Brrr! Is it getting drafty in here, or is it just my icy contempt for the literary skills of certain NFL placekickers?

We rejoin Todd Penner as he’s using his hard-earned business school acumen to negotiate some pure profit from Manny, the head concessions guy: hot cocoa style! (Concessionaire? Concessionateur? Fuck it, who cares.)

Todd gave his biggest smile. “Please, boss, I need the money. I’m using the tips to get Jamie’s ring. Do it as a favor to me.” He saw that he was getting nowhere, so he clapsed his hands together, batted his eyelashes, and added, “Better yet, Manny, don’t do it for me; do it in the name of true love.”

Manny’s resolve never stood a chance. Todd had been too good a worker for too long, and the boss broke into laughter at this performance. “Okay, lover-boy, you can have hot chocolate. But careful on the whipped cream - you go through twice the cans that everyone else does.”

“What can I say?” Todd responded, still batting his eyelashes. “I like my chocolate extra sweet.”

Sure, Todd. Sure you do. We’ll just keep your crippling one-Reddi-Wip-a-day nitrous problem between you and me - just as long as you promise to do certain “favors.”

So, readers, I’m sure at this point you’re just like me, literally clawing yourself to death in anticipation of more exciting Todd Penner exposition. Well, gird thy loins the fuck up. It’s Penner time.

Todd was totally stoked when he left the room. All his plans were coming together. As he walked across the ramp, his mind went back to his clandestine meeting with Jamie’s dad yesterday. They had met at the Starbucks in Arapahoe Crossing; Todd offered to buy.

Whipped cream jokes, batted eyelashes, and a Craigslist hookup with Mr. Starling this soon? Our soon-to-be-wed Todd?

As he waited for the drinks, he went over his spiel again in his head. It had taken him half the night to process through exactly what he should say. He felt he had put together a fairly persuasive presentation - even alliterating his main points: facts, figures, future, and faith. The drinks came, and with them came the moment of truth.

Oh. Of course. Silly me. The guy-guy flirting between Todd and his nitrous hookup took place as an extension of their rock-solid heterosexuality, rather than some bizarre twist into Tom of Finland territory. This is Colorado, dicknose. Dome of prayer and all that. You wanna repress some shit, Nebraska’s thatta way.

“So you know that I’ve known Jamie for a long time. I’ve also had strong feelings for-“

“Strong feelings, huh? You know, Todd, I have strong feelings for my wife’s meat loaf. Do you consider your daughter on the same level as my wife’s meat loaf?”

Now of course I realize what Elam’s doing here. Like almost all characters who don’t carry combat knives, Jamie’s dad provides very broad, very corny comic relief to a book in which everybody’s eventually gonna be ankle-deep in terrorist blood. I guess it’s just his insistence on making all these allegedly comedic characters sound like Miller-Boyett sitcom dads that makes me wince. We really needed a Coach Lubbock soundalike here? And we don’t even get a good Boner out of it?

So Todd and Mr. Starling eventually have some Real Talk, and Todd actually uses the phrase “her hand in marriage,” but not before Mr. Starling gets off the following warning shot:

“And do you understand that if you ever do anything to hurt my daughter - physically or emotionally - I will cause you pain? And not just the oh-that-stung-a-little-bit-but-I’m-fine now kind of pain, but the oh-Lord-just-take-me-home-‘cause-I-don’t-want-to-live-anymore kind of pain. The kind of pain that will make your unborn great-grandchildren scream out. The kind of pain that will cause old women on the street to have great pity upon you until they hear what you’ve done to my daughter, at which point they will beat you with their walkers, then kick you when you’re down. The kind of pain that the government-“

Todd cuts him off here, which is a good move. Anytime your girlfriend’s dad uses the phrase “the government,” the night’s about to go downhill. Personal experience talking.

Also: that’s 20 hyphens in one sentence back there. 20. Two zero. Kipling? Joyce? Wish they could have done that.

Brian looked Todd in the eye and said, “Son, I can think of no man I would rather see Jamie spend the rest of her life with than you. You have not only my permission but my blessing. I pray that God will give you two the years of joy that He’s given to Jamie’s mom and me.”

As Todd remembered his future father-in-law’s words, tears came to his eyes. He slipped the belt for the loaded hot chocolat tray over his head, looked at the single can of whipped cream, and called out, “Better give me a second can.” Forget what Manny says. Life is too good to skimp. Tonight, we let the whipped cream flow!

At this point I start wishing they’d make a movie of this book and cast The Situation as Todd. Do me a solid, Elam?

At any rate, I did promise you death, and trust me, it’s impending as fuck:

When the game clock indicated 6:30 left in the second quarter, the man sitting in seat 102-4A slowly reached into his coat, pulled out a thin wire attached to a 6.3mm plug, and connected it to a jack that was just barely visible in the tip of a football - a ball that had been on his lap the entire game.

6.3mm? When I was getting my audio engineering degree, I learned that the scientific name for it was “the big headphone plug.”

As the digital numbers on the giant clock across from his seat passed 6:15, he toggled a small switched on the cylinder in his left pocket, arming the device.

At 6:05, he stood and turned his back on the field and yelled to the people around him, “I am the Cause! May Allah have his retribution! Allahu Akhbar!”

As the spectators within hearing distance reacted with fear and shock, the man pressed down on a button set in the top of the cylinder.

