Vanishing Act

by John Feinstein

  Rubin thought a moment, then shook her head. “She’s beautiful and famous and wealthy. I’m not even close to her in those categories. If I disappeared, Brendan would notice and that would be about it.”

  “I’d notice,” Stevie said—too quickly, he thought as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

  “You’re sweet,” she said. He felt himself redden.

  Brendan Gibson brought him back to planet Earth. “I’d like you to play her too,” he said to Rubin. “Right now, though, the issue isn’t whether she’ll play tennis this week, but whether she’s still alive.”

  The thought that Nadia Symanova might be dead had never occurred to Stevie. Now he stopped for a moment to consider it. No, it couldn’t be possible. Then he had another thought: kidnapping a player in front of thousands of witnesses wasn’t possible either.

  And yet, it had just happened.

  Stevie realized that it had been more than thirty minutes since he had left Kelleher. He asked Rubin and Gibson what their plans were for the rest of the day. “We’re getting out of here,” Gibson said. “They weren’t letting anyone leave for a little while, but now they’re letting player courtesy cars through. I’m going to see Evelyn back to her hotel. I’m assuming you and Susan Carol will stick around for the press conference?”

  “Oh yeah,” Stevie said. He had no idea what the rest of the day would hold, but he certainly wasn’t leaving the premises unless someone told him he had to. He said goodbye to Rubin and Gibson and picked his way back to the double doors. When he walked outside, he saw Hughes Norwood standing in a corner, bathed in TV lights, surrounded by a gaggle of reporters. Stevie listened for a moment until he realized Norwood was giving the same nonanswers he had given Burgin. He followed the signs back to the media center, where he found Kelleher and Susan Carol sitting at a table in the media dining area. Both of them had plates of food in front of them.

  “Where’ve you been?” Kelleher said. “I was about to walk down and look for you, but Susan Carol said you were probably in there breaking the story.”

  Stevie shook his head. “Nothing like that,” he said. “But I was talking to Evelyn Rubin and Susan Carol’s uncle.”

  “They know anything?” Kelleher said.

  “Not much,” Stevie said. “I guess it’s all over TV that Symanova was kidnapped. Evelyn said she talked to her just before she left to go to the court.”

  “Did she say anything?” Susan Carol asked.

  “Only that she didn’t think she’d have much trouble with Joanne Walsh. Then she went outside for a minute to talk to that agent of hers.”

  Kelleher gave Stevie a look. “She was talking to Norwood just before she left to go play?”

  “That’s what Evelyn said. Why? Does it mean anything?”

  “Probably not. But agents don’t usually mess with their players just before a match. I can’t imagine what Norwood would need to talk about right at that moment.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t waste your time asking him,” Stevie said.

  Kelleher laughed. “The Master himself? You got that right. But there may be some other people we can ask. Everyone in that business loves to gossip.”

  “Did you guys find anything out?” Stevie asked.

  Susan Carol shook her head. “Not much,” she answered. “When I walked in, everyone was talking about Walsh’s agent. I must have just missed a big scene. Then they were all wondering how long the USTA could wait before they default Symanova.”

  “What about the guys?” Stevie asked Kelleher.

  Kelleher shook his head. “Nothing going on in there,” he said. “The main question was if this meant the schedule on Armstrong would be moved up for the rest of the day. It was pretty shocking, really.”

  Stevie realized he was starving and headed for the grill only to learn that a hamburger cost $8.50. He was going to run out of money very quickly. He was about halfway through his burger when Bud Collins burst in the door and pulled up a chair. He was out of breath and clearly excited.

  “I just talked to the kid’s father,” he said. “He says he knows what happened.”

  “So she wasn’t kidnapped?” Kelleher said.

  “Oh, she was kidnapped, all right,” Collins said. “But not by your everyday, ‘send us a few bucks’ kidnappers.”

  “Who, then?” Susan Carol asked.

  “The SVR,” Collins said. “That’s the Russian CIA, or in the old Soviet days, it would have been the KGB. Misha is sure they have his daughter.”

