by Matt Rogers
As soon as he closed the distance he understood the gravity of his mistake.
Mikhailov lurched up, teeth bared like a rabid dog, angrier than King had ever seen a man. He bundled King into the wall and locked two hands behind his head, embracing him in a traditional Muay Thai clinch. King was trapped in place by Mikhailov’s grip strength. He couldn’t move.
He sucked in a sharp breath of air and prepared himself for what would inevitably follow.
Muay Thai fighters specialised in delivering vicious knees to the body and head while keeping their opponents locked in a clinch. Mikhailov obviously had years of training in the martial art, because he snapped three knees into King’s mid-section in rapid fashion. Each had technique and accuracy and horrendous raw power behind them.
The knees felt like baseball bats slamming into him.
King buckled under the first strike. The second sent unimaginable pain tearing through his body. He crossed his arms over his stomach to protect from the third.
Big mistake.
The point of Mikhailov’s kneecap crunched into King’s left wrist hard enough to break it. He heard the clear snap above the chaos of the fight. Instantly, he went pale.
Mikhailov heard it too. He let go of the clinch and darted out of range, intent on assessing the damage. He eyed King’s left hand, now dangling uselessly by his side.
King began to hyperventilate, shocked by the intensity of the agony. Hot liquid fire arced up his forearm and through his shoulder, incapacitating his entire range of movement.
‘I think we’re done here,’ Mikhailov said.
He snatched two handfuls of King’s jacket and hauled him to the edge of the walkway. King’s stomach dropped in terror, but there was nothing he could do. Mikhailov manhandled him like a child. The pain had paralysed him. From his nose, his wrist, his stomach, his lungs, his neck.
Everything burnt.
And it seemed it was about to get a whole lot worse.
He threw a last-ditch punch, swinging for the fences, throwing technique out the window. He knew that if he put all his power into it, he could shut Mikhailov’s lights out. He had to connect in just the right place.
His fist scythed through the air.
Mikhailov leant away from the blow, almost nonchalant in his demeanour.
The punch went whistling past his throat.
The man smirked, impressed by King’s attempts.
‘You’re trying so hard,’ he said. ‘It’s almost sad.’
He continued dragging King over to the railing. King stumbled along, trying to keep his balance in the process. They stopped by the edge of the walkway and he got his first proper look at the cavern.
Similar walkways were fixed into the rock at various heights across the space. King spotted one a couple of dozen feet directly below, connecting to a handful of tunnels — all identical to the one he had come through.
The cavern floor stretched at least a hundred feet deeper into the earth. It was well-lit. It seemed every floodlight in the space was aimed at the ground. The surface had been smoothed completely flat.
King thought he saw blood smeared on the rock…
‘Like the place?’ Mikhailov said. ‘Pity you won’t get to see what we do here. You’re going over in three seconds.’
King mumbled something through bloody teeth.
Mikhailov inclined his head ever so slightly. ‘What?’
‘I said…’ King muttered. ‘I know I am.’
He threw a head-butt with such intensity that he briefly considered the ramifications of knocking himself unconscious with it. His forehead hit Mikhailov’s chin in exactly the right place. Blood spurted from his mouth. A couple of the man’s teeth were knocked loose.
King followed it up with a brutal kick to the groin, planting the toe of his boot square between Mikhailov’s legs.
He knew the strikes would not put the man down. Mikhailov was seemingly made of titanium, immune to even King’s most devastating shots.
But it bought him a second.
Mikhailov shrank away, startled by his injured jaw and the emasculating blow to his privates. King felt the energy leeching from his bones. He had put everything into the actions. He couldn’t attack with anything else.
There was nothing left in the tank.
So he threw caution to the wind and dove over the railing — into a hundred feet of empty space.
33
King’s stomach fell into his feet for a tenth of a second.
Then he snatched out and gripped the edge of the walkway at the last second. At two hundred and twenty pounds, he would never have been able to hold on for an extended period of time with a couple of fingers — but he used the momentum of the brief grip to change his direction slightly in the air.
He swung like a monkey, letting go after a half-second of effort.
He dropped — now falling towards the walkway below.
He grimaced. It would come down to a matter of inches.
He landed feet-first on the thin sliver of railing at the very edge of the lower walkway, crashing into the metal at breakneck speed. He teetered backwards. Momentum threatened to tip him over the edge. Then all his effort would have been for nothing.
At the last second he reversed direction, toppling forwards onto the walkway.
‘Kill him!’ Mikhailov roared from above.
King landed in a heap on the metal. He kept his broken wrist pinned against his stomach, absorbing the landing with the rest of his body. Any further aggravation to the snapped bone would make his legs buckle. He couldn’t afford that.
A piercing clang resonated near his head, shockingly loud. It was accompanied by the striking flare of metal against metal. His heart leapt and he rolled away from the source.
Bullets.
He continued the barrel roll, aiming for the mouth of the tunnel drilled into the rock. A volley of bullets lit up the walkway around him. Several struck the railing nearby. But he remained a moving target, never staying stationary, always on the move. He reached the tunnel and threw himself undercover, his pulse pounding with each new round of ammunition that struck around him.
