Conspiracy (41 page)

Then he picked up the small bag with the tools he had assembled and ran quickly over to the UBC camera to meet the Americans.

On television screens around the world, the image of the reporter from the New York Post appeared. Most of the nearly two billion viewers who had been startled by the interruption four minutes earlier saw him. Many also saw a “crawl” message hastily teleprinted across the bottom of their screen by their local station, advising them that satellite malfunction appeared to have delayed the program and that the trouble was not in their set.

As Zadiev left the Soviet bench, Anton Volnikov slid into the now-vacant space beside Katya. He cupped his hand against her ear, leaned over, and said quietly, “Am I the father?”

For an answer, he received Katya’s elbow jammed hard into his ribs, her heel stamped down hard on his injured foot, and a dazzling smile. “
Da
,” she said, and then, still in Russian, “It’s nice of you to ask.”

On Katya’s left, Tamara Filatova was caught up in the excitement of this final minute of the game. The Soviet team had the ball, perilously close to the Argentine goal. They had forty-five seconds left in which to tie the score and send the game into a thirty-minute overtime.

In the UBC control truck, Cindy Ling slid into the director’s chair. She noticed that the Camera Nine monitor had gone blank, and that Camera Seven, Nancy Harrington’s, was gyrating wildly.

“What the hell’s going on with our field-level units?” she said to Billy.

“You’d better plug in and find out,” he said. “You’re all the director we’ve got right now.”

From the stands behind the Soviet bench, the cries of “
Peligro!
” were beginning to carry out onto the field. Several of the Soviet players turned to see what all the fuss was about.

In so doing, they also saw the group around UBC Camera Nine. Sharon had just disconnected a black Cobor cylinder from its detonator box. Now she was pointing to the diagram she had unfolded. 

Zadiev saw where her finger pointed. He remembered the green-painted steel disc with holes in it at the edge of the field, not five yards from the Soviet bench. He pulled the acetylene torch from his black bag and covered the ten yards to the storm drain at a dead run.

The players on the Soviet bench heard the cries of “Bomb!” and “
Desastre!
” from the stands. They saw Zadiev pull up the green steel drain cover and frantically get down on his knees to look inside.

Many of them started to run for the safety of the players’ tunnel and the locker room.

Among them was Anton Volnikov. When he saw what was happening, he grabbed Katya by the hand. “We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said.

In the UBC control truck, Cindy Ling had her headset plugged into the director’s jack beneath the control panel. She flipped the switch to open communication with Camera Seven. “What’s going on out there, Nancy?” she asked.

As Nancy spoke, the world’s television screens flickered with the image of Elliott Strether, nodding. “We deplore the grave injury suffered by our countrymen in Seville,” his reedy voice intoned. “And I can assure you—”

“Stop Able!” Cindy Ling shouted. Her voice carried into the slo-mo cubicle, even though she had not opened the switch to reach the headset of Earvin Williams. “Stop Able now!”

Earvin had watched Taggart’s hasty exit from the truck with some amusement. “You’re the boss, honey,” he said as he pushed the button to kill the movement of the Able tape deck’s twin reels. Then he added to Wesley, beside him, “Guess you’d better roll Baker.”

Televisions around the world registered Strether saying “The United States—” and then went black. No one but those inside Bernabeau saw Dimitri Zadiev, Yuri’s brother, leap up like a great fish from the cluster of players around the Argentine goal and “head” in the ball to tie the score.

Inside the storm drain beneath the Bernabeau playing field, the Cobor detonator received only half of the six-second message on which it had been programmed to act. The electronic mechanism, in turn, sent no impulse to-trip the spring-loaded trigger that would open the valve to release the gas.

At the same moment, however, Yuri Zadiev applied the flame from an oxyacetylene torch to the air immediately above the detonator. Convinced that the time was up, that the Cobor must by now be spewing out, Zadiev believed he had to oxidize the deadly gas while he tried to cut off its flow from the cylinder.

Heat from the torch caused the metal of the detonator to expand. As Zadiev reached down for the grenade, the heated firing mechanism expanded and clicked into place. The gears engaged; the firing collar turned the wing-nut valve. 

