Before we get to talk about the results of her one hard work since her maiden race, Francine’s exercise rider, and Jacob Collier’s emotional opposite, comes through the door like a gale through a harbor. Jesse’s face is alight, his hair in disarray and his smile splitting the bottom of his face. My son comes in fast, practically jumping into the third chair at the old, scarred table. His feelings bubble from his mouth as if they can’t wait to get out.
“Man, did you see her blast by Tommy’s colt? I wasn’t even urging her, just sitting there in awe and letting her run. After three, I had to practically sing a lullaby to her to get her to slow down. Damn, that was fun!”
I have to laugh at his youthful enthusiasm, and even Mr. Collier smiles. The boy can see the stars from where he’s sitting, and he doesn’t want to look down into the darkness below.
“You get her cooled down all the way?” Collier asks.
“Yessir. She was so fired up it took longer than usual. That’s why I’m late to this meeting. I think she wanted to go back out and run some more.”
Jesse shakes his head and fans himself with some training records.
“Well,” I say, “at least we know where Jesse stands about entering the Prima Donna.”
“In truth, Mom! Old Francie is ready for another race. I felt her legs, Jake. No heat anywhere. She’s steady on her feet and eating well. Her eyes are clear.”
“Assuming your diagnosis is correct, young fella,” drawls Collier, “and she shows no problems later today, I agree that she is ready for another race. The question is, do we want to run her here, and miss most of the Belmont meet, or run her twice in New York before Christmas?”
“You feel three races is sufficient for her as a two-year-old?”
“Two or three. Yes, I do, ma’am. If she rests and trains at Heal Eddy over the winter, she should be strong and fast for her three-year-old season. That’s where the money is, and that’s when we find out if she’s really any good.”
“Oh, she’s good. Real good.”
The old trainer looks with a squint at Jesse. I ask if her work this morning was good.
“Three furlongs under a hand ride, without asking her to run, in thirty-five seconds?” he asks rhetorically. “That’s a good time, but it’s only a workout, no stress, no other horses to beat, no crowd noise. I mean, it’s a good indicator but only that.”
“She’s a gamer, Jake. Look how she ran last time out.”
“That was an $80,000 race against maidens, horses who had never won before—and still haven’t, by the way. The Prima Donna is a stakes race. Much better competition.”
That opinion slows Jesse a bit, but only a bit. “We got to find out how good she is, Jake.”
“How do you feel about this Miss Agnes? She is your horse, after all.”
“If you think she’s sound and can run this soon without hurting herself, then I think we should try the Prima Donna. I know it’s a graded race, but we’re still playing with track money after her maiden win last month. Her winnings will cover her entry fee and even winter boarding, I think, so financially we’re okay.”
Jacob Collier grunts.
I continue. “If you think she’s strong enough, Mr. Collier, I’m in.”
Jesse pats me on the back, smiling and nodding. Collier nods also, slowly.
“Okay. If she wakes up in good shape tomorrow, I’ll submit her entry to the Prima Donna.”
Jesse and I high-five while Jacob Collier busies himself with paperwork on the desk. I think he is secretly pleased to be running Francine again. He is one of those people who is afraid to think about too much success, afraid because the opportunity for the disappointment of failure is too great. He has suffered so much disappointment in his career that he lives in fear of optimism. Still he has a horse in Francine who has potential. Who knows how many more chances he was going to get? Not that he’s ready to keel over or anything. It’s just that he’s getting the reputation as a middling trainer and is already attracting owners of middling racehorses. This way, if something goes wrong with my filly, he could always say, to himself at least, that Francine’s owner wanted to run her in the Prima Donna.
I’m thrilled to have a horse in a big race and itching to tell Tony about it. He’s busy with his secret agent business, however, so I didn’t text him. When he can, he will initiate communications again. I already know from Auntie Maybelle that he has been on the island, his crusty workboat tied up at the city marina among the sloops and trawler yachts of the summer season.
“He’s not shy about taking his place in society, is he Agnes?” she texted.
