by Sloan, David
While Noh uploaded the image, Cole called Tucker.
“What?” Tucker answered, straining to hear over the excitement of the crowd.
“Tucker! I’m in the skybox with Mr. Noh. We just found out that Marshall Bell was the one that dropped that ball down to me. Ichabod’s message is fake; Bell is lying to us.”
“What?” Tucker asked loudly. “What do you mean? How do you know that?”
“Noh found it on his video equipment. I’m looking at the picture right now. It’s definitely Bell.”
A pause. “So what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Just go tell a security guy to... wait, I just got a text from him right now.” Cole heard a ping on his own phone. He had gotten the same text.
Urgent- U need to get back to G. Turtle booth right now. Ichabod news.- Bell
“What now?” asked Tucker. “What’s our move?”
Cole looked around at the room. “Can you get up here in the next minute? I have an idea, I’m going to text him to come up here instead.”
“Oh man, you’re killing me. There’s like six minutes left in the game! Do you really need me to be there?” Cole didn’t even have a chance to respond before Tucker answered himself, “Never mind, I’m coming. If I’m getting played, I want to know why.” And then, “I hate this so much.”
Cole pocketed his phone and turned to Noh. “Can you do me a favor? Is there a way to put this image on the screen downstairs? I mean, is there a way for me to signal you to put it up?”
Noh nodded. “I have cameras in that room. Just wave.”
“Really? OK, good. Nera, um, you need to stay here with Noh and get ready to call security if it looks like things are going bad.”
Nera frowned at Cole. She was not used to this new, energized persona he had suddenly taken on. “What are you doing? Let’s just get him arrested.”
“No, no,” said Cole. “For the first time in three weeks, I have a chance to get some answers. I want answers.”
“Me, too,” Noh chimed in.
Cole texted Bell to come to the Potomac Skybox. Bell, after a moment, agreed. Cole ran out quickly to tell the security guard to let Tucker and Bell in, his mind racing as he considered the conversation that he wanted to have.
Tucker entered a few minutes later, and Marshall Bell thirty seconds after that. The Marshall looked grim, none too pleased about the unexpected change.
“Why are you up here?” asked Bell.
“Better view. Why did you want us?”
The Marshall paused, realizing that something was amiss, but continued. “I’m sorry to interrupt you again so close to the end of the game, but we’ve been contacted by Ichabod and we know what he wants.”
“Before you go on,” Cole interrupted, speaking over his sudden nervousness, “you should know that we know you’re lying. We know that the message from Ichabod wasn’t real.”
“Excuse me?” Bell responded evenly. Cole waved to the camera and pointed to the interface window. The five-second clip of Bell dropping the ball filled the screen and repeated on a loop.
“With one signal, security is going to come in here and we’re going to report that there is a man impersonating a Federal Marshall and an arsonist at the same time. But before we do, we want to know who you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing.”
The man looked up at the footage, then back at the surprising pair of young interrogators. He froze for only a moment before sniffing and shrugging.
“Well, this makes things easier for me,” he said. He slowly reached into his jacket and pulled out a tablet computer. Motioning Cole and Tucker over, he brought up a screen split between two video feeds. One showed the dark image of a man sitting before a computer monitor. His face couldn’t be seen, but he was wearing glasses and a grey hood. The other image was of a hospital room, with someone asleep in the bed.
“I came up here with a very elaborate story about Ichabod’s endgame to make you give me what I needed, but now that you geniuses have seen through it, I can be more direct. The video on the right is Perry Lynwood’s room at George Washington Hospital, not far from here. If you look closely, you’ll notice a small suitcase underneath the table by his bed. That suitcase contains a bomb. Now, I need you to tell your friend up in the booth not to call security or I trigger the bomb right now.”
They froze. This was, to say the least, an unexpected response to their inquisition.
“Why should we believe you?” Tucker retorted.
“You don’t have to, but you should,” said Bell as he removed something skinny with his other hand. He held his thumb over a device with a red button.
