He got his mountain bike from the shed out back and set off. Although Alex Cross’s younger son felt most at home with his head in a book or on the internet learning something new, he adored his bike, especially when he could launch off something. The front and rear shocks on the thing were amazing.
By the time Ali was past the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, heading south along the west side of the Tidal Basin, he’d found at least ten great jumps and had landed them all. He had the main path almost to himself.
As Ali was pedaling hard toward the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, he saw a man kneeling beside his bike to the right of the path. The man spun around and waved his arms, telling him to stop.
But it was too late. With his attention on the man, Ali had taken his eyes off the path. His front tire rolled over the shards of a broken bottle and blew out.
Ali veered off the path and crash-landed hard on the ground. It dazed him and knocked the wind out of him.
The man who’d waved at him rushed over. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Darn it, by the time I heard you coming, I couldn’t warn you off the glass,” the man said in an easy Southern drawl. “Got both my tires. Lucky I didn’t bend a rim.”
He was tall and very fit in biking shorts and a tight jersey that read u.s. ARMED FORCES CYCLING TEAM. He wore wraparound Oakley glasses and a Bell racing helmet over short, sandy-blond hair.
He helped Ali up, said, “I’m Captain Arthur Abrahamsen.”
“Ali Cross.”
“Nice to meet you, Ali Cross. Can I check the damage to your tire?”
“No, sir, I’ll just walk it home. It’s okay.”
“You might ride it home,” Captain Abrahamsen said, smiling, “if the tire’s fixable. Do you mind if I take a look? I know a bit about this.”
Ali hesitated, but then shrugged and nodded, thinking that it would be a lot easier to ride home than walk the three and a half miles pushing a bike with a flat tire.
“Can you kick the glass off the path while I see if it’s salvageable?” the captain asked. “We don’t want any more people getting flats or we’ll have a convention.”
“Sure,” Ali said.
Abrahamsen lifted his bike’s front fork and spun the tire.
Ali kicked the big pieces of glass into the grass with the sides of his sneakers. “You in the military?”
“I am, the U.S. Army,” Abrahamsen said, still looking at the tire.
“Do you, like, race for them?”
“Sort of,” he said. “I’m good enough to train with the team but not quite good enough to fly all over the world to ride for my country. Yet.”
He said this with such conviction and enthusiasm that Ali couldn’t help but smile. “That’s awesome.”
“Totally, as my nephew says,” Abrahamsen said. “Here’s your puncture.”
He held the wheel in place and showed Ali where the glass had penetrated it.
“Is it fixable?” Ali asked.
“I might be able to patch it up so that it’ll get you home. After that, you’ll want a new tire and tube.”
Abrahamsen went over to his own bike. “Can you carry your bike like this?” He picked up his bike and put his right arm through the frame and got it up onto his shoulder.
Ali nodded. He’d seen mountain-bike racers doing that when they had to cross impassable stuff.
“But where are we going? Don’t you have tools and a patch kit with you?”
“Enough for one tire,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ve got everything we need in the team van. It’s parked down by the marina. You want a team sticker for your bike?”
Ali liked that idea. “I’ve never known a professional bike rider.”
“And you still don’t. Yet. C’mon, let’s pick up the pace. I have to be at a meeting at noon. And I imagine your mother will be looking for you.”
“Nana Mama, my great-grandmother,” Ali said, lifting his smaller bike onto his shoulder and very much wanting Captain Arthur Abrahamsen to think he was strong enough to carry it the whole way to the marina.
The captain smiled. “Great-grandmother? Do you want to give her a call? Tell her where you are and who you’re with? Wouldn’t want her to get worried.”
Ali frowned, set his bike down, and slapped his pockets, looking for his phone. “I know I had it leaving the house.”
“Here,” Captain Abrahamsen said, handing him his own phone. “Call her and I’ll look around back there, see if it fell out when you went down.”
Ali took the phone and punched in the number while Abrahamsen went back to where they’d both crashed.
The phone rang and Nana picked up. “Hello?”
“Nana? It’s Ali. I had a flat, and Captain Arthur Abrahamsen, he’s a bike racer in the army, he’s going to help me fix it. I’m on his phone.”
“Well, that’s nice of him.”
“I’ll be home soon,” Ali said and hung up.
He turned around to see Abrahamsen crouched near some deeper grass. The captain stood and held up a black phone. “This it?”
Ali breathed a sigh of relief. His father would have had a cow if he’d lost his phone. “Yes. Thank you.”
They exchanged phones. Abrahamsen said, “Did you get your great-grandmother?”
“Yes.”
“It’s better that she doesn’t worry, don’t you think?”
Ali nodded, already getting his bike up on his shoulder again. “Much better, sir.”
Chapter 7
I finally woke up around nine on Saturday morning. After showering and dressing, I went downstairs and out onto the porch, looking for the morning paper. A van emblazoned with decals of men and women bicycling and the insignia of the U.S. Armed Forces pulled up in front of the house.
To my surprise, Ali jumped out. “Dad!”
A man in his early thirties climbed out the driver’s side. He was wearing a sweatshirt that said u.s. army over bike pants.
He and Ali climbed up the front steps as Ali said, “Captain Abrahamsen is almost on the U.S. Armed Forces bicycle-racing team! I got a flat. We couldn’t fix it, so he offered to drive me home.”
The captain smiled and stuck out his hand. “Arthur Abrahamsen, sir. You’ve got quite a boy there.”
I shook his hand and smiled. “He is that. Thanks for helping him out.”
“My pleasure,” Abrahamsen said, and he chuckled. “He taught me a lot about a lot of different subjects.”
“I hope he didn’t talk your ear off.”
“No, sir,” Abrahamsen said. “Both ears intact. Well, let me get his bike out. He’s going to need a new tire and tube, I’m afraid.”
“We both hit broken glass and got flats,” Ali said as Abrahamsen went over and opened up the rear of the van.
The van was filled with wheels, tires, and other equipment hanging off the walls.
“So, do you race full-time for the military?” I asked as he took out the bike.
“He trains with the team,” Ali said.
“And even that’s hardly full-time,” Abrahamsen said, closing the van doors. “I’m busy over at the Pentagon and up on the Hill, so I try to squeeze in my training rides when I can.” He brought the bike over.
“Well, thank you again,” I said, and we shook hands once more.
The captain smiled at Ali. “It’s always good to meet a fellow cavalryman.”
Ali looked at him, puzzled.
“I used to be in the U.S. Army Fourth Cavalry,” Abrahamsen explained. “Tanks. But I’ve always thought that in this day and age, cavalrymen should be on bikes instead.”
“Mountain bikes,” Ali said, smiling.
“Exactly! They’re more like horses,” Abrahamsen said, pointing at him and winking. “Take care, now. Nice meeting you, Mr. Cross.”