I laughed at that. Maybelle has a hard time placing Tony. He is always courteous to her and the couple of times we went to fancy restaurants or to a summer ball on Westfarrow with her, he always dressed appropriately and knew what wine to order. He’s an enigma to her, but not to me. He learns as he lives, and he lives in many guises and in many locales. When he’s boat captain, he acts like a sailor; when he’s with the yachting crowd, he acts like a yachtsman.
I wish he were near so we could live the excitement of another race with our own horse contending, but I’m determined to live it myself so I can tell him what it was like running on Travers Day.
The hard work seems not to affect the filly in the least, but one could not say the same about the horse people on the backstretch. As she frolics about in a distance gallop the next day, grooms and hot walkers are abuzz about her time in the three-furlong work. I hang about the stable listening to their excited jabber in the many accents of the people employed by the different barns and trainers. Most seem to think that my horse had qualified herself for better company, maybe even a try at the Kentucky Oaks next spring. We would all soon see about that.
Travers Day, the final race card of the meeting at Saratoga Race Course and the unofficial end to the summer season in Saratoga Springs, does not have a good beginning. Rain and mist drift in from the Hudson River and spread down the sides of the Adirondack Mountains into The Spa, blurring the dawn. I walk along the shedrow early, the drops of rain splattering off the plastic rain gear I’m wearing, sounding like minnows jumping in a pond. The other horses in their stalls, looking at me in the hopes I might be their grooms bringing breakfast, seem to be perky and alert despite the rain, or maybe because of it. It’s a cool morning after a long hot season.
Francine is already chomping at her sweet feed when I get to Barn Sixteen and she ignores me completely. I feel happy to be in her presence nonetheless. She’s a beautiful critter, full of life and joy. All she wants is to enjoy her health and be allowed the opportunity to run. Her stall has already been mucked, so it’s filled with the fragrance of straw and horse. The experience of standing there is sublime: the only noise the grinding of oats in the animal’s mouth and the thunk of her hooves as she shifts; the sweet air and the sensation of being protected from the weather combine to bring a smile to my face.
By eleven when fans start pouring through the turnstiles to the track the precip ceases pouring from the sky. Most of the clouds whisk off and a breeze blows through The Spa. The air dries in minutes, the track surface nearly as quickly. By seventeen minutes before the first race at one, forty thousand people mass all over the famous old racecourse. When the bell sounds for jockeys to enter the paddock, almost none of them can hear it. The excitement is palpable. I look at the tote board and see that the track is labeled Fast. We will have no weather excuses for the Prima Donna.
Runforfun and Mary’s Grant are listed as morning line favorites at three to one; a group of three fillies, including Francine, are down at five to one. There are eleven racers entered, but one is a mudder who will probably be scratched in the drying conditions. Bettors are wary of my filly’s lack of experience, so the odds go up slightly from the morning line. I get my bets down as soon as the first race is saddled. Ours is next.
Barn Sixteen is a hive of activity by then, and Francine is reacting to it. She keeps her ears pricked as she blows and st
amps her feet. A horse is sensitive to its surroundings, being a prey animal in its natural state, so the filly knows it’s race day for her. How could she not know? The grooms had her coat shining and her tail braided; Jesse wrapped her legs. He didn’t ride her out to the training track for exercise. People came and went, their voices and demeanor telegraphing to the horse that something about today is different than every other day at the barn. She doesn’t look frightened, just energetic. As Jesse maintains, she loves to run.
And run she does, too fast at first, but Manny Ramirez gets her settled quickly. She lay third down the backstretch, tucked in behind the leader, a rabbit named Social Girl. Clods of wet dirt fly up from the substrata and pepper the herd following Social Girl. Mr. Collier had anticipated that, however, with the track drying so quickly, and he had fitted Francine with blinkers in the Westfarrow colors and full eyecups. She doesn’t seem to be distracted by the pellets or the crowd noise. She is focused on the animal ahead of her.
