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  DEEP ZONE

  A FOOTBALl GENIUS NOVEL

  TIM GREEN

  Dedication

  For my boys, the real Thane, Troy, and Ty,

  who are even nicer than the characters in this book

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  About the Author

  Also by Tim Green

  Credit

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  THE COLD BIT INTO Ty’s face. The crowd roared their boos. From the highest point in the stadium, triangular purple and gold pennants snapped like the flags on a castle’s ramparts.

  “Hey, kid!” someone screamed.

  Ty glanced over his shoulder instinctively. A man with a purple construction hat and a stuffed black raven perched on its crown stood at the edge of the railing and shouted until his face went red. “Yeah, you, ball boy! You stink! So do the Jets! Go home!”

  The four other men with him wore no shirts, despite the cold. Their bare chests and flabby bellies jiggled beneath purple and black body paint. They hollered their lungs out too, filling the air with puffs of angry smoke. Ty was reminded of the movie Braveheart, where half-dressed savage warriors hacked at one another with broadswords. Ty felt like a prisoner, one of the very few people of the seventy thousand packed into the stadium who wore green and white. All else was a roaring sea of purple, black, and gold.

  Ty stepped between the benches and the hulking Jets players who sat soaking up the warm air pumped out of the vents beneath their seats. He melted into the safety of still more players, who stood crowding the sideline, their eyes intent on their teammates jogging out to accept the kickoff. Ty searched through the forest of padded legs until he found his brother, tall and lean, built like a greyhound and nearly as fast.

  The game would be won or lost in the next few plays, and Ty’s brother, the star rookie wide receiver, would likely have a hand in it either way. Thane—or Tiger, as everyone else called him—already had eleven catches and two touchdowns in this nail-biting playoff game. The Baltimore Ravens defense wasn’t stupid. They’d be ready for Thane on this final drive, knowing that taking him out of the game would do more than anything else to keep their 27–21 lead.

  Ty’s older brother looked down, put a hand on Ty’s shoulder, and gave him a wink.

  “You worried?” Ty asked.

  His brother looked across the field at the Ravens bench and the defensive players strapping on their helmets and slapping each others’ shoulder pads.

  “Just their deep zone,” Thane said. “That’s all.”

  “Deep zone?” Ty asked.

  “No matter how hard you run, if they’re in a deep zone, they’re already back there waiting for you.” Thane put his own helmet on and snapped up the chin strap. “It’s a good way to defend against someone with speed.”

  “That’s you,” Ty said.

  “You and me both. Fast like Mom.” Thane smiled, but Ty frowned. Yes, Ty played the game, too, the same position as his older brother, and he was fast, and their mom had been a sprinter in college. But their mom had died more than a year ago along with their dad in a car crash, and Ty didn’t like to talk about his parents. It especially bothered him when Thane talked like they weren’t gone.

  They were gone. Nothing could change that.

  The whistle blew. Players on the kickoff team streaked past. Helmets popped and pads crunched. Players grunted and roared. Another whistle, and the Jets offense—including Thane—ran out onto the field to begin their final drive.

  Chapter Two

  TY KNEW BEING ON the sideline was a privilege. Only one other boy—a coach’s son—got to wipe down the balls and hand them to the officials when the teams switched positions on the field. Ty was special, not that he wanted to be. He would give up his own NFL dreams as well as his brother’s already promising career not to be special. But special he was, a boy without parents, and a boy whose only other living relatives (besides his NFL brother) had been hurried away into a government witness protection program. The bizarre and dangerous series of events that had led to that haunted Ty.

  Even though Ty still blamed himself for some of the trouble that had occurred when he fed inside information about the Jets to the northern New Jersey mob, Thane insisted the whole thing was their uncle’s fault. It was Uncle Gus who had been the gambler and the person who associated with the bookies and mobsters. It was Uncle Gus who bragged that he could get inside information from his nephews to the violent men who were eager for it.

  Even the slightest deviation from an NFL team’s official injury report gave gamblers a huge edge when it came to betting. Ty had learned that when people bet on NFL games, they don’t just bet on who wins or loses. Instead, the winner has to also beat what’s called the spread, the points the team needs to win by for gamblers to cash in on their bets.

