unconsciousness before the pool of fuel, ignited by the muzzle blast of his Gustav, exploded – and patrol car and armyLand Rover were engulfed in flames.
Black smoke fouled the sky.
Fitzduane replaced the telephone receiver with a sense of relief. He had been working on the von Graffenlaub file for more than eleven hours almost without a break, and he was tired and hungry.
The contents of the file and related papers lay scattered across the top of the polished oak slab on trestles that Etan used as a desk. The information was helping build up a more complete picture of the von Graffenlaub family and its circumstances, but it was slow work. Despite the extensive network of sources and contacts typical of a successful working journalist and the advantage of an initial file from Kilmara, he was having a harder time putting together a comprehensive picture of Rudi's Swiss background than he had expected.
Most of his difficulties seemed to have to do with Switzerland. He had been reluctant to call Guido. His other contacts could tell him – at times in the most intimate detail – about such matters as the latest financial scandal in the Vatican or who was bribing whom in Tanzania or which ballet dancer was sleeping with which member of the Politburo in Moscow, but any question to do with any aspect of Switzerland seemed to result in a resounding yawn.
The consensus seemed to be that Switzerland was a boring bloody country full of boring bloody people who lived off their cliches: cheese, chocolate, cuckoo clocks, mountains, banks, other people, and hot money. Nobody seemed to like either Switzerland or the Swiss. As for Bern – dull, dull, dull was the general view.
Fitzduane doubted the investigation of a hanging would be dull even if the Bernese did their worst, and he wondered whether any of his traditional contacts really knew very much about the Swiss. It was also clear that there was a palpable element of jealousy underlying many of the comments made about the country. No wars, virtually no unemployment, one of the highest standards of living in the world, and a healthy and beautiful country. It was, indeed, enough to make you sick.
He rose, stretched, and went into the kitchen to open a bottle of chilled white wine. He carried the wine and cheese and crackers into the living room, kicked the open log fire into life, and settled down in an armchair. He moved the television remote control near to hand.
In a few minutes he would watch the nine o'clock evening news and then Etan's program, 'Today Tonight.' It was strange watching this different, professional Etan through the cold medium of television. He drank some wine, the fire flickered and glowed, and he thought yet again about the von Graffenlaubs.
The file was thin on fact and short on explanation. The hanged boy's father was sixty-one-year-old Beat von Graffenlaub, a lawyer with extensive business interests. He lived in Junkerngasse and had offices in Marktgasse. He was a member of the old Bernese aristocracy, a Bernburger, and a Fursprecher (whatever that was). He was a director of various companies, including one of the big four banks, an armaments conglomerate, and a chemicals and drugs multinational. In his youth he had been a skier of Olympic caliber. He was extremely, but discreetly, rich. He seemed to be what is sometimes described as an overachiever. But what was a Bernburger?
The Bernburger had married another Bernburger, a certain Claire von Tscherner – another aristocrat to judge by the “von” – in 1948, and together, after a slow start, they had produced lots of little Bernburgers, four to be precise. Daughter Marta appeared on the scene in 1955, son Andreas followed in 1958, and then, after four years of limbering up, the Beat von Graffenlaubs really got to work and in 1962 produced twins, Rudolf (Rudi) and Verena (Vreni).
Twins. How had Vreni felt at the news of her brother's death? Had they been close? Most twins were. The probability was high that if anyone knew why Rudi had done it, she did. Fitzduane wondered if Vreni would look like her brother.
In 1976 Beat, by then aged fifty-six, had done something that wouldn't win him any brownie points for originality. He divorced Claire and married a younger woman, a much younger woman. Erika Serdorf – no “von” – was twenty-eight and his secretary. Exit Claire, duty done, to Elfenau and death two years later in a car accident. The new Mrs. Beat von Graffenlaub would now be thirty-three to Beat's sixty-one, and the couple had no children. An interesting situation. What did Erika do with her day, given Beat's work load, other than spend his money?
Fitzduane tried to figure out whether the bottle of wine was now half full or half empty. He poured himself another glass to help resolve the problem.
A great deal was going to depend on the attitude of Beat von Graffenlaub. On the face of it, a stranger's investigation into the death of the lawyer's son was unlikely to be welcome, but without his support significant progress would be problematic. It was clear that the Bernburger was well connected. Fitzduane's knowledge of Switzerland might be limited to little more than changing planes at Zurich Airport, but he did seem to have heard somewhere about the Swiss fondness for deportation as a solution to those who made waves.
But back to Rudi. Why had he been sent to finish his secondary education at Draker? The Wiesbaden computer, in a printout that reeked of being fine-sieved prior to being issued, talked of ‘incipient undesirable political associations’ and advised contacting the Swiss Federal Police and the Bern police. Titillating but not very helpful. The Swiss police were rumored to be about as outgoing on sensitive matters as Swiss bankers. The Bible said, 'Seek and ye shall find.' According to Kilmara, the authors were planning a rewrite since the invention of the Swiss.
Fitzduane picked up the television remote control. It was almost nine o'clock, and the electronic image of Etan doing the promo for her program materialized in crisp color.
He pressed the button for sound and caught her in mid-pitch. '…Later on, as security forces surround the house in which five hostages are being held by an unknown number of gunmen, we look at the brutal murder of four victims and ask: What are the causes of terrorism? That's ‘Today Tonight’ after the news at nine-thirty.'
The causes of terrorism all explained in forty minutes, less commercials. Television was a neat trick. He watched an advertisement and reflected that there were times when television alone provided an adequate motive for terrorism.
It was only as he listened to the newscaster and saw film of the shocked faces of what the reporter was calling 'the Kinnegad Massacre' that he realized the import of Etan's words: Kilmara and his Rangers would be busy.
He hoped Kilmara had enough sense to keep his head down. He was getting too old to lead from the front.
Kilmara wore the dull blue-black combat uniform, black webbing, and jump boots of the Rangers. The humor was gone from his face, and his expression was controlled and intent as he took one last look at the bank of eight television monitors that dominated the end of the MobileCommandCenter. 'Give me a search on main screen by five,' he said.
The Ranger sergeant sitting at the control panel operated the array of buttons and sliders with easy familiarity. At five-second intervals the picture on the main screen switched to images from each of the six surveillance cameras surrounding the house.
The windows of the modern two-story farmhouse were curtained. No sign of life was visible, yet inside, Kilmara knew, four children and their mother were being held hostage by two killers of singular ruthlessness. To demonstrate their seriousness and disregard for human life, the two terrorists had already killed the farmer in cold blood. His body lay where it had fallen, barely two meters from his own front door. His wife and children had been forced to watch as the young German with the drooping black mustache and gleaming white teeth had neatly cut his victim's throat.
Kilmara turned from the bank of television monitors and walked down the aisle of the command center. On each side of him combat-uniformed Rangers manned sophisticated electronic audio surveillance and communications equipment. To aid screen visibility, the overall light level was dim, with individual spot lamps providing illumination as required. There was the faint background throbbing of a powerful but sound-deadened generator.
He entered the small conference room and closed the door behind him. In contrast with the surveillance area,
