Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

The first two grenades – capable of penetrating two inches of armor – were partially smothered by the concrete and sand safety cover that was itself blown apart in the process. The third and fourth grenades, their way now cleared, exploded inside the two-thousand-gallon tank, rupturing the container but not immediately setting fire to the contents.

Fuel poured into the tunnel and then blew when it encountered a red-hot grenade fragment. A fireball shot out of the entrance, engulfing the greenhouse that had so recently sheltered Andreas and Murrough.

There was silence from the tunnel mouth except for the crackling of flames. Black smoke billowed upward and stained the sky. At the bottom of the tunnel, and standing well to one side, Kadar felt the touch of a dragon's breath on his face. The men inside were dead, but most of the others had been withdrawn before the explosion.

The lead climbers were approaching the last stage of the ascent to the top of the cliff.

The

Island Road

– 1825 hours

The pilot of the Islander took his eyes off the group of students running toward him. They were now spread out in an irregular field more than a hundred yards long. He calculated that he could bring the aircraft to a halt about a quarter of a mile ahead of the leading runners, allowing plenty of time for the Phantom Air team to deplane and set up blocking positions.

The pilot felt his wheels touch the ground in a near-perfect landing. Ahead of him he saw the runners break to left and right and a Volvo station wagon accelerate from their midst and head straight toward him. Frantically he applied the brakes; the Volvo, bouncing and vibrating at high speed, he eaten up his runway margin in less than seven seconds. The pilot tried to imagine the effect of a head-on crash at a combined speed of more than a hundred miles an hour. He knew that whatever the outcome, after it was over, the respective occupants would be unlikely to take much interest in the matter.

He looked at the patch of bright green boggy ground that bordered the road to his left and then back at the Volvo, now only seconds away from impact. His resolve faltered. Better chicken than dead, he decided, and slid the plane off the road into the bright green grass. A mere fraction of a second later the Volvo skidded to a tire-burning halt on the other side of the road.

"A draw!" the terrorist pilot said to himself, feeling pleased that the Volvo driver's nerve had cracked only a split second after his. But the pilot's glee didn't last long. The bright green grass was, in fact, algae, he noted, and his aircraft, complete with the entire Phantom Air Unit, sank in twelve feet of scummy brown water.

"Fuck that for a caper," said Fitzduane as he stood on the verge and watched air bubbles make patterns on the green surface. "It's always easier to play a match on your home ground."

Runners streamed past him, and he waved them on toward the castle. De Guevain and Henssen puffed to a halt beside the Volvo.

"You're absolutely crazy," said de Guevain, shaking his head. Sweat streamed off him.

"Crazy but effective," corrected Henssen.

Fitzduane grinned, then opened the tailgate of the Volvo. "You old people," he offered, "need a lift?"

Fitzduane's Island – 1845 hours

The castle portcullis crashed into place as the first of the terrorists reached the top of the cliff. Farther down the road there was a series of scummy plops as the two surviving members of Phantom Air who had escaped from the aircraft pulled themselves out of the algae and started to walk back to the college. Neither was looking forward to Kadar's reception, but there was nowhere else to go.

Ranger Headquarters, Dublin – 1945 hours

The director general of the Irish Tourist Board was an urbane-looking silver-haired political appointee in his early fifties. His main operational tools – whatever the issue – were his smile, his connections, and his ability to say virtually nothing endlessly until the opposition was worn down.

In this case the issue was the proposed detention of a group of Middle Eastern travel agents by the Rangers. His aides had assured him that arresting visiting travel agents was unlikely to advance the cause of Irish tourism – and it would look and sound really lousy on television.

"Lousy on television" – the director general reacted to such stimuli like a dog to Pavlov's bell. He salivated, nearly panicked, and demanded an immediate crisis meeting with the commander of the Rangers.

It took Kilmara ninety minutes to get rid of the idiot and his supporting cast. Only then did he return to his desk to find that the informal two-hourly radio check he had agreed upon with Fitzduane during their last call had not been made and that the telephone line seemed to be out of order. A call to the security detail at DrakerCollege proved to be equally abortive, which was not surprising since all the phones on the island ran off the same cable. He put a call in to the police station at Ballyvonane, the nearest village on the mainland. He knew the station itself would be closed at this time of the evening, but the normal routine was for calls to be transferred to the duty policeman at his home.

The phone was answered on the tenth ring by a noticeably out-of-breath voice. Kilmara was informed by O'Sullivan, the local policeman, that he had just cycled back form the bridge access to Fitzduane's Island after trying to get hold of Sergeant Tommy Keane, who was in turn wanted by the superintendent to answer a small matter to do with an assault on a water bailiff. Kilmara had the feeling that O'Sullivan might expire before the conversation finished. He waited until the policeman's breathing sounded less terminal. "I gather you didn't find the sergeant?" Kilmara finally asked.

"No, Colonel," said O'Sullivan.

"What's this about the bridge access? Why didn't you cross onto the island?"

"Didn't I tell you?" answered the policeman. "The bridge seems to have collapsed. There is nothing there except wreckage. The island is cut off completely."

Kilmara hung up in frustration. It was now nearly 2000 hours. What the hell was happening on that island? The evidence was stacking up that all was not well, but it was still not conclusive. Geranium Day in Bern and severed communications didn't necessarily add up to a combat jump onto Fitzduane's Island. Or did it if you threw in Fitzduane's vibes about the Hangman's track record?

He looked at the paperwork on the Middle Eastern group, which was due to arrive on the last flight from London. The flight had originated in Libya, but there was no direct connection to Ireland. Was it credible that such a group wouldn't at least overnight in London to recharge on Western decadence?

He had a sudden insight that he was approaching the problem the wrong way. The question wasn't whether the travel agents were genuine or otherwise. The question was how to deal with two problems at once, and the answer, from that perspective, was obvious. In a way he had that cretin from the tourist board to thank for pointing it out. It took him twenty-five minutes on the phone to make the arrangements.

He found Gunther in the operations room. The German looked up as he entered. He had been trying the direct radio link to Fitzduane, but now he shook his head. "Nothing," he said. "Completely dead."

He followed Kilmara back to his office. Kilmara gestured for him to close the door. "The British owe us a few favors," he said.

Gunther raised his eyebrows. "So?"

"I've called one in," said Kilmara. "The Brits aren't too happy, but they'll do it."

"Fuck me," said Gunther. "You're getting the British to handle the problem at the stopover in London."