Cadet Felinger had left the ice rink with the other cadets to prepare for a simulated fencing match out in the foyer. The announcer had finally realised that pathos was now required.
You could tell by the way he took half a step back, held the programme with both hands and cast his gaze into the rink, as if he himself were not quite sure whether he was lending his voice to the right ceremony. The ice rink lay brightly before him, blue and white, gleaming, overflowing with breath, flags, cameras and anticipation. The stands were still buzzing from the final that had just ended. The rankings stood on the scoreboard like a verdict:
Soviet Union. France. Ottoman Empire. United Kingdom. Japan.
The ice had decided. Not the philanthropist, not the gala, not the donors’ plaques in the foyer.
The ice.
Walter Franklin stood at the edge of the rink with the heavy trophy in both hands, his fingertips blue. The silver caught the light so coldly, as if it had never had anything to do with warmth. The carved boar’s heads on the plinth seemed almost alive in the spotlight, dark-eyed, staring and ancient.
Jennifer nodded to Franklin.
He nodded back.
It was a good nod. Measured. Dignified. Suitable for public consumption.
Only his mouth was too narrow.
Ilya Rozanow stepped forward, neither humble nor drunk with victory. Simply with the upright reserve of a man who had no intention of turning an award into a personality. His team stood behind him, flushed, exhausted, proud and still too young to fully grasp how much weight adults could attach to a trophy.
Luc Moreau stood slightly to one side with the French. His face was composed, but pale. Cemil Arslan waited on the other side with his Ottoman team, calm, attentive, with a silence that revealed more than any nervous shuffling. Shane Hollander remained with the British a few metres away.
Not close enough to be part of the scene.
Not far enough to avoid already being caught up in it.
The announcer cleared his throat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, esteemed teams. We now come to the ceremonial highlight of this international final gala match in aid of the future sports centre for international democracy education.”
The microphone crackled.
The announcer smiled apologetically, as if good manners could save the technology.
“Dr Walter Franklin will now present the Chestnut Mountain Founders’ Cup to the winning team.”
Applause broke out. The kind of applause that doesn’t yet know whether it will end up in memories or in the minutes.
Franklin didn’t lift the microphone himself. An assistant held it out to him. That was wise; the cup required both hands. Only now could one see how heavy it really was. Franklin had to re-grip it, pulling his left hand back slightly, then came a slight over-correction, followed by a moment of genuine emotion.
Dana stood at the edge of the ice rink. Fox, beside her, appeared casual at first glance. On closer inspection, he was standing in such a way that he could see the faces of the spectators and not just the ceremony.
Franklin’s voice filled the hall.
“It is my pleasure to present this trophy in a hall that for seventy years has stood for perseverance, discipline and—”
Jonathan closed his eyes briefly.
“There it is,” he said quietly.
Jennifer didn’t even glance at him. Her attention was entirely on the proceedings.
Franklin continued: “—and stood for the hope that young men can shape a future from their talent, if given the opportunity and not hindered by an old man.”
Fox did not look at the old man.
He looked at those who were looking at him.
Luc did not seem moved.
Cemil did not seem reconciled.
Shane did not seem relaxed.
Ilya did not seem honoured.
Dana’s eyes were fixed on Franklin’s hands.
The philanthropist turned to Ilya. “To the captain of the victorious Soviet team. Mr Rozanov.”
Ilya took the final step forward.
The hall grew quieter, though no one had explicitly asked for it.
Franklin raised the trophy.
His fingers slipped almost imperceptibly.
Dana’s gaze sharpened.
“Something has become even stranger,” she said. “Is he shivering from the cold?”
Fox immediately followed her gaze.
Ilya held out his hands to take the trophy.
Franklin leaned forward slightly as he did so. His smile remained visible to the hall, but his voice dropped so that only the captains in the immediate vicinity could hear him.
“In a way, all young ice hockey players are like sons to me,” he said quietly. “But here: a trophy for a familiar name. And for the Soviet Union.”
Ilya showed no visible reaction.
Only his fingertips gripped the handle a touch tighter.
Shane, a few steps away, fell very silent.
Then it happened: a misstep in a movement that until then had been public, orderly and laden with meaning. Franklin grimaced. It wasn’t pain alone. Rather, surprise that his own body was suddenly no longer his most loyal servant.
His left hand slipped from the trophy.
Not entirely of his own volition.
It simply wouldn’t obey him any longer.
The weight shifted.
Ilya reacted immediately. He caught the silver before it could strike his chest or hit the ice. The trophy tugged at his arms, heavy and cold. The boar’s heads glinted.
At that very moment, Franklin slumped forward. A muffled sound rippled through the crowd. The microphone toppled. Someone shouted something. A chair scraped. The light remained too blue.
Franklin didn’t fall completely to the floor straight away, because Shane instinctively stepped forward and reached out for him with his free arm. But the grip wasn’t enough. The older man slid sideways, his shoulder hitting the ice first, then his head.
For a split second, nobody moved.
Then everyone did.
“Back off!” shouted Jennifer. “A doctor! Quick, a doctor!”
Jonathan was already stepping forward. “Make way for him!”
Dana was on the move before the second cry had faded. “Mulder! Everyone step aside. I’m a doctor.”
She pulled her ID from her coat pocket, but the tournament doctor was quicker onto the ice, pulling the carpet aside unnoticed so that Dana stumbled and crashed roughly onto the ice. The Japanese captain rushed over immediately to help her up. Meanwhile, the tournament doctor had already reached Franklin and was opening his bag.
Far too quickly, thought Fox.
