Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories - 3 Read online

  A Russian nodded to him and said to a lean U.S. athlete nearby, "What's your event, my friend?"

  "I'm a sprinter," the American said. "Hundred meters is my main event."

  "A sprinter?" The Russian looked at him with a gaze of wistfulness. "I envy that. You are a hawk. Me, a plodding ostrich! I run long distances. When do you compete?"

  "In an hour."

  "You must be impatient."

  "Yeah, some. But this isn't about me. It's about the team."

  The Russian laughed. "Spoken like a good Communist."

  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 some
thing 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.

  Malloy had laughed. "No, no, no. It's not dental work, like you're waiting for the anesthetic to kick in. You should enjoy the book from page one."

  Prescott's books were that way. They entertained you from the git-go. They took you away from your job, they took you away from the problems with your wife or daughter, your mortgage company.

  They took you away from everything. And in this life, Malloy reflected, there was a lot to be taken away from.

  "What're you moping around about?" his partner, Ralph DeLeon, asked, walking into the shabby office they shared in the Midtown South Precinct, after half a weekend off. "I'm the only one round here got reason to be upset. Thanks to the Mets yesterday. Oh, wait. You don't even know who the Mets are, son, do you?"

  "Sure, I love basketball," Malloy joked. But it was a distracted joke.

  "So?" DeLeon asked. He was tall, slim, muscular, black--the opposite of Malloy, detail for detail.

  "Got one of those feelings."

  "Shit. Last one of those feelings earned us a sit-down with the dep com."

  Plate glass and Corvettes are extremely expensive. Especially when owned by people with lawyers.

  But Malloy wasn't paying much attention to their past collars. Or to DeLeon. He once more read the obit that had appeared in the Times a month ago.

  J.B. Prescott, 68, author of thirty-two bestselling crime novels, died yesterday while on a hike in a remote section of Vermont, where he had a summer home.

  The cause of death was a heart attack.

  "We're terribly saddened by the death of one of our most prolific and important writers," said Dolores Kemper, CEO of Hutton-Fielding, Inc., which had been his publisher for many years. "In these days of lower book sales and fewer people reading, J.B.'s books still flew off the shelves. It's a terrible loss for everyone."

  Prescott's best known creation was Jacob Sharpe, a down-and-dirty counterintelligence agent, who traveled the world, fighting terrorists and criminals. Sharpe was frequently compared to James Bond and Jason Bourne.

  Prescott was not a critical darling. Reviewers called his books "airport time-passers," "beach reads" and "junk food for the mind--superior junk food, but empty calories nonetheless."

  Still, he was immensely popular with his fans. Each of his books sold millions of copies.

  His success brought him fame and fortune, but Prescott shunned the public life, rarely going on book tours or giving interviews. Though a multimillionaire, he had no interest in the celebrity lifestyle. He and his second wife, the former Jane Spenser, 38, owned an apartment in Manhattan, where she was a part-time photo editor for Styles, the popular fashion magazine. Prescott himself, however, spent most of his time in Vermont or in the countryside of Spain, where he could write in peace.

  Born in Kansas, John Balin Prescott studied English literature at the University of Iowa and was an advertising copywriter and teacher for some years while trying to publish literary fiction and poetry. He had little success and ultimately switched to writing thrillers. His first, "The Trinity Connection," became a runaway hit in 1991. The book was on The New York Times Best Seller List for more than 100 weeks.

  Demand for his books became so great that ten years ago he took on a cowriter, Aaron Reilly, 39, with whom he wrote 16 bestsellers. This increased his output to two novels a year, sometimes more.

  "We're just devastated," said Reilly, who described himself as a friend as well as colleague. "John hadn't been feeling well lately. But we couldn't get him back to the city to see his doctor, he was so intent on finishing our latest manuscript. That's the way he was. Type A in the extreme."

  Last week, Prescott traveled to Vermont alone to work on his next novel. Taking a break from the writing, he went for a hike, as he often did, in a deserted area near the Green Mountains. It was there that he suffered the coronary.

  "John's personal physician described the heart attack as massive," coauthor Reilly added. "Even if he hadn't been alone, the odds of saving him were slim to nonexistent."

  Mr. Prescott is survived by his wife and two children from a prior marriage.

  "So what's this feeling you're talking about?" DeLeon asked, reading over his partner's shoulder.

  "I'm not sure. Something."

  "Now, there is some evidence to get straight to the crime lab. 'Something.' Come on, there's some real cases on our plate, son. Put your mopey hat away. We gotta meet our snitch."

  "Mopey hat? Did you actually say mopey hat?"

  A half hour later, Malloy and DeLeon were sitting in a disgusting dive of a coffee shop near the Hudson docks, talking to a scummy little guy of indeterminate race and age.