Cole looked at the device in total shock. He quickly turned to the camera and waved Nera off, mouthing “Do … not… call… security.”
“Now,” Bell continued, “I need to know just one thing from each of you, and then I will be on my way and nothing else will happen. I need to know if you, or someone you know, or maybe someone you never met, had a special system for picking your brackets. This is very important. A yes or no will do.”
“This is about the brackets?” Cole nearly screamed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Maybe. Yes or no?” Bell shook his wrist with grim playfulness.
Tucker and Cole looked at each other.
“No,” they both said.
Bell studied their faces very carefully, his finger still over the red button. “I’ll ask again. Is it at all possible that your bracket picks were not made by you, but by some method or program or other person? Answer fast, lives are in the balance.”
“No!” Tucker said loudly, his arms open wide. “They were just normal picks. I do this every year. Now please put that trigger away and we’ll forget all about this.”
Bell continued to examine their faces. He sniffed again. “I believe you,” he said, putting the trigger back in his pocket. “But the person you see in the other video feed does not. You see, he thinks the plan is that he will pretend to be Ichabod, and you will reveal your system as a way of convincing him not to blow up your friend. You’ll notice that he has the same trigger that I do, over by his right hand. He has instructions to detonate if he thinks he is being fooled.”
“So tell him that it’s over and he doesn’t need to!” Cole urged.
“No,” said Bell. “I’m going to leave right now, alone and unimpeded. I won’t let him know that it’s over until I’m safely away. As long as you don’t call security on me in the next ten minutes, all you have to do is convince that man that you have a secret brackets system and everything will be fine. You’ll be heroes, really. Perry is lucky to have friends like you.” Bell reached over and pushed a button on the tablet to activate the video chat option, then handed it to Tucker. “Better make it good.”
The two looked at the tablet in shock. The man known as Bell stepped away and casually walked out the door, wolfing down a handful of M&M’s.
A ping from the tablet drew Tucker and Cole’s attention. The hooded figure had begun to type, and a message popped up in a chat box.
Tell me your secret. Now.
Cole looked frantically at Tucker. “You have to think of something.”
“Why me? I don’t know what to say!”
“You’re the one in college. Maybe you learned something in a math class you can use. I don’t know this stuff.”
“I’m pre-law! How much math do you think I know?”
“Do you know any stats?”
“Maybe a little, stuff from research, but not much. Go get Noh.”
“But he needs something now! Just think of anything.”
A message popped up.
Well?
The figure reached out to grab the trigger by his hand. Tucker typed.
No, we’re here. We’re going to explain our secret system now. Please don’t use bomb.
The figure took his hand back and typed.
Tell me.
Tucker he
sitated above the screen, his mind completely blank. He looked out at the window and heard the crowd roar at something. He thought of all the technical terms he knew that might sound realistic. Then the words popped into his head, and he smiled.
Bracket predictions made using a non-linear Skyline Plotter.
* * * *
Just outside the Potomac Booth, Mr. Graham deposited his Marshall Bell blazer in the trash can, satisfied that he had covered all his bases. What Jason Spade had told him was true. OPUS hadn’t leaked, and there was no other system out there to compete. He could now safely report that to his superiors. All that remained was to tie up the last loose ends of the day. He needed to meet the girl Lena at her hotel near Dulles. She had proven herself in planning the flash protest, and she would be very useful in her next assignment in Thailand. He hadn’t been entirely happy with the order to let her wreak havoc during the game, but in the end things had worked out better than he had planned. There was, of course, the matter of Neeson. He would take care of that tonight. The only lingering concern was the presence of his rival recruiter, but it wasn’t a significant problem. He had gotten what he wanted, as he always did.
Graham exited the hallway, his eyes on his phone, when he stepped on something. A hand. The guard that had been posted at the hall entrance was on the floor, face coated with blood and radio still in his belt. Graham didn’t even have time to pocket his phone before someone jumped at him from the side. A huge hulk of a man overwhelmed his field of vision.
