Finally he does. “They told me they’d buried explosives here. I’ve looked for them everywhere. In and under the house, on the grounds. There’s no trace.” His words are slow, hesitant, as if he examines and evaluates each one, floating limp in the air, before he utters another. “I think they’re bluffing.” He throws down his shovel, pulls himself to the lip of the hole, and sits there, resting, his feet dangling inside.

Sarah kneels beside him. “You’re wrong, T.K.” She phrases her message with the harsh overtones of certainty. “The explosives are here. Exactly as they said.” She tells him this without looking at him. “They’ll detonate them, exactly as they say they will. When you’ve been around them as long as I have, you learn. They never pretend.”

He turns his head sideways to stare at her, dumbfounded. “You’re one of them?”

“They can be very accommodating, T.K., very generous.”

“Your EBS article was nothing but a front?”

“Not really. I am an EBS writer. I merely have a, shall we call it a part-time job as well.”

“Who do you work for? IBC?”

“Indirectly, through Senator Lako Barin.”

T.K. shakes his head. “The accommodating, generous Senator Barin.” Significantly, his sarcasm is lost on her. “After his visit, I tried getting permission to have my parents moved. Your good Senator Barin personally gave me a call telling me it would take ninety days to process my request. I don’t have ninety days. I have Saturday, January first.”

Sarah grasps his shoulder, firmly so he’s aware of all she’s offering him. “Your memories or your retribution, T.K. You have to decide. Which do you want most?”

Instead of answering, he pulls himself to his feet. Choose between memories and retribution. Considering the eventual ramifications of each, it’s not much of a choice. In fact, no choice at all. He picks up his clothes. “Get that helicopter over here,” he says, balancing himself by holding on to her shoulder with one hand while he slips on his coveralls with the other. The hesitation that characterized his earlier statements is gone, his manner is once more firm, direct. “I’ve got to catch a plane to Boston.”

15

KILLERBOWL XXI, THE GAME

Saturday, January 1, 2011, 6:30 P.M.

T.K. makes it out onto the playing street just as the whistle sounds, beginning the fourth quarter. Had he not beaten the whistle, he would have been banned from participation in the remainder of the game.