He couldn’t have been on the walkway for more than a couple of seconds.
When under enemy fire, time always seemed to slow down.
More rounds slammed into the metal grating in front of him as he scooted back into darkness. When he was sure that he had retreated far enough into the tunnel, he slumped back against the wall and forced his breathing back under control.
It wouldn’t take much to induce a panic attack. He was somewhere in the sub-levels of an abandoned gold mine, unarmed, badly injured, with no light source of any kind to direct him.
Worse, he was surrounded on all sides by Mikhailov’s thugs, all of who were heavily armed.
You’ve been in worse situations, his subconscious told him.
The gunfire ceased. King heard movement on the walkways above. Loud footsteps echoing off the metal. Everything went quiet.
‘Come out, King,’ Mikhailov called, his deep voice resonating through the cavern. ‘You’re only drawing this out.’
Clutching his useless left hand to stabilise it, King got to his feet and strode down the tunnel, heading away from the walkway. His surroundings grew steadily darker, until the same blackness enveloped him. He reached out with his right hand and drifted it along the smooth rock wall, guiding himself by touch alone. All sounds of commotion from the cavern faded away.
The lack of vision concentrated all his focus on the pain — something he had been struggling to suppress. It rolled over him in increasingly nauseating waves, twisting his stomach. He paused in the middle of the tunnel as his gag reflex triggered. He vomited what little food he had left in his stomach, taking care to keep as quiet as possible.
A cold sweat broke out across his brow, and his hands began to tremble. He battled the sensations down and pressed on.
The tunnel ended after roughly a hundred feet, coming to a T-junctio
n. He opted to head left, keeping his paces measured and his right hand pressed firmly against the wall at all times.
He walked for what felt like an eternity. In the darkness he lost all sense of time, focusing on nothing but putting his feet in front of him and tuning out the crippling agony in his wrist and neck. The rock floor began to slope steadily downwards. He had no other way to head, so he continued, concentrating hard on keeping his balance.
Finally, he sensed a shift in his vision. The same faint glow of artificial light glimmered somewhere in the distance.
He was heading back to the cavern.
He kept low, listening out for any sign of one of Mikhailov’s men. Barely audible echoes drifted down from far above. As far as he could tell, there was no-one nearby.
He dropped — lying prone — and crawled to the source of light.
This tunnel ended in empty space. There was no walkway to exit onto — just a sheer drop to the cavern floor below. Thankfully the mouth of the tunnel was shrouded in shadow, so King could inch up to the edge without being spotted by any onlookers.
He scanned the walkways on the opposite side of the cavern, and realised there were none.
He peered out at what he could see.
From here, he had an unobstructed view over the cavern floor. Floodlights far above were trained on the flat stretch of rock. Above and below, walkways twisted around the uneven rock walls. The entire cavern was shaped like a cylinder, like a viewing platform for whatever took place on the ground.
Then King noticed the cameras.
There were at least five of them, fixed into the curved walls at different heights. None were more than twenty feet off the ground. They were high-end setups, all aimed directly at the cavern floor. Thick cables snaked up the rock behind them.
There was movement below, at the edge of King’s peripheral vision. He wheeled his gaze off the cameras and saw Mikhailov stride through an open steel door at ground level. He had cleaned up — the blood around his mouth had vanished and he had clearly splashed his face with water. He looked as good as new.
A man in ripped jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt followed him. He had thin receding hair and a pale complexion. The guy stood out in contrast to the beefed-up mercenaries in tactical gear.
They spoke in low tones, but the sound carried in the dead quiet.
The man in the jumper spoke first, his accent distinctly British. ‘We’re incredibly late.’
‘I know,’ Mikhailov muttered. ‘We’re dealing with a problem, in case you didn’t notice.’
‘Why didn’t you just shoot him?’
‘I will now.’
‘Do they know of the problem?’
‘The viewers?’
The other man nodded slowly.
Mikhailov shook his head. ‘They would kill me if they knew there was the slightest chance of being compromised.’
‘So what do we do?’
Mikhailov lifted his gaze, sweeping it across the cavern. King shrank into the shadows, hoping he wasn’t spotted.
‘We get on with the show,’ Mikhailov said. ‘My men are dealing with the problem. He’s hurt bad — I broke his wrist and knocked him semi-conscious. He won’t be in any condition to interfere.’
‘Okay,’ the guy said, cracking his neck by rolling his head from side to side. ‘Stream’s going live in thirty seconds, then. You ready?’
‘We’ve done this enough times,’ Mikhailov said. ‘I know how it works.’
‘You don’t get nervous? You know who’s watching.’
Mikhailov turned and regarded the man with contempt. ‘I used to kill people for a living. Get the fucking stream going before we make them even angrier.’
The hooded guy scurried back through the steel door. Mikhailov stood patiently in the centre of the floor, hands clasped behind his back, unblinking. King noticed the intense calm of his demeanour. It seemed as if nothing would faze him. It was unnoticeable that he had been in a life-or-death fistfight minutes previously.
