‘I agree,’ I said. ‘Thanks. So what happens next?’
‘The evidence may have to be presented to a grand jury to confirm the killing was justified, although that’s most unlikely in this case.’
‘So you think the killing was justified?’ I asked.
‘Without a doubt,’ Tony said. ‘Ryder attacked a law-enforcement officer with a deadly weapon. That in itself is enough reason for him to be shot.’
‘But surely not ten times.’
‘It can often take more than one shot to bring down a suspect. Our agents are trained to fire multiple rounds in case some of them miss.’
‘I was told your agents are all hotshots,’ I said. ‘Surely they don’t miss.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Tony said. ‘They may be OK on the range but operational situations are very different. A Miami police survey showed that of thirteen hundred bullets fired at suspects, more than eleven hundred missed. And NYPD found barely a quarter fired from under six feet hit their target, with less than a fifth at ten feet.’
‘How many hit Hayden Ryder?’
‘I don’t know yet. The autopsy will tell us. The important thing is that at least one did, and that one was enough to disable him.’
It had done more than that, I thought.
I had spent the day trying to erase from my mind the grisly image of Ryder’s head completely torn apart by an expanding bullet.
I’d seen more than my fair share of killings during my time with the army in Afghanistan but nothing really prepares you for the sudden finality of violent death, the instant wiping out of an active, vivid and cognisant existence, to be replaced by . . . nothing. Nothing more than a useless rotting corpse.
‘What will you do now?’ Tony asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll stay on here for the Derby. I wouldn’t want to miss that, but I feel I’m approaching the problem from the wrong end.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘These guys are smart – they don’t get to be federal special agents if they’re not. I can’t hang around forever on the off-chance that our friend will make a mistake. He won’t. And I’ll have wasted my time, and yours. I feel we have to tackle things from the opposite direction.’
‘Explain.’
‘I work best undercover but I’m not using those skills here. Everyone at the agency knows who I am and that severely limits my scope.’
I took a deep breath. In for a penny . . .
‘I need to get a job on a track backside, maybe as a groom or something, with one of the trainers. FACSA then has to plan a raid on that trainer for some reason and hope our friend somehow tips him off.’
‘Would the trainer be made aware of your existence?’ Tony asked.
‘Best not, at least to start with. I know from experience that being undercover is fraught with danger. It is ten times worse when somebody is aware of the truth. Body language can be a real giveaway.’
‘But how would you know if the trainer had been forewarned about a raid?’ Tony asked.
‘Hayden Ryder couldn’t have packed up the whole of his stable dispensary and arranged to ship out his horses without the help of his staff. Racehorses have to have grooms accompanying them – they would hardly walk onto a truck on their own. Ryder’s whole team had to be involved in the preparations even if they didn’t know the reasons why.’
‘But how will you get a job? Do you have any experience working with horses?’
‘Loads,’ I said. In truth, I’d only had a little. But I was confident around racehorses and that was half the battle.
‘And you’re hardly the right size,’ Tony said.
I was five feet ten inches in my socks, but I was lean and fit. Maybe I was a bit tall and perhaps a tad too heavy to ride young Thoroughbreds, but not to work as a groom.
One thing I had discovered while I’d been waiting at Churchill Downs all day was that, unlike in the UK, the grooms did not ride the horses. That was the preserve of the exercise riders, up-and-coming riders or retired jockeys who would often move from barn to barn, exploiting their skills for more than one trainer.
The grooms were simply there to, well, groom the horses, to muck out their stalls, and to fetch and carry their feed and water. On race days they might get to lead one of their charges over to the saddling boxes and the mounting yard but, in truth, the life of a backside groom was far from glamorous.
Tony wasn’t finished. ‘Most grooms are Latino or African-Americans. An Englishman would surely stick out like a sore thumb.’
He was right.
‘How about an Irishman?’ I said.
I had always been good at speaking with an Irish accent. While at school, I had entertained my classmates by mimicking our headmaster, who had come from County Cork.
‘I can easily pass as an Irishmen,’ I said. ‘I’ve done it before, and I know you have Irish grooms over here. I’ve heard their banter.’
‘Will you try to work at Churchill Downs?’ Tony asked.
‘That might be a bit of a risk. Almost all of the Churchill Downs backside staff came over to Ryder’s barn to have a look at the action at one time or another today and many of them asked me what was going on.’
‘Where then?’
‘How about at Pimlico?’ I said. ‘Isn’t the Preakness run there in two weeks?’
‘It sure is,’ said Tony. ‘But Pimlico isn’t used any more as a regular training centre. Their barns are only open for seven weeks during their spring meet. Better to try Belmont in New York. That’s where the third leg of the Crown is run. There are plenty of full-time trainers at Belmont.’
‘Isn’t Belmont where the Sports Illustrated journalist thought someone was blood doping?’
‘Yes,’ Tony said. ‘Jason Connor.’
‘Right, then I’ll try there. Can you get me a list of Belmont-based trainers, especially those you may have doubts about?’
