They nodded.
Ballantine pressed the green button on the phone and transmitted.
CHAPTER 7
Groomsman No. 1 felt the weight of his cell phone in his pocket as it vibrated against his leg. Opening it just outside the Charlotte Sting locker room in the coliseum, he said, “Hello?”
“What does the attendance look like tonight?”
“Looks like a full house,” the groomsman replied.
“The groom appreciates the tickets.”
“Anytime,” he said into the small handset.
The groomsman flipped the phone shut, took a deep breath, and moved toward the first concession stand.
The benefactor of one of the most controversial presidential pardons ever, Groomsman No. 1 had been released fourteen years early from a mandatory, no-parole, sixteen-year prison sentence at San Quentin. He had been caught by DEA and FBI agents, operating the largest cocaine ring in the Southwest. His father had laundered and funneled his drug money into massive political payoffs that wound their way up the channel, resulting in said pardon.
It had been nearly seven years, and the groomsman had been a model citizen, obeying the speed limit, paying his taxes, avoiding the gangs and cartels — except for being caught within Jorge Cartagena’s long reach. Cartagena, baron of the infamous drug cartel in Colombia, was a key player in the Central Committee. He was leveraging the fact that when Groomsman No. 1 had gone to jail, he was nearly one million dollars in debt to the organization. Supply chain problems. Cartagena gave the groomsman one option, which was to get a job in North Carolina as a concession manager.
The groomsman wiped the sweat from his forehead, reasonably confident he could get away with what he was about to do. Hell, if his father was able to bribe the president of the United States, well, then, that added a whole new perspective to things.
The groomsman was dressed in his typical work attire: an old Hornet’s No. 12 shirt, baggy, black dungarees, and Nike high tops. He kept his hair cropped close to his glistening black scalp and wore black wraparound sunglasses.
He walked up the ramp to his first concession stand, which he found stacked with lines twenty-deep. Each concessionaire was doling out popcorn, hotdogs, and beer. Keg beer fed through taps, each keg containing forty gallons of beer. Five hundred such kegs, thirty of which the groomsman had personally delivered in his coliseum work truck early that morning, were emptied by thirsty fans every game. He had driven right through security, tipping his hat at the attendant he had known for five years.
Cartagena had put the groomsman in touch with the keg supplier, an oily-looking man who nervously stacked and secured the kegs inside the extended Chevy van sporting a large, teal and indigo Sting symbol on a white background. “Most are loaded with a hundred pounds of explosives. Three contain enough VX nerve gas to kill the first responders. Should kill just about everybody,” the supplier said. “Be careful, bud. Watch those speed bumps. Oh, and make sure you keep the remote with you, or nothing will work,” Cartagena’s contact added, handing him a box of remote-controlled fuses as if it were a box of doughnuts.
Groomsman No. 1 had driven the short way from the link-up point at no more than twenty-five miles an hour, palms sweating the entire way. He off-loaded the kegs one at a time and used a modified golf cart to move them in pairs to each of the fifteen concession stands. He tucked these special kegs into the back of the storage coolers so that that they would be the last to be used.
He inserted the fuses and armed them, only needing the radio-frequency-delivered code to start the clock ticking toward a simultaneous explosion of 3,000 pounds of explosives, all conveniently stowed beneath the upper bleachers and near the support columns of the arena.
He whistled as he walked toward the first concession stand and pressed the small, black remote control that looked similar to the average television handset. He then negotiated his way past the assembled crowd, opened the stanchion, and nudged his way through the concessionaires into the storage locker.
“Hey, baby,” the sound of a voice startled him, “good to see you.” Charlene Pierce worked the concession nearest the best courtside seats because she was attractive. She had smiled her way into the position where she now waits on the wealthy patrons that would occasionally wander out and mix with the commoners.
“Hey, Charlene. Good to see you too,” the groomsman said, completing his task. Normally he would have kissed her on the cheek, but he was on a mission, and he knew that he didn’t want to be caught in the coliseum when the business went down.
But she didn’t let him off the hook. She grabbed his arm, her hand wrapped around his large biceps, and said, “Come here, baby, and give me a big kiss.”
“Not now.”
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“Nothing, baby. Just got lots of checking to do, you know?” But he acquiesced and stopped, spinning around to give her a quick peck on the cheek.
She pressed her body up against his and started to push him into the storage room.
“Maybe we should just check this stuff out together,” she said, her long eyelashes fluttering close to his face.
He stared into her large brown eyes, pushing her away. “Baby, let me check you later. Boss man is really upset,” he said.
She grabbed his crotch playfully and said, “You my boss man, big guy. Come back and see me.”
“Sure thing,” he said, giving her another quick peck on the cheek. He thought to himself that he had always wanted to pursue Charlene, even though she was only nineteen. Too bad he would never have the chance.
He found the kegs and leaned over the two in which he was interested. He saw that, indeed, the timer was working: 28:15… 28:14…
He had wasted precious time with Charlene, but now that he was sure the remote worked, he could cruise past the others and simply press the button. He had calculated fifteen minutes to make the full circle and get outside. He would be pulling onto Interstate 85 about the time the explosives cut the building in half.
As he walked, he heard the announcer’s voice bellow over the loud-speaker system. “And we have 12,000 in attendance today. Congratulations on another smashing day of attendance for our own Charlotte Sting!” He dragged the last word along until it was dwarfed by the roar of the crowd.
The groomsman quickly proceeded around the main corridor, pressing the remote as he passed each concession stand, briefly catching a glimpse of the red light flashing, indicating the radio signal had been delivered.
It took him twenty minutes to complete his rounds. He had run into three people who wanted to shoot the breeze with him, and two concessionaires had flagged him down from a distance to complain about one issue or another. He eventually found himself looking from a distance at Charlene, back where he had started his journey. Her eyes caught his and she winked. He waved, then trotted down the ramp toward the locker rooms and out past the security guard to the employee parking lot.
Charlene smiled as she thought about the possibilities. She pulled the beer tap forward, and foam started spitting out at her.
“Time out, time out,” she shouted, laughing. Her customer stepped back, smiling. “Gotta get another keg,” she said.
Charlene opened the storage-room door and walked to the back of the keg room. As she walked, she made a mental note that she and the keg-man could do a quickie if everyone were really busy out front. She grabbed the dolly at the rear of the storage room, and instead of moving to the front row of kegs, neatly lined two-deep along the cooler wall, she slid the dolly beneath the keg nearest the back.