Triple Crown

by Felix Francis

  ‘No.’

  ‘All it needs is for someone to have your email address and password.’

  ‘But how would they get my password?’ he asked.

  ‘How often do you change it?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘So someone at work may have seen you enter it. Or maybe it’s easy to guess. Please don’t tell me it’s your mother’s maiden name, or your wife’s.’

  There was a long pause from the other end of the line.

  ‘I’ll change it right away,’ he said rather sheepishly.

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Two reasons,’ I said. ‘One, whoever has accessed your private emails would then know that we know, and, two, we might be able to use it to set our mole a trap.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, do nothing.’

  ‘But someone else is reading my personal emails. I don’t like that.’

  ‘Then don’t write suggestive emails to your mistress,’ I said flippantly. ‘At least, not until after we’ve caught the mole.’

  ‘I don’t have a mistress,’ he said nervously.

  I wasn’t at all certain I believed him.

  But flippancy aside, it was a serious breach of security.

  ‘Tony,’ I said with concern, ‘did you tell Paul Maldini that I wasn’t coming back yet?’

  ‘I sure did,’ Tony replied.

  ‘How?’

  ‘What do you mean, how?’

  ‘Did you use your email?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I called him on this phone, like you said to. Spoke to him myself.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He didn’t seem that concerned. He said that you could stay for as long as you need, provided you come back eventually.’

  ‘Did he say those exact words?’ I asked.

  ‘He sure did.’

  Paul clearly did know me better than I realised.

  ‘Any further word on the semen tests?’ I asked, changing the subject.

  ‘What further word are you expecting?’

  ‘Is it equine semen, for a start?’

  ‘My biochemistry professor is still doing the DNA tests. Apparently he’s had to do a procedure called poly-something chain reaction.’

  ‘Polymerase chain reaction,’ I said. ‘To amplify the amount of DNA.’

  ‘That’s the one. It seems it takes all day.’

  ‘They can do it instantaneously on CSI Miami,’ I said.

  Tony laughed. ‘Yeah, and they always catch the bad guys, too. Don’t believe everything you see on TV.’

  Or in the newspapers.

  ‘Can you ask your pet professor if he can tell what breed the semen is from, assuming it is equine? In particular, if it is Thoroughbred semen? I could then take hairs from all the horses in Raworth’s barn for comparison.’

  ‘Right,’ Tony said. ‘I’ll ask him. Call me again tomorrow. Same time.’

  My first night at Pimlico could hardly be described as restful.

  The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable and that, together with an apparent who-can-be-the-loudest-snorer contest between Keith and Diego, had me longing for nights only with the farting Mexican.

  Hence I’d been wide awake and up for some considerable time prior to four o’clock, when I was expected to be at work.

  With only two horses to deal with, the workload was only half what I had faced at Belmont, so it was easy. Ladybird went out first for her morning exercise, ridden by Victor Gomez, while I cleaned her stall and prepared Debenture.

  When Ladybird returned from the track, I walked her round for half an hour until she had cooled, gave her a washdown, and then returned her to her stall for a feed. I repeated the routine for Debenture, thankfully without any interruptions from Diego, who was busy with his two. Meanwhile, Keith and Maria fussed around Fire Point, who was ridden out to the track by Jerry Fernando, his race jockey, under the watchful gaze of trainer George Raworth.

  I was through by eight o’clock and went in search of some breakfast.

  The white Jeep Cherokee was parked up against the back wall of the Pimlico track kitchen.

  I had a quick look to make sure that George was still out by the track watching Fire Point and no one else was about, then I peeped inside the vehicle.

  The cryogenic flask was still there behind the passenger seat exactly as before. But did it still contain the frozen semen?

  I tried the Jeep’s doors. They were locked.

  How I wished my trusty lock picks could open them but there was no hope. It was not even worth trying. For a start, the doors had no visible keyholes for the picks to go into. I spent a moment wondering if my ex-army corporal could open cars that were locked by remote control. Probably. But for me, short of breaking one of the windows, I had no chance of getting in.

