Looking at the athletes, and then up at the Olympic flame while chrysanthemum rockets burst in the sky, Knight got teary-eyed. He had not expected to feel such overwhelming pride for his city and for his country.
Then his mobile rang.
Karen Pope was near-hystericaclass="underline" ‘Cronus just sent me another letter. He takes credit for the death of Paul Teeter, the American shot-putter!’
Knight grimaced in confusion. ‘No, I just saw him – he’s …’
Then Knight understood. ‘Where’s Teeter?’ he shouted at Jack and started running. ‘Cronus is trying to kill him!’
Chapter 43
KNIGHT AND JACK fought their way down through the crowd. Jack was barking into his mobile, informing the stadium’s security commander of the situation. They both showed their Private badges to get onto the stadium floor.
Knight spotted Teeter holding the US flag and talking to Filatri Mundaho, the Cameroonian sprinter. He took off across the infield just as the American flag began to topple. The flag-bearer went with it and collapsed to the ground, convulsing, bloody foam on his lips.
By the time Knight reached the US contingent, people were screaming for a doctor. Dr Hunter Pierce broke through the crowd and went to the shot-putter’s side while Mundaho watched in horror.
‘He just falls,’ the ex-boy soldier said to Knight.
Jack looked as stunned as Knight felt. It had all happened so fast. Three minutes’ warning. That’s all they’d been given. What more could they have done to save the American?
Suddenly, the public address system crackled and Cronus’s weird flute music began playing.
Panic surged through Knight. He remembered Selena Farrell turning crazed in her office, and then realised that many of the athletes around him were pointing up at the huge video screens around the Olympic venue, all displaying the same three red words:
OLYMPIC SHAME EXPOSED
Part Three
THE FASTEST MAN ON EARTH
Chapter 44
KNIGHT WAS INFURIATED. Cronus was acting with impunity, not only managing to poison Teeter but somehow hacking into the Olympic Park’s computer system and taking over the scoreboard.
Could Professor Farrell do such a thing? Was she capable?
Mike Lancer ran up to Knight and Jack, looking as if he had aged ten years in the past few moments. He pointed at the screens. ‘What the hell does that mean? What’s that infernal music?’
‘It’s Cronus, Mike,’ Knight said. ‘He’s taking credit for the attack.’
‘What?’ Lancer cried, looking distraught. Then he spotted Dr Pierce and the paramedics gathered around the US shot-putter. ‘Is he dead?’
‘I saw him before Dr Pierce got to him,’ Knight said. ‘He had bloody foam around his mouth. He was convulsing and choking.’
Shaken, bewildered, Lancer said, ‘Poison?’
‘We’ll have to wait for a blood test.’
‘Or an autopsy,’ Jack said as paramedics put an unconscious Teeter on a gurney and rushed towards the ambulance with Dr Pierce in tow.
Some in the remaining crowd at the Olympic stadium were softly clapping for the stricken American. But more were heading for the exits, holding their hands to their ears to block out the baleful flute music, and shooting worried glances at Cronus’s message still glowing up there on the screens.
Olympic Shame Exposed
Jack’s voice shook as the ambulance pulled away: ‘I don’t care what claim Cronus might have. Paul Teeter was one of the good guys, a gentle giant. I went to see one of his clinics in LA. The kids adored him. Absolutely adored him. What kind of sick bastard would do such a thing on a night like this to such a good person as him?’
Knight recalled Professor Farrell fleeing her office the day before. Where was she? Did Pottersfield have her in custody? Was she Cronus? Or one of the Furies? And how did they poison Teeter?
Knight went to Mundaho, introduced himself, and asked him what had happened. The Cameroonian sprinter said in broken English that Teeter was sweating hard and had looked flushed in the minutes before he collapsed.
Then Knight grabbed other American athletes and asked whether they’d seen Teeter drink anything before the start of the opening ceremony. A high-jumper said he had seen the shot-putter drinking from one of the thousands of plastic water bottles that London Olympic volunteers, or Game Masters, were handing out to athletes as they lined up for the parade of nations.
Knight told Jack and Lancer who went ballistic and barked into his radio, ordering all Game Masters held inside the Olympic Park until further notice.
The security commander, who had arrived on the scene a few minutes earlier, glared up at the glowing screens and bellowed into his radio, ‘Shut down the PA system and end that goddamn flute music! Get that message off the scoreboards, too. And I want to know how in the bloody hell someone cracked our network. Now!’
Chapter 45
Saturday, 28 July 2012
PAUL TEETER, LEADING FIELD athlete and tireless advocate for disadvantaged youth, died en route to hospital shortly after midnight. He was twenty-six.
Hours later, Knight suffered a nightmare that featured the flute music, the severed head of Denton Marshall, the blood blooming on Richard Guilder’s chest, Joe Mascolo crashing through the cocktail table at the Lobby Bar, and the bloody foam on the shot-putter’s lips.
He awoke with a start, and for several heart-racing moments the Private investigator had no idea where he was.
Then he heard Luke sucking his thumb in the darkness and knew. He began to calm down and pulled the sheets up around his shoulders, thinking of Gary Boss’s face when Knight had arrived home at three in the morning.
The place had been a shambles and his mother’s personal assistant vowed to never, ever babysit Knight’s insane children again. Even if Amanda quintupled his salary he would not do it.
His mother was upset with Knight as well. Not only had he cut out on her the night before, he hadn’t responded to her calls after Teeter’s death had been announced. But he’d been swamped.
Knight tried to doze again, but his mind lurched between worry about finding a new nanny for his kids, his mother, and the contents of Cronus’s second letter. He, Jack and Hooligan had examined the letter in the clean room at Private London shortly after Pope brought them the package at around one a.m.
‘What honour can there be in a victory that is not earned?’ Cronus had written at the start of the letter. ‘What glory in defeating your opponent through deceit?’
Cronus claimed that Teeter was a fraud ‘emblematic of the legions of corrupt Olympic athletes willing to use any illegal drug at their disposal to enhance their performance.’
The letter had gone on to claim that Teeter and other unnamed athletes at the London Games were using an extract of deer and elk antler ‘velvet’ to increase their strength, speed, and recovery time. Antler is the fastest growing substance in the world because the nutrient-rich sheathing, or velvet, that surrounds it during development is saturated with IGF-1, a super-potent growth hormone banned under Olympic rules. Under careful administration, however, and delivered by mouth spray rather than direct injection, the use of antler velvet was almost impossible to detect.