Blood Anger

By Kent Politsch

The President’s teenage daughter is in danger. Abductors have foiled Secret Service security and kidnapped Bibi O’Neil, making her an innocent victim in a twisted revenge plot. Only her brief and flirtatious meeting with high school basketball superstar Dante Brown offers the First Family a glimmer of hope.
The never-stop action intensifies when federal bureaucrat Jack Fitzgerald guides Brown and his basketball teammates into vigilante battle. Their unsuspecting foe is a familiar opponent for the PAL All-stars, Korean billionaire Pak Yong-sung and his Global Anchor colleagues. Suspense begins when the teenagers challenge the odds with a random and unauthorized search for the president’s daughter.
Surprising authorities, they produce an important clue. But will it enable Homeland Security and the FBI to find Bibi before her abductors and Pak run out of patience. The best police work might be to stay close to Brown and his PAL All-star teammates who never give up on the trail of Blood Anger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9780985835255

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Great Wall of China

Northwest of Beijing

Fall; present time

Six Chinese soldiers scouted the final fifty meters. They approached a fortress-like crown of the Great Wall. Duane Manchester followed them with his binoculars. He hid on the backside of the wall about a half-mile across a rocky ravine. His elbows dug into the top of the deteriorating structure; his steel-toed boots gripped the wall’s weathered masonry.

Manchester looked down at the mortar holding the pieces of antiquity at his feet, stones placed before Christ was born. Manchester prayed that the ancient wall held together under his weight. He teetered eight meters above jagged rocks.

With elbows braced, he pressed a button over the right scope of his specially made Steiner Optics. It measured the distance to the first soldier at 708.3 meters. The former special ops soldier pulled himself onto the wall and crawled to a tower close by.

A smart guy – a farmer and student of geometry and physical space – Manchester thought about the Chinese soldiers 700 meters away, farther if they followed the path of the wall. Like electrons sharing a copper wire, he and the soldiers were moving around on the same manmade precipice. A solid wall. Aged but still magnificent in concept. A linear fortress designed to protect a sophisticated, intelligent civilization from nomads and aggressors.

The Great Wall took centuries to construct. Manchester knew that. To him, it was a symbol of Asian patience and strategic military planning. The people who engineered the wall lived in a culture very different than the one he grew up in, one equally intelligent, but by no means patient like the Chinese, especially those Chinese.

Inside the crown, Manchester hid from the soldiers scanning the area with their own field glasses. He climbed a set of jagged steps and peeked out of a hole on top of the crown. He rolled to the edge that faced the soldiers. He gazed through a portal. He watched the soldiers finish their mandatory search. Two of them stepped into archer stands and seemed to be looking directly into his binoculars. He knew the stands would be where his targets would stop.

Between the Chinese soldiers and Manchester’s temporary hunting blind were several other similar fortresses along the craggy and undulating mountain range. He chose this crown because it gave him the best angle. It put the sun at his back.

The other towers separating Manchester from his target’s destination made suitable decoys. All crowns were in bad condition, except the tower that the Chinese soldiers scouted. It was the last one maintained for tours and the only one used for special occasions, for dignitaries and celebrities.

Only moments earlier, Manchester had landed nearby. He plopped down in an open ravine with a stealth jetpack strapped to his back. He had disengaged the jetpack before climbing a steep ridge and scaling the wall.

An eccentric Korean living in America had sent him the jetpack. He sent it to Madagascar where Duane Manchester made his home, a refugee from the United States, a hunted U.S. soldier absent without leave.

Manchester, a trained sniper, a veteran of Afghanistan, had tried to kill the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. He shot and wounded the secretary after learning that his parents were losing their Missouri farm for failure to repay USDA-backed loans. He killed the secretary’s Secret Service agent, a man protecting the appointed official.

Manchester’s revenge failed because he let his emotion interfere with his judgment. The wealthy Korean rescued Manchester from harm’s way. He paid the farm family debt and whisked the former soldier into foreign seclusion.

Manchester owed his rescuer for his freedom. The man’s gesture to pay his parent’s debt motivated him. His deft marksmanship became his currency. He assassinated targets the man wanted dead.

