Conspiracy

by Dana Black

  Too bad, he thought, that he would have to double-cross Helen. A week with her would offer exquisite pleasures—but it would soon end. His goal was still to eliminate the Patrón’s control over him.

  So Groves had his own plan. He would shoot to miss when Raul made his move. Tonight at the Roman ruins outside town, he would kill Helen before Raul arrived. Raul would be found at the scene of the murder when he came to get his payment. By then, Groves would have made his getaway. He already had the coins in his pocket for the toll call to the Madrid police, who would very much appreciate being told the locations of thirty-five Cobor grenades in Bernabeau Stadium.

  He saw the terrace curtain move slightly. Don’t worry, Raul, you hard-working little bugger, he thought. You’re not going to die.

  2

  At 4:47, forty-five minutes of playing time after the game began, plus two more for an injury to a Spanish midfielder, both teams trooped wearily into the tunnels that led to their respective locker rooms.

  Dan Richards, on the American side, chatted momentarily with American coach Jerry Scott about his plans to break the zero-to-zero tie. “Open the sidelines,” the coach said. He sounded hoarse from the effort of calling to his men for three-quarters of an hour. Otherwise he was quite composed. “Open up the sidelines, bring up the defense, flood their scoring zone. Nothing fancy. Just guts and hustle.”

  A smile for the camera and he wheeled around, jogging after his players before Richards could ask whether that strategy might put too much of a burden on goalie Keith Palermo. Dan speculated on that possibility for the fans at home.

  His words and image, transformed into electronic impulses by the UBC camera and microphone, traveled through several hundred miles of telephone and TV cable to reach the monitors of the UBC studio van in Bernabeau Stadium, Madrid.

  Dan’s image appeared on three monitors on the studio control panel: Monitor Seven, the one connected to Max’s camera; the “on air” monitor, indicating that director Wayne Taggart had chosen to broadcast it to the viewers; and the “network” monitor, indicating that the signal had left the studio truck, entered the transmitter truck parked alongside, and was being sent to the satellite uplink station outside Madrid.

  At that particular moment, Wayne Taggart was not concentrating on Dan Richards’s sideline analysis, however. He was arguing with Rachel Quinn, whose image appeared on the Camera Nine monitor, beaming images from the opposite sideline. Beside Rachel stood the snowy-blond former singer, Alec Conroy.

  Wayne thought Alec made a pretty good contrast to Rachel’s older, more sophisticated kind of beauty, but at the moment he had more important things to broadcast than esthetically balanced pairings.

  “I know I promised he could-have an interview,” Taggart said into his headset mike. “We’re short now, and I’ve got to work in the Romanova clip before the end of the half.” He spoke brightly, knowing that optimism was good for morale. “But tell you what, Rachel. You keep Alec right on tap there, okay? We’ll pick him up at the end of the game, don’t you worry.”

  Before Rachel could reply, Wayne clicked off the connecting switch to her headset and opened the one to Bill Brautigam in the press box. As he spoke, he watched Dan Richards, mentally estimating the number of seconds left in Dan’s field-level summary of the American team’s second-half potential. “We’re gonna run the Romanova piece now,” he told Brautigam. “Stand by to acknowledge Richards and lead in. Ready, Able?” he called to Earvin, videotape operator for the Able slo-mo unit. “Five, four, three, two, roll Able, put up Able, go!”

  Seated beside Taggart, Billy Leon, the technical director, flipped switches on his control panel. One “put up” the Able “feed” on the “on air” monitor and sent it out to America. The other switch sent out the audio signal from Bill Brautigam in Seville. In New York, where it was not quite noon, viewers saw the image of Katya Romanova floating through the air in a slow-motion replay of her famous triple-and-a-half flyaway dismount from the high bar.

  They heard Bill Brautigam’s voice, thanking Dan Richards for his analysis and for the interview they were about to see with another world-class athlete, the sister of the Soviet star who would play in the championship game tomorrow afternoon, starting at noon on these same stations. Dan Richards had taped this interview a few days ago, Bill went on, and coming up right after that would be some startiing new information about Katya, so stay tuned, everybody.

