"Turn it to the left, the left!!" Adrian cried out loud the following morning as Julie tried to back her car into a spot in front of one of the residence halls on the campus at Stanford that the athletes would be staying during the game. There was a loud crash as the car smacked hard into the van behind them. "No, the right, I meant right...not that far, now back!! No, no, your other right, OTHER...oh God in heaven, help her out here!!"
"STOOOOOOPPP!!" the girl screamed at him, looking incredibly nervous herself, "You're only making it harder on me!"
"What am supposed to do when you're trying to kill us!!" the detective shrieked as they rear-ended the pickup in front of them, "Now straight back, straight!!"
"Mr. Monk, that's enough," Natalie leaned over the back seat and gave him a piercing glare, "Let Julie try this on her own, in silence, all right!?"
Cowed, Adrian just managed a weak nod. Nonetheless, he dug through his pocket as the car jerked hard to the right for a pencil and paper and scribbled at the top the words LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. He was jerked hard forward as Julie hit the brakes just a little too hard. "How's that?" she asked her mother nervously.
"I'd say that's pretty good," Natalie nodded in approval.
"We're not in straight, I just know we're not," Adrian dared to say. Julie shut off the engine with a hard gesture and climbed out. "You have to be a little more patient when she tries to park," Natalie told her employer firmly, "It's going to take time for her to get it perfect."
Adrian hopped out and glanced at the car--crooked by a couple inches, a distance only he could discern--and the damage to the vehicles in front and behind them. He hoped Natalie had far more patience than he did, for by his estimates it was going to take Julie about ninety years at this rate to get it right. "What, what room did they say they were in again?" he asked his assistant as they headed for the dormitory.
"Number one sixty-seven," Natalie read off a piece of paper in her hand, "Her mother's going to be waiting for us."
"Well, that's probably the problem right there," Adrian shrugged, "I'd want to kill someone for staying in an odd-numbered room."
Both Teegers ignored him. The three of them walked up the stairs to the second floor. All up and down the hall, athletes stood inside their rooms, reading or working out at whatever sports they would be participating in. Adrian averted his eyes at the sight of several bare-chested weightlifters trying to bench press what he hoped was an even hundred pounds in room 134. He was glad the viewing public around the world never had to suffer the indignity of seeing the athletes like this--although given how revealing so many Olympic uniforms seemed to be these days, perhaps what they actually saw was bad enough.
"Hey, Natalie, down here," came the call from up the hall. A slender woman with glasses was standing outside Room 167 with a big smile on her face. Natalie herself was smiling too now. "Marissa, oh, I thought I'd find you here with Wendy," she hugged the woman, "She in here with you?"
A loud excited scream from Julie more or less answered that question. The girl barrelled into the room, where a beaming Wendy was seated on the bed, and gave her friend a huge hug. "I saw you last night!" she exclaimed, "You must be so proud to have made it at last!"
"Hey, never mind me, what about you?" Wendy gasped happily, "I'd say you've gotten even bigger than me now! I never miss a show; whoever they've got playing you, she's great, it's like it's really you there! And this is Monk himself!"
"Yes, yes, I'm Adrian Monk; the real, real Adrian Monk," the detective reluctantly shook her outstretched hand and waved at Natalie for a wipe, "Glad, glad you like the show; I hope the ratings don't crash while this nightmare they call a sporting event goes on," he bustled to the window and pushed the drapes around until the hangers on each side were equidistant from each other, "So, um, Wendy, you, uh, did call me last night about someone trying to kill you?"
Mrs. Whitehurst quickly pushed the door to the room closed. "First of all, Mr. Monk, we'd like to ask you not tell the papers about this," she said solemnly, "We don't want any undue attention coming down on us. But I should tell you that someone..." she took an uncomfortable breath, "Someone might be after my daughter. It started about a month ago after Wendy made the national team. We'd just come home from a celebratory dinner at the local McDonald's in Lufkin, and we found a note under the door saying Wendy didn't belong on the team and had better quit immediately. It didn't list any specific threats, so we didn't take it seriously at the time. Then three days ago when we checked in here, we found another note saying we'd used up our last chance, and that whoever wrote it was going to draw blood," she choked up at that prospect. "We notified security, and they promised to keep an eye on the room for us.