In truth, his destiny had changed little from the time he entered the military. He excelled at killing. He accepted his fate, because he assassinated without question for whomever provided him the necessities of life. His loyalty shifted to a Korean-born billionaire, because the U.S. Army no longer wanted him except to punish him.

Three Chinese helicopters now hovered in circles in a clockwise pattern, maintaining equidistance apart. They expanded their requisite security search while the soldiers scoured the tower.

Manchester ducked back into the hole. He peeked through cracks in the walls. He could see bodies casually leaning out of the aircraft, eyeballing the area below them.

Before he re-emerged to execute his assignment, Manchester stopped to ready his LMT L129A1 Sharpshooter rifle. He listened to the helicopters as they flew their circles closer. They stopped expanding their circumferences short of his hideout.

Six-hundred meters, he whispered to himself. That’s their standard fear.

The marksman felt that beyond 600 meters the Chinese military considered no sniper a serious threat, especially when the wall shielded bodies.

When satisfied that the helicopter reconnaissance maxed out its search, Manchester slid on his belly to the crown’s brim to line up his shot. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder and searched through the scope. He followed one of the helicopters, zeroing in on a pilot. Downing a chopper might be a useful distraction, he muttered.

He ignored the thought, lowered the rifle, and cautiously crab-crawled to his right for a better view. He set the LMT Sharpshooter on a bipod secured by the stone edges of an archer’s portal. He looked through his binoculars. He relocated the Chinese soldiers who continued to methodically search the well-preserved crown.

Manchester became anxious. This setup is too good, he said. He wanted to get the job done so he could exit.

He saw the lead soldier step to the edge and signal in the direction of yet another tower 75 meters farther east along the Great Wall. Manchester panned his binoculars to the adjacent crown.

There he was. Chinese military dignitaries surrounded Kwon Ji-yul. Kwon, the Supreme Leader of North Korea, rose from a young military general to the top position with the passing of his uncle, Kwon Su-kim.

A step behind Kwon strolled an attractive and stoic Asian woman. Manchester assumed she was about 30. She strode confidently, but stayed obediently a pace back. She wore an embroidered red formal tunic that was tapered to accentuate her curves. She covered her head with matching red material. Her escorting soldiers watched with covetous glances as she lingered behind Kwon. They tripped over each other trying to stay close to the celebrity couple. One officer seemed to dominate Kwon’s attention. Manchester put his rifle to his shoulder and watched through his scope.

The officer appeared older. His military decorations covered his chest.

A suck-up, Manchester labeled him. Duane Manchester loathed military suck-ups. But behind the suck-up was a female officer, a pretty woman also highly decorated.

Manchester speculated that Kwon and his lady friend had visited the Great Wall before. He followed their trek to the destination tower where the scouting patrol waited. He panned his scope back to the female officer. Her eyes were fixed on his location as she walked in cadence.

Four Chinese soldiers with automatic weapons at full ready marched 10 meters ahead of the entourage. Another four followed.

They all disappeared into the tower and reappeared on the crown. The suck-up – more apparent now as a Chinese general – stepped to an open archer’s portal and pointed into the vast landscape in front of them. He looked directly into Manchester’s killing eye.

Pow, Manchester whispered.

Kwon took the adjacent portal and his lady friend took the next one nearest. The pretty officer stood behind the general.

Manchester put Kwon in his crosshairs then panned again to the Chinese suck-up. He moved the barrel back to his left and fired. Almost before the casing hit the ground, Manchester had fired a second round from the semi-automatic weapon as the sound reached the unsuspecting victims.

He pulled the rifle back quickly. He crawled to the steps, descended a few, and disengaged the 20-round magazine from the Sharpshooter.

He heard the distant barrage of weapons. Manchester peeked his head above the hole again to locate the spent casings. He gathered both as bullets whistled overhead. Random shells pinged against the old blocks and stones. He knew the soldiers were peppering every potential shelter.

Manchester packed his rifle against his chest, repelled the wall, and strapped the jetpack to his back. He donned his fin-shaped helmet, but before he could fire his stealth engine, he heard helicopters closing in on his location. He darted for cover. The aircraft flew near enough for Manchester to gaze into the pilot’s eyes.

