Innes edged his way through a crowd at a popcorn stand and climbed the steep banking to reach his row. He excused himself and a line of knees turned to the left to let him past. He had just settled into his seat when he felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice said in his ear, 'You came well equipped.' It was Roker.
Innes half turned and saw that Roker was referring to the binoculars. He told him how he had come by them.
'Did they give you anything else?'
Innes showed him the card.
Roker whispered, 'Let us deal with this.'
'Don't interfere!' hissed Innes. The last thing that he needed was the antics of bungling amateurs.
Roker gripped his shoulder more tightly and leaned close to his ear. 'Now get this, Innes! It's our money! A lot of our people have gone into hock over this. If there is the slightest chance that we can get the boy without paying through the nose for him we are going to go for it!'
'These people are not amateurs!' insisted Innes. 'You could ruin the whole thing!'
'Just sit on your butt and wait!' hissed Roker, getting up and leaving his seat.
Innes looked to his neighbours to see if his whispered altercation with Roker had attracted attention. There was no sign that it had. A family of four occupied the seats to his left and a teenage boy and girl sat to his right. In front two middle-aged couples shared out food and drink while behind him a man was explaining loudly to his wife or girlfriend exactly why he thought that Johnson was a better pitcher than Schwarz.
The steepness of the stadium made Innes uneasy for he had never been at peace with heights and he was sitting on the top deck of a series of steeply banked tiers. It seemed a very long way down to the brightly lit diamond where the players were now being introduced.
A roar from the crowd followed every announcement of a name and each player ran on individually to. acknowledge the cheers with a raise of his arm. Innes put the glasses to his eyes and focused on one of them as he stood in line, shuffling nervously and chewing gum with monotonous regularity. He picked out the chain round his neck and could see that it carried a St Christopher medallion.
Out of the corner of both eyes Innes could see that all attention was now being concentrated on the diamond. He put the glasses back to his eyes and raised them slowly to section 'J'. Seat L-17 was unoccupied as were the two seats on either side. Four or five rows behind the empty seats and slightly to the right three men were moving along the row. Innes could see that one of them was Shelby, the man who had led the NORAID delegation in Belfast. He cursed under his breath, then he became aware of someone entering the row behind him and glanced back. It was Roker returning. Almost imperceptibly, darkness had closed in on the stadium, shutting out the world in the interests of the game. The crack of the bat sent a ripple of excitement round the tiers and set the tiny, bright figures down on the diamond into motion. The hitter, running at full tilt, slid safely into second base and the ball slammed into the catcher's mitt to kill the moment. The ball was returned to the mound in a lazy arc where the pitcher snatched it from the air and spat out a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. He adjusted his cap and prepared to throw again.
From a position well behind Innes, Jarvis was watching him intently. Avedissian and Kathleen sat beside him. 'Do you recognise the man sitting behind Innes?' Jarvis asked Kathleen.
'I've never seen him before,' she replied.
'Do you think he's one of the kidnappers?' asked Avedissian.
Jarvis shook his head and said, 'No, or they would have done something by now. They're both waiting for something or someone. He's either NORAID or another IRA man.'
A roar from the crowd greeted the first home run of the game and Innes was momentarily lost from view as people leapt to their feet to applaud. As they settled Avedissian leaned towards Jarvis and whispered, 'Innes is not looking at the game!'
'What do you mean?'
'He's watching the crowd on the other side of the stadium.'
Jarvis looked at Innes and traced his line of sight. He could now see what Avedissian meant. Innes was looking at a section of the crowd on a lower tier. Jarvis raised his own glasses and tried to emulate the angle of Innes's binoculars. He found the empty seats. 'They are waiting for someone to arrive on the other side,’ he said to Avedissian. Take a look at row "L".'
Avedissian looked, then passed on the binoculars to Kathleen.
Jarvis asked Kathleen to look at the crowd in the area of the empty seats to see if there were any faces there that she recognised. She looked but saw no one familiar.
'Keep looking!' said Jarvis, sounding anxious.
'Do you think they might try a snatch if the kidnappers bring in the boy?' asked Avedissian.
'It's possible,' replied Jarvis. 'It depends on how far in advance Innes was told where the boy would be and whether he or his NORAID cronies have had time to set up something across there.'
'You said the kidnappers were clever,' said Avedissian.
'That's what puzzles me,' replied Jarvis. 'This would be a silly mistake.'
‘There's someone coming into the empty seats,' said Kathleen. She handed back the glasses to Jarvis.
Jarvis saw the figure of a man wearing a dark blue lumber-jacket and a baseball cap edge his way along the row and sit down. He was alone. 'I don't understand it,' said Jarvis, checking anxiously on Innes and finding that he was still looking across to the same place. There's no sign of the boy.'
Avedissian took a look at the man in the lumber-jacket. He had taken a packet of peanuts from his pocket and appeared to be watching the game intently. Avedissian looked at the man's cap then looked again for it did not carry the logo of either of the teams that were playing. It had a plain blue shield on it with the cipher, F-B9. The cap!' he whispered urgently to Jarvis. 'Look at his cap!'
Jarvis looked and understood immediately. He swung the glasses round to find section 'F' in the stadium and homed in on seat B9. There, sitting beside a woman wearing dark glasses, was a little boy. He was wrapped up warmly and seemed to be very tired. In his lapel he wore a small enamel badge with a Union Jack on it.
'Jesus wept,' muttered Jarvis. He passed the glasses along the line.
Avedissian heard Kathleen draw in her breath sharply. 'What's the matter?' he asked anxiously.
There's a man looking at us!' she replied.
Jarvis looked and saw what had alarmed Kathleen. A man wearing a black overcoat and sitting three rows behind the woman and the boy appeared to be looking directly back at him through field glasses. His first impulse was to tear his own glasses away from his eyes but then he realised that the man was not looking at him at all. He was watching Innes. He was looking to see if Innes had noticed the seat code on the baseball cap… and he had not.
'We've got time!' Jarvis whispered urgently to Avedissian.
'What do you mean?'
They will have to keep the boy there until Innes tumbles to the code on the hat. Maybe we can get to him before that happens!'
'Snatch him back ourselves, you mean?' said Avedissian, filled with apprehension.
'Only if we get a real chance,’ replied Jarvis. 'We can't take any risks with the boy's safety. But we can get round there and take a look at the situation.'
Avedissian agreed.
'For God's sake, be careful!' urged Kathleen.
'We'll leave our seats one at a time,’ whispered Jarvis. 'Make as if you are going out for a beer. We don't want to alarm our friends across the way.'
Avedissian waited until Jarvis had been gone for a few moments before getting to his feet casually and starting to edge his way along the row. As he got to the end of the row he looked back at Kathleen and smiled. 'Be careful,’ she mouthed.