Blackout

by Jason Elam

  “. . . and this is the owner’s suite,” Riley’s cheerful little escort announced as they walked into a room decorated in faux rustic and animal-head chic. I wonder if he shot all these himself, Riley thought, admiring the mounted head of a large sable. The way the ticks had chewed away at the antelope’s ears answered his question. This was not a farm-raised animal. Maybe I’ll get along with Mr. Bellefeuille after all.

  “Let’s see if they’re ready for you,” Madeline said as she turned toward a frosted-glass door.

  “Yes, let’s,” Riley said with a smile, causing her to quickly glance back to see if he was mocking her. Riley just winked and nodded toward the door.

  Just as quickly, Madeline’s smile returned, and she knocked, then opened the door when a voice from inside called out, “Come in.”

  Monday, July 27, 8:05 a.m. EDT

  Warriors Park, Ashburn, Virginia

  All Riley’s hopes for getting along with Rick Bellefeuille flew out the window as soon as he saw the man’s face. In that moment Riley remembered that this trade was not the idea of either PFL organization but was the brainchild of a goateed analyst in the counterterrorism division of the Department of Homeland Security.

  “Mr. Bellefeuille, this is—”

  “I know who he is,” Bellefeuille interrupted Madeline. “Close the door behind you.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied as she quickly retreated out the door.

  “Welcome, Riley,” Coach Medley said, walking over to him, shaking his hand, and leading him to a dark leather chair in front of the large desk. “It’s good to have you as part of the organization.”

  “Thanks, Coach, it’s good to be here.”

  “Okay, let’s cut the bull,” Bellefeuille interjected. “We all know the score here. You didn’t want to come here. And, while I’m happy for what you could be adding to our defense, I don’t like being told what to do with my organization. If it wasn’t for some legal issues my family is facing—which, by the way, makes this whole thing feel like it’s just a step above common blackmail—without those issues, there’s no way I would have let you on my team.”

  “Fair enough,” Riley said. It was all he would allow himself to say. The fact that this guy was treating him like he was doing Riley some huge favor by letting him be part of his team rubbed Riley the wrong way.

  “And I also don’t like being kept in the dark about things that affect the Warriors organization. So before I let you into my locker room, I’d like for you to tell me what’s really going on here,” Bellefeuille demanded, leaning back in his deep mahogany chair.

  Riley took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry you’ve been put in this position. I’m even more sorry that I’ve been put in this position, because believe me, this would not have been my choice.

  “Now, I’m not sure what you know, but whatever it is, it’s what Homeland Security has determined you need to know. You can keep me out of your locker room if you like, but the fact is, I’m not at liberty to say anything beyond what you’ve already been told.”

  Bellefeuille’s hand slammed the top of his desk. “Don’t you talk to me about what you are and what you’re not at liberty to say! This is my team! This is my facility! I know enough about your history to know that the Mustangs kept you out of minicamp earlier this year because of concerns for the safety of the club and their training center! I will not have you risking the lives of my people just so that you can keep playing Captain America!”

  Captain America again, he thought. Enough with the Captain America already. Ever since USA Today had run a front-page picture of him wearing a computer-generated cape and bearing that caption, the moniker had stuck. And it drove him crazy.

  As much as Riley wanted to lose his cool with Bellefeuille, he couldn’t. Rick Bellefeuille’s concerns were well-founded. While the target on Riley’s back was smaller than it had been a couple of months ago, it was still there. The fatwa that had been declared against him in May had not, as far as he had heard, been called off. The very fact that Skeeter was sitting out in Riley’s rented SUV attested to his still-precarious situation.

  “Mr. Bellefeuille, I’m truly sorry for the situation that you’re—that we’re—in. Truth be known, you’re right—I’d rather not be here. While I have respect for you and your organization, I would much prefer to be sitting in Denver right now.

  “But because of circumstances beyond either of our control, I’m stuck here now, and you’re stuck with me. However, I can promise you one thing. I will give you 100 percent every day. I will work like a dog to learn Coach’s system. As far as I’m concerned, I am a Warrior now, and I will do everything I can to make your team—our team—better.”

  “Yeah, rah, rah. Go team.” Bellefeuille sat for what seemed like an eternity before continuing. “I’ve been in business long enough to know that when life hands you crap, you make crap sandwiches and sell them for three-fifty a pop.”

  “Okay,” Riley said tentatively, not sure where the owner was going with this.

  “As I’ve said, I don’t want you here, but since you are here, I’m going to make the best of it. So expect to fulfill every media requirement in your contract, plus some more that I will ask you to do as a personal favor to me. Captain America comes to the nation’s capital,” Bellefeuille said as he ran his hand through the air like he was reading another of his cheap vinyl banners. “Got any problems with that?”

  Riley’s heart sank. Nothing like feeling like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. But that’s the nature of the biz. “No, sir.”

  “Good. Medley, you got anything you need to go over with Riley before he leaves us?”

  Coach Medley, who obviously had learned to wait his turn with Bellefeuille, answered, “Not really. We’ll talk later, Riley. Head downstairs and find your locker. Then go to the equipment room and get what you need. Someone will come for you for a uniformed photo shoot at 11:45. No pads, but with your helmet. You can join up with the team after lunch.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Medley stood. “Good to have you on board, Riley.”

