Victor O'Reilly - Rules of The Hunt

General Shane Kilmara – it was really rather nice being a general at last – thought that Fitzduane looked terrible.

On the other hand, he looked less terrible than three weeks earlier. The sense that you were looking only at a receptacle for tubes, electronics, and the drug industry was gone. Now Fitzduane looked mostly like a messed-up human who was still being stuck together. Shades of Frankenstein when he needed more work, only Fitzduane was better-looking.

He was pale, he'd lost a lot of weight, and he was strapped, plastered, and plugged into a drip and a mess of other hardware, but he was sitting up and his green-gray eyes had life in them again. And that was good. Also, he was talking. That, perhaps, wasn't so good. Hugo was a particularly bright human being, and his questions meant work. And tended to have consequences.

"Who and why?" said Fitzduane.

"How about ‘Good morning,’" said Kilmara. "I haven't even sat down." He pulled up an armchair to demonstrate his lack and began to nibble at Fitzduane's grapes.

It was curious how hard it was to talk to the sick. You tended to meet and deal with most people in full, or at least reasonable, health. A person laid low was like a stranger. You no longer possessed a common frame of reference. The same applied to a soldier on the battlefield. When he was mobile, he was fire support and valued. After injury he was a statistic, a casualty – and a liability. It wasn't very nice, but it was true. And like many things in life, there wasn't much you could do about it.

Fitzduane, it appeared, wasn't going to accept the convention. He might look like something the cat had chucked up behind the sofa, but his brain was working.

Kilmara formed the view that his friend – actually his closest friend, now he thought of it, except maybe for Adeline, who was his wife and therefore didn't actually count in that particular census – was on the mend; maybe. The medics were still hedging their bets.

But it was going to be a long haul. Being shot with a high-powered rifle tended to have that effect. As they used to say in Vietnam, "A sucking chest wound is nature's way of telling you you've been hit." Hugo had been hit twice, and it showed.

"Shane," said Fitzduane. There was something about the tone.

Kilmara was caught in mid-munch. He swallowed the pits.

"No speeches," he said. "I embarrass easily."

Fitzduane was silent. "In case I forgot to mention it," he said, after a very long pause, "thank you."

"Is that it?" said Kilmara, sounding incredulous. "Is that all?" He grinned. "Truth to tell, we were lucky. Well, relatively lucky."

Fitzduane raised an eyebrow. "That's a matter or perspective," he said. "Now let's get to work. The white suits have cut back on the pills and needles, so I'm beginning to be able to string together a thought or two, and these first thoughts are not kindly. I want whoever is behind this. You've got some of the puppets and that's nice, but that's not what counts. What really matters is nailing the puppetmaster."

Two nurses came in and started to do things to Fitzduane before Kilmara could respond. They asked Kilmara to wait outside. When he came back in Fitzduane was paler, but his pillows were puffed up and his bed looked neater.

Kilmara had been shot in his life and had had malaria and other reasons for being hospitalized. He had formed the view that the medical professionals sometimes had their priorities mixed up. They liked their patients to look sharp so that they could show them off to the doctors. The patient's rest didn't seem to come into it. Nonetheless, he had a weakness for nurses. He could forgive most nurses most things.

He switched his mind back to Fitzduane. He had been told in words of one syllable that the patient was not to be worried and that stress was to be avoided at all costs. And now Fitzduane, his medication at last down to manageable proportions so he could think reasonably clearly, wanted to dive straight into the investigation. Tricky. Hard to know what to do.

"Hugo," he said, "are you sure you're ready for this? You're still a very sick fellow."

Fitzduane looked at him long and hard, eyes blazing.

"Shane," he said deliberately, the words punched out, "they nearly killed Boots. I saw the back of my son's head open up and his lifeblood pour out. I thought he was dead. Next time they could succeed. Don't fuck with me. You're my friend. Help me. These" – he paused now, shaking with emotion and weakness, searching for the right word – "these vermin have to be found, fixed, and destroyed. And I will do it, with or without your help."

"Found, fixed and destroyed."

The military phrase brought back a flood of memories to Kilmara. Fitzduane as a young lieutenant in the Congo. His first recon mission. The brutal firefight that had followed. Other missions. Other demonstrations of his effectiveness at the skills of deadly force. The man had a natural talent for combat. But then, that was his heritage.

Kilmara picked his words to ease the tension.

"There were three men who attacked you," he said. "Unfortunately, all were killed. Their identification papers were all false. Their clothing had been recently purchased and revealed nothing. There were no distinguishing marks."

Fitzduane still looked at him. It has been three weeks, the look implied.

"The one characteristic they all had in common was that they were Asian, or at least looked Asian. More specifically, they looked Japanese," continued Kilmara. "We put in an inquiry worldwide through Interpol and specifically to Japan through the Tokyo Metropolitan police. We trawled through other sources as we normally do when a terrorist profile is involved. And we phone our friends and called in a few favors and otherwise did a little rousting along the

Information Highway ."

"And?" said Fitzduane.

"The replies have been a little slow in coming. Of course, Interpol is not renowned for its reflexes and the Japanese are likely to chew things over before they swallow. Finally, it emerged that the three were members of a right-wing extremist group that had supposedly been broken up nearly three years back. Our three had been locked up on some technicality but were released about eight months ago."

"The timing is about right," said Fitzduane. The motive would have stemmed from his encounter with Kadar, the Hangman. If this was a revenge mission, he would have expected it to happen earlier. The designated hitters' being out of circulation at the Japanese government's pleasure could explain the timing. "But why Japanese?"

"The only thing," said Kilmara, "is that according to Tokyo our three violent friends shouldn't have turned up on your island."

"And why not?" said Fitzduane.

"They are supposed to be in the Middle East," said Kilmara cheerfully. "That's what the computer said. But what do computers know? More to the point, there is a slightly strange rhythm to the way some of the other sources have been responding. Silence, then the absolute minimum, and then a veritable feast. It's as if some people have figured out that we might be able to make a contribution to their particular game. As to who these people are…"

He looked at Fitzduane with some concern. The man was looking decidedly strange. "Hugo," he inquired tactfully, "are you sure you want to get into this?"

"Aahh!" said Fitzduane, in what sounded like a long sigh of understanding or acknowledgment.

"Adeline says that sometimes," said Kilmara cheerfully, "and I'm never quite sure if it's good or bad. It's a contextual noise."

"Aahh!" said Fitzduane again. He was propped up by pillows in an uncomfortable-looking hospital bed. He had turned frighteningly pale. Now he leaned forward, as if propelled from the back, and was violently sick.