[Brackets] (37 page)

In spite of everyt
hing, Tucker still awoke at 6 AM
the following morning. He left his room in a maroon University of Nebraska sweatshirt, stretched a little outside the hotel
,
and began to
jog west toward the Lincoln Memorial. Running felt good, even after only five hours of sleep. Just the day before, he had met three strangers who were bizarrely linked to him through their freak brackets, and now, not even twenty-four hours later, one was unconscious in a hospital, one was in jail, and one was so scared about a stalker that he was going home. The blunt-force trauma of the events had dulled with sleep but not dissipated. He was glad to have a day before the championship to
just do normal things
. He would call his dad that morning and try to convince him to
come out
for the game
. They could go see Washington—
neither he nor his dad had been to the city in a long time. And he would definitely not think about international politics, mysterious recruiters, disrupted basketball games, or ex-girlfriends.

As he jogged
toward
the Lincoln Memorial, he passed the long black marble scar of the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. He stopped when he saw it and paused to glance at the endless list of names. He had taken a
seminar
the semester before about warfare in the 20
th
century. The memories of all the dates and maps he had studied gave way to
lingering impressions
from a veteran guest speaker. The man had talked about chaos, about the brutal nature of war that mercilessly determined which young soldiers lived and which died. He had talked about the missteps that had brought the war about before people really understood what was happening. As he stood there
in the chilly morning
, Tucker reached out on an impulse and touched the names. Decisions and consequences. He glanced over his sh
oulder, remembering
that the Korean War Memorial was close
by somewhere
.
Then he reminded himself that jogging was supposed to make him forget about all of this.

Turning abruptly away from the wall, Tucker resumed his paced run back toward his hotel. When he was within eyesight of the top of the hotel building, he noticed a man coming out from a doorway on the opposite side of the street, about thirty yards away. The man wore an old grey sweatshi
rt with the hood over his head, and
early morning sunlight glinted off of his glasses as
he
began to jog in Tucker’s direction.
The man
crossed the street
deliberately and seemed to be coming straight at him as he
jogged
closer and closer.
Tucker suddenly felt very uneasy and wondered if he should alter
his course.
No, it’s light out, other people are around, there’s
n
o reason to be paranoid
, he told himself
.
Just ignore him
.

But Tucker couldn’t ignore him.
The man stopped in the sidewalk, blocking Tucker’s way. He hadn’t realized how large the man was, but Tucker, who was tall himself, had to look up to
see
the man’s bearded face.
His
unkempt goatee reminded
Tucker
of the sketch he had seen in the security office.

“Uh, can I help you with something?” Tucker asked, suppressing a shudder. The man did not smile, did not move, didn’t even seem out of breath from his run. He just looked at Tucker with his hands deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt. The right hand bulged in the pocket. It was holding something.

“You got a problem?” Tucker couldn’t keep the note of belligerence out of his voice, even with this behemoth. He made a motion to find a way around.

“You’re one of the two,” said the man, more an accusation than a comment. “The last two.”

“I’m one of the last two guys with the bracket, right. Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Are you going to win?” asked the man, his face frozen, unsmiling.

Tucker normally couldn’t resist that kind of a verbal challenge, but under the circumstances, he tempered his response.

“I hope so.”

“I see,” said the man. “It must be exciting for you. The future.”

“Uh-huh.”

The man lingered. “Have you seen the future?”

“Not really,” said Tucker. “Look, you’re kind of blocking the sidewalk. Can I get back to my running?”

The man scratched his chin, then stepped aside. Tucker began to move forward, making sure to give the man a wide berth. After he passed, the man yelled, “I’ll see you later, Tucker Barnes. Tell Cole Kaman that I missed him, but I won’t again.”

Tucker ran, not jogged, the rest of the way to the hotel. At the revolving doors, he looked behind him and saw no one. The man had not followed him. Tucker bent over, breathing hard, and contemplated the sickening realization that he had just come face to face with Ichabod.

Still sweaty, he ran up and knocked softly on Cole’s door. It was only a few minutes after seven, and Tucker was actually surprised when he heard active movement from inside. He was even more surprised when the door opened on a girl with dark hair and sleepy eyes.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought this was someone else’s room,” Tucker said.

“Are you looking for Cole? He’s here, he’s just still asleep.”

Tucker must have looked as dumbfounded as he felt, because the girl laughed and said, “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Nera. I’m Cole’s girlfriend.”

“Oh, yeah, Cole talked about you. I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I wasn’t planning on it. But he texted me yesterday morning and I just felt like this was a big deal and I should be with him. I wanted to surprise him before the BC game, but I got caught in traffic on the New Jersey turnpike and didn’t end up getting here till really late.”

“Uh, that’s great! I mean, that sucks that you missed the game, but it was actually kind of a disaster anyway, so…”

“Cole told me about the fight. He said that you really saved him.”

“Nah, I just…” Tucker’s voice trailed off. “So Cole is staying for the championship now? For sure?”