  6: THE SEARCH

  THE WAY Bud Collins told the story, he had spotted Symanova’s parents in the stands shortly after Stevie, Susan Carol, and Kelleher had left. “I went down to talk to them and they were in a state of panic. Misha kept saying, ‘I knew they would do something.’ Security came to walk the parents out of the stadium. I finally asked Misha who ‘they’ were when he calmed down a little. By then, we were walking with security. They tried to shoo me away, but Misha told them I was his friend. I’ve known him since the kid was twelve. So I walked back with him and his wife with about six security guards around us. He told me that Nadia is going to apply for American citizenship. The Russians don’t want that, really don’t want that. They don’t care if their players live here as long as they represent Russia in the Olympics and the Federation Cup and have ‘Russia’ after their names when they play. But if this girl becomes an American citizen and plays for the U.S., they will be extremely upset.”

  “Upset, I understand,” Kelleher said. “But kidnapping? Isn’t that a bit of an overreaction?”

  Collins shrugged. “Remember, they think this kid is going to be bigger than Kournikova and Sharapova. She’s got the game and the looks and she’s going to start winning majors very soon. Maybe at this tournament. She becomes an American, the Russians consider that a humiliation.”

  “I thought the Cold War was over,” Susan Carol said. “Isn’t this more like what would have happened before the Soviet Union split up?”

  “Things aren’t all that different,” Collins said. “I was there last summer. It isn’t so much communist anymore, but they still regard us as a major rival—especially when it comes to sports.”

  “Duke and North Carolina are rivals,” Stevie said. “This goes beyond a rivalry.”

  “True,” Collins said. “But Misha is convinced that’s what this is about. He’s not one of these crazy tennis fathers—he’s a pretty good guy. He thinks they’ll release her as soon as he agrees not to put in the papers for citizenship.”

  “But what’s to stop them from applying later—after they set her free?” Susan Carol said.

  “I asked him that,” Collins said. “He almost laughed at me, and said, ‘They’ve made their point, Bud. They can get to her anytime, anyplace. If we try again, they will come after us again.’”

  “Does that mean he’s going to give in?” Kelleher said.

  “Don’t know,” Collins said. “I was about to ask him his next step when we got to the players’ lounge and about five SMG operatives showed up and spirited him away. Norwood stopped long enough to poke his finger at me and say, ‘Anything he said to you is off the record.’”

  “What’d you say to that?” Stevie asked.

  “I told him the day I took orders from him would be the same day he was caught in a truth.”

  Kelleher pursed his lips. “The question is, if we do write it, are we endangering Nadia?”

  “True,” Collins said. “We should try to talk to him again.”

  The PA was making pinging noises to indicate an announcement was about to be made. Stevie looked at his watch. It was exactly three-thirty.

  “The USTA press conference will begin in three minutes,” the voice on the PA said. “Three minutes in the main interview room.”

  “We better get in there,” Kelleher said. “It’s bound to be a zoo.”

  He wasn’t exaggerating. At the door to the interview room, a security guard, a police officer, and a USTA public relations per
son stood carefully checking credentials.

  “Jordan, why do we have to show credentials to get in here when we’ve already cleared security to get into the media center?” Kelleher asked the PR guy, who seemed a lot more relaxed than most of the people Stevie had met during the day.

  Jordan smiled. “Because in the last hour we’ve had calls from every news network, every tabloid, and every magazine in the world wanting credentials to come on the grounds. Some are too legit to turn down. PBS is sending Charlie Rose. Are we supposed to turn him down? CBS is sending Katie Couric out here because—I swear to God, this is what the producer said—‘Katie just interviewed Nadia last week and she’s very upset about this.’ We’re giving priority in here to people like you who are actually here to cover the tournament. That’s why we’re checking credentials.”

  Kelleher clapped Jordan on the shoulder. “Good answer,” he said. “Three times longer than necessary, but a good answer.”

  “Hey, I’m a lawyer in real life,” Jordan said. “What do you expect?”

  “Is he really a lawyer?” Susan Carol asked as they found seats in a rapidly filling room.

