by Paul Bishop
"You don't scare me, Chapel. You were with the bastards who killed Sean. Now it's your turn to squirm. After the final, after I'm done having my fun with your girlfriend, I'm coming after you."
"Why wait till after the final?" I asked, desperately trying to push any of Donovan's buttons. "Won't Nina Brisbane let you off your leash before then?"
"I'm being paid to do a job of work. When that job is done, sending you to hell will be my sole obsession. Nina Brisbane will have her revenge, and then I'll have mine. If you do anything that stops the game going off as scheduled tonight, your bird will die immediately." Donovan laughed nastily. "Remember, though, once the game starts, it's one finger for every goal you let in. We'll be close, and I'll be watching." He hung up the phone.
I put the receiver down and took a deep breath. By pushing Donovan, I had learned two things. First, Donovan was working for Nina Brisbane and Nina was after some form of revenge. And second, Donovan, Nina, and Bekka would be somewhere close during the game. It wasn't much, but it would have to be enough.
I closed my good eye and put my head in my hands. After a few seconds, I felt Sticks come up behind me and put his arm around my shoulders. He obviously knew something was up.
"Whatever has gone wrong, son, we'll get through it together."
I used Ethan's beeper number to contact him. When he called, I quickly filled him in and arranged to meet him at Bekka's condominium. I hadn't been to the condo before, and Ethan had to trace Bekka's phone number through a contact at the phone company to get her address. Fortunately, it was located very close to the Marriott in a complex referred to as Warner Center. The Laverda sped me there in short order, and after knocking repeatedly on Bekka's door and getting no answer, I was forced to wait on pins and needles for Ethan to arrive.
Larger than apartments, but smaller than most houses, the condos were groups of three or four look-alike residences connected to each other by a common wall. The complex which housed the development was fairly new and the landscaping was well maintained. There was a communal pool and a recreation room. Both appeared to be used extensively by the twenty- to thirty-year-old newlyweds and singles who seemed to make up the majority of the complex's residents. While waiting for Ethan, I knocked on the doors of the condos on either side of Bekka's. None of the occupants had seen Bekka, or anything out of the ordinary.
Ethan finally turned up with one of the black clad men from the night before at the Acropolis. Knowing Donovan's expertise in explosives, we took things very carefully opening the door to Bekka's apartment in case of a booby trap.
Ethan's partner had brought an explosives sniffing dog with him. When the dog gave off no positive indications after sniffing around the doorjamb, Ethan took a slim packet out of his jacket pocket. From the packet, he extracted several thin pieces of metal and proceeded to pick the two locks with skilled speed.
The door was eased open a crack and then Ethan's partner sprayed an aerosol around the opening. The aerosol was designed to show up any trip wires that could be lurking in deadly earnest. When the door was fully opened, the dog was brought into play again, entering and searching the premises before coming back to the door without giving any indications that explosives or booby traps were present.
Fortunately, the entrance to Bekka's condo was secluded from the main parts of the complex and our actions hadn't attracted attention. After the dog had finished his duties and had been fussed over by his handler, we entered the dwelling to complete a search of our own.
The interior was inexpensively, but tastefully decorated in cool pastel colors and soft fabric. Everything was neat and tidy except for the bathroom off the master bedroom where mere were obvious signs of a struggle. Makeup containers had been knocked off the countertop, a hair-curling brush was still plugged into a socket near the sink, and a hand mirror had been smashed against a wall.
"Seven year's bad luck for someone," Ethan said as he picked the mirror's frame up of the floor.
"I'm going to make damn sure that someone is Liam Donovan," I said. Stabs of anger burst in my stomach like gastric flames.
"We have to find him first," Ethan replied. I was surprised he didn't give me a lecture about taking vigilante action or staying out of the way of the police investigation, but then I knew Ethan wasn't a standard type of policeman. His unit had its own agenda that seemed to tie in closely with the efforts of Sir Adam and his cloak-and-dagger connections. Because of my connections to Sir Adam, Ethan appeared to regard me as an equal, a fact for which I was grateful.
