Panic in Pittsburgh

by Roy MacGregor

  With five minutes left on the clock, Derek Dillinger and Andy Higgins broke away on a two-on-one, Billings the only Panther back. Derek had the puck and went to pass to Andy, waiting to onetime his shot, when Billings made a brilliant play by suddenly lunging forward between the two Owls and blocking the pass.

  Unfortunately for Billings, the pass hit his shin pads and bounced right back to Derek. Because the Panthers’ goaltender had also played the pass, anticipating a shot from Andy, Derek was left with a virtually empty net, and he easily fired in the goal that put the Owls up 4–3.

  Travis felt sorry for Billings. It had been a brilliant defensive play, but as so often happened in hockey, the bounce went one way rather than the other. “Puck luck,” Muck liked to call it. There were some things in hockey that no amount of skill could make happen and no amount of coaching could prevent. Puck luck.

  The next five minutes Travis found harder than if he’d been playing. He tried to be useful by opening and closing the gate for the forwards, but most of the Owls were so pumped up they leaped the boards to get on and leaped them again to come off. He felt useless. But he was sweating harder than if he’d been playing. The tension was huge.

  The Owls had only to hang on and they’d have their trip to the championship game. Though Muck had said in his speech that there wasn’t much coaching he could do in a game like this, Travis thought that Muck was the key.

  Muck kept sending out Nish with Lars, using his top defenders to keep the Panthers at bay. And he had Sarah staying back on her own side of center, always ready to back-check if necessary.

  When those three tired to the point where none of them could go on, Muck called his time out. Though Muck had called it, however, he never said a word to his players. No lecture. No chalkboard to design a play. Nothing. Over at the Panthers’ bench, their coach was taking the opportunity to do all of these things, rapidly drawing up plays and wiping the board clean and then trying another plan.

  Travis laughed to himself. You would never have known it was Muck who called the time out.

  He looked at Nish, bent almost double on the ice, gasping for breath. His tomato face looked about to explode. How could Nish be the most thoughtless, ridiculous person on earth, Travis wondered, and also be the most dependable, most determined defenseman on the team? It was as if he were two different people. And today, in fact he was: “Nishikawa” might have been the name on his jersey, but underneath was the Iceman T-shirt.

  The time out over, the referee blew his whistle and called the teams back to the face-off circle. It would be Sarah against Yantha. She looked up, waiting for the linesman to drop the puck.

  Yantha winked.

  They both knew this was a great game. They both knew that one team would go on and the other would go home. But there was no dislike, only admiration. If the Panthers won, Sarah would cheer for them; if the Owls won, Yantha had just told her without saying a word, the Panthers would do the same.

  Yantha won the face-off and got away a quick shot that rang off the crossbar behind Jenny and into the glass and out of play.

  They faced off again, and this time Sarah won, sliding the puck back to Nish, who calmly took it behind his own net.

  He was killing time, staring up at the clock, which seemed, to Travis, to be moving slower than a snail. Hurry up! he said to himself. Hurry up!

  Nish worked his way out of his own end, carefully protecting the puck. He dumped it in, and the Owls waited at center for the attack, led by little Billings.

  The Panthers came on strong. Billings had a good shot from the point and Yantha a second chance on the rebound, but Jenny was acrobatic in the Owls’ net and kept both shots out.

  With a minute and a half to go, the Panthers pulled their goalie. He raced off as another Panther rolled over the boards.

  With a player advantage, the Panthers pressed even harder, but a combination of Nish blocking shots and Jenny stopping them meant they couldn’t score.

  Finally, Billings drove a hard shot that a falling Nish took off his shin pads.

  Even falling, Nish was able to sweep the puck out over the blue line, where Dmitri, with his blazing speed, was able to gobble it up. He got it across to little Simon Milliken, who skated in all alone and dropped the puck into the Panthers’ net.

  A 5–3 victory for the Screech Owls.

