‘Did you get Lancer’s picture?’
‘Everyone in the force got it ten seconds ago,’ Casper replied, and then looked grim. ‘The route is more than ten kilometres long. There’s half a million people – maybe more – lining the route. How the hell are we going to find him?’
‘At the finish, or somewhere near it,’ Knight said. ‘It fits his flair for the dramatic. Have you seen Jack Morgan?’
‘He’s way ahead of you, Peter,’ Casper said. ‘As soon as he heard Cronus was Lancer and that he was still on the loose, he went straight to the finish arena. Smart guy for a Yank.’
But twenty-six minutes later, as roars went up from back along the marathon route south of St James’s Park, Lancer had still not been sighted, and every aspect of the timing system had been re-examined for possible booby traps.
Standing high atop stands erected along The Mall, Knight and Jack – who had shown up minutes after Knight had asked after him – were using binoculars to look up into the trees to see if Lancer had climbed one and taken up position as a sniper. Casper and Pottersfield were doing much the same on the other side of the street. But their views were hampered by scores of large Union Jack and Olympic flags fluttering on poles running westward towards Buckingham Palace.
‘I checked him out myself,’ Jack said sombrely, lowering his binoculars. ‘Lancer, I mean. When he did some work for us a few years back in Hong Kong. He was squeaky clean, nothing but raves from everyone who’d ever known him. And I don’t remember ever seeing that he’d served in the Balkans. I’m sure I would have remembered that.’
‘He was there for less than five weeks,’ Knight said.
‘Long enough to recruit bloodthirsty bitches as mad as he is,’ Jack said.
‘Probably why he left the deployment off his C.V.,’ Knight said.
Before Jack could reply, the roar of the crowd came closer and people in the stands around the Queen Victoria Memorial leaped to their feet as two policemen on motorcycles appeared about a hundred yards in front of the same four runners who’d broken free of the main pack back at mile twelve.
‘The motorcyclists,’ Knight said, and threw up his binoculars, trying to see the faces of the officers. But he could tell quickly that neither man was Lancer.
Behind the motorcycles, the top four runners appeared – the Kenyan, the Ethiopian, the barefoot Mexican, and that lad from Brighton – each of them carrying Olympic and Cameroonian hand flags.
After twenty-six miles, three hundred and eighty-five yards, after forty-two thousand, one hundred and ninety-five metres, the Kenyan and the Brit were leading, sprinting side by side. But at the two-hundred-yard mark and hard behind the leaders, the Ethiopian and the Mexican split and sprinted to the leaders’ flanks.
The crowd went wild as the whippet-thin runners churned down the final straight towards gold and glory, four abreast and none of them giving ground.
Then, twenty yards from the finish, the lad from Brighton surged forward, and it looked as if the UK was going to have its first men’s-marathon gold to go with the historic win by Mary Duckworth in the women’s race the previous Sunday.
Astonishingly, however, mere feet from the finish line, the Brighton lad slowed, the runners raised their flags, and the foursome went through the tape together.
For a second, the crowd was stunned and Knight could hear broadcasters braying about the unprecedented act and what it was supposed to mean. And then everyone on The Mall saw it for what it was and started lustily to cheer the gesture, Peter Knight included.
He thought: You see that, Lancer? Cronus? You can’t snuff out the Olympic spirit because it doesn’t exist in any one place; it’s carried in the hearts of every athlete who’s ever striven for greatness, and it always will be.
‘No attack,’ Jack said when the cheering died down. ‘Maybe the show of force along the route scared Lancer off.’
‘Maybe,’ Knight allowed. ‘Or maybe he wasn’t talking about the end of the marathon at all.’
Chapter 108
THE NAUSEATING ENDING to the men’s marathon keeps replaying on the screens around the security stations as I wait patiently in the sweltering heat in the line at the north entrance to the Olympic Park off Ruckholt Road.
My head is shaven and, along with every bit of exposed skin, has been stained with henna to a deep russet tone ten times as dark as my normal colour. The white turban is perfect. So is the black beard, the metal bracelet on my right wrist and the Indian passport, and the sepia-brown contact lenses, the glasses and the loose white Kurta pyjamas and tunic that together with a dab of patchouli oil complete my disguise as Jat Singh Rajpal, a tall Sikh textile trader from Punjab lucky enough to hold a ticket to the closing ceremony.
I’m two feet from the screeners when my face, my normal face, appears on one of the television screens that had been showing the finish of the marathon.
At first I feel panicky. But then I quickly compose myself and take several discreet glances at the screen, hoping it’s just some kind of recap of the events of the Olympics including my dismissal from the organising committee. But then I see the banner scrolling beneath my image and the news that I’m wanted in connection with the Cronus murders.
How is it possible! Many voices thunder in my head, triggering one of those insanely blinding headaches. It’s everything I can do to stay composed when I step towards an F7 guard, a burly woman, and a young police constable who are inspecting tickets and identification.
‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Rajpal,’ the constable says, looking at me expressionlessly.
‘One is willing to make the journey for an event as wonderful as this,’ I say in a practised accent that comes through flawlessly despite the pounding in my skull. I have to fight not to reach up under my turban to touch that scar throbbing at the back of my head.
The F7 guard glances at a laptop computer screen. ‘Have you been to any other events during the games, Mr Rajpal?’ she asks.
‘Two,’ I say. ‘Athletics this past Thursday evening, and field hockey earlier in the week. Monday afternoon. The India-Australia game. We lost.’
She scans the screen and nods. ‘We’ll need to put your bag and any other metal objects through the screener.’
‘Without hesitation,’ I say, putting the bag on the conveyor belt and depositing coins, my bracelet, and my mobile in a plastic tray that follows it.
‘No kirpan?’ the constable asks.
I smile. Clever lad. ‘No, I left the ceremonial dagger at home.’
The constable nods. ‘Appreciate that. We’ve had a few of your blokes try to come in with them. You can go on through now.’
Moments later my headache recedes. I’ve retrieved my bag, which contains only a camera and a large tube of what appears to be sunscreen. Moving quickly past Eton Manor I cross an elevated pedestrian bridge that leads me onto the north-east concourse. Skirting the Velodrome, the basketball arena and the athletes’ village, I make my way continuously south past the sponsors’ hospitality area. I pause to look at them, realising that I’ve overlooked many possible violators of the Olympic ideals.
No matter, I decide. My final act will more than compensate for the oversight. At that thought, my breath quickens. So does my heart, which is hammering when I smile at the guards at the bottom of the loose spiral staircase that climbs between the legs of the Orbit. ‘The restaurant?’ I say. ‘Still open?’
‘Until half-past three, sir,’ one of them replies. ‘You’ve got two hours.’