We continued to look through the condo with Ethan and his partner for any indications of Donovan's intentions. I don't know what it was we were expecting to find. Perhaps a treasure map with "X" marking the spot where Donovan had taken Bekka. What I did find, though, only served to add to the stress of the situation.
Bekka had plopped her purse and a stack of miscellaneous bills, mail, and papers on her kitchen table. Flipping through them, I came across a plain lavender envelope with my first name scrawled across the front in large cursive letters. The envelope wasn't sealed, and inside was a contemporary greeting card.
The picture on the front of the card was of a couple walking hand in hand along a beach. The sun was low over the water, lending a golden glow to the scene. Printed across the bottom of the card was the sentiment: Every time I think of love ...I opened the card to where the sentiment was continued:/ think of you. Beneath the printed sentiment, Bekka had added words of her own: "I found love when I found you." She had signed her name in the same scrawling freehand she had used to put my name on the front of the envelope.
I'd often received cards from family, friends, and fans, but this was the first time in my life a woman I cared about had ever expressed herself in this manner. My heart felt like it was being squeezed into a knot, and I was terrified I would never see her again.
"You find something?" Ethan asked.
I held out the card to him and he read it.
"I'm sorry," he said, handing the card back. "I won't tell you not to worry, and I'm not going to offer you false hope. If we're going to find Bekka, we're going to need time and luck, so you better get prepared to stop everything that New York throws at you tonight."
"And now introducing our own Los Angeles Rrrrrrra-vens!" The voice of the public-address system announcer echoed down the player's tunnel where I waited with the rest of the team. Minus Bekka.
The surprisingly large crowd was capacity for the stadium. They came through with a heartwarming roar, and for the first time since I came to America, I thought soccer might stand a chance of surviving. I just didn't know if Bekka would. Or if I would.
Ethan and I had gone directly from Bekka's condo to the Acropolis, where a team meeting was scheduled prior to the game. We found both Sir Adam and Wagstaff before going into the meeting and filled them in on what was happening. Like everyone else they were concerned but had no ideas about how to handle the situation besides progressing in the hopes that Ethan could work a miracle.
We discussed cancelling the game and throwing the whole situation open to a full-scale investigation, but Donovan's threat to immediately kill Bekka if the game didn't go on as planned was enough to douse the flames of that idea.
In the meeting, Sticks had made an excuse for Bekka's absence to the other players who weren't in the know. After that, he'd kept things short and sweet. If we weren't already prepared for the game with New York, we never would be. Tonight, was our chance to shine, to show the world what we were made of. For some of the players tonight was also a final chance to impress scouts from European teams looking for American bargains.
Sir Adam had Terranee Brisbane under his thumb but could get nothing useful out of the man in regard to Bekka. Ethan and his crew had searched the Acropolis as best they could, but the only thing they had turned up was the makeshift living quarters used by Archer and the Hardbirds. No Donovan. No Nina Brisbane. No Bekka.
In the player's tunnel, waiting for our introduction
, Wag-staff had turned to me and placed both hands on my shoulders.
"Never give up," he said to me in a quiet voice. "It is the single most important trait that has made you English unbeatable in any war. You never, ever, give up, no matter what the odds. Don't give up tonight. You and I will each play like ten men. We will be indomitable."
I forced a smile and then it was spotlight time. Wagstaff's name was announced over the PA system, and he turned away from me and ran into the arena. Five seconds later, my own name was called, and I jogged out into the blaze of lights and the roar of the crowd.
For all my apprehension, I felt ten feet tall in the goal and faster than anything that could be thrown at me. The crowd was reacting with the phenomenal presence that gave them the force of an extra player on the field. This was what the promise of American soccer held—the same symbiosis of team skills and fanatical fan involvement which lifted the game above the level of a sport and onto a plateau usually reserved for religions, a plateau where gods and miracles are commonplace.
Bekka's chances were now in the hands of the soccer deities, and the only way for me to plead my case was to display my skills to the limits of my abilities and beyond.
