Free Monday Night Jihad by Steve Jason & Yohn Elam

play-off bonuses.
    “Thanks, Pach. You saved my skin tonight.”
    “You just make sure you do your part to get us into the postseason, or else you’ll be working it off this spring mowing my lawn or painting my house or sanitizing my garbage cans or polishing my car or rubbing my feet or all of the above.”
    “Rubbing your feet, huh? Maybe we need to rethink the terms of our arrangement,” Widnall laughed.
    Driving home that night, Riley couldn’t get Ricci’s abrupt change of mood out of his mind. He knew that the man had some secrets. Asking him about his past was like asking Ebenezer Scrooge for the PIN to his checking account. He couldn’t count the number of times he had tried to delve into Ricci’s history, and within five minutes his friend would find a way to turn the conversation around so they were talking about Riley again. The news agencies had given the basics about his childhood in an Italian orphanage and his gradual rise to national attention, but as he thought about it, Riley realized he knew little more about his friend than anyone with Internet access might know.
    Glancing down at the seat next to him, he saw the blue glow of his cell phone and debated whether he should give Ricci a call. He picked up the phone, tossed it a couple of times in his hand, then set it back down. There’s a fine line between trying to help and prying. I’ll catch up with him tomorrow on the plane.
    Finally arriving home four hours past his usual bedtime, Riley tossed his keys, which went sliding across the granite countertop in his kitchen and into the sink. He punched a button on his phone that automatically dialed his voice mail, then put the receiver on speaker.
    A call from his mom wanting to talk. Another call from his mom. A call from Robert Taylor asking if he’d come in a half hour early to do a video interview with ESPN. A call from his dad wanting to know if he knew his mom wanted to talk.
    Riley hung up the phone, stretched, and moved toward the bedroom. He dropped his clothes onto the hardwood, set his alarm, and climbed under his comforter. Just before turning off his bedside lamp, he spotted the bag with the gloves on his dresser. He willed himself back out of bed, grabbed the gloves, retrieved his keys from the sink, and set them both by the garage door. As he slid back under the covers and closed his eyes, the last thing he heard in his head as he drifted off to sleep was a strange falsetto voice serenading him:
    We’ll have a touchdown, touchdown, Indians!
    And raise the Green and Gold!

Chapter 6
    Saturday, December 20
    CTD North Central Division Headquarters
    Minneapolis, Minnesota
    6:00 a.m. CST
    “I can’t believe those idiots aren’t going to shut down the mall,” Scott Ross said as he threw his half-full bottle of Yoo-hoo Lite into the trash can, swearing he would never again touch that perversion of perfection. His head was still spinning from the whirlwind trip that had brought him from discovery of the Mall of America as the likely target: grabbing his always-packed bag, hopping a CTD jet with Tara Walsh, flying through much of the night, and finally making their way to the North Central Division headquarters in downtown Minneapolis. “Don’t they realize what’s about to go down?”
    “Their exact words were, ‘We’re not going to shut down the mall during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year because of some guy’s hunch,’” a disgusted Jim Hicks responded. “We’ve even taken it to the governor, who—spineless wonder that he is—backs the mall folks’ decision. I can’t believe I’d ever long for a return to the days of Jesse Ventura.”
    “Didn’t Secretary Moss try to convince them?”
    “Come on, you’ve been around long enough to understand Moss. He only likes to scare people when he needs more funding for Homeland Security.”
    “Well, isn’t that just ducky? We can’t get backed by the wuss or the weasel,” Scott grumbled, sitting down on the