Private Games Read online

  ‘You’re the nanny now,’ Knight said, stifling a laugh as he left.

  Chapter 36

  AS KNIGHT AND his mother made their way to St Pancras Station and the high-speed train to Stratford and the Olympic Park, Professor Selena Farrell was feeling damn sexy, thank you very much.

  Dusk was coming on in Soho. The air was sultry, she’d got vodka in her, and she was dressed to kill. Indeed, as she walked west from Tottenham Court Road towards Carlisle Street, the classics professor kept catching glimpses of herself in the shop windows she passed, and in the eyes of men and women who could not help but notice every sway of her hips and every bounce of her breasts in the skirt and sleeveless blouse that clung to her like second skins.

  She wore alluring make-up, startling blue contact lenses, and the scarf was gone, revealing dark-dyed hair cut in swoops that framed her face and drew the eye to that little dark mole on her right jawline. But for the mole no one, not even her research assistant, would ever have recognised her.

  Farrell loved feeling like this. Anonymous. Sexual. On the prowl.

  When she was like this she was far from who she was in her everyday life, truly someone else. The illicitness of it all excited the professor yet again, empowered her yet again, and made her feel magnetic, hypnotic and, well, downright irresistible.

  When she reached Carlisle Street, she found number four, its sign lit in pink neon, and entered. The Candy Club was the oldest and largest lesbian nightclub in London, and was Farrell’s favourite place to go when she needed to let off steam.

  The professor headed towards the long bar on the ground floor and the many beautiful women milling around in it. A petite woman, quite exquisite in her loveliness, caught sight of Farrell, spun in her seat, mojito in hand, and threw her a knowing smile. ‘Syren St James!’

  ‘Nell,’ Farrell said, and kissed her on the cheek.

  Nell put her hand on Farrell’s forearm and studied her outfit. ‘My, my, Syren. Look at you: more brilliant and delicious than ever. Where have you been lately? I haven’t seen you in almost a month.’

  ‘I was here the other night,’ Farrell said. ‘Before that I was in Paris. Working. A new project.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ Nell said. Then she turned conspiratorial and added, ‘You know, we could always leave and …’

  ‘Not tonight, lover,’ Farrell said gently. ‘I’ve already made plans.’

  ‘Pity,’ Nell sniffed. ‘Your “plan” here yet?’

  ‘Haven’t looked,’ Farrell replied.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘That’s a secret.’

  ‘Well,’ Nell said, miffed. ‘If your secret is a no-show, come back.’

  Farrell blew Nell a kiss before setting off, feeling anticipation make her heart beat along with the dance music thudding up from the basement. She peered into the nooks and crannies of the ground floor before heading upstairs where she scanned the crowd gathered around the pink pool table. No luck.

  Farrell was beginning to think she’d been stood up until she went to the basement where a femme kink performer was pole dancing to the riffs and dubs of a disc jockey named V. J. Wicked. Pink sofas lined the walls facing the stripper.

  The professor spotted her quarry on one of those sofas in the far corner of the room, nursing a flute of champagne. With jet-black hair pulled back severely, she was elegantly attired in a black cocktail frock and a pill hat with a black lace veil that obscured the features of her face except for her dusky skin and ruby lips.

  ‘Hello, Marta,’ Farrell said, sliding into a chair beside her.

  Marta took her attention off the dancer, smiled and replied in a soft East European accent. ‘I had faith I’d see you here, my sister.’

  The professor smelled Marta’s perfume and was enthralled. ‘I couldn’t stay away.’

  Marta ran her ruby fingernails over the back of Farrell’s hand. ‘Of course you couldn’t. Shall we let the games begin?’

  Chapter 37

  BY SEVEN THAT evening the world’s eyes had turned to five hundred-plus acres of decaying East London land that had been transformed into the city’s new Olympic Park, which featured a stadium packed with ninety thousand lucky fans, a teeming athletes’ village, and sleek modern venues for cycling, basketball, handball, swimming and diving.