  Just as in Wagner’s Pharmacy at Louisville before the Derby, talk in the Pimlico track kitchen over breakfast was all about who was going to win the big race.

  ‘Fire Point will surely trot up,’ said one man sitting near me, ‘especially with those other three not running.’

  The three he meant were the horses diagnosed with EVA. Two had since returned to California to recover, and the third was still in isolation at Churchill Downs.

  However, the man’s companion disagreed. ‘I think that big bay colt of Bryson’s has a good chance. What’s his name?’

  ‘Crackshot,’ said the first.

  ‘That’s it. Won the Florida Derby at Gulfstream by five lengths back in March.’

  ‘If he’s so good, why didn’t he run at Louisville? His win in Florida would have surely qualified him.’

  ‘No idea. Perhaps Bryson was saving him for the Preakness.’

  ‘Don’t talk garbage. No one in their right mind bypasses the Kentucky Derby in favour of the Preakness.’

  ‘He might have this year. There’s that new bonus being offered for winning both the Florida Derby and the Preakness. Five million bucks is a lot of money.’

  ‘Even so . . .’

  The man might have been right, and Crackshot was not the only one of the ten that hadn’t lined up for the big race at Churchill Downs.

  There were also Raworth’s other two, Classic Comic and Heartbeat, as well as a couple of local Maryland colts.

  So only half Saturday’s expected field in the Preakness had contested the Derby at Louisville. Some had not been eligible for the Kentucky race and were simply after the big prizes on offer here. The $1.5million purse meant that this race alone was well worth winning, even without the bonuses. Even the fourth horse home would collect nearly a hundred thousand dollars for his owner.

  The day dragged.

  There was not even live racing to watch, as Tuesday was a dark day at Pimlico.

  I lay on my lumpy bed for part of the afternoon trying to catch up on some sleep but without much success, not least because Diego had had the same idea.

  He spat onto the floor when he saw me.

  ‘Charming,’ I said.

  ‘Qué?’ he replied in an aggressive tone.

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ I asked.

  ‘No comprende,’ he replied, waving a hand at me in a contemptuous manner.

  But Maria had said that Diego ‘speak very good English’, much better than her.

  ‘Yes, Diego, you do comprende,’ I said. ‘So listen to me. You leave me alone. You don’t even talk to me. I know about you.’

  He stared at me with his black eyes.

  ‘I know about you,’ I said again. ‘One word from me and you’ll be in the slammer for a year on Rikers Island.’

  He understood that all right.

  But if I thought it would shut him up, I was sorely mistaken. The look of pure hatred in his eyes caused a shiver to run down my spine.

  Letting on to him that I knew about his little problem with the New York courts had clearly been a mist
ake.

  I might need to watch my back more than ever.

  23

  The Preakness post-position draw took place at five o’clock on Wednesday afternoon with all ten of the expected runners declared for the race.

  Crackshot had been the last of the contestants to arrive at Pimlico, flying in from Florida only at lunchtime to join the other nine already in the Preakness Barn.

  Fire Point had been installed as the favourite in the morning’s edition of the Daily Racing Form with Crackshot a whisker behind. All the others were outsiders in comparison.

  Of the two, Fire Point certainly had the better draw. He would be out of trouble in Gate 8 while Crackshot was drawn next to the rail in Gate 1, with both Heartbeat and Classic Comic immediately outside him in Gates 2 and 3 respectively.

  George Raworth was clearly delighted and had a smile on his face as big as the Grand Canyon as he was interviewed by the assembled media.

  Suddenly, the Preakness roller coaster was under way and Pimlico Race Course was coming to life. Celebrities and politicians would be flying in to Baltimore from all over the country during the next two days in order to be here for the race.

