Rules of the Hunt (2 page)
Hodama was
wearing a light cotton
yukata
, a form
of kimono, with the left side over the right side.
Right over left was used only for
corpses.
The
yukata
was held together by a simple
obi
.
Over this he wore a
haori
, a half coat like a cardigan.
At his age he was susceptible to the cold,
particularly in the chill hours of early morning.
On his feet he wore sandals.
The bathroom
was a good-sized room with a place to change his clothes and a massage table,
in addition to the washing and changing areas.
When he was younger he had enjoyed many women on that couch.
Now it was used merely for its formal
purpose.
Amika helped
Hodama to undress, hung up his clothes, then followed him across to the bathing
area.
Wooden boards placed across the
tiles allowed drainage.
There Hodama sat
on a small wooden stool and soaped himself down.
When he was ready, Amika ladled water from a
wooden bucket over him until the last trace of soap was removed.
He would enter the bath clean and thoroughly
rinsed, in the Japanese fashion.
The
idea of soaking in his own effluvia, as Westerners did, was repellent.
The water
temperature was perfect.
Hodama smiled
in anticipation and nodded approvingly at Amika.
The manservant acknowledged the look with the
deferential smile and slight bow that was appropriate for his status as a
long-serving retainer, and then the front of his face dissolved and he leaped
headfirst into the steaming copper bath.
Crimson
leached into the water.
Hodama gave a
cry and staggered back in shock.
He felt
himself being seized and then flung facedown on the massage table.
His hands and feet were held and then bound
with something hard and thin that cut into his flesh.
He was then hauled to his feet.
Men in dark
business suits, three or four that he could see, their faces covered in hoods
of black
cloth,
faced him.
Two, at least, held silenced weapons.
There was a
sound of a heavy metal object dropping onto the wooden laths and someone
started tying something to his feet.
He
looked down and saw a cast-iron weight.
Blood drained
from his face.
Suddenly he realized what
was about to happen, and his fear was total.
"Who are
you?" he managed to croak.
"What is it you want?
Don't
you know who I am?"
One of the figures
nodded grimly.
"Oh yes, Hodama-
san
, we know exactly who you
are."
He gave an exaggerated
bow.
"That is precisely the
point."
Two of the
figures went to the edge of the bath, crouched down, then hauled Amika's dead
body out of the bath and flung it into a corner of the room.
Hodama stood
there bound, naked, slight, and wizened — smaller by several inches than the
men around him — and tried to preserve what dignity he could.
The heat increased in the room.
The water in the bath began to bubble gently.
As the bubbles increased, his composure
collapsed.
"I have power,"
he
screamed.
"You cannot do this and hope to escape.
It is madness…"
The figure who
had bowed made a gesture and one of the other figures hit Hodama very hard in
the stomach.
He doubled up and fell to
his knees and retched.
Through a haze of
pain, he looked up.
There was something
familiar about the figure.
Both the laugh
and the voice had struck a chord.
"Who are you?" he said quietly.
"I have to know."
The figure
shook his head.
"You have to
die," he said grimly.
"That is
all you still have to do."
He made
another gesture.
Two of the
hooded figures lifted Hodama, suspended him over the copper bath, and slowly
lowered him into the bloody, boiling water.
1
Fitzduane's
January 1
reflected that firearms and small children did not mix well.
On further consideration, he decided that
much the same could be said about more than a few adults.
For his own
part he had adjusted to being under terrorist threat as well as one reasonably
could — security precautions were time-consuming and tedious — but then Peter
had arrived on the scene, a small, pink, rather creased-looking little package
with a dusting of blond fuzz at the noisier end, and Fitzduane had started
looking at the world very differently.
He tested the
water with his hand.
He had read in one
of the baby books that the right tool for this was an elbow, but that seemed a
ridiculous way to go about such a straightforward activity, and
result.
If he wasn't, he yelled.
Children, Fitzduane had found, were believers
in direct and immediate communication.
"Boots,"
called Fitzduane, trying to sound stern and in command of the situation,
"bath time.
"
He added a threat.
"Come here or I'll tickle your
toes."
nickname had evolved from the consequences of the weather in the West of
Ireland.
Given his fondness for running
around outside and splashing into puddles and playing with mud,
determined forays into speech.
There was no
response.
Fitzduane checked the bathroom
closet and behind the laundry basket, half-expecting to see a small,
blond-headed three-year-old crouched down and shaking with barely suppressed
giggles.
Nothing.
He felt mildly
concerned.
The castle in which they
lived, Fitzduane's ancestral home on a remote island off the West of Ireland,
was not large as such places go, but it had stone stairs and battlements and a
high wall around the courtyard, and there were many locations where a child
could come to harm.
From the point of
view of a nervous parent, Duncleeve was not the ideal place to bring up a
child.
