Blown Coverage (6 page)

Without looking at him, she said, “I don’t know, Mark. I honestly don’t know.”

As she walked back around the building, she couldn’t help but wonder two things—whether that card she had handed Riley would
ever produce a call, and whether or not her heart would ever slow down.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

MONDAY, MAY 11, 9:00 A.M. MDT INVERNESS TRAINING CENTER ENGLEWOOD, COLORADO

Heads turned and conversations died when Riley and Skeeter passed through the frosted glass doors into the Mustangs locker
room. Riley suddenly felt like he had walked in wearing his mother’s housecoat. Never had he felt uncomfortable in a locker
room . . . until now.

“Skeet, I think I’m okay in here,” he whispered to his friend. “Would you mind putting an eyeball on the media folk outside?”

“Yes, sir,” Skeeter replied. He gave the staring faces one last look over, then walked back out the doors.

Activity slowly returned as Riley made his way to his locker. Most of the players were already sitting under their nameplates
performing various prepractice rituals. Some taped their wrists; others rubbed lotions on their legs. More than one man had
his playbook on his lap while he tried to memorize new codes and their corresponding actions.

Riley felt out of place as he walked past the lockers. Most of the players that he knew greeted him with a “What’s up, Covington?”
or “Hey, Pach.” But since he hadn’t shown himself around the Mustang facility for any of the precamp workouts, there were
a lot of faces he’d never seen before. It was a little disorienting being somewhere so familiar but seeing new people sitting
in old friends’ places.

At least thirty or thirty-five of the players here were new to Riley, but he knew he wouldn’t take time to get to know many
of them. The reality of the PFL was that stints with teams tended to be quite short, and careers typically ended sooner rather
than later. A vast majority of those thirty or thirty-five new faces would not still be here by the time the season rolled
around.

Riley continued his journey, but when he passed by Keith Simmons’s locker, he stopped and did a double take. Sitting back
by his street shoes were books by C. S. Lewis and Lee Strobel. Then, set out proudly so everyone could see, was a beautiful
two-tone leather New Living Translation Study Bible with
Keith Simmons
embossed in gold lettering right on the cover.
I think
Keith’s
got some
’
splaining to do,
Riley thought with a surprised smile.

His smile was short-lived, though. The locker three down from Simmons’s belonged to Riley. The one just past his had, until
the end of last season, belonged to his best friend, Sal Ricci. Memories of conversations, jokes, and pranks flooded Riley’s
mind—like the time he had filled the toes of Sal’s new ECCO Supercross shoes with shaving cream. Sal was quick to avenge himself,
substituting Riley’s aftershave with Johnnie Walker Red.

Riley smiled sadly at the memories. But then reality set in—grief, betrayal, torture, all culminating in a final gun battle.
Riley closed his eyes and felt again the warm wetness of Sal’s—Hakeem’s—shattered head on his face. His stomach turned.

Riley took a deep breath to steady himself, thankful that everyone seemed to be giving him the space he needed. He took the
final steps to his locker and stood in front of it, trying hard not to look next to him. But the more he tried to avoid looking,
the more he felt drawn that direction. Finally he gave in, and what he saw took his breath away a second time.

On the nameplate above the locker was a piece of white athletic tape—a sure indication that the player was a rookie. And on
that piece of tape was written
AFSHIN ZIAFAT #59
.

Oh, Lord, what are you doing to me?
This was too much, even for the normally easygoing Riley. He felt his face reddening with anger.
What am I even doing here? You know, I gave it my best shot today! If I bolt
out now, I can try to explain tomorrow. If they fine me, they fine me!

He turned to leave the way he had come but was met by Robert Taylor, head of Mustangs public relations. “Hey, Riley, how’ve
you been?” Taylor asked with a big smile on his face. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Listen, buddy, there’s
a group of national guys outside aching to talk to you. You got a quick second?”

“Not right now,” Riley shot back a little more aggressively than he had intended.

Surprise showed on Taylor’s face. “Okay, what should I tell them?”

Regretting each word even as he said it, Riley leaned into Taylor’s personal space and said, “Tell you what, I’ll let you
know when I’m ready. Until then, I don’t really give a rip what you tell them.” Riley turned to his locker and began fiddling
with his workout clothes until Taylor walked away.

Once he was alone, he placed his hands on either side of his open locker and slowly began doing standing push-ups with his
head down.
Come on, man,
Robert’s
your friend. After all
he’s
done for
you,
you’re
going to treat him like that?
Slowly he moved in and out of his maple-wood locker, his head brushing against his workout uniform with each pass.
Father God, if
I’m
going to survive this,
I’m
going to need Your help. Protect me from any more surprises, and please
help me to get a grip.

“Riley?” came a voice from behind him, stopping him halfway through another descent. While he couldn’t know for sure who had
said it, with the way his day was going he had a pretty good idea.

Riley straightened up and turned around.

There stood a young guy with a huge white smile on his face and his hand held out. “Riley, I’m Afshin Ziafat. It’s an honor
to meet you.”

Riley slowly met Ziafat’s hand and said coldly, “Likewise.”
‘
Likewise?’
Brilliant!
Riley silently chastised himself.

Suddenly, something very large slammed into him, knocking him back into his locker. Riley looked up to see another big smile
beaming down at him.

“Keith, what’s up?” Riley managed.

“What’s up? Bro, you can’t even begin to imagine! We seriously have to talk.”

“No doubt. I saw you were reading C. S. Lewis’s
Screwtape Letters
. Not exactly what I would have pegged you to have on your library list.”

Keith pretended to be offended. “What? Do you think all I do is sit around playing Xbox and reading back issues of
Modern Black
Male
? Wait, modern blackmail! Get it? I crack myself up!”

“I’m glad to see you amuse yourself,” Riley said, smiling despite himself.