‘Sure,’ Tony said. ‘No problem. Anything else?’
‘Yes. You told me in London about a raid on a trainer who employed suspected illegal immigrants as grooms. Where was that?’
‘Aqueduct Racetrack. Also in New York, near JFK. Back in February.’
‘Is the use of illegal-immigrant grooms widespread at all tracks?’
‘Cash gambling tends to make racing a cash-rich business. Wherever cash is used to pay staff there will always be illegals working.’
‘Could you therefore send an official letter to all the trainers at Belmont advising them of the severe consequences of employing illegal immigrants?’
‘What for?’
‘If you can fix me a legal work visa, it might help provide a vacancy for me to fill.’
Tony laughed. ‘The letter would be better coming from ICE – Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s part of the Department of Homeland Security. They’re responsible for tracking down illegal immigrants. I know the Deputy Director, we’ve been to conferences together. I’ll get him to write the letter.’
‘Best not to tell him why.’
‘I’ll say it’s a follow-up from FACSA’s raid earlier in the year. I’ll recommend he sends the letter to all registered racehorse trainers across the country threatening them with jail for employing illegals.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘But it could happen in extreme cases.’
‘Would your man be prepared to cover the cost of sending a letter to all trainers?’
‘Sure he will,’ Tony said. ‘It’s peanuts compared to what else they spend. Their budget is over five billion a year. I’ll get it sorted straight away – have it done this week.’
‘How about the work visa?’ I said. ‘Preferably in a false name.’
‘What name?’
Think of a common Irish name. ‘How about Patrick Sean Murphy?’
‘Shouldn’t be too much of a problem,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll have a quiet word with someone I know in the State Department.’
‘Great,�
�� I said. ‘And how are the bank statements coming along?’
‘They should be with me this evening. How shall I get them to you?’
‘Can we trust Norman?’ I asked. But it was a rhetorical question. He already knew the true purpose of me being there. If we couldn’t trust him my cover was totally blown anyway, and my future prospects were likely to be severely limited.
‘We have to,’ Tony said.
‘Then give the statements to him to pass on to me.’
‘He’ll want to know what they are.’
‘Then tell him. But best not to say that his bank statements are there too. He might not like that. In fact, you’d better remove his in case he checks, but scan them yourself first for any suspicious deposits.’
‘You don’t really trust him, do you? Not even now.’
‘I trust no one,’ I said.
‘Not even me?’ Tony asked. ‘Not even my mother,’ I said.
And she’d been dead for twenty-five years.
Back in the National Guard mess hall, Trudi Harding was being hailed as a hero.
She was applauded and cheered by the other agents when she finally arrived back after a lengthy interview with the Louisville police.
Bob Wade embraced her warmly, which didn’t particularly endear him to Steffi Dean, who looked on stony-faced.
Everyone was in good spirits, as if the whole raid hadn’t been blighted by the shooting dead of Hayden Ryder.
Some of them even thought it was a bonus.
‘Saves all the expense of a trial,’ Cliff Connell said openly with a huge grin.
The debriefing turned rapidly into a self-congratulatory celebration.
There was even a short emotional address by Norman Gibson, who thanked his staff for ‘a job well done’.
None of them seemed to entertain the notion that death had been rather an extreme penalty for Ryder’s alleged wrongdoing, even if he had been shot for attacking Bob Wade rather than giving his horses prohibited drugs.
I personally found all the backslapping and high fives a bit tasteless, what with Hayden Ryder’s body still cooling in the county coroner’s morgue.
Hence I left them to it.
Instead I went up to my room and watched as a local Louisville TV newsreader echoed the same sentiments, blatantly accusing the dead trainer of serial drug abuse and the wilful maltreatment of his horses.
I knew that freedom of speech and honest opinion were enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution but, even so, the claims seemed somewhat outrageous.
I had a political journalist acquaintance who once told me that there was nothing better than finding out that some detested fat cat had died. ‘You can’t libel the dead,’ he would say, while gleefully filling his column with some lurid tales of wrongdoing that may have been mildly suspected of the deceased, but were far beyond any actual proof.
‘Do you have no compassion?’ I’d said. ‘Surely it’s disrespectful to speak ill of the recent dead?’
‘Maybe,’ he’d replied with a smile, ‘but it sells papers.’
No wonder some people tell you never to believe what you read in the newspapers.
I used the remote control to flick through the other TV news channels and found much the same fare on all of them. In the end, I lay on my bed watching a quiz show where, bizarrely, the contestants had to give the question, having been shown the answer.
It wasn’t long before it caused me to drift off to sleep.
I was woken almost immediately by someone hammering on the door.
I opened it to find Norman Gibson standing there with a large brown envelope in his hand, but he didn’t hand it over. Instead, he pushed past me and marched through into the apartment living room, where he stood in the middle of the space with his feet firmly set about eighteen inches apart as if ready for action.
He was far from a happy man. Steam was almost emanating from his ears and he had obviously been working himself up into quite a fury.
