Triple Crown

by Felix Francis

  I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a fun trip, but I didn’t say so.

  ‘I’ll call you as soon as I know where I’m staying. The agency’s head office is in Virginia, near Washington, DC.’

  ‘Say hi to the President for me.’ Faye laughed again, this time with a little more genuine amusement.

  ‘Sure will.’

  My flight landed at Dulles Airport at a quarter past two, Washington time, on Saturday afternoon.

  I had looked up the climate for Virginia on an American weather website. The temperature averaged from sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit at the beginning of the month to seventy-two at the end. But it regularly varied from below fifty to almost ninety.

  I’d decided I would have to take everything from shorts and T-shirts to a scarf and gloves, in fact the whole shebang other than my skiwear. I had also packed my collection of disguises. You never knew when they might be useful. Fortunately the luggage allowance in business class was fairly generous.

  Tony had worked miracles at the US Embassy in London and had fixed within twenty-four hours both a letter of introduction and the required non-immigrant work visa. Consequently, apart from the usual lengthy queue, I had no difficulty in clearing US Immigration and Customs.

  There was even a driver waiting for me in the arrivals hall with HINKLEY written in large letters on an iPad screen.

  ‘That’s me,’ I said, going up to him.

  ‘Welcome to America,’ he said, taking my luggage trolley. ‘I’m parked across the road in the lot.’

  I followed him out of the terminal into bright sunshine.

  Today must be one of the nearly-90-degree days, I thought, as I rapidly started to perspire under the intense rays. It is easy to forget how much further south Washington, DC is compared to London. Apart from Alaska, not a single part of the United States is as far north as any part of the United Kingdom, with Washington at the same latitude as Lisbon in Portugal. Perhaps I wouldn’t need my scarf and gloves after all.

  Thankfully, the car was air-conditioned and the driver also knew where we were going, which is more than I did. He took me to a hotel in Arlington where the reception staff were expecting me.

  ‘Someone called Mr Andretti made the reservation this morning,’ said the young woman behind the desk. ‘He didn’t say when you were leaving.’ She raised her eyebrows in a questioning manner.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I don’t yet know.’

  My accommodation was more of an apartment than a regular hotel room, with a small kitchen plus sitting room as well as bedroom and bathroom. It overlooked the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery and the Potomac River, with the Lincoln Memorial and the rest of Washington’s iconic buildings clearly visible in the distance.

  As I stood by the picture window taking in the spectacular view, I had mixed emotions. Part of me was excited to be here in a new place, with a new task among people who did not know me, just as I had longed for, but I was suddenly overwhelmed by the undertaking ahead of me.

  I had done some research on FACSA and had been amazed to discover that it had over 800 federal agents and nearly 2,000 other employees, most of them at its Virginia headquarters. Even the horseracing team, one of the smallest sections in the agency, was larger than I was used to at the BHA.

  How was I going to discover a mole in that lot?

  A knock at my door brought me back from my daydreaming. It was Tony.

  ‘Welcome, Jeff,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Good flight, and this is very comfortable.’ I waved my hand around.

  He smiled. ‘Anything you need?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I need information. In particular I need copies of the personnel files for all your racing team and the results of your communication inquiry.’

  He nodded but looked troubled.

  ‘I’m not sure I can get the personnel files.’

  ‘You’re Deputy Director,’ I said. ‘Surely the files are not confidential from you.’

  ‘It is not the confidentiality that’s the problem, although they are, it’s that I don’t want anyone to know why you are here, not even the personnel team.’

  ‘Tony, I really need that info. Otherwise I’ll be wasting my time. I should really have the opportunity to study it before I arrive at your offices on Monday.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. I also need details of all the operations that you have launched, including those that you feel were compromised. There has to be a common link. And I need direct access to you at any time.’

  ‘I’ll give you my private cell number,’ Tony said. ‘Never ever contact me at the agency, either in person or by using agency comms.’

  ‘I thought I was here as your guest, as you were mine at the BHA.’

  ‘My trip to the BHA was made without the knowledge of anyone at FACSA other than the Director. As far as anyone else at the agency is concerned, I was away on annual leave travelling in Europe with my wife, Harriet. Your cover is that you are here under our international exchange scheme for law-enforcement agencies simply to observe our methods of operation.’

  ‘But the British Horseracing Authority is not a law-enforcement agency.’

  ‘I know but it is as good as. The exchange scheme was the best excuse the Director and I could think of. All federal agencies have observers from other national police forces, mostly from those where the US is helping to set up law enforcement such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. So our staff are used to visitors but, as such, you would not have direct access to the Deputy Director. Therefore you must never contact me except through my private cell. And never refer to anyone about my time in London. That’s essential. I do not want to give our mole friend any cause for alarm.’

  There was something about the way he said it that made the hairs on my neck stand up.

  ‘What are you not telling me?’ I looked him directly in the eye.

  He turned away.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It might not be connected.’

  ‘What might not be connected?’

  He looked back at me.

  ‘You are not the first person we have approached to assist us.’

  He paused.

