Chapter 59
THE CHINESE COACH slapped at the back of his neck just before his athlete nailed her landing and a roar went up from the crowd. Ping winced and looked around, bewildered by what had happened. Then he shook the sting off and ran clapping towards his vaulter, who beamed and shook her clasped hands above her head.
‘That little girl crushed that,’ Jack said.
‘Did she?’ Knight said, lowering his binoculars. ‘I was watching Ping.’
‘The Joe Cocker of gymnastics?’ Jack remarked.
Knight laughed, but then saw the Chinese coach rubbing at his neck before starting his histrionic ritual all over again as his next athlete got set to vault.
‘I think Joe Cocker got stung,’ Knight said, raising his binoculars again.
‘By what, a bee? How can you see that from here?’
‘I can’t see any bee,’ Knight said. ‘But I saw his reaction.’
Behind them, Knight heard Lancer talking in a strained voice into his radio to the arena’s internal and external security forces, fine-tuning how they were going to handle the medal ceremony.
Knight felt uneasy. He raised his binoculars and watched the Chinese coach cheer three more women through their vaults. As his last athlete took off down the runway, Ping danced like a voodoo man. Even his taciturn assistant, An Wu, got caught up in the moment. She was on her feet, hand across her mouth as the last girl twisted and somersaulted off the horse.
An Wu suddenly slapped at her neck as if she’d been stung.
Her athlete stuck her landing perfectly.
The audience erupted. The Chinese had won gold, and the UK silver, the best finish ever for a British gymnastics team. The coaches and athletes from both nations were celebrating. So were the Americans, who’d taken bronze.
Knight was aware of it all while using his binoculars to scan the raucous crowd cheering and aiming cameras above the vaulting pit. With Ping doing a high-step dance and his girls celebrating with him, the attention of virtually everyone at that end of the arena was on the victorious Chinese team.
Except for a heavyset platinum-blonde Game Master. She had her back turned to the celebration and was hurrying with an odd gait up the stairs away from the arena floor. She disappeared along the walkway, heading for the outer halls.
Knight felt suddenly short of breath. He dropped his binoculars and said to Jack and Lancer, ‘There’s something wrong.’
‘What?’ Lancer demanded.
‘The Chinese coaches. I saw them both slap at their necks, as if they’d been stung. Ping and then Wu. Right after the assistant coach slapped her neck, I saw a chunky platinum-blonde female Game Master hurrying out when everyone else was focused on the Chinese, cheering that last vault.’
Jack closed one eye, as if aiming at some distant target.
Lancer pursed his lips, ‘Two slaps, and an overweight usher moving to her post? Nothing more than that?’
‘No. It just seemed out of synch with … out of synch, that’s all.’
Jack asked, ‘Where did the volunteer go?’
Knight pointed across the arena. ‘Out the upper exit between sections 115 and 116. Fifteen seconds ago. She was moving kind of funny, too.’
Lancer picked up his radio and barked into it. ‘Central, do you have a Game Master, female, platinum-blonde hair, heavyset, on camera up there in the hallways off 115?’
Several tense moments passed as Olympic workers moved the medals podium out onto the arena floor.
At last Lancer’s radio squawked: ‘That’s a negative.’
Knight frowned. ‘No, she has to be there somewhere. She just left.’
Lancer looked at him again before saying into his radio: ‘Tell officers if they see a Game Master in that area, chubby female with platinum-blonde hair, she is to be detained for questioning.’
‘We might want to get a medic to look at the coaches,’ Knight said.
Lancer replied, ‘Athletes frown on being treated by strangers, but I’ll alert the Chinese medical teams at the very least. Does that cover it?’
Knight almost nodded before saying, ‘Where are those security cameras being monitored?’
Lancer gestured up towards a mirror-faced box in the balcony above them.
‘I’m going up there,’ Knight said. ‘Get me in?’