His head dropped into his hands and he wept. He wept out of anger. He wept out of fear. He wept out of sadness. Most of all, he wept out of helplessness. He knew that no matter how he felt, he would still go through with his grand martyrdom. He had to. From the moment he had been purified, his fate had been sealed. Now he had made the video, and he was dead to the world.
Chapter 35
Sunday, February 1
Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills
Los Angeles, California
7:15 a.m. PST
Empty. Please let me be empty. But Jesse Emrick wasn’t empty, as evidenced by another internal surge that threw him over the edge of the toilet. He had awakened at 6:15 and had been either lying or kneeling on the beautifully laid tile floor for the past hour. He got himself into a crouch, leaned over the sink, and washed his mouth out, using his hand as a cup. Then he slid back down to the floor, feeling the coolness of the marble slab vanity against his cheek.
Emrick’s room wasn’t the only one reverberating with this sound. All up and down the fourth and fifth floors of the hotel, one could hear players kneeling at their porcelain altars, hurling out their own personal cries of penance, and ending their prayers with a flush of the toilet.
There had been no food poisoning, nor was there a stomach parasite running rampant through the ranks. One thing, and one thing only, was leading to this discordant chorus: nerves.
The incident that had ultimately led to Emrick’s personal bowl-side meditation had occurred just prior to Friday’s practice. Matt Tayse-number-two rusher in the league last season with 1,758 yards, All-Pro for the past four years, bright shining hope for a Liberty victory in the PFL Cup, Mr. Twinkle-Toes himself-had broken his ankle stepping off the bus. It was a fluke accident, a once-in-a-million mistake. It was like a great soldier preparing for the biggest battle of his life accidentally putting a bullet in his calf while cleaning his gun.
This incident didn’t promote Emrick to the number-one back-that role went to third-down back, Johnson Mige, who was adding his own chorus to the medley three doors down. However, this did move Emrick into the role of lead third-down back. He was going to be the clutch go-to guy.
He dragged himself into the glass shower stall and turned the water on hot. As the dual showerheads cascaded the steaming water onto his body, he sat on the tile floor, absentmindedly picking at the grout with his fingernail.
This was one of the wonderful things about staying in these fancy hotels. Back home, once his mom and two sisters finished up, he’d get maybe two minutes of lukewarm water, tops. Here, the cleansing, hot waterfall never ended.
Emrick had forty-five minutes until the breakfast buffet downstairs, three hours until chapel, and three and a half hours until the pregame meal. Breakfast? I’ll think I’ll pass. Chapel? I’ll see what I can do. Pregame meal? Yes, but only because I’ll get fined if I don’t show. If he wanted, allowing a half hour to get dressed, he could spend the next three hours letting the water wash his cares away.
Sunday, February 1
Rose Bowl Stadium
Pasadena, California
11:30 a.m. PST
Something’s not right, Riley thought. What are we missing? He was walking around the perimeter of the field, scanning the stands. Skeeter was next to him; Hicks was a few steps ahead.
The three men had just made a full circuit of the Rose Bowl grounds. They’d visited the makeshift tower where Matt Logan was keeping his eye on the air traffic controllers. Also in the tower they checked in with Kim Li, who was keeping in communication with the folks from Edwards Air Force Base and NORAD. Both men had reported absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.
They had stopped by the four large trailers that were the Secret Service command and control centers. After a brief word with a very busy Director LeBlanc and his head of operations, they had spoken to Ted Hummel and Jay Kruse, who were monitoring all that was going on in the operation’s “brains.” The two veteran agents both felt that things were fairly well in hand.
Before going under the stands, the three men walked across the western sidelines. Looking up at the scoreboards, Hicks and Riley got a status report from the three men who were embedded there with the Secret Service snipers. Carlos Guitiérrez, over the north scoreboard, gave an all clear. Steve Kasay, atop the press box on the west side of the stadium, called out the same. Kyle Arsdale, in the south, made the report unanimous-everything was looking good.
As they walked off the field and through a tunnel, they made one last status check. “Bird One, how’re things looking from there?” Hicks called into his comm system.
“Good to go,” came Chris Johnson’s reply from the LAPD helicopter that he had hitched a ride in.
The three men entered a small room where Scott and Khadi already sat. The two had been brainstorming possible chinks in the security’s armor. Hicks took a chair next to Khadi, while Skeeter positioned himself by the door.
“You guys come up with anything yet?” Hicks asked.
Khadi shook her head. “These Secret Service guys are incredibly thorough. Everything we’ve come up with, they’ve already thought of and dealt with.”
Riley walked around the table and pulled out a chair. When he sat, he put his elbows on his knees, leaned over, and locked his hands behind his neck.
“Pach, what is it? You okay?” Scott’s inquiries as to his friend’s quietness and distance had been growing more and more frequent.
Without raising his head, Riley answered, “There’s got to be something we’re missing! Sal’s a smart guy. He knows what security will be like, especially after Platte River…” Riley’s voice caught on the last word. He took a deep breath, then looked up at the four others. “It’s not going to happen again. Not on my watch! It will not happen again!” Riley’s expression was almost pleading. The dark circles under his eyes and the paleness of his complexion attested to the fact that he was still not well. Recognizing what a pitiful character he must look like, he lowered his head and locked his hands again behind his neck.
“Don’t worry, man. We’re going to figure this thing out,” Scott encouraged him. Turning to the rest of the group, he said, “Okay, let’s start from the beginning…”
Sunday, February 1
Los Angeles, California
1:05 p.m. PST
The stack of equipment bags rose outside the bus. Emrick added his to the pile and climbed aboard. When the bus was fully loaded, the bags were transferred two at a time to the lower cargo area.
Soon the bus was humming along the freeway at seventy-five miles per hour. It was the second in a line of three motor coaches; a fourth bus, carrying the coaching staff and some overly anxious players, had left the hotel an hour before the others. Ahead of the caravan, four California Highway Patrol motorcycles and three cruisers led the way with lights flashing and sirens blaring.
Emrick stretched out on the left side of the bus, halfway back. Although his nerves were getting progressively worse, at least his stomach had calmed down. He had slowly eaten a large plate of pasta with a light butter sauce and actually managed to hold it down thus far. Like everyone else on the bus, he prayed that no one would lose it, because the resulting chain reaction would make the rest of the trip extremely unpleasant.
The bus exited the freeway and gradually maneuvered its way from San Pascual Avenue to Arroyo Boulevard. Suddenly a voice from the front said, “Yo, check it out!”
Although the stadium was not yet in view, there was no doubt as to its location. Up ahead, the sky was filled with aircraft of every sort. Emrick tried to count them all-at least four planes, six helicopters, and a blimp-stacked at different altitudes as if they were on shelves.