As designed, the detonator box fell away.

Zadiev saw the movement and knew that the lethal fumes were now unmistakably present in the air. He kept his torch aimed at the valve atop the cylinder. With his free hand he reached down into the drainpipe to pull up the grenade. In so doing, his hand came within reach of the acetylene flame and was badly burned. Zadiev set his jaw against the pain and gripped the cylinder, pulling it up, all the while keeping the grenade nozzle within an inch of the torch’s flame.

He set the grenade down, laying it on its side on the green turf. Once more his hand moved into the torch’s fire, this time to reach the valve.

On the field, the time of the regular game was up. The referee signaled a five-minute break in the action, a brief rest for the athletes before their thirty minutes of overtime play to break the tie.

The Russian team, weary but elated over their last-moment goal, came trooping toward their bench. Tamara Filatova clapped her hands as they approached. “You’re wonderful, yes?” she cried in Russian, and then, “Katya, look at Sergei! He’s so proud!”

She turned to share the moment with Katya, and saw that Katya was not there. Her trained eyes swiftly spotted the young gymnast behind the chain-link fence at the player’s entrance, disappearing into the locker-room tunnel. “Katya!” she cried, and bolted for the locker room.

Yuri Zadiev had closed the valve on the grenade, shutting off the flow of Cobor. He kept the acetylene torch in place and did not look at the charred and blistered ruin of his right hand. He heard Tamara’s cry, and it registered in his mind that Katya must have bolted with the others to get away from the bomb. The fact did not concern him overmuch; if she tried to use the opportunity to escape in the confusion, he had already taken measures to ensure that she would not get far.

He watched the burning torch. When his lungs could no longer tolerate the lack of oxygen, he allowed himself to breathe. Dazed from anoxia and in the initial stages of shock from the pain of his burned hand, he got to his feet and looked around. 

Players were drifting past him to the locker-room tunnel. The scoreboard showed a score of two for Argentina, two for CCCP. To his right, the fat UBC cameraman was putting his camera back in working order.

Behind him he heard the voice of Sharon Foster. She was standing with the Spanish guard. “We’re safe, Yuri,” she said. “You’re a hero.”

An almost-shy smile momentarily transformed his grimace of pain. 

“You also,” he said.

Then he was calling for the team physician.

Caught in the melee inside the Soviet locker room, Rachel Quinn felt embarrassed at the momentary panic that had caused her to flee with the players. Then she saw Dan Richards. “You chickened out too?” she asked as she joined him. “There’s a hell of a story out there. I wonder if it’s safe to go back.”

Richards’s eyes were fixed on something behind her.

“Forget the game,” he said quietly. “Look over there in the corner. That’s Katya Romanova.”

23

Beneath the rooftop of the Madrid uplink antenna building, Raul’s five-minute timing device had ended its cycle. The switches governed by its trickle of electronic current lost their hold on the incoming cable signals and fell away. The TV Espana beam passed through, up to its antenna, and to its proper channel in Satcom IV.

On TV screens throughout the world, the UBC apology for an interruption due to technical difficulties was abruptly replaced, in mid-sentence, by excited commentary on the game-tying goal from the TV Espana sportscaster. In most of the world’s non-Spanish-speaking countries, the translator in the local studio began once more to interpret the action on the screen for the viewers at home.

In Rio de Janeiro, a portly middle-aged banker turned to his pretty young wife. “Stupid Americans!” he fumed. “The crucial moment, and because of them—”

“They’ll show the replay,” his wife said reassuringly. And then added, “Now remember what the doctor said and relax. Thirty more minutes remain.”

In his villa north of Moscow, Felix Chelkar studied the TV screen intently, listening to the announcer’s voice for some indication that Tavda’s plan had succeeded. It was now or never, he realized. Tavda could not have planned on an overtime period.

The press box camera, scanning the crowd, showed some empty seats behind the Soviet bench. If the abandoned seats were the result of panic, however, that panic had been short lived. Telephoto shots of people’s faces showed them to be excited and happy, cheering the players and looking pleased that they were about to see thirty more minutes of championship play at no further cost.

