The Trinity Game

the situation,” said Battles. “As you know by now, an incendiary device detonated in Reverend Tim Trinity’s dressing room at his television studio this morning. We have a forensics team on site, but it’s too early to say if Trinity was among the victims. Lot of meat chunks to sort through. Agent Hillborn has been looking at Trinity for…”
    Hillborn’s Blackberry vibrated on his belt as a new e-mail arrived. He looked at the little screen. The e-mail was from the Nevada office, a response to the query he’d sent two days ago. He read the e-mail.
    “Agent Hillborn?”
    “Sorry, sir, just got some information on the case.”
    “Good. Bring us up to speed.” Battles sat.
    “Yes, sir.” Hillborn stood and opened the file in front of him. “Because of Trinity’s sports predictions, I’ve been looking for an O.C. connection. Hadn’t found one,” he gestured at his Blackberry, “until now. Of all his predictions, his most recent was also the most unlikely—the Gotham Stakes. The winning horse was a fifty-to-one underdog.”
    “Any given Sunday,” said Toronteli.
    “Sure, but Trinity didn’t just pick the winner, he nailed the whole trifecta—win, place, and show. So I contacted our officesin Las Vegas and Atlantic City and just heard back from Vegas. William Lamech’s casino sportsbook stopped taking bets on those exact horses the same day Trinity made the prediction.”
    “What’s the brief on Lamech?” asked Battles.
    “He’s been mostly legit for a long time, but he grew up on Taylor Street…rose through the ranks running the backroom ’books in Chicago. They called him Lucky Lamech back in the day. Anyway, he was the Outfit’s guy when the mob ran Vegas, but he went corporate when Vegas went corporate and hasn’t shown any direct O.C. contact in a while. I worked my contacts on this, and my impression is the old guard still holds him in high esteem, but he’s bigger than they are, and they have no claim on him. I’ve also heard rumors that, aside from his legitimate sportsbook in Vegas, he runs an exclusive network of high-end bookies catering to the white-collar crowd. Just rumors, no evidence.”
    “Wait,” said Robertson, flipping some pages in his notebook. “You said Lamech stopped taking those bets the same day Trinity made the prediction. That’s the same show when he predicted the oil refinery accident. Two days
before
the news of Trinity’s predictions, and how to decode them, went public.”
    “So maybe the same source who tipped Trinity off about the fixed race also tipped off Lamech,” said Bryson.
    Winfield Battles spoke up from the head of the table. “What’s bugging you, Steve?”
    Hillborn sat, gestured at the file folder before him. “Trinity’s predictions are all over the place—football, ponies, hockey, car races, golf…If this is happening, we’re looking at the largest sports-fixing racket in history. Exponentially larger…I mean,
unbelievably
large.”
    “All the more reason to get our asses in gear,” said Battles. “We’ve got a thread connecting Trinity and Lamech, and with Trinity fucking up the betting business, Lamech is drowning in motive for the bombing. The thread has two ends—we pull at both. Agent Hillborn will take lead on the O.C. angle; liaise with the Evidence Response Team in Atlanta. Robertson and Bryson go with him, Toronteli and Bock work it from this end, and K-Mac liaise with Terrorism.” Battles nodded at the television screen. “Publicly this is an investigation of the bombing at Tim Trinity’s television studio. But if there’s a sports-fixing scam attached, we need to find it and take it down, fast.” He stood, glanced at his watch. “Learjet’s being fueled as we speak, gentlemen. Get cracking.”

Atlanta, Georgia…
    J ulia sat alone in Kathy Reynolds’s office, willing the cell phone in her hand to ring, trying not to cry.
    The day had started so well. The morning meeting was a relaxed affair, with plenty of cynical asides and a few good laughs. Television or print, young or old, Southern or Yankee,
reporter humor
crosses all lines, and Julia felt more at home than she had since she left New Orleans. She realized she could work in television if she had to. She’d stick it out until newspapers were no longer the best place to report the news, or until they could no longer pay a living wage, whichever came first. Hopefully that day wouldn’t come, but if it did, she’d stay in the game, keep