  Ty had known nothing about any of this when he’d been sent to live with their father’s sister, Aunt Virginia; her thirteen-year-old daughter, Charlotte; and Uncle Gus. Uncle Gus hadn’t had any use for Ty except as another free employee in his cleaning service. That was until one of his gambling contacts demanded some inside knowledge about the Jets. Uncle Gus knew Thane would tell Ty anything, and he made up a story about a phony website for fantasy football players as the reason for all of Ty’s questions about the injury status of the Jets players. When the FBI learned about the scheme, they were hungry for the headlines that would come from busting an NFL player. They cracked down on Than
e as well as Uncle Gus. Thane—who was totally innocent—and their uncle—who wasn’t so innocent—both quickly agreed to help the FBI put the mobsters behind bars.

  Once that happened, the government decided the only way Gus and his family could ever be safe would be to go into hiding. Thane—the FBI claimed—didn’t have the same risk as Gus for two reasons: first, because he was a public figure, the mob would hesitate to harm him, and second, because unlike Uncle Gus, Thane had never agreed to go into business with the mob. Only people who joined them and then ratted them out were marked by the mob for murder.

  When Uncle Gus, Aunt Virginia, and Charlotte packed up to go, Thane stepped in and said he’d take Ty so that Ty wouldn’t have to leave New Jersey and the school where he had begun to make friends as well as a name for himself as a football player. While Ty would miss his cousin Charlotte, a faithful friend, he jumped at the chance to be with his brother, whom he adored with all his heart. So now, living with a twenty-two-year-old NFL rookie as his only relative and guardian, Ty got to do things with the team that other kids would jump through fire for, mainly being on the sideline of all the Jets games and traveling to the away games with the team like he was part of the staff.

  Ty tossed a fresh ball to the referee, then slipped between two players to stand at the edge of the coach’s box on the sideline. He listened to the play being called and knew that it was a run. The Jets halfback took a toss sweep outside for four yards. The clock kept running down, and the Ravens’ crazy fans went wild. They loved it. Each second brought them closer to victory.

  Ty wanted to shout at the coaches that they had to pass the ball. He wanted to tell them to throw downfield to Thane. But when the next play was a pass to Thane, it was a simple out pattern that gained just seven yards. Ty looked up at the clock. Only forty-seven seconds remained.

  At least the pass got them a first down and stopped the clock, but the Jets had a long way to go, almost seventy yards, for the touchdown they needed. The crowd now seemed to taste a win for its home team, and the cheering became a steady roar like the wind of a hurricane. Jets coaches and players on the sideline had to shout between themselves to be heard, and Ty could no longer get a hint of what play was being sent into the huddle for the offense to run.

  Out on the field, the Ravens defenders waved to the crowd, egging them on even more. Ty plugged his ears against the waves of deafening noise. When the Jets offense got to the line, the quarterback had to shout one way and then the other to make any changes. Three plays in a row, the Jets threw the ball. Three plays in a row, the ball fell incomplete. The crowd only got louder.

  On fourth down—their last chance—the Jets quarterback dropped back and launched a deep pass. Thane raced underneath it on a post route and leaped up between two defenders to snatch the ball. Thane and his defenders collapsed into a heap. The Jets sideline went wild this time, and the crowd’s noise drifted off into the dark gray sky like a dying ghost.

  The Jets had a first down now and they were inside the Ravens’ territory on the thirty-six-yard line. The clock kept running, though, so the team had to scramble up to the ball. The quarterback took the snap and fired it into the ground, stopping the clock with seventeen seconds left before he jogged to the sideline.

  In Ty’s heart the dream of going to the Super Bowl reignited, and that reminded him of another dream. This week, he would try out for a seven-on-seven team that had set its sights on the NFL Super Bowl 7-on-7 Tournament. If Ty could make that team and they succeeded, and if the Jets could make it all the way through the playoffs, then Ty and his brother would both get to play for a championship on Super Bowl Sunday. He and Thane had talked about how great that would be on the train ride down to Baltimore with the team.

  “Why not?” Thane had asked.

  It was a wild dream, but if the Jets could just make one more big play, the first step in making it come true would be complete.

  Ty wormed his way into the coaching box to listen. In all the excitement, no one even noticed him.

  “Indiana ninety-eight, Z north,” the coach said to the quarterback. “Look for Tiger in the end zone.”

  “They’re playing that deep zone,” the quarterback said.

