Conspiracy (36 page)

“I met with Luis Joaquin yesterday morning after the first call Friday night. And I talked with him again after the game yesterday, of course, because it looks like they mean what they say. They’ve proved they really have the capability to cause trouble.”

Ardies blinked. “And so why come to me?”

“Well, I’m a thorough kind of guy, Doctor, and I like to touch base with all the high-level people on something important like this. So when I heard you had some objections to our complying with the demand to interrupt coverage, I thought I’d better ask for this meeting.” 

He sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Also, I had another call this morning.”

“What about?”

“These people—whoever they are—have identified what they want us to substitute for the last five minutes of the game. It’s a news clip from last night’s broadcast.”

“This ‘clip,’ ” Ardies interrupted. “It is to be played only on the UBC network?”

Taggart nodded. “I talked to my counterpart at TV Espaiia. They’ve received no similar calls.”

“Then the interference to the coverage—this five-minute delay—that will take place only in America?”

Taggart and Cantrell both nodded.

Ardies folded his arms and sat back. “Well then, gentlemen. As you may know, throughout my tenure as president of IFFA, I have opposed both the political corruption of sport and the accession to demands from groups of any sort. In this case, however, it seems that only Americans are affected, and to only a negligible extent. As you also will be aware, the United States, although its team has performed surprisingly well here, remains only a small part of the larger IFFA constituency. I cannot see a need to jeopardize the smooth completion of this, the last step in the tournament on which thousands upon thousands of organizational hours have been expended.”

“You don’t mind if we play the news clip, then?”

Ardies nodded solemnly. “Let us say I withdraw my objection. What the American network wants to broadcast to the American audience—I shall not interfere.”

Before they left, he confided his personal opinion: that the enforced interruption was the work of American gangsters who wanted to place last-minute bets on the outcome. “Past-posting!” exclaimed Taggart. “You know, Doctor, that’s my theory too!”

Outside the conference room, Taggart turned to Cantrell. “Well, boss,” he said, “only three more officials to touch base with.”

Cantrell shrugged. “You can go talk to ’em if you want, son. I’m goin’ back up to the office.” He put a hand on Taggart’s shoulder. “Take my advice,” he said. “Forget politics. Just play the damn thing, be done with the tournament, and we’ll move on to some more projects that’ll keep UBC on top of the independents.”

“More projects, sir?”

Cantrell saw the younger man’s eagerness. “Why don’t you come on up too, and we’ll talk some,” he said kindly. “I always say it’s a good thing to think about the future.”

11

Sharon, sleeping late in her hotel room, was awakened by a knock at the door. Her first sleep-ridden thought was that Keith had arrived and was waiting for her. Then she felt the warmth of him in the bed beside her.
It’s okay,
she thought.
He’s here
. She put an arm over him and snuggled close. What time had it been when they had finally closed their eyes and slept? She didn’t know, didn’t care. Never again, she thought, would the Sony digital readout be her last “good night” and first “good morning.” She had Keith. She fitted her body around the curves of his and drifted back into sleep.

Again, the knock at the door. She came awake more fully. The network, she thought. They had lost track of something and needed her. But why weren’t they phoning? Who would have come to call on her in person? She was deliberating the possibilities as though it were an academic exercise when the knock sounded a third time and she realized there really was someone out there and that she had to get up and answer the door without keeping them waiting any longer. She flung back the sheets, put on her robe, and stumbled across the carpet. Remembering that Keith had been a target twice before, she kept the chainbolt on as she opened the door.

In the hallway stood Maria Coquias. Her face was worn with tears; her eyes had lost all hope. “Sharon,” she said softly. “I must speak with you alone.”

Sharon asked Maria to come in. When the young Basque woman saw Keith asleep in the bed, her eyes moistened and she turned quickly away. “Can we speak outside?” she whispered.

A few minutes later, Sharon had dressed and they were sitting in the lounge area at the end of the corridor. Maria leaned forward in her chair, her arms clasped, her shoulders hunched. “It is very difficult for me to say this, Sharon,” she began. “You see, I believe that Raul, my husband, is now dead.”

