Another vertical fence, then a parallel jump. He could feel Cossack’s stride, the tremendous power of the animal beneath him and knew the horse’s speed was holding up. The click of a hoof as it cleared the bar brought the crowd to its feet. The final obstacle was a water jump painted red and white and lined with small greenish-gray cypress. The jump sat at an angle, four short strides in front of the seven-foot arena fence that closed off the back-alley entrance.
Janus pressed Cossack forward, setting him up for the water jump—and the fence leading to the streets behind the arena. Giving up precious speed for the difficult combination ahead and the huge height of the outside fence, he slowed the animal’s pace.
Janus held his breath. If Cossack failed him now, the result would be injury and defeat for them both.
The crowd roared as they cleared the water jump, making it look almost easy. Then he did the unthinkable. Janus missed the final turn toward the timer, kept up the pace he had set—and urged the big stallion over the outside fence. A hoof ticked the top, and for an instant time seemed frozen.
Then Cossack’s hooves clattered against the pavement as he landed, the sound muffled by the shrieks of the astonished crowd.
Janus didn’t look back. He could hear men shouting his name, hear their pounding feet as they tried to catch up with him, feel the rapid thudding of his heart. He raced Cossack down the alley between the towering rows of spectator seats, dodging contestants, vendors, media people, news cameras, and the blinding strobe of flash bulbs.
Two men jumped in front of him and grabbed for the reins. At first, he thought they were KGB and his hands tensed on the leather. Cossack knocked them reeling, just helpful spectators, thinking the horse had bolted. Pounding on, he finally broke free, but he didn’t stop until he’d left the stadium far behind.
Reining up some distance away, out of sight of all but a few prying eyes, he hurriedly dismounted and tied the horse behind the ruins of an ancient Roman wall. There he stripped off his cap and perspiration-drenched wool jacket.
Cossack nickered softly.
“They will take you home,” Janus said as if the horse could understand. He ran a hand along the animal’s neck, now damp with sweat from his exertion. “I shall miss you, my friend.” With a last glance at the proud animal that had carried him so far, Janus stepped away, melding into the surging humanity leaving the Olympic grounds.
He was on his way to the American Embassy. On his way, he prayed to a new life. On his way to freedom.
For as far back as Janus could remember, his father had dreamed of being free, as he had been before the war. It was a dream he had passed on to his son. Now Janus was making that dream come true. He didn’t know what to expect or where his journey would lead. He knew only that it was a journey he must make.
Janus hailed a cab, folded his tall frame into the backseat, and spoke to the driver in heavily accented Italian the single phrase he had practiced over and over—“Ambasciata degli Stati Unita, Via Vittorio Veneto 119, Palazzo Margherita.”The address of the U.S. Embassy.
The little yellow taxi pulled away from the curb and into the bustling Rome traffic. Horns honked and people cursed but Janus barely heard them. He kept his head down and hoped he had enough of a start to reach the consulate before Nikolai Popov and his men could intercept him. He’d left the stadium and his teammates in chaos. Popov and his KGB security people would be looking for him everywhere.
He wondered how long the KGB man would keep up his search. As Chief of Security for the Soviet Team, Popov wasn’t a man who easily accepted defeat.
Janus shuddered at the thought. He knew the man would suffer a tremendous embarrassment, that the incident would be a detriment to his ambitious political career.
Janus Straka also knew, till the day he died, he would wonder if he could have won the gold.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, West Virginia
1960
“Sit down, Mr. Straka, make yourself comfortable. I’m Daniel Gage.” Leaning over a stack of manila files that sat in rows along the front of his desk, Gage extended a wide-palmed hand, engulfing Janus’s more slender, darker one in a firm, self-assured grip.
Janus sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair and carefully positioned one arm on the armrest, trying to appear nonchalant, which was far from how he felt.
“I trust your trip from Europe was not unpleasant,” Gage said. With his round face, hazel eyes, and warm smile, Daniel Gage seemed a common man, a man of the people, and then again, he did not. Barrel-chested, Gage’s slightly crooked nose looked as though it had been broken. Janus suspected he was younger than the years his lightly freckled face betrayed. Younger and tougher.
“Your people were very competent,” Janus said. “They saw to everything. I thank you.” He shifted nervously in his chair.
The CIA headquarters building near Washington, D.C. was much as he’d expected: long corridors, doors leading to small, confined offices occupied by dark-suited figures who all looked much the same. At home, KGB headquarters probably appeared very similar. But there the similarity ended.
The United States of America was nothing like Janus expected, nothing like he’d imagined even after all the hours he and his father had spent talking about it.
“There are some questions I’d like to ask you,” Gage said. “We might as well get started.”
“Of course.” Janus found himself liking the American’s no-nonsense attitude, liking the candid way the man looked him straight in the eye.
“You lived in Moscow, is that correct?”
“Since I was nine. I was born in Beregovo, Ruthenia. I am Hungarian, not Russian.”
