodge was excited by talent. To such a man, Kadar, who responded to intellectual and other stimuli in such an attractive, dynamic way, was irresistible. It was like having a garden where every seed germinated and flourished. Educating, training, and encouraging this astonishing young stranger who was his son became an obsession.

Henry Bridgenorth Lodge came from a family that had been so wealthy for so long that career satisfaction could not be achieved by something as mundane as making money. The Bridgenorth Lodges did make money, a great deal of it—more than they could comfortably use, a talent that seemed to survive generation after generation—but they channeled their foremost endeavors toward higher things, principally service to their country. The Bridgenorth Lodges worked to advance the interests of the United States—as they saw them—with the zealousness and ruthlessness of Jesuits. To the Family—as they thought of themselves—the ends did justify the means.

Many people go through their lives without ever being lucky enough to come under the influence of a really great teacher. In this respect Kadar was doubly fortunate. Ventura had—unintentionally—given him a consummate grounding in the fundamentals of power grabbing, violence, manipulation, and extortion. Lodge and his colleagues taught Kadar to think in a more strategic way, set him up with a network of connections in high places, taught him the social graces, and gave him numerous specific skills from languages to project planning, cultural appreciation to combat pistol shooting.

Lodge might have had some inkling of Kadar's inner conflicts, but he had hopes that they could be channeled in the Bridgenorth Lodge tradition. His son was being groomed for a career of distinction in the CIA, followed by a suitable switch to public office.

Kadar, who in the more relaxed environment of America was surprised to discover he had an excellent sense of humor, was not unamused years later that this training for the public service was to produce one of the most dangerous criminals of the century and someone who secretly despised everything the Bridgenorth Lodges stood for. Except, it should be said, their money.

When Fitzduane awoke in the morning, the apartment was empty. He could hear faint sounds of traffic through the double-glazed windows. A light breakfast had been laid out. The assault rifle had been cleared away from the dining room table.

He looked for some jam in the kitchen cabinet. He found two different kinds, together with a jar of English marmalade. Behind the jam pots was a sealed container of twenty-four rounds of rifle ammunition. The container resembled a soft-drink can.

Over breakfast he skimmed idly through the notes and tapes on the von Graffenlaubs that Guido had left him. He pushed the tapes aside for the moment and concentrated on the written material. Guido's notes were clear and pointed:

The von Graffenlaub family is one of the oldest and most respected in Bern. The family has a centuries-old tradition of involvement in the government of both city and canton. The present Beat (pronounced "Bay-at," by the way, not "Beet") von Graffenlaub is a pillar of the Swiss establishment through family, business, and the army.

Apart from the natural advantages of birth, Beat laid the foundation for his distinguished career by carrying out several missions for Swiss military intelligence during the Second World War. Briefly, he acted as a courier between sources in the German high command and Swiss military intelligence. Under the cover of skiing exhibitions and other sporting activities, he brought back information of the utmost importance, including details of Operation Tannenbaum, the German-Italian plan for the invasion of Switzerland.

Having risked his life in the service of his country while still only in his late teens and early twenties, Beat was rewarded with accelerated promotion in both the army and civilian life.

After the war he spent some years in business but then switched to study law. After qualifying, he established his own practice, eventually becoming an adviser to a number of major Swiss corporations. At the same time he pursued his army career, specializing in military intelligence. He officially retired in 1978 with the rank of colonel in the general staff.

Von G.'s influence in business circles is further enhanced by his role as trustee for several privately held estates. As such, his voting power considerably exceeds what his substantial personal fortune would warrant and makes him a very real power in Swiss business circles....

The notes continued, page after page. Beat von Graffenlaub was Swiss establishment personified. How had Rudi reacted to such a shadow? Action and reaction. Was that enduring theme some indication of the way it had been for Rudi?

"Sod it," he said to himself quietly, as his thoughts of the dead Rudi passed on to the thought of Guido's wasting away. "Too much thinking about the dead and the dying." He missed Etan.

He packed and took the tram into the city center, where he boarded the train for Bern.

Chapter 10

Max Buisard, the Chief of the Criminal Police (the Kriminal-polizei, or Kripo) of the city of Bern, was at his desk in police headquarters in Waisenhausplatz at six o'clock in the morning. Sometimes he started earlier.

Such work habits would indicate, even if no other evidence were available, that the Chief Kripo had no Irish blood in him whatsoever. In Ireland—at least south of the border—there was no excuse for being awake, let alone working, at such an ungodly hour, save returning from a late night's drinking, insanity, or sex. Even Irish cows slept until nearly eight; later on Sundays.

Buisard was, in fact, by origin a Swiss Romand, a French-speaking Swiss from the canton of Vaud, but he had been a resident of Bern for three out of his over four decades, and he worked hard at integrating. For instance, by the pragmatic if somewhat energetic expedient of having a wife and no fewer than two current mistresses, he had proudly succeeded in mastering Berndeutsch, the local dialect.

His dedication did not pass unnoticed. Recently he had overheard an eminent member of the Bьrgergemeinde refer to him as bodenstдndig—the ultimate Bernese accolade for a sensible, practical fellow, with his feet firmly on the ground. For a brief moment Buisard wondered if rumors of his penchant for making love standing up—a by-product of his busy schedule, which combined sex with exercise—had circulated, but he dismissed the thought. He had faith in the discretion of his women and in the soundproofing of Bernese buildings.

The Chief stared at the blotter in front of him. He had a problem, a large, rather fat problem, with a heavy walrus mustache, a gruff manner, and an increasingly unpredictable temper.

He added a mustache to the doodle on the blotter and then, as an afterthought, drew a holstered gun on the ponderous figure. What do you do with a first-rate veteran detective who has turned moody, troublesome, and downright irascible, and who also happens to be an old friend?

Buisard drew a cage around the figure on his blotter, looked at it for a while, and sketched in a door with a handle on both sides. The Bear needed to be contained, not stifled. Even in Switzerland—and certainly in Bern—the rules could be bent a little for the right reasons and by the right person. But this time something had to be done. There had been a string of incidents since the death of the Bear's wife, and the latest was the most embarrassing.

The Bear normally operated as part of the drug squad. He was the most experienced sergeant in the unit and, like most Bernese policemen, was also regularly assigned to security duties guarding diplomats and visiting dignitaries. The latter was boring work but not too unpopular because the overtime pay came in handy. The presence of more than a hundred different diplomatic missions in the city also made security duties fairly regular. God alone knew what all those ambassadors, second secretaries, and cultural attaches did with their time, lurking down in the greenery of Elfenau, since all the diplomatic action was in Geneva, but that was God's problem.

The Bear had enjoyed a pretty good reputation. He had been both effective and compassionate, not the easiest combination to maintain in the drug squad. He was reliable, cheerful, diligent, and accommodating—an ideal colleague, give or take a few idiosyncrasies. For instance, he liked to carry a very large gun, most recently a Smith Wesson .41 Magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel. Buisard shuddered at the possible consequences if the Bear ever had to fire it in a public area.

A stolen Mercedes, driven by a twenty-year-old drug addict desperate for something to sell to get a fix, had changed everything.

Tilly had finished work at Migros, done the shopping for supper, and was waiting for a tram. The Bear was about to join her. He was less than a hundred meters away when it happened. He heard the sound as the car struck her. He saw her body fly through the air and smash against a plate glass window. The glass cracked in a dozen places, but did not break. Tilly lay crushed at the bottom of the window, one arm jerking spastically, her blood staining the pavement.

She remained in a coma for three months. Her brain was dead. The Bear stayed with her for days on end. He held her hand. He kissed her. He told her stories and read out loud from the papers. He brought her flowers arranged in the special way she liked. The life support system hissed and dripped and made electronic noises. People spoke to him. Occasionally he was asked to sign papers. One day they switched her off.

And the Bear's heart was broken.

Beat von Graffenlaub had not slept until nearly dawn. The numbness he had experienced when he first heard of Rudi's death had gradually turned to feelings of pain and guilt and a growing emptiness.

Why had Rudi killed himself? What had happened to him in Ireland? What was Rudi thinking during that brief moment just before he jumped? Did he take long to die? Was there pain? Why had he not talked to someone first? Surely there must have been some hint of what he was contemplating, some sign, some change in behavior.

Was there anything he, Beat von Graffenlaub, wealthy, influential, acclaimed and respected by his peers, could have done—should have done—to preserve the life of his son? Anything? Somehow he knew that there was; there just had to be—but what?

The clock radio woke von Graffenlaub fully. For a few moments he lay there, his eyes still closed, listening to the news. Erika had objected to this early-morning habit, but it had been months since they had shared the same bed, longer still since they had made love. Erika now slept in the apartment she had created a few doors away. She needed space to cultivate her creativity, she had said. He had not objected. It would have been pointless. The signs of her disenchantment had been present and growing for a couple of years.

He thought back, with a pang, to those early years of closeness and sensuality, when they just had to be together and divorcing Claire was a price well worth paying; dear, stuffy, conventional Claire, now dead. Well, he had paid the price willingly and had pushed from his mind the risks of marrying a woman nearly thirty years his junior. But time had caught up with him. At sixty-one, physically trim and fit though he was, he knew that Erika was slipping away, more probably was already lost to him.

He recalled Erika's distinctive, musky odor and could feel hot wetness against his mouth. He could hear the special sounds she made when excited. He felt his erection growing, and he moved to look at the sultry features damp with the sweat of passion—and to enter her.

For the briefest of time Erika's presence remained with him even after he opened his eyes and looked around the room. Then came the full onslaught of grief and loneliness.

Ivo was untroubled by the combined smell of fourteen unwashed bodies sleeping on grubby mattresses on the floor of the small room. One couple had woken half an hour earlier and made love quietly, but for the last ten minutes the only sounds were those of sleep.

He decided to wait a little longer. The Dutchman, van der Grijn, had drunk enough to poleax any normal man for half a day, but he had still managed to stay awake, talking and drinking, until the early hours, before collapsing with a grunt. Ivo, small and slight, was not eager to tangle with the huge heroin courier. Ivo was almost permanently high in a miasma of marijuana. Occasionally he sniffed glue or popped a few pills. He enjoyed, but could rarely afford, cocaine. But he hated heroin.

Heroin had killed the one person he had truly loved. While he was in prison for demonstrating and throwing rocks at policemen in Zurich, little Hilda, fifteen years old, had overdosed in the ladies' rest room of the Zurich Bahnhof; she was found facedown in a toilet bowl. Little Hilda had carried no papers, but she had eventually been identified as a result of the slim volume of Ivo's poems she carried, thirty-six photocopied pages.

"A short book," said the Zurich policeman after he had shown Hilda's photograph to Ivo in prison. They had been driving to the morgue for the formal identification.

"How long should a book be?" said Ivo. He was pale, but regular prison food had filled out his slight body. Curiously he felt no hostility toward those who had imprisoned him. The policemen and guards were strict but fair.

From the depths of his despair, he swore total revenge on all heroin pushers. And so, at the age of seventeen, Ivo came to live in the Autonomous Youth House in Bern. He became its unofficial guardian. Most of its inhabitants were harmless, rootless youths in search of something other than Switzerland's ordered and disciplined society—the "boredom and air-conditioned misery of capitalism," as the phrase put it. Some of the visitors were more dangerous, benefiting from official tolerance to push hard drugs and traffic in more lethal wares.

Ivo preyed upon heroin pushers. Operating with the cunning and desperation of one with nothing to lose, he stole their drugs and flushed them down the toilet in bizarre homage to his dead love. When the mood struck him, he informed to the police—in strange, elliptical messages, never in person or by phone, always in writing.

He had lubricated the zipper on his grimy sleeping bag with graphite powder. He slipped out of his bag noiselessly and crept toward the sleeping Dutchman. Within seconds the small packet of glassine envelopes had been removed, and Ivo tiptoed out of the room.

In the toilet he opened each envelope, one by one, and shook the powder into the bowl until the water was filmed with white. He replaced the heroin with powdered glucose and reassembled the packet. He put toilet paper over the powder in the toilet bowl but, worried about noise, did not flush.

He returned to the sleeping room. The Dutchman slumbered on. Ivo returned the doctored packet to the seamed leather jacket. Still no reaction. Reassured, Ivo crept out of the room again and this time risked flushing the toilet. The heroin vanished into the sewers of Bern.

Ivo went into the kitchen, made himself a pot of tea, and lit up the first roach of the day. He sat cross-legged on the kitchen table and stared out of the window into the gray light of false dawn. He hummed to himself and rocked from side to side. He felt good. Hilda would be pleased.

But what about Klaus? Beautiful Klaus, who could make money so easily from a few hours of giving pleasure, who was desired by so many men and women? There had been something about the man who picked Klaus up. It just did not feel right. No reason, just feelings. Ivo had been some little distance away. He had not seen the man clearly. It had been dark, but he remembered blond hair and a blond mustache and beard. He had heard conversation and laughter. Then they had walked away from him into the darkness, the blond man's arm around Klaus. The thunk of a car door—an expensive car by the sound—the faint whisper of an engine, then silence. Klaus had not come back in a couple of hours as he had promised. Ivo had slept alone. Klaus was Ivo's friend.

If only life was like the Lennon song "Imagine." If only life was like that. Ivo sang and rocked in time to the music. He would do something tomorrow about Klaus, or maybe the day after that, or maybe Klaus would just turn up. Just imagine.

The lusts, self-doubt, and sorrows of the night receded with the first sting of the icy cold shower.

Beat von Graffenlaub was a man of rigorous self-discipline and practiced  routine. By 0630 he was having breakfast at a small Biedermeier table by a window overlooking the River Aare. He wore a charcoal gray flannel suit, a crisp white handmade shirt, and a black silk tie. His shoes were a tribute to his valet's expertise at a military spit and polish: they did not just shine, they positively glowed. His socks were of light gray silk.

A solitary red rose rested in a slim Waterford crystal vase. At exactly 0655, von Graffenlaub would insert the flower into his buttonhole, don his navy blue cashmere overcoat, pick up his briefcase, and make any required farewells, and at the stroke of 0700 would leave his house on Junkerngasse to stroll toward his offices on Marktgasse. He could cover the short distance between home and office in less than ten brisk minutes, but even after a lifetime of familiarity he took pleasure in walking about the ancient city of Bern. Each morning and evening, time and weather permitting, he made a short detour, lengthening his walk to half an hour and arriving at his office at exactly 0730.

This morning, after he had left Junkerngasse, he detoured into the grounds surrounding the fifteenth-century Mьnster. The terrace between the church and the ramparts was known as the Plattform. It overlooked the river, flowing swiftly along below, its waters icy and swollen from the melting snows of winter.

Von Graffenlaub rested his outstretched arms on the low wall that bordered the river side of the terrace and breathed in and out deeply. The cool morning air felt pure and clean in his lungs. In the distance he could see the snowcapped mountains of the Bernese Oberland.

He looked up the river toward the Kirchenfeldbrьcke, the elegant nineteenth-century iron bridge that linked the old medieval city with the more newly developed residential district of Kirchenfeld. His gaze followed the flow of the river to the old waterworks below. A flurry of activity caught his attention.

Two police cars, an ambulance, and several unmarked vehicles were parked by the water's edge. As he watched, uniformed police dragged what looked like a body from the river. He could see the pale white dot of the body's face before it was covered by a blanket. The face filled his vision. It was that of his dead son. He turned away. Nausea swept through him, and his skin felt clammy. He threw up over the parapet, and a spasm of shivering shook his body.

A noose hung from a hook in the corner of the Chief Kripo's office. Buisard had brought it back from a police chiefs' conference in the United States. It was a souvenir, he had said, an exact replica of a hangman's noose, as used before technology—in the shape of the electric chair and gas chamber and lethal injection—took over in most of the civilized world.

Maybe next time he'll bring back an electric chair, thought the Bear. Buisard insisted that the hangman's knot had thirteen coils in it, but each time the Bear counted, he could make it only twelve. He started counting again out of the corner of his eye. According to Pierrepoint, the famous English hangman, it was an inefficient way to hang someone anyhow. More often than not, the large American knot and the standard American five-foot drop resulted in a slow death through strangulation.

Pierrepoint used a variable drop and a simple slip knot located under the angle of the left jaw by a rubber claw washer. After the fall, the knot would finish under the chin and throw the head back, fracturing the spinal column, almost always between the second and third cervical vertebrae. Instant death, or so said the hangman.

"Heini," said Buisard, "will you, for God's sake, pay attention? It's got thirteen coils, no matter what you say."

"You're the chief," said the Bear.

"And I'd like to stay that way," said Buisard.

The Bear raised his shaggy eyebrows.

"I'm not suspending you," said Buisard, "although you well deserve it. But I'm taking you off the drug squad for a month. You can keep your desk in the Bollwerk, but I'm assigning you to minor crimes—out of harm's way."

"Investigating stolen bicycles and missing pets," said the Bear. He glowered.

"Something like that," said Buisard. "Think of it as a cooling-off period."

"The son of a bitch deserved to be thumped," said the Bear. "He was drunk and throwing his weight around."

"You may well be right," said Buisard, "but he was part of the German foreign minister's party and on an official diplomatic visit to this city. He did have a diplomatic passport."

The Bear shrugged and rose to his feet.

"One moment," said Buisard. "There is an Irishman coming to Bern for a few days. I've had a letter of introduction about him from a friend of mine in Dublin. I've been asked to look after him if he wants to be shown around, a sort of professional courtesy."

"So now I'm a tourist guide."

The Chief Kripo smiled just a little meanly. "Not at all. Heini, you are one of Bern's attractions."

"Up yours," said the Bear amiably, and ambled out of the room.

The Chief went over and started counting the thirteen coils in the hangman's noose. He made it twelve. He swore and started again.

The day was crisp and cold, the snow melted from the streets and the lowlands around. In the distance ice and snow held the higher ground. Jagged mountain peaks looked unreal against a clear blue sky.

Fitzduane was enchanted by Bern. He felt exhilarated; he just knew that somewhere in this beautiful, unspoiled, too-good-to-be-true medieval city lay the answer to his quest, the reason for a hanging.

He walked, more or less at random, for several hours. Sooner or later he always seemed to reach the River Aare. The river surrounded the old city on three sides, forming a natural moat and leaving only one side to be defended by a wall. As the city had expanded, the wall was sited farther and farther up the peninsula. The old walls were gone, but two of the distinctive towers that marked the landward entrance to the city remained.

It had been the quaint custom of the Bernese—prior to the tourist trade's taking off—to use the entrance tower as a prison.

Shortly after he arrived, Fitzduane had booked himself into a small hotel on Gerechtigkeitsgasse. Just outside the hotel entrance, an intricately carved statue, perched on top of a fluted pillar, crowned a flowing fountain. The carving was painted in red and blue and gold and other bright colors. The dominant female figure—showing a surprising amount of leg—held a sword in one hand, scales in the other, and was blindfolded: the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen, the Fountain of Justice.

At the foot of this dangerous-looking Amazon, and well placed to look up her skirts, were the busts of four unhappy-looking individuals whom Fitzduane subsequently found out were the Emperor, Sultan, Pope, and Magistrate—the main dispensers of random justice when the fountain was erected in 1543.

At frequent intervals around the city there were fountains, all painted in exotic colors, each unique in itself. In Kramgasse the fountain was identified by a life-size bear, wearing a gold helmet with a barred visor, standing in the pose of a Landsknecht; at his feet was a little bear eating grapes. Everywhere there were bears: carved bears, painted bears, drawn bears, printed bears, stamped bears, wrought-iron bears, big bears, small bears, even real bears. Fitzduane had never seen so many bears.

He read that Duke Berchtold V of Zдhringen, the founder of Bern, had organized a hunt and decreed that the city be named after the first animal killed. Fortunately the hunters struck it lucky with a bear; the City of Rabbit just would not have had the same cachet.

Until in-house plumbing and Blick became the fashion, the fountains of Bern had been where you went to fill up with water and all the latest gossip. Perhaps, thought Fitzduane, if I sit by the fountain, all will be revealed.

He tried it for a while, but his bottom got cold.

From habit the Bear checked the incident sheets when he returned from lunch. He did not expect to see much. He had once discussed the Bernese crime rate with a visiting American policeman. Confusion reigned initially when it appeared that the crime rates in their respective cities were roughly comparable. Then it dawned on them: they were comparing apples and oranges. The American was quoting daily statistics; the Bear meant annual figures.

One of the most consistently regular of the Bernese crime statistics was the murder rate. Give or take a few decimal points, the figures came out at two killings per year—year after year after year.

They say, thought the Bear, that Bern has enough of everything, but not too much. Two murders a year is just about right for a well-ordered city like Bern. Many more would create havoc with the tourist trade and would certainly upset the Bьrgergemeinde. Any fewer might raise question marks about the manning levels of the Kriminalpolizei. A little fear was good for police job security.

His mind occupied with such weighty matters, the Bear almost missed the new incident sheet that had been pinned up over an elegantly lettered flyer announcing that the desk sergeant was selling his immaculately maintained five-year-old Volvo, with only ninety thousand kilometers on the clock, at a bargain price (four lies).

The bald announcement stated that the mutilated body of a twenty-year-old man had been removed from the River Aare that morning. Death appeared to be due to multiple knife wounds. An autopsy would take place immediately. Formal identification was yet to be made, but documents on the body suggested that the dead man was named Klaus Minder.

It says nothing about bicycles, thought the Bear. Maybe the murderer escaped on a stolen bicycle or stalked his victim through the six kilometers of Bernese arcades while perched inconspicuously on top of a penny-farthing. Then it would be his case, or at least the bicycle part would be.

He searched the incident sheet for signs of stolen penny-farthings, but in vain. No luck with tandems or tricycles either. He cheated a little and tried for mopeds. Nothing.

"Ho-hum," said the Bear to himself.

Chapter 11

A small brass plate identified the von Graffenlaub office on Marktgasse. It bore just his name and the single word "Notar." The neat nineteenth-century facade of the building belied its earlier origins. The circular stone steps that led to the lawyer's offices on the second floor were heavily worn with use and dipped alarmingly in the center. The lighting on the stairs was dim. There was no elevator. The Bernese, Guido had said, are discreet with their wealth. The lawyer's offices internally might prove luxurious, but the access to them passed discretion and headed toward miserliness. Fitzduane thought that since he might well break his neck on the stairs on the way down, he had better make the most of the next few minutes. He should have brought a flashlight.

Von Graffenlaub's secretary had the long-established look of a faithful retainer. Clearly second wife Erika had endeavored to ensure that her man would not stray in the same way twice; to describe Frau Hunziker as hatchet-faced would be tactful. Her glasses hung from a little chain around her neck like the gorget of a Gestapo man.

Fitzduane announced himself. Frau Hunziker retrieved her glasses and looked him up and down, then pointedly looked at the wall clock. The Irishman was five minutes late—downright punctual in Ireland, and unusual at that. In Bern such tardiness was apparently grounds for a sojourn in the Prison Tower. Frau Hunziker's manner indicated that she regretted the Tower was no longer in use.

Fitzduane spread out his arms in a gesture of apology. "I'm Irish," he said. "It's a cultural problem."

Frau Hunziker nodded her head several times. "Ja, ja," she said resignedly about what was clearly a lost cause, and rose to show him into von Graffenlaub's office. Fitzduane followed. He was pleased to see that the lawyer had not entirely lost his touch. She had excellent legs.

The lawyer came from behind his desk, shook Fitzduane's hand formally, and indicated some easy chairs gathered around a low table. Coffee was brought in. Fitzduane was asked about his flight. Pleasantries were exchanged with a formality alien to the Irishman.

Von Graffenlaub poured more coffee. Holding the insulated coffeepot, his hand shook slightly. It was the lawyer's only sign of emotion; otherwise he was imperturbable. Fitzduane suppressed a feeling of anger toward the immaculately dressed figure in front of him. Damn it, his son was dead. The lawyer was too controlled.

Fitzduane finished his coffee, replaced the cup and saucer on the low table, and sat back in his chair. Von Graffenlaub did the same, though slowly, as if reluctant for the conversation to enter its next phase; then he looked at the Irishman.

"You want to talk about Rudi, I think," he said.

Fitzduane nodded. "I'm afraid I must."

Von Graffenlaub bowed his head for a few moments. He did not respond immediately. When he did, there was a certain hesitation in his tone, as if he were reluctant to listen to what the Irishman had to say, yet drawn to it nonetheless.

"I would like to thank you for what you did for Rudi," he said. "The school wrote to me and described your sensitive handling of your part in this tragic affair."