“I’m a regular one-man comedy show,” Keith said proudly. “But seriously, we do need to talk. That little brush with death
in December really got me thinking. I ended up going in to see my sister’s pastor, and next thing you know I’m on my knees
in his office giving my life to the Lord.”

“Simm, that is so awesome!”

“Isn’t it, though? But I’ve got so much more to tell you about. Why don’t we grill out at your place this week? You do the
cooking, and I’ll do the talking and the eating.”

“How could I pass up an opportunity like that? How about Friday night after practice?”

“I’m on it like Gorkowski on a pork chop!”

Without warning, the heavy thump of Buju Banton echoed through the locker room’s sound system, causing many of the players
to instinctively jump up and break into a reggae dance.

“Speaking of . . .” Riley said, pointing to center Chris Gorkowski, who was deep into his own artistic interpretation of the
song that looked very much like a Samoan fire dance, complete with extended tongue.

“I see you, Snap,” Riley said, laughing.

Gorkowski smiled in return, revealing his tobacco-stained teeth. Riley hadn’t seen the big man since the attack at the stadium
when he had had to slap some sense into the center in order to get him to safety. Although the two had never gotten along
in the past, Riley hoped things might be a little different now. “Two minutes! Two minutes!” came the voice of one of the coaches, sounding the alarm for Coach Roy Burton’s team meeting.
The impromptu beach party quickly broke up. No one wanted to be late for the first formal meeting of the year.

Most guys were walking on eggshells around the coaches, trying hard to make the best possible impression. They knew that today
was the beginning of a long four months of continuous evaluation that would culminate in massive cuts at the end of training
camp. Any little slipup could cost an already iffy player his chance at fulfilling his dream.

Although the positions of most of the starters were secure, their motivation for an on-time arrival was a hefty fine for being
late. As a result, the two-minute warning caused a mass exodus from the locker room into the large, tiered meeting room where
Coach Burton was already waiting to address his reconstituted team.

As Riley entered through the meeting room’s door, he heard Coach Burton shouting, “What do you mean there’re four helicopters
up there? Shoot ’em down if you have to, but get them out of here by practice time!”

“Sir, according to federal aviation regulations, as long as they stay five hundred feet clear of people or buildings, they
are perfectly within their rights to be . . .” Robert Taylor’s words faded as he realized that Burton didn’t give two hoots
about his legal explanations. “I’ll take care of them, Coach.”

On the way to his seat, Riley turned to Simmons and asked, “What helicopters?”

“What helicopters do you think, Captain Hollywood? It’s the newsies, and they’re all here for the Riley watch,” Simmons laughed.

“Yeah right.”

“Oh, you better believe it, boy. You’ve got the paparazzi saying, ‘Britney who?’ They all just want a glimpse of our very
own American hero. Better get used to it.”

Riley shook his head as he sat, not wanting to believe anything that Simmons was telling him. His worst fears seemed to be
confirmed, though, when Coach Burton spotted him in the audience. Coach just glared at him, then turned away.

Swell,
Riley thought.

Burton moved to the center of the mini stage, and all the conversation immediately died. But before he had a chance to say
his first word, the door burst open.

An entourage of men in suits came bounding down the stairs to the front of the amphitheater. Out in front of the group was
A. J. Salley. Mr. Salley had owned the Colorado Mustangs for just five years, but it was apparent that he had spent every
one of those 1,826 days working to put his mark on the organization. Having made his millions in the global telecom industry,
he was a fair, no-nonsense businessman, and today he seemed clearly agitated.

A brief conversation was held between Mr. Salley and Coach Burton. Then the team owner quickly left the room, followed by
his team of suits.

Coach Burton, obviously angered by the intrusion on
his
meeting, said, “Covington, Mr. Salley would like to see you in the hall.”

Embarrassed and irritated, Riley muttered under his breath, “Don’t these guys have anything better to do?” As he made his
way to the door, he was serenaded with calls of “Oooooo” and “Busted.”

Apparently that was enough to send Coach Burton over the top. “Baskin,” he called out to the conditioning coach.

“Yes, Coach,” came the reply.

“Obviously these boys have some extra energy. Tack on an extra sprint series to their run today.”

A chorus of groans drowned out Coach Baskin’s answer of “Yes, Coach.”

In response, Burton said, “Make that two series.”

This time Coach Baskin’s answer could be clearly heard in the dead silence.

As soon as Riley stepped into the hallway, Mr. Salley tersely said, “Riley, what are we going to do about this? We have choppers
overhead. Our phones are ringing off the hook. And there are over five hundred photographers and journalists outside this
building right now. We’ve called in the police and made contact with the FAA, but this is getting out of control quickly.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” Riley responded, feeling a bit like he was in the Air Force again getting chewed out for something
he hadn’t done. “What would you like me to do, Mr. Salley?”

“I want you to go home for the day. You had someone come with you today, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Skeeter Dawkins. He was one of—”

“Good,” Mr. Salley continued, not interested in Riley’s story. “Have him pull your car around to the loading dock for the team
store. We’ll send you out that way.”

This was one of the first pieces of good news that Riley had heard today, especially knowing that he was going to miss those
extra sprint series. “Yes, sir. And what about tomorrow?”

Exasperated and obviously done with the conversation, Mr. Salley answered, “I have no idea. You’re going to be a distraction
any way we cut it. We need to figure out how we’re going to deal with all of this. We’ll call you when we get a plan. Until
then, you work out at home.” That said, Mr. Salley turned and was gone.

Riley stood there for a moment trying to process what had just happened. Part of him wanted to laugh, while another part wanted
to haul off and punch somebody.
Where does Salley get off coming
down here and tearing me a new one for something I have absolutely no
control over? At least he got one thing right: I am definitely out of here!