When Ramirez senses that Social Girl is but a few strides away from tiring, he goes wide around her. His timing is perfect. After drifting out evenly, Francine seems to slingshot by the leader, as an F-35 being catapulted off a carrier deck. She stretches out to a two-length lead. Ramirez hand-rides her, waiting for challenges from behind, calming her with his hands and voice. She seems to be straining even so. I can see that he’s holding her tightly, teaching her to rate, to pace herself. No two-year-old is especially good at rating so early in its career on the track but my filly is less experienced than most others in the race.
They come past the six-furlong pole with Francine still holding a short lead. Plunging horses bunch up behind her. With a quarter mile to go, Mary’s Grant makes a run at Francine. Runforfun is passing horses on the outside from a long way back. Mary’s Grant draws almost even before Francine seems to become aware of her. Ramirez taps his ride with his stick and Francine surges back into a clear lead. Mary’s Grant races gamely but cannot keep up with Francine.
At the sixteenth pole, with a furlong to the finish, Manny Ramirez lets Francine go. Mary’s Grant is done but Runforfun comes on furiously. Running wide, she passes two more horses and looms at Francine’s hip. By now, however, my filly is in full stride—and it is a thing of beauty, long, ground-eating leaps that no other horse in the race can match. She sweeps under the wire ahead by two lengths.
I celebrate the win with Jacob Collier and my son, Jesse, but I really want to enjoy the moment with Tony. He’s on assignment, too involved with whatever he is doing, whatever danger he faces, and I know not to contact him. Our pleasure in Francine’s big win will have to wait. I suspect I will have to wait for many pleasures with Tony Tagliabue.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Tagliabue and Carlos watched the speeding bogey exit the Gulf of Maine and plunge into deeper waters. Five minutes later, it slowed and began circling in long reaches, as if it were a trawler looking for fish. The two men on Maven looked at each other.
“I don’t think that no fishing boat.”
“Not a commercial one, at any rate. It could be a sportfisher-man, but I never heard of one fishing at night.”
They both frowned as they thought of the implications to their mission of a yacht, a fast yacht, steaming in the vicinity of their planned rendezvous, but the bogey continued to drift to the south. Carlos marked it on the radar screen and began plotting a bigger contact.
“I think we may have the Russian, amigo.”
“Roger that.”
As Maven rolled easily in three-foot seas, the radar contact continued to close on her. Tagliabue tried to be still as the tension built, although his body wanted to pace and wander, because Carlos had to initiate contact with the defector and arrange a rather delicate maneuver in the black of night on open water. He already had his earphones on and was tuning his small tactical radio, eyes boring in concentration. Tendrils of mist curled over the gunwales, feeling cool as it brushed their faces and moistened their exposed skin. The night was suddenly very quiet. The winds were calm.
Carlos tensed, and Tagliabue knew he had made contact. He punched some numbers into his machine. Then he turned and nodded to Tagliabue. The operation was on.
Carlos spoke the coordinates in a low, flat voice. Tagliabue plotted them on the chart and turned the dial of the onboard LORAN. He sat at the conning station and put the diesels into gear. They moved toward the rendezvous point.
“I figure the Leonov at twelve miles an hour, 306 degrees. Steady.”
“Okay, Carlos. I’m going to try to get in behind her without making it too obvious.”
Tagliabue maneuvered Maven, altering course and speed to keep up the pretense of tracking fish, closing gradually and obliquely to stay to landward of the spy ship and far enough away not to alarm the conning officer. He knew the Russians had him on radar by now. The ship had the right of way, so he turned Maven to port and made a slow run for land. He throttled back so that they barely had way on and turned the boat’s bows to seaward.
“She gonna pass at three miles if you don’t go no farther.”
“Rog.”
Tagliabue moved the Maven seaward, closing the three-mile gap between the two vessels. He looked forward with his glasses. He thought he might have the ship in sight but wasn’t sure. His own body heat was beginning to make itself felt under his sweater as he squinted to sharpen his vision. Carlos was at the radar monitor.
“Five minutes.”