"There was little enough I could do," said Fitzduane. As he spoke, his first sight of the hanging boy replayed through his mind.

"It must have been a great shock," said von Graffenlaub.

"It was," said Fitzduane. "I was surprised at my own reaction. I'm used to the sight of death but not, I guess, on my home ground. It had quite an impact."

"I can imagine," said von Graffenlaub. "We are all terribly distressed. What could have possessed Rudi to do such a thing?"

Fitzduane made no response. The question was rhetorical. He knew that the conversation was approaching the moment of truth. They were running out of polite platitudes.

"Nonetheless," said von Graffenlaub, "I am a little puzzled as to why you have come to see me. What is done is done. Nothing can bring Rudi back now. We must try to forget and get on with the business of living."

Von Graffenlaub spoke formally, yet there was a perceptible lack of conviction in his tone, as if he were troubled by some inner doubt. It was the first hint of a chink in a formidable personality. Fitzduane would have to force the issue. Reason alone was not going to work with von Graffenlaub. Indeed, reason dictated letting the whole matter drop. This wasn't about reason; it was about feelings, about a sense of something wrong, about sheer determination—and about the smell of the hunt. It was the first time that the Irishman had admitted this last point to himself, and he didn't know why this certainty had entered his mind, but there it was.

"I regret I cannot agree," said Fitzduane. "Nobody should die in that hideous way without someone attempting to find out why. Why did your son kill himself? Do you know? Do you care?"

The lawyer turned ashen, and beads of sweat broke out on his brow. He abandoned his controlled posture and leaned forward in his chair, his right hand chopping through the air in emphasis. "How dare you!" he said, outrage in his voice. "How dare you—a complete stranger—question my feelings at such a time! Damn you! You know nothing, nothing, nothing...." He was shaking with rage.

The atmosphere had suddenly chilled. The pleasantries were forgotten. Von Graffenlaub quickly regained control of himself, but the two men looked at each other grimly. Fitzduane knew that if his investigation wasn't to grind to a premature halt, he must convince the Swiss to cooperate. It would be unpleasant in the short term, but there was little choice. This was a hunt that had already acquired its own momentum. It would lead where it would.

There was silence in the room. There was going to be no viable alternative to something Fitzduane would have preferred not to have had to do. He opened the large envelope he had been carrying and placed the contents facedown on the table.

"I'm sorry," said Fitzduane. "I don't want to hurt you, but I don't see any other way. A twenty-year-old kid killed himself. I found him hanging there, his bowels voided and stinking, his tongue swollen and protruding, his face blue and covered with blood and spittle and mucus. I held him when they cut him down still warm, and I heard the sound he made as the last air left his lungs. To me that sound screamed one question: Why?"

Fitzduane held the photograph of the dead boy just in front of von Graffenlaub's eyes. The remaining vestiges of color drained from the lawyer's face. He stared at the photograph, mesmerized.

Fitzduane put it back on the table. Von Graffenlaub's gaze followed it down and rested on it for a minute before he looked up at the Irishman. Tears streamed from his eyes. He tried to speak but could not. He pulled a folded handkerchief from his breast pocket, dislodging the flower from his buttonhole as he did so. Without saying a word, he rose somewhat unsteadily to his feet, brushed aside Fitzduane's efforts to help him, and left the room.

Fitzduane picked up the crumpled rose and held it to his nostrils. The fragrance was gentle, soothing. He did not feel proud of himself. He looked around the silent office. Through the leather padded door he could just hear the sound of an electric typewriter.

On a low cabinet behind von Graffenlaub's desk stood several framed photographs, obviously of his family. One showed a sensual brunette in her mid-twenties with full, inviting lips and unusual sloping eyes—at a guess, Erika, some years earlier. The next photograph showed von Graffenlaub in full military uniform. His hair was less gray, and the long face, with its high forehead and deep-set eyes, projected power, confidence, and vigor—a far cry from the stumbling figure who had just left the room.

The last photograph had been taken on the veranda of an old wooden chalet. Snow-covered mountains could be seen in the background. To judge by the quality, the color print was an enlargement of a thirty-five-millimeter shot. The picture was slightly grainy, but nothing marred the energy and happiness that came through. The four von Graffenlaub children stood in a row, dressed in ski clothes and laughing, with arms around one another's shoulders: Marta, the eldest, her hair pulled back under a bright yellow ski cap and with a striking resemblance to her father; Andreas, taller, darker, and more serious, despite the smile; and then the twins, wearing the same pale blue ski suits and looking strikingly alike despite Vreni's long blonde hair and Rudi's short curls. The photograph bore the inscription "Lenk 1979." In some ineffable way it strengthened the Irishman's resolve.

Von Graffenlaub splashed cold water on his face and toweled briskly. Some slight color returned to his cheeks. He felt sick and disoriented; none of his previous training seemed to have equipped him for the situation he found himself in. The Irishman, with his sympathetic manner and core of steel, had turned into the voice of his conscience. The Irishman's conviction and resolve were daunting. It was singularly upsetting.

The lawyer refolded the towel and hung it neatly on the heated towel rail. The image in the mirror was familiar again, well groomed, purposeful. He tried to imagine the effect of Fitzduane's pursuing an investigation in Bern. Consider the distress among the family; he could just hear Erika's scathing comments. He had his position in the community to think of, and there were well-established standards of behavior. Suicide in the family was tragic and best handled as discreetly as possible. It hinted at some instability in the victim's immediate circle. It could be bad for business. It was best forgotten, or at least hushed up.

Fortunately Rudi's death had taken place in another country. The impact, so far, had been minimal. Time would further dull the memory. There was no question about it: this man Fitzduane would have to be diverted from his obsession. A discreet phone call and he would no longer be welcome in Switzerland. In Ireland von Graffenlaub was not without influence at the most senior level. This Irishman could be dealt with. It would be the best solution.

Von Graffenlaub breathed in and out deeply several times. He felt better, not quite in full health, as was understandable under the circumstances, but definitely better. He left his private bathroom, then closed and locked the door. It was a pity he had to go through the general office to get to it, but that was the trouble with these old buildings.

Frau Hunziker looked up as he was about to enter his office. "Herr Doktor," she said, "the Irishman, Herr Fitzduane, has left. He has given me his address and telephone number and asked that you call him when you are ready."

Von Graffenlaub took the note she held out: the Hospiz zur Heimat, a small hotel, though centrally located. Somehow he had expected somewhere more impressive, perhaps the Bellevue or the Schweizerhof.

He sat down at his desk. Facing him were the photographs of the children at Lenk and of Rudi hanging. The living and the dead Rudi stared up at him. Beat von Graffenlaub dropped his head into his hands and wept.

Guido, who seemed to know everybody, had made the necessary arrangements. "There will be some people there you should meet," he had said.

Vernissage: literally varnishing day, when the artist put the final coat of varnish on his paintings—they looked better that way and commanded a higher price—and invited patrons and friends to preview.

The gallery was on Mьnstergasse, within three minutes of the Irishman's hotel. He was beginning to enjoy the compact size of old Bern. He had needed neither car nor taxi since his arrival. If he got fed up walking, he could try roller skates.

At the gallery Fitzduane helped himself to a glass of wine and a catalog and started to look around. After examining three pictures in a row for several minutes each, he found himself quite at a loss, or else more than whiskey had been put into the Irish coffee he had enjoyed earlier in the day. He looked at the other ten paintings and was none the wiser. All of the thirteen paintings seemed to be virtually identical rectangles of pure black.

There were nearly thirty other people in the small gallery, circulating, looking at the exhibits, and talking animatedly. None looked obviously baffled. Maybe rectangles of solid black constituted normal art in Bern.

The catalog in German was of limited help. It told him he was in the Loeb Gallery, as Guido had directed, and that the artist was Kuno Gonschior, forty-six years of age, who had enough business acumen to charge about seven thousand francs a rectangle.

Fitzduane was about to turn away but to his surprise found the bizarre collection piquing his interest. Subtle differences of texture and shade began to evolve as he looked. Things were not what they seemed. Black was never quite black. What appeared at first as a mat flat surface was a minute, intricate, three-dimensional pattern. He began to smile to himself.

He sensed warmth, and an almost familiar sexual, musky smell teased his nostrils. The woman looked into his eyes with amusement and, for a moment, a startling physical intimacy. She was small and slender. He had no difficulty recognizing who she was. She wore a black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress, and her skin was deeply tanned. Her breasts were firm and prominent; the nipples pressed against the thin silk. She wore a narrow headband of gold cloth.

Fitzduane wanted to reach out and touch her, to slide black silk off a golden body, to take her there and then. Her physical impact was overwhelming. It was a power over men, a power that was relished, enjoyed, and used. He recognized this, but it made little difference; his desire was strong and immediate. Now he understood why von Graffenlaub had married her.

She gently seized a tall, energetic-looking man by the arm and playfully spun him around to face Fitzduane. It was obvious she was not in need of assertiveness training.

"Simon," she said, "let me introduce you to a famous combat photographer who is visiting our town for a few days. Simon Balac, meet Hugo Fitzduane. Simon is my greatest friend—when he is being nice—and a very successful painter."

"And you, my sweet Erika," said Balac, "are a treasure—at times—and always the most gorgeous woman in Bern."

"Erika von Graffenlaub," said Fitzduane.

She nodded.

"Your photographs do not do you full justice," said Fitzduane. "How did you know my name?"

Erika smiled. "Bern is a small town," she said. "Thank you for being so good about Rudi. It can't have been easy."

Fitzduane felt somewhat nonplussed. It appeared that she was talking about the finding of the body and not about the events of earlier in the day. And there was no sign of her husband.

Erika took his hand in hers and held it for a moment; then she pressed it to her face. "Thank you again," she said.

Fitzduane could still feel the heat of her body as she moved away from him and the fullness of her lips when they briefly brushed the palm of his hand. Simon Balac lifted his glass and winked. "Bern is a very small town."

"I wish it were suicide," said the Chief Kripo into the phone. He looked at his watch. Ten past seven. A thirteen-hour-day already, and he was still in police headquarters. He was late for Colette, who did not like to be kept waiting, for anything, especially bed.

The tips of the Chief's ears turned pink at the thought. She really was gifted sexually, an unrecognized talent. In earlier centuries they would have built a fountain to celebrate her skills. Really, murders were damned inconvenient.

"You're not the only man with a sex life," said the examining magistrate, who was too smart by half. "Now cut out the wet dreaming and concentrate. There's no way that this one took his own life. Consider the following: stabbed seven times with a short, broad-bladed instrument, eyes put out, ears cut off, genitals removed—and, incidentally, not found yet. I suppose they are still bobbing around in the Aare. Then bear in mind evidence of both oral and anal intercourse prior to his death."

Buisard nodded gloomily. "Doesn't sound too much like a suicide. More like some kind of ritual."

"A bit more than wife kills husband with frying pan anyway," said the magistrate. "I don't like it at all. It smells too much of the kind of thing that could happen again."

"Don't even think things like that," said the Chief Kripo. "I guess I'd better put out an all-points bulletin for the guy's balls. How will we identify them?"

"They should be the only pair in Bern working independently," said the magistrate cheerfully. "Not too hard for one of your brighter policemen to spot."

"That's disgusting," said the Chief Kripo, "and unkind." Subconsciously he did a quick check with his right hand. All was in order but, considering his earlier thoughts of Colette, surprisingly subdued.

Just as Fitzduane was beginning to feel pleasantly mellow after his third glass of wine and almost enjoying looking at thirteen black rectangles, the allocated time was clearly up. The crowd didn't dwindle over a period, leaving behind the harder-drinking stragglers, as would have been the case in Ireland. Instead, as if on a secret signal, there was an orderly but concerted rush for the door. Within three minutes, apart from gallery staff and Fitzduane, the place was empty. The wine was highly drinkable. He emptied his glass with some slight regret and headed for the door.

Erika was outside talking with friends. She left them and came toward him. She had donned a high-collared cloak of some golden material. She was mesmerizing and sexy. She took him by the arm.

"We must talk," she said. "You will come with me, yes?" Fitzduane did not feel inclined to refuse. He could feel the warmth of Erika's body next to his as they walked. The smell of her was in his nostrils. He felt himself growing hard.

"I have a small apartment near hear," she said.

"On Junkerngasse?" said Fitzduane, remembering the address in his von Graffenlaub file. He wasn't sure the timing was right for another meeting with the lawyer—especially with the man's wife practically wrapped around him.

Erika laughed and squeezed his arm. "You are thinking of Beat's apartment," she said.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand," said Fitzduane. "I was under the impression that you lived with your husband."

She laughed again. "Yes and no," she said. "We have an arrangement. I need space and privacy. My apartment is close—it is indeed also on Junkerngasse—but it is separate."

"I see," said Fitzduane, who didn't.

"I will cook us a little supper, yes? We will be private, and we will talk," said Erika.

The building was old. The apartment, reached through some formidable security at its entrance, had been lavishly remodeled. It reeked of serious money.

Fitzduane had found it hard to imagine Erika sweating over a hot stove. He was not disappointed. She removed a Wedgwood casserole dish from the refrigerator and inserted it in a microwave. A scarlet-tipped finger pressed buttons. Fitzduane was asked to open the already chilled champagne and light the candles.

They sat facing each other over a small round dining table. It had already been laid for two on their arrival. It occurred to Fitzduane that he was spoiling someone else's fun and games—or had he been expected? Perhaps Erika had been a Girl Scout and just liked to be prepared.

"I can call you Hugo, yes?" said Erika, looking straight into his eyes. The casserole had something to do with rabbit. Fitzduane had had a series of pet rabbits as a child and found the juxtaposition of associations confusing. Erika ate with gusto.

Fitzduane nodded. Erika licked her lips in a manner that even a blind man would have noted as sexual. "I like this name," she said. "You want to talk about Rudi?"

"It's why I'm here," he said.

Erika gave a long, slow, knowing smile and reached over the table to brush the back of his hand with her fingers. The sexual electricity was palpable. "There is little to say," she said. "Rudi was a very troubled young man. Nobody is surprised at his suicide."

"What troubled him?" said Fitzduane.

Erika shrugged dismissively. "Boeuf!" she said, her arms raised in a gesture. "Everything. He hated his father, he quarreled with his family, he disapproved of our government, he was mixed up about sex." She smiled. "But is all that so unusual in a teenager?"

Fitzduane endeavored to pursue the matter of Erika's recently hanged stepson but to virtually no avail. The conversation turned to other members of the family. Here Erika was marginally more forthcoming. After coffee and liqueurs she excused herself. Fitzduane sat back on a sofa and sipped a Cointreau. Regarding Rudi, anyway, he wasn't getting very far with the von Graffenlaubs.

Erika had turned out most of the lights. The two candles on the dinner table cast a golden flickering light. Erika came back into the room. He could hear faint footfalls on the carpeted floor, and he could smell her musky perfume. She was standing behind him.

He turned his head to see her and started to speak. "It's getting late," he said. "I think I'd better ..." The words died on his lips.

She reached down and pressed him to her and then kissed him. He could feel her nipples against his mouth and cheeks, and then her tongue was snaking to find his and she was in his lap, naked.

She licked his face and neck, and one hand moved to the bulge in his pants and unzipped him. He felt an overwhelming sexual desire. She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her tongue across his chest and down his body until she engulfed him.

Fitzduane spasmed at her touch and then stared at her bobbing head with disbelief. Her hair—though she was no blood relation—was the color of Rudi's. Desire died inside him. He tried to pull away. Her hand grasped him, and she wouldn't stop. He pulled her up forcibly. "My God, woman, what are you doing?" he said. He thought his choice of words might have been better.

"You are a very physical man, Hugo," she said. Her lips were wet, her lipstick smeared. "I want to fuck you."

Fitzduane rose to his feet unsteadily. He shook his head. There was nothing to say. He looked at her. She had risen to her feet. She looked magnificent. Her odor was viscerally sexual. She laughed. "Welcome to Bern," she said.

He hurriedly zipped himself up, said good-bye, and made his way to the street. The cool night air was refreshing. He thought it quite likely that steam was coming out of his ears. He walked back toward his hotel, on the way splashing some water from the Fountain of Justice on his face. The painted carving of the blindfolded damsel looming above him, showing a surprising amount of leg, reminded him somewhat of Erika.

Detective Sergeant First Class Heinz Raufman, better known as the Bear, took the number three tram home to his new and very comfortable apartment in Saali, a suburb of Bern, just fifteen minutes from the city center.

If he was honest with himself, and he often was, he thought that all things considered, he had gotten off quite lightly. He had really deserved suspension. Instead, he had been given what amounted to a slap on the wrist and a sinecure. Played right, minor crimes could be turned into something very interesting indeed, a chance to do a little quiet exploring of the highways and byways of Bern's underworld, without the time constraints of a heavy caseload.

"Tilly, my love," he said as he fed Gustavus and Adolfus, his pet goldfish, "thumping the odd German can have its good side." He often talked to Tilly when he was alone in the apartment. They had bought it less than a year before her death. She had been at her happiest when cleaning and decorating it and making it ever more comfortable. "It must be snug, Heini," she used to say, "not just comfortable, but snug."

The Bear ate a light meal—for him—of veal in cream sauce with mushrooms, rцsti, a side salad, just a little French bread with un-salted butter, and Camembert, all washed down with a modest liter of Viti, a Merlot of a most agreeable quality from Ticino. He debated having fruit and compromised with a pear, or two, or three. He had an espresso to fill in the cracks, and just a small Strega. All in all, quite an acceptable snack.

He watched the YBs on television; they lost. The Bear had strong doubts about the blending of the Bernese character and soccer. Later he watched the news. In Northern Ireland Bobby Sands was on a hunger strike and things did not look good.

The mention of Ireland, albeit Northern Ireland, reminded the Bear that tomorrow he had better do something about the Irishman. He switched off the television and listened to the radio. Gustavus and Adolfus had a weakness for classical; they seemed to swim to tempo. The Bear cleaned his guns. He might be a little grumpy and a little heavy, but his paws worked just fine. Marksmanship trophies lined his sideboard. The Bear liked to shoot.

Tucked up in the large double bed, the electric blanket radiating just the right amount of warmth, his hot chocolate at hand on the bedside table, the Bear leafed through some paperwork he had picked up on the Irishman.

"Good night, little love," he murmured, as he always had to Tilly, before turning over and falling asleep.

Chapter 12

Fitzduane was the kind of man who examined credentials—something unusual in the Bear's experience. Most people tended to fold when an ID was waved about. In this case—Fitzduane was a connoisseur of such arcane documentation—the laminated identity card read: sicherheits und kriminalpolizei der stadt bern. He handed back the identity card. "There is something unsettling about the word 'Kriminalpolizei' before breakfast," he said.

The Bear looked puzzled. "But it is nine o'clock," he said. "I thought you would have finished. I certainly did not mean to disturb you. In Switzerland we get up early. I finished breakfast over two hours ago."

Fitzduane looked sympathetic. "We all have our idiosyncrasies," he said. "You must be starving again by now. Come and join me."

The Bear did not need a second invitation. In truth he had been on the way to the Bдrengraben for a small snack of coffee and pastries—the Bдrengraben was famous for its pastries—when he realized that the Irishman was on his route.

"How did you find me?" asked Fitzduane.

"Your visitor's registration card," said the Bear. "That card you fill out when you check in. They are collected from every hotel and pension every day and are filed at headquarters."

"And if I'd stayed with a friend?"

"If you were in Bern, I'd have found you," said the Bear, "but maybe not so fast." He was a little distracted. He was busy putting butter and honey on his roll. Fitzduane was impressed. The Bear was demonstrating a certain mastery of construction, not to say balance. He gave the result a critical look, appeared satisfied, and began to munch.

"To what do I owe this honor?" Fitzduane beckoned for a second basket of rolls.

"Your friend Colonel Kilmara knows my chief," said the Bear. "He said you were coming to Bern and might need a little help getting to know your way around. Didn't your Colonel Kilmara tell you?"

"I guess he did," said Fitzduane, "but it was fairly casual. He gave me the name and number of a Major Buisseau to call on."

"Buisard," said the Bear. "Max Buisard. He's the Chief Kripo—that's the Chief of the Criminal Police—and my superior. Not a bad sort but a busy man, so he asked me to look after you. He sends his regards and hopes he will have a chance to meet you before you leave." He smiled. "Socially, of course."

Fitzduane smiled back politely. "Of course," he said. "Thank him for me—will you?—but tell him I don't expect to be in Bern for long."

The Bear nodded. "A pity," he said. He wrapped his paws around his steaming coffee cup as if warming them. He raised the cup to his lips and then blew on it without drinking. His eyes over the rim were shrewd and intelligent. His tone was casual.

"Tell me, Mr. Fitzduane," he said. "What exactly are you doing in Bern?"

The Irishman smiled broadly. "Sergeant Raufman, why do I think you already know the answer to that?"

The Bear was silent. He looked guilty. "Harrumph," he said, or at least it sounded like that. It was hard to tell; he was munching a croissant. "You know I once arrested young Rudi von Graffenlaub," he said.

"Tell me about it," said Fitzduane.

The Bear licked a little bit of honey off his right thumb. His normally glum expression was replaced by the most charming smile. "Only if we trade," he said. He hummed a few notes of an old Bernese march: "Pom Pom, tra-ri-di-ri, Al-li Ma-nne, stan-deni!"

Fitzduane thought for a while, and the Bear did not interrupt him but just sat there humming a little and looking content. Then Fitzduane spoke. "Why not?" he said, and following intuition rather than direct need, he told the Bear everything right from the beginning. He was surprised at himself when he had finished.

The Bear was an experienced listener. He leaned back in his chair, nodded his head from time to time, and occasionally made sounds of interest. Time passed. Around them the restaurant emptied and preparations commenced for lunch. Once, Fitzduane called for fresh coffee.

When he had concluded, Fitzduane waited for the Bear to speak. He did not at first but instead pulled his notebook out of his inside breast pocket and began to sketch. He showed the drawing to the Irishman. It featured the letter "A" surrounded by a circle of flowers. "Like that?" he said. The Irishman nodded.

"Well now," said the Bear, and he told Fitzduane about the body found in the River Aare. "What do you think?" he said.

"I don't think you're telling me everything," said Fitzduane. "You haven't suggested my passing this on officially. What's on your mind?"

It was now the Bear's turn to reveal much more than he had planned, and he, too, was relying on instinct—and so he confessed. He told of thumping a certain German visitor and Buisard's reaction and being assigned to minor crimes. He spoke of the opportunity this might offer if exploited creatively, then spoke of the advantage of two heads, of combining both an official and an unofficial approach.

There was silence between them, and then, somewhat tentatively at first, as they adjusted to this unplanned alliance, they shook hands.

"So that's settled," Fitzduane said after a moment. "Now, where can I hire a car?"

"There is a Hertz office just up the street off the Theaterplatz," said the Bear. "Come, I'll walk you up to the clock tower, and then I'll point the way. It's only a few hundred meters from there."

As they left the restaurant, a roller skater glided past. They walked up Kramgasse, passing two more of the painted fountains on the way. The day was hot, and they walked in the shade. The houses protruded over the raised pavement, forming arcades that sheltered the stroller from the weather and creating a beguiling intimacy. Restaurants and cafes with tables and chairs set up outside dotted the streets.

"Where are you thinking of driving?"

"I thought I'd see some of the surrounding countryside," said Fitzduane, "perhaps drive to Lake Thun and then up into the mountains."

"Are you used to driving on snow and ice?" asked the Bear.

"The roads can be dangerous as you get higher. You will need snow tires. I use gravestones myself."

"What?"

"Gravestones," said the Bear, "broken gravestones in the trunk of my car. I have a friend who carves them. They are not so bulky, but heavy. They make a big difference to traction when driving on ice."

"Very sensible," said Fitzduane without enthusiasm.

A small crowd was waiting near the Zytgloggeturm, Bern's famous clock tower. The hands of the ornate clock were approaching midday. As they watched, the tableau came to life. A cock crowed and flapped its wings, the fool rang his bells, the cock crowed again, and then a procession of bears appeared in different guises, one carrying a fife and drum, the next a sword, followed by a knight in armor, then three more little bears, and finally a bear wearing a crown. Chronos turned the hourglass. The bell of the tower was struck by a man in gold with a hammer. The lion nodded his head to the count of the hour, and the cock crowed for the third time.

Fitzduane just stared. "Absolutely incredible," he said.

The Bear waved farewell and headed toward Marktgasse; after a few paces he turned.