Chelkar shrugged. Perhaps Tavda had something more up his sleeve, but he doubted it. It was more likely that Tavda was at this moment following the escape plan that was to bring him to Moscow. After so long abroad, Tavda was doubtless eager to see his native city again. 

Also, he would be wasting no time in putting distance between himself and the Madrid authorities.

And whether Tavda had succeeded or not, Felix Chelkar was protected. The KGB chief sat back in his chair once again as play resumed. As long as his Izhevsk instructions were carried out, Chelkar knew he had nothing to fear.

24

On the sidelines near the Soviet bench, Yuri Zadiev stood with his right hand extended. The team physician had numbed the damaged tissue with Novocain injections. He was now applying antibacterial gauze dressing. “You must go to the hospital immediately,” he told Yuri. “This is a grave injury, and I cannot take the responsibility for this kind of treatment.”

Yuri was not listening to the physician. He was speaking into a small radio communications unit he had taken from his tool kit. The transmitter, an experimental type limited to KGB personnel, broadcast a computerized signal that effectively sidestepped any known jamming devices.

In front of the small contemporary brick church opposite the Bernabeau parking gate, another man held an identical radio unit to his ear. He listened to Yuri’s voice. 

Then he pressed the “transmit” button and said one word, in Russian: “Understood.” 

He turned to the two other KGB men beside him. All three were dressed in Spanish Guardia Civil uniforms. All three carried snub-nosed submachine guns.

They positioned themselves outside the gate to the stadium parking lot.

On the other side of the stadium, inside the opposite gate, three more KGB men dressed in Spanish uniforms moved into place to block the exit.

Inside the stadium, Tamara Filatova had been delayed from entering the locker room by players returning to the field to congratulate their teammates. Now she came running out again. “Comrade Zadiev—” she began. Her voice quavered with shame and frustration.

“Relax, Tamara Borisovna,” Zadiev said in Russian. Then he added, “You stay here and watch the others.”

Walter J. drove the UBC mobile van out of the tunnel gate into the Bernabeau parking lot. The sun was low on the horizon by now, since it was nearly eight o’clock, and the shadows were long, but there was still plenty of light. Enough for both Dan Richards and Rachel Quinn, side by side with Walter J. in the front of the van, to see the three armed guards blocking the gate. The three submachine guns looked menacing.

“Better go around to the other gate, Walter,” Rachel said.

Dan leaned out the window on the passenger’s side. “They’re Guardia Civil,” he said, after a closer look. “What would they want to keep people
inside
for?”

“The bombs, you idiot,” Rachel said. “They’re looking for whoever put the bombs in our cameras.”

“Who’s going to plant bombs and then stick around to watch them go off?” Dan asked.

There were three guards at the other gate too. 

“What now?” asked Walter J.

“Let’s go ahead,” said Dan. “I know some Spanish. I’ll try to talk to them.”

He leaned out the window, holding his UBC identification card. In halting Spanish, he explained that they were the UBC mobile camera unit, on their way to downtown Madrid to do some location shooting of the city in the aftermath of the World Cup.

The guard replied by placing the muzzle of his weapon two inches away from Dan’s mouth and clicking off the safety.

Another guard behind him spoke into some kind of walkie-talkie that Dan did not recognize.

“You know, it sounds like he’s talking in Russian,” Dan said quietly.

The tip of the gun barrel moved closer to Dan’s lips.

“I’ve heard that these guys are animals,” Rachel said. “You’d better not push him.”

Seconds crawled by. 

The tableau remained frozen: the van, three sitting inside, three standing outside, all motionless.

Then Yuri Zadiev joined them. In his shirtsleeves, he wore a bulky white gauze bandage on his right hand and looked haggard with fatigue. He said a few words to Dan Richards’s guard, who immediately lowered his weapon.

“Hello, Mr. Richards, Miss Quinn,” he said in his cultivated English. “I’m sorry to have detained you. But we have a difficulty. By agreement with our government, these guards are cooperating with me in hopes of resolving it.”

You slick bastard, thought Rachel, and poked her head in front of Dan to see more clearly. “What problem, Yuri?”

“One of our people is missing. Katya Romanova. She has been somewhat unstable during recent days, and we fear for her health.”