“Sorry. Too risky.”
Daniel laid a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I only want to help, Jake. There are a million things the agency could do to stop you. We could have you taken in for questioning or flown home on some sort of phony emergency. But that’s not what we want. We want to help you solve this problem so no one else gets hurt.”
Jake thought of the years he and Daniel had been friends. He hadn’t forgotten the hours of conversation, the dinners they’d shared in Washington during those first trying months when Jake had first arrived and hadn’t known a soul.
Then later in Charleston. Jake had become a successful businessman by then, and Daniel was pleased and proud of his accomplishments.
“All right, I’ll tell you.” With a calmness he didn’t feel, Jake related the most recent happenings, including the threats against Maggie and Sarah, and the package he’d picked up in the tobacconist’s shop.
He relayed every detail but one—the demand the Soviets would be making on Friday.
“Something’s not right,” Daniel said. “I’ll have our people look at the package they gave you, have the contents re-analyzed. If they’re as you’ve described, you can do as they ask. It’s a shame McGrath and Whitfield have to suffer, but under the circumstances we have no choice.”
Daniel rested a thick hand on the arena fence. “Are their people following you?”
“They must be. Back home, they made no bones about it. Here, I haven’t been able to spot their tail, but they damned well know my every move.”
Daniel shook his head. “I wish I knew what the hell this is about.”
“So do I.”
“You’re sure there’s nothing more?” Daniel pinned him with a last hard stare.
“That’s it so far. Maybe they’ll expect more from me in Seoul.” He glanced at the huge draught stallions in the arena. Anything to avoid his friend’s perceptive gaze. “Anything new on your end?” he asked.
“Nothing good. We know there are some high-ranking officials involved, which is why their demands seem so out of proportion to the effort they’ve expended.”
Daniel’s gaze followed Jake’s into the arena. “Whatever happens, I think this should be the last direct contact you and I make—at least until we get back home. I don’t want to take any chances.”
Jake just nodded.
“If something new develops or you need anything...” Daniel handed him a folded slip of paper with a local phone number on it. “Be sure you call from a pay phone.”
“What about the package?”
“Bring the items down to the stable in the morning. One of our undercover people will pick it up and return it as soon as we’re through testing.”
“All right.”
“Good luck, Jake.” Smiling at a passerby, Daniel moved away, blending easily into the throng of horse people watching the competition.
The next few days progressed uneventfully, except that early in the evening on Wednesday the water line that serviced the team barn broke, leaving grooms from the Canadian, British, and American teams hauling water from quite some distance away. The problem was rectified early the following morning.
That day Julius Caesar pulled a muscle in his foreleg going over a water jump.
“He’ll be all right.” Lee Montalvo, the team vet, spoke to Prissy and Damien Gould of the Greenbriar Stables, the horse’s owner. “But he won’t be competing again until Seoul.”
Lee was a top-notch veterinarian who specialized in horses. His family had emigrated from the Philippines just after the war.
“You’re sure the horse will be all right?” Gould asked, thick gray eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
“The injury isn’t that serious, but we don’t want to take any chances.”
With Caesar out, Jake wanted Ellie to ride Jubilee in the Nations’ Cup. The way she’d been competing, combined with Jube’s shining performance at Hickstead, Ellie would be an asset to the team.
Daniel’s people were working to verify the contents of the package, but Jake didn’t have time to wait. Since the medicine would probably make Clay too sick to ride, Prissy would wind up riding her alternate horse, Deuteronomy.
Through it all, Maggie had been sticking to Jake like fly paper, sure something was going to happen and determined to help in some way. Jake had indulged her at first but when she showed up at the stable the third morning in a row, he lost his temper.