In a split second, an electrical signal was sent through a wire into the center of the football, triggering the blasting cap, which had plenty of power to set off a reaction in the surrounding explosive. The football exploded.

Exploding footballs and a bizarre reliance on the metric system. Jason Elam sold you the whole seat, brother, but you’re ONLY GONNA NEED THE EDGE.

Christmastime in Elamville, and confirmed bachelor Riley Covington’s having dinner at the Ricci household, where Meg Ricci confides in him that she’s noticed a change in her beloved Sal.

She stopped for a moment, then looked Riley in the eyes. “You’re Sal’s closest friend on the team. Have you seen anything different about him lately?”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d say he seems edgier than usual. He says it’s because of the pressue at the end of the season, but I think it has to be more than that. One moment he’s wonderful, and the next moment he bites my head off about something; then the next moment he’s staring off into space.” Megan paused and looked down. When she looked back up at him, there were tears in her eyes. “Would you…would you tell me if he was having an affair?”

Oh, Meg. Sweet, ignorant Meg. If you only knew you existed in the context of a book that wouldn’t dare allow such a thing.

Riley, however, is his usual virtuous self:

“After I got through beating him to a pulp, yeah, I’d tell you - or at least I’d make sure that he told you.”

After the Christmas meal is consumed, the womenfolk retreat to the kitchen, while the men settle down and confront each other about their failures as husbands.

The two men entered the living room and settled into a couple of overstuffed leather chairs. The smell of expensive cowhide filled the air…

“You haven’t been yourself lately, Reech. You’ve been moody; you ripped me a new one on the plane; you’ve isolated yourself from me and Travis and Garrett; and I gotta say, you played Sunday like your mind was anywhere but in the game.”

Elam’s apparently been buying his semicolons at Costco.

As Riley watched, Ricci’s expression shifted from neutral to anger to profound sadness and back to neutral. Ricci sighed. “I appreciate your concern. Truly I do. I guess I’m just really feeling the pressure. It was never like this in Europe.”

Riley, relieved that it was what he thought it was, said, “You’re taking the game too seriously. Sure, you want to do your best. Sure, there’s tons of pressure. But you know what? If we lose, you’ll still get up the next day. You’ll still have a wife who loves you. You’ll still have a daughter who thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced focaccia. The things that matter will still be here.”

His daughter’s inability to form thoughts in anything but bruschetta-based similes aside, Ricci’s brow remains as furrowed as a field of ripe fava beans.

“I want you to swear to me that if anything ever happens to me, you’ll take care of Meg and Alessandra.”

“C’mon,” Riley laughed, “those Predator DBs are big, but they’re not that big.”

But Ricci wasn’t laughing. “Swear it to me, Riley. If anything ever happens to me, I need to know that my girls are taken care of.”

“Sal, I give you my word,” Riley said somberly. “You never have to worry about Meg or Alessandra.”

“Thanks. I know you’re probably wondering what that was all about,” Ricci said, giving a little self-deprecating chuckle. “I’ve been having these dreams - strange, ugly dreams. I guess they’ve got me a little shaken. You know Italians - we can never shake the feeling that a nightmare is actually someone from the other side warning us that something really bad is about to happen.”

I sure do! Stupid Italians!

Anyway, it’s not like he’s engineering a mass suicide bombing of the Mustangs/Predators game, in which thousands of people will die agonizingly on Monday Night Football, right? Since he could never be capable of such a thing, let’s forget that we thought we’d figured out his real identity almost immediately. Those kinds of plots are the stuff of Islamofascist super-terrorists, not superstitious Tuscan Y receivers!

As game day dawns, Riley’s up to his usual pregame routine.

He was on his way right now to meet his friend Mike Robertson at the Kiowa Creek Sporting Club to shoot some clays. He was fairly sure this wasn’t on Coach Burton’s list of approved activities, but it sure helped relieve some of the pressure on a late game day.

Riley liked to get out shooting at least once a week. Because Robertson worked at the club, Riley was able to shoot all the typical guns he owned plus a few of the “atypical” ones that had happened to find their way into his collection - usually gifts from his old AFSOC buddies. For shooting trap today, Riley had snagged his 12-gauge Perazzi MX2000 with its over-under barrel and beautifully made custom stock. But he also brought along his compact Glock 19 9 mm - midnight black with ten in the clip. And, just for fun, he packed his Crimson Trace laser that attached to the top of the Glock for some pinpoint target practice.

Later, he had designs on the best pastrami sandwich in town at the New York Deli News with Pastor Tim, and sometime in between he had to take Alessandra Ricci’s Christmas present back.

Because Riley Covington doesn’t know dick about children’s clothing sizes, okay? Football? Yes! Typical and atypical guns? Affirmative! Cold cuts? Absolutely! Praying? Implied!

But “the size 3 Little Mermaid dress that Riley had picked up at the Disney Store” - look, if that doesn’t fit a nine-month-old, it’s the fucking kid’s own fault. Drag some sleds around the parking lot instead of crying and napping all the time, shrimpy, and we’ll get you in that dress yet.

Luckily, the stick up Sal Ricci’s ass seems to have dislodged itself.

