by Paul Tassi
“Do you know he saved his entire unit from an ambush in Tehran?” Vanessa told Mark after he won the fight. “Carried five soldiers to safety while nursing three gunshot wounds of his own.”
“They should pay him better,” was all Mark could say in reply. Sometimes he felt sick at the severance package he’d gotten from the CIA while so many other soldiers were so badly mistreated and forgotten about as veterans. This kid deserved better than being forced to enter a spectacle like this to be potentially butchered in front of millions.
“He’s a hero,” Vanessa continued. “One of our best.”
Was she talking about America or the Crucible? It was hard to tell with these people.
“I NEED TO KNOW what all this is for,” Mark asked Gideon during a park bench meeting the day before the semi-final. “Tell me you turned up something on Crayton, and he’s dirty and not just some sociopathic billionaire with an unhealthy love for ancient Rome.”
Gideon gazed out into the park, looking as old as Mark had ever seen him. He seemed like a shell of his former self, back when he’d pulled Mark out of the fire. Well, the fire he’d thrown him into in the first place.
“Within the next few minutes,” Gideon said, “a story is going to break. Supreme Court Justice Constance Wright has passed away.”
“What?” Mark said, incredulous. “Is that true?”
Gideon nodded.
“She was eighty-four. She had a stroke. These things happen.”
He paused.
“Except when they don’t.”
“What are you saying?” Mark said. “You mean …”
“Wright was the swing vote that killed Prison Wars for Crayton. His new ‘Athletic Protection Act’ his surrogates are peddling in Congress is about to pass the House and make its way to the Senate. It will squeeze past the left and land in the lap of our good friend President Ashford, who, according to our reports, received millions in re-election funding through various Crayton shell companies and subsidiaries over the course of the past few years. He will sign it.”
“And the Supreme Court is the only roadblock left,” Mark continued the thought.
“Crayton doesn’t want a shadow cast over his little game with another prolonged court case. Ashford will appoint a new justice that will swing the right way, and this ‘Crucible’ becomes unquestionably legal.”
“You don’t think …”
“The president knows?” Gideon said with eyebrows raised. “No, I don’t. I’m guessing he probably doesn’t even know just how much Crayton has invested into him either. But he’ll make the consideration all the same, given that he’s got jelly where a backbone should be.”
“Do you have proof? That Crayton had Wright killed?”
Gideon shook his head.
“If I did, you would be obsolete and we wouldn’t be sitting here. I’m sure the autopsy will show us exactly jack shit, but this is not a coincidence. I’m telling you this to get you to recognize the stakes here. It’s not just some nebulous threat or vague associations with foreign powers. If one of the new China Republics used Crayton or his company to kill a Supreme Court justice, that’s an act of war. It should not surprise you to learn that Wright was also key in upholding the severity of the trade sanctions against China during Cold War II, and before she was appointed, she consulted on the legal aspects of Spearfish years before it was implemented as well. She’s an old enemy to them.”
Spearfish. Even the word made Mark nearly hyperventilate.
“Could it have been MSS directly?”
Gideon shook his head.
“Unlikely,” he said. “The Ministry is still lurking in the shadows, but they don’t have the resources to pull something like that off anymore. Not unless they used a hefty asset with reach and connections that was already here.”
“Like Crayton,” Mark said. “Or rather his guard dog, Axton.”
“Exactly. So we need that connection. You may not find a handwritten confession from Crayton that he spiked her pill bottle, but all you need is a thread, and we can tug on it until he unravels completely. But time is of the essence, as you can tell. We don’t know how this is going to escalate. What’s he’s planning. What MSS is planning for him. This tournament has to be a smokescreen for something larger.”
Mark’s head was spinning. His phone buzzed and he checked the alert. He caught a glimpse of Constance Wright’s name in a breaking news headline.
He was worried he’d stumbled into another war.
10
THE LAST WAR WAS dark. The last war was cold. The last war was lonely. And it hurt.
