The two men laughed.
Billy joined them as he viewed another Russian athlete, slim with slicked-back dark hair, walking toward them from the stands, his bag over his shoulder. He had a pleasant smile on his face as he surveyed the field around him. He headed straight for the Russians at the photography station.
“Where are you from?” the first Russian asked Billy. “Your voice.”
“Texas.”
“Ah. The stars at night.” The man clapped his hands four times.
Drawing another laugh from Billy.
One of the Russian coaches announced something — presumably it was time for the pictures because the men and women began clustering around the photographer. The long-distance runner said, “Come with me, my cowboy friend. You and your colleague. I want you both in the picture, too.”
“Us?” Billy asked.
The man’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, so you’ll have something to remember our victory over you.”
Yuri was twenty feet away from the dignitary box, which was draped in red in honor of the host country and blue and white in honor of the birthplace of the games. He noted that the photographer was set up. The video camera, too. And a number of Americans were mingling with the Russians. Young men and women, happy to be here, thrilled.
If they only knew what the next few minutes would bring. A shattering explosion, ball bearings and nails tearing skin, piercing their highly tuned bodies.
He looked around. There were guards in the stands and some near the doors, but none here.
He was, as the Americans said, home free.
When he was ten feet away he’d detonate the device, he decided. That would be plenty close enough.
He swung the bag under his arm and began to unzip to pull out the detonator.
As he was doing this he glanced at someone nearby, looking at him, someone with the American team, wearing a running suit. He was a young man, blond. He was rubbing his crew-cut head.
But not only rubbing his head, Yuri realized to his shock. He was speaking into a microphone at his wrist.
His eyes met the blond American’s.
Yuri froze. Then frantically began to reach into his bag for the detonator button.
Which was when the young American drew a pistol from his windbreaker, aimed it at Yuri’s head. People screamed and dove for the ground.
Yuri went for the button.
He saw a flash, but not from the explosive. It was from the hand of the young American.
And then he saw nothing.
Frederick Alston and Billy Savitch were standing in the office of Security Chief Ch’ao.
Billy thought he looked a little like Jackie Chan, but he didn’t think it would be a good idea to say that. You had to be careful about accidental insults over here, he’d learned.
“I’m so very grateful to you both,” Ch’ao said, rising and clasping their hands in both of his.
Billy nodded, looking like the bashful Southern boy that he was. Secretly he, too, was grateful. As the junior member of the U.S. State Department Security Team, which Alston headed, he’d never expected to be on the front line of an operation here. He expected he’d continue to do what he’d been doing since he’d arrived: checking IDs, standing on rooftops with a machine gun, checking cars, sweeping bedrooms.
But Alston had had enough confidence in Billy to put him to work in the stadium.
I think you’re ready to go on the field…
“How did you know that the man was a terrorist?” Ch’ao asked him.
“I didn’t know, not at first. But I’d studied all the entrances and exits of the stadium and players were never in the part of the stands where he was coming from. You can’t get to that place from the competitors’ entrance. Why would he come from that direction? And he was carrying his sports bag. None of the other players on the field had bags; they were all in the locker rooms.” Billy shrugged. “Then I looked into his eyes. And I knew.”
“Who was he?” Alston asked.
“Yuri Umarov. Lived outside of Grozny. He came into Beijing with Gregor Dallayev last week. They’ve been training ever since, making the bomb, surveying the grounds and security.”
“Dallayev, sure.” Alston nodded. “The separatist guerrilla. We think he was involved in the Moscow subway attack last year.”
“We’ll be able to find out for certain,” the Chinese man said with a smile. “He’s in custody.”
Billy asked, “What was their plan exactly?”
Ch’ao explained, “They made connections with a cell of Uyghur terrorists and promised them thirty kilos of plastic explosive to use as they wished, as long as it disrupted the games. A Uyghur picked up the explosives at a drop site near Chaoyang Park this morning. It was that green Chevy I told you about. He drove to a meeting place not far from the stadium. We think that he believed he was meeting an intermediary to pick up detonators. But the explosive was already rigged to blow remotely. We had that tip early about explosives in a green Chevy—”
“Which Gregor called in?” Alston asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. So as soon as the Uyghur parked near the electrical relay station Gregor then made another anonymous call and reported the green car. When the police arrived, Gregor blew the car up with a remote control…And that took out the power station next to it.”
“So that was the point of meeting there,” Alston said. “A cover to take out the electricity.”
“That’s right. It shut down the alarm system temporarily and gave Yuri a chance to get inside.”
Alston added, “We heard from Washington that your government wanted to end it right there — with the Uyghur’s death. But you called us to say there was more of a threat. How’d you know that?”
“Just like you”—a nod at Billy Savitch—“I didn’t know. But I suspected. I play go. Do you know it?”
“Never heard of it,” Billy said. Alston, too, shook his head.
“It’s our version of chess. Only better, of course.” He didn’t seem to be making a joke. “I look forward when I play the game. You must always look forward to beat your opponent at go. You must see beyond the board. Well, I looked forward today. Yes, the explosion could have been an accident. But looking forward, I believed it could be an excellent diversion.”
His phone buzzed. There was a rattle of Chinese. Ch’ao grimaced. Said something back. Hung up.
Man, they talked fast in this country, Billy thought.
“Something wrong?” Alston asked.
“I would like to ask a favor.”
“Sure.”
“There will be a man here in a few minutes. His name is Mr. Liu. He…well, shall I say, he is not a forward thinker. I promised him that I would not alert the security forces that there might be another threat…”
“Politics, huh?” Alston asked.
“Precisely.”
“Fine with us.” He looked at Billy. “Savitch here acted on his own initiative.”
“Yessir.”
“Thank you.”
Then in the distance a huge round of cheering and applause rose from the bird nest.
Ch’ao looked at his watch and then consulted a schedule. “Ah, the first events are over. They’re awarding the medals. Let me find out the results.” He made a call and spoke in that explosive way of his. He nodded, then hung up.
“Who won the gold?” Billy asked.
Ch’ao only smiled.
THE PLOT
When J.B. Prescott, the hugely popular crime novelist, died, millions of readers around the world were stunned and saddened.
But only one fan thought that there was something more to his death than what was revealed in the press reports.
Rumpled, round, middle-aged Jimmy Malloy was an NYPD detective sergeant. He had three passions other than police work: his family, his boat and reading. Malloy read anything, but preferred crime novels. He liked the clever plots and the fast-moving stories. That’s what books should be, he felt. He’d been at a party once and people were talking about how long they should give a book before they put it down. Some people had said they’d endure fifty pages, some said a hundred.