Ricci had been like a different person at the team dinner last night. All the surliness was gone, and he was back to his old self. He had even arranged for a dish of lemon Jell-O with a little whipped cream happy face on it to be delivered to LeMonjello Fredericks. The big lineman’s threats almost got the name of the culprit out of the poor waiter who delivered it, but the second fifty-dollar bill that Ricci had promised him if he survived LeMonjello’s assault was enough incentive to cause temporary amnesia.

That crazy Sal. Splashing money around like he’s gonna have an exploding vest of ball bearings draped around him tonight, instead of some undersized Baltimore DB.

Writing ultra-masculine books about football-playing counter-terrorists for a Christian audience takes a little imagination. Because so much locker room chatter is unfit for women and children’s delicate ears, an author must employ creative license and poetic feats of language. In this excerpt, Jason Elam shows us the delicate, Edith Whartonesque phrasing necessary to convey the scene when one is unable to employ the words “ball sweat”:

As Riley wiggled out of his uniform and pads, he noticed a familiar smell beginning to permeate the room. The postgame locker room odor was something that all veteran ball players were used to, though for the novice it could be quite overwhelming. There was always an underlying rank stink - mostly sweat mixed with doses of whatever else might come out of a body during its various stress-related processes. After a loss, the stench sometimes seemed overpowering. But after a win, the locker room had the smelly pungency of victory. Today, the steam that clouded up eyeglasses and camera lenses didn’t seem quite so bothersome; the humid heat that flattened fabric of any kind against skin seemed a little less sticky. The piles of equipment and wads of tape strewn across the floor seemed a little less hazardous. Victory made everything and everyone more beautiful.

Yes, friends, the Colorado Mustangs have won their penultimate game of the season against the dastardly Bandits. At 10-5, playoff fever has swept the Rockies! Elam denotes this momentous achievement by suddenly introducing us to almost a dozen new characters, most of whom are so arbitrary to the overarcing narrative that it’s instantly obvious that they’ll be dead within fifty pages:

Michael Goff, a meatball-loving security guard who’s sacrificed everything to bring his beloved son, Kevin, to the game. How did Goff procure these highly sought-after ducats?

“Larry Gervin had these two tickets he was looking to trade away. In exchange, I promised to cover his shifts on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.”

Marti slapped his arm. “You’re going to be gone Christmas?” Then, after a few seconds, she leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the side of his neck. “You’re a good dad, Michael Goff. … Go, Mustangs! Go, Mustangs! Go, Mustangs!”

Marti Goff, I regret to inform you that your husband and son will soon be dead. Their sins? Idolatry. The game would have looked better in HD anyway.

“The Buckaroos,” a middle-aged tailgating consortium comprised of four couples: Paul and Carol Marks, Doug and Abby Rawlins, Andy and Liv Newman, and Gil and Somebody Ashton. Gil’s wife doesn’t get a first name as far as I can tell, which in this book is an excellent sign that she is marked for certain death. Here I present entirely too much information on the Buckaroos’ automotive choices and tailgating setup:

One corner of an awning was attached to the top of Paul and Carol Marks’s Suburban, with the other connected to a corner of the shell on Doug and Abby Rawlins’s Dodge Ram pickup. The awning was long enough to fit eight chairs and a barbecue, which the Rawlinses brought each week in the back of their truck. The only element that varied was the food. There were eight home games each season, so each couple was responsible for bringing the meat two times.

This week promised to be an experience. Andy and Liv Newman, always the adventurous couple in the group, had recently bought Steven Raichlen’s The Barbecue! Bible and were anxious to try out some recipes. This week they brought evapi - a Bosnian burger recipe that blended beef, pork, and lamb with various ethnic spices. Carol was excited about trying it out, but Paul grumbled to Gil Ashton about how no one seemed to be able to just bring brats soaked in beer anymore.

Oh, Buckaroos. I regret to inform you that by the end of this Monday Night Football tilt against the Baltimore Predators, you will all be dead. Your sins? Gluttony, not to mention that the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud;

HE IS UNCLEAN TO YOU. OF THEIR FLESH SHALL YE NOT EAT, AND THEIR CARCASS SHALL YE NOT TOUCH.

Gil Ashton was right. Brats instead.

Todd Penner, hot cocoa vendor and all-around good guy. We know that Todd Penner’s gonna play a role in this, because Elam spends more than a cursory couple of paragraphs on his back story. And what a back story it is! Todd loves Dr Pepper, but not as much as his girlfriend Jamie! Todd drives a shitty car, but it isn’t as shitty as the engagement ring he just bought her with his hot cocoa vending money!

He had the proposal all planned out. On New Year’s Day (a perfect day for a new start), he would drive her up to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. That was their special spot. They had seen concerts there from everyone from Kelly Clarkson (her choice) to Evanescence (his choice). The best concert of all, though, was back in 2003 when they spent an evening listening to James Taylor. Sure, he was possibly older than the rock formations themselves, but he was a favorite with each set of their parents. Thus, both Todd and Jamie had grown up on JT’s music. The summer night had been perfect, with thunderstorms way out to the east providing a light show to accompany the legend’s exquisite voice. It was an evening they would tell their grandkids about.

Hey! Get fucked, Todd and Jamie!

Anyway, what’s on Todd’s mind as he’s en route to his part-time job at Chili’s this frosty Denver afternoon? Why, those go-go Mustangs, of course.