  ‘Who is the other person?’ I asked.

  ‘Was,’ Tony said. ‘He’s dead. He was killed last December in an auto wreck on I-95 south of Baltimore.’

  ‘Accident? Or deliberate?’

  ‘There was a thorough investigation by the Maryland State Police. Their conclusion was that he went to sleep while driving home late at night. His vehicle left the road, hit a tree and caught fire. Toxicology tests showed he’d been drinking.’

  ‘Didn’t your agency initiate its own investigation?’ I asked.

  ‘How could we?’ Tony said. ‘It was outside our jurisdiction.’

  ‘Who was he exactly?’

  ‘His name was Jason Connor. He was a journalist who wrote about horseracing for a magazine called Sports Illustrated.’

  I nodded. I’d heard of it.

  ‘How did you come to use him?’

  ‘Initially, Connor went to NYRA last October because he was concerned about blood doping in racehorses at Belmont during their fall meet. He had seen some transfusion apparatus at a training barn at the track that he felt was suspicious.’

  ‘NYRA?’ I pronounced it as a word in the same way as Tony had.

  ‘New York Racing Association. They control horseracing at the three tracks in New York State. It was NYRA who contacted us. We initiated a raid on the barn and we found absolutely nothing. The whole place had obviously been steam-cleaned. I have never seen a barn so spotless and disinfected. You could have eaten your dinner off the stall floors. And the horses had been sent away to Kentucky for what was described as a vacation. I ask you. Some of them had been due to race at the track that week. The whole thing was a farce.’

  Tony shook his head.

  ‘
Jason Connor was furious. What he was really after, of course, was an exclusive for his magazine and now he wouldn’t get one. He blamed both the agency and NYRA for leaking the information. At first we dismissed his notions as just the ranting of an angry man, but then I started looking at how often our operations were being compromised. That’s when I went back to him to ask him for help.’

  ‘And you now think his death was to do with that?’

  ‘The Chief Medical Examiner for Maryland declared his death was accidental but I’ve never liked coincidences. On the very day Jason Connor died, he’d been to Laurel Park racetrack to question a groom who had previously been working at the barn at Belmont.’

  ‘What did the groom say?’

  ‘I don’t know. Connor never got to report back and the groom has since vanished. Not that that’s particularly unusual. It happens all the time. He was probably an illegal alien who was frightened away by the attention.’

  ‘Didn’t you try to find him?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course. But trainers’ record-keeping is not always great at the tracks. Turns out the groom had a work permit issued on forged paperwork in the name of a 26-year-old Mexican called Juan Martinez. That may or may not be his real name. Martinez is by far the most common surname in Mexico, much more so than Smith is here. And they didn’t even have a photo.’

  ‘Who did the looking?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Was it someone from your agency?’

  ‘I did it myself,’ Tony said. ‘I was once a detective in the Bronx. I reckon I still know the moves but this one was a dead end.’

  ‘So who at the agency knew about Jason Connor?’

  ‘Everyone in the racing section knew he’d been to NYRA with the original concerns. That was common knowledge. It was with the help of his information that we set up the operation.’

  ‘Who knew he’d also been approached to help find your leak?’

  ‘Supposedly only the Director, the chief of the horseracing team, and me.’

  ‘Who is the chief of the horseracing team?’

  ‘Norman Gibson. He’s an ex-cop from Chicago.’

  ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I would say so, yes.’

  ‘Does he know about the real reason I’m here?’ I asked.

  ‘No. He does not.’

  ‘So you don’t trust him that much,’ I said. ‘How about the Director of FACSA? Do you trust him more?’

  ‘I’d trust him with my life,’ Tony said.

  ‘How about with mine?’

  It felt like the stakes had suddenly been raised dramatically.

  It was clear to me that, whatever the Maryland Medical Examiner might say, Tony believed that the death of Jason Connor and the investigation into the agency leak were connected. And I didn’t like coincidences either.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this in London?’ I asked.

  Tony looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I was afraid you wouldn’t come.’

  He clearly didn’t know me very well.

  ‘OK,’ I said, clapping my hands together. ‘In the light of all that, we need to beef up our security. First, you shouldn’t be here now, it is a risk we ought not be taking.’

  ‘I told no one I was coming here, not even Harriet.’

  ‘No matter,’ I said. ‘You are Deputy Director of an agency that employs over two thousand people. Your offices are up the road from here. Even on a Saturday, one of those employees might have seen you arrive as they walked their dog. Then they might mention it to a colleague, just in passing, and so on. You never know who is watching or listening.’

  Tony nodded.

  ‘Also,’ I said, ‘it was a mistake to give your name when you made the hotel reservation. The front desk staff told me it was made by a Mr Andretti.’

  ‘I had to use a credit card to confirm.’

  ‘Your private card?’

  ‘The agency’s.’

  ‘Who has access to the statements?’

  ‘I have to sign them off for the finance team.’

  ‘Won’t someone question a charge for a hotel so close to the offices?’

  ‘I’ll say we were entertaining a guest,’ Tony said.