  It may not be quite as grand as the carnival that had surrounded the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, but it was big enough, especially on an otherwise quiet weekend for US sports.

  And the weather was set fair. Indeed, it was getting hot, with afternoon highs in the mid- to upper-eighties Fahrenheit, dropping down only into the seventies at night. It was so hot, in fact, that Keith had installed two electric fans outside Stall 40 to keep Fire Point cool.

  There were no such luxuries for the grooms.

  Wednesday night was completely still without a trace of breeze. Even with the door and window of our bedroom wide open, the lack of air meant that getting to sleep was difficult, the situation not helped by having ten horses stabled beneath, pumping out energy from their massive bodies like fiery furnaces.

  As I tossed and turned, Diego and Keith seemed untroubled by the heat and went back to their snoring games, which only made things worse.

  Eventually, at ten minutes to midnight, and wearing only a T-shirt and my boxer shorts, I took my blanket down the outside staircase and lay on the neatly mown lawn in front of the barn, curling up on the ground as I’d done so often before in the army.

  I’d had to cope with higher temperatures than this in the past. July in Kandahar had a daily average well into the nineties and here, at least, I wasn’t wearing full combat kit including body armour and helmet, plus a twenty-kilo backpack and as much again in weapon and ammunition.

  Lying on the grass was surprisingly comfortable. I found myself a quiet, dark spot in the shadow of a tree and settled down.

  I was drifting off to sleep when I was disturbed by the arrival of a vehicle, its headlights lighting up the trees above my head. It pulled up near the end of the barn closest to me and the engine was switched off.

  I rolled over onto my knees and slowly raised my head to have a look.

  It was George Raworth’s white Jeep Cherokee.

  What was he doing here at midnight?

  I watched as he climbed out of the driver’s seat and walked over to the barn.

  ‘Good evening,’ I heard him say, presumably to the night guard who was out of my sight on the far side of the barn. ‘George Raworth. Here to check on my horses.’

  Who was I to criticise a trainer who wanted to check his horses at any time of night? It must be worrying for him to have the favourite in his charge, especially with all the hopes of the nation riding on it as another Triple Crown champion.

  I lay down once more and was drifting off again when a noise made me instantly awake.

  I recognised that particular noise. I’d heard it before.

  It was the sound of the cap being removed from the cryogenic flask, with the slight ‘pop’ as the excess pressure inside was released.

  I again rolled onto my knees and looked towards the Jeep.

  George had the rear door open behind the passenger seat. Even though there were plenty of security lights around the barn, I couldn’t actually see what he was doing as the vehicle was in the way. But why would he have opened the flask if he wasn’t either getting something out or putting something in?

  He closed the Jeep and went back to the barn. In his right hand he held an electric torch and in his left what looked like a small cup.

  He disappeared into the barn.

  I was now curious.

  I rose to my feet and moved silently forwards, making sure that I remained deep in the shadow of the trees.

  At night, the lights in the barn itself were switched off to allow the horses to sleep, while the glow of those outside seemed to further deepen the darkness of the interior.

  At first I could see nothing but then the glow of the torch appeared as George made the inspection of his horses.

  I moved down the side of the barn to get a better view.

  George spent only a couple of moments with each horse before moving along the line of stalls.

  What was he up to now?

  I moved as close as I dared, silently padding over the grass in bare feet and keeping as low as I could behind the post-and-rail fence that ran along parallel to the side of the barn, and about five yards from it.

  George stopped at one of the stalls near the far end. The torch went out.

  I crouched down, looking through the fence, straining my eyes to try and see what he was doing.

  There came a noise, a hissing sound like that made when a pump blows air into a bicycle tyre. There it was again.

  Then silence.

  I waited, listening hard, but there was nothing more.

  George then retraced his steps along the barn towards his own three horses, turning the torch back on as he did so.

  Maybe the sound had been one of the horses having a snort, or perhaps it had been the security guard blowing his nose, but the noise hadn’t been right for either of them.

