Last Shot (25 page)

“So when Coach Graber called you Saturday, what did you do?” Susan Carol asked. “What did you know?”

“Not much,” Jurgensen said. “Alan just wanted me to keep an eye on Chip, make sure he was okay. My wife happened to mention that Chip was trying to track down Ben Wojenski, so I asked her to be sure he found him.”

“So your wife wasn’t in on it?” Stevie asked. “Wojenski figured …”

“That since Chip had called Christine, I was as good a diversion as any,” Jurgensen said. “That’s my guess anyway.

“Christine told me you called, Susan Carol, so when I saw you three get in a car the next morning, I figured you were headed out to Bay St. Louis.

“I followed you down there and back, but then you ditched me at the Dome, and I still didn’t know what was going on. So I did a little digging into Benjamin Wojenski. Hard to get into public records on a Sunday—unless you know the right people. I found out Wojenski’s house is mortgaged to the hilt. So then I got another friend to pull his phone records. Lots of calls to an 800 number that turned out to be an offshore betting service. And then I hit pay dirt.”

“How?”

“All sorts of calls to different numbers in the 612 area code and several to a 919 number that I recognized right away.”

“Let me guess,” Stevie said. “Stuart Feeley.”

“You got it.”

“And 612 is Minneapolis, right?” Susan Carol said. “Whiting?”

“Right,” Jurgensen said. “There were a bunch of calls to Tom Whiting’s cell. But it was the other 612 number that was really interesting.”

They were now approaching a police checkpoint near the Dome, where police were apparently turning cars away to keep the area around the building clear. Stevie couldn’t help but think this was all going to be for nothing if they didn’t get moving soon.

They were still a ways from the checkpoint. “Listen, guys, I don’t think we can wait any longer,” Jurgensen said. He made a hard right turn into a small side street and parked next to a fire hydrant. “We’ve got to run for it.”

He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out three passes marked “All Access.”

“Put these on,” he said. “You’ll need them when we get there.”

“But wait,” Susan Carol said as they climbed out of the car.

“I’ll tell you the rest later,” Jurgensen said as they started to run.

“But how’d you know where to find us tonight?” Stevie said.

He could see Jurgensen smile even as they were heading up a hill. “Your e-mail to Bobby Kelleher. Basically, you saved yourselves by sending it. I had no idea where you and
Chip had gone. About seven-thirty I got a nearly hysterical call from Bobby saying he thought you were in trouble.”

Stevie took a breath so he could talk. The Dome was now a couple hundred yards away. “Why would Kelleher call you? We told him you were in on it!”

“Luckily, he knows me well enough to know that couldn’t be true. So he hoped I’d know what
was
true in your story. Your e-mail had him pretty well floored. But between what you wrote and what I found out, I think we’ve got it figured.”

Stevie glanced at Susan Carol, who seemed to be handling the run a lot better than he and Jurgensen. He wanted to thank her for thinking to send the e-mail to Kelleher. It might have saved their lives. But they were finally approaching the gate of the Superdome, and Stevie had just enough breath to get there.

The guard at the back door seemed very surprised to see anyone with an All Access pass arriving with the second half just under way. But the passes made it impossible for him to question them. All three of them were breathing hard when they made it into the hallway where the locker rooms were. There was almost no one around and they could hear the roar of the game coming from the floor. They sprinted to the tunnel leading to the floor. Across the way they could see a scoreboard. Duke was leading 59–50, with just under twelve minutes to play.

“We have to get you guys someplace where we can be sure Chip will see you,” Jurgensen said.

“Well,” Stevie said, “we’ve got All Access passes. Next
time-out, we just walk over near the bench and get his attention coming out of the huddle.”

Jurgensen nodded. “That should work.”

They walked to the end of the tunnel that put them just yards from the MSU bench. They stood off to one side and waited for the whistle to stop play. “One more thing, real quick,” Susan Carol said, still panting a bit. “How did you get Gary to open the door for you?”

Jurgensen smiled. “I told him I was the hotel manager and I had champagne sent by Mr. Feeley for a postgame celebration.”

