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Ch 25: On His Most Serene Highness’s Secret Roster
 By Jim Caple |
Previously at 24 College Avenue: When last we left Jill Thomas (24 College Avenue: Summer Abroad), the ex-point guard for the She Devils was considering a move to Mubai to play on the Prince’s Olympic basketball team. Meanwhile back in State College, many of her ex-housemates have just been arrested on suspicions of terrorism. . . .
A smile practically as wide as a basketball spread across Jill’s face as she looked out the window and saw the rolling hills and river valley leading to the State College airport. Green, she thought. It has been so long since I saw so much green.
It wasn’t that Jill wasn’t enjoying her time in Mubai – far from it – but it was good to be home, out of the desert and back among the green fields and woods of State College. She had never appreciated the beauty of the region before but now it all was so beautiful she almost broke down crying.
Jill had spent the past six months playing for His Most Serene Highness, Crown Prince Sa-eed. It was the Prince’s dream to bring publicity and tourism to Mubai through sports. He was using the country’s dwindling oil revenue to build fabulous stadiums, arenas, golf courses and horse tracks – as well as paying athletes to accept dual citizenship and play for his quickly expanding Olympic team. His immediate goal was to win no fewer than 10 gold medals at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, an ambitious feat for a country that had never won a medal of any sort. His ultimate goal was to host the Olympics, either summer or winter. When skeptics questioned holding the winter Olympics in the desert, the Prince merely pointed to the half-dozen indoor ski slopes he had already built in Mubai and said that Olympic downhill and cross-country courses were merely a matter of enough air-conditioning.
His Most Serene Highness paid Jill and her Ljubljana teammates Chardonnay Knight and Camila Brabrickavich a truly princely sum to play on his women’s basketball team -- $200,000 apiece, tax-free, plus free rent at a fabulous townhome on the beach. It was a glorious life of sunbathing, fabulous dinner safaris in the desert, duty-free shopping and hookah-smoking (Jill had become quite addicted to the apple and raspberry flavored tobacco). The only problem was that since so few of the neighboring Arab nations allowed their women to play, the team had no opponents. Well, that wasn’t completely true. The Prince occasionally paid a European team to fly in for a weekend and there was that one game against the burka-wearing squad from Saudi Arabia (a 112-5 victory for Mubai). Most of the time, though, the players mostly competed against each other to crowds consisting only of the Prince, his cabinet ministers and his extensive security staff.
Indeed, the team played so few games that Jill joked the players were On His Most Serene Highness’s Secret Roster.
The summer promised to be an improvement, mostly because Mubai would have real competition in the form of the Olympic qualifying tournament. Workouts were to start in a month; in the meantime the players were free to fly home (with gratis round-trip, first class tickets, of course).
When the plane landed, Jill was the first passenger out of her seat. She grabbed her carry-on bag, waved good-bye to the flight attendant staff and walked briskly to customs control.
“Mubai, huh?’’ the customs officer said as he scanned her passport. “And it looks like you were there a very long time. Could you explain why you were visiting a hostile nation for so long?’’
“I play basketball there. And Mubai isn’t a hostile nation. It welcomes Americans. It is very open and very Western.’’
“Tell it to your lawyer,’’ the official said as he signaled for security.
“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything. Check my passport, you’ll see I’m an American citizen.’’
The agent glared at her. “Miss, I DID check your passport. That’s why I called for security. You’re on the Department of Homefront Protection’s terrorist watch list.’’
“But that’s crazy – I play for the Mubai Olympic basketball team. I played four years at State College. I’m no more a terrorist than you are.’’
“Like I said, tell it to your lawyer. And my advice is you get yourself a good one because from the info on your security screen, it looks like you’re in a mess of trouble.’’
Four – no, make it five – security guards who took their jobs very seriously soon arrived. One placed an enormous hand on Jill’s wrist and slapped on a pair of handcuff. He gestured for her to walk toward a detention office. There, Jill was photographed and finger-printed while dogs sniffed her baggage and more guards searched through her suitcase.
“And what have we here?’’ one asked as he held up a hookah pipe. “A pipe for your hash while you plot to bomb American?’’
“Are you nuts? I’m an American. I’m a basketball player. I don’t give a crap what the government does as long as I get to play ball.’’
The officer exchanged a knowing look with his partners and shut the suitcase without bothering to make sure everything was packed inside, He tossed it on a table behind him/ “Have the dogs give this a good going-over – I have a bad feeling about this one.’’
Another pair of officers – where did they all come from, Jill wondered, from the same clown car? – entered and took her to a holding cell. “Sit tight,’’ one of them said before he locked the door, as if Jill had any choice in the matter.
Jill didn’t know whether to cry or scream so she settled on both while pounding on the door.
“No use doing that, good looking – you’ll only hurt yourself. Plus, it makes the bulls feel superior. We don’t want that.’’
Jill thought she recognized the voice and when she turned around, she knew for sure.
“Oh my God,’’ she said. “I am in trouble now.’’
“What’s the matter, Jill? Not excited to see your old pal, Marcus? Haven’t seen you since that nasty business at the World Cup. You still with that Arab sheikh? More importantly, who is that hot little blonde number Nicollette with these days? No one I hope.’’
Next: “I Am A Camera’’
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