Frankly,
Fitzduane was surprised that any of his ancestors had made it to maturity.
An accidental long drop onto the rocks below
or into the freezing waters of the
But the
Fitzduanes had tended to be a resolute and hardy lot, and they had survived.
He opened the
bathroom door and looked around the dressing room.
Still nothing.
The dressing
room door-handle began to turn very slowly.
"Boots!"
called Fitzduane
.
"Come here, you little
monster."
There was
silence.
A sudden chill swept over
Fitzduane, as disbelief battled intuition.
He had feared the threat for so long, but never seriously believed in
it.
Now, perhaps, it had become reality.
He stepped
back into the bathroom, picked up the Sig, slid it out of its holster, and
removed the safety catch.
A round was
already in the chamber.
His mind ran
through the available options.
The
windows of both the bathroom and dressing room had twentieth-century double
glazing but had been designed as firing slits by the original Norman
architect.
No way in and certainly no
way out for Fitzduane's six-foot-two frame.
The
dressing-room door-handle began to turn slowly.
Then it slid back noisily, as if suddenly released.
Fitzduane
didn't think; he reacted at the potential threat to the person he loved most in
the world.
He flung the door open, his
weapon traversing an arc of fire that took in the whole corridor.
There was nothing.
He looked down.
The muddiest little person he had ever seen
stood there, dripping.
It didn't look
much like anyone he knew, though the boots and body language seemed familiar.
"Daddy!"
said the mud boy indignantly.
Fitzduane felt
weak with relief.
He slipped the safety
catch back on the Sig and looked at the mud boy.
"Who are you?" he said sternly.
"DADDY!"
shouted the mud boy.
"I'm
He paused, a look of concentration on his
face, to assess the situation.
He had a
problem with the Fitzduane part of his name.
He brightened.
"I'm
BOOTS," he shouted.
Fitzduane swept
him up and kissed him.
Small muddy arms
encircled his neck.
A small muddy face
was pressed to his.
Fitzduane had never
associated Irish mud with absolute happiness, but at that moment he was as
happy and content as a human being can ever be.
He hosed down
Boots in the shower, and when a recognizable three-year-old had emerged, they
both went for a soak in the big Victorian bath.
As Fitzduane lay back in the soothing water, eyes closed, Boots lay in
his arms for the first few minutes.
Then
the normal mischievous nature of
He slid from his father's
body and went to play in the water.
Minutes
passed.
Fitzduane, eyes closed, was
practically asleep.
Playing with taps
was forbidden, and the hot faucet had been made too stiff to turn, but small
hands wrestled with the large brass cold outlet and very quietly half filled a
jug.
The boy stood up, protected from
falling by an unconscious reflex action of his father's legs.
He held the jug over Fitzduane and started to
giggle.
Fitzduane
opened his eyes just as the icy water hit him.
His shout of indignation could be heard through the double doors and
echoed through the stone passageways beyond.
It was immediately followed by the sound of Boots in an advanced fit of
the giggles and then Fitzduane's laughter.
*
*
*
*
*
Colonel — to
be General in two days' time, despite the opposition of more conservative
military figures and countless politicians and civil servants he had crossed
over the years — Shane Kilmara flipped back the cover of his watch and began to
check the time.
Just as he
focused, the plane lurched again and his stomach surged toward the top of his
skull.
He still felt nauseated, despite
the motion-sickness pills, but had been saved the indignity of actually
throwing up.
Low-level combat flying was
an effective way to penetrate airspace undetected, but in a
special-forces-modified Lockheed C130 Combat Talon — where functionality was
awarded a decidedly higher priority than comfort — you tended to have a hard
ride this close to the ground, or the sea, or whatever terrain you happened to
be over.
The Irish
Rangers had initially been set up as an antiterrorist unit in the
mid-seventies, following the assassination of the British Ambassador by a
culvert bomb.
The political
establishment felt they could also end up in the firing line unless they took
some precautions, and that gave the founder of the new organization some extra
leverage.
Kilmara, who had served in a
special-forces capacity with other national forces for many years after a
falling-out with the Irish authorities, had emerged as the most suitable
candidate to head up the new unit.
The entire
Irish army, cooks and mascots included, was tiny — at around 13,000 personnel
smaller than on U.S. Army division — and was chronically underequipped and
underfunded.
Accordingly, Kilmara, whose
own special-forces unit was actually quite well-equipped, thanks to special
supplementary funding, had become a world-class expert in the art of
scrounging.
It helped that he was something
of a legend in the Western special forces community, and that said community
was a small, highly personal world which tended to transcend national
boundaries under the banner of a motto aptly propounded by David Stirling,
founder of the SAS:
"If you need
something, do not be put off by bureaucracy — find a way to take it."