  The Owls mobbed Simon, and when Simon came to the bench, Travis thought the little guy was almost in tears. Tears of joy.

  It crossed Travis’s mind that it would have been him out there, not Simon, if he hadn’t been hurt – that he would be the hero being mobbed. But he shook off the thought. He was glad for Simon.

  The clock ran down quickly after the final face-off. When the buzzer sounded, Travis watched as Yantha went over and tapped Sarah’s shin pads and she tapped his back.

  They lined up to shake hands, and when the handshakes were done, Billings led the Panthers over to the Owls’ bench, where each of them in turn leaned over the boards to shake Travis’s hand.

  “Next time,” Billings said with a smile.

  “Next time,” Travis smiled back.

  15

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Travis had taken Sarah aside as soon as the victorious Owls had returned to Station Square. They had been singing and laughing on the bus, but Sarah had noticed that Travis sat quietly on his own, staring out at the river as the shuttle carrying the team crossed the bridges and twisted through the streets. She figured it was for good reason – he was better, but not completely recovered from the concussion. Besides, Travis was naturally quiet. As her father often said of those who spoke little, “Still waters run deep.” And that pretty much summed up Travis Lindsay in her mind.

  But now he wanted to talk.

  “Shoot,” she told him, but he shook his head.

  “Not here.”

  “We can walk down along the river,” Sarah suggested. “I’ll get my coat and meet you in the lobby.”

  “Bring Sam,” he said.

  Sarah nodded and headed for the elevator. What could all this be about? she wondered as the elevator doors closed.

  Travis went up to his room for his own coat. He pulled his bulky team jacket over his tracksuit and was just leaving again when Nish – the Iceman – came running along the hallway so as to make the sheet with the big I on it fly out behind him like a real cape. The sheet was frayed. Nish had clearly been working at it with scissors, trying to get it to a size where it wouldn’t trip him up on his skates.

  Nish stopped, and the cape fell around his shoulders and dangled as far as his knees. He was puffing.

  “Wazzup?” he asked.

  “I’m just going down to meet Sarah. We’re going for a walk.”

  “Can I come?”

  Travis swallowed. He had originally thought to tell only Sarah. He imagined that the two of them, as captain and assistant, might go to Mr. Dillinger for advice on what to do. But he’d already told Sarah to bring Sam along.

  “I guess,” Travis said.

  He knew if he said no, there would be no end to the teasing from his big-mouth friend. Nish would carry on as if Travis and Sarah were going off for some romantic stroll in the moonlight, which wasn’t the case at all. It wouldn’t stop Nish from teasing, though.

  There was a sharp wind coming in off the river. The Owls all had their jackets zipped tight to the throat and hats pulled down over their ears. Nish, with no gloves, had his hands stuffed deep into his jacket pockets.

  A light snow swirled across the water. The river looked cold and gray. Much better, Travis thought, for lakes and rivers to freeze hard, as they had back home. He didn’t like this damp cold and half wished they’d just met to talk in one of the fast-food outlets in the square.

  But he didn’t want anyone else to hear. Not yet, anyway. Not until he knew what he had. Or could accept that in reality he had nothing.

  He told them the whole story. He admitted that he’d been confused and confessed that f
or a while he had thought it was all in his imagination, a dream of some sort, or a misunderstanding. Maybe it had been a television program on loud. Maybe it had been nothing.

  He told them about cutting his foot on the broken glass and how that made him realize he had really overheard something being planned in the other room. He did not mention the chocolate bar, as he knew that would immediately send Nish’s thoughts elsewhere, and he needed all three of his friends to concentrate hard on what he was saying.

  The two girls listened intently. Nish half listened, but at least he shut up and let Travis do all the talking.

  Sam was the first to say it was the Stanley Cup. She said it so matter-of-factly that Travis instantly knew this was exactly what he himself believed but had been too afraid to say. He’d thought for sure they would tell him he’d been dreaming, that there was no way someone would try to steal the cup again.

