Triple Crown (6 page)

That principled action had been rewarded by the call to set up the racing section at FACSA.

There was a knock on the office door. Norman looked over my head and stood up. ‘I’ve arranged for you to spend time with one of our special agents, Frank Bannister.’ He waved
the man in. ‘Frank, this is Jeff Hinkley, from England.’

I stood and shook Frank’s hand while we both looked each other up and down. He was taller than me by at least four inches, and broader too. He squeezed my hand hard as if to make sure I
knew that he was also stronger. He smiled down at me and I smiled back without a waver. If he wanted to play silly games, so be it, but I wouldn’t rise to his bait.

‘Frank will show you the ropes,’ Norman said. ‘Stick to him like glue.’

Frank didn’t look best pleased at the prospect but he was civil enough – just.

He showed me round the office and I met the other staff.

‘Bob Wade,’ one of them said, smiling warmly and offering his hand. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’ He laughed with a distinctive rapid-fire guffaw.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

Steffi Dean sat at the desk next to his. Not conducive, I thought, to hard work. I also shook her hand and wondered what she saw in Special Agent Wade, who appeared somewhat older in the flesh
than in his personnel-file mugshot.

‘Are you all
special
agents?’ I asked.

‘Sure are,’ Frank said. ‘All FACSA agents are special.’

I wasn’t sure if he was being facetious.

‘Ignore him,’ Steffi said. ‘But he’s right. Special agent is a rank and all FACSA agents are special agents. We’re all L-E-Os, just like the special agents in the
FBI and DEA.’

‘L-E-Os?’

‘Law-enforcement officers.’

‘Does anyone have only regular agents?’ I asked.

‘Not here,’ Frank said loudly. ‘Nothing regular about this lot.’ He laughed expansively at his own joke while Bob and Steffi looked slightly embarrassed.

‘Does everyone carry a gun?’ I asked.

It was difficult not to notice the automatic pistols that each of them had in holsters either on their belts or under their shoulders. The Attorney General had clearly been busy with his
authorisations.

‘Only the special agents,’ Steffi said. She patted the gun as if it were a family pet. ‘Never leaves my side. I even sleep with it under my pillow.’

I wondered if there were two guns under her pillow when she slept with Bob Wade.

‘Have you used yours much?’ I asked her.

‘Only on the range. We all have to pass a marksman test every year in order to keep our special-agent status. But I’ve never had to use my weapon in the field. Not yet,
anyway.’

‘Is it loaded?’

She smiled at me as if I was an imbecile. ‘Of course it’s loaded. No point in having it otherwise.’ She removed the gun from the holster. ‘Glock twenty-two-C,
point-four-zero-calibre automatic.’ She pushed a latch on the pistol grip and slid out the magazine, visibly full of shiny brass bullets. ‘Fifteen rounds per mag. Smith and Wesson
hollow-nosed expanding ammunition. And I have a silencer plus two more full mags on my belt.’

‘A silencer?’

‘In case we need to be covert,’ she replied. ‘But we don’t use it as a general rule. It upsets the balance of the weapon in the hand. Tends to make the shots go high and
right.’

She snapped the magazine back in and returned the pistol to its holster in a single movement. She clearly was completely at ease with such deadly apparatus.

‘I thought expanding bullets were illegal,’ I said. ‘Aren’t they against the Geneva Convention?’

Expanding bullets would flatten out or fragment on impact with anything hard, like human bone, causing serious trauma over a much wider area than a normal bullet. They had been much feared
during the American Civil War due to the horrendous wounds they produced.

‘It was the Hague Convention,’ Bob Wade said. ‘But it only applies to warfare, not to law enforcement. All US police forces use them.’

I must have looked somewhat aghast that ammunition banned in war as being too brutal and cruel was standard issue on the streets of America.

‘Expanding bullets,’ Bob said in explanation, ‘are less likely to pass right through suspects and into innocent bystanders behind them. They also have more stopping
power.’

Nevertheless, I was still not convinced that using them was ethical. No wonder more than a thousand members of the American public were shot dead by police each and every year.