“Yes, Cole is staying.
I talked him into it
last night, which wasn’t easy, given everything that’s al
ready happened to him in public.
B
ut
I got him to stop worrying so much and come to peaceful terms with the universe for the weekend
. As long as nothing crazy happens between now and the game tomorrow, I think he’s actually kind of excited now.”

“Uh-huh, OK,” Tucker said. He cleared his throat.
“So he isn’t concerned about Ichabod showing up?”

“Oh, he is, and I am, too
.
I don’t know if you heard
,
but
we
were
both
in that
building that he burned down
. But I realized during this past
week that you can’t live by fear. We don’t know what will happen, but we won’t choose to
not
do things just because we’re afraid of the possibility that something bad
will
happen, you know?”

Tucker nodded at the wisdom of her statement
even as he
wrestled internally with the
wisdom of keeping his meeting with Ichab
od a secret. He shuffled his fee
t on the hall carpet and patted a rhythm on the door.

“That’s good, that’s all good,” Tucker said, looking down the hallway. “
Listen, I’ve gotta
go shower
and stuff.
So
I
guess I’ll
see you two around
.”

“Definitely. I’ll tell Cole that you stopped by. Was there anything you wanted to tell him?”

Tucker thought with momentary panic. “
Nope. No,
just checking up on him. I’m good. See yah.” Nera closed the door
as Tucker treaded slowly down the hall.

In his mind, he
could hear the voice of his mom
asking him if he had really thought things thro
ugh. He heard the voice of Lena
chastising him for placing a basketball game before the safety of another human being. He he
ard the voices of Rick and Abby
and quickly shut them off. The ding of the nearby elevator snapped him back to reality. He was on his own, and he was making the decision that he wanted to make. There would be plenty of time to tell security about the threat from Ichabod after Monday’s game. Nera was right about not doing anything out of fear.

A
nd a
s he went back into his room
and saw the complete statue of the Eiffel Tower he had placed on the hotel dresser,
he imagined
one more
voice: his dad,
reminding him about the free
buffet
breakfast.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

In her hotel room back in Lincoln, Carla assembled some papers on the desk and prepared to check out. She just had to wait for a phone call. It was starting to snow outside, and Carla wondered if this would mean sleeping in the airport tonight. She hoped not; she could use a good night’s sleep before her next assignment.

Her cell phone rang. She put it on speakerphone.
“Graham?” she asked.

“You done there?”

“
I’m done. My flight leaves in two hours. Everything’s closed out.”

“And the girl?”

“Energized. Lena’s plan is already in effect. She’s en route.”

“A very good first job. Well done,” Graham said with no warmth.

“Thank you,” she said, then paused. “Are you sure
we
didn’t make a mistake by not making an offer to Tucker? Everything I’ve found points to him being the genius behind Dr. Tonkin’s
recent
success, and Lena raves about his abilities.”

“I decided based on your assessment, Carla. Are you saying that you were wrong?”

“No, no,” she backpedaled, “I still think that splitting Lena and Tucker up was important for Lena to do what you want her to do. And Tucker is probably unrecruitable. For all his abilities, he has zero ambition. Did I tell you that his life’s dream is to be a
small-town
la
wyer for farmers
? Hard to tempt somebody like that.”

“But?”

“But talent is talent. Maybe we shouldn’t have let him get away completely.”

“He hasn’t gotten away,” said Graham cryptically. “It’s time for you to move on. I’m sending you a file now. Are you ready for a bigger assignment?”

“You mean
I get to recruit bigger fish than Nebraskan co-eds
?
”
asked Carla, still curious about where she would be flying to in the morning.

“We do more than just recruit,” said Graham.

-[Championship Game]-

[
Championship Game
: First Half]

[Monday, April 6
th
]

The small ICU room at George Washington Hospital was completely dark except for the dim light that made it from the hallway under the closed door. A machine near the bed was running with the low hum of a pump, and the still body of Perry Lynwood was face up, eyes closed, and breathing in slow intervals. The chart hanging next to the door indicated a nurse check-in at four
PM
and a neurology consultation at five. It was four-thirty. No one else was in the room to see the intruder.

He
had entered with a compact rolling suitcase which he put next to the bed. Then a small camera was attached above the television. It was placed to get a clear view of Perry
while
remaining concealed from anyone who wasn’t looking for it. The intruder checked his phone to make sure the video feed was sending out a signal. Lastly, he set a bouquet of daisies still in its cellophane on the bedside table and placed next to it a get-well card with a picture of a disassembled C-3PO and the line “It could have been worse.” The intruder slipped
through the door
and glanced both ways down the hallway. No one was watching. He left, removing the pilfered latex gloves he was wearing and tossing them in the nearest trash
can
. The entire operation took four minutes.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

“We’re going to be late.”

Nera checked the clock on her phone and looked out the window at the painfully inert D.C. traffic. Cole was next to her, rubbing his knee compulsively. Across from them was Tucker, also anxiously monitoring the time. The only one enjoying the limousine ride was Henry Barnes.