When I had entered the arena to the cheers of the crowd, I had jogged to the center line to join my teammates. Ravens team flags had been handed out to the fans as they had arrived. All of the flags were waving, giving the impression of a flowing stream of alternating colors.
As the national anthem played, I looked to our bench. In the seats directly behind it, I saw Sir Adam sitting next to a very pale and drawn Terranee Brisbane. If I had ever doubted Sir Adam's continued involvement in clandestine activities, one look at the power he was now obviously exerting over Terranee Brisbane was enough to make me a believer.
Sir Adam saw me looking at him and nodded his head. He also pointed to his left and my eyes tracked the direction of his movement. A dozen or so seats further down, with the best view of the field, were some surprise guests. My brother Gerald and his wife Zoe waved wildly at me as the national anthem ended. Next to them was an even bigger surprise—Sid Doyle. His cheeks were flushed with the excitement of the evening and he was grinning at me like a happy madman.
I ran over and tapped the Plexiglas extending from the boards in front of them. They were yelling words of encouragement at me. However, all but the obvious sentiment was lost in the noise of the crowd. I moved down to the bench to pick up my gloves. My heart struggled between the elation of the movement and desperation concerning Bekka. Sir Adam came down to the bench enclosure and caught my ear.
"We're doing everything we can. Ethan and his entire crew are continuing to comb the Acropolis. We've got an additional man up with the security cameras scanning the crowd. If Donovan and Nina Brisbane are here with Bekka, they'll find them."
Donovan had told me on the phone, "We'll be close, and I'll be watching." With soccer being what it was at this point in American history, tonight's game was only being carried live over the radio. An all-sports cable TV channel was there to film the game, but it was for delayed broadcast in a time frame for insomniacs. If Donovan was going to be close and watching, then he had to be somewhere in the stadium. I looked at the capacity crowd. Where could you sit with a terrified woman and cut off one of her fingers every time her lover let a goal slip by him?
On the field, a ball launched itself at me from midfield as New York tried to work a fast break. I came out of the goal and out of the penalty area to boot the ball back down the field.
Wagstaff, who had been dropping back quickly on defense, patted me on the butt as he passed behind me. "Don't get carried away," he told me. "Stay in the goal. Leave the field to me." He was right of course, but I was so full of energy I wanted to ram the ball into the opposite goal myself.
Gunner Torenson was New York's main scoring threat. A big muscular German, he was a contemporary of Wag-staff's. I'd been warned by Wagstaff that Gunner was an enforcer, and I 'd already experienced one of his elbows trying to bury itself in my neck outside of the referee's view.
New York began to attack again. Gunner brought the ball quickly up the middle and then played it off to Trent Marlon, an American-bred winger whose ball-control skills rivaled those of many European and South American players. As New York hustled down the field, we were caught on the hop during a line change and found ourselves short-handed in the backfield.
Hank Decker moved to cover Marlon, but he was no match for the more skilled player. Marlon beat him flat-footed and shot the ball in a hard, low-line drive across the goal. Gunner bulled his way past Bloodworth and crashed into me as I dove out to scoop the ball into my arms. The referee blew his whistle for the foul, but the damage had been done. There was no air in my lungs, and I lay on the carpet alternately dry heaving and gasping for breath.
The referee showed Gunner a yellow booking card, which the big German simply smirked at while our trainer and Sticks came off the bench to attend to me. They couldn't take me out of the game, not only because of Donovan's threats, but because there was nobody to replace me. Bekka was missing in action, and Nick Kronos still hadn't returned after being in police custody.
Bobby Rogers, our trainer, put me in a sitting position and lifted my arms up over my head. Air seeped slowly back into my lungs. Eventually I was able to stand up on my own accord and limp back to the goal. My eye patch had been twisted around. I pulled off a glove and adjusted the black triangle of cotton back to its normal position.