He ducked and peeled his jetpack preparing to engage. He pulled the rifle from his chest and jammed the magazine into the base of the L129A1 Sharpshooter. He loaded his first round into the chamber. He searched the sky again listening for the chopper. But the sounds faded. The chopper left.

Manchester waited 10 seconds, broke down his rifle, and strapped into his gear again. He started the stealth engine and glanced at the sky before quietly rising to the top of the tree line. He leaned into the throttle and accelerated to maximum speed.

He skimmed across the sparsely forested terrain like a missile locked on a target. His eyes searched for landmarks to guide him to his destination nearly 100 kilometers away. He was there in less than 30 minutes.

Manchester had used a camouflage tarp to hide an all-terrain motorcycle. An electronic device attached to the bike sent signals to a map screen that projected on the inside of his helmet shield. It guided him to the location. He landed nearby and uncovered the motorcycle. He wrapped his jetpack in the tarp and lowered it into a hole he had dug. He covered the hole, mounted his motorcycle, and sped east along a narrow road.

He traveled less than five kilometers when he came across a military vehicle. He saw surprised faces turn and watch as he zoomed past the crossroads. When he checked his review mirror he could see the vehicle pull onto the road in pursuit.

Manchester twisted the accelerator lifting the front tire from the pavement. He pulled away quickly but soon encountered two more vehicles and a military cyclist on a speed bike. Manchester easily outran the bigger machines on the narrow, twisting road, but the cyclist closed rapidly.

Manchester looked for an escape. His advantage was his ability to go off road. He didn’t expect the speed bike to risk rough terrain.

He downshifted to maneuver a sharp turn. He saw what he wanted – a dirt path that climbed a challenging hill. The road twisted in a U and crossed the path on the next ridge. The path cut a welcomed shortcut.

Manchester expected his chaser to know better than to follow him. He also hoped the biker didn’t know the path intersected with the road less than a kilometer away.

The sniper bounced over the shoulder and hit the dirt hard wobbling his bike. He regained control and saw glimpses of his pursuer in his rearview mirror.

The motorcyclist stopped. He quickly accelerated in a race to the next ridge.

Duane Manchester climbed the hill steadily, going airborne when hitting bumps and swerving to avoid contact with encroaching trees, rocks, and small critters shocked by the disturbance in their habitat. His pursuer, meantime, had made the U-bend and was closing in. He was still 300 meters from Manchester who was about to reach the road.

The Chinese special operations soldier slammed his brakes and dismounted the sleek motorcycle before it stopped. He let it roll to the side of the road and fall over while he swung a rifle around his back to his shoulder and picked up Manchester in his sights.

Before Manchester reached the road, he could sense that he was now the target about to be fired upon. He leaned forward on his bike to make his body a smaller target. He hit the pavement hard bouncing again and nearly loosing control when the front tire grabbed the paved turf. Manchester felt the shock of a bullet strike the motorcycle seat inches from his left buttock. It jarred the bike from under him. He lost control and went down hard. He skidded across the road on his side before coming to rest in the ditch.

An excited Chinese soldier ran to his resting motorcycle and pulled it to its wheels. He willed it to start and barreled toward his downed victim, the man every soldier in China had instructions to kill.

He approached Manchester’s spilled trail bike. He saw the immobile victim under his crumpled motorcycle. He dismounted his speed bike, but before he could reach for his handgun, Manchester lifted his body and put two 45s in the man’s chest and one in his forehead.

The American pried his leg from under his bike. He limped to his pursuer’s side, looked at the open eyes filling with blood, and staggered back to his wounded motorcycle. He rolled it forward and out of the ditch. He checked the wheels and chain. They seemed to be taut and undamaged. He pushed the starter button. The engine responded.

He holstered his 45 and repositioned his rifle across his chest before swinging it to his back. He drove to his assigned rendezvous spot where an unnerving surprise greeted him. The pilot and helicopter that he had nearly engaged at the Great Wall waited to take him to his escape plane.

Nervous but confident in the man who sent him on his mission, Manchester dismounted the motorcycle, hid it from the road, and stepped into the Chinese aircraft. The helicopter lifted quickly and flew him to an airport where he saw the private jet. No one communicated except with an affirmative nod.

