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Who is that man?
Warren wrote.
I want his portrait on my wall by morning.
Billy was worse.
I hereby announce that Papa Bouba Diop is my personal lord and savior.
Considering the man had just put almost two hundred million dollars within reach, the devotion was not entirely irrational.
Judy cut through the celebration.
Do not celebrate yet.
The match is not over.
Pray it ends exactly like this.
In Beverly Hills, Ethan launched off the couch the moment Senegal scored.
“Yes!”
He grabbed his coffee and took a long swallow.
Emily turned from the doorway.
“Ethan, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.
Goal.
I got excited.”
“You just got out of the hospital.
Take it easy, please.”
“I know, Mom.
I’m fine.”
The goal had happened almost exactly as he remembered, and so far, the rest of the match had too.
If nothing broke from here, he could trust the rest of the tournament.
That mattered more than the money.
The game resumed.
Across five countries, all five of them watched the clock as if staring at it hard enough could make it move faster.
Then France attacked again.
A French player surged forward, cut through space, and shaped his body to shoot.
MSN exploded.
No.
Don’t you dare.
Somebody close him down.
Ethan’s heart climbed into his throat.
He leaned toward the television, eyes locked on the ball.
The shot came.
The post saved them again.
The sound of the ball hitting metal felt like a hand striking his ribs.
“Holy hell,” Ethan breathed.
Emily looked back into the room.
He pretended he had said nothing.
In the chat, his friends turned briefly religious.
Then they turned profane.
Then they turned religious again.
It was an ugly, honest rhythm, and Ethan could not blame them.
The rest of the match was a slow form of torture.
France pressed.
Senegal survived.
Minutes stretched into hours.
Finally, the whistle blew.
Senegal 1, France 0.
Across the planet, bettors howled.
Sports desks rewrote headlines.
Analysts who had treated the result as impossible began searching for explanations with the dignity of men digging through rubble.
On MSN, the messages came faster than Ethan could read them.
Bo: Is it over?
They’re shaking hands.
That means it’s over, right?
Billy: Clock stopped.
Match over.
It is over.
I think I just aged five years.
Warren: That was the most stressful thing I have ever watched.
I need food.
Maybe two meals.
Judy: Senegal actually won.
Ethan Hawthorne, you beautiful son of a bitch, you called it.
The stone in Ethan’s chest finally dropped.
Suddenly, he was starving.
He raided the refrigerator, sat back at the computer with a plate, and typed while eating.
Believe me now?
If any of you have spare money, you can follow the orders with your own stake.
I will not promise miracles, but I am not guessing.
Judy: Across all five pools, that’s nearly twenty times the stake.
You are about to clear around one hundred ninety million dollars in profit, you bastard.
Warren: In one hundred minutes.
You made more money during one match than most people will see in ten lifetimes.
Ethan, my brother, I have one thousand dollars.
These Franklins now obey you.
Ethan was in too good a mood to mock him.
The result had held.
Not just the result.
The rhythm.
The injuries.
The pressure.
The goal.
The panic.
The world had not drifted away from him yet.
Nothing could matter more.
All right, you maniacs, he wrote.
That was a hell of a ride, wasn’t it?
Now we make the money bigger.
Before that, relax.
Everything you spend tonight is on me.
Judy: That is the sentence I was waiting for.
If I were into men, I would send you a photo explicit enough to prove how excited I am.
Bo: I can send one.
Ethan replied with a vomit emoticon.
Bo answered with the same.
Bo: Forget I said that.
London is damaging me.
Every time I walk down the street, I feel like someone is making plans for my ass.
Billy: Then guard it.
I do not want to explain anything to Mom and Dad when you come home from England changed.
Ethan closed the chat before the conversation became worse.
Across the room, Charles stood on the balcony with a phone against his ear.
Work, almost certainly.
For a moment, Ethan wished he could watch Windtalkers’ post-release performance unfold like a market chart. New chapters come out on g.com first.
In his old timeline, he had only known pieces.
Newspaper fragments.
Early internet reports.
Industry gossip years later.
MGM had taken a brutal hit, but the exact damage had never been clear to him.
Now he needed the damage to be serious.
The worse Windtalkers performed, the easier the MGM acquisition became.
Charles ended the call and returned to the living room with a dark expression.
“Dad,” Ethan said, “what happened?”
His father did not bother hiding it.
“Distribution trouble.
Some theater chains are suddenly pushing back on Windtalkers screen counts.”
Ethan sat up.
“That was not already locked?”
“It was.” Charles’s jaw tightened.
“Then someone heard our internal screening response was weak, and now they are changing their tone.
Bastards.”
Ethan frowned.
In 2002, internal screenings did not leak as easily as they would in the social-media age.
Trade reporters could dig up rumors, of course, especially around event films or directors with enormous heat.
But John Woo and Windtalkers were not the kind of target that would make every entertainment journalist burn favors before release.
If the pressure was not external, it was probably internal.
Ethan had spent more than a decade around sets in his old timeline.
He had seen enough studio politics to recognize the smell.
“Dad,” he said, “someone inside MGM wants you hurt.”
Charles’s face hardened.
“I know who.
There are people who would love to see me pushed out.
Parasites.”
Ethan smiled instead of getting angry.
“Look at the bright side.
The louder they get, the shakier MGM looks.”
Charles stared at him.
“The ship is already leaking,” Ethan continued.
“If it is going to be repaired, it needs a new owner.
Let them fight.
Let them make Windtalkers worse.
The uglier this gets, the easier our acquisition path becomes.”
Charles said nothing.
His son was still dreaming too loudly.
In his experience, young men learned caution only after the world knocked them down.
Shortcuts always looked easy until they failed.
Ethan let him think that.
For the next several matches, he placed no major bets.
A man could not keep pulling money out of the same market without leaving blood on the floor.
Hit too often, and the books would limit them, delay them, or start asking questions.
The books needed to stay alive.
At least for a few more days.
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Ready for more?
I hope this chapter drew you further into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.