  “They plan to steal the cup,” Sam said again, carefully thinking it through. “They have some inside help with the key to the room where it’s being kept. And they have to do it in the morning before the cup is taken over to the Winter Classic.”

  “I say it’s a bank machine they’re after,” said Nish, trying to look and sound serious at the same time. A difficult task for Nish.

  “Too heavy for a duffel bag,” said Sarah.

  “But it’s money!” Nish protested. “What are you going to do with the Stanley Cup? Hide it in your basement and hold it over your head like you won it or something?”

  “Ransom, dummy,” Sam sneered. “You couldn’t find a bank machine with as much money as they’d get for giving the cup back.”

  “I think Sam’s right,” said Sarah. “Besides, what would they need to switch a room key for if it was the lobby bank machine they were after? If what you heard is right, Travis, then the plan is to get it away from the hotel as quickly as possible, and without anyone seeing or becoming suspicious. That’s why they have the guy pretending to be a hockey player and why they’re going to use the Incline. Once he gets up top with the cup in the equipment bag, he can load it into a car and be away without anyone seeing.”

  “Without surveillance cameras,” Nish said. “They have them all around the hotel parking lot.”

  Travis looked anew at his old friend. “You’re sure?” he asked.

  Nish nodded knowingly. “I’m sure.”

  “Nish always likes to know when he’s on camera,” Sam giggled.

  “Har! Har!” Nish sneered.

  “Makes sense,” said Sarah. “If they loaded it into a car anywhere near the hotel, they’d have it on video. The cameras would pick up the license plate number. But up on top of the hill, there’d be no danger of that.”

  Travis posed the question that had been troubling him all along.

  “How do we stop them?”

  16

  A plan was in place.

  The four Screech Owls – Travis, Sarah, Sam, and Nish – agreed that there was little point in going to anyone with a story about how Travis, groggy from concussion, had overheard two men planning to do something Sunday morning that involved one of the hotel staff. He had never heard them specifically mention the Stanley Cup. He had never seen their faces, so there was no possibility of identifying them from police photos. Not only would the Owls be dismissed outright, likely even laughed at, but the robbers, if they were indeed robbers, would get away once they realized a security watch had been put on the room where the Stanley Cup was stored.

  The Owls’ plan was to assign watches: someone to watch the front desk, someone the room, someone the exit to the fire escape. And, if necessary, they needed to get quickly to the Incline up Mount Washington. That was where, if Travis was right, the thieves planned to take the bag containing the cup to a getaway car waiting at the top. Travis was sure he had overheard that, as sure as he could be of anything lately. Whenever he tried to think it all through, he felt dizzy, almost sick. But he said nothing to the others.

  They would keep each other informed by texting. Sam had a phone, and Fahd was happy to hand his over to Travis for the morning. Travis hadn’t explained what it was for – it would be too embarrassing if nothing happened – and Fahd assumed Travis was calling his parents in Tamarack.

  They met early Sunday morning, gathering first in a quiet corner downstairs. The four went over the plan carefully, step by step, each one repeating the plan exactly so it would be memorized.

  They rapped their fists together in a pact. Sarah had the last words.

  “Let’s roll!”

  Travis’s job was to watch the front desk. He found a seat in the lobby and pretended to be deeply interested in The Hockey News. Reading still bothered him, so he just flicked through the magazine and looked at the pictures. He could hear the kitchen staff setting up for the Sunday brunch, and some of the guests were already gathered about the coffee machine talking and refilling their cups.

  “I’m right!” Travis said to himself when he saw the elevator doors open and the keeper of the Stanley Cup step out. The man looked slightly miffed. He had the key card for his room in his right hand and was impatiently tapping it on the thumb of his left hand.

  The keeper of the cup crossed immediately to the reception desk. There was a face behind the desk that Travis hadn’t seen before – a man with a white goatee and wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like a kindly doctor, Travis thought. But he knew different.

  Travis could not hear what they were saying, but he didn’t need to. The keeper of the cup handed over his key, and the white-bearded man, obviously apologizing, took it down to the far end of the long mahogany desk.