The pilot who dropped Manchester and his equipment at a different location earlier in the day acknowledged him in much the same way. No words. Just a simple grin. He signaled with his eyes for Manchester to board quickly. The pilot then followed his passenger into the aircraft.

Manchester pressed his face against a window to search for the helicopter as the plane rolled toward a runway. The helicopter quivered as it readied to lift off. Manchester relaxed. He began to twist back into his seat when the sky turned orange. The shock of an explosion rocked the small jet rolling into position and accelerating on the runway.

The rescued sniper pushed against the propelling forces of the jet gaining speed. He slammed his face against the window and saw a small mushroom cloud rise above the spot where he had just stepped from the now disintegrated helicopter.

A chill ran through Manchester’s lower back. He shook like a dog releasing snowflakes from its coat. He felt for his seatbelt.

Within seconds, the jet was airborne. In 14 hours, the former Missouri Bootheel farmer – the marksman – was in Madagascar rested and ready to harvest rice.

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Comcast Center – University of Maryland

College Park

A Friday in February; four months later

Jack Fitzgerald arrived first, which was completely out of character. He went to the concession stand, bought a hot dog, smothered it with mustard and relish, and inhaled it. That was in character.

He washed his food down with cream-drenched coffee and studied the gathering crowd. A man dressed in a dark suit caught his eye instantly. The man held his ground like a sentry guarding the exterior door, noticeable because of his out-of-place attire, neatly tucked earpiece, and probing eyes. He seemed to be casing the entire area. He connected with Fitzgerald. He put his right hand to his ear.

Jack Fitzgerald. Agriculture Department. Twenty years. Military too. Sniper. Our side; good guy.

The man listened without taking his eyes off Fitzgerald. He pushed with his index finger against his ear and continued his intense study of the surroundings.

Jack studied him as well. He watched him walk toward the glass door and make a subtle gesture to someone outside.

Jack Fitzgerald knew the drill. His face had been scanned. He’d been identified, and a high-ranking supervisor had okayed the government employee.

He watched the man pivot back into the rim of the promenade still projecting a mantle of sobriety. The sentry waited while another man in his 30s, equally sober, entered the building followed by a group of young women. They appeared to be on an excited mission.

The escorts – all of whom Fitzgerald recognized as Secret Service agents – moved with cautious authority. The one who looked in charge stepped into the closest tunnel that led to the arena. Fitzgerald looked at the section number above the tunnel entrance – Section 114. That’s where he was to be seated when his guests arrived.

Fitzgerald watched the agent look across the expansive sports facility. It filled with spectators.

Six teenage girls stood at his heels patiently waiting to descend the steps to the second row at center court. Two of the girls gawked nervously at their surrounding. Fitzgerald assumed it was their first time at the University of Maryland’s Comcast Center.

The girls wore jackets with symbols Fitzgerald recognized. They attended the prestigious Amity Collegiate Academy. They were part of the school’s successful women’s basketball team. All were gorgeous, slender, 16- and 17-year-old athletes led by 5-foot-10-inch high school sophomore Bibi O’Neil, a face Fitzgerald also recognized.

In addition to her height and natural beauty, O’Neil stood out because of her poise. She had the grace of a princess, so it was no wonder dozens of glamour magazines were begging for the opportunity to put her on their covers. Unfortunately, her father Harris O’Neil, the President of the United States, refused to allow it. He objected, too, when Bibi insisted on attending a men’s basketball game rather than a women’s game, which he thought would be easier on the Secret Service.

Maryland women’s head coach had extended an open invitation to the president and his daughter during a social event. She told the president and Bibi to choose a game; she would arrange for tickets. This was the game Bibi wanted to see – a men’s game – but the president couldn’t attend, so she invited her teammates.

The college men played host to North Carolina. The media called it a must see, projecting it to be a great game.

Fitzgerald watched curiously as the senior agent gave a signal to his colleagues in the aisles to his right and left. The agents stopped the flow of spectators temporarily so the man in charge could escort O’Neil and her teammates to their seats. A fourth agent trailed, the one who stood with the girls outside before guiding them into the building. He held up the fans behind the girls to create a gap between the rest of the crowd and the young athletes.

Heads twisted. Whispers began when spectators already inside the arena recognized Bibi. Fitzgerald watched through the tunnel opening. The president’s daughter maintained her composure while her friends bounded, pointed, and laughed high-pitched teenage excitement.

