Herokiller

by Paul Tassi

  “All set, son,” Hasan said, clapping Mark on the shoulder. Mark winced, but realized it didn’t actually hurt. Hasan winked at him. Mark wandered through the exit, where he found Ethan on his phone in the hallway looking pale. He looked up at Mark, then kept talking.

  “Thanks for the call, I appreciate it,” he said. “Just please let me know if anything changes. I love you so much. I can’t wait to see you in a few weeks. Tell the girls I miss them when they get home from school.”

  Ethan slid his phone back into his pocket and blinked away tears as quickly as he could manage.

  “Shoulder good?” he said, turning to Mark. “Not a fatal scratch?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” Mark said, touching the bandage. “They gave me something for it, crazy stuff.”

  “Oh right, drexo-something. They gave me some when Moses cracked my rib a few days ago. That stuff is magic.”

  There was a long pause as they walked down the hallway.

  “Everything good?” Mark finally said.

  Ethan tilted his head back and forth.

  “My wife’s prognosis changed,” he said. “They just downgraded her from a year to live to no more than six months. I thought … I thought she was doing better. To look at her, you wouldn’t even know …”

  Mark put his hand on Ethan’s shoulder as they walked.

  “Sorry to hear that, man.”

  “It’s frustrating, you know? I earned ten million by being here, but I can’t give it to her yet for the operation, and I can’t even spend these next three months with her. I’d jump off the roof right now if I thought it would save her.”

  Mark noticed the camera drone still following behind them. He shot it an angry glare.

  “If she’s got six months, that’s still enough time,” Mark said, trying to be reassuring. “And visitation weekend is just a few weeks away. It’s already August.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Ethan said. “But Christ I really don’t want to lose her. What if they downgrade again? What if after all this, the treatment doesn’t even work? It’ll destroy my girls. It’ll destroy me.”

  Mark felt a knife in his gut. Ethan had so much riding on this tournament, and it was his job to dismantle it. It was Josh Tanner all over again, but he actually knew Ethan. Or at least felt like he did by now. It made him nauseous.

  Behind them, the camera drone continued to watch impassively, broadcasting Ethan’s misery for all the world to see.

  “HOW’S THE SHOULDER?” BROOKE asked in his S-lens as Mark retired to his room for the night.

  “You saw that?” Mark said. His shoulder was fine. Better than fine. A single dose of drexophine had erased all traces of the pain he’d felt earlier. He wondered how long that would last.

  “I don’t think you understand just how much you’re being filmed,” Brooke said. “They upgraded the show last week to have a dedicated live feed of each one of you going so that people can ‘subscribe’ to their favorite fighter. And then they’re cutting the highlights together into a two-hour show every night. Ratings aren’t what the fights were, but they’re not bad either.”

  “I keep forgetting about all the cameras,” Mark said. “Hopefully I haven’t made that big of an ass of myself while training.”

  “You could do worse,” Brooke said. “Plus, everyone’s mostly watching Cassidy and Vanderhaven get cozy. And your friend broke a few hearts today with the news about his wife.”

  “Ethan?” Mark said.

  “Yep,” Brooke replied. “Poor kid.”

  Poor kid indeed.

  “But yeah, tonight’s the night,” Brooke continued. “We have bigger things to worry about. I have Crayton’s office key.”

  “Really?” Mark said. “Jesus, took long enough.”

  “You wouldn’t believe the encryption,” Brooke said. “But we’re going to have a good window tonight. Crayton’s at some gala in the city and shouldn’t be back for hours. Axton is with him.”

  “Just tell me what I need to do,” Mark said.

  Mark and Brooke worked out a relatively simple pattern to get him around the compound unseen. She’d scout ahead with the cameras to see where Crayton’s Glasshammer guards were, then cut and loop the cameras so Mark could move invisibly. Mark couldn’t just be non-lethal, he had to be a ghost. He didn’t even want to look at a guard, much less have to choke one out. As such, he was almost entirely reliant on Brooke to see him through.

