[IT’S FLASHBACK TIME]
“You can’t do that! They need to play!”
Everett Steadman rose above the racket.
“Gentlemen. Gentlemen! We made a deal. And I have upheld my end. Jouko is here. I never mentioned him playing.”
Years of training in the Prosecor Agency had given him the capacity to utter those words in front of a whole dressing room that hated him without a single drop of sweat. But deep down buried inside him, there was a racing heart. Was that it, all that he had built up towards? Despite all the circumstances, that pesky ‘permitted’ goalkeeper and the limitations of the group, he had brought them to the final of the Cup of Harmony. It was bizarre that no one recognized how he was not just an excellent servant to the nation but also an exceptional manager. Was Pesonen a better goalkeeper than Powell? Possibly, but he could not fathom winning this tournament with a foreign worker between the posts. To exclude Puckett from the line-up, Steadman would have to admit himself, was more about personal vengeance than anything else. Still, Doucouré was an acceptable alternative, for sure. And now, those guys were acting up like schoolchildren rather than getting their head on the chance for a cup triumph. Luckily, McIntyre stepped up. He did not personally like the officer, but giving him the captain’s armband had been a good solution: now he no longer acted up.
“Guys, whatever your personal opinion… It’s the boss who makes the line-up, who calls the shots. That’s the way it is. He did his part, now we must do ours and go out and play a final.”
As McIntyre and Steadman left the dressing room, there was some murmuring but any opposition was left without a backbone.
“Alright Mac, don’t worry about it. They’ll fall in line soon. Now, what I want you to do is-”
Steadman never got any further. Swiftly, the sturdy midfielder shoved his superior into a closet, gagging him with what (after first taste tests) appeared to be a spare football sock. The manager was too stunned at first and when he finally unfroze, the door was closed. He tried to whack the door with his feet and to toss his full body against it, but it seemed as if the sound of his actions disappeared underneath the blanket of a roaring crowd in Alcassar. After fifteen minutes, Steadman gave up his efforts as they were in vain. That did not mean that he was not seething. In a way, it was lucky for the rebels that they did not unlock him in the first half or he would have skinned them alive. But as his temper started to disappear, Everett Steadman started to think. There was no way that they credibly could get away with it, right? I mean, you cannot leave your coach locked up forever. Moreover if that coach is a ranking officer in the Prosecor Agency - besides, why weren’t they looking for him? At halfway, some of his questions were answered as Izzy Powell and Toussaint Doucouré put their heads inside the closet.
“Hi coach, sorry about that but…”
“Hmmmmm! Hgmgmhmh! Hghghhg!”
“Yeah, we’re going to keep that sock in for a bit longer.”
“Hmmg!”
“So, here’s the thing. We’re doing well, Pershing got us an opening goal and Jouko is killing it.”
From the look in his eyes, they could see that just mentioning Pesonens name still sufficed to turn Steadman berserk. Izak Powell however calmly continued his resume.
“If we can keep that up, there is a good chance we win. And that would be great, for us of course, but also for you. Because you can, in that case, walk away from all that without losing face. We’ll let you out in time, you share the spoils of the triumph, we’ll fucking lift you on our shoulders if you want to. Everett Steadman, Cup of Harmony winning manager, how does that sound? A great high and a perfect one to stop. That’s the other part of the deal. We’ll let you keep your face to your superiors, to the nation and to the footballing world, if you walk away after this one. That is the only way out with you as a national and agency hero.”
“Hmmmghgh!”
“It sounds as if mister Steadman needs a bit more time to think about it.”
The metallic sound of the closing cupboard had given Steadman back his calmth. He tried to look to the problem from various directions but realized that any opposition to the group, let alone further absence from the match, would make his superiors question him. And would make them question where on earth he had been. So when the duo returned for the second time, based upon the crowd sounds approximately with a handful of minutes on the clock, he calmly allowed them to put out the sock.
“I’ll take it.”