He clicked on his AM radio and tuned it to 950. Sports analyst Jim Rome was on a tirade about the pitiful Bandits and their choke against the Mustangs on Sunday. That had been an awesome game! He had watched it at home, squished on a sectional with his two younger brothers and his younger sister - the sister being the most rabid Mustangs fan of all the siblings. For the past three years, she had handily won the family fantasy football league. The popcorn had been flying when Colson ran that interception back. One more game, Mustangs; just one more game!

So if you’re scoring at home: Todd is heroic and striving because his family is too poor to even own a proper couch. The Oakland Raiders do not exist in this alternate universe, but Jim Rome does.

Does the Quad Yeah, I wonder?

Anyway, it’s not gonna be all Awesome Blossom slinging for Todd from here on out. After his marriage to Jamie (“the girl he had been ‘dating’ since sixth grade,” “dating” in a Christian sports novel meaning exactly what you think it means), he’s got big plans for the future:

Jamie’s and his plan was to work hard at school for two more years. Then he would have his business degree from Metro, and she would have her BFA in 3-D graphics and animation with a minor in computer science from CU Denver - her parents had committed to fund her education through the bachelor level. After that, her artistic and Web skills would combine with his entrepreneurial spirit and business savvy, and they would slowly build what would ultimately become a thriving company.

The fuck it will, Todd. The fuck it will.

Anytime a mall bomb plot gets foiled, there’s some serious interrogatin’ to be done.

“Who did it, Abdel? Who took the Allah of your youth and turned him into a butcher? Who took the beauty of your childhood faith and smeared it with blood? Who convinced you to commit this atrocity? Give me a name, Abdel! I need a name!” Hicks was standing now, leaning across the table.

Of course, Abdel - last seen with an “ASEK’s five-inch blade” sticking out of his armpit - cracks like a two-week-old egg. The mastermind of their evil scheme? Hakeem Qasim!

There’s a bunch of boring bullshit here I’m gonna largely gloss over - a lot of Hakeem Qasim internal monologue, for instance, or pages and pages of discussion about Hakeem’s lucky brass medallion:

The brass disk had not always been a medallion. Before being melted down and re-created, it had been a 7.62 mm cartridge allegedly removed from an unexpended AK-47 clip that had been fired by Saddam Hussein - a gift for a small boy from his uncle.

Damn. Well, I know what I’m buying my nephews if I can’t score Zhu Zhu Pets this year.

But as we learn more about Hakeem’s childhood and his incredibly overcomplicated early education by Islamofascist dream team “The Cause” (most of which literally takes place at the foot of a guy called “The Scorpion”), a few things stick out:

When he wasn’t being indoctrinated into al-‘Aqran’s hatred of the West, Hakeem was learning languages, cultures, and the intricacies of bomb making. This intense education continued for two years…

The next morning, they left Ramadi. After a journey of many weeks, twelve-year-old Hakeem found himself alone, abandoned at the gate of a monastery.

A fuckin’ MONASTERY.

Meanwhile, after a run-in with autograph-seeking superfans outside their Oakland hotel, the Mustangs are ready to take the field!

As they entered, Riley spotted a guy saying, “Ok, come on, Covington. I came all the way from El Paso. Will you…?”

Riley thought, Nice try, bud, but I can spot a seller from a mile away. At first, Riley had found it tough to tell the true fans from the memorabilia peddlers. After a while they become easier to spot with their five footballs to sign or their stack of glossies and ready black Sharpie.

In other words, this exchange implies that Jason Elam had enough trouble with autograph-flipping eBay sellers in his lengthy - but by no means Canton-worthy - NFL career to call them out in his book about it. And I already thought the sports memorabilia market was fucked!

But on with the pep talks and the pregame prayers: the PFL in a time of terror is serious business. Walter Washburne, Mustangs’ team chaplain, sets the tone, drizzling equivocation on his words like so much delicious Russian dressing on the Reuben I’m gonna eat after I finish writing this shit:

Washburne continued, “The sad thing is that these men were willing to die for a lie. They believed the Koran tells them to kill those who don’t agree with them. Maybe it does or maybe it doesn’t - I’m not an expert on the Koran or in Islam. However, I know I’ve heard plenty of Muslims say that their beliefs don’t include this kind of evil. Whether it does or not, these men believed it did, and they put the lives on the line for their beliefs.”

(Elam - a Hawaii alum - also takes it upon himself to let us know that “rather than showing news updates from Minnesota, the large TV in the room was tuned to ESPN, which was airing the end of the University of Hawaii’s surprise upset over Notre Dame.”)

When the Mustangs take the field, the Bandits fans’ insults are inexplicably focused on kicker Tory Girchwood, who gets the revenge Elam so obviously pined for during those long years at the Coliseum:

With a wink, the kicker turned and punted a rocket from the 20 yard line up toward the second group of fans. The ball sailed just over that group and, looking like a laser-guided missile, spiraled directly into the chest of a particularly foul fan who had been cussing his way down the stadium steps. The ball knocked the wind out of the man and drenched him with his fresh 32-ounce Bud Light. The stunned Bandits faithful looked at the man - one of their own who had been brought to his knees. Then they looked down at Girchwood, who was standing there with a huge smile on his face, surrounded by players who were doubled over laughing. Suddenly the Bandits fans broke into a huge cheer and began chanting his name: “Girchwood! Girchwood!”