  ‘And the next question would be who and why. What are you going to do? Lie? Lies get you into trouble if only because someone in the finance team will think you’re having an affair – getting a little bit more than only a ham sandwich during your lunch break. I will pay for the hotel with my own credit card. You can reimburse me at a later stage.’

  Tony nodded. ‘I’ll give you my cell number.’ He reached for the notepad and pen next to the hotel phone.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not secure enough. I will buy two pay-as-you-go phones. One will be delivered by courier to your office marked for your attention only. We will only use those to talk to each other. You must not use that phone for any other reason.’

  Tony looked rather sceptical that such a thing was needed.

  ‘Tony,’ I said firmly, ‘this is important. We must take no unnecessary risks. Get the personnel files and have them delivered to me here, preferably by tomorrow. Pay cash for the delivery and arrange it yourself well away from Arlington. And don’t use the agency address on the paperwork.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on it.’

  ‘Now, who do I report to and what have they been told?’

  ‘Norman Gibson is expecting you on Monday morning. He’s been told you are from England and are part of the international observer scheme.’

  ‘Does he know I work for the British Horseracing Authority?’

  ‘All he’s been told is that you are from England and you are to be shown the workings of our horseracing section.’

  ‘I think that I’ll say I am from the BHA. It’s too dangerous otherwise. Am I supposed to be sponsored by the British Government?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tony said, ‘through the Embassy. That’s how exchanges have been organised in the past.’

  ‘Let’s hope your mole doesn’t have a friend who works at the British Embassy.’

  ‘Do you think he will check?’

  ‘I would if I were him,’ I said. ‘I’d be hugely suspicious of anyone turning up unexpectedly. I expect him to verify my story down to the very last detail. That’s why it is essential he can find me at the BHA.’

  I was reminded of the advice I’d been given in the army by an MI6 operative – a spook. ‘Lie only when it is absolutely necessary,’ he had said. ‘Make your cover story as true as it can be. Otherwise it will be the little things that catch you out while you are concentrating only on the big ones.’

  ‘I’ll get on to Paul Maldini in London to warn him,’ I said.

  ‘What about the Embassy?’

  ‘If Norman Gibson has already been told that it has been arranged through the Embassy then we’ll have to take the chance. Changing things now will draw more attention.’

  ‘Norman may not have told anyone else,’ Tony said.

  ‘No matter. Leave it.’

  I did not want anyone else knowing the truth.

  My life might depend upon it.

  4

  On Sunday morning I walked down the street to the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, a vast shopping mall over four floors with everything from major international department stores to a shop dedicated only to the finer art of men’s shaving.

  I was searching for a mobile-phone store. There were two and, in one of them, I found what I was looking for.

  ‘This one won’t go on the Internet.’ The young sales assistant was doing his best to direct me towards one of his more expensive models.

  ‘I know,’ I replied patiently. ‘It’s for my mother and she doesn’t really understand technology.’ In fact, my mother had died when mobile phones were still the size of a brick, but the young man wasn’t to know that. ‘This is the model I have been recommended by her care home. I’ll take two of them.’

  ‘Two?’ He shook his head. �
�I don’t know if we have two. No one ever wants phones like this any more.’

  He went off into the back still shaking his head but triumphantly returned holding two boxes from which he blew off the dust.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘These are the last ones. The company is discontinuing this item when they’ve all gone.’

  ‘It will still work though, won’t it?’ I asked with mild concern.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘It’ll work fine for calls and texts, but it is not 4G. It’s not even 3G and doesn’t have Bluetooth, GPS or even a camera. Are you sure you still want it? The iPhone 6 does far more. That’s like a full-blown computer in your pocket and very good value. We have it on special offer.’

  His enthusiasm was almost infectious.

  ‘These are just perfect,’ I said, touching the two boxes in front of me on the counter. Perfect, I thought, if you wanted phones that weren’t ‘smart’. Smartphones might be great for accessing the Internet and for using the thousands of apps available for download, but they could also be tracked and hacked.

  ‘Right,’ said the young man, slightly deflated. ‘Do you want them on a contract?’

  ‘No. Pay-as-you-go.’

  ‘It is cheaper on a contract,’ he said, ‘in the long run.’

  ‘But I’m not sure my mother has a long run,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘Pay-as-you-go will be fine.’

  ‘For both?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For both. My mother has a habit of mislaying things so I’m buying her two.’

  He clearly thought I was mad but he inserted SIM cards into the phones before topping them up with a hundred dollars each of credit. More than enough, I thought, for calls and texts between Tony and myself over the next few weeks.

  I paid for it all with cash and gave a made-up name and address to the young man for the guarantee – just to be on the safe side.

  Next I went into a computer store and bought a desktop colour printer, spare ink cartridges, a USB connecting lead and some paper.

  Finally, I went to the FedEx Office Print-and-Ship store on Crystal Drive, conveniently open on a Sunday, and arranged for one of the phones to be delivered early the following morning to Tony Andretti at FACSA.

  ‘Any message?’ asked the young woman behind the counter.