When making his rounds at the D.C. sports bars, Fitzgerald had heard that Bibi O’Neil loved the game of basketball and played it pretty well. She also loved the pageantry of the college game, another passion she acquired from her father.

Watching her, Fitzgerald could tell she guarded her behaviors. He figured this was a night she regretted being the president’s daughter. Too inhibiting. She stifled her enthusiasm and hid the joy her friends let loose. Fitzgerald understood. If Bibi O’Neil behaved as her friends, her conduct would be ridiculed on Fox News. He sympathized and sensed her frustration even from a distance.

Jack Fitzgerald downed the last of his coffee as the buzz in Section 114 subsided. He turned from the tunnel and heard an even more raucous group of teenagers entering Comcast. Boys, of course.

Still hidden by the crowd, except the tops of their heads, he could tell from spectator reaction that a pack of hyped-up youthful giants was invading. Fans scowled at the boys’ lack of courtesies. The boys bullied their way into the basketball arena talking loudly. Fitzgerald figured correctly from the increased energy and rock-band entrance that this was his group, the young men he awaited.

Swagger. That’s what Fitzgerald saw – cocky athletic swagger.

There were hundreds of high school athletes in the arena to see the game, but this group’s pomposity drew more than their share of attention with their tall bodies and unruly attitudes. They were boisterous. Bordered on obnoxious. They pushed at each other and blurted unkind slurs and free-flowing profanity. Parents with younger fans winced.

When the young men spotted Fitzgerald, their manners improved – slightly – and their enthusiasm escalated.

Coach Fitzgerald, what’s up? How you been, coach? a chorus of voices asked.

I’m good, men. Good to see you all together. Are we ready to start the season?

More than ready, said David Clark Langdon, III, also known as Trey. He was one of three white boys in the mix.

David Langdon, Jr., Trey’s father, and Dr. Isaac Stuckey, another team father drove the teenagers from Baltimore to the Maryland campus in two minivans.

The boys were teammates on the PAL All-stars. They were a mixture of inner city kids sprinkled with a couple of upper middle class boys from the suburbs. Specifically, Langdon and Stuckey. PAL stood for Police Athletic League, a sports organization sponsored by the Baltimore City Police Department.

The boys surrounded Fitzgerald. As the entire pack shuffled toward the arena and Section 114, they slapped hands and gave shoulder bumps to a man they had known less than a year, a very intense year.

Jack Fitzgerald became the boys AAU basketball coach in March of the previous season. It happened under unusual circumstances and lots of drama. Friend and former Baltimore Police Lieutenant Rodney Armstrong called on Fitzgerald to take over the team when the lieutenant’s health began to fail.

Fitzgerald and Armstrong had known each other since the early ‘80s. They were young high school basketball players like the boys they coached – opponents and rival stars. Eventually, they would put on the same uniform and play together in college at Salisbury University on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Coaching wasn’t Fitzgerald’s long-range ambition and certainly wasn’t his career. He was the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service – FAS – a position usually held by a political appointee. Fitzgerald was not political. He was a federal bureaucrat, a successful bureaucrat who used his position and military experience to help his country in more ways than most in government were capable of imagining. Very few had Fitzgerald’s skills to do what he did – to sneak off in the dark and carry out critical military assignments.

After college, Fitzgerald had entered the Navy, became an intelligence officer, perfected his marksmanship, and used his athleticism and gun-handling skills to snipe and kill. Even after trading active duty for his federal job, the government capitalized on Fitzgerald’s official international travels for FAS to give him special assignments for the Pentagon.

Thanks for meeting us here on short notice, Jack, Dr. Stuckey said.

Hey, our practice schedule begins soon, Isaac. I’m happy for the chance to see the boys. Is Rodney going to make the game?

He’ll be here with Annabelle.

Dr. Stuckey and Jack Fitzgerald developed a mutual respect when the men were teenagers and opponents on the basketball court. They renewed their bond when Fitzgerald learned that the doctor’s son was one of his PAL All-stars.

The new AAU season was not quite under way, not until all the players finished their high school seasons. Already Fitzgerald was wondering what could make this year as dramatic as last.