"During the Parade of Nations last night," Wendy piped up, looking green at thought of what she was about to relate, "When we passed by the east side of the stadium by the Olympic flagpole, I heard something zing by my ear. It was definitely a bullet; I saw a gun barrel flashing in the seats about ten rows up from the bottom. I guess with the noise and lights, no one else noticed anything."
"Did you happen to get a look at who you think might have fired it?" Natalie asked, concerned.
"Not really," the redhead shook her head, "The face was a blur in the mass of people, and we had to keep going around the stadium, so I couldn't really stop and look. But if that was bad, it was nothing compared to what happened when we got back. Mom?"
She looked imploringly at her mother to spare her the agony of telling what happened next. Mrs. Whitehurst was more than up to it. "I met Wendy outside Candlestick after the Opening Ceremony ended and drove her back here," she told them, "When we opened the door, we found this lying on the floor. Brace yourselves, because you might find this a little hard to stomach. We certainly couldn't."
Her hand shaking, she opened the closet door. Adrian immediately felt the urge to throw up himself; lying there was a dead Irish wolfhound run through with five sabers. Attached to the handle of one was a note written ominously in blood: TAKE THE FLOOR WHEN THE COMPETITION STARTS AND WHITEHURST'S BLOOD SHALL RUN RED. EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK, I'LL BE THERE. I AM EVERYWHERE. "Was, was there any way someone could have gotten in while you were out?" he managed to say, gesturing at Natalie to give him several vomit bags in case his stomach couldn't hold.
"I don't really see how, Mr. Monk," Mrs. Whitehurst shook her head, "It takes a special code key to open this door, and I had it in my purse the whole time. And the window locks from the inside, and Wendy definitely locked it shut before she left for the Opening Ceremonies, didn't you honey?"
Wendy nodded, shaking noticeably at the thought that someone might be after her. "Do you have any ideas, Mr. Monk?" she asked the detective.
Adrian walked around the room making several hand gestures. "Would, would you happen to know if anyone would have any reason to want to do this?" he asked once he was finished.
"No," Wendy shook her head emphatically, "I really have no idea what this could be all about, honest."
"Well Mr. Monk's going to have this under wraps soon, so don't you worry," Julie reassured her.
"Hey, if he's half as good in person as he is on TV, I'll bet he'll have whoever it is in prison by this time tomorrow," Wendy smiled confidently.
"Well, let's, let's not get overly optimistic," Adrian quickly swung the closet door shut with his foot; the dead dog was seriously affecting his concentration. He walked around the room once more. "Here's, here's the thing, I can't really get anything out of what's here," he announced when he was finished, "Nobody broke in here, and the window wasn't opened at all. You're absolutely sure you had the code key at all times, Mrs. Whitehurst?"
"I swear on my life it never left my purse," she told him.
"Very interesting," Adrian paced around the room a third time, stopping to peer under the bed and desk for signs of a tunnel. None were present. "Here's, here's what we can do now; I'll call the captain and try to get security on you twenty-four/seven," he told Wendy, "Then we'll get the surveillance tapes from downstairs and see if anyone came up here. And then we'll get the main security people for this circus they call a sporting event and check the Opening Ceremonies; tenth row on the east side of Candlestick, you said?"
Wendy thought it over carefully. "Yes, definitely," she nodded.
"That's all I can give you now, but don't, don't worry, I'll find out what's going on here," the detective assured her, "Natalie, call the captain."
Twenty minutes later, the familiar car of Captain Leland Stottlemeyer slid far more smoothly into a parking space across from the dormitory. The captain climbed out and tossed his cigar to the street, grinding it out with his foot. "Monk, Natalie, thanks for calling," he greeted them, "Sorry I'm..." he paused and watched in curiosity as Adrian rushed for the cigar, picked it up with his tweezers, bagged it, and properly disposed of it in the nearest garbage can. "As I was saying, sorry I'm late, but unfortunately we had to make an unnecessary pit stop," he turned and glared at the passenger side door as Lieutenant Randall Disher climbed out, his arms bulging with Olympic merchandise. "Well sir, this is once in a lifetime; might as well stock up while we're here," the lieutenant defended himself. "Hey Natalie," he half stumbled over to her with his arms overloaded, "Think Julie'll like some of these plushies?"
He sandwiched two large stuffed dolls of the Games' albatross mascot between his index and middle fingers and held them up. "Probably," Natalie nodded, "She's upstairs keeping Wendy company until we get back."
