Page 93 of Wild Oblivion

The parking lot was packed. In less than half an hour, the doors would open, and rabid fans would flood into the arena. Vanden had gone undefeated this year and would square off against Stratton. This wasn’t the Big Ten, but it would be a hell of a game.

A sea of red and blue covered the parking lot. It didn't take a genius to know who was who. Pickup trucks, SUVs, and RVs crammed into the lot with barely any space between them. With tailgates down and kegs tapped, the party had been raging since this morning. Portable barbecue grills seared steaks, burgers, hot dogs, fajitas, ribs, and more. The pleasant aroma wafted through the air. Flags and pennants waved. Music thumped through speakers. Vendors hawked T-shirts, foam fingers, knockoff jerseys, and caps. Dudes with painted faces and beer bellies gave new meaning to the termsuperfan. Security personnel roamed the parking lot, but the police presence was about to get ramped up times 10.

Patrol cars flooded into the parking lot and pulled up to the stadium. Bomb techs followed. Plenty of black SUVs with tinted windows and black sedans brought up the rear. Federal agents hopped out with bold letters printed on the backs of windbreakers. There was no mistaking what was going on, and it wouldn't be long before word spread around the crowd. Something was up, and none of it was good.

Once inside the stadium, we began a sweep. The feds and the bomb squad had dogs and handheld sniffers. Up to this point, neither had been successful in discovering the prior devices. I didn't expect that to change, but it was worth going through the motions.

We talked to staff and custodians, and no one had seen anything unusual.

I figured if there was a device here, it had been planted weeks in advance.

The feds jammed cell service in the area and set up a fake relay to capture the mobile subscriber numbers of everyone in the parking lot.

We planned to search every nook and cranny of the stadium. A process that could take hours, and would still be incomplete. There were a million places to hide a bomb. If it were me, I’d probably try to hide it somewhere in plain sight. Something so obvious you wouldn't even bother to look.

Of course, we searched all the trash cans, vendor stands, seating, restrooms, and storage closets. We searched the announcers’ booth, the electrical room, the backup generator, everything.

The entire police force was here. Almost every available deputy on the island. All the ATF and federal agents. Everyone.

That's when it dawned on me. We were all here for a reason.

It was safe to say the ballgame wasn't going to happen today. The noon hour approached fast. The parking lot was still full, despite announcements that the game had been postponed.

People were not happy.

There were airline and hotel reservations that had been made. People drove across the country. A lot of money had been spent. This wasn't something you could simply reschedule.

These people were going to sit in the parking lot and continue to drink beer, barbecue, and have a good time no matter what.

“This isn’t the target,” I said to Jack.

He looked at me like I was crazy.

"I mean, it is, but it isn't.”

"What do you mean?"

"This whole time, this guy has had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off, watching our response. He knows exactly what we're going to do. Our response time, our procedures, everything. He keeps escalating. This is the biggest bomb threat yet, and our biggest response.”

"So what are you saying?”

"I'm saying he’s after something else. This is a distraction. They want us all here searching for a bomb, dealing with it while they hit some other target.”

The football teams had been evacuated from the building, but one of the assistant coaches had somehow gotten back into the locker room. He approached JD and me as we stood in the main concourse, not far from the entrance to the home team locker room, under the stands. “Hey, you’re with the county, right?”

I nodded.

“I think I found something.”

50

Irecognized Coach Crawford right away. In his blue windbreaker, he was on the right team. He had brown hair and a bushy mustache and the face of a man who didn't put up with any nonsense. His rough voice had been hewn from countless hours screaming at players.

He escorted us into the locker room that smelled like sports tape, menthol, and body odor.

Jerseys and shoulder pads hung from racks, and the home team locker room was decked out with the school colors of blue, white, and gold, along with paintings of the mascot.

In the center of the locker room, Coach Crawford pointed at the ceiling. "Don't ask me what made me look up, but something did. Maybe a sign from God. But that doesn’t look like any smoke detector I've ever seen. And I can tell you, it wasn't there before."