“Ideal. We’re three-one up and Vielfaltig is falling apart.”
Everett Steadman appeared out of the tunnel just in time to see Jouko Pesonen make a perfect catch on a corner kick, launch Baylor Rivers up the left wing who managed to find Marcus Puckett. The attacking midfielder usually looked for a footballing solution but from just outside the box, he simply shot it in the furthest corner, out of reach for Marcela Ramos. And of course Steadman cheered for the 4-1, some of the reserves gave him hugs him in a way the cameras could not tell how cold those were. On the last whistle, the manager lifted one fist in the air, in triumph.
But in his head, the first seeds of vengeance were planted already.
[FLASHBACK TIME IS OVER, GET YOUR ASS IN THE CURRENT TIMELINE]
Today was a day Everett Steadman had put in his agenda a long time ago, with double underlines in bright red. What had started to brew inside his head in that closet in Alcassar was finally coming to fruition. Of course, he had not known the weak spot of his two mortal enemies yet back then. But now he had the first one right where he wanted him, right in front of his horns. To reach Jouko Pesonen had been a relatively easy task. In his family, Antti had always been the ugly duckling. Planting an inside man into the Merx sawmill had been a small job if you knew the owner. Officer Merthin always had been interested in the bottle but that ironically made him a perfect cast for the role of Seamus Wilson, annoying drunk and shift manager who could make the life of Antti Pesonen horrendous. Considering the previous notes in the file of Antti, the question was not if but when he would violently react. And Merthin had done a splendid task, at the peril of his own life.
The next step was to make sure that the strictest version of the law would be applied to the subject but for someone who knows the randomization script which directs integration cases to the different courts, it is easy to make a good match between defendant and judge. Judge Quinn would not let that rascal off the hook, he knew. If not, the little polaroids shared, of his escapades in a sleazy motel with a far younger woman, would have convinced him. The finishing touch Steadman appreciated the most was that he had gotten senator Finley to put his son on the case. Everett had known little Brook Finley since he was a child and knew that the obnoxious no-good could not talk his way out of a paper bag. The senator appreciated the gesture and if Antti would have had one escape route, it was now carefully sealed off. One unfortunate side effect was that Finley had been so incapable that he had gotten the case split: on the one hand the first court appearance, which had seen Antti expelled as expected. On the other hand, a second one that would see his parents and youngest sister follow the same path. It was not rare to see family members expelled along with the culprit if you made the case well about their ‘antisocial tendencies’ and ‘further risk to the society’. If there remained unclarity about the arguments, judge Meyers would take care of it. He might be a football fan, but he’s mainly on the payroll of the Prosecor Agency.
With a broad grin and a light thread, Steadman stepped into River Street in Bridgehead. One to the left and there you had the court building, a strange mash-up as a modern block with pseudo-antique accents (such as the columns and the hideous frieze over the sliding doors) to give the whole place a bit more gravitas. He was not particularly fond of the place but for today, it could have been Steadman’s favorite spot. If expulsion for half your family did not make Pesonen a bitter man, then what would? If he would have been a singing man, he’ld chant now but in his current disguise with the fake moustache tickling his lips, he kept it to a cheery hum. His revenge on Marcus Puckett would be for a different day, but this was a splendid start. Steadman turned left and as his eyes made contact with the sliding doors, they also saw…
Goddamned.
What did they do here?
**
Izak Powell nervously fumbled with his bowtie. He did not like formal dress but his wife, a woman who rarely left the house in anything other than sweatpants and sneakers (ok, she is a gym teacher, but still), insisted that he would dress up for the occasion. With a grin, Marcus Puckett came over, a man with a head that was carved out of marble by the gods just to put it on top of a tuxedo.
“You’re really messing it up again, here, let me do it.”
“Sorry, Marcus, I never wear those. You’ve done this before?” Izzy grinned.
“Obviously, Izzy,” and with flair, Marcus rearranged Powell back into a well-dressed man.
“Should they not have been here already?”