  These venues were all beautiful structures, but the media had chosen British sculptor Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit as the park’s and, indeed, the Games’s signature design achievement. At three hundred and seventy-seven feet, the Orbit was taller than Big Ben, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and soared just outside the east flank of the stadium. The Orbit was rust red and featured massive hollow, steel arms that curved, twisted and wove together in a way that put Knight in mind of DNA helices gone mad. Near the top, the structure supported a circular observation deck and restaurant. Above the deck, another of those DNA helices was curved into a giant arch.

  From his position high on the west side of the stadium, at the window of a lavish hospitality suite set aside for LOCOG, Knight trained his binoculars on the massive Olympic cauldron, which was set on a raised platform on the roof of the observation deck. He wondered how they were going to light it, and then found himself distracted by a BBC broadcaster on a nearby television screen saying that nearly four billion people were expected to tune in to the coverage of the opening ceremonies.

  ‘Peter?’ Jack Morgan said behind him. ‘There’s someone here who would like to talk to you.’

  Knight lowered his binoculars and turned to find the owner of Private standing next to Marcus Morris, the chairman of LOCOG. Morris had been a popular Minister of Sport in a previous Labour government.

  The two men shook hands.

  ‘An honour,’ Knight said as he shook Morris’s hand.

  Morris said, ‘I need to hear from you exactly what Richard Guilder said before he died regarding Denton Marshall.’

  Knight told him, finishing with, ‘The currency scam had nothing to do with the Olympics. It was greed on Guilder’s part. I’ll testify to that.’

  Morris shook Knight’s hand again. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want there to be any hint of impropriety hanging over these Games. But it does nothing to make any of us feel any better about the loss of Denton. It’s a tragedy.’

  ‘In too many ways to count.’

  ‘Your mother seems to be holding up.’

  Indeed, upon their arrival Amanda had been showered with sympathy and was now somewhere in the crowd behind them.

  ‘She’s a strong person, and when this Cronus maniac claimed that Denton was crooked she got angry, very angry. Not a good thing.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Morris said, and smiled at last. ‘And now I’ve got a speech to give.’

  ‘And an Olympics to open,’ Jack said.

  ‘That too,’ Morris said, and walked away.

  Jack looked out the window at the huge audience, his eyes scanning the roofline.

  Knight noticed and said, ‘Security seems brilliant, Jack. It took more than an hour for my mother and I to get through screening at Stratford. And the blokes with the weapons were all Gurkhas.’

  ‘World’s most fearsome warriors,’ Jack said, nodding.

  ‘Do you need me somewhere?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Jack said. ‘Enjoy the show. You’ve earned it.’

  Knight looked around. ‘By the way, where’s Lancer? Poor form to miss his own party.’

  Jack winked. ‘That’s a secret. Mike said to thank you again. In the meantime, I think you should introduce me to your mother so I can offer my condolences.’

  Knight’s mobile buzzed in his pocket. ‘Of course. One second, Jack.’

  He dug out the phone, saw that Hooligan was calling and answered just as the lights in the stadium dimmed and the audience began to cheer.

  ‘I’m at the stadium,’ Knight said. ‘The opening ceremony’s starting.’

  ‘Sorry to bother you, but some of us have to work,’ Hooligan snapped. ‘I g
ot results on that hair sample you sent over this morning. They’re—’

  A trumpet fanfare erupted from every speaker in the stadium, drowning out what Hooligan had just said.

  ‘Repeat that,’ Knight said, sticking his finger in his ear.

  ‘The hair in Cronus’s envelope and Selena Farrell’s hair,’ Hooligan yelled. ‘They fuckin’ match!’

  Chapter 38

  ‘WE’VE GOT CRONUS!’ Knight said in a hoarse whisper as he hung up. A powerful spotlight broke the darkness, fixing on a lone figure crouched in the middle of the stadium floor.

  ‘What?’ Jack Morgan said, surprised.

  ‘Or one of his Furies, anyway,’ Knight said, and then described the match. ‘Farrell’s house was razed to make way for this stadium. She said publicly that the people who did it to her were going to pay, and she completely flipped when we played the flute music for her.’