"Gravestones," he shouted. "Don't forget what I said."

Hertz did not include gravestones—even when offered American Express—so Fitzduane compromised with a front-wheel-drive Volkswagen Golf.

Before he left Bern, Fitzduane checked with his hotel for telephone messages. Still no word from von Graffenlaub, but Fitzduane had resolved to give him a few days before proceeding to make inquiries on his own. Operating without the lawyer's support could well prove counterproductive. Close relatives and friends would quickly check with one another, and if they heard that Rudi's father was utterly opposed to any investigation, Fitzduane doubted he would receive much cooperation. It was frustrating, but the best tactic was to wait and meanwhile just see the sights. There was one exception to this plan: Rudi's twin sister, Vreni.

For reasons as yet unknown Vreni was not on speaking terms with her father. She had left her comfortable life in Bern, was estranged from most of her friends, and now was attempting to live an ecologically pure life on an old hill farm near a small village called Heiligenschwendi, in the Bernese Oberland. Living the natural life did not include celibacy. Fitzduane's notes recorded that her companion on the side of the mountain was a twenty-four-year-old ski instructor, Peter Haag. According to Erika—and what better stepmother to be up-to-date on sexual intimacy and its nuances—Peter was prone to stray, especially during the skiing season. "It goes with being a ski instructor. All that fresh air and exercise and energy. It generates sexual tension, and there are so many attractive opportunities for release. You understand, Hugo?" she had said. She had rested her hand on his arm as she spoke.

Fitzduane had called Vreni from the hotel that morning. Yes, she would see him. She would expect him after lunch. Ask anyone in the village how to get to the farm. Click. Her telephone manner was abrupt to the point of rudeness, but Fitzduane did not think that was the problem. She had sounded preoccupied and as if she had been crying.

Heiligenschwendi did not seem to exist as far as Fitzduane's Michelin guide was concerned. He tried Baedeker with no more luck and was beginning to think that someone was pulling his leg when the Hertz girl came to his rescue. She had lived in Thun, only a few kilometers from the missing village. She produced a large-scale map of Switzerland and triumphantly circled "Heiligenschwendi" in red felt pen.

The Hertz girl had not exaggerated about the beauty of the village. After he left Thun and started to climb the twisting road, again and again, the different views were breathtaking. The sun blazed in a clear blue sky. As he drove higher, he could see the lake sparkling below.

He parked the car in Heiligenschwendi. Vreni's house was some ten minutes away at the end of a narrow track, and he was advised that it would be easier to walk than to drive. It would be difficult to turn the car around, especially when the snow still lay on the ground.

There was a newly built woodshed outside the farm. Slatted side walls allowed the wind to circulate and dry the wood. Inside, the logs were cut to a fixed length and evenly split in a way seldom seen in Ireland. They were stacked impeccably, properly spaced, edges aligned to the nearest centimeter.

The farmhouse was built into the slope of the hill and looked as if it were several centuries old. Its timbers were mottled and discolored from generations of harsh winters and hot summers. Melting snow dripped from overhanging eaves.

When Vreni opened the door, Fitzduane could smell gingerbread. He was strangely moved when he first saw her and was momentarily unable to speak. She was so like Rudi, yet somehow different. The reason came to him as he looked at her. Fitzduane had never seen Rudi except disfigured in death. Vreni was warm, young, beautiful, and very much alive. There was a smear of flour on her cheek.

Fitzduane had bought flowers in Bern. He offered them to her. She smiled and raised her hands, palms toward him. They were covered in flour.

"You're thoughtful," she said, "but keep them for a moment—will you?—until I wash my hands. I've been baking gingerbread men for my cousins for Easter."

Outdoor shoes and clogs stood in a neat row beside the door. At her request Fitzduane added his own and donned the Hьttenfinken she offered him. The thick leather-soled socks were heavily embroidered in bright colors. He padded into the warm glow of the house, then into the small kitchen, whose walls were lined with cabinets and shelves. He could see no processed foods. Instead, there were bundles of dried herbs, jars of different colored grains and pulses, and hand-labeled bottles of liquids. A wood stove radiated heat from one corner. A scrubbed wooden table bore several trays of cooling gingerbread shapes. Other baking materials were obviously still in use.

She led him through the kitchen into the next room. As he went through the door, he noticed that the wood stove connected into a two-level stone bench built into the corner of the room. Above the stone bench was a man-size circular hole in the low ceiling. Vreni saw his interest.

"It's a sort of central heating system," she said. "The stove in the kitchen can warm this room here through the stone benches. Also, if we want, we can open the circular trapdoor above the benches and the bedroom above will be waned. It's called a choust. When it's cold, I go to bed from here through the trapdoor. It saves using the stairs outside."

Fitzduane was intrigued, Ireland traditionally being a land of romantic but inefficient open fireplaces. Vreni left him for a few minutes to finish her baking and to wash her hands. He felt the top stone bench. It was pleasantly warm. He noticed a system of baffles that could be used to adjust the flow of heat.

The room was of a comfortable size. It was furnished adequately, if sparsely, for what was obviously the main room of the house. There was a wooden table and four simple upright chairs. There was a low bed in one corner made up with cushions to serve as a sofa. Several bean bags and other huge cushions were scattered around. There was one pine bookcase. There were none of the normal electronic devices of modern living—no television, no radio, no stereo. The one incongruous note was struck by the presence of a telephone on the floor just beside the sofa.

He walked over to look at the books. Most of the titles were in German and meant little to him, but to judge by the photographs and symbols on some of them, they revealed more than a passing interest in left-wing politics. Several books were either by or about a Rudolf Steiner. The name struck a chord in Fitzduane, and then he remembered a German mercenary he had run into a few times called Rolf Steiner. Somehow he didn't think the books referred to the same man.

"Anthroposophy," Vreni said. She held a steaming coffee mug in each hand. She gave him one and then curled up on a bean bag. She wore a loose cotton blouse of Indian design and faded jeans. Her feet were bare. They were perfectly proportioned and without blemish.

"You know the teachings of Steiner," she asked, "Rudolf Steiner?"

Fitzduane shook his head.

"He was an Austrian," she said, "but he worked mainly in Switzerland. Anthroposophy is a philosophy of life he developed. It means knowledge produced by the higher self in man—as opposed to theosophy, knowledge originating from God. Anthroposophy covers all kinds of things."

"Like what?" said Fitzduane.

"Science, education, architecture, a biodynamic approach to farming, and so on," she said. "It even includes eurhythmies. He had a great-aunt of mine dancing barefoot in the morning dew when she was young."

Fitzduane smiled. "And you follow his teachings?"

"In some ways," she said. "Particularly his ideas about fanning. Our farming methods here are completely natural. We use no chemicals or artificial fertilizers, no unhealthy additives. It's more work, but it's better, don't you think?"

Fitzduane sipped the hot liquid she had given him. It was a disturbing yellow-brown color and tasted bitter. "I guess it depends what you're used to," he said.

"You like it?" she said, gesturing toward his mug. "It's a special herb tea, my own recipe."

Fitzduane smiled. "I was going to blame Steiner," he said. "Anything that tastes this awful must do you good."

Vreni laughed. "My herb tea is good for everything. It cures the common cold, cleanses the insides, and promotes sexual vigor."

"They used to call that kind of thing snake oil."

"You don't know what you're missing," said Vreni. "Would you like some real coffee instead?"

While she was making the coffee, he continued his browse through the books, steering clear of Steiner. On the bottom shelf, title facing inward, and almost hidden by a row of encyclopedias, was a familiar volume: The Paradox Business, by Hugo Fitzduane. He flipped through its pages. A pressed flower and a small piece of printed paper slipped from it to the floor. The flower crumbled as he tried to pick it up. The paper was a ski pass. The book fell open at a full-page bleed photograph of Colonel Shane Kilmara.

He called out to her in the kitchen. "I see you've got my book," he said.

"We do?" she said, and there was amusement in her voice. "I'm afraid I didn't know. Most of those books are Peter's."

He replaced the book exactly as he had found it. He could still taste the bitterness of the herb tea on his tongue.

There were two windows in the room. Through one Lake Thun could be seen below, bright blue in the sunlight. The second window was set into the end of the room and was at right angles to the first. It looked along the track to a small barn about fifty meters away. The track seemed to end there.

There was something strange about Vreni, something he could not as yet identify. On the face of it, she was calm and self-assured—in fact, so self-assured that it was easy to forget she was only twenty. Her manner suggested experience, a certain knowing-ness that he had most often encountered in the young in combat zones, where maturity came fast if you were to survive. It was a lack of illusion, a loss of innocence rather than the judgment that came with full maturity. It showed most of all in her eyes.

Yet in contrast with her poise and assurance were other emotions. He could sense undercurrents of fear, sadness, and loneliness—and a great need for someone to confide in, for someone to help her. There seemed to be things she wanted to say but was afraid to.

Together with his coffee, she brought him a small glass and filled it with an almost colorless liquid. The bottle had fruit floating in it, some berries he could not identify. He tasted it with some trepidation, but it was delicious, a homemade schnapps distilled from fruit grown on the farm.

"We have a communal still in the village," she said. "You can make five liters per person per year without paying any tax, and one liter for each cow. It is used as a medicine for the cows, or at least that was the custom. Now I think the cows don't often see their share."

"And what does Mr. Steiner think of that?" he asked. She threw back her head and laughed again, and for a few moments all the undercurrents were gone. All he could see was a young, beautiful girl with no cares and her life ahead of her.

Outside, the light faded, and it began to freeze again. He helped her bring in more wood from the shed and, away from the warmth of the farmhouse, shivered in the cold of the evening. She showed him around the house. They climbed through the circular trapdoor into the master bedroom. It was sparsely furnished apart from a low handmade double bed, covered with a sheepskin rug, and an old carved wardrobe. A SIG service rifle rested on two wooden pegs on the wall. Vreni saw him glance toward it.

"That is Peter's," she said.

Fitzduane nodded.

"Peter owns this farm," she said, "but he is often away. I don't know when he will be back; it is dull for him here."

"You don't have a photograph of him by any chance, do you?"

Vreni shook her head. "No. He has never liked being photographed. Some people are that way." She smiled. "They think their souls are being stolen."

Next door to the bedroom was a workshop and hobby room. There were piles of ski equipment. Several planks were removed from the inside of one of the walls. -

"Woodworm," she said. "They have to be replaced."

"Why not just spray them?"

"There you go with your chemicals again," she said. "It is wrong. We are just killing nature."

"I understand your father is a director of a major chemical company," said Fitzduane, "among his many interests."

Vreni gave him a look. "That is not so widely known. You are well informed."

Fitzduane shrugged. Silently he cursed himself for breaking the mood of the conversation now that she was talking more freely.

"There is much that my father has done, and does, that I do not agree with," she said. "He supports a system in Switzerland that is wrong. He pretends to lead a respectable upright life, to be a leading citizen in the community, to support worthy causes and to be a model for others, but it is all hypocrisy. He and a few thousand others in high positions in business, politics, the army, and banking manipulate our so-called democracy for their own selfish ends. They control the press, they are in league with the unions, and the people suffer. All over the world the people suffer."

Suddenly she grabbed him by the hand—her mood changed in a flash—and, giggling, pulled him with her out through the workroom door. "I've got a surprise for you," she said.

Because of the steep slope of the hill on which the house was perched, the second-floor workroom led to a path outside that ran around the back of the house. There, separate from the living quarters but under the same weather-beaten roof as the old house, was storage for hay. In one fenced-off corner were several lambs nestling together. They sprang to their feet when the door opened and stood blinking in the light of the single electric bulb. One lamb was smaller than the others and had a brown woolly coat. Vreni ran forward and scooped the little lamb into her arms. It nuzzled against the familiar warmth of her breasts.

"Isn't he lovely?" she said. "So soft and cuddly, and he's mine. Peter gave him to me. His mother died, and I fed him from a bottle like a baby."

Vreni stood there with the lamb in her arms, her face loving and gentle, her cares momentarily gone. He could smell hay and milk and the warmth of her body. She stood very close as she placed the lamb in his arms. Then she kissed Fitzduane just once, gently.

Back inside the house, Vreni busied herself making supper, something of rice and vegetables and herbs. They ate in the sitting room in the glow of an antique oil lamp, and they drank homemade red wine. Afterward there was more coffee and schnapps. The cows certainly weren't going to get much of a look-in.

Vreni sat on her bean bag again and began to talk about Rudi.

"When we were small, it was all so simple. Mommy was still alive then and married to Daddy. It was a happy home. It was lovely growing up in Bern. There was always so much to do. There was school and all our friends; there were dancing classes and singing classes. In the summer we went walking and swimming. In the winter there was skiing and tobogganing and ice skating. At weekends, and sometimes for longer, we'd go to Lenk. Daddy has a chalet there—a very old place, very creaky. Rudi loved it; we both did. We had a great friend who taught us skiing there. He farmed in the summer and would take his cows high up in the mountains. From time to time we would go with him. He never seemed to get tired, and he taught us all about the different wild flowers."

"What was his name?" Fitzduane felt a sense of betrayal as he asked the question. He was friend and confidant, but first he was interrogator.

Vreni was preoccupied. She answered his question almost without thinking. "Oskar," she said, "Oskar Schupbach—a lovely man. He had a face that looked as if it were carved out of polished mahogany. He was always so tanned, always outdoors, winter and summer."

"Do you still go to Lenk?"

"No!" she said. "No! Never again, never." The words snapped out with savage force. She started to cry and then wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hands. She sat on the floor on a cushion, back propped against the bean bag, legs stretched out, feet bare, head down. She looked about fifteen.

"Why did it all go wrong?" she said. "Why did it have to? We were so happy."

Fitzduane checked his watch. It was getting late, and unaccustomed as he was to driving on these frozen roads, it would take him a long time to get back to Bern in the darkness. Vreni looked up at him and read his mind. "You can stay here," she said, indicating the sofa. "The roads will be icy now, and I don't think you are used to such driving. Please stay; I'd like you to."

Fitzduane looked out the window. The night was dark. He could see no moon, no lights of other houses, no headlights in the distance. He let the curtain drop back into place. He smiled at her. "Fine."

Vreni unzipped one of the bean bags and rummaged inside. Her hand came out holding a small leather bag secured by a drawstring. She opened the bag and, with the contents, began to roll a joint. She looked up at Fitzduane.

"Grass," she said. "Want some?"

Fitzduane shook his head.

She smiled at him. "It's the generation gap."

He didn't disillusion her. She lit the joint and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs for as long as possible. She repeated the exercise several times. The sweetish smell of cannabis smoke filled the air.

"That's good," she said. "That's very, very good."

She lay back against the bean bag again, her eyes closed. Faint tendrils of smoke emerged from her nostrils. She was silent for several minutes. Fitzduane drank some more schnapps and waited.

"You're easy to talk to," she said. "Simpatico. You know how to listen."

Fitzduane smiled.

"It's incredible to think of it now," said Vreni, "but we were in awe of Daddy when we were small. He was a little brusque, somewhat stern, but we loved him. He was often away on business or working late. I remember Mommy would often talk about how hard he was working. We knew he had been a hero during the war. We knew he was a lawyer. We knew about something called 'business,' but we had no idea what the word meant in terms of people and their lives.

"Mommy was idealistic. Daddy used to call her naive. She came from another one of the old Bernese families just like Daddy, but she wasn't an ostrich like so many of that group. She didn't just want to safeguard her privileges and live in the past. She wanted a more caring society in Switzerland. She wanted some kind of justice for the Third World, not to bleed it dry with high interest rates and sell it arms and chemicals it doesn't need.

"Funnily enough, I think that Daddy shared her ideas at first—or so Mommy said. But then, as he grew more successful and acquired power and influence, he became less and less liberal and increasingly right-wing and blinkered in his outlook. Too much to lose, I suppose.

"We—Rudi and I—were about twelve or thirteen when we noticed things beginning to go wrong between them. There was no one incident, just a change in the atmosphere and a kind of coldness. Daddy was away more. He came home from work later. There were arguments, the normal sort of thing, I suppose. Even so, Erika came as a complete shock. She was on the scene for about a year before the divorce took place. They were married almost immediately after.

"The reactions of us children were quite different. Marta, as the eldest daughter, was always very close to Daddy. She was a classic moody teenager, and she and Mommy had gotten on badly for a few years. So Marta took Daddy's side over the divorce and went to live with him and Erika. Andreas was of two minds. He was close to Mommy but was absolutely fascinated by Erika. He had a real crush on her. He used to get an erection when she was near."

Fitzduane remembered his own initial response to Erika's reeking sexuality. He had every sympathy for Andreas.

"Rudi and I were closest to Mommy. We were both terribly upset over the divorce. All that happy time was over. Rudi took it hardest of all. He took a real dislike to Daddy and, for a time, wouldn't even speak to him. Surprisingly he didn't blame Erika.

"Rudi was fifteen at the time and exceptionally bright. He was also unhappy, frustrated, angry. He wanted to do something, to get revenge, to teach Daddy a lesson. I suppose I felt the same way at the time, though not as strongly. He started to investigate Daddy's life and at the same time to seek out people who were opposed to the system and values Daddy supported.

"Rudi became obsessed. He began to read Daddy's files, and then he grew more daring or reckless and photocopied some of them. I wasn't too keen on that at first, but when I read some of the stuff he found, I began to wonder.

"The companies that Daddy is involved with, either as a director or of a legal adviser in most cases, are really big. I mean, put together, they probably employ hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, and their combined turnover is in the billions. We found some terrible things."

"Such as?" asked Fitzduane.

"The worst cases involved a company called Vaybon Holdings. Rudi found some confidential minutes in Daddy's own handwriting. I don't remember all the details, but it was a review of their dirty tricks over many years. Many concerned bribery and illegal sales of arms to governments in Africa and the Middle East. Another concerned that tranquilizer they made—VB 19—which was found to have serious genetic side effects. It was withdrawn in the United States and Europe. Under a different name and repackaged, it continued to be sold in the Third world."

"What did Rudi do with the papers he copied?"

"He was going to keep them," said Vreni, "and release them to the press outside Switzerland. That was too much for me. The whole family would have been affected, and Rudi would have gone to prison if he had been discovered as the source. Commercial secrecy is enforceable by law in Switzerland, you know."

Fitzduane nodded.

"It wasn't just me who persuaded Rudi to burn the papers. Mommy also discovered that Rudi had them. She didn't want them released either. She talked to Rudi a lot, and eventually—reluctantly, but mainly to please her—he agreed. Shortly afterward she was killed.

"Rudi was terribly upset. He was quite distraught. He started saying that she had been killed deliberately by Vaybon because she had seen the documents. I don't think he really believed it. It was just an accident, but he was overwrought and wanted to lash out—to blame someone or something. In some strange way I think he also blamed himself."

Fitzduane remembered how Rudi's mother had died. Claire von Graffenlaub had run her Porsche into a truck loaded with spaghetti. It didn't seem the likeliest way to be murdered.

"The things that Daddy was involved in, the burning of the papers, Mommy's death, the influence of some of his new friends, all made Rudi more and more extreme. He began to experiment with drugs, not just grass, but with different things like speed and acid. We had moved back to Daddy's, but he was away from home a lot. Rudi stopped arguing with Daddy and seemed to be getting on with him better, but really he was working on some sort of revenge. He wasn't just acting by himself anymore. He was taking advice, responding to some specific influence.

"He made friends with some people who were on the fringes of the AKO—the Anarchistische Kampforganisation. They wanted to destroy the Swiss system, the whole Western capitalist system, through revolution. It was mostly just talk, but some other people in the mainstream of the group had been involved in stealing weapons from the Swiss armories and supplying terrorists. They supplied weapons to order. Machine guns, revolvers, grenades, even panzer mines powerful enough to destroy a tank. They had links with the Baader-Meinhof gang, Carlos, the Basques, many extremist groups. The weapons-stealing group was broken up, and the active members were imprisoned before Rudi came on the scene. Still, there were many sympathizers who got away. Some of them were known to the police and watched."

"So you're saying that Rudi wasn't actively involved," said Fitzduane. "He was more of a terrorist groupie once removed."

Vreni smiled. "That's a funny way of putting it, but I suppose it's about right."

"And where were you in all this?" said Fitzduane.

She looked at him without answering, and then she turned away and stared at the floor, her hands clasped around her knees. "I prefer to be an Aussteiger. I don't want to hurt anyone," she said quietly.

"What's an Aussteiger?"

"What in English you call a dropout," said Vreni. "Actually it's funny. The German word means more like a 'climb out.' Here you can't just drop out like in America. You have to make the effort—to climb."

She yawned. It was past midnight. Her voice was beginning to slur from the combined effects of tiredness and grass. He had many other questions to ask, but most would have to wait until morning. He doubted she would speak so freely in the light of day. Few people did.

He had the sense that what he was hearing was true, but only part of the truth; it was a parallel truth. Something else had been happening at the same time, something that, perhaps, Vreni did not know—or was only partially informed about. He yawned himself. It was pieces, feelings, vibes, guesswork at this stage.

"I'm sleepy," she said. "We can talk some more in the morning."

She uncurled herself from the floor and knelt on her haunches in front of him. Her blouse was unbuttoned, and he could see the swell of her breasts and the tops of her nipples. She brought her face close to his. He could feel her breath, smell her body. She slid an arm around his neck and caressed him. She kissed him on the lips, and her tongue snaked into his mouth for a moment before he pulled back. Her hand flickered across the bulge in his trousers and then withdrew.

"You know, Irishman," she whispered as if to herself, "you know that they're going to kill you, don't you?" Then she vanished through the round hole in the ceiling. In his exhaustion Fitzduane was unsure that he'd heard her correctly.

Small sounds awoke him. The room was empty, and the lamp, almost out of oil, sputtered as it quietly died. He saw her legs first, then the V-shaped patch of fawn pubic hair as she slid down from her room onto the warm stone of the choust. The gold bracelet on her left wrist caught the last flickers of light. Then her naked body was shrouded in darkness.

He could hear her moving slowly across the floor toward him. She was sobbing quietly. He could feel the wetness of her cheek against his outstretched hand. Without speaking, he drew her into the bed beside him and held her in his arms. Her tears wet the hair on his chest. He kissed her gently as one would kiss a child, and after a long while she fell asleep.

He remained awake thinking for several hours until the first faint light of dawn eased its way through the curtains. Vreni slept easily, her breathing deep and even. Very slowly he unclasped the bracelet from her wrist, moving it only slightly so he could see what was there. It was hard to discern in the minimal light, but he could see enough. There was no tattoo. Vreni stirred slightly but did not waken.

Across the breakfast table she was silent and subdued. She did not look at him as she made him coffee and placed a bowl of muesli in front of him. To break the silence, he asked her who did the milking. The milk he was pouring was still fresh and steaming.

She looked up at him and laughed a little humorlessly. "Peter arranged it," she said. "We have a neighbor. He lives in the village, but his cow byre is close to ours. We take turns to do the milking."

"You're not completely alone then."

"Willi is good with the cows," she said, "but he's over sixty, set in his ways, and not given to much conversation."

"So you get lonely."

"Yes," she said, "I do. I really do." She sat without speaking for a few moments and then stood up and began busying herself around the kitchen. Suddenly, leaning against the sink, her back to Fitzduane, she started sobbing, a violent, unstoppable outpouring.

Fitzduane stood and went to put his hands on her shoulders to comfort her. Her back was corded with tension. He made as if to take her in his arms, but she shook him off angrily. Her hand clenched the edge of the sink, the knuckles white with the force of her grip.

"You don't know what you're dealing with," she said. "I was a fool to talk to you. It's none of your business. You don't understand, this whole thing is too complicated. It's nothing to do with you."

He started to say something, but she turned on him, screaming. Her face was distorted by anger and fear. Her voice broke as she shouted at him. "You idiot! Don't you know it's too late? It's gone too far! I can't go back, and no one can help me. No one!" Vreni rushed out of the kitchen into the main room, slamming the door behind her. A bag of brown rice balanced on one of the kitchen shelves thudded to the floor. He heard the phone ring and then Vreni answer. She did not seem to speak much. Once he heard a single word when she raised her voice; it was repeated several times. It sounded like nay, Swiss-German dialect for no. He went back to the kitchen table to finish his breakfast.

Some minutes later Vreni walked slowly back into the kitchen. Her face was ashen. He could scarcely hear her as she spoke.

"You'd better go," she said. "Now." She pressed a small package into his hand. It was wrapped in paper and was about the size of a screw-top coffee jar. She held her lips to his cheek for a few moments and clasped him tight.

