Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

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 opthalmoscope. He left the stethoscope hanging around his neck and replaced the opthalmoscope 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 for; 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 on 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.

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 lest they seem to be taking the situation seriously."

"Does nobody in this business tell the truth?"

"Its' 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 for 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 been designed with security as a top priority, and modifications were difficult to implement while at the same time 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 the 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.