Notwithstanding the fact that this would never happen - a kicker assaulting an opposing fan wouldn’t automatically be one of the biggest stories in sports on that particular day, viz. Ron Artest, or Albert Belle, or Frank Francisco? - that isn’t even the part of this football-scented chapter that requires the most suspension of disbelief:

The sideline phones began to erupt almost immediately. On one of them, defensive end LeMonjello (pronounced Le-MAHN-jel-lo, and don’t you dare say it wrong!) Fredericks was getting some feedback from the defensive line coach. LeMonjello was affectionately known by his teammates as “Jiggly,” after the tasty kids’ treat. Coach Cox must have said something that Jiggly disagreed with, because he grabbed the phone with his enormous hands and ripped it off his mount. He held the phone up toward the coach’s box and yelled, “Coach this!”

As a great man once said: “Uh-oh!”

LeMonjello (and Oranjello), for the uninitiated, are examples of a very old folkloric urban legend in which apocryphal parents (almost always African-American) saddle their children with really stupid names - usually either mispronounced medical jargon or semi-scatological terms. If you have a relative who drinks too much Jim Beam and works as a registered nurse, you may have heard one or two examples of this over the years.

As Snopes puts it:

Legends of the “kid named Eczema” ilk attempt to reinforce belief in the rightness of racism or regionalism. Just as parables were used in the Bible to communicate in a simple-to-understand form a behavior thought worthy of emulation, racist legends try to drive home the point that the looked-down-upon group is inherently inferior. Presenting the moral in the form of a story makes it easier to absorb…The more stories like these are told, the more the message of them is worked into the fabric of the people exposed to them. Hearing the “kid named Eczema” story again and again makes it that much more easy to think of Blacks as less intelligent.

So there’s a strong chance that this either implies that Jason Elam is really credulous, kinda racist, or had parents who were big “Love ‘76” fans.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think there was any malicious intent on his part. It’s obvious that this anecdote was included for comic relief, and a great deal of the football-related asides in this book are clearly fictionalized versions of things Elam saw in his NFL career, if only for their odd specificity and total irrelevance to the story alone. (Apropos of nothing: “The buses left promptly at 12:30 p.m. Anyone not there on time was fined five thousand dollars plus the cost of a first-class ticket to wherever the team was playing that week.”)

Or maybe I’m completely wrong and the ‘98 Broncos had a strength and conditioning coach named Nosmo King.

Athletes don’t say much of anything in interviews. Everyone knows this, and it isn’t a big deal - we understand that pro athletes belong to a subculture that prides itself on privacy, the sports media encourage athletes to be quoted in abstract platitudes, every locker room has the “What You See Here, What You Say Here” sign somewhere, etc. But every so often you get a glimpse of something special in the locker room - usually from ex-beat reporters, more infrequently from ex-athletes. It’s the athlete-interview equivalent of what Frank Kogan once called a “free lunch.” I’m talking about the knowledge that Athlete X has a really big hog.

If you’re a dude who’s often naked in the locker room at your gym, the following thoughts enter your mind, in roughly descending order of regularity:

“Holy shit, look at that dude’s weiner!”
“Oh, god, a little kid! I hope I don’t accidentally look at his weiner!”
“Holy shit, that dude’s weiner is even smaller than mine!”

Given what you already know about “Monday Night Jihad,” then, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this type of common, everyday toilet talk is as strictly sidestepped as any other prurience. But there’s still something kind of jarringly unbelievable about the lack of anything approaching hijinks among the Colorado Mustangs - at some point the veterans make the rookies take them all out and buy them steaks, but that’s basically it. When Riley bumps into an oddly nervous Sal Ricci on the team plane, the Italian curses at him, causing Covington to literally ask if Sal “kisses [his] daughter with that mouth.”

And even readers who’ve grudgingly accepted the fact that they’re in this for the long haul (at this point, we’re about a quarter of the way through “Monday Night Jihad”), who are all too familiar with Riley Covington’s puritanical ways, might raise an eyebrow at this passage, which takes place mid-flight:

Slipping earbuds into his ears, Riley toggled his iPod to A Decade of Steely Dan, closed his eyes, and absorbed the smooth tones of “Deacon Blues.”

Now look. Really. Find me a starting PFL linebacker who pumps “Aja” on the team plane, and I’ve got a shiny half-dollar with your name on it. There’s nothing but love for the Dan in Shitty Books HQ, but how many jockish dudes in 2009 rep the Purdie Shuffle?

But I digress. For as the Mustangs wend their way west with nary a gag or jape in the cabin, TERROR STRIKES THE HEARTLAND. Our Arab buddies have shed their North Central United States deep cover and are ready to sever the hand of American capitalism. Not even the Fashion Bug is safe!

Luckily, the crack team at CTD, which apparently possesses the most advanced CCTV network in the world, has scanned hours of footage from bus stops and Canadian car-rental places, and they’ve dispatched Jim Hicks, Scott Ross, and the rest of the best of the best to the Mall of America to save the day. As zero hour draws near, Elam can barely contain his passive-voiced excitement:

A CTD sniper who had been following Aamir with his crosshairs and half depressing the trigger of his M24 SWS eased his finger back the rest of the way. The 7.62 mm round exited the barrel of the rifle traveling at 2,800 feet per second and a tiny fraction of a second later exploded the head of Aamir al-Hasani.

