The corridor stared upwards, grimy. Hanging over everything was the distant murmur of hundreds of voices, which, in the confines of the rear passageway, sounded like water behind a dam.
The door to the equipment room opened for the third time.
The tournament doctor stepped inside. The yellow light was still on. The small room smelled of paper, dust, stale coffee, coolant and the metal of the equipment leaning against one wall. The files stood on the shelf. Then he stepped closer, straightened a folder with two fingers and examined the row of files. His gaze did not grow nervous. Only narrower. For someone like him, disorder was no accident. It was either sloppiness or contact. He sometimes forgave sloppiness. Interference, never.
He listened at the door.
No footsteps.
He closed it, but not quite. A gap remained open, just wide enough that sounds from the corridor were not lost. Then he pulled a slim travel phone from his inside pocket, flipped it open and dialled a number he didn’t need to look up.
As it rang, he looked at his cuff.
The Venetian mask pendant on his lapel lay still. In the yellow light, it didn’t look festive, but like a tiny face that knew too much.
There was a crackle on the line.
A voice answered. Distorted, deep, with the calm of someone who had never had to wait in cold corridors themselves.
“Yes?”
The doctor lowered his voice. “Toolidle here.”
The man on the other end was silent.
The tournament doctor walked over to the table, where a trail of scattered papers still lay. He placed one hand flat on the otherwise dusty tabletop.
“Neither persuasion nor threats have worked,” he said. “Franklin remains unpredictable.”
“Don’t call him Franklin.”
The tournament doctor closed his eyes briefly.
“Vladimir Frantzusov remains unpredictable.”
The name transformed the room.
Walter Franklin belonged in the foyer: donor plaques, foundation speeches, silver hair, American philanthropy, a man who could stand among female reporters and cadets without anyone asking about his past life.
Vladimir Frantzusov did not belong there. The name belonged in files, in border notes, in old sports programmes from the Soviet Union, in reports that no one had signed voluntarily. It carried a different kind of coldness with it, not that of ice, but that of an archive that had never quite been burned.
“Is he still threatening to reveal his Western contacts?” asked the voice.
“Yes. Not openly. But clearly enough.” The tournament doctor looked towards the door. “He thinks he can lure the KGB with old names to get his hands on money in the short term. Buyers, middlemen, medical programmes, payments. Everything that used to go under the guise of sports exchanges.”
“He won’t have realised who he’s harming.”
“Yes,” said the tournament doctor. “That’s the problem. He does realise. He’s just desperate.”
“Desperation makes old men talkative.”
“And bad debtors creative.”
The voice at the other end exhaled audibly once. It didn’t sound like concern. More like someone ticking a box on a list.
“If Frantzusov reveals his contacts, the sale of Soviet sporting secrets to the Americans will be exposed. Think about what that could mean, how many Olympic bronze medals from the last seventy years we’d have to return. No one would trust our athletes anymore.”
The tournament doctor accepted the correction. “Then yes. The programmes from back then, the rehearsals, the training methods, the payment channels – everything would come to light. And this time under the watchful eye of the United Nations.”
There was a crackle on the line.
Applause drifted in from the hall. A name was called out. The tournament doctor couldn’t make it out: perhaps Luc, Cemil or Shane. The young men were being called out, whilst in this small room their future was already being viewed as a punitive sanction.
“What countermeasures do you propose?” asked the voice of the cancer candidate.
“Two possibilities. Lack of credibility or an accident.”
“In that order?”
“Publicly, yes. In practice, it depends on the time frame.” The tournament doctor went to the shelf and pulled a folder halfway out, only to push it back in again immediately. “Frantzusow is vulnerable. He has debts, emotional outbursts, contradictions in his own foundation documents. A campaign against his credibility would be feasible. Overwhelm, financial panic, old Soviet resentments, perhaps an incipient cognitive disorder. There’s no need to refute him. You just have to ensure that every piece of evidence looks like revenge.”
“And the accident?”
The tournament doctor was silent for a moment.
He thought of the trophy, of stairs, of flickering light, of the ice rink that hadn’t yet been cleared for use, of old pipes, poor insulation, medical monitoring, emergency procedures. A dilapidated ice rink offered more possibilities than a modern venue ever would have allowed.
“Also feasible,” he said.
“Without leaving any traces?”
“Without traces, there’s nothing. With plausible traces, yes.”
The voice at the other end remained unmoved. “A specialist will be sent.”
The tournament doctor looked up.
“When?”
“Immediately.”