  “Actually, he is,” Kelleher said. “He’s been volunteering out here for years.”

  Carillo walked in a few seconds after they had been seated, the cheery smile she had worn earlier nowhere to be found. She slid into an empty seat next to Stevie and leaned over so she could whisper to the group. “I just talked to one of the SMG boys,” she said. “He’s claiming the Russians did this.”

  Kelleher nodded. “He probably got that from the father. That’s what he told Bud.”

  “Last I saw Misha, the FBI was taking him someplace,” Carillo said.

  People were walking onto the podium. Stevie recognized Arlen Kantarian and Hughes Norwood. There was another man in a dark suit, who Stevie immediately guessed was with the FBI, and a fourth man who was wearing a blazer that said USTA on the breast pocket.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, if you can settle down, please, we’ll get started,” Arlen Kantarian said. “As you know, an event has occurred here today that, to be honest, we are still trying to sort out. But to cut right to the heart of the matter, Nadia Symanova disappeared en route to her match to be played in Louis Armstrong Stadium just before two o’clock this afternoon. At this moment, given the circumstances and in the absence of any other theories, we believe it is possible she was kidnapped. Sitting on my far left is Special Agent Bob Campbell from the New York field office of the FBI. Next to him is Hughes Norwood, who, as most of you know, represents Ms. Symanova, and on my right is Dana Loconto, our tournament director. We aren’t going to take many questions, because, as I said, we really don’t have many answers at this moment, but we will take a few.”

  As soon as he finished, it sounded as if a hundred people were talking at once. Kantarian looked stunned for a second, then put his hands out, palms down, to ask for quiet. “Folks, we need you to follow our normal procedures in here even though this isn’t a normal situation. We’ve got three people with mikes. Call for a mike and I’ll call on you from there.”

  The noise broke out again, people screaming for mikes. Kantarian finally pointed at a man who was holding one of the mikes.

  “Can someone please tell us exactly how this happened in broad daylight?”

  “I’ll take that.” It was Loconto, who Stevie noticed had an accent similar to Susan Carol’s.

  He explained that the security procedures for matches on outside courts varied, depending on who was playing. “The standard is one player, one security guard,” he said. “Basically, we’re just trying to make sure the players can get through the crowds unimpeded. Most fans, when they see security people coming with a player, get out of the way. With a well-known player, we usually add a second security person. In the case of someone like Symanova, who attracts a lot of attention, we add a third guard. That was the case here—she had three security guards with her.”

  “To follow up, then, what in the world happened?”

  Loconto smiled wanly and looked at Kantarian to see if he should continue. Kantarian nodded. “There was a commotion,” Loconto said. “Several people walked across the path of the players, and all the security guards got jostled. It isn’t all that unusual for that to happen, especially near the entrance to Armstrong before a big match, when people are bunched up trying to get inside. When the security guys got untangled, they looked around and Symanova was gone.”

  “Just like that?” It was the same questioner, still holding his mike. No one objected. He was asking the right questions.

  Loconto nodded. “No one really knew what had happened. The security people thought perhaps she’d fallen or gotten too far ahead of them. By the time they realized she wasn’t anywhere in their vicinity, the crowds appeared to have swallowed her. Her racquet bag was found a few yards from where all this happened, but we haven’t found anyone who can remember seeing her drop it.”

  “Isn’t that kind of remarkable?” the reporter with the microphone asked—as if reading Stevie’s mind.

  “Yes, it is,” Loconto said. “This whole day has been remarkable.”

  Someone on the other side of the room had a mike. “Agent Campbell, is the FBI looking at this as a kidnapping?”

  “We aren’t looking at it as anything yet, but we have to consider kidnapping a possibility,” he said. “We’re still in the process of interviewing her family, other players, and”—he nodded at Norwood—“her agents. The NYPD did its best to seal exits and check people leaving as soon as the incident occurred, but in a place this size, if someone is trying to sneak out, they probably can do it—especially if this was a preplanned event.”

  “Arlen, are you going to stop play?”

  It was Collins, violating the rule about being at a microphone. No one seemed to mind.