  The manor was eerie at night. The lighting was dim and it was so late even the maids had all gone to bed. Mark could hear the creak of patrolling security on the wood floors, but Brooke made sure they never crossed his path. Even with the stop and go of Brooke’s camera tricks, it didn’t take more than five minutes to ascend to the top floor where Crayton’s office was. The library was dark, meaning Mark didn’t have to worry about interrupting another rendezvous between Cassidy and Vanderhaven.

  Mark tapped his phone and loaded up the cracked keycard config. He waved it across the lock, and the doors to the office popped open a little too loudly for Mark’s taste. He stole inside and closed the door behind him. The lights came on immediately.

  “No cameras in here,” Brooke said. “No mics either.”

  “You could have told me that beforehand,” Mark said. “Anyone could have been in here!”

  “Yeah, absolutely not,” Brooke said. “I told you, it took a whole team a week to crack that card data. I have a live feed of Crayton sipping champagne downtown, so you have nothing to worry about. Trust me, Mark.”

  Mark had to trust her, and realized he didn’t have any time to waste. He scanned the room, which was every bit as lavish as he’d imagined, filled with enormous paintings that looked plucked straight from museum walls and twisted metal sculptures that were assuredly supposed to be modern art. The desk alone looked like it weighed a thousand pounds, and knowing Crayton, it was probably carved from the hull of some ancient war galley or something. Mark noticed something odd immediately.

  “There’s no computer,” he said. “No flexscreens either. Nothing electronic at all.”

  “He must take it all with him,” Brooke said.

  Mark shuffled through the papers on the desk. Most appeared to be earnings reports for various Crayton-owned subsidiaries, and none seemed to be particularly eye-catching. Still, Mark blinked through each page, taking photos and instantly uploading everything to Brooke.

  He circled around the desk and opened the drawers. He found a few books, more papers, and some scrolls that unfurled into blueprints for early drafts of the Colosseum. Below that, there was one final drawer with a maglock on it. Mark tried the room key crack on his phone, and it sprang open.

  The entire drawer was a form-fitted case for a .45 magnum with a DNA ID-FIRE chip slapped on the side. Mark scanned it on the off chance Crayton had perhaps committed a multiple homicide with it and maybe they could get him that way.

  “Wouldn’t that just be a dream?” Brooke smirked when he sent the data. “Yeah, it’s clean,” she confirmed. “I doubt it’s ever even been fired.”

  Mark looked over the weapon, which appeared brand new, and had to agree with that assessment.

  “Shit!” Brooke exclaimed, and the office went pitch black. Mark instinctively ducked behind the desk. He eyed the magnum as he heard two guards pass outside the hallway. He could vaguely make out what they were saying.

  “Did you see Soren tanning on the roof this morning?”

  “Nah, but Walker told me about it. I have to catch the re-stream.”

  “Yeah, there were like five camera drones circling her the whole time. God damn what I’d give to …”

  The voices trailed off as they reached the end of the hall.

  “Shit, sorry,” Brooke said as she remotely snapped a few of the lights back on. “I have like five monitors up at once. I looped the cameras but didn’t even consider light coming through the cracks of the door.”

  “I’m not sure any light can make it through,” Mark said. “But just k
eep it dim, I’ll make do.”

  Mark looked at the drawer, which seemed just a bit too deep for a gun case alone, and he started feeling around the edges. After a minute, he was ready to give up, but he felt a little notch near the back. With the tip of his fingernail, he slid a small mechanism over, and the entire bottom of the gun case delatched.

  “Think I’ve got something here,” Mark said.

  Inside did not appear to be a signed confession letter implicating Crayton in the death of Justice Wright, nor a full printout of the funding he’d received from China. Rather, there was just a small, flat box. Mark slowly picked it up and heard something rattle inside. He stood up and put it on the desk where it was fully illuminated by the light. Mark’s eyes widened as he saw sloppily etched Chinese characters on the lid.

  “Whoa.”

