Rules of the Hunt (17 page)
He looked across at Boots, who was now sleeping on his right side, his
right cheek resting on his hands.
"Now here I am putting someone I love in harm's way again."
"Guilt is not a very constructive feeling," said Kathleen.
Fitzduane smiled.
"I don't
feel guilty anymore," he said.
"I've learned enough about the random nature of violence not to
feel personally responsible for Anne-Marie.
I've come to terms with her death.
However, I cannot accept a threat against my family.
There, whether I'm directly responsible or
not, I'm still responsible."
"Do you think you're directly responsible in this case?" said
Kathleen, indicating both Fitzduane and Boots.
"‘Directly responsible,’" replied Fitzduane, quoting her words
back, "probably not.
Responsible, in that all of this happened as a consequence of my
actions, probably yes."
"I don't quite understand," said Kathleen.
"About three years ago," said Fitzduane, I found a dead body on
my island.
I could have reported the
matter to the police and left it at that.
Instead, I started trying to find out what had really happened.
One thing led to another and I found that
there was a terrorist involved.
His
plans were foiled and he was killed."
"You killed him?" said Kathleen.
Fitzduane hesitated before he replied; then he nodded.
"I killed him," he agreed.
"He was a terrorist," said Kathleen, but there was uncertainty
in her voice.
This was an alien
world.
"How can you be blamed for
that?"
"The issue isn't really blame; it's responsibility," said
Fitzduane.
"What I did was
necessary — indeed, unavoidable.
However, the man I killed almost certainly had friends.
This is about cause and effect and
consequences.
I may have done the right
thing, but in so doing I put myself and those dear to me on the firing
line."
"So you think you were shot by friends of this dead terrorist?"
said Kathleen.
"Well, I'd like to think that it wasn't some complete nut,"
said Fitzduane.
"I would prefer to
be shot for a reason."
"It makes a difference?" said Kathleen.
"It makes a difference if you want to stop it happening a second
time," said Fitzduane.
"And
this isn't the kind of thing I fancy happening twice."
It was slowly dawning on Kathleen that merely by being in Fitzduane's
company she was putting herself in danger.
For a moment she tried to imagine what it must be like to be under
permanent threat.
It was a horrendous
notion.
She reached out and stroked his face and then leaned over and kissed
him.
She pulled away before Fitzduane
could react and ran the tips of her fingers over his lips.
"Daddy!
Daddy!" cried a sleepy voice.
"Where are you?"
Fitzduane laughed and squeezed her hand.
"Bring him here," he said.
Kathleen picked Boots up and slid him in beside his father.
There wasn't much room in the narrow hospital
bed, but Fitzduane cradled Boots's head in the crook of his left arm, and
within seconds Boots was asleep again.
*
*
*
*
*
January 31
Jiro Sasada, whose visiting card stated that he was a vice president of
the Yamaoka Trading Corporation, sat in his room in
His initial shock at the disappearance of the killing team four weeks
earlier had worn off after a good night's sleep, and he had immediately applied
himself to learning what had happened to the missing men and the current status
of the designated target.
Sasada-
san
was typically Japanese in his belief
in the work ethic, and setbacks in his value system were merely temporary
inconveniences which could be solved by even more dedication.
His backup plan involved using a splinter group of the IRA — the Irish
Revolutionary Action Party, or IRAP — that owed his group, Yaibo, a favor.
Since unfortunately a Japanese involvement in
the attack on Fitzduane had almost certainly been established by now, it made
sense to use a local team which could more easily blend into the indigenous
population.
Fitzduane's location had been determined through a sustained operation
using radio scanners.
Though technically
illegal in
these devices were readily available and could pick up Garda — Irish police —
communications which, for budget reasons, were in clear.
The Rangers had their own budget and operated with secure encrypted radio
and telephone networks, but they were short of manpower.
Accordingly, they worked extensively with the
police, and therein lay their weakness.
Kilmara was, of course, perfectly aware of this security flaw in his
operational procedures, but there was nothing he could do about it in the short
term.
He needed the extra manpower the
police provided, and he needed to communicate with them.
The IRA had been socially respectable when
independence from the British.
However,
for twenty-six counties out of a total of thirty-two, that goal had been achieved
in 1922.
Thereafter, the vast majority
of Irish people wanted to live normal peaceful lives, unhindered by men with
guns.
The IRA became illegal.
Operating undercover, it split into various
groups with different objectives and ideologies.
As with the Mafia, different gangs fought
over territory.
In some cases, fighting
between different IRA factions was at least as violent as that against the
British.
The IRAP were under sentence of death by the Provisional IRA for excesses
even by terrorist standards, and the three leading members of the IRAP — Paddy
McGonigal, Jim Daid, and Eamon Dooley — had headed south out of the British
North of Ireland into the safer territory of the independent Republic of
Ireland, so, for an appropriate financial reward, they were ready and willing
to help Sasada-
san
with his task.