It was mostly, sharp, stabbing pain. But later, he would realize, there was a deep, pervasive, sickly pain that would thread through his entire body and soul and never truly leave him. Pain that started with one man.
“My name is Zhou,” said the smoking figure hidden in shadow. “And I would like to know yours.”
Mark couldn’t feel his arms because they’d been bound so tightly to the metal chair for hours. When they grabbed him, he tried to keep himself oriented, but all he could deduce was that they were leagues underground, and certainly no one was coming to save him. That wasn’t the mission, after all.
“Please, I told you,” he said in flawless Mandarin, “I’m Li Quang Wu, I work in—”
“I know where you work,” Zhou interrupted. “And I know that position has allowed you access to sensitive information. Information that you have been broadcasting back to the United States.”
“What? No!” Mark cried, exactly on script. He forced tears out of his eyes. “There must be some mistake, I’m being set up. You must have a mole in the office.”
“We do,” Zhou said coolly. “And it is you.”
Mark braced himself. He’d already been slapped around by the guards who had wrestled him down there, but the blow from Zhou’s fist was the first serious strike he’d endured since he’d entered the country over a year ago. The first of many to come, he knew.
Pain exploded through his eye socket as his head whipped back from the punch. The chair remained bolted to the ground, and his neck bore the brunt of the recoil.
Now, Zhou stepped into the light. He was tall, as tall as Mark, meaning he stood out among the shorter populace of the country. His brows were thick and his features implied he was pureblood Chinese, through and through. The right half of his thin face was flecked with tiny white scars that looked like ancient cuts from shrapnel. He was young enough to have fought in Tibet, Mark guessed, but he would have been little older than a boy. Dark eyes pierced him, searching for the truth.
Mark had thought he was ready for the second phase of his part in Spearfish. But now, locked in a dark, freezing room a mile underground, staring at this man with death in his eyes, he wasn’t so sure. This was the plan. Work as an MSS underling to solidify his cover, and transmit periodic reports to the US. The goal was to be stealthy enough to look like a pro, but just repetitive enough over time for the monitors to recognize a pattern and discover his malfeasance. Few spies were given a mission to get caught, yet here he was. Now he had to last long enough for them to believe he was a hardened US asset, but eventually break so they knew he could be turned. Many spies had died with their mouths shut, claiming ignorance until the end. Though part of Mark thought he could do that if he had to, he thought of Riko and the unborn Asami, and was glad his mission was to survive.
If he could, that is.
The second, third, and fourth blows all landed just as hard, and eventually Mark stopped counting and simply tried to maintain consciousness. He was told during training, during all the abuse he’d endured, that the CIA had studied Chinese interrogation techniques. That nothing they’d do to him would be worse than what they were putting him through. He had to believe them, as it was the only thing that had made the torment bearable. Knowing it was for the greater good, and that it was as bad as it would get. The beatings, the waterboarding, the humiliation and degradation. He’d done it all in mission
prep, he could do it again if it meant completing the task at hand and getting back home to his family.
“Bring out the kit,” Zhou called out to someone unseen in the darkness. A graying man stepped forward with a small suitcase. Zhou opened it, and Mark’s eyes widened as the knives glinted in the gloom. Some were straight as arrows and razor sharp, others were jagged and grotesque and looked purposefully dull.
Zhou smiled a hateful smile.
“Choose.”
Too many nights he still woke up with fire radiating from old scars. The wounds were long healed, of course, but for a few seconds every day he felt like he was back in that chair again. Most days he was glad there was no one sharing his bed to see him flush with that kind of panic. Most days.
Today he woke up alone as usual, the violent images slowly drifting from his consciousness. Remembering that horrible hole made him almost grateful for his current assignment, which was practically a vacation by comparison. Crayton was insane, that much was clear to Mark, but evil? He didn’t think so. But if he was in fact in league with China somehow, that would change the equation. An operative with the hearts and minds of the American public was dangerous, no matter how he got their attention.