A few weeks after agreeing to help Rodney Armstrong coach the boys, Fitzgerald gave in to another of Armstrong’s requests. The cop got a tip from a snitch that a major drug dealer – a killer – was picking up a large cocaine supply in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Armstrong arranged for the PAL All-stars to participate in a four-team tournament near the midnight drop. Knowing Fitzgerald’s skills with weapons and steady nerves in tense situations, Armstrong wanted the man he referred to in college as farmboy to help him with some last-minute details.

Excitement found Fitzgerald even when he didn’t want it. Before Armstrong’s caper, Fitzgerald witnessed an assassination attempt against his boss, Secretary of Agriculture Jorge Segura. Fitzgerald kept a chaotic scene from turning into panic. After those encounters, he was ready to hide from excitement.

The crowd noise suddenly rose over the din of conversations. Both teams – Maryland and North Carolina – ran onto the floor to start their warm-ups. Seeing the players prance like thoroughbreds gave the PAL All-stars a rush. They knew that feeling. They envied the men on the floor and wanted to be in uniform.

The boys and Fitzgerald enjoyed their great accommodations that the Maryland coaching staff arranged for them. They sat at center court less than a dozen rows back. Couldn’t have been sweeter.

Fitzgerald saw the assistant head coach on the floor surveying the stands for special guests. The coach waved, and Fitzgerald acknowledged.

Jack had met the coach at a fall AAU tournament in Las Vegas. Even then the Maryland staff was high on the PAL All-stars, especially the two players known as the Baltimore Twin Towers. The coaching staff made a hard and direct pitch to keep the boys at home in Maryland.

Dante Brown, one of the Towers, was the ringleader of the PAL All-stars. At 17 and a high school junior, Brown was 6’6 and 215 pounds of all muscle. His sidekick, the other Tower, was even taller. Kareem Hilson, also 17, was 6’9, 220, and still filling out. They sat in the two center seats in row 10.

Mr. Langdon and Dr. Stuckey had trailed the young athletes to their vantage point in Section 114. Their seats were directly behind the boys. Fitzgerald stood in the aisle to chat with the men.

The elder Langdon, a trial attorney, quickly became a Fitzgerald fan after they met. He and his son experienced a rollercoaster year – an emotional year triggered by a series of unexpected capers and Rodney Armstrong’s heart ailment. Father and son grew closer and the elder Langdon felt that the new coach – Fitzgerald – had a role in making it happen.

Armstrong had a significant role as well. The cop, the federal employee, and the team survived their first vigilante encounter with Armstrong’s Chesapeake Bay sting. They spent the night in Cambridge, Maryland. When the All-stars allegedly went to bed, Rodney Armstrong coordinated his attempt to collar the Baltimore drug dealer.

The culprit – also the suspect in the murder of Dante Brown’s brother – figured his nemesis, Armstrong, would set a trap. He suckered the cop to embarrass him. It succeeded, but the team stumbled upon the drug shipment and wrestled it away from the drug lord’s minions.

The failed sting was the first shoe to drop. The PAL All-stars took Jack Fitzgerald and Rodney Armstrong on additional adventures in subsequent days. They eventually helped the bureaucrat and cop identify a string of bizarrely connected international crimes.

Trey Langdon in particular put himself in extreme danger. He contrived a rogue attempt to obtain a confession from the murderous Baltimore drug lord, the same man who embarrassed Armstrong and who killed Dante Brown’s 14-year-old brother. Langdon succeeded.

It was the repeated dangers that strengthened the bonds among the players, parents, and coaches.

Coach, that my high school teammate, Marcus Avery shouted, interrupting the adult conversation. The lanky sophomore at St. Johns School stood to find Coach Fitzgerald so he could point to the Maryland freshman on the floor.

I see him, Marcus, Fitzgerald responded.

When Avery turned back to look at the floor the player waved. The girls a few rows in front turned to look into the stands. They searched for the person to whom the player was gesturing. They spotted the All-stars. One of the girls looked directly at Dante Brown.

You see that is? Brown asked Hilson excitedly.

Who?

The pretty black girl lookin’ up here when Marcus yell.

Who she?

Coach Fitzgerald, ain’t that the president’s daughter? Brown asked in a whispered but excited voice.