Sasada-
san
, who despite his
papers was actually a senior member of Yaibo, had met the IRAP in
He had helped to train them at Camp Carlos
Marighella.
It had been a matter of
obligation to the Libyans.
The Libyans
backed a wide array of international terrorist groups, but in turn, called in
favors.
It was like any other business.
IRAP was a lethal group.
So far in
its bloody career, it had killed more than sixty people in a series of bomb and
gun attacks in the North of Ireland,
and continental
It would certainly be able to take care of
finishing off Fitzduane.
Sasada-
san
poured himself
another Scotch and went back to studying the plans of the hospital where
Fitzduane lay.
You could, he thought to
himself,
get most things with a strong yen.
It was just as well.
As far as the
world was aware, Yaibo was a completely independent terrorist group.
In actual fact, they were obligated to the
Namaka brothers, and the brothers were exceedingly dangerous when their wishes
were not fulfilled.
*
*
*
*
*
January 31
Kei Namaka, cofounder and president of the vast Namaka Corporation, stood
staring out through the windows of the top floor of the
Below him, as far as the eye could see,
was
the
neon-bedecked ferro-concrete, glass, and steel sprawl that was modern
In the middle distance, the police airship,
the favorite toy of the Superintendent-General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police
Department, floated serenely, monitoring the congested arteries that struggled
inadequately to cope with the city's traffic.
Through the tinted bullet-resistant plate glass, the repetitive
rotor-thump and high-pitched engine buzz of a passing helicopter could scarcely
be heard.
Namaka, his eyes open, saw nothing and heard nothing.
He was awake but was having the dream.
It was near midnight on December 22, 1948.
The night was cold.
They stood
outside the gates of Sugamo Prison, waiting for the execution to happen.
The gates were guarded by armed,
white-helmeted U.S. Army military police.
The weather-stained gray stone walls of the prison were floodlit by
security lights.
Plentiful electricity meant the occupation forces.
For the defeated Japanese, everything —
power, water, food, cooking fuel, clothing, housing — was in short supply.
Force.
Most of the
population
were
barely subsisting.
Recovery had begun, but it was a slow and painful process.
Governing authority was in the hands of
General Douglas MacArthur and the two hundred thousand mainly
under his command.
The Emperor had
denounced his divine status.
The old
dead.
The new
painful birth, and there was much suffering.
Kei, a tall scrawny teenager, stood on one side of his mother.
On the other side was his brother,
Fumio.
Fumio was small for his age and
his right leg was crippled.
A year
earlier, he had been hit a glancing blow by a U.S. Army jeep as it careered out
of control down one of Tokyo's labyrinth of alleyways, and the compound
fracture had healed badly.
Medication,
bandages, good food — all the requirements for a full recovery — were virtually
unavailable.
Fumio's growth would be
stunted and he would remain severely crippled for the rest of his life.
The Tokyo War Crimes trial had taken two and a half years.
Eleven judges representing three-quarters of
the world's population had presided.
Witness after witness spoke of massacres, genocide, the slaughter and
starvation of prisoners, death marches, the destruction of cities, wholesale
rape, torture, executions without trial, germ warfare, forced medical
experiments, a catalogue of crimes against humanity.
Six generals and one prime minister had been sentenced to death by
hanging.
The executions were to take place at 00.01 hours on December 23, 1948, at
Sugamo Prison.
One of the condemned men was General Shin Namaka, Kei and Fumio's natural
father.
Their mother, Atsuko Sudai, had
been his mistress for many years.
The
General's legal marriage had been arranged, unsuccessful, and childless.
Atsuko, their mother, had been his true love,
and he had cared for her and his children with the greatest diligence and
affection.
The evidence against him at his trial had clearly established that he was
directly responsible for the death of over a hundred thousand slave laborers in
and there were other crimes to do with medical experiments on prisoners.
But he had been a loving father.
With his arrest, Kei's world had collapsed.
The eldest son, he had been closest to his
father.
The condemned men were kept in Block 5C of the prison, one to a
cell.
Each centrally heated cell, eight
feet by five and half feet, contained a desk, a washbasin, and a toilet.
A futon mattress was placed on the floor and
blankets were provided.
To avoid
suicide, cell lights remained on and prisoners were kept under twenty-four-hour
surveillance.
The executions were carried out according to the U.S. Army's regulations
for such procedures.
Each prisoner was weighed in advance to determine the appropriate
drop.
A table of effectiveness had been
determined by trial and error in the nineteenth century.
General Namaka weighed a hundred and thirty
pounds and would fall seven feet seven inches when the trap was sprung.
Too long a
fall,
and
his head could be torn off.
Too short a
drop, and he would slowly strangle to death.
The objective was to snap his spinal cord and kill him almost instantly.
It was not a precise science.