"And thus we will deliver them after we finish," Stottlemeyer said sternly to Disher as he started towards the dormitory, "All right, what do you know so far, Monk?"
"Not that much," Adrian related what the Whitehursts had told him. "I see," Stottlemeyer said softly once he was done, "Well, unfortunately you'll have to tell them I can't really spare anyone extra for her safety; every damn cop in this city's already tied down for the next two weeks keeping the crowds in check.
"Which, which brings me to another point; you're sure we can't take some of the people out of the city?" Adrian had to ask. Stottlemeyer ignored the question. "In the meantime, I'll call the law in Texas and see if there's been any disturbances in the Whitehursts' neighborhood; maybe there's a history of this they didn't tell you about. Then we'll run an ID scan on everyone connected with the Olympic gymnastic team; maybe our perp's connected to one of the contenders she beat out for that last spot on the team. First, though, I think your guess to check the security tape's right, Monk, so let's go do that next. Make whatever room you can find back there."
His words came out a little late, as Natalie opened the back door of the captain's car and had to jump back to avoid a cascade of plush figures, pennants, T-shirts, and other memorabilia stacked in the back seat. "You really had to buy this much?" she asked Disher, her eyebrows raised, "How much did all this cost?"
"Enough that I could have used to gas up for the rest of the week," Stottlemeyer shot his adjutant another disappointed look. Disher shrugged and hastily got into the front passenger seat. A brisk twenty minute ride brought them to what they'd learned was going to be the main Olympic security headquarters inside a converted warehouse near Fisherman's Wharf. "Now I should probably give all of you a little pointer before you go in here," the captain told the others as they approached the warehouse, "If you've read the papers, you'll know Travers Security won the local rights to keep the Games safe. I know Ernie Travers; he was on the force when I first started. Unfortunately, he was a little, how shall I say, off upstairs after a rough couple of trips through Nam, so they let him go a year and a half later after he went schizoid during a big drug bust. From what I've heard, he's still a little loony upstairs, so if you..."
Disher pressed the button to the intercom. Immediately, the sound of machine gun fire rang out, sending the four of them diving the ground. A slot in the door slid open, and the barrel of a very real M-1 was thrust out. "Identify yourselves!!" barked a loud, authoritative voice.
"Captain Leland Stottlemeyer, S.F.P.D.," the captain grumbled out loud, "So there's no need to be so glad to see us, Ernie."
The gun was withdrawn and the slot slammed shut. The door creaked slowly open, and a pair of wide, bloodshot eyes appeared. "Badge and/or other identification please," he demanded. Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes and showed his badge and driver's license. "Right, Leland, good to see you," Travers said, opening the door all the way, "Can't be too careful; you never know what nuts are going to be out and about during the next two weeks."
"Right," the captain mumbled softly, "Ernie, this is Adrian Monk, as I'm sure you already know since everybody on the planet probably knows him by now; he's got something we could use your help on."
Adrian told Travers about Wendy's problems. A gleam lit up in the security chief's eye when he was finished. "I knew it," he mumbled in triumph, "They're at it again. They've been waiting since the war ended, and now they're choosing the Games to make their move. Well, we're good and ready, and they don't stand a chance."
"They being...?" the detective inquired.
"Undercover Vietcong operatives, probably connected with that rabble driving us crazy today," Travers waved them inside, "Well, anything you need, you've got it. We'll beat them at their game before..."
There was another knock on the door behind them. Travers threw open the slot and thrust his gun out again. "Identify yourself!" he barked again.
"Package!?" whimpered a pale mailman holding a package.
"Put on the ground and up against the wall; keep your hands where I can see them!" Travers ordered. He stepped outside and shook the package. "Clear," he nodded to the mailman, "Dismissed."
The mailman scurried off. "Anyway," Stottlemeyer said his former associate was back inside, "We'd like the tape of the Opening Ceremony if you have it, Ernie."
"Follow me, Leland, we'll have it all set up for you," Travers gestured for them to follow him upstairs. There was a blinding flash as Disher unexpectedly took a picture of everyone. Adrian shielded his eyes as best he could. "What was that for!?" he demanded.
"Oh, just wanted to savor the moment, Monk, to remember the time you weren't the craziest guy in the room," the lieutenant told him. His jaw was still hanging open from Travers's actions prior.
