Victor O'Reilly - Games of The Hangman

Muller 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 you 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. Three was silence apart from his breathing. "Herr Fitzduane, are you armed?"

"Yes." He slid the shotgun from it s case and extended the collapsible metal stock. He pumped an XR-18 round into the chamber and wished he 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, ad 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 bloody 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 needed help. It seemed probable 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.