"Thank you for trying," she said, "but it's too late." She turned and left the room. She had scarcely looked at him while she was speaking. Her face was streaked with tears. Fitzduane knew that to push her further would be worse than useless.

He walked back down the track to Heiligenschwendi. The snow and slush had frozen in the night and crackled underfoot. There was ice on the mountain road, too, so he drove slowly and with particular care. He checked his mirror often and several times stopped to admire the view. Once he broke out a telephoto lens and took some photographs of the twisting road and of a motorcyclist demonstrating his skill gliding around a corner. The biker accelerated when he saw Fitzduane's camera and did not acknowledge the Irishman's wave.

Fitzduane had lunch in Interlaken, did the things that tourists do, and drove back sedately to Bern. When the biker turned off at the outskirts of the city, Fitzduane was almost sorry to see him go. Still, it might be a good idea to find out who was following him. He was beginning to be sorry he had left his Kevlar vest back in Ireland. Switzerland was turning out to be rather different from what he had expected.

He thought he might just buy himself a gun.

Chapter 13

Fitzduane was interested in weapons—training in them had formed part of his upbringing—and in the isolation of his castle and grounds he interpreted the restrictive Irish gun laws rather liberally. In Ireland a permit was needed for something as relatively nonlethal as an air rifle, and obtaining a license for a handgun was almost impossible. Also, there were few gun shops in Ireland, and the selection of weapons in them was limited.

He was intrigued by the Swiss approach to firearms and had already found out that the Swiss just loved guns, all kinds of guns from black-powder muskets to match-precision rifles. They also made them and shot them with impressive skill and consistent application.

Fitzduane found the gun shop by the simple expedient of following a respectable middle-aged burgher in a business suit who was carrying an assault rifle with much the same nonchalance as a Londoner might carry an umbrella. Passersby were equally unmoved by the sight. It did occur to Fitzduane that the good citizen might be returning to his office to shoot his boss or taking a midafternoon break to perforate his wife's lover. Both these options, on reflection, seemed to promise a certain entertainment value.

After only a few minutes—and it was a fine afternoon for a stroll—the burgher led him to a shop in Aarbergasse. The facade bore the words Schwarz, Buchsenmacher, Armurier, and the window was nicely decorated with a display of firepower that would have done credit to a South American dictator's personal arsenal.

"I'd like to buy a gun," said Fitzduane.

The man behind the counter nodded in agreement. Nothing could be more sensible. Fitzduane looked around the shop. There were guns everywhere, a quite astonishing variety: revolvers, automatics, muskets, shotguns, army rifles, carbines. They hung from racks, stared at him from display cabinets, leaned casually against the walls. Any unoccupied space was filled with ammunition boxes, crossbows, books on guns, even catapults. It was terrific. He wished he had come there when he was fourteen. Still, he wasn't quite sure of the ground rules for this sort of thing.

"What are the gun laws in Switzerland?" he asked.

The man behind the counter was unfazed. It was clear that the Swiss legal system was not going to stop him from making a sale.

"For a foreigner?"

Fitzduane thought that speaking in English must be a dead giveaway. "It depends where I am," he said. "I feel quite at home in Bern."

The shopkeeper seemed to have scant interest in repartee. His business was guns. He picked a Finnish Valmet assault rifle off a rack behind him and idly mowed down half a dozen passersby through the plate glass shopfront. He made a "tac-tac-tac" sound: three-round bursts, good fire control.

The Valmet was replaced. A Colt Peacemaker appeared in the man's hand. He held it, arm outstretched, in the single-handed shooting position that was all the rage for handguns before a California sheriff called Weaver started winning all the shooting competitions in the 1950s by shooting with two hands like a woman.

"The laws vary from canton to canton," he said. "In Bern, for instance, you can carry a pistol without a permit. In Zurich it is not so."

There were twenty-six cantons and half cantons in Switzerland, Fitzduane recalled. He wasn't quite sure of the difference between a canton and a half canton, but considering the gun law variations, it sounded as if it might be a good idea to carry something a little less vulnerable to local complications than a handgun.

"But it is not difficult to buy a gun," the shopkeeper continued. "It depends on what you want. There are some restrictions on automatic weapons and pistols. Otherwise it is easy."

"Without a permit?"

"Except for the restrictions I have mentioned, no permit is required," said the man. He twirled the Peacemaker expertly and returned it to the showcase. He selected a small .32 Smith Wesson, looked at Fitzduane, and then put it back. Somehow the Irishman didn't seem the .32-caliber type.

Fitzduane reluctantly abandoned the idea of buying an M-60 machine gun and towing it around Bern on roller skates. He looked at his camera tripod case, which was resting on the counter while he talked, and little wheels started turning in his brain.

He pointed at a Remington folding shotgun in a rack behind the man. It was a short-barreled riot gun and was stamped, in large, clear letters: for law enforcement only.

"But of course," said the shopkeeper, offering the gun to Fitzduane. The weapon was a folding pump-action shotgun equipped with a pistol grip. Fitzduane had used a similar weapon on special operations in the Congo. With the appropriate ammunition, up to a maximum of forty meters, though preferably at half that distance, it was an effective killing machine with brutal stopping power. With the metal stock collapsed, the gun fit neatly into the tripod case, leaving room for spare ammunition in the zippered accessory pocket where Fitzduane normally kept his long remote extension cord.

The man behind the counter placed a box of twelve-gauge 00 shells beside the holstered gun. Each shell contained nine lead balls, any one of which could be fatal at close range. It was clear he didn't think Fitzduane might need birdshot. As an afterthought the man added a tubular magazine extension. "We take credit cards," he said. Fitzduane smiled and paid cash. The bill came to 918 francs 40.

He left the gun shop and went looking for a photography store where he could have some film developed and some enlargements made in a hurry. He was successful and arranged to make the pickup the following morning.

There was a cafй called the High Noon off the Bдrenplatz, just next door to the prison tower. It seemed like the right place for a beer after buying a gun. Afterward Fitzduane strolled back to his hotel. As far as he could tell, he was no longer being followed, though it was difficult to be sure. The streets were crowded with evening shoppers, and the arcades made concealment by a tail easy. As he neared the Hospiz, the crowds thinned, and he noticed a keffiyeh-shrouded skater detach himself from an arcade pillar and glide after him. He changed direction and entered a small bar called the Arlequin. He had another beer and wondered what had happened to the "H."

Outside, the skater glided, twirled, and; finally fatigued, adopted a storklike position, supported on one leg with the other drawn up and looped behind the knee. So positioned, the skater watched the Arlequin door. He was gone, apparently, by the time Fitzduane left. This is all very fucking weird, thought Fitzduane.

Back in his hotel room, Fitzduane loaded the shotgun. With the magazine extension fitted, it held seven rounds. He checked the safety catch and replaced the weapon in its carrying case.

He had almost forgotten about the small parcel that Vreni had pressed into his hand. He borrowed a pair of scissors from reception and carefully cut open the package. Inside was a glass jar containing gingerbread. He unscrewed the top, and the rich aroma brought him back to the old farmhouse on the side of the hill and a girl with flour on her cheek. He ate one of the gingerbread men. It broke crisply as he bit into it. There was a hint of butter and spices.

Wrapped around the jar was an envelope. The letter inside was short, the handwriting round and deliberate. The letter was written on the squared paper used throughout the Continent for notepads.

Dearest Irishman I am writing this as you lie asleep in the next room. I have lit the fire again, so it is warm, and I feel safe and cozy and loving toward you. I wish you could stay with me in Heiligenschwendi, but of course it is not possible.

Please do not contact me again—at least for a few days. I need to think and decide what is best to do. I know you will want to ask me more questions when you awake. I don't think I will be able to talk to you.

If you stay in Bern—and you should not, but I hope you do—Rudi and I have a friend you could talk to. His name is Klaus Minder. He is from Zurich and lives in different places in Bern with friends. When I last heard, he was staying in the Youth House at Taubenstrasse 12. I suppose I shouldn't have talked to you at all—but I was so lonely, I miss Rudi.

Much love, Vreni

He placed the letter beside the gingerbread and the shotgun on the table. He felt like a schnapps. He sat there without moving, an ache in his heart for the mixed-up young Vreni. He reached out for the phone to call her, but then his hand fell away. If time to think was what she wanted, then maybe she should have it.

When the phone rang, it was Beat von Graffenlaub's secretary.

Could Herr Fitzduane meet Herr von Graffenlaub for lunch in the Restaurant du Theatre tomorrow at twelve-thirty precisely? She repeated the "precisely."

"I'll be there," he said. "Who's paying?"

Frau Hunziker sounded as if she were strangling. Fitzduane hoped she wasn't. Things were complex enough already.

Ivo was still asleep when the two detectives called at the Youth House. They were courteous. They didn't barge in and roust Ivo out of his sleeping bag. They knocked gently on the back door—they had come in through the side entrance—and waited in their car outside for ten minutes until a tousled Ivo appeared.

It was obvious Ivo had not had breakfast. The two detectives bought him coffee and rolls from a stall in the Hauptbahnhof and chatted quietly between themselves while he ate. When he was finished, they put him back into their car and headed along Laupenstrasse with the serried tracks of the Bern marshaling yards on the right. After less than a kilometer they turned right onto Bьhlstrasse. Part of the campus of Bern University stretched before them, and with a sinking feeling Ivo realized where he was going. At the university hospital they drove into the emergency entrance, and the large shuttered door closed behind them.

Given time, a skilled mortician can make the most unsightly cadaver appear presentable. In this case there hadn't been time. The pathologists of the Gerichtsmedizinisches Institut Bern—part of Bern University—had concentrated on the main task, determining the cause of death. The corpse had been roughly sewn together after the detailed examination, and there was almost nothing that could be done about the mutilation of the eyes and the missing ears. Fortunately only the head was shown to Ivo. The rest of the body was covered with a white cloth.

"Do you recognize him?" asked one of the detectives.

There was no response. Tears streamed down Ivo's cheeks.

The question was repeated again, twice.

The first detective pulled the sheet over the corpse's head and, with his arm around Ivo's shoulders, led him out of the room into the corridor outside. He brought Ivo into an examination room just off the corridor. His companion followed and closed the door. Ivo sat in a chair in deep shock. It was late morning before he finally confirmed his identification and signed the papers, and then the two detectives drove him back to the Youth House. They watched as he walked slowly down the side of the house, his shoulders slumped.

"If he's acting, I'm becoming a Berp again," said the first detective. He had quite enjoyed his years as a Berp, a member of the uniformed police, the Bereitschaftspolizei; the hours were predictable.

"He's not involved," said the Bear, "but he was close to Minder. He's very shaken now, but he'll recover and start digging. Who knows? He may come up with something."

"Well, Heini, thanks for helping out anyhow. Now you can go back to the quiet life again. It was just that I knew that you knew Ivo and would never turn down a quick trip to the morgue."

"Funny fucker, aren't you?"

They had lunch together in the Mцvenpick. It wasn't really the Bear's sort of place, but it was quick and convenient, and he had a little unofficial chat with a friend in Interpol in mind for the afternoon.

Over lunch he learned that the investigation of Klaus Minder's death was getting precisely nowhere. He was neither surprised nor entirely displeased. He thought he might check with the Irishman later. Now there was a genuine wild card who was just sneaky enough to get results. Off to the Oberland to see the sights indeed!

The Bear wasn't too old to sweet-talk a Hertz girl, and it didn't take much genius to figure out the significance of Heiligenschwendi.

The Restaurant du Theatre was one of Bern's more exclusive spots. Fitzduane arrived five minutes early. Von Graffenlaub was already seated.

There was something of the dandy about von Graffenlaub, thought Fitzduane. It was not so much the more flamboyant touches, such as the miniature rose in the lawyer's buttonhole or the combination of pink shirt, pale gray suit, and black knitted tie (color coordination or mourning?). No, sitting opposite Fitzduane, dipping his asparagus into the restaurant's special hollandaise sauce with practiced expertise, he had a vigor that had been missing during their previous encounter. He projected confidence and a sense of purpose. He radiated—Fitzduane searched for the right word—authority. This was more the man Fitzduane had expected—patriot, professional success, wielder of power, influence, and riches.

"Delicious," said von Graffenlaub. The last stalk of early asparagus had vanished. He dabbled his fingertips in a finger bowl and dried them on a pink napkin. Its shade did not quite match his shirt, but it was close. Fitzduane wondered if the lawyer had dressed for his surroundings. He had read that there were more than two hundred restaurants and cafes in Bern. It would be an interesting sartorial problem.

"Is the first Spargel of the season considered such a delicacy in Ireland?" asked von Graffenlaub.

Fitzduane cast his mind back. He could not recall early asparagus causing any Irishman of his acquaintance to eulogize: the first drink of the day, certainly; the first hunt of the season, possibly; but the first encounter with a vegetable, any vegetable—sad to say, quite impossible.

"A Frenchman of my acquaintance," said Fitzduane, "remarked that he had never realized how much hardship the English inflicted upon us Irish during seven hundred years of occupation until he sampled our food."

Von Graffenlaub smiled. "You are a little hard on your country. I have eaten very adequately in Ireland on occasion." There was the tiniest speck of hollandaise on his tie. Fitzduane felt it compensated for the rose.

After lunch Fitzduane declined the offer of cognac but accepted a Havana cigar in perfect condition.

"Mr. Fitzduane," said von Graffenlaub, "I confess to have been greatly upset by your proposal and even more shocked by the photograph of Rudi. It has taken me a little time to decide exactly what to do."

"I'm sorry," said Fitzduane. "My purpose was to convince, not to hurt. I could think of no other way that would have the same impact."

Von Graffenlaub's glance was hard. "You took a risk," he said, "but now I think your motives are sincere. I have found out a great deal about you over the past couple of days."

"And what have you decided?"

"Mr. Fitzduane," said von Graffenlaub, "if I had decided against your proposal, I assure you we would not be lunching here today. In fact, as you will already have surmised, it is my intention to help you in every practicable way to ascertain the full circumstances of Rudi's death. I have only one important condition."

"Which is?"

"That you are utterly frank with me," said von Graffenlaub. "You may well uncover matters I shall find unpalatable. Nonetheless, I want to know. I must know. Do you agree?"

Fitzduane nodded. He had a feeling of foreboding as he did so. "Frankness is a two-way road," he said. "I will have to ask questions you will not wish to answer. My inquiries may cover matters you do not consider relevant. But let me put it quite simply: If you are straight with me, I'll tell you what I find out."

"I understand what must be done," said von Graffenlaub. "However unpleasant all this may turn out to be, it will be better than doing nothing. It was destroying me. Somehow I felt responsible, but I didn't know why, or to what extent, or what I could do about it. Then you arrived, and now there is the beginning of an answer."

Von Graffenlaub seemed to relax slightly after he finished speaking, as if only at that moment had he truly made up his mind. The certain distance, indeed tension, that had been present in his manner throughout their meeting so far seemed to wane. He held out his hand to Fitzduane. "Do your best," he said.

The Irishman shook it. "I think I'll have that cognac now," he said.

A brief gesture by von Graffenlaub, a few words spoken, and two cognacs appeared in front of them. They drank a silent toast. Fitzduane drained his, although he could not shake the ominous feeling that gripped him.

Von Graffenlaub paid, then turned to Fitzduane. "How would you like a short walk? I have made some arrangements that may be helpful."

The day, once again, was warm. Fitzduane decided he would have to do some shopping fairly soon. He had packed for snow, ice, wind, and rain. He hadn't expected shirtsleeve weather so early in the year.

They left the Theaterplatz, passed the Casino on their left, and walked across the elegant arches of the Kirchenfeld Bridge. They passed the Kunsthalle and the Alpine and Post Museum. They walked briskly; the lawyer was in good condition.

Just near the junction of Helvetiastrasse and Kirchenfeldstrasse, von Graffenlaub turned into a narrow cul-de-sac. Trees shaded the entrance. It would have been easy to miss from the main road. Nameplates and speakerphones on each entrance they passed denoted apartments. At the fourth entrance von Graffenlaub stopped and punched a number into the keyboard of an electronic lock.

The heavy glass door, discreetly barred with ornate wrought steel, clicked open. Von Graffenlaub ignored the elevator and led Fitzduane up two short flights of stairs. The stairs and second-floor entranceway were carpeted. Von Graffenlaub unlocked a second door, this time with a key. They entered a narrow but well-appointed hallway. Von Graffenlaub shut the door behind them. It closed with a sound that suggested more than wood in its construction.

Fitzduane found himself grabbed. With some slight difficulty he disentangled himself from a huge potted plant whose greenery was modeled on the tentacles of an octopus with thorns added. He was becoming quite annoyed with this Swiss obsession for growing rain forest undergrowth inside the home.

Von Graffenlaub showed him around the apartment with the detached professionalism of a real estate agent. Nonetheless, small actions and an ease of movement suggested he was very much at home.

The place was comfortable to the point of being luxurious, but the furnishings and decor were, for the most part, almost deliberately unostentatious. The one exception was the master bedroom, which featured a thick white carpet, a king-size bed with black silk sheets, and a mirror set into the ceiling over the bed.

"Homey," said Fitzduane.

What must originally have been the dining room had been turned into a lavishly equipped study. Laden bookshelves filled one wall. Another wall was equipped for visual aids. There was a pull-down screen, a recessed television monitor, and a hessian-covered bulletin board on which maps and other papers could be retained by magnets. Maps of Bern and Switzerland were already in place. The furniture was modern and quietly expensive in its solidity and degree of finish. A conference table made a T shape with the desk. The stainless steel and black padded leather chairs were of ergonomic design; they swiveled and tilted and were adjustable for height and lumbar support.

Full-height folding cabinet doors were pulled back to reveal a wall of state-of-the-art business communications equipment: there were several more television monitors, one of them for Reuters Financial Services; there was a telex, a high-speed facsimile transfer, a powerful radio transceiver, dictating equipment, and a photocopier. A computer terminal sat docile on a mobile cart.

"Phones?" asked Fitzduane; there had to be something missing. He was reminded of a cartoon in The New Yorker. "Even in a think tank, Glebov, nobody likes a smart alec."

Von Graffenlaub pressed a button on the underside of the desk. A recessed panel slid back, and with a whir of electric motors, a telephone console, complete with a plethora of ancillary equipment, slid into view. He pointed at one of the electronic boxes. "It's fitted with a tape recorder," he said.

"Naturally," said Fitzduane politely.

They moved on to the kitchen. Cabinets, double-door refrigerator, and deep freeze groaned with food. In one walk-in pantry, bottles of red wine presented their bottoms in rack upon rack. This being Switzerland, the bottles had been dusted. "The white wine is in the cellar," said von Graffenlaub, "which is also a nuclear shelter."

Fitzduane almost started to laugh. He had been checking the labels on the red wine. Most of it was chвteau-bottled and vintage. "A nuclear shelter—there's no answer to that."

"No, really," said von Graffenlaub. "Almost all houses in Switzerland have nuclear shelters—or easy access to one. This has been a building regulation for many years."

The tour continued. The bathroom looked hygienic enough to stand in for an operating theater. Obviously a full scrub and mask and gown were required before one used the bidet. The toilet was fitted with an electronic flush mechanism. Fitzduane checked the toilet paper—soft and fluffy. Not a trick missed.

The living room was bright and airy. Double-glazed sliding doors led onto a veranda. A long L-shaped sofa of modern design dominated the floor. It was covered in the softest leather Fitzduane had ever felt on furniture. He sat down on the long arm and stretched out his legs in front of him. The leather felt sensuous against his body, warm to his hands.

Von Graffenlaub sat across from him in an arrangement of straps, pulleys, leather, and steel that only remotely resembled a chair but that the lawyer seemed to find comfortable. He placed a briefcase, which had been resting out of sight on the floor, on his knees, then spun its two combination locks. The latches sprang open with the well-machined sound of precision engineering.

"This is a special case," he said. "You have to wait thirty seconds after the latches are released before opening it—or all kinds of things happen. Tear gas, dye, a siren, spring-loaded extension arms shoot out. All quite nasty."

"Whose apartment is this?" asked Fitzduane.

"Yours."

Fitzduane raised an eyebrow. "No shit."

Von Graffenlaub laughed. It was a deep, rich sound, infectious in its appeal. He may have been portrayed as ruthless capitalist by Vreni, but Fitzduane was beginning to like the man—which was not the same as trusting him.

Erika von Graffenlaub drew up her knees and spread them. Her hands clutched at the sweat-dampened sheet. She waited, eyes for the moment closed, as his mouth and tongue came nearer the focus of her pleasure. She could feel the warmth of his breath first, then the faintest soft touch of his tongue on her clitoris. She waited, trying to lie absolutely motionless as slowly, ever so slowly, the gentle caressing continued. Her breathing increased in tempo, but as the minutes passed she managed to remain almost without moving, occasional tremors the only other outward sign of the passion soaring within her.

It was a game he had taught her. He liked to tease, to delay, to titillate, until sheer physical desire was so strong it could no longer be resisted but for an infinitely precious time was overwhelming, was all dominant, was the very stuff of life itself.

The pressure of his tongue was increasing slightly. Now he was into that rhythm that only he—and she—seemed to know. He cupped her breasts with his hands, the tips of his fingers caressing her protruding nipples. Suddenly she could lie still no more. Her body arched and shook, and her thighs clamped his head to her. Her body vibrated, and her hands kneaded his arms and shoulders and then dug into the back of his neck, drawing him ever closer.

"Now!" she cried. "Hurt me now!" His fingers tightened on her breasts and nipples, and there was pain, stark agony contrasting with the waves of pleasure that coursed through every atom of her body, that excited every nerve ending, every essence. She screamed as she came, but in absolute ecstasy, and she screamed again as he abandoned his subjugation between her loins and entered her with brutal force.

Later, when it was over, she sat cross-legged on the bed and stared at her image in the tinted mirror. She held her breasts in her hands and then felt them gently. They were bruised and sore, but in the afterglow of sex the feeling was almost a pleasure.

"I have been thinking about the Irishman," she said.

"Don't worry," said the man with the golden hair. "Everything is under control."

"No," she said. "Everything never is. It doesn't work that way."

"Are you concerned?" he asked. He was standing in front of her. She thought he looked beautiful, awesome, dangerous. She reached out and cupped his male organs in her hands. His testicles felt heavy. His penis was already beginning to grow tumescent again. She touched its tip with her tongue.

"No," she said, "but he's an attractive man. I'd like to fuck him before he dies."

The man with the golden hair smiled. "Dear little Erika," he said, "such a creature of love."

She drew him into her mouth.

"I own this apartment," said von Graffenlaub. "It seems to me that your inquiries could well take some time, probably weeks, perhaps longer. You will need a place where you can talk to people in confidence, where you can plan and organize, where there is privacy. I am offering you this place for as long as is necessary. I think you will be more comfortable here than in your hotel, and you will have a better working base. I should add that there is a car in the garage that you may use. It is a small BMW. Do you accept?"

Fitzduane nodded. It was a qualified nod, but he didn't want to interrupt the lawyer for the moment. He sensed there was more.

"Good," said von Graffenlaub. "When I become involved with something, I like it to be done well." He smiled. "The Swiss passion for efficiency, it's bred into us." He tapped the briefcase. "In here I have assembled as much information as I could think of that may be useful to you. There are photographs, school and medical reports, the names and addresses of friends, contacts in the various police forces, letters of introduction, and money."

"Money isn't necessary," said Fitzduane.

"I know," said von Graffenlaub. "I gather from the reports I have received that you earn a most respectable income from your profession and in addition have other resources. My agents were unable to determine either the extent or the nature of this other capital. They were surprised at this, as was I. My contacts are normally successful in these matters." There was an unspoken question in his remarks.

Fitzduane grinned. "The Swiss are not the only people with a basic distrust of central government and a preference for confidentiality. But let me repeat, I do not need your money—though I do appreciate your offer."

Von Graffenlaub flushed slightly. They were not talking about money. The real issue was control. He realized that the Irishman had no intention of allowing himself to be manipulated in any way. He would be agreeable, cooperative even, but he would remain his own man. It was not a situation the lawyer was used to. Fitzduane's gaze was steady. There was steel in those green-gray eyes. Damn the man. Reluctantly von Graffenlaub nodded.

"I accept your offer of the apartment," said Fitzduane. "I find it hard to resist a good wine cellar." His tone was mollifying and friendly. "Tell me," he added, almost as an afterthought, "is the phone tapped and the place bugged?"

