The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  “I don’t suppose any of you speak any English,” Lock snipped, looking about the room. No one spoke. No one even moved. It was as if the very sound of his voice had hardened to stone and fallen flat to the floor.

  “Naturally,” he sighed, smoothing his track pants with his hands. Determined to try nonetheless he moved over to the bartender, who watched him blankly.

  “I’m looking for Eddie Mazaryk. You know him? Pale guy? Long hair? Kind of looks like a girl?”

  The bartender didn’t even blink.

  “He was here, in that room,” Lock said, pointing upward.

  The bartender pointed at one of two cask ale pull draughts at his side.

  “No, I don’t drink.”

  The bartender pointed again. Lock sighed.

  “You people know who he is. I know you at least understand his name.”

  Nothing. The rustling of a newspaper and the slide-click of a chess piece on an old wooden table.

  “Fine. Since you all seem to be so occupied, I’ll just take a look around upstairs. Okay?”

  Lock moved slowly to the rod-iron spiral staircase at the back of the bar. Nobody challenged him. He placed one foot on the first step and nobody spoke. The bartender watched him as he might watch a squirrel playing in the yard.

  Lock went up the stairs.

  The room above the bar in which he had last found Black was the same as before, albeit empty and cold, having no fire in the hearth. Lock could see his own breath. One of the small windows was open and two pigeons perched on the overhang just outside of it, sleeping with their heads tucked under their wings. An empty sunlight filtered into the room around their silhouettes.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  He walked slowly about the room. His steps kicked up flurries of dust motes from the dark red carpet undertow. He saw nothing. The room was not only empty; it seemed hollow. The soft cooing of the sleeping birds echoed about him as he sat heavily in the empty wingback chair and stared at the cold hearth. He swung his leg up to his knee, in a sad impression of Eddie Mazaryk as he had been when Lock first saw him there, and in doing so he kicked a small mesh trashcan under the nightstand to his left. It wobbled for a moment and then fell over, dislodging a single, crumpled piece of paper. Lock looked at it for a moment, and then reached over and picked it up.

  It was a small, lined slip of notebook paper on which something had been written in Russian. Lock didn’t understand a word of Russian, but he scanned the slip anyway and found one line that had been repeated several times in what looked to be English: Vorkuta—Adrytski

  Still sitting, he powered up his mobile and opened a browser. He queried the first word and was rewarded with coordinates and an overhead satellite feed of an area in northern Siberia. Apparently, Vorkuta was a struggling coal town made infamous by a forced labor camp once stationed there as part of the Gulag system. Adrytski was an even smaller settlement just to the east of Vorkuta.

  Charming, thought Lock.

  They were due northeast of him. Instinctively he caught his bearings and found the north-easternmost facing side of the room. He looked up and saw that it was the one in which the window stood open and the pigeons slept. Naturally. It had been left open deliberately. The slip of paper had probably been strategically placed as well.

  Lock folded the paper and stored it in his pack. He would try to get a full translation of the document but he sensed that it would prove to be useless beyond the one location. No matter. Lock could find them.

  He stood and walked to the window, just above his eye level, taking care not to spook the birds. From where he stood he saw only gray skies. The red carpeting just under the window was darker than elsewhere, damp. He looked up and blinked as a smattering of wet snowflakes hit his eyes. In the time he had taken to figure this all out, it had begun to snow.

  The town of Vorkuta was serviceable by a small airport just south of the city. Lock took off that day from St. Petersburg in the snow and landed half of a day later in even worse snow. Soon the snow-covered roads of the town converged into a single choppy, rutted track that went east towards the outlying Adrytski settlement. Harsh, unchecked winds and the inclement weather of the Arctic Circle prevented anything more substantial than sickly brush and small trees to live in the area. The ground was frozen year round and covered with at least a foot of snow in the late fall and winter months. Nonetheless it was dotted here and there with small shacks, several miles apart. Some were abandoned huts, others were government operated filling and service stations for the army vehicles that crossed the tundra on their way east. Still fewer of them were small houses and way-stations for those unlucky civilian travelers that came this way, one of whom was Allen Lockton.

  Lock had procured a stripped dune buggy for the trip that he had located at a dealership not far from the airport that sold equipment for trans-Siberian crossings. The buggy was drafty and rusted, noisy as a freight-train, and sucked gas like a thirsty camel drinks water, but it was durable and the best he could get on short notice. He had been ripped off, having the discernible disadvantage of not understanding anything anyone said, but as usual time was short while money was plentiful. That was the nature of the Tournament.

  Trying to make up for lost time in getting to the fields, and annoyed at being run about like a dog, Lock flew over the narrow, snow packed roadway. He treated its two tire ruts as if they were train tracks, trusting them to keep him on the right line, and for the most part they did, although Lock’s teeth popped against each other continually as the larger bumps got through the buggy’s enormous shocks and shot through his body. His neck grew tired from his constant effort to keep it stabilized and his eyes grew strained from the evening snow glare. He looked a tad suspicious, speeding down the treacherous road like a diesel fueled comet, kicking up a tail of snow for a good fifteen feet behind him.

  As expected, Lock had gotten nothing more of use from the slip of paper and so he was going on instinct. After all, there was only one road to Adrytski.

