As he looked around, all he could see was people-tightly packed, fish in a barrel. Exactly what they had hoped for. He reached the place where the ramps spilled out to ground level. It was time.

He managed to squeeze his arm up from the press of bodies and watched the stopwatch reach 3:30. Knowing he would never be able to get the football over his head, he cried out, “I am the Cause! Die, infidels! Allahu Akbar!”

Then he pressed the red button on his detonator and joined the flood of souls rushing to meet their Maker.

Michael was nearing the ramp when he heard another explosion directly below. Suddenly the forward momentum of the mass going down the ramp was halted by another mass trying to escape the new blast by going back up. The resulting collision of two immovable forces snapped bones and crushed the life out of scores of people on the seam.

The pressure against his back was almost unbearable, and Michael joined in the chorus of “Go back! Go back!” Finally the momentum of the crowd shifted and the flow started toward the next ramp along the concourse.

“Keep hanging on, sport!” Michael yelled into his son’s ear.

“I’m scared, Daddy!”

“I know, baby. I’ll get you home. You’re doing an awesome job holding on!”

The fifth man had never entered the stadium. He had been spending his time pacing back and forth in front of the bronze sculpture of five mustang stallions, a mare, and a colt. He couldn’t see the game clock from his vantage point, so he had just waited nervously for the first explosion. He was wound so tight that when the blast finally reached his ear, he lost control of his bladder.

He started his digital stopwatch and waited.

Soon people began pouring out of the stadium and running past him. He fought not to get swept into the crowd and positioned himself directly in front of the giant sculpture, in the only pocket free of people. Soon it would be his turn. His job was to get the fleeing people to turn back toward the stadium and into each other.

He kept checking his stopwatch, knowing without thinking about it that he was watching the final countdown of his life.

When the bomb went off at 3:30, he knew his time was short. He stared at the increasing numbers-3:58, 3:59, 4:00.

He stepped out from behind his shelter and shouted, knowing that no one would hear, “I am the Cause! Allahu Akbar!”

The power of the blast knocked the sculpture from its foundation, and the sound of the ball bearings against the bronze was like a thousand marbles being dropped into the bottom of a metal trash can. The giant horses tumbled onto the crowd, but when they landed, they hurt no one. Everyone around was already dead.

The sound of another explosion echoed through the stadium, this one from much farther away. The resulting surge of the crowd again almost knocked Kevin’s dad off his feet.

This can’t be happening, Kevin thought. I’ve got to be dreaming.

Kevin looked back over his dad’s shoulder, watching the people pushing and shoving. As he scanned the faces, he locked eyes with one particular man a few feet away. The man smiled at Kevin, and Kevin weakly smiled back. Then, as he watched, the man raised a football into the air with one hand and a cylindrical object with his other. After clearing his throat, the man shouted, “Hear me, America! I am the Cause! Allahu Akbar!”

With one last nod to Kevin, the man’s thumb depressed the red button on the detonator.

Kevin didn’t feel the shock wave, nor did he see the result of the hundreds of ball bearings exploding from under the leather shell of the football, completely wiping out everyone and everything in a fifty-foot diameter.

Another explosion shook the stadium as Riley spotted Ricci with his hands pressed to the side of Predators running back James Anderson. Riley ran up to him. “Sal, get to the locker room!”

“Can’t. Anderson’s going to bleed to death if I go.”

“Yeah, and you may die if you stay. I’ll keep him from bleeding out.”

“I’m not going to leave you here!”

“Sal, you’ve got a wife and kid! Now get out of here!” Riley drove his shoulder against Ricci, knocking him out of his crouch. Riley’s hands reached into Anderson’s torn, bloody jersey, found the wound, and pressed down to try to stop the bleeding.

“Riley, you call me when this is done! Let me know you’re okay! You hear me? Call as soon as you can!”

“Get out of here!” Riley watched as Ricci ran toward the exit by the field manager’s office and melded into the flow of people. No, Sal! Why didn’t you go to the locker room?

He looked back down at Anderson. “Hold on, Jim! Help’s coming, buddy!” But even as he said the words, Riley knew that Anderson’s time was short. He had seen this kind of wound before, and it never turned out well.

Riley looked around. Tears came to his eyes as he saw the destruction. Smoke poured from all over the stadium. Most of the seats were cleared out by now, revealing the carnage. Body parts were all over. Scattered here and there were people unlucky enough to have been hit by a stray ball bearing. Many family members were holding these dead and wounded, sobbing and calling out for help.

Riley couldn’t believe this was happening here in the United States-in Denver, Colorado! He hadn’t seen this kind of mass destruction even in the military. So many dead; so many suffering. And here he was with his hands inside another man’s body, trying to keep him alive.

Riley had little doubt as to who was behind this attack-the same group of Arab fascists who were behind so many other things that were wrong in this world. Lord, I don’t know if this is a good prayer or not, but make these murderers pay! Make them feel the same kind of terror they’ve-

Another explosion shook the stadium with the accompanying slam of a shock wave and the whistling of ball bearings. One of the trainers five feet from Riley cried out and dropped to the ground. That one was close, he thought as he looked around for the source of the blast.

When he spotted it, his heart sank. Sal! The entire crowd that had been trying to force its way into the tunnel next to the field manager’s office was gone-evaporated, shredded, shattered. There was absolutely no movement anywhere around the exit.

“Saaaaaaal! No, not you, Sal! Saaaaaaal!”

As Riley cried out, he felt Anderson’s heart stop beating under his fingers. “Forget you, Jim! You are not going to die!”

All the control he had been struggling so hard to maintain was lost. Riley yanked Anderson’s helmet off, then violently pulled the man’s shoulder pads over his head. He began CPR on the running back-thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths.

“I’m not going to let you die, Jim! You hear me? You will not die!”

Thirty compressions, two breaths, thirty compressions, two breaths. Riley continued the pattern, not stopping until a couple of cops pulled him off-long after the attack had ended and long after James Anderson’s soul had left his body forever.