  “No, Bud, we’re not,” Kantarian said. “We’ve spoken to the Symanovs and they want play to continue. We’re in agreement with the FBI that it doesn’t help the investigation to stop play. If the FBI told us it would help, we’d stop, but they don’t think it will.” He paused and smiled for a moment, which surprised Stevie. “We get criticized by you people quite a lot because it takes us three days to play the first round. This is one time where it helps us. If we can find Nadia in the next forty-eight hours, assuming she’s up to it, we can reschedule her first-round match and it will be as if this never happened. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

  Someone brought up Joanne Walsh. “We understand she and her agent think the match should have been defaulted.”

  “I think once Joanne understands the unique circumstances here, she will feel differently,” Kantarian said. He stood up, indicating the press conference was over. “We’ll keep you informed as we know more.”

  The babble of voices broke out again, people trying to shout questions. One voice, clearly British, kept asking loudly if anyone knew where “R.J.” was and had he been informed.

  “Who is R.J.?” Stevie asked.

  Susan Carol rolled her eyes. “R.J. is R.J. Tenuto, the lead singer for Boys-in-Demand—they’re a kind of teen hip-hop band. He’s Symanova’s boyfriend.”

  Stevie knew she was on the cover of a lot of teen magazines but he didn’t actually read any of them. “How long has this been going on?” he asked, wondering just how out of it he was.

  “Oh, not long,” Susan Carol said. “At Wimbledon she was with someone else.”

  “Yeah,” Carillo said. “That someone else was Prince Harry’s best friend.”

  Susan Carol nodded. “I know, Sir something. I didn’t think he was very cute.”

  “Me neither,” Carillo said. “But then, neither is R.J.”

  “Yeah, but he can really dance.”

  “Enough!” Kelleher exploded as if reading Stevie’s mind.

  “We need to decide what to do next.” He looked at Susan Carol and Stevie. “You guys still up for working on this?”

  “Are you kidding?” Stevie said. �
��Of course we are. Intrigue is our specialty, don’t you remember?”

  Kelleher nodded. “I was in New Orleans, Stevie. I remember,” he said. “But down there, you and Susan Carol were the only ones who knew something was wrong. This is different. One of the most famous athletes in the world has been kidnapped and this place is going to be crawling with every kind of media you can think of until she’s found.”

  “So it’s a different challenge,” Susan Carol said, smiling.

  “I’d say so,” Kelleher said. “But if you guys are up for it, we’ll see what we can do.”

  “Isn’t this the part where someone tells you to let the FBI do its job?” Carillo said. “If the Russians are involved, I don’t think you should be putting yourself at risk, much less a couple of thirteen-year-olds.”

  “I have no intention of putting anyone at risk,” Kelleher said. “But there’s no harm in asking questions.”

  A slender woman with wavy brown hair and light blue eyes had walked up during the conversation and was now standing next to Kelleher. She was about Stevie’s height and was wearing a white tennis shirt, shorts, and sneakers, almost identical to the outfit Susan Carol was wearing.

  “Yeah, but what questions do you want to ask and who are you going to get to talk to you, hotshot?” she said to Kelleher.

  A look of delight crossed Kelleher’s face. “About time you got here,” he said, giving her a hug and a kiss.

  “Stevie, Susan Carol—meet my wife, Tamara Mearns.”

  “I know just who these guys are,” Mearns said, smiling to reveal remarkable dimples. “Bobby gave me the blow-by-blow on what you did at the Final Four. I’m glad you’re on our side.”

  “Stevie and I both read your column—I am a huge fan,” said Susan Carol.

  “Can we focus on the crisis at hand?” Kelleher said. “Hold the lovefest for later.”

  “Okay, Kelleher, what’ve you got?” Mearns said.

  “We’ve got a big-time mystery here,” Kelleher said. “Bud and Mary have both got to go do TV stuff, so it’s the four of us for now. I think you and Susan Carol need to go work the women’s locker room. Find out what they’re saying in there. By now everyone will be talking about it. When Susan Carol, Stevie, and I skulked around earlier, a lot of people were just finding out.”