No, no, no! thought Graham. It’s the real one!
He felt something smash into the side of his jaw, and everything went dark.
* * * *
Tucker had only typed a few lines before he knew he was in way over his head. The fake Ichabod would write things meant to make him sound insane, but he’d immediately follow up with technical questions about algorithms and data sets.
“We’ve got to get Noh to help us out,” Tucker said after making something up about two-way ANOVAS. “I can’t keep this up. Tell Nera to unlock the door and get Noh to come down here. Wait, but you have to tell me the score first.”
“Seriously?” Cole exclaimed.
“Just do it!” Tucker commanded.
Cole squinted at the Jumbotron through the stained window. “2:50 to go, 64-62, UCLA.” He turned to signal the camera, but then stopped short when the door of the skybox opened abruptly. The doorway was filled with a menacing hulk.
Cole had forgotten just how big Ichabod was, wide in the shoulders and erect as a redwood. The goatee and shaggy appearance were gone, but the glare off the glasses was still there. He was wearing a souvenir t-shirt and a ridiculous blue-and-yellow wig which he threw down as he stepped into the room.
Tucker, still engrossed in the tablet, didn’t register Cole’s voiceless attempts to get his attention. In an instantaneous burst of fury, Ichabod leapt over to Tucker and ripped the tablet away, flinging it across the room. With a backward sweep of his hand, he slammed Tucker across the chin and sent him sprawling.
Cole made a desperate break for the open door. He had gone only a few feet when Ichabod caught him by the back collar and jerked him over the row of seats. A paralyzing pain burned through his back; he suddenly found his voice and yelled in agony.
The camera! Tucker spun around to signal a frantic call for help to Noh and Nera, scrambling over chairs to put a safe distance between himself and Ichabod. But Ichabod wasn’t going for him. Seeing the camera mounted on the wall, the juggernaut snapped it from its base and threw it at Tucker’s head. Then with both men cornered, Ichabod reached into his pocket.
At the sudden silence in the room, Cole gingerly pulled himself up from between the seats. Ichabod had pulled something out of his pocket and was swinging it back and forth like a hypnotist.
“Two of the four. Half the horsemen,” he said quietly. His deep voice was strained with agitation. “I knew who you were years ago. It goes down from two to one to oblivion. It says so. Pestilence and Death. It doesn’t matter which is which, but I know. The fire made me see it, it cleared my eyes. Four to two to one to nothing, complete obliteration. This will happen now.”
Ichabod began to twirl the object with his wrist, slowly at first but quickly picking up speed, slicing through the air in rhythm with his relentless footsteps. What was that thing? Cole could see two strings pulled taut by something weighted down between them. Something heavy that was now spinning faster and faster. A sling. Goliath had a sling.
“You four,” the madman continued, twirling a little faster now. “You were going to do it by making predictions, witchcraft in the form of prophecy in the form of sheep’s clothes. You wanted glory.” The insane arsonist fixated on Cole and walked an unhurried pace toward him. His movements sparked a random memory in Cole’s panic-sick mind. He saw an image of a nature show about great white sharks and remembered how they swam steadily, methodically, because they knew nothing in the ocean could ever stop them. Ichabod seemed to Cole to move like a shark. What a stupid thing to think about right before you die, he scolded himself, his hand instinctively shoving back through his floppy hair. Still trapped between the rows of seats, he fought spasms of pain as he stumbled away from the oncoming giant.
“Pride was the downfall of the son of the morning. His bracket lost, you know who I’m talking about. There is always a downfall. The tower fell. The columns fell, the ceiling fell. The stones do it. The fire does it.” Ichabod’s voice swelled like a preacher’s, his sling whirling in tight, fast rotations by his side. “Which will fall first now?”