She went on to explain. He had telephoned her last evening, at the close of the
futbol
broadcast, barely coherent. He was badly wounded, he said, and could not escape to return to her. One thing he had repeated most insistently. Miguelito was not to use his ticket today. They were not to go near Bernabeau Stadium. Everyone in or near the stadium would die during the game, Raul had said, so they must leave Madrid until the next morning. There were bombs in the stadium. He had helped to put them there to kill the Russians.

“And then he could not go on,” Maria said. “His voice was getting weaker, and suddenly I heard a noise as though he had fallen. I called his name several times, and once I thought I heard him whisper ‘goodbye.’ That was all. Then I was holding the phone and there was no more of that call, only a humming noise.” 

She wiped her eyes and shook her head, as if impatient with her tears. “I did not sleep last night, wondering what I should do. This morning I decided I would tell you. I do not want there to be killing.”

Sharon promised to keep the source of her information confidential. After saying goodbye to Maria, she placed two calls: one to the head of security for Bernabeau Stadium; the other to Yuri Zadiev. 

Both men wanted her to come to the stadium immediately to answer further questions.

Deciding to let Keith sleep, she left a UBC pass and a note. She had gone to the stadium, she wrote hastily, and would meet him in the press box to watch the game.

12

One half hour before the game to decide the Twelfth World Championship of Football was scheduled to begin, a third high-level meeting convened in the Palacio building across from Bernabeau Stadium. 

This time the group had expanded to a dozen people. All men, with the exception of Sharon, they took seats in Miguel Valera’s office on wide sofas and velvet-upholstered chairs. A massive coffee table of polished oak, carved in the traditional La Mancha rustic manner, filled the space between them. The other furnishings were equally striking. Valera, Minister of Culture for all of Spain, had made this second office his showcase, embellishing it with huge woven tapestries from the medieval castles of the North, with paintings from the eighteenth-century Golden Age, and with priceless Oriental rugs.

Yet no one in the room was thinking of the decor. The attention of all was riveted on two objects that lay at the center of the oversized oak table.

One of the objects was a small black box about the size and shape of a pack of filter-tipped cigarettes. The other was a dull black cylinder about the length and diameter of a sixteen-ounce aerosol container.

A grey-haired man in a blue uniform was sitting behind the canister. “There’s no doubt that it’s Cobor,” he said, having been introduced by Valera as Colonel Doctor John Ferguson, a physician expert in countering gas warfare. He had been ordered from his bed shortly after three A.M. to report to the NATO base at Gibraltar, and flown by helicopter to Madrid Airport. There he had spent the previous two hours at the far end of a runway in the Hecuba, a Lockheed B-14 “flying lab,” performing tests on the canisters given to him by stadium security.

“A newer gas of extreme lethality,” Dr. Ferguson continued. “Under weather conditions such as we have today, the canister you are looking at now would be enough to kill every man, woman, and child in Bernabeau Stadium.”

He paused, and eyes of the eleven others in the room widened as he went on. “This canister, I’m told, is one of thirty that were found in Bernabeau this afternoon. Each one was attached to one of these sealed black boxes, which appear to be some sort of radio-activated detonator.” He lifted the black box onto the nozzle of the canister to show them. Then, with a quick turn, he separated the two components again. “This is the valve that the box opens.” He tapped a silver-coated wing nut. They stared, fascinated and silent.

“I can testify,” the doctor continued, “that in the event all thirty of these gas grenades were triggered this evening, the resultant diffusion pattern would prove fatal to at least forty percent of Madrid.”

Across the table, Luis Joaquin, the ramrod-straight chief of stadium security, spoke quietly but firmly. “As you know, Doctor, I am today responsible for the safety of His Royal Majesty King Juan Carlos, who at this moment sits in the Royal Box in Bernabeau Stadium. My question is, why were these American weapons placed here?”

Others murmured assent. Besides Joaquin and Cultural Minister Valera, there were two other Spanish officials present: the Secretary General of the World Cup Organizing Committee, and the head of TV Espana, the government-run Spanish television network. Also in the room were Yuri Zadiev, acting as chief of security for the Soviet team, and Miguel Cejas, Yuri’s counterpart from Argentina. These men appeared most interested in the doctor’s reply, as did Dr. Ardies, the Argentinian president of IFF A, and Dr. Heinrich Geisst, the secretary of that organization from Zurich.