  “What does it say?” Brooke asked. She could read Mandarin, but the letters were jagged and it was probably tough to see through the S-lens.

  “Unless I’m missing something here,” Mark said, running his fingers along the carved letters, “it says ‘White Devil.’”

  “What the hell?” Brooke said. Mark fingered the latch and the box swung open. The wood smelled ancient. In the low light, it was hard to make out what was in the box. Mark poked gently with his finger and moved it closer to the desk lamp.

  “Uhhh,” he said, zooming in with the S-lens and taking some pictures. “Are these what I think they are?”

  “Are those … teeth?” Brooke asked, wrinkling up her nose.

  Mark peered at the tiny white nubs in the box, and picked one up. It did look like a tooth. A child’s tooth, but one exceptionally yellow, and with what appeared to be a small hole stabbed through it. He looked at the others, and they were all the same.

  “I don’t understand,” Brooke said. “Crayton doesn’t have any kids.”

  “That we know about,” Mark said. “But I don’t think this is that. There are way too many teeth here for just one kid, and I’m guessing no illegitimate child of a billionaire would have to go without dental work. Most of these are warped and rotted and badly stained. That doesn’t just happen after you take them out. And I think there are a few adult ones mixed in here too. But these holes …”

  Mark shone a light through the tooth.

  “I could take one to scan the DNA,” he said.

  “There won’t be any left in those if they’re as old as they look,” Brooke said. “And we have to leave everything. Who knows if he has some late night teeth-counting ritual or something and will freak out if one’s missing.”

  Mark put the tooth back and peered at the lid of the box. It was white, offset against the wood’s rich brown. He clawed the top and peeled back what was stuck to the wood. A photo.

  It was old, faded, and singed. In it, there were two smiling faces, a man and a woman, both blond.

  “Is that Crayton?” Brooke asked.

  Mark peered closer. He could see the resemblance. And yet …

  “No, I don’t think so. But a relative, maybe? This guy looks like he could be his brother, but this picture is pretty old. They stopped making Polaroids decades ago, and this looks older still.”

  “Crayton doesn’t have a brother,” Brooke said. “And here are his parents.”

  Through his S-lens she showed him a photo of a good-looking couple, also blond, taken about thirty years ago.

  “Hunter and Helena Crayton,” Mark said, reading the caption.

  “They were nobodies. They owned a little hardware store in Idaho,” Brooke said. “Both died in a plane crash when he was young. One of those tiny Cessnas. Hunter was a hobbyist pilot. ”

  “This is from his file?” Mark said, looking back and forth between the two couples.

  “Yep.”

  “I thought you said his file was bullshit.”

  Brooke paused to consider that.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Mark snapped several photos of the Polaroid.

  “Run them through facial scan. See if anything pops up.”

  Brooke tapped a few keys.

  “Nothing on a quick pass, but I’ll have to dig into it deeper with a more robust database later.”

  The resemblance to Crayton was eerie. Crayton was practically a perfect balance of the pair of them, his blue eyes and her wide smile. “Hunter and Helena” were also blond and handsome, but the similarities pretty much stopped there.

  “What, so Crayton lied about his parents?”

  “Or someone lied for him.”

  “What does that mean? They don’t look Chinese to me.”

  “Yeah I noticed, thanks. Just find out who they are.”

  Mark snapped some pictures of the teeth, and closed the lid.

  White Devil.

  What on fucking earth.

  22

  THE MESS HALL WAS freezing, as it always was. Everything was steel, the floor, the ceiling, the benches, and there were no windows, only vents pouring in cold air to keep the staff “alert.” Those were Chinese workplace standards for you.

  Mark sat alone, poking at his hardened rice with chopsticks. His presence in the mess was an upgrade from being served meals while locked in a room. He’d proven himself an asset and earned a few privileges as a result. And yet, no one in the base wanted to sit with the pàntú. The traitor.

  Mark didn’t care, and at present, it was especially unimportant. Though it was easy to lose track of time on base, he knew what today was. Or was supposed to be. The start of the final phase of Spearfish, meaning by the end of the week he would be a hero or dead.