Fitzduane's tone and manner had lulled the lawyer. Von Graffenlaub was disconcerted and visibly embarrassed. Momentarily he was speechless.

"Yes," he said finally.

"Specially for me?" said Fitzduane, "or are bugs part of the decor—sort of companions to the house plants?"

"They were installed to record you. I gave the order before my investigations into your background were completed. I did not know with whom I was dealing."

"People in the electronics business call it a learning curve," said Fitzduane. "Tell me, who normally uses this place?"

"I have had this apartment for many years. I use it from time to time when I want to be alone, or to work on something particularly confidential."

"I see," said Fitzduane, "sort of an adult tree house."

"The recording devices will be removed immediately," said von Graffenlaub. He went to the liquor cabinet and poured two glasses of whiskey. He gave one to Fitzduane. Fitzduane tasted it. It was Irish, a twelve-year-old Jameson.

He thought he might shoot the potted plant in the hall.

Chapter 14

Fitzduane had decided he would take a break from female von Graffenlaubs for a while. Vreni would answer the phone but then not speak except to say things like "Take care, Irishman," which he did not find either helpful or reassuring; Marta, the eldest, was away in Lenk for a fortnight's skiing; and Erika, on the basis of precedent, was going to give him an erection just as she did poor young Andreas. He didn't mind having the erection; it was what it might lead to that posed the problem. And that brought him back to Andreas.

Andreas wasn't straightforward either. Lieutenant Andreas von Graffenlaub was on active duty in the army camp at Sand, training a new batch of recruits. He could not leave his duties, but if Fitzduane didn't mind coming over, they could talk between maneuvers. A few minutes and a phone call from Beat von Graffenlaub later, and it had all been arranged. If Fitzduane could present himself at the General Guisan Kaserne at the ungodly hour of 0700 precisely, the army would provide transportation to Sand. He could get to the Kaserne on the number 9 tram.

It took them well over an hour to locate Andreas. After checking a series of combat groups waging their own little wars, they found him standing on top of an overgrown concrete bunker awaiting an attack by his platoon. He wore the forage dress cap of an officer with his camouflage fatigues, and there was a heavy service automatic in a holster at his waist. Hands on hips, his bearing confident to the point of cockiness, he looked down at Fitzduane.

"So, Herr Fitzduane," he said, "how do you like Swiss Army life?" He smiled politely and held out his hand to help Fitzduane up. The corporal saluted and receded into the trees.

"These are all new recruits," said Andreas, indicating the forest surrounding them. Not a figure was to be seen, although there were occasional noises as recruits, laden down with automatic rifles and blank-firing rocket launchers, crawled into firing position. "Only a few weeks ago they were university students or wine makers or mechanics or waiters. Now they are beginning to be soldiers, but there is still a long way to go. Don't judge the Swiss Army by what you see here today." Andreas smiled again. He had great charm and none of the tension and insecurity of Vreni.

Privately Fitzduane was impressed by what he was seeing at Sand. He knew from his own experience just how difficult it was to turn civilians into soldiers. In this case there was an air of seasoned professionalism about most of the officer corps he had run into so far, and the training programs seemed to be comprehensive and imaginative. Still, recruits in their earlier stages were seldom a pretty sight. Andreas winced when a dead branch broke nearby with a loud crack followed by a highly audible expletive.

"I'm sorry about your brother," said Fitzduane. He found a seat on the trunk of a fallen tree. Andreas remained standing, his eyes scanning the surrounding forest, notebook now ready to record the performance of his men.

"You ask the questions," said Andreas, "and I'll tell you what I can."

In contrast with Vreni, who knew more but would not tell, Andreas, having already heard about Fitzduane's involvement from his father, was helpful and forthcoming. Unfortunately he did not appear to know much, or if he did, Fitzduane was not asking the right questions. The Irishman was tempted to be discouraged, but then odd facts and details began to emerge as Andreas relaxed and devoted at least part of his mind to Fitzduane's mission.

Andreas looked at the symbol of the "A" circled with flowers. "The inner symbol I know of course," he said. "In a plain circle you see it in every city of this country. It's the badge of the protest movement, of the youth movement, of the small minority of idiots who don't know when they are well off." He looked at the photocopy in Fitzduane's hands. "What are the flowers?" he asked. "This is from a tattoo?"

Fitzduane nodded. "That photocopy is a blowup."

"The detail is not bad for such a small mark as you have indicated," said Andreas. "It is drawn well by a skilled hand. The flowers look like geraniums, but it is hard to be sure." He looked up at Fitzduane. "Les Fleurs du Mal," he said, "The Flowers of Evil. You know Baudelaire?"

"In translation for the most part," said Fitzduane. "Let me see if I remember any." He paused and then recited:

        Folly and error, sin and avarice   

       Work on our bodies, occupy our thoughts,   

       And we ourselves sustain our sweet regrets   

       As mendicants nourish their worms and lice.   

Andreas laughed. "Very good," he said, "but it sounds better in French."

"Why did you mention The Flowers of Evil?" said Fitzduane. "Does the symbol remind you of some organization of that name?"

"Nothing so precise," said Andreas. "It was merely an association of ideas, and I happen to like Baudelaire. The name seems apt considering what you have told me."

"Exceedingly apt," said Fitzduane. "Tell me, can you remember where you first ran across Baudelaire? Somehow, knowing the kind of stuff he wrote, I doubt that it was at primary school."

Andreas laughed but nonetheless looked mildly uncomfortable. Fitzduane could see that he was blushing. "My stepmother," he said, "Erika."

Andreas had no further chance to speak. The woods around them echoed to massed automatic-rifle fire, various objects cascaded through the air and landed on top of the bunker, and numerous camouflaged figures erupted into the clearing and assailed the position. It occurred to Fitzduane that he had almost certainly been killed, as had Andreas.

The section leaders formed a semicircle around Andreas, and in clear, measured tones he told them what they had done right and what they had done wrong. There were questions from two of the corporals. Andreas answered in the same measured manner. Salutes were exchanged, and the platoon formed up in two long files. Laden with their weapons and equipment, the men headed back to the camp and lunch. Andreas and Fitzduane walked behind and talked.

"Do you have any recollection of an incident in Lenk?" asked Fitzduane. "Something involving Vreni and, I suspect, Rudi?"

"Vreni told you about this?"

"Yes. She told me that there had been an incident, but she wouldn't say what. She seemed highly disturbed about whatever it was, and she mentioned a man named Oskar Schupbach, but it was not clear in what connection except that he was a great family friend. I think whatever it was may be important."

They walked along in silence for a few paces. The track led through pinewoods, the trees being mature and well separated. The air smelled good. The recruits were looking forward to lunch, and there were bursts of laughter. A Jeep roared down the center of the track between the two files.

"I don't know a lot about what happened in Lenk," said Andreas. "It was a sexual experience of some sort, I believe. I don't know the details. Rudi, Vreni, and Erika went up to the chalet as usual for a few weeks of skiing. I was busy studying, so I didn't go. Father was supposed to join them on the weekends, but he had to go away for several weeks on business."

"So they were there on their own?"

"I suppose," said Andreas. "I just don't know. I heard very little of what happened. All I can recall is that both Rudi and Vreni were tense and strained when they came back and somehow changed. They were more secretive and retreated increasingly into their own little world. I asked Erika if anything had happened, and she just laughed. She said it snowed too much, and she was sick of reading novels, playing cards, and being cooped up inside."

"And that was all?"

"No," said Andreas. "Rudi came into my room a few days later. He said he wanted to ask me something. He beat around the bush for quite a while, and then he started asking me about homosexuality. He asked me had I ever had a homosexual experience and did having one mean he wouldn't still want to sleep with girls. I wasn't much help to him, I fear. He wouldn't say why he was asking, and he seemed confused; he was a little high anyway."

"On what?" said Fitzduane.

"Oh, grass or something like that," said Andreas. "It was hard to know with Rudi. He liked to mix it around."

"And what had Vreni to do with all this? I got the strongest impression that she, too, was involved in whatever it was."

"You may be right," said Andreas. "She would certainly know. Those two were as thick as thieves, but she didn't say anything. I'll tell you, though, there are a couple of people in Lenk you could talk to. You know about Oskar anyway."

"Yes."

"Okay," said Andreas. "Well, there's him, and there is also a close friend of the twins who lives there. He's about their age. He's an apprentice cheesemaker, a guy called Felix Krane, a nice fellow, I've always thought."

"Is he gay?"

"Yes, he is," said Andreas, "but I don't know; somehow it doesn't seem to fit. If it was Felix, I don't see why all the fuss."

"A first sexual anything can be pretty disorienting, and it can certainly change relationships."

"Yes, it can," said Andreas. He was blushing again, or it may have been the flush of exertion from the long walk. They entered the camp. They had noodles, meat sauce, and beets for lunch in the officers' mess. They didn't have to eat out of mess tins, but the taste was the same; somehow with army food it always was.

The Bear put down his wineglass with a sigh of satisfaction. Three deciliters of wine had vanished effortlessly. Fitzduane was impressed by the idea of actually knowing how much a wineglass held. The Swiss glasses came in different sizes and were marked accordingly. In Ireland, in the spirit of the national obsession for gambling, a wineglass could be almost any size. A few glasses of wine could make you pleasantly mellow, decidedly the worse for wear, or have you punching the barman in thirst and frustration.

"I'm not being followed anymore," said Fitzduane, "or at least I don't think so."

"Perhaps you were mistaken. Perhaps you were never being followed and it was a case of imagination."

"Perhaps." Fitzduane reached into a breast pocket of his blouson jacket and removed a photograph. He handed it to the Bear.

The Bear pursed his lips; his mustache twitched. It looked as if he were thinking. "What do you make of it?" asked Fitzduane.

The Bear was still studying the photograph. "A nice sharp photo of a motorcycle taking a corner somewhere up in the mountains." He looked up at Fitzduane. "And you want me to check the registration."

Fitzduane nodded. "It might be interesting."

A buxom waitress in a low-cut traditional blouse with white sleeves brought them fresh wine. There was a rising buzz of conversation around them as the celler filled up. They were seated with their backs to the wall at a corner table, an arrangement that made for privacy yet allowed the entrance and most of the other tables to be surveyed. The choice had apparently been made without conscious thought. Fitzduane had been quietly amused. You get into habits, he supposed, if you spend a great deal of time watching people.

"A few centuries ago there used to be a couple of hundred places like this in Bern selling wine," said the Bear. "Many of the aristocracy had vineyards on their country estates, and the wine business was the one trade that was considered socially acceptable for the higher echelons, apart, of course, from the business of army and government. Then fashions changed, the nobility lost power, and people drank instead at inns and cafes. There are still plenty of cellars left, but those that are used commercially are boutiques and restaurants and places like that. I think it's a pity. A wine cellar like this has great atmosphere: arched ceilings, scrubbed wooden tables, age-darkened paneling, wine barrels, a drinking song or two, and a good-looking widow in charge of it all."

"Why a widow?"

"Don't really know," said the Bear. "It's just a tradition now that the Klotzikeller is run by a widow." He looked across at Fitzduane. "My chief called me in."

"Ja und?" said Fitzduane. "It's about all the German I know."

"Just as well with an accent like that. Beat von Graffenlaub was in touch with him. They are old friends, or at least they know each other of old. They met in the army, and now they play golf and sit on some Bьrgergemeinde committee together."

"Where would the establishment be without golf?" said Fitzduane. "Sir Francis Drake played bowls, the Egyptians built pyramids, and in Afghanistan, I hear, they play a sort of polo with a goat's head. I suppose those activities serve the same purpose."

"You're going to like this," said the Bear. "I've been ordered to give you official help, access to information and records, that sort of thing."

"Very nice," said Fitzduane. "Because of von Graffenlaub, you think?"

"Not just von Graffenlaub. There has also been a fair bit of toing and froing between the Chief and your friend Kilmara. They have decided to put their heads together over the small matter of the tattoo that keeps cropping up—what did you call it?"

"The Flowers of Evil."

"So, the Flowers of Evil symbol being found on various dead bodies in both countries," continued the Bear, "not to mention some other developments."

"Out with it," said Fitzduane.

"We put out a flier through Interpol—normal procedure—as did the authorities in Ireland. All European countries and the U.S. were notified. No reaction at first. It's always more difficult when something is visual. Most police records are geared toward names, addresses, fingerprints, things like that. A nameless symbol is hard to index and classify in a way that all parties will understand."

"But?"

"We had some luck. In some far-distant archive a penny dropped."

"This has all the makings of a shaggy dog story," said Fitzduane.

"A body bearing the tattoo was found in a burned-out car near San Francisco about eighteen months ago," said the Bear after a momentary pause. He wasn't at all sure how shaggy dogs had entered the picture. "The intention, it would appear, had been to completely destroy both car and body in the fire."

"So what went wrong?"

"Overkill," said the Bear. "In addition to the gasoline in the tank, there was C-4 plastic explosive in the car. Part of an arm was thrown clear by the blast. It was badly damaged, but they could just make out part of the circle of flowers and one line of the letter "A." Our flier didn't ring a bell at first until they searched under the name of the flower. It's a small drawing, so it's hard to be sure about the species. They tried various names and came up with nothing. Then they hit the jackpot with—"

"Geranium," said Fitzduane.

The Bear stared at him. "How did you know that?"

"I'm the seventh son of a seventh son," said Fitzduane. "In Ireland we believe that gives you special powers. And I met somebody who knows flowers."

"Who?"

"Andreas."

They looked at each other. "Means nothing," said the Bear.

"Who knows?" said Fitzduane. "Why don't you finish your story? You were at the severed arm."

"Humph," said the Bear. He glared balefully at a couple making signs of wanting to share their table. The couple scurried away.

"They don't know who the arm belonged to. No identification was possible. The hand was already severely burned when the explosion took place, and the body itself was almost completely destroyed, so no fingerprints, no dental records, no distinguishing marks or features apart from the tattoo, which was partially protected under the watch, and, of course, no face."

"Sex?"

"Female. A white Caucasian, as they like to say over there."

"Age?"

"Hard to say. The best guess was twenties."

"How about the car?"

"It was a burned-out wreck by the time it was found, and the explosion had nearly returned it to its component state. Forensics was able to trace it to its owner by its engine number."

"Who was not the body," said Fitzduane.

"No," said the Bear. "The owner was a company executive described by the FBI as being clean as a whistle."

"Why was the FBI involved? As I understand it, it has a strictly limited mandate."

"Bank robbery is federal business," said the Bear. "The FBI believes the car was involved in a raid that took place in San Clemente. Over two million dollars was stolen and six people were killed. One of those shot was a guard. Before being cut down, he shot and wounded one of the perpetrators. The FBI says that the body had been shot not only by the guard but also with the same gun that killed the guard."

"So the bank robbers, finding one of their own people wounded and doubtless somewhat in the way, killed her?"

"It looks that way," said the Bear.

"How many were involved in the bank raid?"

"Including the woman who was killed, only three. But they had automatic weapons and were quite happy to use them. They killed the bank guard, as I mentioned, and five other people apparently for no good cause. Two were bank employees, and three were customers. All were unarmed and doing exactly what they were told when the attackers opened up."

"This has the smell of a terrorist attack rather than a straightforward bank raid," said Fitzduane. "Did any organization claim credit?"

"No."

"What kinds of weapons did they use?"

"A sawed-off shotgun and two Czech Skorpion machine pistols."

"Familiar hardware. I can see why your chief and Kilmara have been talking to each other. Were any of the terrorists caught?"

"The investigation got nowhere," said the Bear. "Then, about a year ago, a man was questioned in New York after using some of the stolen money. He was an oil industry executive. He'd picked up the money cashing a check in a bank in Libya. The Libyan bank confirmed the transaction but declined to say where it had received the money. It suggested that it was probably another visiting American."

"So what does the FBI think about all this?"

"It's keeping its options open," said the Bear, "but the most popular theory is the obvious one: a Libyan-backed terrorist organization topping up its coffers with a little terror thrown in."

"I thought Libyan-backed terrorists had more than enough money."

"Nobody after money that way ever has enough," said the Bear. "And perhaps they don't regard Qaddafi as a reliable paymaster, or they want to be prepared for a rainy day."

"Or there is something special they want to finance," said Fitzduane.

Chapter 15

It was dark when they left the Klotzikeller. Medieval Bern at night had an atmosphere all its own. Dimly lit alleys and side streets, shadowed arcades, the echoing of footsteps, pools of light and warmth from cafйs, restaurants, and Stuben all conspired to create an illusion of timelessness and mystery, and sometimes, when it was late and the crowds were gone and the hostelries closed and shuttered, of menace.

They took the now-familiar route past the clock tower. Lorenzini's restaurant was off a small arcade that linked Marktgasse and Amthausgasse. The restaurant itself was on the first floor. Inside there was the clamor, vitality, and distinctive aroma of good Italian food and wine.

The Bear's eyes lit up. He was greeted like a long-lost son, a long-lost hungry son. Arms outstretched, a quick embrace, a flurry of salutations, quick bursts of colloquial Italian, and they were seated at a table, menus in hand, wine poured, in what seemed like seconds.

"Aagh!" said the Bear as he surveyed the menu and then swiveled his eyes toward the antipasto cart. "So many choices and so little time." He mused for a while, brows creased in an agony of alternatives. Finally the choice was made—a meal of restraint, one might almost say moderation: antipasto misto all 'italiana, for starters, paillarde di vitello con broccoli al limone, to keep momentum up, and only half a liter of Chianti (each) before skipping dessert and going straight to coffee.

Fitzduane was mildly shocked. "Surely not a diet."

"Certainly not." A look of pain crossed the Bear's face. "It is just that too much food can dull the mind and we have some serious thinking to do. Now what was I talking about?"

"Terrorism and Switzerland," said Fitzduane, "and some ideas of your own on the subject."

"Ah, yes. My point is that here in Switzerland we don't have a terrorist problem as such, or at least not in the sense that we suffer to any significant extent from terrorist attacks. Oh, we have the odd incidents, to be sure, but they are few and far between."

"So if I understand you right," said Fitzduane, "you are suggesting that not only is there very little terrorist activity in Switzerland, but even such few incidents as have occurred were either accidental or directed at someone or something outside the country."

The Bear nodded. "I'm not suggesting for a moment that these few incidents are the limit of terrorist activity here. That would be naive and ridiculous. No, what I am saying is that Switzerland has much the same role in terrorism as it has in business and world affairs, except that in this case it's involuntary and mainly initiated by foreigners. I'm referring to our role as banker, head office, communications point, middleman, and haven. As far as those roles are concerned, I personally believe that there is considerable terrorist activity here. Perhaps we should spend less time on shooting practice and more on detective work because if we don't, sooner or later some terrorist will find he doesn't like commuting and then the blood will start to flow here."

"And what about the youth movement?"

"Any disillusioned kid can be manipulated," said the Bear. "I've seen it often enough on the drug squad. But to suggest that the youth movement is an embryonic terrorist grouping is going too far. Most of the kids who demonstrate on the streets go back home to Mommy and Daddy afterward and have hot Ovalmaltine in the bosom of the family before they go to bed."

Fitzduane laughed, and the Bear's resolve weakened. He ordered the piattino di formaggio italiano; the Gorgonzola, Taleggio, Fontina, and Bel Paese surrendered gracefully.

"I'll tell you something else," said the Bear. "I think most people have the wrong idea about terrorists. They think of terrorists as being a bunch of fanatics motivated by idealism. In other words, however reprehensible their methods, their eventual goals are pure and noble, at least if seen from their point of view. That may be true for some, but for many I think the objective is simpler and more basic: money."

"So you are saying that many so-called terrorist incidents are actually crimes committed solely for personal gain?"

" 'Solely' might be going too far," said the Bear. "Let me just say that I believe decidedly mixed emotions may be involved. I mean, do you have any idea of the sheer scale of money a terrorist can make? It's one of the fastest tax-free ways going to make a million dollars."

"And one of the most dangerous," said Fitzduane.

"I'm not so sure," said the Bear. "If you examine a list of incidents in which money was involved—money for the cause—" he added sardonically, "you'll be surprised how often the terrorist gets away with it, and you'll be surprised by the scale. After the OPEC hijack of Yamani and the other oil ministers," said the Bear, "Carlos received a personal bonus of two million dollars from Qaddafi. And that was a bonus on top of his other takings. Another small Arab group supported by Qaddafi receives five million dollars a year, but that pales in comparison with the sums raised by terrorists from kidnapping.

"Few details are available because secrecy is often part of the agreement between kidnappers and victim, but consider the activities of just one group, the ERP, the People's Revolutionary Army of Argentina. They got a million dollars for kidnapping a Fiat executive; they got two million for Charles Lockwood, an Englishman who worked for Acrow Steel; they got three million for John R. Thompson, the American president of the local subsidiary of Firestone Tires; they were paid over fourteen million for Victor Samuelson, an Exxon executive. But get this: In 1975, the Montoneros, another Argentinean group, demanded and received sixty million dollars in cash and another million plus in food and clothing for the poor in exchange for the two sons of Jorge Born, chairman of the Bunge y Born group."

"Sixty million dollars!" exclaimed Fitzduane.

"Sixty," said the Bear. "Hard to credit, isn't it? And I'm quoting only from the cases we know about. God knows how many hundreds of millions are paid each year by companies and the rich in secret. Either as ransom or else to avoid being kidnapped—in other words, protection.

"Terrorism is a business. The publicized hijackings, bombings, and killings create the required climate of fear. They form the terrorist promotional budget, if you will, and then the serious business of extracting huge sums of money goes on steadily behind the scenes. The iceberg parallel comes to mind again—one-tenth exposed, nine-tenths hidden. Terrorism is one-tenth composed of highly publicized outrages with an accompanying nine-tenths of secret extortion and terror, and a profit orientation in most cases that would put Wall Street to shame."

"You know," said Fitzduane, "the figures on terrorism in Northern Ireland makes the point that Switzerland hasn't a terrorist problem worthy of the name—at least in terms of violence. Over the last decade here you seem to have had only a handful of incidents of any significance; during the same period in Northern Ireland well over two thousand people have been killed, tens of thousands have been injured, and damage to property has cost hundreds of millions."

"That isn't terrorism in the Continental sense," said the Bear. "It's a war."

Bern was nearly asleep. Cafes and restaurants were closed and shuttered. Windows were dark. The streets were empty. Only an occasional car disturbed the quiet.

Fitzduane leaned against the railings of the Kirchenfeld Bridge and smoked the last of his Havana. He knew he should dictate a few notes on the evening's developments, but he felt mellow from several hours' drinking with the Bear, and the miniature tape recorder remained in his pocket.

The night air was pleasantly cool. Below him the black waters of the Aare flowed invisibly except for the reflection of a car's headlights as it drove along Aarstrasse and then vanished past the Marzili. Another late reveler returning home, or perhaps a journalist retiring after putting his newspaper to bed. Fitzduane speculated idly.

To his right he could see the impressive mass of the Bellevue Hotel, with its magnificent view of the mountains during the day from both its windows and its terraces. The Bear had told him that during the Second World War the Bellevue had been the headquarters of German intelligence activities in neutral Switzerland; the Allies had been in the less grandiose but friendlier Schweizerhof only a few blocks away.

The lights were still on in several of the Bellevue's bedrooms. As he watched the rooms went dark one by one. Fitzduane was much taken by the Kirchenfeldbrьcke, though he didn't quite know why. It wasn't the highest bridge in Bern, and it certainly wasn't the oldest. It had none of the drama of the Golden Gate in San Francisco or the storybook appeal of Tower Bridge in London. But it had a quality all its own, and it was a good place to think.

The Bear had offered him a ride back to the apartment, but Fitzduane had declined, preferring to walk. He enjoyed the feeling of the city asleep, of the sense of space when the streets were empty, of the freedom of the spirit when there were no other people around to distract. The Havana was coming to an end. He consigned the remains to a watery grave. He turned from the railings and began walking along the bridge toward home. He heard laughter and a faint, familiar hissing sound. He looked back. Two lovers, arm in arm on roller skates, were gliding in perfect time along the pavement toward him. They were moving deceptively fast, scarves trailing behind, body movements blurred by loose-fitting garments. As they passed under a streetlamp, they looked at each other for a second and laughed again. Fitzduane stepped back to let them pass. For a moment he thought of Etan and felt alone.

The force of the blow to Fitzduane's chest was savage, reinforced by the momentum of the skater. The knife fell from his assailant's grasp and clattered to the ground several meters away. The assailant turned neatly on his skates, then glided forward to retrieve his weapon. He tossed it from hand to hand. Light glittered from the blade. The woman stood some distance behind the assailant, watching, but this was to be his kill; the fatal blow was already struck.

