Now Whitney sat in the Chinese delegation’s suite, sipping Champagne and talking with Jimmy Yan, whom she found delightfully intriguing. Jimmy was such a breath of fresh air compared with Berman, and Whitney couldn’t help but complain about her boss a little.
“Yes, he does seem to be preoccupied,” said Jimmy. “And I agree, that woman is not healthy for him. But we are businessmen. Or businesspeople, Miss Jones. As long as Mr. Berman can deliver what he has promised to us, we are happy. We all have our foibles. I just hope that the big picture has been adequately taken care of.”
“I can assure you that everything is ready,” said Whitney. “The Web sites are prepared and just need to be accessed.”
“I am very confident that everything will run smoothly. As smoothly as the athletes this evening. London has done a good job with these games, as they did with the Olympics. They weren’t as spectacular as Beijing, of course, but the English have been interested in involving their citizenry, which was less of an issue for us.”
“They have to allow the taxpayers access,” said Whitney. “That’s the way democracies are supposed to work.”
“Indeed,” said Jimmy. “But not in here, not right now. Would you like more Champagne?”
“I notice you are not drinking.”
“Not yet. I want to toast a Chinese victory. I see we have a women’s hundred-meter race up first. Sprinting has not proved to be a strong point for us like it is for the Jamaicans, so perhaps I will have to wait for our success in the long-distance, endurance events.”
Burim sat in front of the computer monitor in the St. Pancras Library. The homeless man he had elbowed off the terminal had said he was going to find “the management,” and Burim hurried, in case the man actually persuaded someone to come see what he was complaining about. Burim found the search engine and typed in the two names he had been given. What he eventually found didn’t make for pretty reading.
The men were key figures of an Albanian sex ring that specialized in smuggling Eastern European girls to the Far East or North Africa or the Arab states of the Middle East. The ring was not averse to taking vulnerable girls off the streets of London or Manchester or Edinburgh, or any other European capital. The girls were often teenage runaways unable to find adequate work in Prague, Budapest, or Bratslavia and were often rather attractive in the current paradigm of the fashion world: youthful, slim yet curvaceous with sculpted facial features. Such a young women of exceptional beauty could fetch up to £500,000 in the Arab market. Burim read quickly to the end of the article. “The Pipeline” was what they termed the chain along which the captured girls were passed, usually forced to take heavy doses of illegal drugs. Once someone was in the Pipeline, the piece read, it was almost impossible for them to be traced. It was the equivalent of being sucked into a black hole. They all but disappeared.
Burim hurried out of the library and called Harry, but there was no reply. Then he called George.
“Any luck?” he said.
“Not a thing. There are so many runaways. I had the wrong idea about London,” said George.
“Keep working but keep your phone handy,” Burim said, and hung up. He didn’t think George would cope well with hearing about the Pipeline, but he wanted him available.
To conserve battery power, Burim resisted trying to call Harry. Otherwise he merely walked the London streets as the day wore on; he couldn’t sit still. What he wished was that all this was taking place in New York, where he had real power and connections, not London.
Jimmy Yan had to force Berman to come sit in the front of the box to watch the evening’s last event, the women’s 10,000-meter final. Berman had continued to brood, and had drunk more gin and tonics than he should have. There was a Briton in the race, and the possibility of her winning the medal had the regular Brits in the crowd cheering her name and chanting in unison.
“This race will be a good one, I can feel it,” said Jimmy.
After five laps, a pack of four women — two of them Kenyans, with the Briton and an American — were leading and pulling away from the field. The Kenyans took turns in the lead and pushed the pace of the race. Whitney cheered for the American by name, and Jimmy chided her jokingly.
“Well, the Chinese runner is way back,” said Whitney.
“Give her time,” said Jimmy. “She’s a slow starter.”
Berman saw the Chinese runner, Wei, make her move with four laps to go. It was as if she had engaged another gear, and she picked up speed smoothly and effortlessly. From near the back of the field she overtook the women one by one, until with two laps to go only the Kenyans and the American were in her way. The crowd saw her coming, and as the British runner tired, they cheered Wei’s heroic charge. On a large TV set in the suite, Berman could see Wei was running with marvelous economy. He looked across at Jimmy Yan. As the Chinese officials around him hollered and screamed, Jimmy was impassive, as if unsurprised. Jimmy looked over and caught Berman’s eye. He nodded and smiled and pointed to the track.
“Look at her go!” shouted Whitney. On the last lap, Wei caught the Kenyans and ran on their shoulder as they raced two abreast, trying to hold her at bay and block her passage to the front. Wei was undaunted. She steered a wide course around the duo on the final curve, so wide it looked as though she were running herself out of contention, but she managed to find yet another gear. First she was at their shoulder, then she overtook the Kenyans with apparent ease, and as she coasted to the win and the world championship she waved her arms over her head in joy.
Inside the box, it was pandemonium. Amid the din, the men around him clapped each other on the back. They were delirious.
Feeling like the odd man out, Berman went back and used the facilities. The suite had a small powder room in the rear. After using the toilet, he flushed it, then stared at himself in the mirror. He knew he had drunk too much, but his mind was functioning fine. What was bothering him was the way the woman won the race. It had seemed too staged, too planned, too improbable considering the level of competition involving several preeminent athletes, including the holder of the world record. Something didn’t feel right. Berman washed his hands absentmindedly, then returned to the box.
“What’s the matter?”
It was Jimmy, who had come up behind Berman, a hand clamped a little too hard on his shoulder.
“You tell me, Jimmy. There’s something about the way that woman won the race.”
“Come with me, and we can talk about it.”
“Why can’t you tell me here?” asked Berman.
“Come with me,” said Jimmy. “I have to insist.”
CHAPTER 64
Two of Jimmy’s security men walked Berman to a small conference room at the back of the large suite across from the powder room. Berman was surprised to see that Whitney Jones was already seated at the table with another guard at her back. On the table in front of her were two powered up computers. There were several other Chinese men at the table in business suits. Each had their own laptop in front of them.
Jimmy closed the door behind him and bid Zachary Berman to sit down next to Whitney. When he didn’t, the two guards forced him into a chair.