"Seriously, I don't know how this guy gets to run his own security company," Natalie was also largely in surprise as well.
"What can I say, I don't understand half of what the mayor allows these days," Stottlemeyer shrugged. The four of them trudged up the stairs into the nerve center of the security operation. About two dozen security personnel sat hunched over numerous monitors showing images all over San Francisco of various Olympic venues. Adrian's eyes widened in delight as he took the room in. "It's perfect," he exclaimed softly, "It's perfectly organized, everything's color-coordinated, looks spotlessly clean--hold, hold on," he gestured at Natalie for a wipe, then walked over to the nearest monitor showing a cycling race in progress down Russian Hill and wiped off a barely noticeable dirt mark from the screen. "You'll thank me later," he told the astonished technician, "Now, now it's perfect."
"Yes indeed, everything has to be perfect," Travers proclaimed, "I hold my company to the highest standards of security (several technicians softly snickered at this). But first things first. Boyd," he snapped at a scrawny technician in the corner, "Last night's tape. Monk here needs something to look at; he thinks the Vietcong's up to no good."
"Well, you, you do," Adrian corrected him. He hunched over the monitor as Boyd inserted the security tape of the Opening Ceremony. "Take, take it to where our team goes past the Olympic flagpole," he directed him. Boyd fast forwarded to that very moment. "Stop here," the detective instructed him at the key moment. He squinted at the spot ten rows up. "Natalie, can you make him out?" he asked her.
Natalie glanced hard at the screen. "I really can't make out anything," she admitted, "It would have helped if Wendy had a betteer view of him.
"Maybe this can help," Boyd clicked a few buttons, and the picture zoomed in. "A little closer if you can," Adrian asked him. When the picture zoomed in as close as it could, the detective noticed a figured in a baseball cap and dark glasses at about the spot Wendy had said with something shiny in his hand. "That, that might be him," he announced.
"Isolate and clarify," Travers ordered Boyd, who did just that. "Yep, we've got him," the security chief clapped his hands, "We've got their undercover American operative exposed for who he is."
"Hang on a sec," Stottlemeyer leaned closer and examined the picture carefully, "Are we absolutely sure that's a gun he's got there? It could well be a tin cup a camera from what I can see. Can't you get it any clearer?"
"This is as good as this software allows," Boyd admitted.
"Well, should we put out an A.P.B. for him, sir?" Disher asked his superior.
"Why? I've seen better pictures of the Loch Ness Monster," the captain shook his head, "He's too generic from this angle too; we need a better image. So what we can do is alert everyone at the venues to let us know if they see someone that looks like this."
"Consider it done," Travers pressed a button on the main console. "Attention all personnel," he ordered, presumably to all his operatives, "Be on the lookout for a suspicious character fitting the following description," he gestured at Boyd, who punched a few more buttons, "Consider to be dangerous, shoot to incapacitate."
Stottlemeyer rolled his eyes. "We'll also check Candlestick to see if we can find that bullet or any other evidence that got left behind," he told the others, "Other than that, that's pretty much all we can do right now with a body or injury."
"But what about Wendy's safety?" Natalie protested, "You're absolutely sure you can't keep someone on her? Whoever this is, they could hit again at any time."
"Natalie, I told you before, I'd love to, but there's no one else to spare," the captain shook his head.
"Well there has to be..." she stopped, and a look slowly came into her eyes--a look Adrian had long since come to dread as a sign she was about to try and force him into doing something he'd rather not do. He tried to hastily sneak towards the door, but she cut him off before he could reach it. "Mr. Monk, I know what we can do," she told him.
"It, it probably won't work, sorry," he said quickly. Natalie ignored him and reached for the newspaper lying on the counter top next to them. "I know you don't read the papers, so you might want to know the Olympic judges went on strike over low pay two weeks ago," she told him, "The I.O.C.'s looking for replacements. We could watch a number of events for whoever the stalker is."
"In front of thousands of people? You want me to put my life on the line in front of thousands of people who would be watching my every move?" he protested.
"I would hope you would. For Wendy's sake," she enunciated each word very sharply. Adrian, however, shook his head firmly. "You're, you're forgetting I'm still the boss, Natalie, and the answer's no, and nothing you say or do will make me change my mind," he said, putting his hands on his hips to make a more affirmative point, "I will not be an Olympic judge no matter what."