Fitzduane felt numbness and pain. The railings were at his back, the river below. The tripod case containing the shotgun had been torn off his shoulder; it lay to one side, tantalizingly close. He knew he would not have time to reach it before the man with the knife attacked again. His eyes watched the blade. With his right hand he felt his chest for blood. He found there wasn't any. He was surprised he could still stand.

The blade was still for a moment in the assailant's hand—and then it thrust forward in a blur of steel, the coup de grвce, a deft display of knife craft. Adrenaline pumped through Fitzduane's body. With a sudden effort he moved to one side, parrying the knife with his left arm. He felt a burning sensation and the warmth of blood. He thrust this right hand, fingers stiffened, into the attacker's throat. There was a choking sound, and the man fell back. He clutched at his throat with his left hand, making gasping sounds. His knife, held in the palm of his right hand, fended off a further attack.

Fitzduane saw the girl beginning to move and knew he would have to finish it quickly. He slumped against the railings as if that last effort had finished him. The man moved forward this time in a slashing attack and made a sudden rush. Fitzduane pivoted and, using the attacker's momentum, flung him over the railings. There was a short terrified scream and a dull thud.

The girl now had a knife in her hand. Fitzduane moved fast. He threw himself in a combat roll toward the tripod case and came up with the shotgun. He pumped a round into the chamber. Blood was dripping from his arm, and he felt sick. The girl stared at him, her knife held out, waving slightly. Slowly she backed away; then suddenly she turned and sped away into the darkness. He could hear the hissing of her skates and she was gone.

He looked over the railings, but he could see nothing. His rib cage felt sore and bruised against the hard metal. He stood upright and examined where the knife had struck him initially. The blade had not penetrated. The blow had been absorbed by his miniature Olympus tape recorder. Small pieces of the machine fell from the rent in his jacket onto the pavement and were joined by drops of blood from his gashed arm.

In his dream the Bear was happy. He and Tilly had gone to the little castle at Spiez to pick up some wine. There were those who said that Spiez wine was far too dry and was made out of dissolved flints, but the Bear did not agree. Anyway, they always enjoyed the whole business of actually getting the wine, the drive out by the Thunersee, lunch at a lakeside restaurant, and then going down into the cellar and joining the line to watch one's own wine bottles being filled. He wondered why the telephone was ringing so loudly in the wine cellar. Nobody else seemed to notice. He looked at Tilly and she smiled at him, and the she was gone. He felt lost.

He lifted the telephone receiver. "Sergeant Raufman," said the voice. It sounded excited.

"Yes," said the Bear, "and it's two o'clock in the fucking morning in case you're interested."

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Sergeant Raufman," said the voice, "but it is important. I am the night duty manager at the Hotel Bellevue."

"Good for you," said the Bear. "I like to sleep at night; some of us do."

"Let me explain," said the voice. "A man has come into the hotel. He is bleeding from one arm onto our carpets, and he has a gun. What should we do?"

"Haven't a clue. Try putting a bucket under the arm. Call the police. Who the fuck knows?"

"Sergeant Raufman, this man says he knows you—"

"Wait a second," said the Bear, "who is this man?"

"He says his name is Fitz something," said the voice. "I didn't want to ask him again. He looks"—there was a pause—"dangerous." There was wistfulness in the voice.

"What's your name?"

"Rolf," said the voice, "Rolfi Mьller."

"Well, listen, Rolfi. I'll be over in ten minutes. Bandage his arm, get him what he wants, don't call anyone else, and don't make a pass at him, capisce?"

"Yes, Sergeant," said Rolfi. "Isn't it exciting?"

There was no reply from the Bear. He was already pulling his trousers over his pajama bottoms. Somehow he wasn't entirely surprised at the news.

An hour later the Bear was letting the doctor out of Fitzduane's apartment when the phone rang. He closed and locked the door and slipped two heavy security bolts in place; then he took the call in the study. Fitzduane lay back against the pillows of the king-size bed and let the lassitude of reaction take over.

The Bear came in. He stood with his hands in his pockets and looked own at Fitzduane. The collar of his pajama top protruded above his jacket. The stubble on his cheeks made him look shaggier than ever.

"The doctor thinks you'll live," said the Bear. "The cut on your arm was bloody but not deep. On your chest you'll just have a good-size bruise, and I guess you'll need a new tape recorder."

"I'm beginning to float," said Fitzduane. "Whatever that doctor gave me, it works."

"They found him," said the Bear. "Or what we assume is him. He just missed the river. There's the body of a young male who answers your description. He's at the edge of the sports ground under the bridge."

"Dead?"

"Oh, yes, very much so. I'm afraid this is really going to complicate things."

"It was self-defense," protested Fitzduane. "He seemed keen on one of us leaving the bridge, and it was bloody close as it was."

The Bear gave a sigh. "That's not the point," he said. "You've killed someone. There are no witnesses. There will have to be an investigation. Paperwork, statements, an inquiry by an examining magistrate, the whole thing."

Fitzduane's voice was sleepy. "Better investigated than dead."

"You don't have to do the paperwork," was the grumpy rejoinder. "By the way, there is a Berp outside. Technically you are under arrest."

Fitzduane did not reply. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was regular and even. The top half of his body was uncovered, and his bandaged arm lay outstretched. There were signs of severe bruising on his torso just below the rib cage. The detective reached out and covered the sleeping figure with the duvet. He switched off the light and quietly closed the bedroom door.

The Berp was making coffee in the kitchen. He gave the Bear a cup, liberally laced with von Graffenlaub's brandy. The Bear knew he would have to get some sleep soon or he'd fall down.

The uniformed policeman rocked his kitchen chair back and forth on its rear legs. He was a veteran of more than twenty years on the force, and for a time before the Bear donned plain clothes, they had shared a patrol car together.

"What's it all about, Heini?"

The Bear yawned. He could see the pale light of false dawn through the kitchen window. The apartment was warm, but he shivered with the chill of fatigue. "I think our Irishman might have a tiger by the tail."

The Berp raised an eyebrow. "That doesn't tell me a lot."

"I don't know a lot."

"Why are detectives always so secretive?"

The Bear smiled. It was true. "We live off secrets," he said. "Otherwise who'd need a detective?"

The phone rang again. There was a wall extension in the kitchen. The Berp answered it and handed it to the Bear. "Yours. The duty officer at the station."

The Bear listened. He asked a few questions, and a smile crossed his face; then he replaced the phone. "Lucky bugger."

"Do you want to expand on that?"

"There was a witness," said the Bear. "It seems one of the guests staying at the Bellevue—a visiting diplomat—saw the whole thing from his bedroom window. He says he saw the attack on Fitzduane and tried to report it, but no one on duty could understand him, so eventually he got an interpreter from his embassy and made a statement. He confirms the Irishman's story."

"I thought diplomats were good at languages."

The Bear laughed. "I think the delay had more to do with his having to get rid of the woman in his room first," he said. "That's what the word is from the night staff at the hotel."

"Somebody's wife?" said the Berp.

"No," said the Bear. "That wasn't the problem. It was one of the local hookers."

"So?"

"Our visiting diplomat is from the Vatican," said the Bear. "He's a Polish priest."

The Berp grinned. His chair was tilted as far back as it would go. "Sometimes I enjoy this job."

"You'll fall," warned the Bear. He was too late.

Kilmara read the telex from Bern a second time. He looked out the window: gray skies, rain falling in sheets, damp, cold weather.

"I hate March in Ireland," he said, "and now I'm beginning to hate April. Where are the sunny days, blue skies, and daffodils of my youth? What have I done to April for it to behave like this?"

"It isn't personal," said Gьnther. "It's age. As you get older, the weather seems to get worse. Older bones cry out for sun and warmth."

"Cry out in vain in this bloody country."

There was a slight click from the video machine as it ceased rewinding. "Once more?" said Gьnther.

Kilmara nodded, then looked again at the high-resolution conference video screen. The video had been taken by a four-man Ranger team that had been instructed to treat the whole matter as a reconnaissance exercise.

They had parachuted onto the land at night using HALO—high-altitude, low-opening—techniques. Equipped with oxygen face masks and miniature cylinders clipped to their jump harnesses, they had jumped from an army transport at 22,000 feet. They were using black steerable rectangular ramjet parachutes but had skydived for most of the distance, reaching forward speeds of up to 150 miles per hour and navigating with the aid of night-vision goggles by comparing the terrain with the map they had studied and the video made by a Ranger reconnaissance plane the night before. Electronic altimeters clipped to the tops of their reserve parachutes flashed the diminishing height on glowing red LED meters. At 800 feet the Rangers pulled their D rings and speed-opened their parachutes.

The fully flared parachutes had the properties of true airfoils and could be turned, braked, and stalled by warping the trailing edge with the control lines. Even so, this high degree of maneuverability was scarcely enough. Reports had forecast low wind for the time of year in the area, but there was heavy gusting, and it was only with great effort and not a little luck that the team landed near the drop zone on a deserted part of the island. Making use of their night-vision equipment, the men had then hiked across the island to Draker College. They had constructed two blinds and by dawn were completely concealed, with the two entrances to the main building under observation.

For five days and nights they saw nothing unusual, but on the sixth night their strained patience was rewarded. The video had been shot using a zoom lens and a second-generation image intensifier. It had been raining heavily at the time, so detail was not good, though it was reasonable given the conditions. Nevertheless, what the observation team had photographed was startling enough.

Shortly after midnight, with one more night of long and monotonous observation to go, a single figure was seen slipping out of the side entrance of the college. The image was scarcely more than a blurred silhouette at first, since the camera lens was set at normal pending a specific target. The figure reached the cover of some gorse bushes and crouched down, blending into the surroundings. One disadvantage of the image intensifier was its inability to show colors; everything showed up in contrasting shades of greenish gray.

The camera operator began to zoom in to get a closer look with the powerful telephoto lens but then paused and pulled back slightly to cover two more figures, who left the side entrance and ran, crouched down, to cover. There was a wait of perhaps half a minute before two more figures appeared. Several minutes passed. The camera zoomed in to try to get a close-up, but the bushes were in the way, and only small glimpses of human forms through gaps in the foliage indicated that they were still there.

Kilmara imagined what it was like for the Rangers waiting in the blinds. Holes had been dug in the ground, making use of any natural features that could be turned to the diggers' advantage, such as an overhang to prevent observation from the air or a fold in the ground to hide the entrance. The top sods had been removed intact, and the undersoil dug out carefully and concealed. The holes were covered with a frame of reinforced chicken wire, which in turn was surfaced with the original sods to match the surrounding terrain.

The result could be stood upon without detection and would be virtually invisible from even a few yards away.

Routine observation was kept through a miniature lens mounted at the end of a fiber-optic cable that would peer periscope style through the roof of the blind. The incoming pictures could be monitored on a pocket-size television. The technology had been adapted from that used in microsurgery.

The first figure emerged from behind the clump of bushes, followed at twenty-yard intervals by the others. In single file they headed for the wood. The picture on the screen dissolved into an out-of-focus blur for a few seconds before sharpening again into close-up. Kilmara felt the same shock that had struck him at the first viewing. The face on the screen was not human. He was looking at the body of a man and the head of some monstrous, unrecognizable animal: fur and matted hair, short, curving horns, a protruding muzzle fixed in a snarl. It was an image from a nightmare.

The camera surveyed each figure in turn. Each wore a different and equally bizarre mask. They vanished into the wood.

"Two suicides by hanging and the accidental death of the headmaster," said Gьnther, "and now this?"

"Well, at least we now have a pretty fair idea of what happened to Fitzduane's goat," said Kilmara, "but dressing up isn't a crime."

"So you think all is in order?"

"Do pigs fly?"

The camp was more than two hundred kilometers south of Tripoli and had been built around a small oasis, its date palms and patch of dusty greenery now submerged in a forest of prefabricated single-story barracks, concrete blockhouses, weapons ranges, parade grounds and assault courses.

Two four-meter-high barbed-wire fences secured the perimeter. The outer fence had been electrified, and watchtowers equipped with KPV 14.5 mm Vladimirov heavy machine guns were placed at two-hundred-meter intervals. Missile batteries augmented with mobile radar-guided four-barreled ZSU-4 antiaircraft guns guarded the approaches.

The camp could hold as many as a thousand trainee freedom fighters, and over the years since its construction many times that number of members of the PLO, the Polisario, and the myriad other violent groups supported by Colonel Muammar Qaddafi had passed through its gates.

Slightly depleted by a steady drain of fatal casualties experienced in live-ammunition training, they emerged after intensive indoctrination in guerrilla tactics and terrorist techniques, including refinements such as constructing car and letter bombs, concealing weapons and explosives aboard aircraft, getting the maximum media reaction from a terrorist incident, torture, and the handling and execution of hostages. The instructors were proficient, experienced, and impersonal. They lived apart from their trainees in luxury air-conditioned accommodations outside the camp. The languages heard around their Olympic-size swimming pool amid the clinking of glasses, the laughter, and the splashing were those of East Germany, Cuba, and Russia.

There were other such camps in Libya and indeed in South Yemen, Cuba, Syria, Lebanon, East Germany, and Russia. Camp Carlos Marighella, named after the Brazilian author of one of the most famous urban terrorism handbooks, had been chosen because it was isolated and secure, and the project had the personal support of Muammar Qaddafi.

Since he overthrew Libya's senile King Idris in 1969, Qaddafi had provided money, arms, sanctuary, and training facilities for just about every terrorist organization worthy of the name. He had provided active support for the team that carried out the Olympic Games massacre in Munich. He had provided the PLO with a yearly allowance of forty million dollars. He had offered a million dollars for the assassination of Anwar Sadat of Egypt. He had invaded Tunisia. He had fought with Egypt. He had repeatedly invaded Chad. He had fomented unrest in the Sudan. He had given financial assistance to the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, Argentina's Montoneros, Uruguay's Tupamaros, the IRA Provisionals, the Spanish Basque ETA, the French Breton and Corsican separatist movements, and Muslim insurgents in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. He had provided military assistance to Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic and Idi Amin of Uganda. He had been behind the blowing up of a Pan American plane at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, in which thirty-one passengers burned to death. He had provided the SAM-7 heat-seeking missiles with which a Palestinian team planned to shoot down an El Al jet taking off from Fiumicino. He had been an active supporter of the OPEC raid in Vienna in Christmas 1975.

The man who had selected Libya as the training ground and marshaling area for his assault group felt quite satisfied that he had made the right decision. His every need was being met. Qaddafi had even offered a bonus of ten million dollars upon successful completion of the project. At the end of their private audience he had presented the man with a personally autographed copy of his Green Book on the Islamic Revolution—and a check for half a million dollars toward initial expenses.

In Libya the man was known as Felix Kadar. It was a name of no particular significance; in other countries he was known by other names. In the files of the CIA and the U.S. State Department's Office to Combat Terrorism he was known only by the code name Scimitar. The man had no particular political views or commitments to any specific ideology. He had been baptized a Catholic, but on occasion he wore the green turban that signified the pilgrimage to Mecca. He had indeed gone there. He had been one of the planners of the assault on the Great Mosque and had been agreeably surprised by the inability of Saudi Arabia's own forces to dislodge the intruders. In the end, the assistance of the French government was called for: the Gigene, the highly specialized National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, came on the scene—and the raiders died, leaving the Saudi royal family much shaken and the man in the green turban one million dollars richer.

The man had long since conceived the outline of the idea. It had struck him that unrest in the world presented an unparalleled opportunity for commercial exploitation. At Harvard, studying for an M.B.A., he had written, as he had been trained to, the business plan. It featured a specific financial objective: the acquisition of a personal fortune of one hundred million dollars within fifteen years.

More than twelve years had passed, and he was still only halfway to his objective: he had averaged something over four million dollars a year, taking the rough with the smooth, so a straight-line projection put him something like forty millions dollars short by the close of his allocated period, May 31, 1983. Clearly something would have to be done; a bold stroke was called for. Allowing a surplus for inflation and unforeseen expenses, he would aim to clear fifty million dollars from one major action, and then he would retire. He would be two years ahead of schedule.

Felix Kadar had another motive for wishing to achieve his financial objective ahead of time. He had made a specialty of carrying out his work through different organizations and under different identities, and he was expert in modifying his appearance and personality. Nonetheless, it seemed to him that it would be only a matter of time before one of the Western antiterrorist units started putting the pieces together. And, he admitted to himself, he had allowed his ego to get the better of him recently.

He had played games with the authorities. In the knowledge that he had never been caught or even arrested and was soon to retire, he had deliberately increased the risks of living on the edge. That must stop. Mistakes would be eliminated.

The seventy-five men and women in the attack force were all known to him either personally or by reputation. He had compiled a list of suitable candidates over the years and had made full use of the extensive files of terrorists maintained by the KGB. He kept up the friendliest of relations with Ahmed Jibril, the Palestinian ex-captain in the Syrian Army who was one of the KGB's most active agents inside the various Palestinian movements.

He used fingerprints and other personal data accumulated in the KGB and his own files to vet each candidate rigorously. Kadar was particularly concerned about infiltration—a specialty of the Israelis, many of whom spoke Arabic and were in appearance indistinguishable from Yemenis and North Africans. The classic ploy of the Israelis was to substitute one of their own for one of the fedayeen killed or captured in action against them. It was not so difficult to do, and hard to detect when the Palestinians were scattered among a dozen countries. Today Kadar believed he had caught such a man. He was not absolutely sure, but then he didn't have to be. Within the camp Kadar's will was absolute law; he was judge, jury, and, if it so pleased him, executioner.

The assembled terrorists were drawn up in two ranks in a semicircle facing Kadar. It was night, and the dusty parade ground was brightly lit with powerful floodlights, though Kadar himself was in shadow. To one side a shapeless figure was spread-eagled against a metal frame embedded in the hard ground.

Kadar was further concealed by an Arab headdress made of camouflage material; his mouth and nose were covered, and his eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. Though some of his people had worked with him before, none had ever seen his face or knew his real name. They knew him as a hooded figure, a voice, and a consummate planner. The implementation was almost always left to others.

"Brothers and sisters," he said, "followers of the Revolution. For years you have been fighting to destroy the Jews and to free your native land. You have fought in many glorious battles and have killed many of your enemies, but always final victory has eluded you. You have been cheated of what is your due not just by the accursed Israelis but by the support they receive from godless America and the might of Western imperialism. You have been brought to this camp to train and prepare for an action directly targeted at the soft underbelly of the decadent West. Your deeds will echo around the world and the pain and shock of the rulers of the West will be terrible."

There were shouts and applause from the guerrillas. Several fired automatic rifles in the air in a display of enthusiasm. Kadar thought he had spent enough time on the ritual condemnation of Israel and the West. It was time to deal with more practical matters. Terrorists—at least Kadar's pragmatic kind—didn't fight on idealism alone. They liked to be paid in hard currencies.

"Fellow freedom fighters," he continued, "this is not yet the time for me to tell you the precise details of our mission. For reasons of security you will all understand, that information must be withheld until shortly before the day of action. Meanwhile, though you are all experienced and battle-hardened veterans, you will be trained to a peak of even greater combat effectiveness. As you do this, you may care to reflect not only on the glory that will be attained from this mission but on the one hundred thousand American dollars you will each receive upon its successful conclusion."

This time the applause was considerably more enthusiastic. There were further bursts of Kalashnikov fire. Kadar reflected that experienced and trained by the liberation camps though his men might be, too many of them had become lax and overemotional in their reactions. The raw material was there, but it needed to be subjected to ruthless discipline if his plan was to succeed. His orders must be followed unhesitatingly; obedience must be absolute. The only way to achieve this in the limited time available was to instill a terrible fear of the alternatives. He had dangled the carrot in front of them; now was the time for the stick. He had stage-managed the demonstration for maximum impact.

He held up his hand for silence, and the cheering ceased. He spoke again. "Brothers and sisters, we are faced with implacable enemies. Our war is unceasing. Constantly they try to destroy us. They send their warplanes against us; they raid us from the sea; they fill the airwaves with their foul propaganda; they manipulate the media to distort the truth of our cause; they send spies and sowers of discord among us."

There was a ripple of reaction from the ranks of fighters: fists were shaken; weapons were raised in the air.

"Silence!" he shouted. A hush fell over the terrorists. The group was still. They were used to savage and sometimes arbitrary discipline but also to the informality and frequently free and easy life of guerrilla units that, whatever they boasted to their womenfolk, spent little of their time in actual combat. They sensed that this mission would be different.

Kadar raised his right hand. Instantly the flood lights illuminating the parade ground were extinguished. The group was gripped by fear and an awful curiosity. Something terrible was about to happen. It would concern the figure spread-eagled on the metal frame, but what it might be nobody knew. They waited.

Kadar's voice came out of the darkness, hard, ruthless, and resonant with authority. "You are about to witness the execution of a Zionist spy who foolishly attempted to infiltrate our ranks. Watch and remember!" His voice rose to a shout and echoed around the parade ground.

A single spotlight came on and illuminated the figure stretched out on the frame. He was naked and gagged; his eyes bulged with fear. A tall man in the white coat of a doctor came out of the darkness. He had a syringe in his hand. He held it up in front of him and pushed the plunger slightly to clear the needle of air; a thin spray of liquid could be clearly seen by the onlookers. Carefully he injected the contents of the syringe, then stood back and consulted his watch.

Several minutes passed. He stepped forward and examined the naked man with a stethoscope, followed by a close inspection of his eyes with the aid of an ophthalmoscope. He left the stethoscope hanging around his neck and replaced the ophthalmoscope in the pocket of his white coat. He nodded to Kadar.

Kadar's voice rang out in the darkness: "Proceed."

The man reached into the pocket of his white coat and held an object in front of him. There was a perceptible click, and the harsh light of the single spotlight glinted off the white steel of the blade. He held the knife in front of the prisoner's eyes and moved it to and fro; the panic-stricken eyes followed it as if hypnotized. The assembled terrorists waited.

Kadar's calm voice could have been describing a surgical operation. "You may care to know the significance of the substance injected into the bloodstream of the prisoner. It is a highly specialized drug obtained from our friends in the KGB. It is called Vitazain. It has the effect of heightening the sensitivity of the body's nervous system. In one situation the gentlest caress results in intense pleasure. In a situation of pain the effect is at least as extreme. It magnifies pain to a depth of horror and suffering that is almost impossible to comprehend."

The atmosphere was electric. One figure in the rear rank began to sway but was instantly gripped by his comrades on either side. The most hardened terrorists there—used to the carnage of the battlefield—were chilled by the cold, deliberate voice.

The man in the white coat stepped forward. His knife approached the eyes of the panic-stricken man again, and its tip rested just under the eyeball for several seconds. It pulled back and flashed forward again; this time the blade severed the cloth gag that had prevented the prisoner from screaming. The man in the white coat removed the gag and dropped it to the ground. He took a flask from his pocket and held it to the man's parched lips; he drank greedily. Faint hope flickered in his eyes. The flask was removed, and the prisoner was left alone in the pool of light.

A second spotlight came on, spreading an empty circle of light about thirty meters in front of the prisoner. All eyes looked at the space. They heard a faint shuffling sound, like a man struggling with a heavy burden. A shape appeared in the pool of light and came to a halt. He turned to face the prisoner. He lifted the riflelike launcher and pointed it at the condemned man. The watchers looked from one lighted area to the other. Screams of terror, unending screams, filled the air, and the prisoner's body bent and twisted as he tried in vain to get loose.

The operator of the Russian LPO-50 manpack flamethrower readied his weapon; with the thickened fuel he was using, he could blast the flaming napalm up to seventy meters. He was carrying three cylinders of fuel—enough firepower for nine seconds of firing, far more than would be necessary. He waited for Kadar's signal.

"Kill him," said the voice.

The man with the flamethrower fired.

Chapter 16

Ambassador Harrison Noble, deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office to Combat Terrorism (OCT), put down the report with a gesture of disgust.

He was a tall, thin career diplomat with more than a passing physical resemblance to the economist, author, and sometime ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith. In his late fifties, his hair now thinning and silver gray, he was a distinguished-looking man. Women still found him attractive.

Before joining the State Department in the 1950s, Noble had been a much-decorated fighter pilot in Korea with eleven confirmed kills to his credit, palpable proof to his recruiters at the time—who were still smarting from the witch-hunting of the McCarthy era—that here was one man who certainly wasn't soft on communism and, by implication, anything else un-American.

