right then,” Danny said. “Let’s say I’m following. I’m in no great hurry, mind, but cut to the punch.”
“We’ve connected with a few of the smart ones over there, who you’ll soon meet, dear boy, but you say ‘football’ to most Americans and they think you’re talking about something else. You say ‘soccer’ and their eyes just go blank. They fall asleep at the very sound of the word. It’s like an instinct. Pavlov’s dog. ‘Soccer’: sleep. Remarkable phenomenon.” He tapped the ash of his cigarette into Danny’s water glass. Danny winced at the affront, but Three said, “These Communists are bloody brilliant. I’m impressed. We all are.” He gave Danny a stern servant-of-the-people frown and said, “Danny, your country needs you. And, well, you need to get out of the country. So... to put a fine point on it... you’re going over to, well, to fight Communism.”
Danny got up, got himself another glass of water, returned to the table, pushed the ashy glass toward Three.
“From what I’m told, the Rose City Revolution is already full of Englishmen,” Danny said. “What’s this got to do with me? Just use one who’s already there.”
Three smiled, knowing he was making progress. He looked directly at Danny, sucked in hard on the shrinking butt of his cigarette, and said, “The Soviets are vicious, godless, barely human, and awfully frightening, but they’re smart. Here’s what they’ve worked out: football is the most important game in the world. It’s the most important anything in the world. More people love football than love Jesus or Muhammad Ali or Buddha or the Rolling Stones, and a lot of the people who love all of those things love football more. If you want to send a message, and you want to reach the biggest possible audience, you send it through football.”
Danny had never thought of this, but he knew it was true; he was surprised to find himself agreeing with Three.
“And if you want to plan something—something big—through football... or anything else,” Three continued, “you plan for it to happen in America. That’s the arithmetic.”
This Danny thought was less obvious, and Three noticed.
“Come on, think about it: you can mix and match nationalities as you can nowhere else on Earth, you can humiliate the Yanks on their turf, and if you pull it off in New York City... the media of the world is right there, just waiting for a big story. And if they can pull off something big enough, the message will be that the Soviets are winning. That they can sneak anything they want right under the Americans’ noses, that they can do... anything... they... want.”
Danny shuddered. He hated thinking it, but he thought Three might be onto something.
“The message to the entire planet will be that the future is bloody Communist.” He stubbed out his cigarette. Danny could tell that Three was proud of his little presentation, that it was well rehearsed and he’d done it just as he’d hoped.
“But what do they want to pull off, exactly?” Danny asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know, lad. They’re planning something in America. It’s 1976. The bicentennial. They just can’t get enough of celebrating being rid of us, you know. Still prattling on about it two hundred years later. Anyway, my boy, we believe Graham Broome may know what it is. We think he’s one of them. Used to get away with calling himself Labour and getting worked up every time the coal miners went on strike. I’m not talking about ‘Graham Broome hated Edwin Heath.’ I’m talking about a serious mover and shaker in left-wing circles, anti–Vietnam War, the whole monty. We believe he’s helping them somehow. Somehow you’ve got to help us work out.”
“Everyone hated the Vietnam War,” Danny said.
“You’re not thick, Danny. You know what I’m on about. We have intelligence that Broome has helped pass information from a Bulgarian playing for the Seattle Smithereens to the Montreal Communards. That’s what the team used to be called—the bloody Communards. Anyway, from there the trail goes cold. We’re not even sure he knows he’s doing it—they may have just found a sympathetic ear and they’re using him, they’re using poor Graham Broome. We need you there. We need to know their plan.”
Danny stood up from the table. He towered over Three, and he could see he frightened the besuited bureaucrat. Danny said, “Why me? Two thousand players in the Football League. Why me?”
“We’ve been watching you, Danny. You’re perfect. You’re single. We need a single lad. We couldn’t take a First Division player—too conspicuous. And we’d like someone whose game is distinctly English but who has an appreciation for the Continental and even Latin games—you’re going to have to mingle with players from all over the world, players who don’t think your English accent automatically makes you a world champion. Aldy Taylor tells us you’re a sucker for that Dutch Total Football claptrap—you’ll fit in over there. And you’re smart. A clever lad. In a good way.”
“And what if I say no?”
Three sighed. “If you stay in this country, you won’t be happy with how you stay in this country. And now we know what you can do to another man in the space of a second or two. We may need that.”
Danny didn’t know which of the two sentences to respond to first, but before he decided, Three decided for him: “I’ve seen that look before, and that look is Would you really? and the answer, my dear boy, is I’m fighting international Communism. If making you pay for what you did to that little Welshman would help in even the slightest, smallest, most miniature way, then yes. Yes, yes, and yes.”
“All right then,” Danny said.
Three dropped his cigarette to the tile floor of Danny’s flat and said, “That’s what I came to hear.” He reached across the table to shake Danny’s hand. Danny reached back. The men shook.
“I will call you in your hotel then in your Portland flat whenever I need to speak with you. No matter what you hear, if it sounds like something—anything—to you, it will surely sound like something to us. Tell me everything. If you ever have anything to report that feels too sensitive to say over the telephone, you’ll tell me your hamstring’s shot. Should I hear that, I’ll reel off a series of league scores that make up a number that you’ll use to call me from a pay phone. Do you understand?”
Danny said nothing.
“Do you understand me?”
“I get it, I get it,” he murmured.
“Now, listen. I can appreciate what we’ve done to your life. Two days ago you were stepping out on that pitch thinking you were about to help your boyhood club advance to the Fifth Round of the FA Cup, now... all of this. But your country really does need you—and besides, Communist Graham Broome thinks you’re the missing piece for his side. He thinks with you there he can get the Revolution all the way to the Bonanza Bowl.”
“The what?”
Three laughed. “Erm, yes, well—that’s what they call their big final over there. The Bonanza Bowl. I know, I know. But the Americans do love a catchy name and a grand spectacle. It always gets a pretty good crowd of curiosity seekers. Scheduled for New York this year. The Giganticos will be there, of course.” He sized Danny up and said, “Listen, son, go on over there, help us stop this sinister plot, whatever it is, and try to win yourself something. Get to the Bonanza Bowl. You’ll be a hero times two by summer’s end.” Three looked at Danny and said, “For club and country, hmm, old boy?”
Danny raised an eyebrow and said, “For club and country.”
Three turned, grabbed his satchel, and walked himself to the door. “Talk soon, Hooper. Travel well, my boy.” He closed the door and left Danny in the half-dark silence of his flat.
Danny closed his eyes, shook his head, considered crying. His mind was both blank and overcrowded with everything that had been crammed into it over the last few days. The FA Cup. The chairman. Aldershot Taylor. America. Three. The