Tony Andretti had said in the lay-by near Oxford that he couldn’t get his head round Brits and guns.

Well, I couldn’t get my head round Yanks and guns either. Statistics showed that, in all circumstances, you were seventy times more likely to be shot to death in the United States than in
England. And that must have something to do with the number of guns at hand.

And what worried me most was that the section mole was likely to have a Glock 22C holstered on his hip with fifteen .40 expanding bullets in the magazine, plus a silencer and two more loaded
mags on his belt.

I really
would
have to watch my back.

By the end of the day I had been round the whole office and met all the section staff except for the most junior admin assistant, who was away on maternity leave.

I had a good memory for faces and facts and I had been easily able to match the individuals to their life stories as outlined in the personnel files. The only difficult thing was not appearing
to know something that I hadn’t been told. For example, I nearly asked one of the two intelligence analysts if he liked working for FACSA more than for a bank when he hadn’t actually
mentioned his previous employment.

‘Monday is a good day for you to start,’ Frank Bannister said over coffee in the FACSA cafeteria at lunchtime. ‘It’s when all the special agents try to be in the office
for meetings and such. Mondays and Tuesdays are usually dark at the major tracks, unless they’re public holidays.’

By ‘dark’, he meant there was no racing.

‘Do you go to the tracks a lot?’ I asked.

‘I usually go somewhere every week,’ he replied. ‘All of us do. It is as important for us to be seen as it is for us to see what’s going on. I tend to concentrate on the
northeastern tracks but I love going to the smaller ones too, especially those that race only for a few days each year. Over the years I’ve been to almost all of them.’

‘It must do wonders for your frequent-flier miles.’

‘We don’t get them,’ he said. ‘We often travel on government jets. Even when we are on commercial flights, federal-service rates don’t earn you miles.’

‘Where are you going this week?’ I asked.

‘Highlight of the year,’ he said with a big smile. ‘Louisville for the Derby. You coming?’

‘You bet,’ I said.

For years I had wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby but it was run on the first Saturday in May, usually on the same day as the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, and my presence had always been expected
at one of the biggest days of the English racing season.

Now I was free of that obligation and the prospect of going to Churchill Downs thrilled me.

‘How do I get there?’ I asked.

‘The whole section is going Wednesday. Make sure the boss puts you on the manifest.’

‘I sure will.’

Overall, it was an interesting but somewhat frustrating day.

Whereas I was welcome to wander round and speak to the section staff throughout the morning, I was sidelined for much of the afternoon as all but three of them gathered in a room for a meeting
on the second floor. A meeting from which I had been specifically excluded.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked one of the non-participants, one of the two intelligence analysts, who sat resolutely at his computer throughout.

‘Planning and briefing for an operation.’

‘Why aren’t you there?’

‘No point,’ he said. ‘The op is not based on any intel I’ve looked at, and I don’t get involved with planning.’

‘When is the op?’ I asked hopefully.

‘Sorry. I can’t say. It’s a secret.’

I suppose I shouldn’t really have minded. Back in London I’d given Tony rather a hard time for letting too many people know about FACSA operations so I could now hardly expect to be
one of them.

Mind you, to my sure knowledge, there were at least eleven at the meeting, which was still far too many for something so secret.

‘Where does most of your intelligence come from?’ I asked the analyst.

‘Information comes from a variety of sources. It is analysis that turns info into intelligence.’ He sounded rather full of his own importance.

‘What sort of sources?’ I asked, ignoring his second comment. ‘In England we have a network of covert informants from within the racing industry.’

He nodded. ‘Us too. But they’re mostly disgruntled grooms who have a score to settle with their employers either for being fired or being overlooked for promotion. Much of the stuff
is just malicious lies with no substance. It’s my job to apply contextual knowledge to sort the truth from the trash.’

Perhaps he
was
important after all.

The operational planning meeting went on and on, and there was a limit to the amount of time I could hang around doing nothing.

The hands on the clock moved slowly round to four-thirty.

‘Tell Frank I’ve gone, will you?’ I said. ‘I’ll see him in the morning.’