“We’re five minutes before, Izak, that is at least four minutes earlier than most would usually be.”
“The press did turn up, at least. Where do they come from?”
Now it was Marcus’ turn to sport a wide grin.
“Let’s say that some papers were very keen to send a photographer and an intern if that gives them an exclusive interview with the always seclusive star of the national team.”
“Oh, I didn’t know Philips was seclusive,” Powell joked.
It was strange to think, Powell realized, that not that long ago everyone in the selection hated Puckett. The star midfielder of the Hammers still had his particularities but ever since Jouko Pesonen had explained that the man had helped him, rather than working against him, many had made their peace with his thinly layered arrogance and narcissistic side.
“You’ve seen Jouko yet?”
“No, I’ll think he’ll come with his family. Let’s hope the boys are there in time.”
As if that had been their signal, about twenty young men strolled into the little plaza in front of the sliding doors of the Bridgehead court house. Twenty-four hours earlier, they had landed from travelling to the Batavia and the next match in the qualification marathon would follow soon. Everyone could have used this time to visit family or rest a little. The trip to Osiris had been a long but fruitful one. In the always tricky away game against the team in orange, they had struggled to gain dominance in the opening half. The absence of Marchand (yellow carded, again) and an injured Merrick had been costly in the organization and the Batavia made clever use of that. But Jouko had been his irresistible self. With him on goal, Anewkansas barely let anything in. Since making his surprise return after the ban, he even had kept the sheets clean. Especially in the home match against the SRS, that had been an enormous stunt and the previously ambivalent audience had quickly closed him in their arms again. As that stood, the FA did not dare to push hard on a prolongation of the ban, so Pesonen could back to save the day in minute 38 as he stopped a penalty. After the break, the legs of the home team tired and that’s what coach Augustus had been waiting for. Replacement Doucouré opened the score in minute 66, breaking the opposing spirit. The double-up (the first international goal for right-back Karl Hullbacher) had been a nice icing on the cake.
The twenty young men who had constructed that victory, putting Anewkansas slam in the middle of the exciting World Cup race of group twelve, all signed in present. Not a single one of them had missed the appointment. Most of them were sharply dressed, or at least as sharp as could be. Those associated with a military club, such as Major or Sevilla, turned up in uniform. The five members of the Officers Club, the team which represented the police forces, looked especially smart with their kepi cleanly polished. Even youngsters such as Ridgeway and Jaffrenou had made a point of wearing a clean shirt to top of their outfits for the occasion. They looked splendid as a whole and the photographers started to snap away.
When a minute later the Pesonens walked onto the plaza as well, it was visibly a more than pleasant surprise for them. Especially Jouko looked a little stunned, to see all his teammates turn up on a dreary morning into the rather cold and grey business section of the capital.
“You guys! You really shouldn’t have…”
Before he could get emotional, it was Harvey McIntyre who took the word, clearing his throat as he tried to add the right weight to his spotless uniform.
“I think I speak for us all, as we are gathered here on this morning with the first rays of the su-”
“Fucking get on with it, Harvy Hamster,” Pitt van Dam spoke. The hard midfielder from the small mining city of Coalton probably didn’t own a suit but you could tell that he had made an effort with his least spotted shirt. Van Dam was probably also the only person in the world with the right or the guts to call officer McIntyre ‘Harvy Hamster’.
“Yes, yes, well,” McIntyre tried to recollect his thoughts, “what I wanted to say is that we are all here to support you and your family. That we want, with our presence, underline their integration in and contribution to our society. And that we want to send a positive message of unity.”
“And that we’ll thrash the courtroom if they decide against,” van Dam added, luckily soft enough only the members of the selection caught it.
Jouko, encircled by the press, could not say a word. He wasn’t much of a talker anyway. But he simply smiled and nodded his thanks. The past few weeks had been a nightmare for him but for the first time, it seemed as if his hope was getting the final upper hand over his fear.
(33')