  I tiptoed back to the end of the barn and was about to creep closer when George appeared right in front of me, coming out of the barn into the bright glare of the security lights.

  I immediately stepped back into the deep shadow of the bushes so he wouldn’t spot me.

  ‘Good night,’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Good night, Mr Raworth,’ replied the guard, who I still couldn’t see.

  George then walked back to his Jeep and threw something onto the back seat, before climbing in and driving off into the night.

  I returned slowly to my blanket and went to sleep wondering what all that had been about.

  I was none the wiser in the morning.

  I woke at three o’clock, slightly chilled, and went back up the stairs to my bed. Diego and Keith were both giving the snoring a rest so I lay down and returned to sleep for another hour.

  I didn’t mention my nocturnal excursion to the others and especially not to George Raworth when he arrived to watch his horses at exercise.

  I prepared Ladybird for Victor Gomez to ride a steady breeze over five furlongs. She would be racing on Friday afternoon in the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes, a graded race over nine furlongs for three-year-old fillies that was named in honour of the yellow perennial daisy with a black centre that is the state flower of Maryland. So all Ladybird needed today was a gentle pipe-opener to maintain her condition, nothing that would overtire.

  Just to confuse people, in 1940, the Maryland Jockey Club decided that, in addition to the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes for fillies, the Preakness Stakes itself would henceforth be designated as the ‘Run for the Black-Eyed Susans’ and a garland of the yellow-and-black flowers would be draped over the winner, to rival the garland of red roses that was draped over the victor of the Kentucky Derby.

  However, there was one slight problem. The Preakness is run in May, some two months earlier than black-eyed Susans come into bloom.

  Not that such a trivial matter would be allowed to deter the
gentlemen directors of the oldest sporting organisation of North America, one that could boast two US presidents among its former members. They decreed that the garland would be made using early-flowering, but all-yellow, Viking daisies, with their centres hand-painted black in order to resemble black-eyed Susans.

  Nowadays, yellow-and-black flowers of the chrysanthemum family are used but, in all its 140-plus years of existence, the Run for the Black-Eyed Susans has never once seen an actual black-eyed Susan.

  Victor Gomez came back on Ladybird to swap his saddle onto Debenture.

  ‘Ladybird good,’ he said to me. ‘She win tomorrow, yes?’ He gave me a thumbs up and grinned, not that it was a pretty sight with several of his teeth missing.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, raising my thumb back at him. ‘Hope so.’

  I walked the horse around for ten minutes for her to cool off before giving her a washdown with soap and water. Next I dried her using a large towel and then brushed her coat until it shone.

  I wanted Ladybird to look her best in the paddock, not least because Tony Andretti had told me the previous evening that he would be coming to Pimlico for both Friday and Saturday and I didn’t want him giving me any grief about poor standards of grooming, even in jest.

  ‘How about the tests on the semen?’ I had asked him.

  ‘Still waiting,’ he’d replied. ‘Full results should be in tomorrow. All I can tell you at the moment is that it is definitely horse semen but not from a Thoroughbred. My professor is still doing DNA similarity tests for other equine breeds.’

  So, if it wasn’t from a Thoroughbred, there was no point in me taking hair samples from the colts in Raworth’s barn for comparison. None of them could have been the donor.

  I continued grooming Ladybird, brushing out her tail and then trimming a straight edge at the bottom.

  As I worked, I thought about the next two days.

  It was not only Tony Andretti who would be coming to Pimlico, other members of the FACSA racing section would also be in attendance, and I didn’t want them spotting me as a ringer.

  It would be twelve days since I had left them at Andrews Base and, in spite of the fairly vigorous hair growth on my chin and upper lip since then, I was concerned that federal special agents should be well enough trained in recognition techniques to identify me easily, not least because my beard had not grown dark and concealing as I had hoped, but rather blond and wispy like my hair.