  Something was happening. He could hear a buzz in the air. News was being passed around like a virus. Had it worked? Had it begun?

  His thoughts were interrupted by Zhou slamming his hand down on the table, jostling his bowl. Zhou’s eyes were wide with a mix of excitement and fear.

  “Did you hear?” he asked Mark.

  Mark shook his head.

  “What’s going on? What’s everyone talking about?”

  “General Lin is dead.”

  Mark’s heart leapt. He feigned shock.

  “What? How?”

  “An explosion in the mountain base. No survivors yet. They are excavating the wreckage, but Lin himself has been confirmed dead.”

  “Who …”

  “A flag was planted on a peak overlooking the base. It flew the colors of the Gold Tigers, Commander Wu’s rogue unit in the north. They have more power and reach than we thought.”

  The misdirection for the magic trick meant to kill a country. It was supposed to be the CIA’s masterpiece. And Mark was one of the brushes.

  “And yet Lin was our political enemy, no?” Mark asked. “Is Admiral Huang pleased?”

  Zhou’s eyes flashed angrily at him.

  “We do not cheer the death of our countrymen!” he snapped. But then he softened and lowered his voice. “Though Lin was a danger to China itself, and we are glad to be rid of him. But Wu is clearly an even greater threat.”

  “What of Commander Wu’s whereabouts?” Mark asked. There were three top military figures and two politicians all vying for influence in China, and their clashes had been the cause of rising tensions for years now. One was Admiral Huang, who had close ties to the MSS and was the man Mark and Zhou worked for. Mark had long suspected he was one of the shrouded men in the room when he’d taken the knives to the poor captured US soldier. Mark rarely slept a full night without seeing the pain in that man’s eyes before the light went out of them completely. It was for the greater good was all he could say to comfort himself, and it didn’t help at all.

  “Wu denied the attack, but he is a lying dog so that means nothing. Admiral Huang consults with Prime Minister Jiang for a course of action, though naturally I am sure Chairman Xianyu will oppose whatever they suggest, obstinate fool that he is. Admiral Huang has himself moved to a secure location as intelligence indicates he may be a target as well, given his influence.”

  “Mov
ed?” Mark said. “Where?”

  Zhou glared at him.

  “That is not information you need to know,” he said, and Mark didn’t press the issue. But it didn’t matter. If Zhou knew, that was enough, as Mark had secretly squirreled away his security credentials for weeks now. He had two days to figure it out, in any case.

  Tomorrow, the rogue Wu would die if the Spear did his job. Then Mark would hunt down Huang. Then the Prime Minister and the Chairman would be dead by the end of the week. If all went to plan, China would burn by Saturday as chaos reigned and leaderless armies turned on each other after years of instability. A civil war to splinter China to bits. The mountain Spear team had ensured a successful beginning. He wanted to shake their hands for that.

  This was it. One man to kill, and he could go home.

  CRAYTON WOULD OFTEN DINE privately with the Crucible combatants. As the weeks progressed, he requested meals with Mark more than most to talk training, politics, and war stories. Mark almost never left a meal with Crayton feeling anything less than creeped out. Not because the man exuded the aura of a treasonous insane person, but because more often than not, he didn’t. He was charming, eloquent, and had a disturbing ability to make you feel special, like somehow the two of you were old friends despite the fact he was throwing a tournament to celebrate your impending death. Mark casually asked Ethan and Moses how their interactions with Crayton were, and both said they just plain liked the guy. Only Aria expressed hesitation.

  “He’s very nice and flattering, but there’s something just … off there,” she said as she and Mark walked toward the man-made lake in the middle of the compound one night. There was one specific bluff that overlooked the water, where Mark had seen Shin Tagami meditating, and he was curious to see the view for himself. But after dinner with Crayton, it had gotten dark quickly, and it was getting a bit hard to navigate by the light of the moon alone.

  “What do you mean, ‘off?’” Mark said, even though he knew exactly what she meant.