Soon enough, a Yoo-hoo-gorged Scott has stabbed the other guy, the detonators are secured, and panic is beginning to grip Camp Snoopy. (Note: it’s been long enough since I’ve actually been to the Mall of America that I still assumed Camp Snoopy was there.) Then a third, yet-unintroduced confederate blasts himself into oblivion in the parking lot, presumably destroying dozens of innocent DFLer votermobiles in the process. A CTD man-on-the-scene describes it to Jim Hicks:

“When lockdown was called, about fifteen cops came bursting out the doors, surprising the bejeebers out of some guy who was about to enter. The perp took off running, so two of the officers went after him. He gets out here, holds out his hand, and then vaporizes. Unfortunately, he took the two cops with him.”

But does the bejeeberin’ mainstream media report CTD’s heroic foiling? Heck no!

The government was remaining tight-lipped about the attack on the Mall of America, so the news channels had exhausted their facts on the failed terrorist attempt hours ago. Until new information broke, they were just filling time with stories like the girl with the big hat who worked in the third-floor Hot Dog on a Stick who had confessed to staring in shock as the liquid rolled back and forth in the slushie machines immediately after the explosion.

Back in Oakland, a somber mood has overcome the Mustangs. Many players begin to pepper Riley Covington with questions, hoping to gain “a military perspective on what had happened in the mall and what America’s response should be.” And on the bus, Sal Ricci, Riley’s lifelong chum and a man whose recent irritable, erratic behavior should not be misconstrued or considered suspicious in any way, takes an unusual interest in the events:

Sal Ricci made his way to Taylor’s row and said, “That’s Minneapolis, isn’t it? My wife has some old friends there. Can you check a different Web site?”

“That’s all I’m seeing on these sites. We’ll be at the Hyatt in a few minutes; you can check the news there. In the meantime, let me call some of my network sources.” Taylor immediately started dialing numbers, while Ricci stood in the aisle leaning over his shoulder.

This would be a completely different book if they all owned TwitterPeeks.

Since “Monday Night Jihad” is doomed from birth to devolve into a by-the-numbers “Rainbow Six”-style counterterrorism black ops potboiler, Elam takes special pains to introduce our favorite fingernail-pullers and nipple-electrode-attachers early.

So let’s meet “Monday Night Jihad’s” baddest ass and the big screw at the Homeland Security Counter-Terrorism Division, in the midst of enhancedly interrogating one of Al-Qa…er, “The Cause’s” finest: #44 in your playbooks, #1 in your hearts, Jim Hicks!

Hicks’s right hand held the tie of the interpreter, who had vainly tried to remove himself from the interrogation when he saw the violent turn it was taking. The agent’s left hand held the MKIII combat knife he had kept from his days as a Navy SEAL. The tip of the blade was about a half inch through the skin behind the prisoner’s chin and was gradually making progress as Hicks slowly twisted the blade left, then right, then left, then right. Blood trickled down the cold metal and between Hicks’s fingers. Kurshumi had stopped screaming when he realized that each time he did, it just drove the blade in a little deeper.

Righteous kill! But don’t worry - we see the softer side of Hicks after he’s done stabbing this poor guy in the mouth, including a lame rationalization for said extrajudicial punishment that I kinda doubt even convinced Jason Elam when he was writing it:

Long ago he had resigned himself to the belief that the ends justified the means when hundreds, if not thousands, of lives were at stake. Yet acting on that belief had cost him countless sleepless nights and countless nightmares when he did sleep. He had lost two marriages, and now he felt he was gradually losing his soul. Don’t let the monster eat you alive, he told his reflection. You did what had to be done. Never forget that! You did what had to be done.

You’d be tempted to call Hicks a take-no-prisoners kind of guy, but for the fact that he, uh, actually takes prisoners for a living. Still, Jason Elam shows us the enemy’s side of the operation, and holy shit are we talking sinister doings. So Hicks can be forgiven, considering the diabolical nature of the evildoers he’s entrusted to smoke out of their caves:

Aamir dialed the number, then simply said, “The hand is poised to strike.” The older brother scribbled quickly in Arabic as he listened to the voice on the other end. When the line went dead, he placed the cell phone in the waste can next to the television and pounded it to pieces with the lug wrench from their car, wasting twenty-eight of their original thirty T-Mobile To Go minutes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *barrel-rolls out of exploding fireworks warehouse shooting two Uzis into the air*

Still, at least they’re probably “Wire” fans. Game recognize game!

So that’s Jim Hicks - a character you’ll meet many times in “Monday Night Jihad,” usually yelling things like “Not on my watch!” and trying to piece together nefarious plans that a child would be able to decipher. Think of a 40th percentile Jack Bauer, and you’re on your way.

One thing we should talk about is the terrible way Jason Elam introduces all his characters, of whom there are dozens and dozens - for a book with an eventual body count in the mid-four figures, he pulls off the complicated feat of introducing countless minor, quirky, wisecracking assholes and somehow keeping all of the relevant ones alive far longer than the plot demands.

Here’s the way we’re introduced to the main homeland security research guy, a reclusive genius who’s inexplicably from Fulton, NY:

The Yoo-Hoo and Diet Mountain Dew Code Red blended together as they were poured into the cup, forming a frothing concoction the color of moderately underdone roast beef. Cherry chocolate nectar of the gods, Scott Ross thought as he threw out the empties.

Mmm!

