[Brackets] (38 page)

“Relax,” Rick O’Shea called from the front passenger’s sea
t. “We’re closer than you think, and
Abby’s the fastest driver I know. As soon as we get off 14
th
Street, we’ll go sixty all the way to the back door. You’ll have plenty of time to hit the red carpet and get some poses in before game time.”

“There’s a red carpet?” Cole asked.

“He’s kidding,” Nera nudged him with her shoulder.
“There’s just a really long line through a metal detector.”

Henry leaned forward.

“How do you know my son again?” he called up to Rick.

“I told you,” Tucker said with a little irritation. “They work for a friend of Dr. Tonkin’s. They’re, um, consultants.”

“Consultants,” Henry repeated. He looked back
up
at Rick, who was craning his head to see the group. “And what exactly do you want from my son?”

“Dad, come on. Not everyone is trying to play us. Don’t worry about Rick and Abby, they’re for real,” Tucker urged.

“Don’t be so sure,” Rick shot back. “Clearly we’re taking him for a ride.” Everyone groaned at the pun except
for
Rick, who thought it was hilarious.

“Mr. Barnes,” Abby spoke up when Rick had calmed himself down, “you’re right to be cautious about the people that might try to exploit Tucker and Cole. A lot of people see them as celebrities, or think they have a system for choosing winners or something. I don’t expect you to just take it on trust that we’re legitimate.”

“
Okay,” Henry said. “So what should I take it on?”

“You’ll see in a minute.”

They had finally reached the Verizon Center and were half a block away from the entrance to the underground parking lot.  From where they sat, it became clear why the traffic was so bad. A large group of protesters had gathered on the other side of the street and were yelling at another limousine just about to turn in. Police were struggling to keep them behind barriers.

“Who would protest a basketball game?” asked Cole.

“I’ll give you a hint. The flag sticking up from that limousine is the South Korean flag,” said Rick.

“South Korea is protesting the game?” asked Cole.

“No,”
Tucker
interjected restively,
“
Americans
are protesting South Korea.
The Koreans
were trying to mediate a secret deal between China and Thailand
, and they got it done
,
but the deal was leaked
over th
e weekend. And now, all the pro
-Many Hands
people are mad at South Korea for
interfering.
My ex-girlfriend is a big Many Hands fan; she’s probably furious.
This is the kind of thing she would be at, too
.” Tucker glanced out the window as the thought occurred to him.

Cole was still confused.
“So… who’s in the limo? The President of South Korea?”

“
It’s t
he foreign minister and his posse,” Rick
spoke up
. “They were in town already and had been planning to come to the game for weeks.
No one cared until this weekend. Somebody got the word out about their travel plans at
just
the right time. Good ol’ leaks.”

Abby nosed through the traffic, driving close to the line of screaming protestors on
the
sidewalk. Tucker found himself
looking for Lena’s face,
but he didn’t expect
t
o see her. There was a reason she had never gotten caught for anything. If she w
ere
t
here, she would be in the back, with a cell phone and an alibi.

“Wait, ” Henry said to the couple in the front seats. “How does the protest prove that you’re legitimate?”

“Well, it proves that the foreign minister of South Korea is legitimate, doesn’t it?
”
Abby replied.
“
Two hundred screaming activists can’t be wrong.”

“So?”

“It’s the Korean
s
’
skybox that you four will be visiting during halftime. We’ll be there all game.”

Tucker looked up in surprise. “You didn’t tell me that,” he said.

“You never asked,” said Rick.

The car reached the valet stand and stopped.
As t
he four in the back exited,
Rick and Abby rolled down their windows. “We’ll see you kids during half-time,” Abby said cheerfully. “We can’t wait to see you square
off in that first half stunt, t
hat’s going to be fun. May the best bracket win!”

Tucker bent down to Abby’s open window. “Now listen. I didn’t come here for any mo
re political stuff, OK? I don’t
want to talk to any ministers or delegates or anything. I just want to watch the game. You got me?”

“You have been got,” Rick nodded. “We just want you to meet our boss. We know that even back-room international power-brokers like yourself have to unwind a little.” Tucker stood back up, completely unconvinced that
they weren’t hiding another secret.

Cole, Nera, Tucker
,
and Henry walked in through the arena’s VIP entrance, flashing their ESPN credentials. In a few minutes, they were surrounded by the chaos of the main concourse. The time
had come for Tucker and Cole to split and go to their seats on opposite ends of the court. They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment.

“Hey listen,” Tucker said, extending his hand. “Don’t try and kill yourself or anything when you lose. The security guy is already mad at us.”

Cole grinned, a small flash of excitement lighting his face for the first time. “Same to you, man,” he said, and the two pairs separated.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

Tucker and his father paused for a moment when they stepped out of the concourse and into the arena. Both men had been watching games for years, cheering at games for years, playing in games for years. They had been steeped in the atmosphere of excitement unique to college ball: fanatical, joyous, anxious, and
pulsing
with school pride. But something was different in this game. They both felt it as soon as they saw the 20,000 seats filled with a kaleidoscope of red and white and blue and yellow. It was a shiver, a recognition that the national championship was different than just another big game. There was a grandness to it, rightfully earned from being the pinnacle of the longest and most chaotic tournament in all of American sport. For the two men, the bigness was sensed, but neither one was a poet.