  Riley stood too and shook Medley’s hand. “Thanks, Coach.”

  When he turned to say something to Bellefeuille, the owner just nodded toward the door. Riley picked up his bag and walked out of the office.

  Well, that couldn’t have gone much worse. As he walked past the mounted animals in the outer room, Riley couldn’t help feeling that his head was about to join the others on the Warriors owner’s wall—a new trophy for all the world to see.

  Monday, July 27, 6:20 a.m. MDT

  Centennial, Colorado

  Muhammed Zerin Khan listened to the automated voice, then agreed to accept the charges for a long-distance collect call.

  “Hello, Zerin,” Hamza Yusuf Khan’s low, scratchy voice said over the line a moment later.

  “Dad,” Zerin responded tentatively.

  Zerin still struggled with what his relationship with his father should be. Zerin had grown up in Atlanta, Georgia, living with his mother. She was still there in the same small, dingy apartment complex.

  Mom had lived a tough life after Dad had been imprisoned for drug trafficking in the late eighties. For as long as Zerin could remember, his mother had worked two and three jobs at a time just trying to keep things together—waiting tables at the local diner, selling cigarettes and candy as a cashier at the corner gas station, cleaning trains for the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. As he had watched his mom struggle, the resentment he held for his dad had grown. Because of his dad’s stupid choices, Zerin was watching her work herself to an early grave.

  Whenever Zerin visited Atlanta, his mom still encouraged—pressured—him to visit his father in the Georgia State Prison. Somehow, in spite of her hard life, she continued to love the man who was the cause of it all. So Zerin made the drive from time to time mostly for her sake, although if forced to admit it, part of him still felt an obligation to honor his dad simply because he w
as his father—a lesson his mother had taken great pains to instill in him.

  Lately, though, if Zerin was completely honest, the visits to his dad had begun to hold a little more interest. In the last few years he had begun to notice a difference in his father. The way his mom told it, before going to prison, his dad had never been a very religious person. There was a brief stint with the Nation of Islam back in Chicago in the 1970s. But he had become disillusioned with the NOI after learning of what he felt was their heretical belief that Allah had become incarnate in Wallace Fard Muhammad. Ultimately he left the organization, though he kept the name change. Since that time he had loosely kept ties with his Muslim beliefs, sort of like someone who moves to another town but still follows the football team of the city he left.

  Now it seemed like every time Zerin visited his dad, he saw bigger and bigger changes—changes in how his father dressed, changes in how his father talked. This man who previously had kept himself meticulously shaven had grown his beard out and always seemed to have his head covered.

  After one visit, Zerin went online to do some detective work to try to uncover what was going on with his dad. What he learned surprised him. He discovered that in prison, political correctness was out the window. Instead segregation was the norm—whites stayed with whites, blacks with blacks, browns with browns. Among the prisoners, the color code was strictly enforced.

  In the power struggle within the prison walls, each group fought to create their own distinctives, whether it was in the way they wore their clothes, the ink they embedded into their bodies, or the belief systems they held to. Recently, among many of the African-American prisoners, a harsh form of Islam had taken root.

  This radical Saudi doctrine of Islam was known as Wahhabism and had been made infamous by Osama bin Laden. The followers of this sect never masked their desire to put America under Islamic control by the year 2025, saying things like, “Muslims must raise the banner of jihad until America falls under the one-world Islamic caliphate,” and “Islam is the answer, and jihad is the way.”

  Zerin’s father was fully immersed. In fact, to hear his dad tell it, he was the Wahhabi imam for all the Muslim prisoners at Georgia State Prison. He was a big man—a man who knew things, a man who controlled things, a man who made things happen. People listened to him, and nobody crossed him.

  Now Zerin’s dad was in the midst of something huge, and Zerin was dying to know what it was. Could I possibly even be part of it? Maybe this big thing, whatever it was, could help restore a relationship that never really was and give him a father he’d never really had.

  Just gotta control the temper. Don’t let him get under your skin. Try to draw him out.

  “How goes football?” Hamza asked his son.

  “It’s fine,” Zerin answered as he slipped out from under his comforter and made his way to the kitchen of his two-bedroom apartment, where his timered coffeemaker had a fresh pot waiting for him. “Big news around the locker room is Riley Covington getting sent to the Warriors.”

  “Good! That man is pure evil! A tool in Satan’s hand!” Hamza responded with venom in his voice.

  “Actually, he’s really not that bad when you get to know him. Of all the guys—”

  “Shut up, boy! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you know how many of our brothers he has killed?”

  “Our brothers? He hasn’t killed any of my brothers! In fact, I don’t have any brothers, because my father decided to get himself locked up before he could give me any,” Zerin said, angry not just at his father but also at himself for feeling the need to defend Riley Covington.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about! You keep away from him!”

  Zerin slammed a mug down on the kitchen counter. “Or what? Since when have you been able to tell me who I can associate with? Listen, this conversation is going nowhere, and it’s way too early to stand here and argue with you. Let’s just call it a—”

  “No, wait . . . wait,” Hamza said quickly. “My bad, Son. I let my emotions overtake my head. Let’s start this conversation again, all right?”