The ambassador sighed at the possible implications of the report that lay on the polished surface of his otherwise empty desk. He leaned back in his soft leather swivel chair and looked at his assistant. He could just see her knees from this angle, and very pretty they were, too. At least his was a comfortable way to fight terrorism. "An execution by flamethrower," he said. "Quite revolting. What is the source of this report?"

"The Israelis have one of the instructors in the camp on their payroll," said the assistant. "Since the Israelis told us that, and since they have little respect for our security, it probably isn't true; but at least they seem to be taking the situation seriously."

"Does nobody in this business tell the truth?"

"It's about the same as diplomacy," said the assistant dryly. She was a determinedly ambitious woman in her late thirties. She had made it clear that she had a certain interest in the deputy director, who for his part was still debating the issue. A discreet affair surely qualified as quiet diplomacy. However, he was far from sure it was possible to do anything discreetly in Washington.

He eased his chair up from full tilt, and more of her elegant legs slid into view. It was proving to be a satisfyingly sexual conversation.

"So what do you make of it?" he asked, gesturing at the top secret folder in front of him. It seemed a ridiculous way to label something that was really secret. "A hijack?"

"Unlikely. There are at least seventy being trained in that camp."

"Maybe a series of hijacks?"

"Perhaps, but it doesn't seem likely. They're being trained as an integrated team. It's more like a commando raid."

"An embassy?" He hoped not. Well over a hundred million dollars had recently been spent on improving security at U.S. diplomatic missions abroad, but he knew full well that this had merely tinkered with the problem. Few of the existing buildings had been designed with security as a top priority, and modifications were difficult to implement while at the same time the staff carried out traditional diplomatic and consular duties. There was also the problem of modern firepower: bulletproof glass in windows and reception areas and armor plate on vehicles were not enough when a pocketful of explosives, properly placed, could bring down the front of a building or transform an armored vehicle and its occupants into bloody scrap.

"It's still a large group for an embassy," she said. "The normal practice is to infiltrate small picked teams. It's just not that easy to deploy seventy armed terrorists. In fact, that's one of the most puzzling aspects of this thing: how are so many people going to be put in place without being spotted at airport checks and borders? It is not as if these seventy are all new faces; on the contrary, it's a select team. We have records on many of them."

"If I weren't a diplomat," said Noble, "I'd suggest we take them out at source—a preemptive surgical strike, Israeli style."

"Bomb Libya?" said the assistant. "No way. The President would never agree."

"Not to mention the political fallout that would result. Our European allies do so much business with Libya and the rest of the Arab world that they regard a certain toleration of terrorism as an acceptable price. And they have a point: terrorism gets publicity, but it doesn't actually kill many people or cost an impossible amount. Seen on a wider scale, it is tolerable."

"Unless you're a victim," said the assistant.

Noble glanced at the report again. "I see our source thinks this thing will probably go down in May." He smiled. "Every cloud has a silver lining. If the source is right, I won't be here. The hot seat will be all yours. I'm going away from all this hassle to visit my son at school and do a little quiet fishing." He played an imaginary fishing rod back and forth and mentally landed his fly precisely on target. He could almost feel the wind on his face and hear the faint splash of an oar and the squeak of an oarlock as the gillie adjusted the drift of the boat.

"Where are you going?"

"Ireland," he said, "the west of Ireland."

"Aren't you worried about security there?"

"Not for a moment. There is major terrorist activity in Ireland all right, but it's mostly confined to the North and strictly the Irish versus the Brits, or variations thereof. Even in the North foreigners are left alone, and the rest of Ireland is peaceful. If I may draw a parallel, being worried about the crime rate in New York is no reason not to visit this country; you just steer clear of New York."

What a pity he's going away so soon, thought the assistant; he's almost hooked. The softly-softly technique was working, but a month apart could overstrain it. Well, she still had three weeks or so to land her catch. She crossed her legs slowly and with a perceptible rustle. His eyes flicked up to her.

Good. Now she had his full attention.

Absentaindedly Ivo circled his right wrist with the fingers of his left hand and felt for the silver bracelet Klaus had given him. He twisted the bracelet backward and forward against his wrist until the skin was red. He didn't notice the pain. He was thinking about the man he had seen with Klaus, the man who had disappeared with Klaus, the man who had probably killed him.

Over the last few days he had talked to everyone he could think of who had known Klaus in the hopes of identifying the man with the golden hair, but without success. Now he sat in the Hauptbahnhof waiting for the Monkey to return from Zurich. The Monkey had worked much the same market as Klaus, and from time to time they had sold their services together when that was what the customer wanted. The Monkey had one great talent apart from those he displayed in bed: he had a photographic memory for numbers—any sort of number. Klaus used to say he could keep a telephone book in his head. His record of the license plates of all his past clients could be a gold mine when they got older and fading looks forced them to diversify into a bit of blackmail. Ivo couldn't imagine being older.

The only trouble with dealing with the Monkey was that he wasn't just stupid; he was stupid, stubborn, and a congenital liar. If he wasn't treated just right, he might clam up even if he did know something. And if he didn't, he might pretend to, and that could be just as bad. The Monkey could well need some persuading to tell the truth, thought Ivo. He didn't like violence and wasn't very good at it, but finding Klaus's killer was a special case. He stopped rubbing the silver bracelet and put his hand in his pocket. He touched the half meter of sharpened motorcycle chain nestled there snugly in a folded chamois. He would threaten to scar the Monkey for life. The Monkey would listen to that; his looks were his stock-in-trade.

Passersby gave the grubby figure sitting cross-legged on the floor a wide berth; his clothes were ragged, he looked dirty, and he smelled. Ivo didn't mind. He didn't even notice. He thought of himself as a knight-errant, a knight in shining armor on a quest for justice. He would succeed and return to Camelot.

Sir Ivo. It sounded good.

She kept her eyes closed at first; her head throbbed and she felt nauseated. She was conscious of something wet and cool on her forehead and cheeks. It gave some slight relief, though the effect was transitory. Confused and disoriented though she was, it struck her that her position was uncomfortable. She thought she was in bed, or should be in bed, but when she tried to move, she could not, and it didn't feel like bed.

A wave of fear ran over her. She tried to make herself believe it was a dream, but she knew it was not. As calmly as she could she made herself come fully to her senses. She began to accept what initially her mind had rejected as impossible: she was bound, hand, foot, and body, to an upright chair—and she was naked.

The damp cloth was removed from her face. She had expected to feel it against her throat and neck, but its cool caress was withheld. Instead, she felt something cold and hard around her neck. There was a slight noise, and it became tighter. She could still breathe, but there was some constriction; it felt rigid, like a collar of metal.

Panic gripped her. For a moment she choked, but as she fought to bring herself under control, she found she could breathe, albeit with difficulty. She tried to speak, but no words came out. Her mouth was sealed with layers of surgical tape. She recognized its faint medicinal smell. It was an odor she associated with care, with the dressing of wounds and the relief of pain; for a moment she felt reassured as she tried to believe what she did not believe: that she was safe. The seconds of sanctuary passed, and suddenly her whole being was suffused with terror. Her body shook and spasmed in panic but to no avail. Her bonds were secure, immovable in the face of her every effort. Resistance was pointless. Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

Kadar—she knew him by another name—was sprawled in the Charles Eames chair in front of her. His legs were stretched out, feet up on the matching footstool. His hands were clasped around a brandy snifter. He lifted the glass and swirled the contents around, then sniffed the bouquet appreciatively. He sipped some of the golden liquid and returned the glass to his lap. He was wearing a black silk shirt open to the navel and Italian-cut white trousers of some soft material. His feet were bare. He looked easygoing and relaxed, the master of the house at leisure; his eyes glinted with amusement.

"I would guess," he said, "that you are about at the stage where you are wondering what's going on. You are probably backtracking and trying to recall your most recent memories. Nod if you agree."

She stared at him, her eyes large and beautiful above the mask of surgical tape. Seconds passed; then she nodded.

"We were making love," he said, "or to be quite accurate, we had just finished a rather energetic soixante-neuf with a few little variations, if you remember. You were very good, I might even say outstanding, but then you always did have a special talent for sensuality, and I believe I may say, with due modesty, that I taught you well. Don't you agree?"

She nodded again, this time quickly, eager to please. This was one of his bizarre sexual games, and he would not really hurt her. She tried to believe it. She could hear her heart pounding.

"I'm sorry about the gag," he said, "but the Swiss have this obsession about noise. I'll tell you how I first became aware of the noise issue. It gave me quite a shock at the time, as I'm sure you can imagine.

"Shortly after I first arrived in Bern—that was many years ago, my sweet, when you were still a chubby-cheeked little girl—one evening about midnight I decided in my innocence to have a bath. A rather pretty young Turkish waiter who worked in the Mцvenpick was the reason, as I recall, but I could be wrong. The memory plays such tricks.

"Anyway, there I was with my loofah at hand, soaping my exhausted penis and singing the 'Song of the Volga Boatmen,' when there was a ring at the door. I tried to ignore it because there is nothing worse than leaving a relaxing bath after you've settled in, but the finger on the doorbell would not desist. I swore in several different languages and dripped across and opened the door. Lo and behold, there stood not my pretty Turkish waiter looking for an encore but, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two of Bern's finest Berps.

"Some anonymous neighbor, overwhelmed with civic duty and obviously not a lover of Russian music, had called the police. They informed me, to my shock, horror, amusement, and downright incredulity, that there is some law or other that actually forbids having a bath or a shower or using a washing machine or generally doing anything noisy after ten at night or before eight in the morning. So there you are. It's now nearly two in the morning, so I had to gag you. I wouldn't want you screaming and breaking the law."

Kadar drained the brandy glass. He refilled it from a cut-glass decanter that rested nearby on a low glass-topped table. There was a small stainless steel basin containing a folded cloth beside the decanter.

"But I was explaining what happened after our shared soupcon of sex. Actually there is not much to tell. You fell asleep; I dozed a bit; then, gently, I struck you on a certain special spot on the back of your head to render you unconscious—it's an Indian technique, if you're interested, from a style of fighting known as kalaripayit—and then I arranged you as you now find yourself, drank a little brandy, read a Shakespeare sonnet or two, and waited for you to recover. It took longer than expected, and in the absence of the smelling salts so beloved by ladies of fashion in more civilized times, I had to make do with soothing your fevered brow with a damp cloth. That seemed to do the trick.

"You might well ask why I have gone to so much trouble—and I see from your expression that that very question has crossed your mind. Well my dear, it's all about discipline. You did something you shouldn't have done—doubtless for the best of motives, but I really don't care—and now you have to be punished.

"You have to see it from my point of view. You may think my main preoccupation is our little band here in Switzerland. You don't realize that I have a number of such interests scattered across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and elsewhere, and the only way I can keep them under control—given that I must be away so much—is, in the final analysis, through absolute discipline. Discipline is the key to my running a multinational operation, and discipline has to be enforced.

"You see, I worked out my particular multinational management style, my objectives, and my strategy when I was at Harvard. It was while studying the activities of the big soap companies like Procter Gamble and Unilever that I got the idea. They have different brands of soap and cleaning powder, all competing to some extent for different segments of the market. I decided there was a major commercial opportunity to exploit in the rapidly developing phenomenon of terrorism—all that hate, frustration, idealism, and sheer raw energy waiting to be tapped and manipulated—so I decided to do much the same thing as the soap companies, except with terrorist groups instead of detergent. Each little band of fanatics is tailored to a specific market. Each little band has its own rules and rituals and tokens to give it a sense of esprit de corps and identity, but each little band has only one purpose, just like all the others: to make me a profit.

"I'm very profit-oriented. I don't give a fuck about the rights of the Palestinians, the ambitions of the Basques, the overthrow of the Swiss establishment, or whatever. I care a great deal about cash flow, return on investment, and meeting financial targets. It's all about the bottom line in the end."

He paused for a moment and held his cut-glass brandy snifter up to the light. He swirled the amber liquid and watched the changing sparkle of golden light with concentration; then he turned his gaze back to the naked girl.

"Initially you were instructed to follow the Irishman and to report his movements, preferably without being detected. Later on, when it seemed that he might be becoming aware of your interest, you were ordered to keep a discreet eye on him from a distance and even then only intermittently so there would be no risk of your being discovered. You were ordered to do nothing more than that—nothing more!" His voice had risen, and he was almost shouting. He calmed himself and continued speaking. "My dear, I'm forgetting myself and what time it is. I certainly don't want to upset all those sleeping burghers of Bern, and as for raising my voice in a lady's presence, I do apologize.

"The truth is I can't abide indiscipline. I expect that's why I made my base in Switzerland; despite its many peculiarities, it's such a disciplined society. Lack of discipline shocks me, this casual disregard of precise instructions. In your case it was particularly shocking. I thought you understood. Then I come back from an important business trip to find that—on your own initiative—you and that fool Pierrre have decided to exceed instructions and kill the Irishman merely because he looked alone and vulnerable on the Kirchenfeld Bridge; and you didn't even succeed, two of you, with surprise on your side."

He shook his head sadly. "This is not proper behavior for members of my organization. It is just as well that Pierre was killed before I could lay my hands on him. Have you not learned already what happens to those who disobey orders? Have you forgotten so soon the lesson of Klaus Minder? An overtalkative boy. I would have thought the manner of his dying would have made you painfully aware that I expect my orders to be adhered to." A thought occurred to him. "Perhaps you thought the elimination of the Irishman would please me."

She met his gaze for a moment; then her eyes dropped away. A feeling of helplessness swept over her. They had indeed thought he would be pleased if this unexpected threat to his plans were eliminated. In fact, it was the horrific example of Minder's ritual killing by Kadar that had persuaded them to act. Now it had all backfired; it was hopeless. She tried not to think of the import of what he was saying to her. She looked down at the ground in front of her and tried to let his words wash over her. She began to writhe and struggle in a futile attempt to get free; then she saw that the carpet under and immediately around her chair was covered with a clear plastic sheet. Horror overwhelmed her when the significance of this typical example of Kadar's attention to detail sank in. Her body sagged in despair. She knew she was going to die and within minutes. How remained the only question.

"The snag is, my dear," said Kadar, "you cannot see the bigger picture. Fitzduane doesn't even know what he is looking for. He is working out some male menopausal hunch based upon his accidental finding of young von Graffenlaub. He won't discover anything significant before we are ready to strike, and then it will be too late. There isn't time for him to get into the game. He doesn't have the knowledge to make the connections. He's a watcher, not a player, unless through some stupidity we make him into one.

"I wanted to keep a loose check on what Fitzduane was up to through my various sources, but certainly not to draw his attention to the fact that he might be on to something. Now, by trying to kill him, you've begun to give him credibility. If you had succeeded, the situation would have been worse. You would have focused attention on matters we want left well alone for the next few weeks."

Kadar lit a thin cigar and blew six perfect smoke rings. He did many such things well; he was blessed with excellent physical coordination.

"Darling Esther," he said, "it is good to be able to talk things over with you. Command is a lonely business; it's rare that I get the chance to explain things to someone who will understand. You do understand, don't you?"

He didn't bother to wait for a nod of agreement but instead checked his watch. He looked up at her. "Well, it's time for the main event," he said. "I'd better explain the program; as a tribute to our past intimacy, it's only fair that you know the details. I wouldn't want you to miss something. It's all rather interesting, with plenty of historical precedent as a method of execution.

"My dear darling Esther," he said, "you are going to be garroted. It's a technique that was rather popular with the Spanish, I'm told. I think I've got the machinery right, though one cannot be sure without field testing, and, as you may imagine, that is not the easiest thing to arrange. So you are the first with this particular device; I do hope it all goes well.

''It works like this: At the back of the metal collar around your neck is a simple screw mechanism connected to a semicircle of metal that sits just inside the collar. Turning the screw clockwise, with a lever to make it easier to handle, forces the inner semicircle of metal to tighten against the back of the neck and, correspondingly, the front of the collar to constrict and then crush the throat. This can be done almost instantaneously or quite slowly; it's a matter of personal preference.

"They tell me that the physical result is similar to strangulation: your eyes will bulge, your face will turn blue, your tongue will stick out, and you will suffocate. Eventually, as the mechanism tightens further, the force exerted by the screw on the back of your neck will break it. By then, I expect, you will be unconscious and either dead or close to it, so you'll miss the final action. It's a pity, but that's just the way it is."

Kadar hauled himself out of his chair, stretched, and yawned. He patted her on the head, then walked around behind her. "It's all about discipline, my dear," he said. "And the bottom line."

He began to tighten the screw.

Chapter 17

Colonel Ulrich Hoden (retired) had risen early. He had a problem. Major Tranino (retired), his old wartime companion, and over the intervening decades his chess partner—normally by post but twice a year in person—was on a winning streak. He had beaten the colonel twice in a row. Something had to be done if a hat trick was to be staved off.

Over a game of jass, the Swiss national card game, he had posed the problem to his companions. After much deliberation and several liters of Gurten beer, they had suggested that what the colonel needed was perspective: to study the chess problem from a new angle. One of his companions suggested that he work it out on one of the giant open-air chessboards scattered around Bern. He particularly recommended the board next to the Rosengarten. It was only twenty minutes from where the colonel was staying with his grandchildren in the Obstberg district, and apart from the pleasures of the garden itself, the view of Bern from the low hill on which the garden was located was spectacular.

The colonel took the steep path up to the Rosengarten instead of the longer but gentler route. At the top there was a glass-fronted cafй, still closed at this hour, with an outside eating area bordered by a low wall. He rested there for a few minutes, catching his breath after the steep climb and taking in the sight of old Bern laid out below. He could see the course of the River Aare, the red-tiled roofs of the old buildings, the spire of the Mьnster against the distant skyline of snowcapped mountains, and all around him trees and flowers were coming into full bloom as if in special haste to make up for their long sleep under the snows of winter. A robin landed on the wall beside him, peered up inquisitively, hopped around a couple of times, then flew away about its business.

The colonel decided that he had better follow the robin's example. Major Tranino's problem was a tricky one. The sooner he laid it out on the giant chessboard, the sooner inspiration might strike.

As he neared the chessboard, he was surprised to see the pieces all laid out ready to play. They were normally stacked away at night, and it now looked as if someone might have beaten him to it despite the early hour. Ah, well, he had enjoyed the walk, and there might be the chance of a game. Perhaps two heads could solve the colonel's little difficulty. But would that be ethical? Probably not. It was supposed to be strictly mano a mano when the colonel and the major were playing, notwithstanding the geographical separation.

Something about the chessboard looked odd, and he could see no other players. He came closer. The blue and white chess pieces were nearer to him, the tallest of them the size of a small child, reaching halfway up his thigh. He put on his glasses; there was nothing wrong with the blue and white pieces. He turned his gaze to the red and black pieces and walked forward onto the board itself to study the pieces one by one.

The pawns gleamed in their new paint, and the contrasting slashes of color reminded him of nothing so much as a file of Swiss Guards on parade in the Vatican. He knew that there was something wrong and that he should have seen what it was by now, and he admitted to himself that even with his glasses his eyes were not what they had been. He really should get a stronger pair; vanity be damned.

He stepped forward again to study the back row. The rook seemed fine; the knight and the bishop were normal; next came the queen—and it was the queen that killed him.

There was no queen. In her place, propped upright, was the upper half of the body of a young woman. She seemed to be smiling at him, then he realized that her lips had been cut away to expose her teeth.

The pain was immediate and massive. He swayed briefly and then fell back on the hard slabs of the chessboard. His last thought before the heart attack killed him was that Major Tranino (retired) looked as if he would win three times in a row, if only by default in the case of the third game—and that was a pity because Colonel Hoden (retired) thought he just might have found the answer.

*  *  *

Fitzduane supposed that his ideas of what an Autonomous Youth House should look like were conditioned by his recollection of the one in Zurich. He remembered a battered and litter-strewn industrial building covered with graffiti and still freshly scarred from recent riots, and everywhere around it broken glass and empty tear gas canisters and twitchy policemen. He was almost disappointed by what he found in Bern.

Taubenstrasse 12 was a large, solid three-story construction with a distinctly nineteenth-century feel about it. Its style positively radiated probity, bourgeois values, and the merits of the Bernese establishment. In contrast with the sober image projected by the building, half a dozen spray can-inscribed sheets fluttered their calls for freedom, anarchy, and pot for all from the front of the house. In counterpoint, less than a hundred meters away was the gray, multistory, modernistic box that housed the Federal Police administration.

As Fitzduane approached, a young couple rushed from the building. The man's face was red and swollen, as if he had been on the losing side in a fight, and blood was gushing from his nose. The girl with him was crying. They pushed past Fitzduane and ran out into the small park that bordered the other side of Taubenstrasse.

The front door was open. Fitzduane called out, then knocked. No one answered. Balancing caution and curiosity, he went in. The hall was dark and cool in contrast with the glare of the sunlight. He paused while his eyes adjusted.

A hand grabbed his arm. "Polizei?" a voice asked nervously.

Fitzduane removed the hand. It was dirty, as was the person it belonged to. The person also smelled.

"No," said Fitzduane.

"You are English?" The voice belonged to a small, scruffy youth of about twenty. He seemed agitated.

"Irish," said Fitzduane. "I'm looking for someone called Klaus Minder. A friend told me he sometimes lives here."

The youth gave a start. He moved away from Fitzduane and examined him carefully. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he was shaking. He removed a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket and tried to light it but was unable to hold the match steady. Fitzduane moved forward gently and held his wrist while flame and marijuana made contact. The wrist was frail and thin. The youth inhaled deeply several times, and some of the tension went from his face. He looked at Fitzduane.

"You must help us," he said. "First you must help us."

Fitzduane smiled. "If it's legal and quick, or at least quick. What's the problem?"

The youth leaned forward. He smelled terrible and looked worse, but there was something, some quality, curiously appealing about him. "There is a man upstairs, a Dutchman—his name is Jan van der Grijn—and he is creating trouble. If you go up, because you are an outsider, he will stop."

"Why's he doing this?"

The youth shrugged. He looked at the ground. "He stayed here a little while ago," he said, "and after he left, he found he was missing some stuff. He has come back to find it. He says one of us robbed him, and he's threatening everyone who was there that night."

"Why don't you go to the police?"

The youth shook his head. "We don't want the police in here," he said. "We have enough trouble with them."

The marijuana smoke diffused through the corridor. "I can't imagine why," said Fitzduane dryly. He was thinking it might be an excellent idea to leave.

The youth tugged him by the arm. "Come on," he insisted. "Afterward I will tell you about Klaus."

Reluctantly Fitzduane followed the youth up the stairs. "What's your name?" he called up after him.

"Ivo," answered the youth. He opened a door off the second-floor landing and stood aside. Muffled shouts came from inside, but Fitzduane went in anyway. An extremely bad decision. The door slammed shut behind him.

He could smell Ivo by his side. "The Dutchman has two friends with him," Ivo said. "They are the ones in the leather jackets."

"Good information," said Fitzduane, "but lousy timing." Before he knew what was happening, he felt an armlock around his neck and something sharp being pressed against his kidneys. Someone with foul breath spoke into his right ear. He didn't understand a word.

A big man in a leather jacket stopped punching a blond youth, who was held by an equally large companion, and came forward. He hit Fitzduane once very hard in the stomach. Fitzduane sagged to his knees. He felt sick, and he was getting quite angry.

Detective Kurt Siemann of the Bern Kriminalpolizei, not one of the Chief Kripo's favorites, hence his rank—or rather lack of it at the mature age of forty-seven—was of two minds about whether to follow Fitzduane into the Youth House.

His brief was terse: "Keep an eye on him, note his movements, keep him out of trouble, but don't hassle him," which seemed to Siemann to incorporate certain self-canceling elements. Following Fitzduane into the Youth House could well be construed as "hassling." On the other hand, since the Bern police were not yet equipped to see through stone walls, the instruction "Keep an eye on him" was currently being obeyed only in the figurative sense at best. Another complication was that it was current police policy in Bern to steer clear of the Youth House as much as possible. It was a policy with which Detective Siemann did not agree; he was all in favor of donning riot gear and cracking a few heads.

Detective Siemann decided that on balance he was probably better off staying outside, staring at the tulips and counting the flies. He thought it wouldn't do any harm if he sat down on the grass and rested for a few minutes. He lay down and put his hands behind his head—it wasn't all bad being a policeman in the spring. It might not be fair to say that he fell fast asleep, but even Detective Siemann himself would admit that he dozed.