  “We know that.” The coach scowled. “Get it to Tiger anyway. We got no more time-outs. He got us this far. Take the shot. If we miss the first time, we’ll have time for one more play, maybe two.”

  The quarterback nodded and jogged out onto the field. The crowd started up again, not quite as loud as before since they were still in shock over the big play. But, as the Jets went to the line, the noise continued to grow. Ty poked his head out between two players and watched the Ravens defense. The safeties and cornerbacks began drifting downfield toward their deep zone, putting themselves into position so that Thane’s incredible speed couldn’t hurt them. Instead of trying to match his speed and run with him down the field, they’d be waiting for him in the end zone.

  The center snapped the ball. The quarterback dropped back.

  Thane took off, racing past the underneath coverage and heading toward the deep zone. The ball went up. Thane kept running and launched himself into the air at the goal line.

  Not one, not two, but three defenders closed on him.

  The ball came down. Thane stretched and made the catch with both hands, then got hit by all three Ravens players at once. Thane’s body pinwheeled in the air, and he landed somewhere in the pile of arms and legs right at the goal line.

  The crowd held its breath.

  The players and coaches around Ty stared and gasped and waited for the officials to give the signal.

  Someone asked, “Did he catch it?”

  Another voice said, “Did he get in?”

  They were questions Ty wanted to ask himself.

  Then he heard a question that made his heart freeze.

  “Is Tiger okay?”

  Chapter Three

  THE REFEREE BLEW HIS whistle and signaled a catch, but no touchdown.

  Then the referee blew a longer whistle, signaling a time-out . . . for injury.

  “Thane.” Ty started out onto the field, but one of the coaches held him back.

  “Let the trainers get him.”

  Ty watched, helpless, as the trainers and the team doctor ran out onto the field. When the players cleared from the pile, he saw Thane lying flat on his back. His brother’s body twisted in pain, and he clutched his knee.

  “Thane?” The word slipped from Ty’s mouth.

  The doctor cradled Thane’s knee in his hands, gently moving it one way and another. Thane winced and dug his fingers into the turf, shaking his head. A cart zipped out onto the field. They unloaded a board and helped Thane onto it before lifting it and placing it on the cart. The doctor and trainers walked alongside the cart as it carried Thane toward the locker room.

  Ty dropped his towel and took off down the sideline. A security guard tried to grab Ty’s arm, but he shook free and kept going, chasing the cart into the tunnel under the stadium and catching up at the locker room. In the back of his mind, Ty heard the referee’s whistle, signaling the final play of the game. The Jets had the ball on the one-foot line.

  Seconds later Thane’s board rested on a table in the training room. Ty stood watching the doctor whisper into Thane’s ear as the trainer handed him some pills. The stadium thundered above them with stamping feet and cheers. It sounded like the roof might collapse, and Ty knew it meant the Ravens defense had held. As much as Ty wanted the Jets to win and continue on—all the way to the Super Bowl, he’d hoped—nothing mattered as much as Thane.

  Tears streamed down his older brother’s face.

  “Is he going to be okay?” Ty asked.

  Thane popped the pills into his mouth and accepted a small paper cup of water to wash them down. He nodded his head yes.

  But the doctor’s voice was cold and stiff and it swirled with the growling noise of the crazy mob above. “Hopefully, he will.

  “But it’s not good.�
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  Chapter Four

  THEY LET TROY RIDE in the back of the ambulance.

  It went straight up Route 95 from Baltimore to New Jersey, where the team doctor would meet them and perform surgery right away if the knee proved to be as bad as it looked. The lights flashed by outside, dragging their beams across Thane’s quiet face like the flicker of a disco light. The wind howled and Ty felt the vehicle sway. The face of the paramedic glowed from the light of his Droid, giving his bushy mustache a hit of green.

  The ambulance didn’t stop until they pulled up to a hospital in Morristown. Ty climbed out of the back and watched as they eased Thane out and down, rolling him in through the glass doors. Ty shivered, even as the warmth from inside greeted him. They went up an elevator to the fourth floor, where Dr. Pietropaoli, the team doctor, was already waiting for them at the nurses’ station.

  Dr. Pietropaoli leaned over Thane and spoke in a soft, strong voice.

  “I’m going to get you right into X-ray, and then we’ll do an MRI. I don’t know for sure, but we might have to operate tonight. I’ll be honest, the nerve may be involved, and if it is, I need to get the pressure off of it right away.”