maybe something important.
“There!” He could have kissed the ugly, unshaven zek on the stereovision screen. He broke a fingernail punching Katayama’s phone code. The woman he talked to had been one of the Security people closest to him when he found the expended charge cube; she smiled and went to fetch her chief without any argument.
This time Katayama took longer to come to the phone. When he finally did, he growled, “No matter what you think, Mr. Bennett, I am not at your beck and call. I am trying to do an important job, and your interference does not help. Now, and quickly, what is it?”
“I beg your pardon,” Bennett said sincerely, “but I wonder if you might answer me one question.”
The Security chief heard him out. “Yes, of course that’s still true,” he said, as if surprised anyone needed to ask. “I suspect it will be true two hundred fifty years from now, too; some things don’t change. Now, I wonder if you’d tell me what possible importance there is to that.” He framed the last sentence as a request, but it came out a command.
Bennett explained. As he did, he half expected his jerry-built structure of logic and wild guesses to come crashing down on his head and leave him looking like an idiot. Katayama listened in silence, not showing what he was thinking.
When Bennett had finished, the security chief ran a hand through his hair. “I take it you write thriller plots?” he said at last.
“No.” Below the camera’s angle of vision, Bennett clenched his fists. This was what he had set himself up for, trying to help…
But Katayama was saying, “I can find out quickly whether or not you are right-no small virtue, in my line of work.”
“Will you call me back?” the broadcaster asked tensely. He knew he had had to do as he did, but he hated the idea of being excluded as soon as things came to a head. He still had too much of the old American reporter’s itch to be in on the action instead of just talking about it.
Katayama, on the other hand, had no use for reporters unless they served his own purposes. “I make no promises, Mr. Bennett,” he said, and hung up.
In.008g it was impossible to pace, but bouncing off the walls, floor, and ceiling, as Rannveig had in the studio, was not the worst way to get rid of tension. Bennett had worked up a good sweat by the time the phone chimed again. “Hello?” he panted.
His disheveled appearance managed to wring a blink out of Katayama. “What have you been doing?” the Security chief asked, then said at once, “Never mind; I am not interested in knowing. I have called to tell you what you are going to do. Listen carefully.”
Bennett and Rannveig took their places in the IBC studio. When the red light on the camera flashed on, Bennett began, “A very pleasant good day to you out there, wherever you may be. There have been a number of important developments since we spoke with you last.”
“That’s right, Bill,” Rannveig said. “We expect this to be the last day of shortened coverage of the games. The jumping should resume tomorrow.”
“The arrest of Jozef Jablonski has lifted a great burden of fear from everyone’s shoulders,” Bennett agreed. Rannveig nodded, a little glumly; Bennett went on, ”The evidence against Jablonski is overwhelming. The site from which the killer fired from ambush has been discovered, and the discarded charge cubes found there were manufactured in Eastern Europe. It is most unlikely that anyone from another country would have had such an obscure brand in his or her possession.”
“Moreover, Jablonski cannot account for his whereabouts at the time of the murders,” Rannveig said.”He is currently being subjected to intensive interrogation, and his confession is expected shortly by Major Katayama.”
Bennett said, “As you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, the people most relieved are the athletes themselves. For some of their reaction, let’s go to Angus Cavendish.”
“Thank you, Bill,” the Scotsman said. As before, he was sitting at the bar-getting to be quite a fixture there, Bennett thought. Almost everybody there was watching the stereovision set in a corner of the room, and thus at the moment watching themselves watching themselves. For any news more reliable than rumor, they depended on the IBC broadcasts as much as Earth did.
Cavendish alluded to that point: “I’d think almost all the athletes on Mimas are tuned to us now. Along with the set here, there’s another in the weight room, and of course in all the suites.”
“Who’s that with you, Angus?” Rannveig said.
“Marge Olbert, the first-round women’s leader. Tell me, Mademoiselle Olbert, what are your feelings now that an arrest has been made?”
“I am, how does one say it, full of relief,” she replied in halting French.
“Eager to jump again, are you?”
“But yes, naturally, and I hope to do well, it could be to win a medal.” Her sudden and unexpected smile transformed a rather plain face into a pretty one. “And if I do, at the least they will know what flag to fly for me when I am on the platform of the winners. For Monsieur Zalman this is not true, is it not so?”
“An interesting point you bring up, lass.” Cavendish had the minutiae at his fingertips. “As a matter of fact, there is a precedent. In the Summer Games of 2104 a woman from the United States defected to Indonesia after the first two events of the modern pentathlon. She won a silver, and took it under Indonesian colors.”
“Ah.” Marge Olbert hesitated, then went on. “I only hope they have arrested the right man. This Second Irgun, it is supposed to be very bad, no? If somehow there is a mistake, that would not be good.”
“There’s confidence Itzhak Zalman had naught to do with the killings,” Cavendish said. “Even if there weren’t, he’s been too closely guarded for his own protection to let him go off doing mischief.”
“I hope you are right,” the Anzac jumper replied. She left, and Cavendish interviewed several other athletes. They were all of them polite, but none said a great deal.
“That’s one of the abiding problems of sports journalism,” Rannveig said when the show came back to the IBC studio. “The clich?s were invented in the twentieth century, and they’ve been repeated ever since.”
“Perhaps we can get a fresher perspective from a competitor with a different background,” Bennett said. He made the call he had set up the night before. “Thank you for joining us again, Monsieur Yezhov.”
The Siberian dipped his head in a courtly gesture of acknowledgment. “Not at all,” he said, his French excellent as usual.
“Would you care to give us your reaction to the arrest of Jozef Jablonski?”
“I was, to be frank, surprised: he seemed a very decent fellow, though I did not know him well.” Yezhov paused, considering his next words.”But if he is truly the one who perpetrated these abominable deeds, then I am glad to see him in custody. I look forward to the recommencement of the games.”
Bennett’s heart was pounding in the effort to stay natural. “Are you-” he began, then broke off at the sound of a knock on the outer door of Yezhov’s suite.
“I shall ignore that,” the Siberian said politely.
“No need,” Bennett assured him. “We don’t want to inconvenience you when you are kind enough to talk with us; we’ll cut away and then come back to you when you’re finished. If your visitor’s business isn’t too personal, though, perhaps you might leave the vision link open with us while you turn down the sound so we can tell when you’re coming back.”
“A capital idea. I shall do as you suggest.”
Yezhov reached out for the volume toggle, then turned his back on the phone camera and glided toward the door. Instead of going to a commercial or a taped segment, though, the director kept the Siberian’s image in the big screen behind Bennett and Rannveig.
“Welcome to those watching all over Earth,” Rannveig said quickly. “We apologize for starting our coverage late, but-”
At that moment, the Siberian touched the door control switch. The door slid open. A security guard thrust a pistol in Yezhov’s face. Half a dozen more, including Major Katayama, rocketed past him into his suite. One doubled back to wrench the Siberian’s hands behind him and clap manacles on him; the rest began tearing the place apart. Somehow the impact of everything was greater because on the screen it all took place in silence.
“-at this moment you are watching the capture of Nikolai Semyonovich Yezhov, the assassin whose crime has marred these Winter Games.” Rannveig went on, “I’m proud to say that my colleague here at the IBC sports desk,