  Travis moved closer to the desk. The keeper of the Stanley Cup wasn’t watching his key being reprogrammed. He was scanning the sports section of USA Today. But Travis saw what was happening. The man behind the desk reprogrammed the keeper’s key, then slipped a second plastic card into the machine, waited a moment, and removed it. There were now two keys to the room that held the Stanley Cup.

  With another apology, the man handed over one of the keys to the keeper of the cup.

  “Not to worry,” the keeper replied with a smile.

  But Travis knew there was plenty to worry about.

  He took out Fahd’s phone and sent the others a message.

  “They have a copy of the key!”

  17

  Sarah was watching the room. Sam walked by her, relayed what Travis had reported, and kept walking. Sam would set up watch at the far end of the hall, where the stairs for the fire escape were.

  Sarah stood, flipping through one of the newspapers stacked on a small table near the elevators. It wasn’t long before one of the elevator doors opened and the keeper of the cup got off. She waited until he had turned down the corridor before following. He tried the key by waving it near the lock on his door, there was a quick buzz, and he opened the door and stepped in.

  If this key worked, then the copy would also work.

  Sarah stayed down at the far end of the hall, kneeling, as if she were retying her shoes. Very shortly, the door to the room opened again and the keeper stepped out and headed for the elevators. He was going to brunch downstairs. He would return for the cup later, as the final was scheduled for 1:00 p.m. at Heinz Field and the cup was to be on display for the fans to take photographs. The winning team would then pose with the cup for their championship photo.

  Sarah knew this was never going to happen unless the four Owls could stop the thieves from making off with the cup. She walked quickly down the hall to where Sam was waiting, and Sam sent Travis a message.

  Travis and Nish were together in the lobby when the message arrived. “Room now empty.” They watched as the elevator doors opened and the keeper of the cup stepped out. He went immediately to the dining area, which had just opened for the Sunday brunch.

  As the keeper of the cup passed by the two Owls, two men passed them in the other direction. One was short and heavy, the other tall and skinny. They made an odd couple. The tall one
had long hair, the short one no hair. The tall one wore all black, the short one a rainbow of colors, a bright-green down jacket, and orange track pants. Pretty dumb, Travis thought, if you want to pass unnoticed.

  The two men waited to make sure the keeper was indeed going into brunch, then pushed the elevator button to go up. Travis noticed that the short, stumpy man carried something folded tightly and wrapped in plastic. He knew what it would be: a brand-new hockey equipment bag.

  Travis sent a quick text message to the girls: “They’re coming.”

  He and Nish watched as the numbers on the elevator rose, finally stopping at the floor where the girls were keeping watch.

  “Let’s go!” Travis said.

  The boys moved toward the back of the building and pushed through a rear door that overlooked the river and the city on the far side. It was snowing more heavily now, large flakes floating down slowly onto the river and vanishing as they hit the water.

  “Over there!” Nish hissed, and poked Travis in the ribs.

  Travis turned. Standing to the side of the building was a young man, and he had a hockey stick in his hands.

  “Keep going,” Travis whispered. They headed around the building in the opposite direction, not even looking back.

  They were headed for the Incline.

  Sarah and Sam held their breath as they crouched in the stairwell with the door partially opened so that they could see down the corridor. They heard the elevator doors open and close and then saw the two men moving along the hallway.

  Sam giggled. Sarah knew why. The tension was one thing, but you couldn’t help laugh at the sight of these two strange men.

  The short man had a key card out. They stopped in front of the room that held the Stanley Cup and he waved the key in front of the lock. There was a buzz, the lock opened, and the two men quickly entered the room.

  “We’d better hightail it,” Sarah said. “They might come down by the stairs.”

  The two girls raced down the hallway, past the room, to the main elevators. They were fairly certain the two men would not come that way, and if they did, the two girls would simply act as if they were guests waiting for the elevator, just like the men.