Chapter TWENTY-ONE by Alan Thatcher
Normally the house-full signs went up
towards the end of the week for the quarter-finals, the semis and the final.
Unknown to the grateful promoters and the
Davenport Club, at least a quarter of the audience were police officers in
various shades of plain-clothed disguise.
The intriguing story of a
supposedly-kidnapped English teenaged girl, playing in this mysterious sport
called squash, plus the attendant activities of Eastern European gangsters,
drug cartels, money-laundering high-rollers and the interest of the British
secret service, had certainly raised a few eyebrows among the Philadelphia
Police Department at their Race Street HQ.
Their limited insight into European crime
was nothing compared to their lack of knowledge about squash. The usual jokes
were batted around until someone had the brains to turn to Google and discover
that this whole new sporting universe existed.
“It’s like racquetball,” came the call.
“But it’s, like, the British version, with a few Arabs and French guys.”
“But we’re looking at a women’s
tournament,” said the Chief. “And it’s right here in town. At the Davenport
Club.”
Further searches produced links to mainly
British websites which carried reports and pictures of the tournament. It was
clearly a big deal in squash, but hardly caused a ripple among the citizens and
law-enforcement officers of its host city.
When the head-scratching was over, the
Philly cops thought they ought to pass the information up the line to
Washington. But before a call could be made, a team of FBI officers had made
the 140-mile drive from Washington to support their colleagues in Arch Street,
who were just a few blocks away and were already up to speed on the whole
operation thanks to intelligence sources in the USA and England.
Many of the smarter cops quickly got up to
speed on this new sport and headed for the Davenport Club with a hastily-acquired
selection of tracksuits and racquet bags.
The bags did not contain racquets.
+++
When the flight touched down in Philly,
Steve Dwyer and Jill Smith were quickly ushered through side doors by their
escorting officers.
Travelling in separate cars, officers continued
to be highly suspicious of Dwyer but were becoming far more sympathetic to his
companion.
This relentless turmoil of fear and a
treadmill of emotions left Jill Smith on the brink of a mental breakdown. Much
as she loved Steve, she was in way too deep in so many areas. But the hope of
seeing her daughter again helped her to stay sane.
When that moment came, she burst into
tears.
As the police cars arrived at the Davenport
Club, a female officer, who had met them at the airport and accompanied them on
the journey downtown, produced an envelope of photographs.
“Is this your daughter?”
Jill collapsed in raging, uncontrollable
sobs.
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
The
officer touched Jill’s arm. “We think we know who the kidnappers are, but we
need to know if you know them too.”
She produced a file of images but Jill
shook her head as each new photograph was passed in front of her.
“We were supposed to meet them in Dubai but
they didn’t show up.”
She wiped her tears and pleaded with the
officer. “Can I see her now?”
“Not long now. As you know she is playing
in this tournament but has been accompanied by some individuals who are of
interest to us for non-sporting reasons.
“You say you don’t know them and we believe
you. But we can’t allow any unexpected incident to jeopardise today’s operation
so we will ask you to be a little more patient, Mrs Smith.
“We promise you that you will be reunited with
Jessica before the end of the evening.”
Jill could hardly believe those words.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
+++
The train ride from Boston to Philadelphia
took just over six hours. As Sam Smith and his friend Nestor emerged from the cavernous
30th Street Station and looked out across the Schuylkill River, they
hailed a cab to the Davenport Club.
Fleetingly, Sam looked around the grand,
art deco arrivals hall and thought it would provide a venue to rival the
Tournament of Champions held every year at Grand Central Terminal in New York.
But his mind quickly returned to the task
in hand. Finding his sister. And dealing with whoever had taken her away.
+++
Steve Dwyer didn’t enjoy his treatment at
the hands of the police officers. He also failed to enjoy travelling economy.
And he certainly wasn’t enjoying the barrage of questions he was facing from a team
of FBI officers in Philadelphia.
His skills at moving money around the globe
seemed to fascinate the officers.
They had also found a sudden interest in
the game of squash, and the luxury club Steve was building in London.
One officer asked for a list of Steve’s
main business associates. And another wondered how many flights he had made to
various parts of Europe in the past two years.
Similar questions were being asked of Nick
Gaultier in a nearby interview room.
+++
Jessica Smith was quickly into her stride
on the Davenport Club’s showcourt.
Sam was desperate to rush over and hug his
sister. But he didn’t want to upset her concentration or risk any kind of drama
that might damage his plans. He didn’t quite know what those plans were just
yet.
Sensibly, he pulled the top of his hoodie
over his head and looked around the club to see if he could identify her
travelling companions. Several other pairs of eyes were doing exactly the same
thing.
The watching police officers were
immediately impressed by the athleticism of the two squash players engaged in a
gladiatorial battle on the glass court.
They admired the power of the shots, the
extraordinary reflexes that enabled them to retrieve seemingly hopeless
situations, and the rallies that grew into a length and intensity rarely seen
in top-level tennis.
Bianca also admired the play, seated close
to the referee with James Matthew and Angus Murray.