“The site is small, so strangers stand out.”
“Then make sure a stranger doesn’t look like a stranger. Press, technical staff, medical support, security, foundation auditors. I don’t care what disguise he arrives in.”
The tournament doctor’s mouth narrowed. “I’m not a doorman.”
“Tonight, you’re everything I want.”
Time: In this room, the word was more important than money, more important than blood, more important than the trophy with the carved boar’s heads. Time was the last currency they could still control. For as soon as the winners were decided, as soon as the promised scholarship money had to be transferred, as soon as a United Nations representative checked the earmarking of funds and a businessman like Jonathan saw in figures what did not exist, the whole edifice of assertions would collapse.
“How much time?” asked the tournament doctor.
“Until after midnight. The specialist needs time to travel here, access to the premises, and a moment without an audience.”
“Frantzusow has to speak after the award ceremony.”
“Then the award ceremony mustn’t take place on time.”
The tournament doctor looked towards the door.
The corridor outside was empty. For now.
“I can arrange for medical delays,” he said. “Formal drug and doping tests. Not just on one player, but on all the captains. That’s cleaner. At an international youth tournament funded by foundations and observed by the United Nations, it can be sold as an additional integrity measure.”
“Without any suspicion?”
“Precisely without any suspicion. Prevention looks better on camera than mistrust.”
“How much time does that buy?”
“An hour, if the teams cooperate. Two, if someone protests. More, if a sample can’t be clearly attributed or a form is missing.”
“Make sure something’s missing.”
The tournament doctor didn’t smile. “Of course.”
“But don’t overdo it. We don’t want to draw attention to the tests.”
“There will be attention. Outrage, perhaps. That could be useful.” He picked up a pen from the table and twirled it between his fingers. “Athletes hate unjustified checks. Captains even more so. If they argue, everyone looks at them. Not at Frantzusov.”
“And if Hart or the UN woman checks the foundation’s security measures?”
“I’ll delay access. Medical priority, match operations, security clearances. Besides, Franklin himself can still claim the final certificates are held externally.”
“Can he do that convincingly?”
The tournament doctor thought of Franklin’s forehead, of his fingers on the walking stick, of the way he’d almost said “please” earlier, without meaning to say it.
“Not for long.”
“Then stop him from talking.”
“I’ve tried.”
“Don’t try! Make it happen!”
There was silence on the line.
The tournament doctor set down his pen. Perfectly straight, parallel to the edge of the table. His hand remained there for a moment.
“There’s another factor,” he said.
“Which one?”
“The young men.”
“Specify.”
“Hollander has heard that something is amiss. Perhaps not enough. But enough to become suspicious. Rozanow as well.”
“Vulnerable?”
“Emotionally.”
“That’s usually better.”
“And riskier.” His voice remained matter-of-fact. “There’s a connection between them. Not public, probably not stable, but visible if you look for it.”
“Use it!”
The tournament doctor looked into the small mirror hanging above a washbasin. In it stood a man with neat hair, a calm face and a pendant on his lapel that trembled with every movement, like a reminder of another celebration.
“I’ve started.”
“Good. Personal vulnerability breeds mistakes. Mistakes breed time.”
“And if they can’t be pitted against each other?”
“Then you put the public between them.”
Music drifted in from the hall again, louder this time. The gala was moving towards the ice. The tournament doctor heard footsteps passing along the corridor, laughing, oblivious.
He waited until they had moved on.
“Understood,” he said.
“One more thing.”
The tournament doctor remained silent, offended.
“Frantzusov must not reach the KGB. Not directly, not through old contacts, not through an embassy, not through any sentimentalised intermediary. If you have to improvise: the scandal is more dangerous than a dead man.”
From the front came a burst of cheerful shouts. A child laughed. Then the voice of Eleanor Price, asking for attention over the microphone. The transition to the ice rink was about to begin. Soon everything would become brighter, more public, harder to control and, at the same time, easier to conceal.
“Understood,” he said at last.
The line went dead.
He held the phone to his ear for a moment longer, as if the silence might give him further instructions. Then he clapped it shut and slipped it back into his inside pocket.
It was suddenly very quiet in the equipment room.
Time often consisted of bureaucracy.
He didn’t turn off the light as he left.
The tournament doctor adjusted the pin on his lapel, smoothed his sleeve and headed towards the ice rink.
Behind him lay the equipment room with its files, its misfiled forms and the thin strip of warm light on the floor.
The corridor remained silent.
But this time he had heard something greater than blackmail: a hyperborean timetable.