And he had gotten their attention.
THE NEWS WAS FLOODED with reports and speculation about the next city finals, Chicago. In a few hours, he’d step into the ring with Josh Tanner in front of tens of thousands live and millions on TV. The last set of matches had crept up to twenty-five million live viewers. Not Prison Wars numbers, and there were still about a dozen porn programs ahead of it, but the Crucible qualifiers had seen their ratings rise every week. Brooke told him that they could expect thirty million for his match at the very least, and more once he got to the finals.
Even though Mark knew he would beat Tanner, the rest of the country was apparently not so sure. He flipped on the TV as he got dressed and a roundtable of panelists on CMI’s sports stream were debating his merits.
“I’ve seen the footage, and I’m not impressed,” said a former heavyweight boxing champion turned commentator. “Wei’s style is all over the place, and relies too much on a single knock-out blow. That may have worked well and good for the chumps in the lower brackets, but now he’s facing some serious competition from here on out. Tanner is no joke.”
Footage played behind them of Tanner pummeling a downed opponent with furious strikes.
“And how can you not be in Tanner’s corner?” a blonde female anchor asked. “He’s fighting to pay for treatment for his sick son while Mark Wei is what, fighting to pay off some gambling debts?”
“To be fair, Melanie,” interjected an older man with a curled mustache. “Wei is something of a war hero. During the Iran incursion, he received a purple heart for injuries sustained in the field.”
That was how they explained away his scars. He was supposed to have been caught in a blast from an IED. It was flimsy, but most knew it wasn’t polite to question how a SEAL got a purple heart and the scars to match. In this case, the government’s word was law.
“I know about his service,” Melanie said, “But after that he signed up with Glasshammer? That’s a red flag to me. You’ve read about what they did across Africa in ‘32. Was Wei there for that? What kind of orders did he follow?”
“I think we’re getting a bit off-point here,” a fourth man said, bald, with a wide smile and a loud tie. “This is fundamentally about their abilities as a fighter, not the content of their character. Do we even want to start talking about the kinds of things Burton Drescher has been accused of?”
That was answered with complete silence and awkward stares all around.
“I didn’t think so, but the man gained fans and fame all the same for his ability to fight. Prison Wars, and now the Crucible, never claimed to be creating role models. They want to find the best fighters in the country. And sometimes those are the kinds of people who have done bad things.”
“Fine,” Melanie said, waving her hand. “But I’m rooting for Chase Cassidy and the guy with the sick kid.”
“To each their own,” the man said with a smile before turning to the camera. “We’ll be right back with more on Chicago Cruci—”
Mark waved the screen off and rubbed his eyes. There had just been a roundtable discussion about him on TV. This is getting more and more surreal by the day, he thought. It was hard to believe after spending so long in complete isolation and darkness, that he was now being thrust into the light. It’s not as if the CIA hadn’t recruited public figures as assets before, but to turn one of their ghosts into a fully fledged celebrity was absolutely unheard of. Mark assumed the agency had bypassed the president completely on this because of his ties to Crayton. Whatever the case, Mark couldn’t help but feel that somehow, this was going to end up being even more of a mindfuck than Spearfish by the time it was all said and done. And at least now, he had nothing to lose.
THE LIMO WAS EMPTY. Carlo had gone ahead to take his place in the VIP booth with his family, where Mark would be watching his fight against Drescher the following night. Mark rode in silence as the car made the short drive to Wrigley. Crayton had actually managed to pay off the MLB to move a Cubs game to a different night in order to rent the stadium for the semi-finals. The finals were reportedly going to be in the even more massive Soldier Field a few days from now.
As they approached the stadium, the streets were lined with fans who hooted and hollered as he passed. There were thousands lined up, many of whom probably wouldn’t even get inside. But as the car slowed, Mark saw a different kind of bystander pressing up against the metal gates, with police officers holding them back. They were angry, very angry.