A gust blew up, clearing the air momentarily. The Leonov burst from the fog bank, big, menacing, adorned with rigging and antennae and rotating discs. She was well lit. Spotlights made her arrays glitter; the portholes down her side glowed like the eyes of a pack of hungry coyotes. A bow wake carved from her as she steamed into view. Tagliabue thought the Russian would run Maven over if she got in the way.
“Speed?”
“Still making twelve.”
Tagliabue thought the spy ship seemed to be traveling faster than that, but Carlos’s calculation was probably right: with a sixteen-knot top speed, the SSV-175 would be most efficient at twelve or so. She would stay at cruising speed if she was transiting back to the Motherland—and that’s what Giselle’s intel was indicating.
The defector was supposed to go over the side at 44˚48’1.38” at their present longitude, a slight change from his original jumping-off coordinates. If the Russian didn’t change speed, she would pass that point in three minutes.
“You better think about launching the small craft, Carlos.”
“You right,” he replied, closing his little radio and heading aft. “You see me take off, means he’s in the water. I’ll talk to you anyway.”
“Rog.”
The two men had their cell phones connected to each other and their Bluetooth transmitter/receivers in their ears. Carlos pulled the skiff close and took the painter with him as he jumped aboard. The Leonov would pass too close to see the small boat on her radar, but a sharp lookout might see its wake, white against a dark sea. Carlos was supposed to drive alongside Maven on the side away from the Russian, accelerating fully all the while. When he came out of Maven’s shadow he’d be at plane and climbing swiftly to forty-three knots. If the skiff was spotted then, it would be too late to do anything. Tagliabue hoped.
The waves were big for that kind of speed. The open boat would be banging into them and could swamp if he got sideways to them. He trusted that Carlos was a good seaman.
With one minute to go, Tagliabue took Maven up to full speed. Leonov was past her now, so Maven matched her at twelve nautical miles per hour but would never catch the bigger vessel. Radar navigators looked forward for threats of danger, so the hope was that no one would notice what they had assumed was a fishing boat now racing at the ship’s flank. At least not for a few minutes. That’s all it would take, a few minutes to pull this off.
The fog was dense now. He could not see the skiff but knew Carlos was somewhere off his lee side, detached from Maven and under its own power. His
earphone crackled.
“He’s in the water.”
Less than two seconds later, the small boat flashed by the cockpit to port. He saw Carlos behind the wheel, gauzy scuds of fog streaking by his head. Tagliabue kept a steady course and speed. The skiff cut in front of him, flying over one wave and crashing into the next, his big outboard motor cavitating each time then digging into the water again. The period the prop was in the air was so brief that the boat didn’t seem to lose any speed. Carlos raced to a spot in the Russian ship’s wake and spun the small craft as he shut the engine down. The boat spun and stopped with her bow to the waves. Water rushed over her stern before she settled in. With his glasses up, Tagliabue saw Carlos lean over the side. A sudden glare blinded him. The Leonov had a spotlight on Maven’s conning station. Tagliabue couldn’t see the skiff.
The light left Maven and started to quarter the water between Tagliabue’s cargo boat and the Leonov. They’re looking for something, he thought. They must know the radioman is overboard.
The light found the skiff. She was already south of Maven but underway again and moving fast. The light lost the boat momentarily and by the time it found her again she was at plane and skipping over the flat water in the ship’s wake. She hit the ocean waves at full speed, heading for land and another area of heavy fog. Tagliabue slowed Maven to give Carlos cover. A siren went off on the Russian spy ship. Crewmen scrambled. He knew weaponry would be deployed next.
He turned Maven for home. There was too much water between him and the Russian for small arms to be effective, so he was not completely surprised to hear a cannon go off. A big round whistled over Maven rigging and splashed down not twenty yards from the racing skiff ahead of her. Their gun control radar was highly sophisticated to be that accurate so quickly. The second round landed near the skiff and blew it airborne. Carlos turned hard to starboard when he landed and began running a jagged pattern. The Russian gunners missed with two more shots but were beginning to bracket the boat again.
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