  Lucius was eating chili in a sloppy way and saying, "So what happened was Bark, remember I was telling you about Bark."

  "Who's Bark?" Malloy asked.

  "I told you."

  DeLeon said, "He told us."

  "What Bark did was he was going to mark the bag, only he's a nimrod so he forgot which one it was. I figured it out and got it marked. That worked out okay. It's marked, it's on the truck. Nobody saw me. They had, I'd be capped." A big mouthful of chili. And a grin. "So."

  "Good job," DeLeon said. And kicked Malloy under the table. Meaning: Tell him he did a good job because if you don't the man'll start to feel bad and yeah he's a little shit nimrod whatever that is but we need him.

  But Malloy was remembering something. He rose abruptly. "I gotta go."

  "I dint do a good job?" Lucius called, hurt.

  But he was speaking to Jimmy Malloy's back.

  *

  JANE PRESCOTT opened the door of the townhouse in Greenwich Village. Close to five eleven, she could look directly into Malloy's eyes.

  The widow wore a black dress, closely fitted, and her eyes were red like she'd been crying. Her hair was swept back and faint gray roots showed, though Malloy recalled that she was only in her late thirties. Three decades younger than her late husband, he also recalled.

  "Detective." Hesitant, of course, looking over his ID. A policeman. She was thinking this was odd--not necessarily reason to panic but odd.

  "I recognize you," Malloy said.

  She blinked. "Have we met?"

  "In Sharpe Edge. You were Monica."

  She gave a hollow laugh. "People say that, because an older man falls in love with a younger woman in the book. But I'm not a spy and I can't rappel off cliffs."

  They were both beautiful, however, if Malloy remembered the Prescott novel correctly. But he said nothing about this, she being a new widow. What he said was, "I'm sorry for your loss."

  "Thank you. Oh, please come inside."

  The apartment was small, typical of the Village, but luxurious as diamonds. Rich antiques, original art. Even statues. Nobody Malloy knew owned statues. A peek into the kitchen revealed intimidating brushed-metal appliances with names Malloy couldn't pronounce.

  They sat and she looked at him with her red-rimmed eyes. An uneasy moment later he said, "You're wondering what a cop's doing here."

  "Yes, I am."

  "Other than just being a fan, wishing to pay condolences."

  "You could've written a letter."

  "The fact is, this is sort of personal. I didn't want to come sooner, out of respect. But there's something I'd like to ask. Some of us in the department were thinking 'bout putting together a memorial evening in honor of your husband. He wrote about New York a lot and he didn't make us cops out to be flunkies. One of them, I can't remember which one, he had this gre
at plot line here in the city. Some NYPD rookie helping out Jacob Sharpe. It was about terrorists going after the train stations."

  "Hallowed Ground."

  "That's right. That was a good book."

  More silence.

  Malloy glanced at a photograph on the desk. It showed a half-dozen people, in somber clothing, standing around a gravesite. Jane was in the foreground.

  She saw him looking at it. "The funeral."

  "Who're the other people there?"

  "His daughters from his first marriage. That's Aaron, his cowriter." She indicated a man standing next to her. Then, in the background another, older man in an ill-fitting suit. She said, "Frank Lester, John's former agent."

  She said nothing more. Malloy continued, "Well, some folks in the department know I'm one of your husband's biggest fans so I got elected to come talk to you, ask if you'd come to the memorial. An appreciation night, you could call it. Maybe say a few words. Wait. 'Elected' makes it sound like I didn't want to come. But I did. I loved his books."

  "I sense you did," she said, looking at the detective with piercing gray eyes.

  "So?"

  "I appreciate the offer. I'll just have to see."

  "Sure. Whatever you'd feel comfortable with."

  *

  "YOU MADE HIM FEEL BAD. He nearly got capped on that assignment."

  Malloy said to his partner, "I'll send him a balloon basket. 'Sorry I was rude to my favorite snitch.' But right now I'm on to something."

  "Give me particulars."

  "Okay. Well, she's hot, Prescott's wife."

  "That's not a helpful particular."

  "I think it is. Hot...and thirty years younger than her husband."

  "So she took her bra off and gave him a heart attack. Murder by boob isn't in the penal code."

  "You know what I mean."

  "You mean she wanted somebody younger. So do I. So does everybody. Well, not you, 'cause nobody younger would give you the time of day."

  "And there was this feeling I got at the house. She wasn't really in mourning. She was in a black dress, yeah, but it was tighter than anything I'd ever let my daughter wear--and her red eyes? It was like she'd been rubbing them. I didn't buy the grieving widow thing."

  "You ain't marshaling Boston Legal evidence here, son."

  "There's more." Malloy pulled the limp copy of Prescott's obit out of his pocket. He tapped a portion. "I realized where my feeling came from. See this part about the personal physician?"