Sangster doubted that Vreni von Graffenlaub was in any serious danger. Most likely it was Dad trying to put some pressure on a wayward daughter; it wouldn’t be the first time a protection team had been so employed. Not that it made any difference to them. The conditions might be variable, but the money was excellent.
Moro's bodyguards had been hit with an average of seven rounds each. Funny how details like that stick in your mind. Sangster raised the field glasses again. Bloody nothing.
The Chief Kripo was busy fishing a fly out of his tea when he heard the news of the Barenplatz shootings. He stopped thinking about the fly and started thinking about crucifying the Irishman. Easter was over, but it was that time of year, and three crosses on top of the Gurten would not look amiss. Fitzduane could have the place of honor, with the Bear and von Beck standing in for the thieves. There would be none of that rubbish about taking them down after three days either. They would hand there until they rotted – an example to all not to stir up trouble in the normally placid city of Bern.
The Chief Kripo spread a protective cloth on his desk and hunted through his desk drawers for some guns to clean. He found four pistols and lined them up on his left, with the cleaning kit to his right. Everything was in order. He picked up the SIG 9 mm and stripped it down. It was immaculate, but he cleaned it anyway. He liked the smell of gun oil. In fact, he liked everything about guns except people using them on people.
He did some of his best thinking while cleaning his guns. Today was no exception. Perhaps he'd better stop contemplating a triple crucifixion and have a serious look at what was happening off Kirchenfeldstrasse. Certainly his conventional investigation wasn't coming up with any answers. It could be that the time had come to take Project K seriously.
The four guns were now cleaned but still broken down into their component parts. He mingled the pieces at random, then closed his eyes and reassembled the weapons by touch. After that he strapped on the SIG and rang for a car.
After forty-five minutes with the Project K team, the Chief Kripo decided that life was too short and he was too old to have the time to get fully familiar with artificial intelligence and expert systems. The principles weren't too hard to grasp, but once Henssen got technical and started talking about interference engines and consistency checking and the virtues of Prolog as opposed to LISP, the Chief's eyeballs rolled skyward. Soon afterward, his chair being exceeding comfortable, he fell asleep. Henssen could believe what he was seeing and chose to think that the Chief's eyes were closed in deep concentration.
The Chief started to snore. It was such a melodious sound with some of the cadence and lilt of Berndeutsch, and it prompted Fitzduane to wonder whether the language one spoke affected the sound produced when snoring. Did a Chinese snore like an Italian?
The Chief's eyes snapped open. He glared at Henssen, who was standing there bemused, mouth half agape, pointer in hand, flip chart at the ready. 'All that stuff might be a barrel of laughs to a bunch of long-haired, unwashed, pimple-faced students,' the Chief barked, 'but I'm here to talk about murder! We've got dead bodies turning up like geraniums all over my city, and I want it stopped – or I may personally start adding to the list.'
'Um,' murmured Henssen, and sat down.
'Look,' said von Beck in a mollifying tone, 'I think it might be easier if you ask us exactly what you want to know.'
The Chief leaned forward in his chair. 'How close are you people to coming up with a suspect, or at least a short list?'
'Very close,' said Chief Inspector Kersdorf.
'Days, minutes, hours? Give me a time frame.'
Kersdorf looked at Henssen, who cleared his throat before he spoke. 'Within forty-eight hours at the outside, but possibly as soon as twelve.'
'What are the main holdups?' asked the Chief. 'I thought your computers were ultrafast.'
'Processing time isn't the problem,' said Henssen. 'The main delays are in three areas: getting the records we want out of people, transferring the data to a format the computers can use, and the human interface.'
'What do you mean by the human interface? I thought the computer did all the thinking.'
'We're not to of a job yet,' said Kersdorf. 'The computer does the heavy data interpretation, ‘thinking,’ if you will, but only within parameters we determine. The computer learns as it goes, but we have to tell it, at least the first time, what is significant.'
The Chief grunted. He was having a hard time trying to assess to what extent the damn machines could actually think, but he decided that the balance, at this stage, between man and machine was not so important. What he had to decide was the effectiveness of the full package. Was Project K worth the candle and likely to deliver, or should he do a Pontius Pilate and wash his hands while the Federal Police or a cantonal task force took over the whole thing? 'Let's talk specifics,' he said. 'Have you considered that our candidate is almost certainly known by the von Graffenlaubs?'
The Bear nodded. 'We asked the von Graffenlaub family to list all friends and acquaintances, and they are now entered into the data base. There are several problems. Beat von Graffenlaub has a vast circle of acquaintances; Erika is almost certainly not telling the whole truth, if for no other reason than she doesn't want the extent of her sex life to end up on a government computer. Life being the way it is, none of the lists will be entirely comprehensive. Few people can name everyone they know.'
'Have you thought of narrowing down the von Graffenlaub list by concentrating on who they know in common?'
The Bear grinned. 'The computer did – but gave the result a low significance rating because of the inherent unreliability of the individual lists.'
'I remember the days when you talked like a cop,' said the Chief. He looked down at his notes again. 'How do we stand on the tattoo issue?'
'Good and bad,' said the Bear. 'The good news is that we finally traced the artist – a guy in Zurich operating under the name of Siegfried. The bad news is that he'd disappeared when the local police went to pick him up for a second round of questioning. He reappeared in walking boots, full of holes.'
'The body found in the woods? I didn't know it had been identified yet.'
'An hour of so ago,' said the Bear. 'You were probably on your way here at the time.'
'Did Siegfried leave any records?'
'He had a small apartment above his shop,' said the Bear. 'Both were destroyed in a fire shortly after he did his vanishing act. A thorough case of arson with no attempt to make it look accidental; whoever did it was more concerned about carrying out a total destruction job. They used gasoline and incendiary devices. On the basis of analysis of the chemicals used in the incendiaries, there is a direct link to the Hangman's group.'
The Chief frowned. 'What about Ivo's package?'
'That's still with forensics,' said the Bear. 'They hope to have something later on today, but it could be tomorrow. About eighty percent of it was destroyed by Fitzduane's shotgun blasts, and the rest of it was saturated in blood and bits of our unlamented killer. That shotgun load he's using is formidable.'
'Not exactly helpful in this situation,' said the Chief.
'I'm not used to shooting people wearing roller skates,' said Fitzduane. 'It confused my aim.'
'What you need is a dose of Swiss Army,' said the Chief. 'We'd teach you how to shoot.'
'We're particularly strong on dealing with terrorists wearing roller skates,' said Charlie von Beck.
'Which reminds me. I really would like my shotgun back,' said Fitzduane. 'Your people took it away after the Barenplatz.'
'Evidence,' said the Chief. 'Democratic legal systems are crazy about evidence. Consider yourself lucky you weren't take away, too.'
The Bear looked at Fitzduane and stopped him as he was about to reply. 'Be like a bamboo,' he suggested, 'and bend with the wind.'
'That's all I need,' said Fitzduane, 'a Swiss Chinese philosopher.'