Fulton, NY, a small city roughly 20 miles away from where I grew up, was mostly notable during my youth for being the site of a giant Nestle factory, which meant that the entire fucking town constantly smelled like stale chocolate. If your car has ever broken down on the Garden State Parkway near all those creepily secretive flavoring plants, you know the type of smell I’m talking about - eerily pervasive, cloying, the kind of thing that makes you want to go home and drink a whole thing of imitation vanilla.

Can’t blame a Fultonite for having a Yoo-Hoo jones, I guess is what I’m saying. Least of all Scott Ross - erratic boy savant, owner of a mind unable even to be controlled by the rigorous curriculum at the University at Albany, but a man who thrived under the discipline of Uncle Sam, eventually serving as Riley Covington, American Hero’s former USAF right-hand man.

Like almost every character in this book with whom we’re supposed to identify who doesn’t get immediately killed in a suicide bombing, Scott has a wildly convoluted and melodramatic backstory:

“My parents were addicts. Coke, horse, meth - you name it, they took it. There was this one Christmas when I was eight - my parents sent me into a house to score some chiva for them. I heard yelling and screaming as I walked up. I tried to turn around, but my parents wouldn’t let me back in the car without the dope. So I went back and knocked. No one answered the door. I walked in, and the smell in the house nearly bowled me over. It wasn’t until years later when I was with AFSOC that I recognized what that smell was. It was death, hanging big-time in that house.”

Scott, too, decides to give up the swinging life of Afghan deployment for the homefront:

His need for independence, combined with the extreme difficulty of getting Yoo-Hoo in Afghanistan, cemented his decision to accept the employment offer presented to him by the Department of Homeland Security.

Since Elam presents this comic relief character’s crippling Yoo-Hoo dependence as a real, integral aspect of his personality, it’s unclear whether this is meant to be taken seriously.

We meet Abdel and Aamir, suicide bombers in “North Central United States” who are planning to blow up the Mall of America (can you already tell that there are a lot of bad parallel narratives in this book?), as they complain about the winter:

“Don’t worry, Brother. Soon enough, you will be luxuriating in a perfect world with a perfect climate surrounded by perfect women.”

“That truly will be amazing. However, even though I know we’re promised seventy-two of those perfect women, I would be content with just seven - as long as they all looked like Areej, the daughter of Abdullah the butcher.”

Lousy North Central United States weather! If you’re wondering why Elam has chosen incredibly vague geographic signifiers to denote where his sleeper cell is currently in hiding, rest assured that this device is in no way meant to be an obvious red herring, and in no way implies that future incredibly vague geographic signifiers (“Saturday, December 20: United States,” etc) will conceal shocking truths about the identity and location of superstar international terrorist Hakeem Qasim, whose dastardly machinations are as we speak machinating their way across the heartland. Nope. Must have been worried about getting sued by the Hibbing Jaycees or something.

(Sidebar: “Abdullah the butcher?” Really? Nothing spells enhanced interrogation like a fork to the forehead, after all, but even so.)

But of all the early main characters of “Monday Night Jihad,” it’s Salvatore Ricci whose story is truly inspirational. The Italian-born All-Pro tight end speaks perfect English despite being in the country for a total of two years, but occasionally lapses into hand-waving “it’s-a me, Salvatore!” patois. And what led Sal Ricci to stroll down Denver’s picturesque boulevards?

Joining the Mustangs had been the final step in a meteoric rise for Salvatore Ricci. Coming up through the Italian Football League - which Ricci had to constantly remind people was not called the “Italian Soccer League” - Ricci had been a big reason why A.C. Milan had taken the 2003-04 Serie A division championship. When Ricci was approached by the Hamburg Donnerkatzen of the International American Football League, he had been apprehensive. He knew how to use his body and his feet; hands were not something he was accustomed to using. But he was a natural athlete, and soon, scouts from PFL teams began showing up at his games. He knew then that it was only a matter of time before he “jumped the pond.”

Yes, like all scudetto-winning calcio stars, Sal Ricci’s real passion lay in minor-league American football, played to literally dozens of fans in second-tier German cities. What young Italian boy hasn’t dreamed of one day playing in the San Siro like his idols, only to quickly give it all up for an unlikely eventual shot at PFL gold with a team called the Thundercats?

But for young Sal Ricci - a skilled linguist capable of mastering English in a matter of months, an athletic marvel good enough to play elite-level football and soccer (although somebody oughta remind him that it isn’t called the “Italian Football League” either), and a man who in no way bears any resemblance to superstar international terrorist Hakeem Qasim, despite the cruel taunts to the contrary of the Bay Area Bandits faithful - coming to America hasn’t been all smooth sailing. Try as he might, he just can’t wrap his head around the trendy “WWJD” movement! In this excerpt, his best friend, Riley Covington, American Hero, tries to set him straight:

“For many people it was just a cool saying, something to make them feel spiritual. For me, it’s really how I try to live my life.”

Ricci scooped out another helping of the spinach supreme from the family-style dish. “I guess that makes sense. You see someone who has a problem, you give them what they need, and, bam! you’re one step closer to heaven.”

“Not quite, Sal. I don’t need to get any steps closer to heaven because of my belief in Jesus Christ. Doing all the good things only-“

Ricci’s cell phone interrupted the conversation. He looked at the caller ID, flushed, and then hurriedly said, “Sorry, I have to take this.”