  ‘Call Pottersfield,’ Jack advised. ‘Have her go to Farrell’s house. Put her under surveillance until they can get a warrant.’

  Out in the stadium a clarinet solo started and from the corner of his eye, Knight saw the figure on the stadium floor rise. He wore green and carried a bow. A quiver of arrows was slung across his back. Robin Hood?

  ‘Unless Farrell’s in the stadium,’ Knight said, anxiety rising in his chest.

  ‘They’ve got names attached to every ticket somewhere,’ Jack said. He started moving away from the window towards the exit, with Knight trailing after him.

  Behind them the crowd roared as a spectacle designed by British film-maker Danny Boyle moved into high gear, depicting through song and dance the rich history of London. Knight could hear drums booming and music echoing in the long hallway outside the heavily guarded hospitality suite. He speed-dialled Elaine Pottersfield, got her on the third ring, and explained the DNA evidence linking Selena Farrell to Cronus’s letter.

  Beside him, he heard Jack giving the same information to whoever was the watch commander of the moment inside the Olympic Park.

  ‘How did you come by Farrell’s DNA?’ Pottersfield demanded.

  ‘Long story,’ Knight said. ‘We’re looking for her inside the Olympic stadium at the moment. I suggest you start doing the same at her home.’

  He and Jack Morgan both hung up at the same time. Knight glanced at the four armed Private operatives guarding the entrance to LOCOG’s hospitality suite.

  Reading his thoughts, Jack said: ‘No one’s getting in there.’

  Knight almost nodded, but then thought of Guilder and Mascolo, and said, ‘We can’t consider LOCOG members as the only targets. Guilder proved that.’

  Jack nodded. ‘We have to think that way.’

  The pair entered the stadium in time to see Mary Poppins launch off the Orbit, umbrella held high as she floated over the roof and the delirious crowd towards a replica of the Tower of London that had been moved onto the floor. She landed near the Tower, but disappeared in smoke when lights began flashing red and white and kettledrums boomed to suggest the London blitz during the Second World War.

  The smoke cleared and hundreds of people dressed in a multitude of costume styles danced around the replica of the Tower, and Knight thought he heard someone say that they were depicting modern London and the diverse citizenry of the most cosmopolitan city in the world.

  But Knight was not interested in the spectacle: he was looking everywhere in the stadium, trying to anticipate what a madwoman might do in a situation like this. He spotted an entryway on the west side of the venue.

  ‘Where does that go?’ he asked Jack.

  ‘The practice track,’ Jack replied. ‘That’s where the teams are getting ready for the parade of nations.’

  For reasons that Knight could not explain he felt drawn to that part of the stadium. ‘I want to take a look,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll walk with you,’ Jack said. They crossed the stadium as the lights dimmed yet again except for a spotlight aimed at that Robin Hood figure who was now perched high above the stage at the venue’s south end.

  The actor was pointing up at the top of the Orbit, above the observation deck where more spotlights revealed two armed members of the Queen’s Guard marching stiffly towards the cauldron from opposite sides of the roof. They pivoted and stood at rigid attention in their red tunics and black bearskin hats, flanking the cauldron.

  Two more guardsmen appeared in the stadium at either side of the main stage. The music faded and an announcer said, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs: Queen Elizabeth and the Royal Family.’

  Chapter 39

  THE LIGHTS ON the stage came up to reveal Queen Elizabeth the Second in a blue suit. She was smiling and waving as she moved to a microphone while Prince Philip, Charles, William, Kate, and various other members of the Windsor family flanked and followed her.

  Knight and Jack slowed to gawk for several moments while the queen gave a short speech welcoming the youth of the world to London. But then they moved on towards that entryway.

  As more dignitaries gave speeches, the two Private operatives reached the grandstand above the tunnel entry and had to show their corporate badges and IDs to get to the railing. Teams of armed Gurkhas flanked both sides of the tunnel below them. Several of the Nepalese guards immediately began studying Knight and Jack, gauging their level of threat.

  ‘I absolutely would not want one of those guys pissed-off at me,’ Jack said as athletes from Afghanistan started to appear in the entryway.