‘Now, fella,’ he said loudly, jabbing at my chest with his right index finger, ‘you had better explain to me what the fuck’s going on here.’ He emphasised the expletive with raw anger in his voice. ‘What makes you so important that you can get to see all our bank statements, while I get to look like a fool?’ He waved the brown envelope right into my face.
He was so furious that I seriously thought he might hit me, and I was considerably relieved to see that he didn’t still have his Glock 22C holstered on his hip. But, no doubt, it would be hiding somewhere beneath his jacket.
I’d had to deal with this sort of confrontation before, in Afghanistan, when boiling-over tempers of local village elders could easily end up messily with bullets flying around. I had been trained to keep control of my emotions and to maintain my composure, but I knew from experience that nothing provoked an angry response more than belittling or ignoring someone’s grievance.
I had found that an apology usually helped to defuse difficult situations, even if there was nothing for me to actually be sorry for. Consequently, I was a serial apologiser and had, over time, expressed my personal remorse and sorrow for everything from Adam’s consumption of the forbidden fruit to the Nazi Holocaust.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to Norman, doing my best to sound sincere. ‘You should have been made aware of the true purpose of my visit.’
I didn’t mention that it had been my idea not to tell him.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ I said, indicating towards one of the armchairs.
Norman hesitated. Sitting down clearly had not been on his agenda, but he slowly lowered himself into the seat. I relaxed a little. It was far more difficult, if not impossible, to hit someone from a seated position in a deep armchair.
I then sat down opposite him, making sure I was well out of reach.
How much did I really trust him?
Enough, perhaps, to talk about being invited by Tony Andretti to try to find the section mole – he already knew that by now – but maybe not enough to apprise him of my future plans.
‘Tony Andretti approached my boss in London and requested some help in finding a mole in your organisation. It clearly was a mistake not to involve you and, for that, I am very sorry.’
My apology tactic seemed to be working. Norman’s ire was placated and the high-pressure steam in his head slowly abated.
‘So what have you discovered?’ he asked, his voice full of sarcasm.
‘Precisely nothing,’ I said.
I wasn’t able to read in his face whether he was pleased or disappointed. Either way would not have been incriminating. In his place, I wouldn’t have been particularly happy if the new kid on the block had found out something in just three days when he’d been trying without success for months.
He simply nodded knowingly. He hadn’t expected anything else and I wondered if Norman actually believed there was a mole in the first place.
‘Mr Andretti asked me to give you these.’ He tossed the envelope he had been carrying into my lap. ‘What do you want them for anyway?’
‘To see if anyone in FACSA’s racing section is receiving money from someone they shouldn’t. Payment in exchange for a tip-off.’
‘Do you really think one of us is selling confidential information?’
‘Why else would someone be forewarning your targets?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe out of cussedness.’
I thought that most unlikely. Especially if Tony was correct and Jason Connor had been killed because of it. It was my belief that sane people didn’t kill just out of cussedness; they did it for one of four other reasons – money, revenge, jealousy, or a political cause.
Which one was it here? Surely it had to be for money.
‘So what are you going to do now?’ Norman asked.
‘Keep my eyes and ears open, and enjoy the Derby.’
I’d also be watching my back.
11
The rest of my time in Louisville was considerably less stressful, althou
gh equally exciting, but for different reasons.
The Kentucky Derby was the most hyped sporting event I think I had ever attended and easily outshone the Epsom version for glamour and glitz.
While the Derby at Churchill Downs could not match the pomp and circumstance and the genuine royalty of the original, it attracted the Hollywood ‘royalty’ in abundance, complete with red-carpet entrance where the public was encouraged to stand and idolise the screen superstars as they made their way to Millionaires Row, as the upper level of the grandstand is officially known.
I reflected on the differing attitudes to money that existed on either side of the Atlantic. In the UK, serious wealth is mostly played down by those who have it. To do otherwise is considered rather vulgar. In the United States huge riches are to be applauded, and flaunted at every opportunity.
And Kentucky Derby Week was certainly one of those.
Accompanying the two minutes of the race itself were several days of celebrations with a succession of parties and dinners to satisfy every taste and wallet. Those in the inner circle, and those with the greatest wealth, could secure an invitation to the exclusive black-tie eve-of-Derby gala, an event that regularly creates a lengthy traffic jam of stretch limousines throughout downtown Louisville.
For my part, I spent most of my time shadowing Frank Bannister and, fortunately for me, he enjoyed the good things in life and was not averse to using his federal-special-agent status to gain entry to occasions and activities where his presence was hardly warranted.
Early on Friday morning, Frank drove the two of us in one of the Chevy Suburbans from the National Guard facility to the backside of Churchill Downs, to see the Derby hopefuls in their morning exercise.
Hayden Ryder’s barn was still cordoned off with yellow tape but the local police no longer guarded the perimeter. The horses had gone too, quickly snaffled by other trainers eager to fill their own barns. The police did, however, guard the Derby runners, with a sheriff’s deputy standing watch outside each stall.
‘To stop them getting nobbled,’ Frank said.
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