Looks like one Colorado Mustang is a fan of “Pretending to Text in Awkward Situations!”

1. We meet Riley Covington, American hero, deep in the shit mid-Enduring Freedom. “He was two years out of the Air Force Academy, where he had been a three-time WAC/MWC Defensive Player of the Year and, as a senior, had won the Butkus Award as the nation’s top linebacker.” So it’s incredibly obvious about ten pages in that we’re actually talking about Pat Tillman, albeit not as much of a pussy; the real Tillman could have gone Lt. Calley in Afghanistan and still deserved better than being the inspiration for this crap.

After taking a bullet in a firefight ripped from the first five minutes of “Call of Duty 4,” Riley’s CO calls him over and gives him the good news:

“Covington, I brought you in here to make you an offer I hope you won’t take. The higher-ups want me to give you the ludicrous choice of opting out of the rest of your full-time service commitment to the United States Air Force so you can go play in the Pro Football League.”

Stilted dialogue aside, of course Riley has a nice crisis of conviction, and of course his family encourages their Purple Hearted son to follow his dream. (His father even shows how much he cares by calling him “Riles.” A verb that also describes the effect that Elam’s prose has on me.)

So it’s off to the PFL, but not without lingering doubts about leaving his buddies behind and a motivational streak largely inspired by generalized anti-brown-people resentment and good ol’ jingoistic oorah. Elam even throws in a scene where Riley gets pumped up watching Fox News coverage of a suicide bombing while drinking a protein shake, and then gives the recipe for the shake in text for some fucking reason: “Feeling invigorated, he padded into the kitchen, flicked on Fox News, and began to assemble the ingredients for his daily breakfast shake - a simple concoction of protein powder, soy milk, whey, and frozen berries.”

Pro tip for aspiring swole brahs: throw in some Greens+ next time!

2. The members of Riley’s army posse (“Dawkins, Logan, Murphy, Posada and Li”) are almost comically multiethnic, as though they’re the main characters of a last-generation first-person shooter. “Kim ‘Tommy’ Li, a man with an itchy trigger finger and way too many tattoos,” “Skeeter Dawkins was a good old boy from Mississippi,” etc. All that’s missing during the firefight scene (a couple of them die, I think; who cares) is a guy crawling toward a glowing first-aid kit and somebody yelling “MENDOZA!”

Speaking of Kim “Tommy” Li: isn’t the ramp up to nickname status significantly steeper if your nickname contains more syllables than your actual first name? Or is this supposed to be a really subtle Methods of Mayhem joke?

3. Elam does that thing shitty movies do where he has to make up a bunch of fictitious sports properties so as to not get sued. “Two years earlier, Riley had been selected by the Colorado Mustangs in the third round of the Pro Football League draft, and commentators believed Riley had the possibility of a promising PFL career ahead of him.” I wasn’t aware you had to do this in books!

There’s even a fake team called the Bay Area Bandits, whose fans dress and behave exactly like Raider Nation. Team colors are the same, corny pirate costumes are the same, but Elam, aware of this book’s intended Christian audience, keeps his descriptions of their outlandish, violent behavior strictly G-rated: “Everyone they passed seemed to want to use their fingers to emphatically assure the players on the buses that they thought they were number one.”

Tickled by said fingers, the normally stoic players even break the indomitable PFL pregame code of silence:

Some of the players in the back of the bus began to laugh. “Hey, check out old granny over there. I’m not sure what that gesture means, but whatever it is certainly seems like it could lead to infertility,” Keith Simmons hollered, as he egged her on by beating the bus window.

Classic Simmons zinger. That guy’s a natural.

Our inaugural shitty book, “Monday Night Jihad,” by Jason Elam and Steve Yohn, is roughly a cross between “Black Sunday” and the bathroom line at a Tom Tancredo rally. Featuring unconvincing justifications of state-sponsored torture juxtaposed with near-pornographic depictions of maimed bomb victims, heroic cocoa-wielding stadium vendors, more made-up football team names than all seven seasons of “1st & Ten,” and a total dearth of impure thoughts whatsoever, there’s something here for everyone!

Publishers Weekly sez:

Just in time for the Super Bowl is this debut suspense novel from a 14-year NFL place kicker and his Colorado pastor. The result yields some nice moments paired with problematic writing and improbable plot twists. Air Force 2d Lt. Riley Covington is given grace to play NFL football instead of serving out his military time, but he opts to return to active duty after a horrific stadium bombing. Hakeem Qasim is an Iraqi groomed for terrorism by tragic events in his childhood. The lives of both the squeaky-clean Christian Riley and the radical Muslim Hakeem intersect in a way that readers will see coming early in the novel. Rich details about life as an NFL player invigorate the story; the details become problematic when the story gets wordy (as in one long and unnecessary chapter toward the end of the book). Although the final […] plot twist is too easy, unexpected humor helps leaven the serious themes, and the sparks of romance that fly between Riley and an American Muslim woman will pique readers’ interest.

NB: Mike Tanier of Football Outsiders wrote a great review of it a couple months ago that’s funnier than anything I’m gonna drunkenly shit out here. Respect is due.

Yohn, the co-author, also maintains “The new Riley Covington blog,” (which is, unfortunately, not written in character) and both authors seem like super good-humored guys about themselves, so nothing personal. In the event either dude sees this and takes offense: you are to me what Mark Bavaro is to you.