“Nice,” Stevie said.

“Thought of it in the car on the way over,” he said. “I was counting on there only being one guy guarding you. And I wasn’t counting on that
gun
. I was lucky.”

“We all were,” said Susan Carol.

They heard a whistle. TV was going to time-out with 10:59 left. Duke’s lead was 63–53.

As the players came to the bench and sat down facing away from the crowd, Stevie and Susan Carol started to make a move. “Hang on,” Jurgensen said. “You go too soon, he’ll be looking the wrong way. Wait until you hear the first horn.”

During time-outs, there were two horns. The first one told the players and coaches they had thirty seconds to get back on court. The second sounded with ten seconds left and the officials would go into the huddle to break it up if the players were still lingering.

“As soon as you hear the first horn, move very quickly,”
Jurgensen said. “Walk right up to the scorer’s table, because the ball is at the other end and Chip will go right past there.”

They nodded. And waited. Finally they heard the horn. “Go!” Jurgensen said.

Stevie started running, Susan Carol right behind him. They were past the guard protecting the area behind the bench in an instant, Stevie yelling, “All Access!” as they went by.

He heard a voice say, “Hey, stop them, stop those kids!”

He didn’t have to turn around to recognize who it was, because the voice was now familiar to him: Tom Whiting. He heard other people yell and then saw Chip turn in the direction of the commotion. He stopped as Chip turned around and, as loud as he could to be heard over the din, screamed, “We’re okay, Chip, we’re okay!” Susan Carol was jumping up and down behind him, waving her arms and screaming, too.

Chip saw them and smiled, but just as he did, two security guards grabbed Stevie and Susan Carol. Chip started over to say something, but the second horn went off and the officials were screaming at the MSU players to get back on court. Chip hesitated. “Go play!” Stevie yelled. “Just go and win the game!”

If he was dragged away now, it was okay. The guard was pulling him backward when he heard another voice say, “Let them go. They’ve got All Access passes. Let them go right now.”

The voice belonged to Coach Alan Graber. It suddenly
occurred to Stevie that they had never asked Jurgensen where he had gotten the All Access passes. Now he knew. “They’re with us,” he heard Alan Graber saying. “Just let them go. They’re fine.”

The security guards looked confused. But they didn’t argue. They let go and backed away.

“Come on, Stevie,” Susan Carol said. “Let’s get out of here.”

That was fine with Stevie. Coach Graber smiled at them, then turned back to the court, where his team was inbounding the ball. Whiting, seated on the end of the bench, was glaring at them. But he couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t overrule his coach. Stevie wanted to say something as he walked past, but resisted. They had gotten the message to Chip. The rest was up to him.

Stevie and Susan Carol tried to find Jurgensen, but he wasn’t in the hallway where they’d left him. Then they looked for Kelleher on press row, but he wasn’t in his seat. So they reclaimed their own seats in the overflow press section with less than six minutes to play. Those last minutes of the game might have been the most emotional moments of Stevie’s life. They’d been watching Chip slowly take control of the game. Stevie could see on the scoreboard that Graber now had 19 points. Duke’s lead was down to 73–69. “He caught his second wind a few minutes ago,” one of the writers sitting next to them said. “It’s like someone just turned him on.”

MSU and Duke went back and forth in the final minutes.
Chip tied the score at 80 with an off-balance driving layup with fourteen seconds left. Krzyzewski called time to set up a final play. “I’m not sure I can sit through another overtime,” Susan Carol said. “But I hope they don’t score.”

Stevie knew she meant it. His heart was pounding yet again. The time-out seemed to take forever. Finally, the teams were back on the court.

Duke inbounded. Everyone in the building knew the ball was going to J.J. Redick, their brilliant shooter. Terry Armstrong, the point guard, held the ball near midcourt as the clock went down. Everyone in the arena was standing. As the clock went down to five seconds, Stevie saw Redick sprinting around a screen near the top of the key. Armstrong snapped a pass in his direction. But it never got there. Out of nowhere came Chip. He’d been guarding Duke’s other superb shooter, Daniel Ewing, but had gambled at the last minute and left him alone. Chip got his hand on the ball and deflected it toward midcourt.