“Huh,” said Henry.

“I know,
” said Tucker.

Tucker led the way to their seats. They were to sit in the middle of a host of University of Nebraska fans behind one of the baskets. Most of the students were already on their feet, laughing and cheering and practicing their stratagems for getting on national television. They recognized Tucker and applauded him and his father
all the w
ay to their seats, Henry waving to everybody in sight, the binoculars around his neck swaying between the two sides of his unzipped jacket. Tucker hadn’t seen his dad so energized in years.

“This really is something,” said Henry again as he stared up at the Jumbotron, then down at the dancers and cameramen moving around on the floor. He placed a small tr
ay of nachos on Tucker’s lap—a
tray he had insisted on buying for his son—and settled in with satisfaction.

Tucker looked across the court at the UC
LA fans sitting
opposite. “Hey D
ad, can I see your binoculars a sec?” Henry handed them over and took back the nachos.
After a minute of scanning,
Tucker
found
Cole
sitting in a seat
surrounded
by
a group of shirtless fans whose bodies were completely painted blue and yellow. Nera was holding Cole’s hand and pointing animatedly down at the court.

“You see Cole over there?” Henry asked. “How does he look?”

“About the same as he looked on Saturday. Like he’s expecting a bomb to explode under his seat. Nera looks like she’s having fun, though.”

“Well, this will be good for him,” Henry pontificated comfortably. “That boy seems like he could get out in the world more.”

Tucker turned the binoculars up and to his right, pointing them at the row of private skyboxes that lined the upper ridge of the first level of stands. He counted over until he found the one that he thought contained Rick, Abby
,
and their
South
Korean hosts. It was difficult to make out anything behind the glass.
There was a lot that he still didn’t know about Rick and Abby and their mysterious power-broker boss, and he certainly didn’t want to get dragged into a political conversation with the South Korean foreign minister
.
The possibilities of half-time made him nervous.
But then he heard the music demanding that everyone get up off their feet, and as he saw his Nebraska Huskers come on the court and start dunking one after the other in a line, he realized that he didn’t want to think about halftime. It was time to get in the game.

*
             
*
             
*
             
*

Across the court, Nera was explaining Cole’s psychic powers to a group of attentive undergrads. “Oh yeah, I’d say we knew that there was something special about Cole as soon as he was hired,” she lied. “We started calling him ‘The OraCole’ because he just seemed so in tune with the world.”

“Woah,” said a skinny blue student who had the body of a twelve-year-old. “So do you, like, guess the stock market and stuff?”

“Uh, no, it’s just, you know, basketball and real estate things.” Cole leaned closer to Nera. “You shouldn’t talk me up so much. You know I’m probably going to lose this thing.”

Nera put her finger over his mouth. “You predicted every single winner of every game in the tournament, Cole. I think you can
start to enjoy that a little.” Cole shook his head.

“Luck does not hold out this long.”

“If luck had an expiration date, it wouldn’t really be luck. Come on, embrace this. We are winning this thing!” She turned around to the crowd and raised her voice. “Am I right? We
are
winning
this championship!” Fans around them
started cheering
“U-C-L-A!” 
and
Cole looked on, impressed all over again with this woman who had all the social talents he lacked. He could even ignore, for a moment, his escalating feelings of discomfort at how much attention she was drawing to him. 

The main lights dimmed as flashbulbs began to sizzle around the arena. On the Jumbotron, a loud, explosive homage to the journey of both teams climaxed
with a spotlight on each team’s bench. The players lined up for the announcement
of each team’s starting
five
. Nera squeezed Cole’s hand, her whole face joyful, and Cole smiled.
Fun
, he thought.
This is fun
.
This is a couple of hours of fun in a very safe place, and then life goes back to normal. Better than normal
.

The pregame spectacle exploded and the pyrotechnics boomed. When the lights returned and the court was made ready for tip-off, the crowd stayed on its feet and kept the noise level high. There was no way for Cole to notice a cheap plastic basketball, the size of a grapefruit, bouncing erratically down the stairs past his row. It was finally picked up by someone with a fake yellow afro several rows down.

“Cole Kaman?” the man called. Other fans pointed up
in
his direction. “Cole Kaman?” H
e came closer, and Cole heard. The painted man tossed
him the ball. “You drop this?”

Surprised, Cole caught the ball and looked at it. His name was written out very clearly with permanent marker, the “K” oddly warped over a long cut which ran along half of the rubber seam. Something rattled inside the ball. He slipped his fingernail into the seam and opened it like an Easter Egg. There was a piece of paper inside, folded into a tight square, clearly torn from the program booklet that was being given away at the arena entrances. He looked around above the crowd, scanning for a set of glasses and a goatee, but saw no one recognizable as his stalker. He looked over at Nera, who was distracted by a conversation with the person sitting on her other side. Cole shoved the ball and note in his pocket.

“Hey, I’ll be right back,” he said to Nera, making sure not to meet her eyes.

“Where are you going? Th
e
game is starting right now!” she called to his back.