Dr. Ferguson reddened slightly and folded his hands, seemingly uncomfortable with the question. He looked suddenly tired, impatient, and showing his age, which was well past that of retirement for an Air Force colonel. He glanced at the other Americans in the room— Sharon, Wayne Taggart, and Ross Cantrell—as though looking for support. When he spoke up, he seemed determined to be forthright about an embarrassing matter. 

In so doing he was following the orders of his brigadier general, with whom he had been in radio contact less than five minutes after his first test of the canisters confirmed the presence of Cobor.

“The fact is, sir,” the doctor said. “I don’t know why they’re here. And insofar as the United States Air Force can determine, neither does anyone in Washington.”

More murmurs arose, and some looks of skepticism were exchanged. Dr. Ferguson went on to say that a theft of thirty-six Cobor grenades had been perpetrated in Utah a little less than a month previously, and that those canisters had not been recovered. “These may be the same ones,” he added. “All the others appear to be intact and accounted for.”

“My compliments for your candor,” Joaquin said drily. “If your figures are precise, however, it means that six of the grenades have not been found. Under those circumstances, in all conscience I cannot see how we can allow the championship game to proceed.”

Attention quickened around the table; throats were cleared. 

“Senõr Joaquin is the first to come to the point of the meeting,” said Minister Valera from his chair at the head of the table. “If we are to make any changes in the championship game as a result of the afternoon’s discovery, those changes will have to be decided within the next twenty-five minutes. May I have your opinions?”

Several spoke. Geisst, the Swiss IFFA Secretary, deplored the intervention of “political-military factors” into the “world of sport.” Ardies, the IFFA president, and Posarta, the Spanish organizing committee head, were of the opinion that the game ought not to be delayed. “It would set a precedent unfortunate for
futbol
, and for all sport,” Ardies pointed out. “The world championship of the world’s game must not be held hostage to outside interests.”

“But what of those other six canisters?” Joaquin asked. “I am responsible for protecting the safety of His Majesty and require stronger assurances.”

The others looked to Valera; it was his office, after all. 

Valera, in turn, looked to the expert. “Dr. Ferguson?”

The doctor shifted in his chair. “As you say, sir, there are six canisters unaccounted for. That does not necessarily mean that those six are here in the stadium. They could still be in the United States. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“For the sake of your country as well as ours, I hope they are not here,” replied Joaquin. “Have you considered what the sight of His Majesty and one hundred twenty thousand others dying in Bernabeau would mean to the two and a half billion watching on television around the world? What would those billions say when they learned that American weapons caused the slaughter? And that a United States military officer recommended that the game be played even while knowing that those same weapons were missing?”

“My field isn’t politics or public opinion, Mr. Joaquin,” the doctor replied evenly. “But I assume that your men made a thorough search of the stadium.”

“Don’t try to shift the blame onto me, young man—” Joaquin began, but Valera interrupted him.

“The responsibility here is collective,” the Minister of Culture said with gravity. “We need to arrive at a decision. I should like to hear other opinions.”

“Can you get us all some gas masks?” asked Wayne Taggart.

“Gas masks are ineffective against Cobor,” Ferguson replied. “We use oxygen masks. There’s also an antitoxin we give as a prophylactic to men who might be assigned to use Cobor in the field, but it takes seven days to become effective, and even then, its protection is only marginal. I don’t see how we could postpone the game to treat a hundred twenty thousand spectators—or to give them all oxygen masks.”

“Is there anything you’ve got that can stop it?” asked Yuri Zadiev.

Ferguson tapped the black canister with his pencil. “A nonporous substance acts as a barrier, but the seal must be highly efficient. If only a few dozen molecules leak out, the concentration would be enough to kill someone nearby. Aside from that, the only real defense is to oxidize the stuff. Like all the organic compounds, Cobor can be burned. Rather a difficult trick, though, to burn it when you haven’t found the canisters.”