Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

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 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 dying." He missed Etan.

He packed and took the tram into the city center, where he boarded the train for Bern.

Max Buisard, the Chief of the Criminal Police (the Kriminalpolizei, 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 there 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 Burgergemeinde refer to him as bodenstandig – the ultimate Bernese accolade for a sensible, practical fellow, with his feet firmly on the ground. For a brief moment Buisard wondered if the 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 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.