Stevie could see the clock clicking from :03 to :02 as Chip picked the ball up in full flight, Armstrong sprinting back to cut him off. Chip was almost at the exact same spot where he had made the winning shot on Saturday, when he stopped his dribble and went up in the air to shoot. Armstrong was diving at him, screaming at the top of his lungs, “No, no, no way!”

Just as Chip released the ball, Armstrong piled into him and they both went down to the floor. Stevie wondered if there would be a foul call, but he heard no whistle. Stevie thought he must be watching a replay of the end of the St.
Joe’s game. This time, though, the ball hit the back of the rim and bounced high into the air. Overtime, Stevie thought. But then the ball dropped down, hit the front of the rim, hung there for a moment, and dropped through the net.

Bedlam.

Stevie knew he was jumping up and down and screaming and acting completely unprofessional. He didn’t care. Someone was pounding him and hugging him. It was Susan Carol. She had tears in her eyes. Well, so did he. It was déjà vu all over again. Same spot on the court, almost the same shot.

Chip had disappeared completely under a pile of his celebrating teammates. Stevie saw Krzyzewski waiting patiently for the pile to clear so he could congratulate him. Grudgingly, he had to concede that was a pretty classy move.

Suddenly Jurgensen appeared at their seats. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got work to do.”

They followed him to the tunnel. People were running in all directions, shouting instructions at one another. They were right underneath the Duke section, which was the one place in the Dome that wasn’t going completely crazy. At the top of the tunnel, Stevie saw a half dozen men in suits.

“Thanks for coming, Rick,” Jurgensen said, shaking hands with one of them, a tall bald man who did not appear likely to smile anytime soon.

“Steve, I came because your word has always been good in the past,” Rick said. “I’m assuming it’s good now,
although that’s a wild story you told me on the phone.”

“It’s all true,” Jurgensen said. “These are the two kids I told you about. Stevie, Susan Carol, this is Special Agent Rick Applebaum. He runs the New Orleans field office of the FBI. We’ve worked together on cases in the past.”

They all shook hands. “You kids okay?” Applebaum said. They nodded. “And are you
sure
Graber will talk?” he said, eyes fixed on Jurgensen.

“He’ll talk. And so will these two. You’ll have plenty. And I can testify to seeing them tied up at the hotel.”

“Yeah, we’ve already picked up the guy you left back there,” Applebaum said. “Nice tape job. Okay, let’s go get the rest of them.”

Jurgensen told them where everyone was likely to be: Whiting on court with the team, Feeley in the Duke section. “And you’ll find Koheen down on the floor trying to look happy about the outcome,” he said.

Koheen? Stevie knew the name but wasn’t sure from where. Then he remembered the MSU media guide. Susan Carol had figured it out a split second before him. “Earl Koheen?” she said. “The president of MSU?”

Jurgensen nodded. “That’s the part I didn’t get to tell you. The other calls Wojenski made to the 612 area code were to Earl Koheen. It took me a while to add things up, but in the end, it all connects.”

“Wait a minute,” Stevie said. “The media guide. It said that one of Koheen’s professors at Providence was …”

“Tom Whiting,” Susan Carol said, finishing the sentence for him.

“And guess who was teaching up there at the exact same time,” Jurgensen said.

Stevie and Susan Carol looked at one another. Something Wojenski had said came back to Stevie. He’d said he and his wife were both from Rhode Island.

“Wojenski,” he said.

“Right,” Jurgensen said. “That’s where it all clicked. Koheen has been quietly sniffing around all winter to replace Tom Sanford as Duke’s president. I knew that from being on the board. Then all of a sudden MSU and Duke are in the Final Four. Koheen knew Chip had been in some academic trouble and he also knew that Feeley’s finances hadn’t been great the last year or so. My guess is he called Feeley and offered a deal: I’ll see to it that Duke wins the championship game if the schools play. Feeley makes a huge financial hit and in return Koheen ends up as Duke’s president.”