The Bear tried to maintain an orderly wallet with everything in its place, but somehow it didn't seem to work out that way. Cash, credit cards, notes, receipts, police bulletins, bills, letters, and other impedimenta of debatable origin all seemed to gravitate of their own volition in no logical order to an apparently endless series of pockets that he had discovered disgorged their contents only on whim. It was infuriating. He worried that he would be unable to find his police identity card at some crucial moment, but so far, at least, that piece of documentation seemed to be a bit less independently mobile than the others.

The Bear hadn't found a way to solve his problem, but he had discovered over the years that he could keep anarchy marginally in check by a deliberate daily ritual—weekly more like it—of emptying out his pockets on his office desk and doing a sort.

He swore violently in Berndeutsch, and then in Romansh for good measure, when he discovered in the debris the photograph of the motorcyclist the Irishman had asked him to check. He reached for the phone.

The answer from the vehicle registration computer came through almost immediately. The motorcycle was registered to a Felix Krane with an address in Lenk. He checked with the Operations Room and discovered that Fitzduane's tail had reported in by personal radio some eight minutes earlier. The Irishman was in the Youth House.

The Bear decided it might be a good idea to make up for his absentmindedness by delivering his information immediately. He looked at the chaos on his desk, swore again, extracted the minimum necessary for survival, and swept the balance into a drawer.

He headed toward the Youth House, which was only a few minutes away on foot. Most places were, in Bern.

Fitzduane felt a hand cup his chin, and his head was jerked painfully backward.

Van der Grijn stared down at him for a few seconds and then withdrew his hand with a grunt. "No, I don't think so."

He spoke a quick command in Dutch, and Fitzduane felt himself hauled to his feet and quickly but thoroughly frisked. The shoulder bag containing his camera equipment and the tripod case lay on the floor, ignored in the confusion.

Out of the corner of his eye Fitzduane could see Ivo to his right but slightly behind him. Fitzduane had the strong feeling that Ivo knew more than he was saying. Still, comparing the slight figure of Ivo with the three burly Dutchmen, he began to appreciate the youth's courage. He'd known what he was up against, and he could have gotten away. Instead, he had deliberately put himself in danger to try to do something about the situation.

Van der Grijn stepped back a couple of paces and stood to one side so that he could keep Fitzduane in full view while the Dutchman who had been doing the frisking came around in front of Fitzduane and started going through his pockets. He was carrying a Bundeswehrmesser, the standard West German Army fighting knife. He held it in his right hand as he emptied Fitzduane's pockets with his left. At all times he kept the point of the blade, which bore the signs of many loving encounters with a sharpening stone and glistened under a light film of oil, either under Fitzduane's neck or angled slightly upward for an easy thrust into his heart or stomach.

Fitzduane kept quite still. His wallet was removed from his inside pocket and handed to van der Grijn. The searcher stepped back and then returned to his position behind Fitzduane, by the door. Fitzduane mentally christened him Knife. He thought that Knife was about two meters behind him. He was beginning to have some potential room to maneuver.

Van der Grijn flipped open Fitzduane's wallet. He pocketed cash and credit cards and examined Fitzduane's press card and other credentials. The short pause gave Fitzduane time to get his bearings. The rectangular room was spacious but furnished only with a large, plain wooden table, two stuffed armchairs not in the prime of life, and two straight-back chairs. Every square millimeter of wall space was covered with drawings, slogans, and other graffiti. Light came from one large and two small windows at one end of the room.

There were roughly a dozen people of both sexes lined up in two irregular groups on either side of the room. They were mostly in their late teens and early twenties, but several were older. All of the smaller group—four in number—had been badly beaten. One lay on the floor, his bloody hand over his eyes and a pool of blood leaching from his head.

"So," said van der Grijn, holding up Fitzduane's press card, "you are a photographer." Like many Dutchmen, he spoke good English though the accent lingered. Each syllable was enunciated, and the voice was hard and uncompromising. Fitzduane noted that the second of van der Grijn's sidekicks was about five meters ahead and to his left, near the windows at the end of the room, and was able to monitor the whole room. He could see the butt of a large-caliber revolver protruding from a shoulder holster as the man shifted position. He seemed entertained by the situation. He was shorter than van der Grijn and Knife but had the physique of a body builder.

The prospects of doing something did not look good. Van der Grijn and Knife aside, there was no chance of getting near the third man before he had a chance to fire. He designated the third man Gun. The others in the room looked as if they had been persuaded out of heroism. That left Ivo. Something less than a balance of power.

Van der Grijn put Fitzduane's credentials into his pocket. "All you people have to do is flash your ID and doors open," he said. "Very useful."

Fitzduane had the strong feeling that whatever he said would be pointless, but he thought he ought to go through the motions.

"Give them back," he said quietly.

Van der Grijn didn't reply immediately. His face slowly flushed with anger. It began to be clear that he was high on something and that rationality had little to do with his behavior. He rocked slightly to and fro on his feet, and Fitzduane braced himself for a blow. The Dutchman at the window grinned.

Van der Grijn reached inside his leather jacket and pulled a long-barreled 9 mm Browning automatic out of his shoulder holster. He checked the clip, cocked the weapon, and deactivated the safety catch. Suddenly he whipped up the gun and held it in a two-handed combat grip a hair's breadth from Fitzduane's nose.

Fitzduane could smell the gun oil. He was looking straight down the black pit of the muzzle; it shook in van der Grijn's hands. He didn't think van der Grijn could be crazy enough to shoot him in a room full of witnesses, for no good reason except machismo, and only a sparrow hop from the Federal Police building. Then he looked into van der Grijn's eyes and knew that things weren't in control, and that if he didn't do something soon, he would die. He moistened his lips to speak, and the gun barrel jabbed closer.

All eyes in the room were fixed on van der Grijn, Fitzduane, and that swaying gun barrel. A bearded man standing in the as-yet-uninterrogated group bent down almost imperceptibly, as if to massage an aching calf muscle, and with two fingers removed a Beretta from his boot. Nobody seemed to notice.

Fitzduane debated making an immediate move but decided against it. Van der Grijn only had to flinch and Fitzduane's skull would explode. But fuck it, he was going to have to do something. Van der Grijn and his people weren't going to lie down quietly. They were high, drunk on power—but they hadn't seen the bearded man draw the Beretta. Fitzduane could feel the sweat trickling into his eyes, but he was afraid to move to wipe it away.

Van der Grijn's eyes went empty; then he fired.

The Bear was looking down at the somnambulant form of Detective Siemann with amusement rather than anger when he heard the shot. His feelings of benevolence toward Siemann changed in one split second. "Wake up, you idiot," he snarled at him, simultaneously kicking him hard in the ribs.

The large window of the room on the second floor of the Youth House burst into shards of glass. A chair hurtled through it and smashed on the pavement below, missing the Bear as he ran toward the entrance, pistol in hand. Siemann tripped on the splintered remains, cut himself messily on the spears of broken glass, picked himself up, and, pouring blood, ran after the Bear, who had by this time vanished into the building.

*  *  *

Fitzduane felt a sharp, burning pain as the muzzle blast seared the side of his face. The bullet cracked past his right ear so close it drew blood, and it splintered the door behind him before embedding itself in the plaster of the first-floor landing.

"You stupid shit," cried Fitzduane, shock, anger, and sheer naked terror combining to pump adrenaline into his bloodstream. He grabbed van der Grijn's wrists with both hands and deflected the Dutchman's aim toward the ceiling. Van der Grijn fired again and again as they struggled, hot shell casings showering across the room and plaster falling from the ceiling as the rounds bored their way in.

Knife leaped forward to help van der Grijn. Fitzduane swiveled van der Grijn around as the blade was thrust at him. He felt van der Grijn jerk and saw the shock in his eyes as the blade cut effortlessly through his leather jacket and entered his back. He bellowed in pain.

The second Dutchman had his revolver in his hand.

"Police!" yelled the bearded man. The voice was American. "Drop it, motherfucker!" The man had dropped into a combat crouch and had his gun aimed at the second Dutchman.

Moving with unexpected speed, the second Dutchman whirled toward the American, dropped to one knee, and fired two rounds at him, hitting him once in the stomach.

The American's first shot went over the second Dutchman's head, but then he sagged with the impact of the bullet in his stomach, and his aim dropped. The next five slugs from his little Beretta went into the Dutchman's face and neck. In a bloody parody of a knight's posture, the Dutchman stayed on one knee for several seconds, his head bowed, blood spurting from his wounds, his gun still held in his drooping hand, and then slid sideways to the ground.

The Dutchman with the knife, appalled and confused by his error, left the knife in van der Grijn's back and leaped at Fitzduane. The force of his attack separated Fitzduane from van der Grijn, who still held the automatic in his hand. Though half blinded by the plaster dust from the ceiling and groggy with pain from the knife in his back, he was still just able to function. He tried to aim at Fitzduane, who was wrestling with Knife on the floor.

Ivo, who had flung a chair out the window to attract attention, now flung a second chair at van der Grijn. It missed. He dived under the table, encountering a mass of arms and legs belonging to people who had beaten him to it. Van der Grijn, momentarily distracted from Fitzduane, fired back twice. One round gouged into the graffiti on the wall; the second drilled through the table, hitting a seventeen-year-old runaway from Geneva in the left thigh.

The door burst open. "Polizei!" yelled the Bear.

Van der Grijn fired. The Bear shot him four times in the chest, the rounds impacting in a textbook group and flinging van der Grijn back across the room. He staggered, still upright, and the Bear fired again, this time assisted by Detective Siemann.

Van der Grijn reeled back against the window, smashed through the remaining jagged edges of glass, and fell one story onto the pointed tops of the fleur-de-lis cast-iron railings below. His vast body arched at the impact and twitched for a few seconds; then it lay unmoving, impaled in half a dozen places.

The Bear smashed the one surviving Dutchman across the side of his face with his still-hot gun barrel. The Dutchman fell to the floor, his cheekbone broken, and lay on his back, moaning. The Bear flipped him over and pressed his gun into the back of his neck. "Don't move, asshole!" The Dutchman became quite still; intermittently he trembled, and moaning sounds came out of his mouth. The Bear kept his gun in position and, using his left hand, hand-cuffed him.

Siemann pulled the table aside. Bodies, intertwined in a confusion of limbs, began to separate. Terrified faces looked up at him. He held out his hand to help and realized he was still holding his gun. He holstered it and tried to say something reassuring. They stared at him, and he looked down at his bloodstained body. He shook his head and tried to smile, and the tension on the faces eased. One by one they rose to their feet. One figure remained unmoving, blood gushing from her thigh. Siemann leaped forward, ripped the belt from his waist, and began to apply a tourniquet. Once the bleeding eased, he unclipped his radio and put in an emergency call. When he finished, he caught the Bear's eye. The Bear nodded his head a couple of times and smiled fleetingly. He rested his hand on Siemann's shoulder.

"That was good, Kurt, that was very good."

Siemann didn't know what to say. He looked away and stroked the injured girl's forehead with his bloody hand. After twenty-five years on the force he no longer felt he had just a job: he felt accepted; he felt like a real policeman.

The Bear reached down to help Fitzduane to his feet. "What was that all about?"

"I'm fucked if I know." Fitzduane walked across to the bearded man, who was lying on the floor surrounded by a circle of people.

Someone had put a folded coat under his head. His face under the beard was very white.

Fitzduane knelt down by his side. "You'll be all right," he said gently. "That was some piece of shooting."

The man smiled weakly. "It's a paycheck," he said. His eyes were going cloudy. "The agency expects nothing less."

"CIA?"

"No, not those bozos—DEA." The man grimaced in pain.

"Help's coming," said Fitzduane. He looked down at the man's stomach. The large-caliber hollow-nosed bullet must have hit bone and ricocheted. The entire lower part of his torso seemed to have been ripped open. He had his hands folded across his intestines in a reflex attempt to keep them in. Fitzduane wanted to hold his hand or somehow comfort him, but the knew if he did so, it could add to the pressure and cause more pain.

The man closed his eyes and then opened them again. They were unfocused. "I can hear the dustoff," he whispered. Fitzduane had to bend down and put his ear to the man's mouth to hear him. "Those pilots have a lot of balls."

The man gave a little rattling sound, and for a moment Fitzduane was back in Vietnam watching another man die, the sound of the medevac chopper arriving too late. Then he knew that the sound of the helicopter was real and that it was circling somewhere outside the building.

The Bear looked down at the American. "He's dead," he said. As he had with Siemann, he put his hand on Fitzduane's shoulder, but this time he didn't say anything. Fitzduane, still kneeling, stayed there looking at the man's body, the hands already folded as if in anticipation of an olive green body bag. The blue eyes were still open; they looked faded. Fitzduane gently closed the eyelids, then rose off his knees.

From outside the Youth House, a heavily amplified voice boomed at them: "YOU INSIDE, THIS IS THE POLICE. LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP."

"Assholes," said the Bear. "It's the Federal Police from the building next door. They must be back from their coffee break."

Examining Magistrate Charlie von Beck—wearing a large, floppy brown velvet bow tie to go with his cream shirt and three-piece corduroy suit—was talking. The Chief thought von Beck looked like a leftover from a late-nineteenth-century artists' colony. He wore his fair hair long so it flopped over one eye. His father was an influential professor of law at Bern University, he was rich, had connections in all the right places, and he was sharp as a razor. All in all, thought the Chief, Charlie von Beck would have made an ideal person to hate. It irritated him that he liked the man.

"Well, it doesn't make the crime statistics look too good, I admit," said von Beck, "but you have to agree; it's exciting."

"Don't talk like that," said the Chief Kripo. "We haven't had this many violent deaths in Bern in such a short period since the French invasion nearly two hundred years ago—and all you can say is 'exciting.' I can see the headlines in Blick or some other scandal sheet:

CHAIN OF KILLINGS EXCITING, QUIP BERN AUTHORITIES."

"Relax," said von Beck. "Der Bund, in its usual discreet way, will come out with something to balance the scales, like: examining magistrate comments on statistical abnormality in crime figures."

"They don't write headlines that sensational," said the Chief. "So far, including Hoden, we have seven dead, two seriously injured, and eight or so slightly injured."

"At least there's an explanation for the fracas in the Youth House," said von Beck. "I'm still poking around, but we've interviewed most of the parties involved and had some feedback from the Amsterdam cops and the DEA."

"I wish they'd keep their cowboys off my patch," said the Chief Kripo in a grumpy voice.

"Don't be a spoilsport. Anyway, it looks fairly straightforward. Van der Grijn had some heroin stolen from him. He reckoned it had happened in the Youth House, so he came back with two heavies to try to find the culprit. The American DEA man was tailing him. Van der Grijn got out of hand when the Irishman walked in, and then all hell broke loose."

"It never used to be like this in Bern," said the Chief Kripo. "I don't care about explanations. I want it to stop."

"Well, don't hold your breath," said von Beck. "I've only been talking about the easy bits so far. We have an explanation for the Youth House deaths, and I guess Hoden's heart attack is no mystery under the circumstances."

"Poor Hoden, what a lousy way to go. You know I served under him for a while."

"So did my father," said von Beck.

"We're still left with a few questions about the Youth House," said the Chief. "For instance, who stole van der Grijn's heroin in the first place—and why? Is the thief selling it or has he some other motive? What was that Irishman doing there? Not content with flinging people off bridges, he seems to gravitate toward trouble like..." He paused, thinking.

"Do you want help on this one?" said von Beck politely.

The Chief shot von Beck a look. "And lastly," he continued, "is the Bear going to be in any trouble for killing van der Grijn?"

"I don't think so," said von Beck. "I don't see what else he could have done. He had seconds in which to judge the situation, he called it right, he put himself at risk—and he pulled it off. What's more, he didn't shoot a local, which always raises a stink regardless of the circumstances. It's all show biz in the end."

The Chief surveyed von Beck's sartorial splendor. The magistrate was himself no slouch when it came to show biz—and the bow tie always photographed distinctively. It was the kind of thing that photo editors left in when cropping a print.

The Chief tried to concentrate. He looked across at von Beck. "What about his using a .41 Magnum?"

"It doesn't look tactful in the media," said von Beck, "for a policeman to shoot a suspect six times with a cannon like the Magnum. On the other hand, the evidence is that van der Grijn, a large, powerful man hyped on drugs, was still a threat after being shot no less than four times." He shrugged. "In Heini's place, I'd have done the same thing—and fired again."

"Heini's talking about getting an even bigger gun," said the Chief gloomily. "He says to have to shoot someone six times before he goes down is ridiculous."

"If I was being shot at, I might feel the same way," said von Beck. "What was your first point?"

"Who stole van der Grijn's heroin?"

"The finger seems to point at Ivo."

"He's a dealer?"

"On the contrary," said von Beck. "He seems to hate the stuff. The word is that he destroys it."

The Chief raised his eyebrows. "Odd," he said. "What does he say?"

"Therein lies a problem," said von Beck. "By all accounts he was on the side of the angels during the gunfight—and then he seems to have vanished."

"Angels do that," said the Chief, "which brings us to the Irishman."

"Yes, well," said von Beck, "he may be innocent, but somehow—and don't ask me how—he's tied in with just about every phase of our little crime wave."

"Including Klaus Minder and the chessboard killing?"

"Yes, in a sense. According to the BKA, the chessboard girl was the partner of the man Fitzduane threw off the Kirchenfeld Bridge. Fitzduane identified her from a photo sent by the German authorities in Wiesbaden. She was also present when he was attacked but backed off when he threatened her with a shotgun."

"And how does Minder fit in?"

"That's more tenuous," said von Beck, "but it's what my English police friends would call a 'hopeful line of inquiry.' " He tapped the desk with a gold Waterman fountain pen to emphasize each point. "Point one, forensics thinks that Minder and the chessboard girl were sliced up by the same person. Point two, and I have no idea of the significance of this, Minder and Ivo were close friends. Point three—" The Chief flinched in anticipation but instead von Beck unzipped a leather container the size of a small briefcase and perused the row of pipes displayed within.

"Go on, go on," said the Chief impatiently. "Point three?"

"Klaus Minder was a close friend and sometime lover of the young and recently deceased Rudi von Graffenlaub." Von Beck closed the pipe case with a snap and zipped it up slowly.

"And our Irish friend is looking into the death of young Rudi with the forceful backing of Beat von Graffenlaub," said the Chief.

"The rest is details," said von Beck. "It's all in the file." He made a grandiloquent gesture.

"But you do have a theory about all this?"

"Not a one. This thing is so complicated it could go on for years."

"I thought you were supposed to be smart."

"I am, I am," said von Beck, "but who says the bad guys can't be smart, too?"

The telephone rang, and the Chief gave a sigh. He listened to the call, saying little, then turned to von Beck.

"The found the other half of the chessboard girl in a plastic bag inside the Russian Embassy wall," he said. "The Russians are livid and are complaining it's a CIA plot to embarrass them."

"Explain that we're neutral and will regard both them and the Americans with equal suspicion." Von Beck stood up to leave. "Now all we've got to find are Minder's balls."

"And Ivo," said the Chief.

*  *  *

Kadar was working his way through a pile of medical textbooks, and he had a splitting headache. The telex chattered again, exacerbating the headache. He rose, washed down two Tylenol with brandy, and decoded the message.

His headache subsided to an acceptable dull throb. He was knee-deep in medical tracts because he thought he might be suffering from some kind of psychiatric condition. In lay terms—he had not yet stumbled on the correct medical diagnosis—it seemed not unlikely that he was going mad. No, that conveyed images of Hogarthian excess, of twisted faces and dribbling idiots, of barred windows and straitjackets and padded cells. That was too much. He would not accept that he was going mad. He revised his analysis. As a result of sustained stress, he was behaving irrationally. He was doing things that were out of character, that he had not consciously planned, and of which he had scant recollection later.

It was worrying. He was glad that it would all soon be over. He would no longer have to live with the strain of a double existence—if indeed his life could be summed up in such a simple way. His existence was not merely divided into two. It was fragmented into multiple personas, and he had been sustaining this complex life for years. Really, a certain amount of aberration on the margin was to be expected, and possibly was a good thing. It was like letting off steam, a natural release of tensions, a purification through excess. That wasn't the real problem.

It was the periods of amnesia that concerned him. He was a man with an astonishing ability to manipulate and control other beings—up to and including matters of life and death—and yet his underlying fear, a fear that bordered on panic, was that he was losing his ability to control himself.

It was the incident with the girl on the chessboard that had persuaded him that he must get himself under control. Previous incidents, like his killing that beautiful boy Klaus Minder, were unpremeditated and perhaps a little excessive but could be rationalized in context of the needs of his advanced sexuality. Killing Esther was a matter of routine discipline. The killing and the manner of the killing were not the problem. But why had he suddenly taken the notion to draw attention to his presence by planting the torso in such a public place as the Rose Garden's chessboard—not to mention dumping the legs in the Russian Embassy?

Did he subconsciously want to be caught? Was this some sublimated cry for help? He hoped not. He'd put far too much effort into the last couple of decades to have some programmed element of his subconscious betray him. That was the trouble with the childhood phase. In your early years anyone and everyone has a go at programming you, from your parents to religious nuts, from corporations that bombard you with unremitting lies on TV to an educational system that trains you to conform to its values and does its level best to crush your own natural talent.

But Kadar had been lucky. From an early age he had sensed the realities of life, and lies, the corruption, the compromises. He had learned to have only one friend, one loyalty, one guide through life: himself. He had learned one key discipline: control. He had mastered one vital pattern of behavior: to live inside himself and to reveal nothing. Externally he appeared to conform; he knew how the game must be played.

He lay back in his chair and started the ritual of creating Dr. Paul. He desperately needed someone to talk to. But hours later, drenched in sweat, he admitted failure: the image of the smiling doctor wouldn't appear. His headache had escalated into the full, terrible agony of a serious migraine.

Alone in his soundproofed premises Kadar screamed.

Chapter 18

The Bear sat in a private room of Bern's ultramodern Insel Hospital 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-activated 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 electronic 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, placed it in an envelope, addressed and sealed the package, 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 Bдrengraben 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—the 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 spent 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 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 Bьndnerfleisch, 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 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 braindamaged 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 were 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 the 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 nauseam," 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 either 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 naive 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 upon 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 Kommissar'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 on 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 that 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 Kirchenfeld Bridge 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 Buisard 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? Gьnther? 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 Kimara. "Besides, I remember your taste in weapons from the Congo."

"I gather you think I'll need all 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 than 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 its 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 Ruhr Valley 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 young 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, 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 care 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 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 interrogation. 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 accouterments 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 eggshell 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 report 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. They 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. They 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 still 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 man 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 satiation 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 Glьhwein, 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 that 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 Glьhwein 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 Malta's tone of voice. The skier misjudged his approach to the chalet and slammed into the wooden railings.

"Olй!" 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 Simmenfдlle, the place beside the waterfall."

"He liked the Simmenfдlle," 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 talked with him. It's almost impossible to believe that 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 to the von Graffenlaub family, what had he seen 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 the Simmenfдlle. 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 Glьhwein getting cold. Then 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 canton 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 Simmenfдlle."

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 Simmenfдlle 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 like a colleague. Fitzduane found it quite odd to think of himself 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 schapps, "was a fine man. I wish you could have met him."

"So do I," said Fitzduane. He was annoyed at himself for not 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 Krane and being followed that day he had left Vreni and 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 Mьller," he said. He introduced Fitzduane. Mьller 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—Mьller'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 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."

Mьller 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 we 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. There was silence apart from his breathing. "Herr Fitzduane, are you armed?"

"Yes." He slid the shotgun from its case and extended the collapsible metal stock. He pumped an XR-18 round into the chamber and wished he had 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, and 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 bloodied 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 wanted to wait; he was safe in the darkness. But he knew that Franze needed help. It seemed probably 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 were 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 to 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 a shotgun blast 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 Mьller 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. Mьller nodded, opened the trunk of his car, and extracted a powerful battery searchlight. Fitzduane grabbed it and pushed Mьller into the driver's seat.

"Hospital and police—Hospital und Polizei—go!" shouted Fitzduane. He banged on the roof of the car, and Mьller 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 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 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 delay identification? Then he thought of the chessboard killing and 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 Mьller'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 Mьller 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 through 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 placed 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.

Chapter 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 with the body inside. His face was pale, his eyes rimmed with red, 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," said 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 Henssen.

"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 instance, 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 sadomasochistic 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 cafй in the Bдrenplatz. 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 that after twenty-eight years of marriage her man continued to find her desirable.

She smiled to herself. Sitting in the sun in the Bдrenplatz 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 go 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 cafй 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 glance 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. That 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.