Mark squinted to read their signs, expecting some kind of anti-Asian sentiment. Cold War II had made some elements of the American public (and government) distrustful of anyone who looked even remotely Chinese, and even after the collapse, that hadn’t gone away completely. But Mark saw no slurs as the light illuminated their placards.
THE END IS NIGHT one sign read. Reading the sign-holder’s lips, it sounded like she was mouthing something similar.
ROME BURNED FOR ITS SINS, said another.
There were dozens, hundreds of protesters, many with vaguely religious elements written on their signs about the moral decay of the country and how the Crucible was essentially a sign of the end times. Mark couldn’t disagree, and stared at one of the simpler signs that seemed to sum it all up.
WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?
The protestors were screaming at him, and a few broke through and began banging on the windows of the car. They didn’t know it was actually him in there, but any other VIP executive or attending celebrity was still someone they wanted to yell at. Mark regarded them calmly, recognizing bulletproof glass when he saw it, but he wanted to roll the window down and say that he agreed with them.
Wrigley loomed large behind them, clouds obscuring the moon above it. Light shone out of the field and into the sky like some kind of promised land, and it was that sight, not the protestors, that gave Mark chills.
INSIDE, THE ADRENALINE WAS starting to get to him. It coursed through his veins like lightning, and he found himself tapping his leg uncontrollably as one of his trainers wrapped his wrists. There was a whole flock of them, old men with thinning hair and noses broken a dozen times each. All were chattering in his ear about tactics and strategy. He couldn’t even remember any of their names. The only person he wanted in the locker room was Carlo, or even Gideon. These men didn’t know him. They were cashing a check from Crayton and pretending to care if he got beaten to a pulp in the ring. Maybe they got a bonus if he won, which explained their fervor. Mark just nodded, but he was mentally muting all of them. Even Crayton’s camp didn’t seem to understand this wasn’t a normal fight, like boxing or MMA. This was something else. Something primal. You couldn’t coach that. These were men and women with death wishes. Some dreamed of glory, sure, but not Mark. Not Josh Tanner either, he imagined.
H
e could hear the crowd outside. A low roar like a swarm of disturbed hornets. Mark’s energy spilled out past his bouncing leg and he stood up, hopping back and forth. His trainers slapped him on the back and smiled, seeming to think he was fired up, dollar signs in his eyes. Honestly, the only thing Mark was dreaming about at the present moment was squeezing Crayton’s neck until his retinas detached.
A trainer held up his phone for him; a single message was on the translucent screen.
GET HIM BRO!
Carlo. Mark couldn’t help but smile. He turned and jogged toward the door, the trainer army at his back.
The hallway was dark, lit only by the glow of the field outside. He could see the floor seating, and the circular arena sitting somewhere around where second base used to be.
This is insane, he thought, one more time. After so many years in the shadows, it made his skin crawl to step out into the light.
Cameron Crayton had pulled out all the stops. Like the other fights Mark had seen before, now that he was the final four in the city, production of the Crucible had gone into full effect. This was no rank, torn-apart office with a pair of judges solemnly observing his fight. This was sixty thousand people, each determined to scream louder than the one standing next to them. Mark realized he was walking into a theme song, a blaring new-wave rap track he’d never heard before in his life, and the entire crowd seemed to pulse with the beat. Even he couldn’t help but bob to the rhythm as he walked through the screams toward the ring. A video played on the giant screen over center field, some cut-together production that relayed his entirely fictional life story like it was a documentary. It focused mostly on his military career, his heroics as a sailor, then as a SEAL, then even at Glasshammer, where they’d concocted some tale about him rescuing a band of aid workers in Jakarta or something. He could barely even hear the narration over the deafening crowd. He finally reached the stage and stripped off his shirt, revealing at last his full collection of scars he’d sustained at the many edges of Zhou’s knives. To everyone else, they were war wounds, and the crowd collectively gasped as they saw the intersecting lines covering his upper half.