Private Games (Private 3)

running westward towards Buckingham Palace.

‘I checked him out myself,’ Jack said sombrely, lowering his binoculars. ‘Lancer, I mean. When he did some work for us a few years back in Hong Kong. He was squeaky clean, nothing but raves from everyone who’d ever known him. And I don’t remember ever seeing that he’d served in the Balkans. I’m sure I would have remembered that.’

‘He was there for less than five weeks,’ Knight said.

‘Long enough to recruit bloodthirsty bitches as mad as he is,’ Jack said.

‘Probably why he left the deployment off his C.V.,’ Knight said.

Before Jack could reply, the roar of the crowd came closer and people in the stands around the Queen Victoria Memorial leaped to their feet as two policemen on motorcycles appeared about a hundred yards in front of the same four runners who’d broken free of the main pack back at mile twelve.

‘The motorcyclists,’ Knight said, and threw up his binoculars, trying to see the faces of the officers. But he could tell quickly that neither man was Lancer.

Behind the motorcycles, the top four runners appeared – the Kenyan, the Ethiopian, the barefoot Mexican, and that lad from Brighton – each of them carrying Olympic and Cameroonian hand flags.

After twenty-six miles, three hundred and eighty-five yards, after forty-two thousand, one hundred and ninety-five metres, the Kenyan and the Brit were leading, sprinting side by side. But at the two-hundred-yard mark and hard behind the leaders, the Ethiopian and the Mexican split and sprinted to the leaders’ flanks.

The crowd went wild as the whippet-thin runners churned down the final straight towards gold and glory, four abreast and none of them giving ground.

Then, twenty yards from the finish, the lad from Brighton surged forward, and it looked as if the UK was going to have its first men’s-marathon gold to go with the historic win by Mary Duckworth in the women’s race the previous Sunday.

Astonishingly, however, mere feet from the finish line, the Brighton lad slowed, the runners raised their flags, and the foursome went through the tape together.

For a second, the crowd was stunned and Knight could hear broadcasters braying about the unprecedented act and what it was supposed to mean. And then everyone on The Mall saw it for what it was and started lustily to cheer the gesture, Peter Knight included.

He thought: You see that, Lancer? Cronus? You can’t snuff out the Olympic spirit because it doesn’t exist in any one place; it’s carried in the hearts of every athlete who’s ever striven for greatness, and it always will be.

‘No attack,’ Jack said when the cheering died down. ‘Maybe the show of force along the route scared Lancer off.’

‘Maybe,’ Knight allowed. ‘Or maybe he wasn’t talking about the end of the marathon at all.’

Chapter 108

THE NAUSEATING ENDING to the men’s marathon keeps replaying on the screens around the security stations as I wait patiently in the sweltering heat in the line at the north entrance to the Olympic Park off Ruckholt Road.

My head is shaven and, along with every bit of exposed skin, has been stained with henna to a deep russet tone ten times as dark as my normal colour. The white turban is perfect. So is the black beard, the metal bracelet on my right wrist and the Indian passport, and the sepia-brown contact lenses, the glasses and the loose white Kurta pyjamas and tunic that together with a dab of patchouli oil complete my disguise as Jat Singh Rajpal, a tall Sikh textile trader from Punjab lucky enough to hold a ticket to the closing ceremony.

I’m two feet from the screeners when my face, my normal face, appears on one of the television screens that had been showing the finish of the marathon.

At first I feel panicky. But then I quickly compose myself and take several discreet glances at the screen, hoping it’s just some kind of recap of the events of the Olympics including my dismissal from the organising committee. But then I see the banner scrolling beneath my image and the news that I’m wanted in connection with the Cronus murders.

How is it possible! Many voices thunder in my head, triggering one of those insanely blinding headaches. It’s everything I can do to stay composed when I step towards an F7 guard, a burly woman, and a young police constable who are inspecting tickets and identification.

‘You’re a long way from home, Mr Rajpal,’ the constable says, looking at me expressionlessly.

‘One is willing to make the journey for an event as wonderful as this,’ I say in a practised accent that comes through flawlessly despite the pounding in my skull. I have to fight not to reach up under my turban to touch that scar throbbing at the back of my head.

The F7 guard glances at a laptop computer screen. ‘Have you been to any other events during the games, Mr Rajpal?’ she asks.

‘Two,’ I say. ‘Athletics this past Thursday evening, and field hockey earlier in the week. Monday afternoon. The India-Australia game. We lost.’

She scans the screen and nods. ‘We’ll need to put your bag and any other metal objects through the screener.’

‘Without hesitation,’ I say, putting the bag on the conveyor belt and depositing coins, my bracelet, and my mobile in a plastic tray that follows it.

‘No kirpan?’ the constable asks.

I smile. Clever lad. ‘No, I left the ceremonial dagger at home.’