Where, Dante?

With the girls lookin’ up here…

Yeah, son. See the agents down near the floor watching you guys? They’re probably sending your pictures to Homeland Security right now.

Fitzgerald said it teasingly while watching the lead agent work his phone.

Mr. Langdon looked at Dr. Stuckey with lifted eyebrows. They knew Fitzgerald surmised correctly. That was precisely what the agent was doing.

Brown’s teammates caught Brown’s excitement. They started gawking at the six girls a few rows in front of them. Four of the girls were African American. Two were white. The boys scanned the faces in preparation for their testosterone-driven assault.

Mouthy Jeramaine Fitcher, one of the team’s point guards and the most notorious for his thievery on and off the court, leaned forward between Dante and Kareem. Which one the president’s daughter? he asked Dante Brown.

The one sittin’ up tall, Brown responded.

She hot? Fitcher asked.

She good lookin’, Hilson answered. She lookin’ at Dante.

That right, Fitch. Sit back and keep you bug eyes off her, you understand? Brown followed.

You her boyfriend of somethin’?

I don’t know her, but I’d like to. She the president’s daughter. She hot.

There they are, David Langdon announced when he saw Rodney Armstrong escorted by Annabelle Johnson.

Rodney took the descending stairs slowly with Annabelle’s left arm tucked inside his right. He looked thinner to the boys. Older, too. Only Conrad Stuckey, the doctor’s son, had spent much time with Armstrong since his heart transplant and recovery, a surgery performed by Isaac Stuckey. Stuckey and Armstrong were childhood friends. They were high school teammates at Cardinal Gleason.

Annabelle, a Baltimore lawyer who also had grown up in the same neighborhood with Armstrong and Stuckey, took her friend to her winter home in Key West, Florida, to help nurse him back to health. Rodney and Annabelle had reconnected in recent years when the cop worked the murder of Annabelle’s only son.

Their re-acquaintance became a fortuitous friendship for Armstrong. Both were divorced. When the police commissioner demanded that Armstrong retire after his heart replacement, Annabelle offered to take six months away from her practice to help him recover.

Fitzgerald was shocked when his friend accepted Annabelle’s offer. Rodney also amazed Fitzgerald by accepting his limits and putting up with his fate.

Armstrong was a policeman through and through, the kind that had to be active; the kind that had to be making arrests to feel worthy. Fitzgerald knew it was a personal challenge for Rodney not to chase bad guys.

Annabelle seemed to have that part of Rodney’s nervous energy under control, but she couldn’t settle his basketball passions, his passion to rescue Baltimore’s kids from the bad seeds. He had run PAL and AAU basketball since his rookie season as a cop. Armstrong’s mantra stuck with Fitzgerald who made it his own: It’s smarter to pick up kids and take them to the gym than to pick them up and haul them to jail.

Annabelle Johnson agreed to return to Baltimore, leave Florida’s warmth, because of basketball. She enjoyed watching Rodney interact with the boys. It helped her cope with the loss of her own son.

Hello, gentlemen, Armstrong said gleefully.

The players stood and waved to their mentor. They shouted, Hey, coach.

David Langdon greeted Armstrong with a broad smile and gentle shoulder bump hug.

The man who saved the former cop’s life a second time, the man who found a replacement heart when Rodney was 2,000 miles away in Las Vegas with the PAL All-stars, was more excited to greet Annabelle. Dr. Stuckey credited Annabelle with keeping his friend alive.

The doctor gave the gracious and sophisticated lady a loving and sincere hug. He knew it was Annabelle’s friendship, her patience, and her nurturing ways that meant the most to Rodney’s recovery. The cop was more relaxed than Dr. Stuckey had ever seen him.

Coach Armstrong, you gotta see this, Dante Brown again whispered loud enough for Rodney and most of the fans around their area to hear.

What is it, Dante?

The president’s daughter a few rows in front of us. See the Secret Service dudes?

Dante, you watchin’ girls during a basketball game? Armstrong asked in false incredulity.

Always, coach. Especially ones that look like that!

Brown wasn’t being shy. He and his teammates had been ogling the girls since they spotted them. The fans between the boys and the girls had informed Brown that the girls were part of a high school basketball team. That, of course, intrigued the athlete more.