Ichabod reared back, his hand raising above his shoulder to launch the stone. Tucker sprang up in a crash of chairs and launched himself onto Ichabod’s back. For a moment, Tucker was on top, but with a primal roar, Ichabod threw him headfirst to the floor and grabbed for something to bring down on the unmoving body. Without a single thought, Cole vaulted the seats awkwardly and lunged at Ichabod. But the giant madman caught him in the chest with a massive forearm, hammering him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him. Snapping his sling back into a lethal spin, Ichabod pinned Cole to the floor with a heavy foot on his chest.
“Where is your glory now!” he bellowed, his face horribly contorted in triumph.
Suddenly, the room was filled with an ear-splitting siren. Disoriented, Ichabod released the sling haphazardly, missing Cole entirely, and covered his ears with a furious scream. The screens came to life and strobed unbearable, piercing light intermixed with the deep red image of a bloody human heart. Ichabod whipped out another rock and launched it at the screens, fracturing the images but not stopping the sensory onslaught. Finding himself free, Cole gulped air and struggled to crawl away in the confusion. But the distraction didn’t last; Ichabod threw down the sling, slammed his foot onto Cole’s throat, and raised his arm to bring Cole’s life to a final, crushing end.
The blow never came. Ichabod was tackled from behind by a gang of security guards, the shock of tazers crackling as he lurched and convulsed in blind fury. Among the mass of men trying desperately to subdue the giant was Henry, landing blows as often as he could.
Cole felt someone grab him from behind and flinched in pain. “Relax, relax, it’s me,” Nera said, enfolding Cole in her arms. “You’re safe, it’s over.”
Suddenly noticing Tucker inert on the floor, Henry jumped off Ichabod and sprinted to his son. “Tucker? Son!” he called. To his relief, Tucker rolled over with a groan and rubbed a lump that was forming on his head.
“Hey, Dad,” Tucker said, dazed.
“Hey, son.” Henry checked his son over, then stood up. “You don’t look so bad.”
Tucker chuckled and groaned. “Wow,” he said, “I can’t remember anything after…” His eyes fell on the tablet computer, face down on the floor.
“The bomb!” he said loudly.
Tucker scrambled to stand but collapsed back, pointing to the tablet. Henry retrieved it, and Nera helped Cole over to see what was happening. The foursome
looked at the screen. The feed was still running.
“Look at that,” Tucker said, pointing. The feed from Perry’s room hadn’t changed, but the feed from the fake Ichabod’s room showed the figure in the sweatshirt pacing, a phone held nervously to his ear. The trigger had been left alone on the desk.
Cole studied the image and looked over at Tucker.
“Am I crazy, or does that look like…?”
Tucker nodded. “I think it is.”
Cole typed:
Neeson?
The man looked at his computer screen, dropped the phone, and quickly hit a button on the keyboard. The feed cut to static.
“What is going on here?” The livid chief of security, his face as red as his hair, had just marched in. He passed by the now-subdued behemoth beneath the squadron of guards, and then looked at Tucker and Cole with absolute disgust.
Tucker put up his hands and tried to explain. “Listen. There was a federal marshal, Marshall Bell, but that wasn’t his real name. He showed us this video of Perry Lynwood’s room and said there was a suitcase that had a bomb in it. He said that—”
Cole urgently called Tucker’s attention to the screen again. The security chief looked over their shoulders. The video feed from Perry’s room showed a visitor walking in. He was young and skinny, with a scraggly face that was too big for his body and ears that made him look like an elf. On the bedside table, he placed a box of chocolates, then sat down to stare sadly at Perry’s unconscious bulk. He pulled up a chair by the bedside and sat, mouthing words they couldn’t hear. The visitor’s feet nudged the suitcase. Curious, he nudged it again, then flipped it up on the chair next to him. Cole shut his eyes hard and almost yelled out loud when the man started opening the zipper.
Nothing happened. There was nothing inside. The visitor seemed confused and put the suitcase back exactly where it had been.
No bomb.