  3

  Inside the American locker room, the players were subdued, gathering strength for the second half. They sat on benches in front of their lockers. Some talked quietly, some not at all. The trainer and his assistant made the rounds of them, checking tape, cleats, knee supports, old injuries and new. The coach drifted from player to player in the same quiet fashion, outlining his strategy for the second half and telling each man what would be expected of him. Fragments drifted between the lockers: “. . . get organized . . . run ’em . . . on all the time. . .”

  Sitting on the bench in front of his own locker, Keith Palermo reflected on how ordinary the advice seemed. This was the team’s last game, the highest a United States eleven had ever gone in fifty-two years of World Cup competition, and the talk might have come from any high school coach in America. He guessed that reflected well on the prospects of American soccer for the future, and on the soundness of a coaching strategy that stuck to the basics.

  “Coach Scott’s a good man,” he said to “Fireball” Farber, who was in the locker room as usual.

  “Just the best,” said Farber. He handed Keith one of the two paper cups of Gatorade he was carrying, sat down beside him, and drank.

  The short reel of Romanova tape on the Able slo-mo deck was nearing its end. The image was that of Katya on the soccer field, jogging across the green turf with upbeat music in the background. “We hope this isn’t all you see of Katya,” Bill Brautigam intoned in a voice-over. “But late last night UBC learned of a startling new development in the career of this most enchanting of athletes. From a reliable source we have information that Katya Romanova is now carrying the child of a prominent Soviet official and wants to defect to the United States. Tomorrow we expect to have more on this story, so be sure to stay tuned to these same UBC stations.”

  Adjacent to the TV announcers’ booth at Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium, the press box had been renovated and expanded to accommodate the world’s journalists. Among the modern additions were clusters of ceiling-hung TV monitors. Four monitors overhung the long rows of seats and writing space where more than a hundred reporters sat over their notepads and typewriters; two more dangled like chandeliers in the two press lounges where food and drinks were offered. At all seats, miniaturized earphones were built into the armrests and could be plugged into jacks for either Spanish or English TV commentary. The English-commentary hookup led to the UBC microphone.

  Bill Brautigam’s informational tidbit on Katya was picked up by reporters from Glasgow, Trinidad, Israel, and fourteen other nations who happened to be listening at the time. All but the man from Glasgow made notes to place followup calls to check the story.

  Inside the Prieto apartment, the television that Raul watched carried the TV España coverage of the game. Raul did not see Katya Romanova. The Spanish were running one-minute profile documentaries on each of the Spanish eleven, followed by a recap of the action from the first half. Raul felt disgusted at the one-sided coverage. Even though the Spanish network provided the “feed” for the world audience outside America, there was almost exclusive focus on the Spanish players.

  This jingoistic approach, while it offended Raul’s sense of propriety, nonetheless made it easier for him to prepare himself psychologically for his task. Once again, Spain was showing her blind hauteur, the arrogance that Raul burned to strike back against. The halftime coverage seemed to him symbolic of what he was fighting. He only wished that he had a Spanish target to shoot this afternoon instead of an American. Three bullets in the nose.

  Raul consoled himself with
the knowledge that by provoking a quarrel between Spain and America, he was doing Spain far more harm than depriving her of one soccer player. And while Spain grew weak from that quarrel, Raul’s Basque region would grow stronger by comparison. Soon, independence from both Spain and America might be possible. The Basques might one day become just as ennobled a people as their neighbors to the north, the French.

  During the second half, Raul found himself becoming involved in the game. He wanted the Americans to win, not simply because of his personal dislike of the Spanish, but also as a tactical advantage. If the Americans came out ahead, the death of the star American goalie would be more likely to be interpreted as Spanish revenge. Then what happened in Madrid tomorrow would be seen as American retaliation.

  When the Americans moved their defensemen upfield and pressed the attack, Raul sat forward on the Prietos’ couch, hoping for a score.