Before New York could take another crack at me, the whistle blew to end the first period. Sticks immediately huddled with the offensive players and I sat on the bench sucking air and orange quarters. I looked over to Sir Adam who shrugged his shoulders and gave me a hang-in-there gesture.
When play resumed, I was still not fully recovered, and New York renewed their assault with fresh determination. They were looking to take advantage of my weakened condition, but they had not reckoned on dealing with Kurt Wagstaff. Exploding in a fury of activity, Wagstaff appeared to be everywhere at once. When he wasn't cutting Gunner down at midfield, he was intercepting passes between Trent Marlon and New York's other forward, Randall Newman.
In between defensive maneuvers, Wagstaff combined with Pat Devlin for our own all-out assault on New York's goal.
Sticks kept freely substituting Chico Juarez, Pepe Brazos, and Jackson Bopha on the front line, but he left Wagstaff and Devlin alone as they were playing like demons. In the backfield, Sticks didn't substitute as freely, but he still kept Decker, Hardacre, Dakota, and Bloodworth rotating if they showed signs of fatigue.
As I regained my strength, I began to ache for the touch of the ball. I got my wish when Trent Marlon hit a first-time volley that came at me like a rocket. I only had time to knock it down and was then forced to scramble for the loose ball. I dove after it and at the same time caught sight of Gunner's foot as it viciously slashed toward my head. Not again, my brain screamed. My fingers wrapped around the ball and I rolled away. I felt the slipstream of air as Gunner's boot missed me by a fraction of an inch, and then I swung my legs around to collide with the single leg he was standing on. He crashed to the carpet in agony.
The referee's whistle blew. I figured the foul was being called on me, but it was Gunner who was again called for dangerous play. I was hoping he'd be red carded and thrown out of the game, but the referee wasn't of the same mind.
The tit-for-tat foul was sometimes the name of the game. By taking Gunner down, I'd served notice that I was not going to be messed around with anymore. Gunner would think twice now before trying to intimidate or bully his way through me again.
I heard a cry from up the field and blasted the goal kick out to Wagstaff. He was right at the midfield line, and as I kicked the ball, he caught New York's defense on the square. He ran past them and controlled my pass beautifully.
Running forward, he drew New York's goalie, Deke Theakston, out of the goal mouth. Theakston moved confidently to cut down the angle, bu
t Wagstaff was the better man. With consummate skill he stepped one foot over the ball, brought his rear foot up to trap the ball between it and the heel of his front foot, and then flicked his heels up in the air.
The ball popped up behind Wagstaff, arched over his head, over Theakston's surprised, outstretched hand, and then dropped neatly down in front of the goal where Wag-staff was waiting to meet it and pound it home. Lights flashed, buzzers blared, alarms sounded, and the crowd came to its feet in an astounded mass to give tribute to a beautiful display of skill. The Ravens swarmed down the field to embrace Wagstaff, who ran to meet them with his fist upraised in triumph.
There was a short flurry of activity in midfield after the ensuing kickoff, but before New York could mount a counterattack, the referee blew the whistle for halftime.
One to zero. I had kept a virgin net for the first half of the game. And, hopefully, Bekka had kept all her fingers.
In the locker room, I was too wound up to concentrate on what was going on around me. I had congratulated Wagstaff, but he was now grouped together with Sticks and the assistant coaches as they went over second-half strategy. I slunk out of the room and back down the player's tunnel. I stood at tunnel mouth and stared out into the arena.
In the middle of the playing field the halftime activities were in full swing. A square, two-tiered platform had been set up over the center circle, and various dignitaries from the league were making short speeches. Several presentations were being made to the accompaniment of crowd applause.
Sir Adam was standing in front of the player's bench at one side of the field. Next to him was Terranee Brisbane, holding the silver plate that was to be awarded to Pat Devlin as the league's outstanding player of the year. Devlin himself was standing on the other side of Sir Adam, waiting for his turn to be introduced into the hoopla.
I saw Ethan standing in the player's penalty box. He was looking up at the score cube that loomed over the square presenting platform. I followed his stare.