Francoise Dutronc was stunned by the
fitness and accuracy of this unknown opponent who had won through from qualifying.
Qualifiers never play like this, she
thought.
After failing to reach three perfectly
placed drives that had landed in the back left corner, she altered her tactics.
As the players worked the ball up and down the backhand sidewall, Dutronc
changed her footwork pattern so that she deliberately blocked her opponent from
reaching the ball.
The referee failed to spot the first
incident, and Jessica was denied a let. When the pattern became obvious, she
elected to use the video review appeal system to challenge the referee’s
decision.
The rules of squash state that once you
have played a shot, you must allow your opponent direct access to the
ball. But many players allow subtle
variations of footwork and body position to alter the rhythm and the flow of
this crucial element of the game.
Most fair-minded players step backwards
from a good-length ball to allow just enough room for their opponents to move into
the corners, and then skip and shuffle up the middle of the court to get in
front of the other player and gain control of the T position.
But not Miss Dutronc. Having struck her
backhand drive she tried to move directly back to the T and deny Jessica a
clear path to the ball.
It was the first time Jessica had used the
video review system. The crowd enjoyed the drama of watching the incident
unfold on the screens dotted around the venue and Sam, and most knowledgeable
spectators, could instantly see what the French player was up to.
Sam whispered. “Cheating bitch.”
His pal nodded in agreement.
When the decision “Yes Let” was displayed
on the screens, the crowd roared in delight. The replays had shown the French
player blocking. And the crowd began cheering the underdog. Even the cops
joined in, trying to blend in to the surroundings.
A group of men, huddled on the bleachers
near to Jessica’s seat, reacted anxiously to the sudden increase in noise. Two
of them instinctively reached for their guns. This action was promptly noted by
most of the officers in the crowd, plus the extra camera filming alongside the
squash TV crew.
+++
Jill Smith waited outside the squash club,
sipping a coffee in a cardboard cup in the back seat of the unmarked police
car.
“Your girl is winning,” said the kindly
officer. “We just need to deal with these people who we think have been holding
her against her will, and then you can see her.”
Jill smiled. “I’m amazed she can
concentrate, with all this stuff going on. I certainly couldn’t.”
She asked about Steve, and was told that he
was being also being brought to the club.
Two conference rooms at the club had been
taken over by the FBI, in preparation for the forthcoming events.
+++
The crowd sensed that Jessica Smith was on
the verge of a sensational victory.
Between games, she sat in her corner with a
young couple who poured water, dried her racket grips and gave her fresh towels
to wipe her face and hands.
+++
Anatolie Grigoriev was in his hotel suite,
waiting for a meeting with a business delegation from Europe.
Text messages from his aides kept him
informed of developments at the squash tournament. Then he received another
message, from Nick Gaultier, changing the venue of their meeting.
He told Grigoriev that the hotel was being
watched and that it would be safer to meet at the squash club. He had
commandeered the conference room and persuaded the Russian that no one would be
monitoring the members and squash fans coming and going at the Davenport Club.
Back on court, Jessica won the first and
second games and the crowd were behind her all the way.
Upstairs in the conference room, Nick
Gaultier and Steve Dwyer waited to greet their Russian guest, who arrived with
two bodyguards, in addition to the group at courtside.
Always suspicious, Grigoriev stared
menacingly at the two men seated on the opposite side of the table.
Dwyer began the conversation.
“I hope that we are all more than satisfied
with the anticipated growth of our business partnership. Financing property development and managing
wealth are my specialities, and they are businesses where we can always appear
to operate on the right side of the law.
“Being a generous benefactor in areas such
as sport helps to develop a popular public image, and that is always a valuable
asset. But some of your activities, Anatolie, give rise to concern. If people found
out that we were involved with partners who, let me say, offended public
morals, then it could tarnish that image.
“The arms trade is one thing. One could
merely be operating in a free market buying and selling commodities. But drugs
is something else altogether. We understand it must be a lucrative operation
but we don’t want to risk our reputation by doing business with people whose
activities might bring unwanted attention to ourselves.”
He had read and rehearsed the script, and
delivered it perfectly.
Grigoriev, as anticipated, roared like a
bear. “Keep your fucking nose out of our business.”
Gaultier and Dwyer both rocked back in
their chairs as Grigoriev’s assistants got to their feet.
+++
On the court, Jessica was 5-2 up in the
third game when her desperate opponent decided that her physical tactics were
not extreme enough.
After brushing past each other in
mid-court, Jessica tumbled to the floor as Dutronc’s racket butt dug into her
rib cage. In the next rally, as Jessica tried to move forward to the front of
the court, she tripped over her opponent’s deliberately outstretched leg.
Then, despite a warning from the referee, the
French player’s frustration boiled over as she unwound a huge backhand swing
and the racket followed a horizontal course and smashed into the English girl’s
face.
With blood pouring from a split lip,
Jessica got to her feet and left the court. She was quickly pursued by the
young Russian couple and the group of spectators whose behaviour had been
monitored by the watching police officers.
The officers had hoped to contain their
operation to the environs of the glass court.
