Rules of the Hunt (73 page)
"Fucking A," said Schwanberg, and as he leaned forward over the
blueprint of Hodama's premises, his feet crunched on the shattered pieces of
the ornaments.
Katsuda hissed.
Schwanberg, as normal for him where human sensitivities were involved,
noticed nothing.
*
*
*
*
*
Bergin had gone to some lengths to arrive at Fitzduane's room in the
The blond wig and moustache made him look ten years younger, and he was
wearing an expensive double-breasted business suit and Guccis, but his
principal
coup de théâtre
was the
platinum-and-gold Rolex inset with diamonds and the matching identity bracelet
on the other wrist.
The combination was so ostentatious you scarcely noticed the wearer.
Bergin's shirt cuffs were tailored short to
optimize the impact.
Fitzduane eyed his visitor.
"Mike," he said dryly, "clothes really do make the
man.
You are unrecognizable.
You look like you run a small Southern bank
and wash drug money for the Medellín cartel.
You're probably on your third wife and she'd thirty years younger than
you are.
Alternatively, you produce
pornographic movies."
Begin spread his hands in a mock gesture of modesty and his wrists
glinted in the light.
Fitzduane poured
him a drink and the two men sat in armchairs on either side of a low
table.
The blinds were drawn and the
room had been electronically swept.
"Everything ready, Hugo?" said Bergin.
"Pretty much," said Fitzduane.
"The hunt is going to take place as scheduled, with a full
attendance as planned.
It's now a matter
of finalizing the rules.
I don't want
the CIA too unhappy.
Kilmara and I work
with you people too often for that to be neighborly."
Bergin took off his blond wig and scratched his head.
"Horrible things," he said.
"Lice love them," said Fitzduane helpfully.
"Which brings us back to Schwanberg," said Bergin.
He drank some wine and then looked directly
at Fitzduane.
"We've been
finalizing his case.
It's a rough
estimate, but it looks like he and his cronies have lifted, one way or another,
the best part of a hundred and twenty million dollars."
"And who says the
"So now you're going to arrest him and
bring him to trial."
Bergin looked pained.
"Really, Hugo," he said.
"You can't be serious."
Fitzduane smiled grimly.
"Schwanberg had Adachi killed," he said.
"That is not something I am likely to
forgive or forget.
But how it's done is
the issue.
He's your operative."
"The director feels it would be more appropriate if it's handled
in-house," said Bergin.
"Caught in the cross-fire, killed in the line of duty,
something of that nature.
So I'd
like to hitch a ride and take care of matters personally.
I'm rather fond of balloons, you know."
Fitzduane looked at his friend thoughtfully.
"You know, Mike, I never saw you as a
practitioner of extreme prejudice."
"That was the general idea, Hugo," said Bergin with a regretful
smile, "and mostly I'm not.
But
every so often there is a requirement and, really, Schwanberg has been running
around long enough."
"Too long," said Fitzduane quietly.
"Not a personal criticism, Mike.
More a truth we share.
Isn't that so?"
Bergin nodded his agreement.
He
felt uncomfortable, perhaps even ashamed.
The simple truth was that Schwanberg had been under suspicion for some
time and only the reflex bureaucratic desire to prevent scandal had prevented
action.
And meanwhile people had died.
Cover-ups were not confined to Watergate.
In the real world of big government and big business, they were the
norm.
Exposure was the exception.
The price was just a cost of doing business.
Fitzduane
emptied the bottle into their glasses.
"Drink up and listen, Mike.
If you're going to be flying with us, there a few extra angles you
should know.
Preparation
for the unexpected.
What the
training manuals call ‘making an appreciation of the situation.’"
He ran through what was necessary, and as he spoke Bergin's eyes
widened.
Bergin wasn't altogether
displeased.
At his age he had not been
sure they could do that anymore.
24
July 12
The entire perimeter was sealed off as they approached a side entrance of
the military base at Atsugi.
Security floodlights pierced the darkness.
Located just outside
Atsugi was the headquarters of the elite Airborne Brigade of the Japanese
Defense Forces, and it was there they were to board the airship.
With a pang, Fitzduane thought of Adachi, who had trained and operated
from there.
It was appropriate, he
mused,
that
retribution against the policeman's killer
should originate from that location as well.
He felt a great sadness when he thought of Adachi, and there was that
familiar twinge of guilt which so often seemed to accompany the death of a
comrade:
why him and not me?
He pushed such thoughts to the back of his
mind.
Right now, there were more urgent
issues to consider.
What they were about
to do was intricate and dangerous and would require all his concentration.
The black Tokyo MPD limousine containing the police driver, the Spider,
Yoshokawa, and Fitzduane was stopped at a striped pole barrier and they were
asked to leave the car while each man's credentials were checked thoroughly.
Beyond the token barrier of the striped pole, Fitzduane saw retractable
spiked metal anti-ram barricades and two well-camouflaged interlaced
machine-gun posts.
The airborne troopers were taking security seriously.