“Ouch,” thought Dana, who couldn’t explain why she’d slipped right there in front of all the spectators. She blamed it on her low-heeled shoes, which she always wore for driving. Spectators leaned forward. Photographers raised their cameras. Players stood frozen.
Ilya was still standing there with the trophy in his hand.
For a terrifying moment, it looked as though he had frozen with the wrong object at the centre of the wrong disaster.
Then he abruptly set the heavy silver down on the ice. Almost too hard. The sound echoed through the arena like a blow against metal.
He knelt down.
The tournament doctor knelt with practised assurance, felt Franklin’s neck, opened his jacket and spoke before anyone had asked him a question.
“I’m the tournament doctor! Step back! Give him space! Paramedics, come to me!”
Dana was beside him the next moment.
“I’m a doctor too. FBI. Dana Scully.”
The tournament doctor looked at her, irritated that someone had intruded on his territory.
“Then see for yourself, colleague. Acute collapse. Probably cardiac. I was just about to take his pulse.”
Dana knelt down on the other side. “Since when do we make assumptions before we take measurements?”
She felt for a pulse, checked his lips, eyes, skin colour, breathing and the position of his hands. She did it all in seconds. Franklin was still breathing, shallowly, irregularly and wrongly.
Ilya had taken half a step back by now, but not far enough. His right hand was still on the ice, as if he needed to remind himself that it was empty. Shane stood at the edge of the small circle, his shoulders tense, too alert, as if he were watching something other than just the fallen man.
Luc and Cemil did not come any closer.
That was noticeable too.
Luc stood still, his face composed and very pale. Cemil likewise, except that his composure seemed as though someone had dusted it off for him and then thrown the key into the wishing well.
At the edge of the scene, Jennifer had already begun using barely visible hand signals to withdraw the scholarship students and rearrange the helpers. At the same time, Jonathan was speaking to a security guard and a local politician to ensure neither of them got the idea of trying to make themselves important.
“Where are the paramedics with the stretcher?” shouted the tournament doctor. “Now!”
A helper set off running.
Dana looked at Franklin’s hand. On the inner ball of his hand, where the handle of the trophy had just been, there was a slight, patchy irritation. The fingertips were now deep blue.
“How long was he alone before the ceremony?” she asked.
The doctor didn’t look at her. “Dr Scully, how am I supposed to know? We have to save him. Not later. Now.”
“Right now.”
Franklin half-opened his eyes, just enough for a glimmer of consciousness to break through.
His gaze didn’t wander around the hall. He didn’t jump into the crowd. In a strangely precise little movement, he looked first at the doctor, then at Ilya. Only then did he look past him towards Shane, where his gaze lingered a beat too long.
The tournament doctor leaned down further. “Walter? Can you hear me?”
No answer.
Dana checked his carotid artery again. “He needs atropine, gonadotropin and a purgative immediately. Do you have an emergency kit with ampoules?”
“Are you trying to kill him? I’m the tournament doctor and I decide on the medication.”
“Then make up your mind quickly!”
The assistant arrived with the stretcher. Two more paramedics followed, visibly shaken and too young for an emergency under international scrutiny.
Fox now stood in such a way that the curious guests couldn’t close the circle. A photographer tried to push his way through anyway. Jonathan didn’t take the camera from him. He simply placed his hand on the man’s forearm with such firmness that it had the same effect.
“No,” said Jonathan.
The man obeyed.
Jennifer approached the announcer, who was still standing at his desk with the microphone in his hand, like an abandoned master of ceremonies. She took the device from his fingers.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “please remain calm. There is a medical emergency. The programme is suspended. Please proceed in an orderly manner to the foyer and wait there! The buffet will take your minds off things.”
Her voice was not loud. The hall obeyed her immediately, rather than the chaos.
On the ice, Franklin was lifted onto the stretcher.
The moment his arm was raised, his hand brushed the rim of the trophy for a second.
The tournament doctor stood up. “To my medical room. Immediately!”
Dana stood up as well. “I’m coming with you.”
The doctor made a welcoming gesture that looked like agreement but smacked of resistance.
The stretcher began to move.
Ilya stayed behind, a step in front of the Russian line, his face cold again, but only on the outside. Shane stood on the other side as if nailed to the spot, no longer really taking notice of the British.
For a moment, the two looked at each other, long enough for it to be clear even now: this man’s fall would cause problems not only in Moscow and London.
Fox watched them go, then looked at the doctor, then at Dana by the stretcher.
“Scully?”
She didn’t turn her head, but she answered.
“It could be an illness. I need to examine him.”
Jennifer stepped up beside Fox. Jonathan joined them on the other side.
Before them, the ice rink was slowly emptying, but the atmosphere was not. The hall remained silent in that strange way in which buildings, after disasters, seem not empty but intoxicating.
Jonathan looked towards the side door through which the stretcher had disappeared. “That was not a good way to end an awards ceremony. If Dr Scully works for the FBI, who do you work for?”
Fox scanned the area. “The same organisation. Agent Fox Mulder. And if we need witnesses, the police will have to put all the guests on a list.”
Jennifer looked at the trophy, which still stood on the ice, forlorn and oversized.
“Wasn’t it a heart attack? Why the police?” She paused for a moment. “I’m afraid it wasn’t the start of a simple medical incident either.”
Fox looked over at her.
“I like the way you phrase things so carefully.”
Jennifer didn’t smile.
“Then wait until I stop being careful.”
The stretcher disappeared through the side door.
For a moment, only the trophy remained on the ice.
Then a helper took it away, as if silver were easier to organise than people.