  His hopes were disappointed. The Spanish put on a “sag” defense that blocked access to the goal for the Americans. Though the younger team controlled the ball and made beautiful passing flurries and short runs, their attack became clogged before the ball could reach the goal.

  Then disaster struck. A Spanish defender intercepted an American pass and in one motion slammed it downfield to Jorge Serrano, Spain’s swiftest and most flamboyant scorer. Serrano seemed to have smelled the play coming; he was already racing at full speed. He took control of the ball at midfield, well before the offside penalty line. There was no American near him as he drove headlong for the American goal. Only Keith Palermo stood between the Spaniard and a score.

  Palermo had played a superb first half: nineteen saves against the brilliant Spanish offense. Now he came forward to meet the Spaniard’s charge, moving in his characteristic half-shuffling crouch, poised to spring the instant Serrano committed himself to a shot.

  The Seville crowd who had cheered wildly for Palermo now screamed for Serrano to score against him. Palermo continued to advance from the goal as Serrano came closer. With every step he decreased the radius of Serrano’s possible scoring shots, but he also made himself more vulnerable: the nearer Keith was to the shot, the less time he had to react and stop it.

  Ten yards separated the two men now, and Serrano was closing fast. Keith prepared to dive for the ball before the shot—the technique he’d used with success during the “shootout” endings of NASL games.

  Serrano, however, knew Palermo’s style, and how to exploit it. Just as Keith set himself to dive forward, Serrano lofted the ball. A short, chip-shot of a kick, and the ball floated over Keith’s head, above his frantically clawing fingertips. As Keith tried to recover and reverse his direction, Serrano neatly sidestepped the American and caught up with the ball.

  In front of the goal there was no one to challenge him. Serrano raised his fist in a gesture of triumph and then booted the ball in for the score.

  Seated behind Wayne Taggart in the associate producer’s chair, Cindy Ling shook her head sadly. “Poor Keith,” she said. “They faked him right out of his jock.” .

  Getting to his feet, Keith heard one hundred thousand fans cheering the score. He shook his head as he dug the ball out of the net and tossed it to the referee. “They won’t do that again,” he said to no one in particular.

  Sharon, in the stands behind the American bench, called out, “Let’s go defense!” Her voice was lost in the crowd.

  “So with frightening suddenness,” Bill Brautigam intoned from the TV announcer’s booth, “we see the danger inherent in coach Jerry Scott’s ‘score or nothing,’ all-out offensive strategy. With only nine minutes of play remaining, the Spanish team leads the United States by a goal that every second looms larger and larger.”

  “A bold attack by an experienced master of the scoring arts,” the TV España announcer was saying.

  Raul grimaced and snapped off the set. He moved over to the terrace curtain and opened it several inches. Then he slid the glass door open, moved his tripod forward so that the muzzle of the rifle protruded into the open air, and began to take practice sightings on his various targets. A fortunate thing about trying to shoot the goalie, he thought, was that he didn’t move around as much as the others.

  Coach Scott compromised by ordering one defender to hang back at midfield and try to head off more one-on-one scoring opportunities for Spain. Keith, waiting in the penalty area in front of the American goal, didn’t want the help. Stopping more Spanish goals now didn’t matter. Unless the U.S. could score the equalizer, none of their tactics, none of the possible Spanish tallies, would matter.

  Keith stood in front of the goal for less than half a minute. Then he moved forward, leaving the goal behind him empty and unguarded. Benny Abrams, the American defender, looked up in astonishment when he saw Keith approaching. He grinned as Keith yelled, “Get up there and score some points!”

  Then Abrams obediently trotted upfield.

  Jerry Scott, on the American bench, clapped his hands. “Okay, guys!” he called out. “We’re gonna go for it!”

  The first American goal came less than two minutes later. Three U.S. forwards drove simultaneously for the center of the penalty area; a U.S. defender, playing downfield, lobbed a pass into their general vicinity. One of the three Americans in the cluster of arms and legs booted the ball out to another U.S. defender, who kicked it into the net for the score.

  The stands fell silent. Then they began to roar again, cheering for Spain to take the offensive. The Spanish responded by mounting an artfully constructed attack that culminated in a looping, high-arced shot that would have entered the goal beneath the crossbar had not Keith leaped high, stretched, and deflected it away.