You know she a player? Brown asked his teammates rhetorically.

Some offered crude comments, but they knew to do it quietly for teammates to hear. The girls had all of their attention. Only occasionally did the All-stars watch the pregame warm ups, the center court gatherings between refs and team captains, and the prerequisite handshake between head coaches at the scorer’s table.

The girls, meantime, fidgeted in their seats, twisting to see if the boys were still watching them. All but Bibi O’Neil looked for excuses to turn around and search the crowd. When they turned back, heads would lean together in whispers.

The boys were desperate to know what the girls were saying. They howled and teased the player who was the last one to make eye contact with the girl sharing her secret crush.

Are you two giants the players the Baltimore press calls the Twin Towers? an older man a row in front of the boys asked. He was wearing a University of Maryland red sweater.

Somebody called us that last year at a game, Kareem Hilson responded.

I can understand why, the man offered back. How old are you, son?

Seventeen. We both 17, Hilson answered.

Thinking about playing for Maryland?

Thinking about it, Brown offered.

"Well, if you’re as good as that sportswriter from the Sun says you are, I hope you decide to play here. I’ll be sitting in these same seats if you do."

We look for you, sir, Hilson said. If we be playing for Maryland. We have one more year of high school.

And what school is that?

Cardinal Gleason.

The man nodded and reacted to the Maryland players re-entering the arena floor. He stood and clapped.

Game-time introductions were about to begin; tip-off was soon to follow.

The parochial all-boys school, Cardinal Gleason, which Brown and Hilson attended, was not far from downtown Baltimore. The Twin Towers started together in the 6th grade, already tall and imposing. Many faculty members tried to direct them to the high school on their first day of classes. Teachers were shocked when they learned the boys were 11 years old.

Brown and Hilson remained inseparable for six years with one more to go. People eventually and habitually spoke their names together as though they were already an institution like a law firm.

Cardinal Gleason was ranked number one in Baltimore metropolitan basketball most of the season. Colleges up and down the I-95 corridor – Boston to Miami – tried to recruit Brown and Hilson. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big East had shown strong interest in the star players since they were freshmen. They presumably had the best opportunity to sign them, but other conferences hadn’t given up.

The sportswriter for the Baltimore Sun – the one who dubbed the boys Baltimore’s Twin Towers – even wrote with tongue-in-cheek that the struggling NBA Washington Wizards should look at the man-boy duo as potential draftees. He said the owner could invest in the future with a Brown-Hilson combo selection.

The sportswriter pointed out the obvious problem. The team would have to wait another year until the boys earned their high school diplomas before they could play. The wait might ignite season ticket sales, he opined.

The Maryland-North Carolina match up was all that it promised to be. The teams played to a half-time tie at 42-42. Shooting percentages were exceptional, and no one was in foul trouble.

With the players and coaches headed to their respective locker rooms, the PAL All-stars shifted their attention again to six girls eight rows in front of them. Jack Fitzgerald watched the Secret Service agents to see if they were forcing the girls to stay put.

Yankee White moving, Fitzgerald heard one of the agents say with his hand cupped over his right ear as he walked up the aisle.

The agent looked at the girls and nodded. The first of Bibi’s teammates darted like a typical spectator craving half-time refreshments. The others followed. They were grateful for an opportunity to stretch their long, lean legs.

Fitzgerald stood to keep his eye on certain players, the ones with the least amount of couth. He worried what the young men would do or say when the girls walked by them climbing the steps.

The lead agent closed in on the second row and followed the girls. He delayed other spectators momentarily. Brown and his teammates had sprung to their feet instinctively. Fitzgerald prayed that their tongues stayed still. The agents watched the boys with intimidating stares as everyone approached aisles 10 and 11.

One agent, in fact, stepped quickly to aisle 10 next to André Kanady already leaning into the aisle to make sure the girls noticed. The agent set an effective nose-to-nose screen on the hotshot player as the girls whisked up the stairs.

Jeramaine Fitcher gave Kanady the razz for getting picked like that. Fitzgerald grinned at the other adults.

Meantime, Dante Brown broke to his right, pulling Hilson’s sleeve.

C’mon!

Where we goin’?