King lay on the cold rock, his heart thumping, waiting for the cameras to go live.
For what? he thought.
An audible alarm blasted out of hidden speakers, harsh and digital.
Mikhailov turned to face the cameras.
The stream had begun.
34
‘Welcome,’ Mikhailov said.
He wasn’t yelling, but his voice seemed to amplify effortlessly, resonating through the cavern like it was coming from an artificial source. King grimaced as a particularly intense needle of pain sliced through his wrist. He wiped sweat off his brow and focused on the scene below.
‘As always, I’m speaking in English upon request of the highest-paying party,’ Mikhailov said. ‘We provide translations into seven different languages along the menu bar. Switch audio feeds at your own leisure.’
He paused for effect, allowing time for the viewers to adjust. As he spoke, he turned methodically from camera to camera, focusing on each lens for an interval of time.
He’s a professional, King noted.
‘We have three events tonight with the typical tiered pricing structure in place. You have all browsed the catalogue and made your purchases. Before we get things underway, I’ll recommend the final event to you once again. We don’t often get seven young, healthy men at the same time. There will be two preliminary bouts, then a five-man free-for-all with the three remaining contestants and the winners of the two early bouts.’
‘Oh, no,’ King whispered. ‘No, no, no. Fuck…’
‘I apologise for the late start tonight,’ Mikhailov said. ‘I know you’re all eagerly anticipating some bloodshed. I won’t delay it any longer.’
King went pale. He hadn’t anticipated such a brutal situation. An underground fight ring, where innocent hostages were pitted against each other to satiate the needs of the viewers. Hence the remote location. Hence the outpost halfway up the side of a mountain — likely responsible for maintaining a secure connection for the live stream.
But he feared there was more to the operation than just a fight…
Mikhailov turned to the cameras again. ‘Now, I know much of the appeal comes from the fear. So — as usual — none of the participants know what they’re in for. You can follow along as I enlighten them.’
He spun on his heel.
‘Bring the first two in,’ he commanded.
Two mercenaries in balaclavas and khaki tactical gear herded two of the health workers through the steel door.
It was the first time King had seen them.
They were in bad shape — and rightfully so. Fear was eating them alive. They were both deathly pale and gaunt, with hollow, sunken eyes and chattering teeth. Their gazes flicked around the cavern at an incredible rate, trying to take in everything at once. They both raised a hand in unison to shield their eyes from the stark lighting.
The mercenaries slapped their arms away and threw them to the floor.
The pair of thugs retreated back the way they had come.
Mikhailov smirked knowingly at the cameras, then crouched between the two civilians. He turned to the man on the left — a tall, lanky man with thick blond hair and an athletic build.
‘This is Eli,’ Mikhailov roared.
Eli jolted, shocked by the volume of his tone. He stared up at Mikhailov with wide eyes. ‘Please, man…’
Australian, King noted.
‘Eli looks like he has a mean streak,’ Mikhailov said. ‘He could be the favourite here.’
He turned to the second man — shorter, chubbier, with a long flowing mane of black hair spilling down his back. This guy was equally terrified.
‘I’m told this is Seth,’ Mikhailov yelled. ‘They work for the World Health Organisation. We snatched them not too far from here, as it happened. What a stroke of luck.’
Mikhailov looked away from the cameras and focused on the man on either side of him. He dropped to one knee, bringing himself closer to them.
‘Eli and Seth,�
� Mikhailov said. ‘You are both scared. You both want to go home.’
The pair slowly nodded, as if cautious of being baited.
‘Well, good news!’ Mikhailov said. ‘One of you gets to go home. Can you imagine it? Leaving this terrible place behind. Returning to your families. Hugging them tight. Promising to never find yourself in a situation like this again. To take greater care when you wander into places you’re not wanted. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
Neither man responded, but even from three storeys above King could see the glint in their eyes. The hope. They had probably never been in trouble in their lives. Good people with good intentions, focused on making the world a better place by helping those who needed it the most.
Health workers.
Decent humans.
Good men who now lay shivering on the cold floor of a deserted gold mine, held against their will by a party of Russian mercenaries.
King couldn’t imagine how badly they wanted to put it all behind them.
Mikhailov got to his feet. He pointed at each man in turn.
‘The only person stopping you from going home is the one across from you,’ he said. ‘You two will fight to the death. When I’m sure that one of you no longer has a pulse, the other will be released.’
Neither man responded.
‘No-one will ever know what you did.’
Silence.
‘If you refuse, I will kill you both right now.’
Mikhailov took a sleek, jet-black handgun out of its holster and held it at the ready, poised by one side. King recognised the make. It was a MP-443 Grach.
Mikhailov took a step back and waited.
Seth and Eli let their gaze settle on each other. They were both shell-shocked. A tense silence settled over the cavern. King heard a creak above him. He glanced up to see a group of mercenaries on the walkway directly above, watching the scene below intently.
‘Seth, no…’ Eli muttered.
Seth said nothing. He stared at Mikhailov, then at Eli. Back and forth. Again and again. Frozen like a deer in headlights.
Seth’s fingers twitched. He started to move.