Other troops with blackened faces and in full
battle order patrolled the perimeter and all key installations.
Apart from being a military installation,
Atsugi was also the training area for the
kidotai
,
the antiterrorist riot police, and, as such, was a prime terrorist target.
The white-helmeted gate guards waved them through and held salutes as
they drove past.
Five minutes later,
they could see the black silhouette of the airship in the distance.
It looked impossibly large in the darkness
and brought to Fitzduane's mind the image of some vast, menacing space monster.
"It's awesome," breathed Yoshokawa, as they emerged from the
limousine.
"And
beautiful in a rather sinister way.
But what a creation!"
"It's quite small by traditional airship standards," said the
Spider modestly.
Actually, he was proud
of the Tokyo MPD airship.
"It's
about seventy feet high, fifty feet in diameter, and two hundred feet
long.
That is big enough to hold just
under a quarter of a million feet of gas."
It's going to be like flying in a mobile city block, contemplated
Fitzduane.
He was used to smaller things
buzzing around in the skies.
On the
other hand, he tried to have a reasonably open mind.
Yoshokawa was lost in thought.
The
engineer and inventor in him
was
fascinated.
"When I think of airships," he
mused, "I always think of zeppelins and then the horrible crash of the
Hindenburg
.
I saw it on an old newsreel when I was a
boy.
A truly dread-inspiring sight to see
that large balloon burst into flames and incinerate all those people."
"It did not do a lot for airship sales," said Fitzduane
dryly.
"And I would add, with
respect, Yoshokawa-
san
, that such
stories don't do a lot for me.
In case
you had forgotten, I'm going up in this particular one tonight."
"Oh," said Yoshokawa.
"Oh, dear!"
He was quite disconcerted.
Then
he recovered somewhat and went into damage limitation.
"But I was talking about the past,
Fitzduane-
san
.
Airships are much safer now."
"Well, I should hope so, Yoshokawa-
san
," said Fitzduane with a straight face.
"I have no desire to descend lightly
toasted or maybe even resembling a well-done steak.
I think you should know that."
There was a strange noise from the Spider.
Yoshokawa looked at Fitzduane, then at the
Spider.
Finally, the Spider could not
contain himself any longer and a belly laugh emerged.
It was only the second time Fitzduane had heard the Spider laugh.
The first time had been back in
castle.
It had been merely a matter of
weeks, but it seemed a different age.
*
*
*
*
*
"Stop the car," said Schwanberg suddenly.
They were through the Atsugi base perimeter, but there was still half a
mile to go before the airship.
"We're not there yet, Paul," said Palmer, who was driving.
"STOP THE FUCKING CAR NOW, YOU ASSHOLE!" shouted Schwanberg.
Startled, Palmer jammed his foot on the brakes and the medium-sized
embassy Ford fishtailed to a halt.
He
waited in silence.
Schwanberg had no
manners at the best of times, but when he was in one of these moods all you
could do was keep your head down.
"Cut the fucking lights, Chuck," said Schwanberg
deliberately.
"All of them."
Palmer switched off the lights.
The two men sat in darkness and stared out through the windshield of the
car.
The airship was ahead of them,
silhouetted against the night sky.
The
airfield lights showed the ground crew moving about their business.
They were dwarfed by the immense mass of the
gas-filled envelope.
Schwanberg removed his Browning, checked the clip by touch and feel, and
slammed it home again with the palm of his hand.
Humans were devious shitheads, but there were
some things in life you could rely on.
Put a couple of 9mm hollow-points in a target's kill-zone, and he, or
she, ceased to present a problem.
God
knows, he'd proved it often enough.
The
back of the neck was best.
The victim
dropped as if poleaxed.
"It's a hell of a plan, Paul," said Palmer quietly.
Schwanberg turned toward him, his face suffused with rage.
"That's the problem, you stupid
fuck," he snarled.
"It's a
terrific plan, and that goddamned Irishman thought it up.
So what else did he think up?"
Palmer had seen Schwanberg have these feelings before.
It was as if the man had an additional sense
dedicated solely to his survival.
They
would embark on an operation and then for no reason that Palmer could ever
figure out, Schwanberg would suddenly pause and think.
Sometimes he would proceed as if nothing had
happened.
Other times, he would
arbitrarily cancel the project.
Again
and again, he had been proved right.
It
was no small reason why he had been able to succeed as a player in this
dangerous game for so long.
"I don't think he has thought up the ending on this one," said
Palmer reassuringly.
The words just came
to him.
He was not particularly articulate,
but he felt good about this mission and he had complete faith in Schwanberg's
ability to pull something out of the hat if anything went wrong.
And he wanted to fly in the airship.
He had never been in one before.
Schwanberg's mood suddenly switched.
He had been worried, but now he felt confident again.
Chuck was right.
They were in control.
"Let's go," he said.
Palmer restarted the engine.
Schwanberg was now laughing.
"‘Hasn't thought up the ending on this one,’" he
repeated.
"Too
goddamn right."