As Jessica disappeared through the doorway
to the corridor heading to the dressing rooms, her brother raced down the
stairs to help her. He didn’t know what he was going to do, but before he could
get anywhere near her the team of undercover officers sprung into action.
Jill panicked and screamed as the call came
through to the cars waiting outside.
She dropped her empty coffee cup and begged
to be allowed into the club to be with her daughter but the doors had been
locked.
Two groups of officers who had been
stationed in the locker rooms, supposedly changing before a session in the gym,
dipped into their racket bags to grab their weapons.
Three female officers surrounded Jessica
and escorted her into the ladies changing room as their colleagues jumped in
behind to form a buffer between her and her Eastern European entourage.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The Russians were taken by surprise. They grabbed
their weapons but they were soon outnumbered as more officers poured in from
the bleachers.
The first Russian to bring a weapon out
into the open was shot dead before he could pull the trigger. Two others tried
to flee down the corridor but were jumped on as seemingly innocent bystanders
in gym gear wrestled them to the floor. The others, looking at the dead body on
the floor, leaking blood into the carefully woven Davenport Club carpet, gave
themselves up.
Upstairs, Grigoriev and his goons heard the
shot fired and headed towards the exit. Dwyer and Gaultier each had an arm
twisted behind his back and were being used as a human shield by the Russian’s
henchmen.
The police were waiting.
“Drop your weapons.”
Armed officers in riot gear were waiting
outside the boardroom. The meeting had been recorded and the FBI had enough
evidence from Dwyer’s script, and the response from the big, burly Russan, to
nail the man they were hunting.
Several shots rang out. The first two were
fired by Grigoriev’s men. One police officer was wounded in the shoulder. In
the mayhem that followed, Gaultier tripped as one of the goons manhandled him
away from the door and a bullet struck him in the neck. Blood spurted across
the face of the man using him as a shield. The next bullet entered the goon’s
eye socket. He collapsed on top of Gaultier and his absence from the front rank
exposed Grigoriev to the police marksmen.
Grigoriev also had a gun.
“Drop your weapon.”
The police wanted to take him alive to face
the courts but Grigoriev ignored their warning and opened fire.
Instead of aiming at the police he pointed
the gun at Steve Dwyer and fired.
Within a split second, one marksman sent a
bullet into Grigoriev’s hand, forcing him to relinquish his weapon, and another
shot him in the thigh.
He and Dwyer tumbled to the floor.
Grigoriev and his group were rounded up and
herded into the wagons that rolled up outside the club to capture their prey.
With the dressing room secured, and a medic
having mopped the blood from Jessica’s face, the police officers finally
allowed her to head back to the court.
The poor referee was powerless to control
the pandemonium that erupted at courtside but had an important decision to
announce to the crowd.
“Conduct penalty against Dutronc for
dangerous play. Match awarded to Smith.”
Jessica was still escorted by a group of
female police officers, but they broke ranks as a call came through from the
car park.
Jill rushed through the gap and she and
Jessica fell into each other’s arms.
Sam, who had almost got into a fight with a
gorilla of a police officer, finally persuaded him that he was, indeed,
Jessica’s brother.
He, too, was allowed through.
Overwhelmed, Jill embraced her two
children.
All three could hardly speak through the
tears.
Jessica had a lot of explaining to do but
that could wait.
“We’ve got all week to listen,” said Jill.
“You’ve got a tournament to win.”
“I don’t care about that,” said Jessica. “I
just want to come home.”
On the spot, Sam announced that he was
quitting the Aullt Academy and coming home, too.
Jill had put Steve Dwyer out of her mind.
But her friendly police officer pulled her to one side as Sam and Jess hugged
and cried and spoke halting sentences all at the same time.
“Mr Dwyer is in the hospital,” she said. “He
was shot during an incident upstairs and may be in the hospital for some time. A Mr
Gaultier was also shot. They will be protected during their stay in the hospital
and will almost certainly be expected to stay here in Philadelphia to assist
with federal investigations.
“You and your family are free to go.”
At that moment Jill’s mobile rang.
Bianca had kept John up to speed with
developments. Sober, he was on the line to his wife.
It was a difficult conversation. Both were
crying into the phone.
“Jessica’s safe. And Sam’s here as well.”
Jill managed to blurt out those two short statements before crying again.
“I’ll be waiting at the airport as soon as
you get back,” said John. “I want the family to give it another try.”
Jill, falteringly, agreed.
“Just one condition,” said John. “We must get rid of that bloody squash club.”
Jill stared at the phone, and looked across
at her two smiling children.
“Yes. That game’s finished.”
THE END
About the Author
ALAN THATCHER is a lifelong sports journalist. He started writing for his local paper at the age of 14 and has worked in national newspapers for the past 30 years. Having fallen in love with squash in his 20s, he has promoted a number of major tournaments including the British Open, Liverpool Open and Kent Open. He is also co-promoter of the Canary Wharf Classic and MC and Media Director for the North American Open. A regular commentator for Sky TV down the years, he is a joint founder of World Squash Day and is President of the Kent SRA.
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