Jorgan had spent eleven months preparing to break ten hours at Ironman Hamburg.
The villains only needed ten minutes to stop him.
They had already tried the obvious things.
A roofing nail beneath the rear tyre. A loosened cleat bolt. An anonymous email telling the race organisers that Jorgan had been taking something stronger than electrolyte tablets.
None of it had worked.
Jorgan checked his equipment himself.
Every bolt. Every cable. Every gram of carbohydrate.
Trust was useful in friendship. It had no place in race preparation.
The anonymous complaint had been dismissed. His blood results were clean. Cleaner than most people’s kitchens.
So the villains had changed tactics.
They came for the garage.
At 2:13 in the morning, a dark van rolled slowly into the street with its headlights off. Three men inside. One driver. Two specialists.
Specialists meant men who wore black gloves and carried tools in padded cases. Men who expected locks to open quietly and alarms to remain silent.
They stopped outside Jorgan’s house.
The garage contained the race bike.
A carbon time-trial machine with deep-section wheels, electronic shifting and a cockpit adjusted to the millimetre. It was not comfortable. It was not supposed to be. Comfort was what came after the finish line.
The two men got out.
They saw the car parked hard against the garage door.
One of them crouched beside it.
“Problem,” he said.
The other man looked at the gap between the rear bumper and the brickwork.
“No room.”
They considered the options.
Break into the car. Release the handbrake. Push it forward.
Too noisy.
Tow it.
Too slow.
Smash through the garage wall.
Too stupid.
The first man stood up.
Jorgan was behind him.
He had come out through the side gate wearing running shoes, black shorts and a heart-rate monitor. He had been scheduled for a thirty-minute recovery jog at 5:30. He saw no reason not to start early.
The man turned.
He was bigger than Jorgan. At least twenty kilograms heavier.
That was useful in rugby.
Less useful when standing off-balance between a parked car and a recycling bin.
Jorgan stepped forward once.
There was a dull collision. Then a second one, louder, involving the recycling bin.
The other man reached into his jacket.
Jorgan looked at him.
The man stopped.
Jorgan’s resting heart rate was forty-two beats per minute.
It was now forty-six.
“Keys,” Jorgan said.
The man handed them over.
Jorgan pressed the button. The van’s indicators flashed.
The driver saw them. He also saw Jorgan.
He made a decision.
It was the wrong one.
He accelerated.
The van travelled six metres before reaching the bend. The bend required steering. Steering required the keys to be in the ignition.
The driver discovered they were not.
The van mounted the kerb and stopped against a lamppost with the soft crunch of expensive bodywork.
Jorgan checked his watch.
Four minutes into the recovery run.
His pace was poor, but there had been interruptions.
He returned to the two men.
“Who sent you?”
Neither answered.
Jorgan nodded.
Silence was an answer with the details removed.
He looked inside the padded tool case. Bolt cutters. Electronic scanner. Adhesive contaminant. A syringe.
The syringe was labelled insulin.
That was clever.
A small amount injected into one of his carbohydrate bottles would not look like sabotage. It would look like an athlete who had mismanaged his nutrition, become confused, slowed on the bike and collapsed somewhere on the run course.
No sub-ten finish.
Possibly no finish at all.
Jorgan closed the case.
Ten hours at Hamburg was not just a sporting target.
Someone was frightened of what would happen if he achieved it.
That meant the finish time was connected to something else.
Something bigger.
Jorgan looked toward the damaged van.
On the dashboard was a laminated race map. The swim course through the Binnenalster. The bike route heading south through the city. The run loops around the lakes.
Three locations had been marked in red.
One on the swim.
One near kilometre 140 of the bike.
One on the final lap of the marathon.
The garage had only been the first attempt.
Hamburg was in six days.
Jorgan picked up the map.
Then he resumed his run.
Easy pace. Nasal breathing. No unnecessary effort.
He had a taper to protect.
And three villains to find before race morning.
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