"Kathleen," he said "you're brave and you're beautiful, but you're foolish. How does it help you if you make me angry? Now answer me that."
Kathleen shook her head. The feeling of paralysis had left her since she had struck this man in front of her. She no longer felt quite so helpless, so afraid. She remembered that she hadn't called in. She had to buy time.
McGonigal stood up. He transferred the automatic to his left hand and removed from his pocket what looked, at first, like a large pen-knife. There was a click and a longer thin blade glittered dully in a shaft of light coming through the blinds. He looked at the portrait.
"You've a nice family," he said, looking down at Kathleen. "Close-knit is the phrase, I think." He transferred his gaze back to the portrait and slowly cut a large X through her image. The sound of the canvas parting under the pressure of the blade was unsettling. To Kathleen it was an obscene, wanton gesture.
"I could hurt you, Kathleen," he said, "but where would that get me? It's you I need to hear from." He turned back to the portrait. "Life is about choices," he said. "It just isn't possible to have everything."
He brought the blade up again and seemed to hesitate. He turned and looked carefully at her parents, then nodded to himself. His gaze reverted to the portrait.
He raised the blade again. "It wouldn't surprise me at all," he said, "if you weren't just a little bit keen on Hugo. He a wounded hero and all that. Romance has blossomed at many a bedside — and has died in many a bed." He laughed. "But the thing is, darling, you can't have it all." The blade sliced through the image of her father.
Kathleen cried out. The terrible fear had returned.
Her mother screamed. "No! No!" she said. "This is — this is wrong. It's all wrong. You must go. You can't do this."
Anger flared in McGonigal. He turned and thrust the automatic pistol in his hand at the bald-headed terrorist, then grabbed Kathleen's father by his bloodied white hair and hauled the elderly man to his feet.
"Fuck you," he said. "Fuck all you little people. You know nothing." He placed the edge of his knife under Kathleen's father's ear and cut and pulled, severing his throat from ear to ear.
There was a dreadful, rattling, gagging sound that was mercifully brief, and blood fountained from the severed arteries and cascaded over McGonigal and Kathleen.
When the blood had stopped pumping, McGonigal released his grip on the dead man's hair and the body sagged to the ground. Mary Fleming had fainted. Kathleen looked at him, deep in shock. He slapped her face.
"I have little time," he said. "Your mother is next. It's your choice."
It was several minutes before Kathleen could speak. McGonigal used the time to wash himself off and lay the hospital plans out on a table in the living room. Then Kathleen told him almost everything she knew.
Her fingers still smeared with her father's blood, she outlined the security procedures and marked out the layout of Fitzduane floor and the location of the control zone and other security procedures. She was questioned again and again, and finally McGonigal was satisfied. It all tied together with what he already knew. Kathleen was completely broken. They always broke.
When it was all over, he placed his pistol against Mary Fleming's head, but at the last second took his hand off the trigger. Hostages were handy in this kind of situation. They could be disposed of after the operation had gone down.
Kathleen had stripped off her cloak and uniform and was now huddled in a terry-cloth bathrobe in a state of shock. Her skin was cold and clammy. Her gaze was unfocused.
McGonigal was looking at her and mentally undressing her when the telephone rang for the first time since they had arrived.
9
Connemara RegionalHospital
February 1
Fitzduane looked at his visitor with affection.
He was very, very fond of the Bernese detective.
The Bear had slimmed a little after he had met Katia — his first wife had died in a traffic accident — but had now reverted to his normal shape. Fitzduane was relieved. Katia was a lovely woman and meant well, but the Bear was not really destined by nature to be lean and mean and to dine off bean sprouts. He was kind of big — well, closer to massive in truth — and round and gruff and had a heart of gold. And he was a good friend. Fitzduane valued his friends.
The Bear gave him a hug — a gentle hug. Fitzduane was not wearing his Skunkworks T-shirt that day, so the visible bandages inspired caution. Even so, a ‘gentle’ hug from the Bear caused him to wince slightly. The main hazard was the Bear's shoulder holster. It contained a very large lump of metal.
"Men don't hug in Ireland," said Fitzduane, who enjoyed the cultural contrasts between the Swiss and the Irish. We're not really a very touchy-feely nation. It's something to do with the church and sex and guilt, I think. What's the hardware?"
The Bear removed the largest automatic pistol Fitzduane had ever seen. "Everybody in Europe tends to use 9mm because that is what everybody uses. The manufacturers are tooled up for it. The ammunition is relatively cheap because of economies of scale. The round is easy to shoot because it has a good range and a nice, flat trajectory and doesn't kick like your mother-in-law. And you can fit fifteen rounds or more in a magazine, so you can generate some serious firepower. Everybody's happy.
"But the problem with the 9mm," he continued, "is that it lacks stopping power. Analysis of actual gunfights in the States shows that a hit on a vital spot puts the victim out of action only about fifty percent of the time where 9mm is used, as opposed to over ninety percent when a .45 is involved."
Fitzduane was beginning to think that this conversation was somewhat lacking in tact. He remembered that he had only recently been shot. Still, the subject seemed to be doing the Bear some good. "So use a .45," he said helpfully.
"Aha!" said the Bear triumphantly, "so one might think. But..." He paused.
"But?" said Fitzduane.
"But..." said the Bear. He paused again.
Fitzduane felt as if he was in a slow tennis match and should be flicking his head from side to side to watch the shots. "But?" he said again. He couldn't resist it.
"What that English expression about the importance of detail?" said the Bear.
It occurred to Fitzduane that if any nation should know about detail, it was the Swiss. "The devil is in the detail," he said.
"Exactly," said the Bear. He raised his huge automatic in demonstration.
A nurse came in carrying a kidney basin containing something unpleasant. Fitzduane had developed a profound dislike of kidney basins. Either he was being sick into one or a syringe was being transported in the damn thing, with some part of his anatomy as its destination. He was generally off needles. And kidney basins were what they used, he had been told, to carry away bits of him that had been cut out. These were not nice thoughts.
The nurse screamed and dropped the tray.
The Bear ignored her. "The problem with the .45," he said, "is that it hasn't got the range or the penetrating power. It is a big bullet with loads of shock value, but it doesn't have the velocity."
The door smashed open. A Ranger stood there with an Aug Steyr automatic rifle in his hands. The Bear ignored him, too.
Fitzduane suddenly noticed that he was in the line of fire. It would be ridiculous to be killed by some gung-ho idiot in the higher purpose of saving his life. Also, he had been shot up enough for one year.