The analyst simply waved an acknowledgement and went on studying his computer screen.

After escaping the security cordon, with the photograph on my new shiny identity pass scrutinised at every door and gateway, I walked back to the hotel via a 7-Eleven store,
where I picked up a few essential supplies like coffee, milk, cereal and so on, as well as a ready-meal of cheese and pasta for my dinner.

Back in my room, I called Paul Maldini. It was ten in the evening in London but he picked up straight away.

‘You were right,’ he said. ‘There was a call to the office from the US asking about you.’

‘What time?’

‘At five, just as I was leaving.’

Midday in Washington.

‘Man or woman?’

‘Man.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He asked for you by name. I’d had Reception direct any calls for you to my phone.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him that Jeff Hinkley was away and was not available and could I help him. Then he asked me where you were so I told him you were in the United States.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘He asked what you were doing in the US and how long you’d be away. I told him you were visiting another racing authority and I didn’t know for how long. Just as you told me
to. Was that right?’

‘Yes, Paul, it was. Thank you. Did you happen to ask the man for his name?’

‘I did but he said that didn’t matter, then he hung up.’

‘Any clues about his voice?’

‘He had an American accent,’ he said. ‘Other than that I can’t help you. I couldn’t tell you which part. All Yanks sound the same to me.’

Must be his Italian heritage, I thought. Tony Andretti would have been appalled.

I thought back to what I’d been doing at midday.

Even though Norman Gibson had told me to stick to Frank Bannister like glue, I’d been intent on meeting as many of the section staff as I could and, at midday, I had been moving from desk
to desk introducing myself as a member of the BHA Integrity Department.

I couldn’t be exactly sure when I’d rejoined Frank to go down to the cafeteria. Probably nearer 12.30. So any of the men in the section could have made the call. And why
shouldn’t they? Other than a letter from the US Embassy in London and my passport, I had no documents confirming my bona fides.

Had I called FACSA when Tony had turned up in London to check up on him?

No, I hadn’t. But these guys were attached to the US government and far more security-minded than the BHA.

Maybe the call had been merely an innocent check-up.

But why then had the caller not given his name when asked?

I used my new pay-as-you-go phone to call Tony.

He answered at the second ring.

‘The phone arrived safely then?’ I said.

‘First thing this morning. Where are you now?’

‘Back in my hotel. Where are you? Can you talk?’

‘I’m in my car,’ he said. ‘Still in the parking lot at FACSA. I’m leaving for the day.’

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Stay and listen. I need a couple of things.’

‘Shoot.’

‘First, someone from here made a call today to the BHA offices asking about me. It may have been an innocent check or it might have been our friend being suspicious. The person declined to
give his name. Can you access the section phone records? Can you find out if anyone called London at midday today?’

‘I’ll try,’ he said, not sounding particularly hopeful.

‘But don’t tell anyone else. If it was our friend who made the call, I don’t want to spook him.’

‘What’s the other thing?’ Tony asked.

‘I was excluded from an operational planning meeting today. If this is another operation where the details are likely to be leaked, I need to know what’s going on. I can’t do
this job if I’m to be kept in the dark.’

There was a pause from the other end.

‘Tony?’ I said.

‘I’m thinking,’ he said. ‘When Jason Connor first came to me with his suspicions, I sent a memo to all staff reminding them of the need for secrecy and not to let any
non-agency personnel be aware of our operations. It would be a bit hypocritical for me to now insist you were brought into the loop.’

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘And it would flag up to our friend that I’m more than just an observer. But I still need the information. You’ll have to get it for me. And
Tony, could you make a list for me of everyone who knows about the operation?’

‘No problem,’ Tony said. ‘I was at the meeting today so I already have the details. How shall I get them to you?’

‘Could your wife deliver them? After dark.’

‘No problem,’ he said again. ‘I’ll go back in and make copies of the paperwork.’

‘Tony,’ I said. ‘Be careful. If FACSA is anything like the BHA, you can’t make copies without entering your personal code on the copy machine.’