  ‘Toughest soldiers in the world,’ Knight said, studying the traditional long, curved and sheathed knives several of the Gurkhas wore at their belts.

  A long curved knife cut off Denton Marshall’s head, right?

  He was about to mention this fact to Jack when Marcus Morris shouted in conclusion to his speech: ‘We welcome the youth of the world to the greatest city on Earth!’

  On the stage at the south end of the stadium, the rock band The Who appeared, and broke into ‘The Kids Are Alright’ as the parade of athletes began with the contingent from Afghanistan entering the stadium.

  The crowd went wild and wilder still when The Who finished and Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones appeared with Keith Richards’ guitar wailing the opening riff of ‘Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?’

  With a thousand camera flashes, London went into full Olympic frenzy.

  Below Jack and Knight, the Cameroon team filed into the stadium.

  ‘Which one’s Mundaho?’ Jack asked. ‘He’s from Cameroon, right?’

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Knight said, searching among the contingent dressed in green and bright yellow until he spotted a tall, muscular and laughing man with his hair done up in beads and shells. ‘There he is.’

  ‘Does he honestly reckon he can beat Shaw?’

  ‘He certainly thinks so,’ Knight said.

  Filatri Mundaho had appeared out of nowhere on the international track scene at a race in Berlin only seven months before the Olympics. Mundaho was a big, rangy man built along the same lines as the supreme Jamaican sprinter Zeke Shaw.

  Shaw had not been in Berlin, but many of the world’s other fastest men had. Mundaho ran in three events at that meet: the 100-metre, 200-metre, and 400-metre sprints. The Cameroonian won every heat and every race convincingly, which had never been done before at a meet that big.

  The achievement set off a frenzy of speculation about what Mundaho might be able to accomplish at the London Games. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, American Henry Ivey gold-medalled and set world records in both the 400-metre and 200-metre sprints. At Beijing in 2008, Shaw won the 100 and 200-metre sprints, also setting world records in both events. But no man, or woman for that matter, had ever won all three sprint events at a single Games.

  Filatri Mundaho was going to try.

  His coaches claimed that Mundaho had been discovered running in a regional race in the eastern part of their country after he’d escaped from rebel forces who had kidnapped him as a child and turned him into a boy soldier.

&
nbsp; ‘Did you read that article the other day where he attributed his speed and stamina to bullets flying at his back?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No,’ Knight said. ‘But I can see that being a hell of a motivator.’

  Chapter 40

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, with The Who and the Stones still counterpunching with songs from their greatest-hits collections, the contingent from the United States entered the stadium led by their flag-bearer Paul Teeter, a massive bearded man whom Jack knew from Los Angeles.

  ‘Paul went to UCLA,’ Jack said. ‘Throws the shot and discus – insanely strong. A really good guy, too. He does a lot of work with inner-city youth. He’s expected to go big here.’

  Knight took his eyes off Teeter and caught sight of a woman he recognised walking behind the flag-bearer. He’d seen a picture of her in a bikini in The Times of all places the week before. She was in her late thirties and easily one of the fittest women he’d ever seen. And she was even better-looking in person.

  ‘That’s Hunter Pierce, isn’t it?’ Knight said.

  Jack nodded in admiration. ‘What a great story she is.’

  Pierce had lost her husband in a car accident two years before, leaving her with three children under the age of ten. Now an emergency-room doctor in San Diego, she’d once been a twenty-one-year-old diver who’d almost made the Atlanta Olympic team, but had then quit the sport to pursue a career in medicine and raise a family.

  Fifteen years later, as a way to deal with her husband’s death, she began diving again. At her children’s insistence, Pierce started competing again at the age of thirty-six. Eighteen months later, with her children watching, she’d stunned the American diving community by winning the ten-metre platform competition at the US Olympic qualifying meet.

  ‘Absolutely brilliant,’ Knight said, watching her waving and smiling as the team from Zimbabwe entered the stadium behind her.

  Last to enter was the team from the UK – the host country. Twenty-three-year-old swimmer Audrey Williamson, a two-time gold medallist at Beijing, carried the Union Jack.