Catching the Fox, also known as Stopping the Fox, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the May 1982 issue of Gallery magazine. It was later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, Griswold recounts a story about his involvement in a police operation targeting a drug courier known as "the Fox." The Fox was notoriously difficult to catch. Using simple but effective methods, he constantly changed his appearance and vehicle, drove alone with drugs hidden under his seat, and seemed to have an uncanny ability to avoid police roadblocks and traps.
Lieutenant Hoskins, the officer in charge of the case, was obsessed with catching the Fox. He consulted Griswold after exhausting all conventional methods. Griswold focused on an unconfirmed piece of intelligence: that the Fox was red-green colorblind. He devised a plan based on this potential weakness.
Griswold instructed Hoskins to set up an inconspicuous surveillance post at a key intersection on a predicted delivery route. The crucial part of the plan was to manipulate the traffic light at that intersection. They blocked the cross-street to prevent other traffic and then rewired the light so that the green light was on top and the red on the bottom, the opposite of the standard configuration. They then set the light to a permanent green.
Griswold reasoned that a color-blind driver, who relied on the position of the lights, red on top, green on bottom, rather than their color, would see the top light illuminated and mistake the permanent green for a red light. As predicted, when the Fox's car approached the intersection, it was the only vehicle to stop at the green light. When the police manually changed the light to a genuine red on the bottom, the Fox immediately drove on, believing the light had turned green. This unique reaction confirmed his identity, and he was successfully apprehended.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Jennings
- Baranov
- Lieutenant Hoskins
- The Fox (the drug courier)
- The Informers (Stoolies)
- The Treasury Agents (Secret Service)
- The Police Chief
- The Winning Mayoral Candidate
See Also[]
List of short stories by Isaac Asimov