  After a moment, Zerin answered, “Sure. So what’s new there?”

  “What do you mean?” his father asked with a playful lilt to his voice. “I’m locked away in the same place I’ve been for the past twenty years. What could be new?”

  “You know what I mean,” Zerin said, frustrated that his dad was making him pump him for information. “With the project. What’s new with the project?”

  “Well, since the ‘man’ is listening in—right, Mr. Man?” Hamza said to whoever’s job it was to monitor inmate calls that day, “you know I can’t say much. But just know that things are continuing to move. When the time comes, I’m going to want you to come down here to me. I don’t care if it’s in the middle of the season and you have a game the next day. You drop everything and get yourself down here. Am I clear?”

  Obviously he has no clue about the PFL rules. I can’t just up and skip a game to visit my inmate father. Zerin shook his head, imagining how that conversation would go with Coach Burton. “Sure, Dad, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Stop! I won’t have you patronizing me. This is not something you can just laugh off, Zerin. You must come when I tell you to come. Please!”

  Zerin was taken aback. This was the first time he had ever heard that word come out of his father’s mouth. “Sure. Like I said, I’ll find a way to get there.”

  “Good, good. Listen, there are others waiting to use the phone, so I must go. You take care of yourself, Son. Follow the pillars, pray the salat, and insha’Allah, we may be together soon.”

  “Sure thing, Dad. You take care too.” It wasn’t until he had hung up the phone that his father’s last words hit him. “We may be together soon”? What’s that all about? He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table in the kitchen nook. I’ll never understand that old man, so it’s no use trying to figure him out. I’ll learn everything in its time.

  As he sipped his coffee, his mind shifted to trying to figure out if there really was a way to disappear from the team when his dad called without totally destroying any chance he had at a future PFL career.

  Monday, July 27, 8:25 a.m. EDT

  Warriors Park, Ashburn, VA

  Riley was running about 70-30 on his warm reception–cold shoulder ratio as he walked through the Warriors locker room for the first time. However, even the warm receptions consisted of little more than a handshake or a fist tap or a “Hey, Riley.” But since it was the first day of training camp and everyone had to be out on the field in five minutes, Riley knew he couldn’t have expected much more. He just thought back to how he had acted whenever a new face showed up in the Mustangs locker room. If he wasn’t in a rush, they got a “Welcome to the Mustangs.” If he was, then they got nothing. Add to that the nerves of training camp—a place where everyone had to be ready to prove himself at all times. Not the most social of situations, Riley thought.

  “Pach,” a friendly voice called from behind him. Riley turned and saw his old teammate, Don Bernier, coming his way.

  “Nails,” Riley responded, giving his friend a handshake and a one-arm hug. “Still got the garage?”

  Most people thought Bernier’s nickname derived from him being “tough as. . . .” But its origin was actually found in his hobby of building huge pieces of woodwork in his garage, then placing them around his property—or giving them to friends, whether they wanted them or not. Riley still had an eighteen-foot Celtic cross tucked among the rows of ponderosa pines on his property back in Parker. When Riley had shown him where he wanted it, Bernier had protested at its hidden location until Riley convinced him that he wanted it there as a place where he could go for private prayer retreats. That seemed to satisfy his friend, and Riley had been sure to go out there once to pray just so that he wasn’t technically lying.

  “Oh, the garage is alive and kicking! Got a guy on the team who’s a big Monty Python fan, so I’m buil
ding him a giant Trojan rabbit for his backyard,” Bernier said proudly.

  “Wow, he’ll be thrilled,” Riley said, thinking that he might want to live without a backyard for quite a while longer.

  “No, he won’t,” Bernier said with a smile. “He’ll hate it, just like you hated that big cross I gave to you.”

  Riley tried to come up with words he could say that would convince Bernier otherwise, but since it was so completely true, he just started laughing. “You know, I’m not even going to try to deny it. So if you know your buddy hates it, why are you doing it?”

  “Two reasons. First, I’ve only got so much room at my own place, so after I build these things, I have to put them somewhere. Second, the looks on the faces of you guys when I pull up in your driveways with my trailer behind me is absolutely priceless. And you were one of the worst! ‘Uh . . . I’m putting it back here . . . uh . . . for a . . . a . . . a private prayer retreat! Yeah, that’s it!’ Heather and I laughed at that one for days!”

  By this time they were laughing so hard that other players who were on their way out to the practice field started looking at them. Typically there wasn’t too much laughter on the first day of camp.

  When Riley finally could speak, he asked, “So how are Heather and the kids?”

  “Great! Hey, listen, I want to catch up and all, but I got about two minutes to beat the buzzer. You cool? You need any directions or anything?”

  “Just looking for my locker; then I got to get to the equipment room.”

  After glancing up at the clock on the wall, Bernier started backing toward the door. “Linebackers are on the other side of the locker room, toward the back corner. Then, if you go out the door right by your locker and head left down the hall, you’ll find the equipment room. The equipment manager is named Stump—he’s a good guy. Gotta go!”