  Then the Americans controlled the ball. Once more they went into their all-offense lineup. The crowd realized that the U.S. was playing not for a tie but for a win, and came to its feet. They were still standing when, with less than two minutes remaining, the high-density offense squeezed the ball past the Spanish goalie a second time. The Americans were suddenly in the lead, the momentum flowing their way. When action began on the field once more, they controlled the ball and streamed down the field yet another time.

  Then the ball was stolen by the Spanish. The excited Americans were caught out of position as the ball sped downfield to the fleet-footed Serrano.

  Keith saw it happening midway between the goal and the center of the field. Quickly he moved back within the penalty area, the space within which he could use his hands to stop or block the ball.

  Raul had Keith in his sights every step of the way. He would shoot after Keith had made the save, he decided. The American deserved the chance to redeem himself from his earlier humiliation. Also, Raul knew that letting Keith win his victory would make his death more memorable. He would die a hero; the Americans would seem to have all the more reason to retaliate.

  Keith was shuffling forward again, preparing to make a dive for the ball. Raul kept the crosshairs of his scope centered between Keith’s shoulder blades. If Keith missed the shot, Raul decided, he would go for a backup target. To kill Palermo after he had let in a crucial goal for Spain would be pointless. Raul wanted a clear act of Spanish hostility against America.

  On the field, Keith knew Serrano would try the same move as before. His mind, clear and acute as it had been throughout all the World Cup matches, had weighed all the factors. Serrano would expect Keith to be looking for a change in strategy. He would want to humiliate the American a second time to put an added luster on the score. And most important, the loft shot was one Serrano could depend on. It came in too high to be blocked. If Serrano could time it properly, getting the kick off at the moment Keith started to dive for the ball, he was assured of the goal.

  On the sidelines, Rachel Quinn departed from her usual professional role and called a director’s instruction to Nancy Harrington, who was operating the field-level camera. “Get in on Keith!” she yelled. “He’s the whole game now!”

  Nancy obliged by panning from Serrano to Keith. He was
on his toes, shuffling forward, hands outstretched like a wrestler’s.

  Ten yards from Serrano, he leaned in for the dive. Serrano chipped the ball up the moment he saw Keith had committed himself.

  His eye followed the arc of the ball as he prepared to sidestep Keith’s oncoming rush.

  But Keith was moving away from him. He had planted his forward foot and then launched himself into a dizzying backward leap, soaring high into the air as though he had come off a trampoline. Twisting toward the goal, he hit the ground in a forward somersault just behind the ball. He rolled once, and there it was: the white-and-black sphere, bouncing, it seemed, with incredible slowness. He reached out, palmed it, tucked it away.

  Momentarily confused by Keith’s acrobatics, Raul now regained Keith in his rifle sight and squeezed off a shot. The bullet’s flight was accurate. Keith, however, moved as Serrano charged into him. The bullet grazed Keith’s calf, making a gash roughly an inch wide and two inches long in Keith’s sock and breaking the skin beneath in a shallow wound.

  Serrano continued his rush, later claiming that he had been going for the ball and had been unable to check his speed. He plowed into Keith, the cleats of his shoes tearing at Keith’s legs, obscuring the cut made by Raul’s bullet.

  Raul saw the collision. With the Spaniard so close to Keith, another shot there was out of the question. He could not wait for the two men to separate; there was too much risk in exposing his gun for more than a few seconds. He turned to his backup target.

  As he shot, Raul heard Eugene Groves’s bullet clink harmlessly off the dull yellow bricks to his right.

  On the sidelines, Alec Conroy gasped in astonishment as Raul’s steel-jacketed slug tore into his belly. He bent double. “Rachel . . . Rachel . . .” he cried.

  She turned and saw the back of Alec’s coat. In the white fabric was a darkening hole the size of her fist, where the bullet had come out. The stain widened as blood poured from the wound. She screamed and ran to him, at the same time calling for the Spanish medical attendants.