Page 107 of Down and Dirty

Even when you win, you sometimes lose…

The game was about to begin.

A small aircraft flew over the field, and a serviceman parachuted out to hand the referee the game ball. It was Sly, who had taken over this traditional role, which usually fell to one of the university’s ROTC students. They weren’t taking any chances with anything.

With a blast from his whistle, the drum major began an exaggerated strut across the field, starting at the student end of the stadium and ending with a series of front flips midstream. The Penn State Blue Band followed after him, instruments blaring out the school’s alma mater.

Soon the field was filled with coaches, players, and news media. A hundred and ten thousand spectators had shown up for this homecoming event, made extra special because it was the Fighting Irish they would be playing. Thank God the game was in the afternoon and not at night.

By halftime, nothing had happened, and they were all nervous. There was always a chance this would be a dry hole… not the first time a mission had been unsuccessful, but it was too early to make that call.

In the midst of the usual hubbub in the press box, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter had been bugging Zach for the past fifteen minutes. “You’re not a reporter; I can tell.”

“Oh, yeah? Why? Because I don’t have acne and a flatulence problem?”

The reporter’s face flushed, but still he plodded on. “You’re government, aren’t you? FBI? CIA? No, that’s wrong. With that body, you’ve gotta be military. Holy shit! You’re a Navy SEAL. Don’t deny it. My second cousin was a SEAL, and I recognize the signs.”

He had to give the guy credit for some good reasoning skills. He was probably a top-rate reporter, which was what they didn’t need here at this time. “You’re delusional,” was all Zach said, and he walked away to pour himself a cup of coffee.

The reporter, of course, followed him. “Your body is ripped. You’ve got the right haircut. You’re stoic. You’ve been watching this field like a guard dog. You’ve got that ear mike. I heard the word terrorist more than once. Yeah, you’re a SEAL. What’s up, buddy? Is al-Qaeda gonna blow this football crowd all the way to Philly? Ha, ha, ha.” He made the mistake of getting right in Zach’s face. Even worse, some other of the media were starting to take interest in their “discussion.”

“Buzz off, newsboy.” Zach picked him up and shoved him aside.

Undaunted, the jerk followed him outside, motioning for a cameraman to follow. “Sonofabitch! There’s gonna be a terrorist attack, isn’t there?”

The cameraman raised his equipment. A big mistake.

“You take one single friggin’ picture of me, and I’m gonna ram that camera down your throat. You’ll be shittin’ parts for weeks.” Into his ear mike, he said, “Cage. A little help here, buddy.”

Within seconds, Cage had flipped himself down off the roof and stood beside him.

The two news dorks were staring at Cage with mouths gaping. He guessed they had never seen anyone do a front flip off the roof of the press box.

“We have a situation,” Zach said to Cage.

“I can see that, good buddy.”

The reporter and cameraman didn’t know what hit them. They soon found themselves in a private VIP restroom, bound and gagged, with the door locked tight. There were a few VIPs who might have to take a piss like the rest of the world in the plebeian stalls down below.

Up on the roof of the press box, he and Cage scanned the area with binoculars.

“Is it possible this was all a false alarm?” he asked.

“I doan know. I got a funny feelin’,” Cage said. “My maw maw would call it the heebie-jeebies.”

“Same here. The hairs are standing out on the back of my neck like porcupine quills. But, man, we’ve swept this stadium top to bottom; we’ve screened everyone who came in; we’ve done everything possible to make this perimeter secure. There’s got to be something we’ve missed. In fact, I… ” Zach’s words trailed off. His heart began to race, and his blood went cold. “Omigod! The hot-air balloons.”

“What?”

He put the binoculars to his eyes again.

Cage did likewise.

“Check out my three o’clock. They’ve got something planned in one of those balloons. Watch. One of them will break loose soon and sort of drift this way.”

“Black Sunday,” Cage said.

“Huh?”