  As each successive outbuilding came into view on the horizon he would check to see if any recent tracks led up to it. Typically, there was nothing, but if there were recent tracks Lock went on gut feeling. Many of these huts were dark and derelict. Lock felt that Mazaryk wouldn’t shore up in a ramshackle building; he would want someplace quiet and peaceful to plan for his next round, somewhere out of this roaring tundra wind. He passed outbuilding after outbuilding for almost thirty miles; none of them felt right. Two of them were government filling stations but Lock blew by them in a vortex of snow, barely catching the bewildered look on the officers’ faces as he went. He hoped that they either thought him far too fast to be pursued, or that the weather was far too cold and they couldn’t be bothered to leave their card games and vodka. Whatever it was, Lock went on unhindered.

  As the dark grew the wind lessened and Lock could see thick flakes of snow passing through the high beams of the buggy. When Lock hit the 56th kilometer marker, just as he was pondering stopping to unhook one of several gas canisters from the back to refill the tank, a brightly lit shack jumped out of the snow. He braked heavily and the rear of the buggy fish-tailed through a long skid before stopping. Lock watched the lights of the shack for several minutes. Things seemed unnaturally quiet here, the snow thick and heavy. The shack had the look.

  He was here.

  Lock pulled off the road towards it. As he approached the hut he saw the hulking black outline of a large man leaning against a single fencepost by the door. Lock recognized him immediately.

  Lock killed the engine just outside of the sphere of light cast by the house. He stepped out, popped the collar of his snow-jacket against the wet flakes and the fitful wind, and crunched his way up to the skeletal fence. Goran Brander nodded as he approached, unsurprised at his appearance, as usual, but he didn’t look well. He leaned heavily against the post, using it not as an idle perch, but more as a cane. His long face seemed less powerfully aquiline, more droopy and haggard, and he
had weighty, dark bags under his eyes. Lock could just see the top of a diode wound creeping above the scarf he wore; it was very black and toxic looking in the night snow.

  “Hi Lock,” he croaked with a visibly painful effort.

  “Brander,” Lock said in greeting. All vitriol he may have mustered towards Team Black because of the chase was lost at the sight of such a powerful man so painfully injured.

  “Does your captain realize the insanity of posting a lookout man in this place? And one who can’t properly sound warning?”

  Brander dropped his gaze and gestured for Lock to go inside, and Lock realized that Brander was ashamed. Ashamed that he had been shot. Mazaryk obviously wasn’t expecting trouble out here but had ordered the weakened man to stand lookout in the freezing snow regardless, as punishment. Brander might have been out here for hours. Lock shook his head as he stepped aside and towards the small wooden house just beyond. Behind him, Brander hitched himself up a bit against the pole and watched the deep dark encroach.

  The building was small, one square room of perhaps two hundred square feet, but brightly lit, and warmed by two kerosene space heaters. Rolled up bedding was stacked in one corner, and in the center of the room, under a naked light bulb, stood a large table. There was no other furniture.

  Eddie Mazaryk, clothed entirely in black save for slim white boots, stood next to the table. He motioned Lock inside while speaking in low tones to Ales Radomir. Radomir was dressed impeccably in dark slacks and a button up shirt fastened all of the way to the collar. He watched Lock with a silent, disconcerting attentiveness. Neither seemed at all surprised to see him in the middle of the frozen plains of the Siberian tundra.

  Lock saw that the table was entirely covered in intricately colored maps of all scales, including several topographic sheets. A quick glance and Lock saw that every habitable continent on Earth was mapped in some form within the room. On the far wall, behind the two men, was nailed a larger world map surrounded by timesheets and stuck extensively with colored pins. Lock was unsettled to see a small circle of red affixed over the city of Tokyo, no doubt representative of the impending conflict between Red and Blue. Not even Lock himself was as sure of those coordinates as these men seemed to be.

  From the corner of his eye he saw Ales Radomir watching him with a trace of a grin. He shivered the last of the cold away as Eddie Mazaryk finally addressed him.

  “Allen,” greeted Mazaryk, his English perfect. “You found us. Impressive, as always.”

  “Natasha looked for you. You remember Natasha Saslow, don’t you? Your assigned courier?”

  “I know of her.”

  “She didn’t find you.”

  “No she didn’t.”

  “You do know,” Lock began, struggling to keep cynicism out of his voice, keeping in mind that he was, after all, delivering a rather hefty bill. “You do know that my quadrant’s teams, the teams I’m supposed to be running for, are either in transit right now, or minutes away from gunfire in their own matchups?”

  “I do.”

  Lock sighed.

  “Eddie, I can’t run for you anymore. I’m stretched too thin. The Tournament has an entire host of couriers.”

  Mazaryk smiled. “Then it would appear as though I won’t have to worry about being levied any further fines,” he said, flicking a hand at Ales Radomir. Ales stepped forward and for a moment Lock thought he might be frisked, or worse, but Ales stopped short of him and held out a hand. He wanted the fine sheet. Lock fished around in the breast pocket of his coat for a moment and then handed Ales a sealed envelope. Ales brought it to Mazaryk who ripped it open with the nail on his small finger, withdrew the official fine, and read it carefully. Lock held his breath.

  “This all looks in order,” he said quietly.

  “Pardon me?”

  “This is fair.”

  Lock exhaled a tad louder than he wished. “Fine,” he said, pulling his mobile from its front pocket on his single-strap bag. “Then let’s get this over with. Thumbprint here to authorize receipt of the fine.”

  He held out the screen. Mazaryk thumbed it and watched Lock while he waited for the beep. He looked amused.

  “You’re aware, then, of what happened in France?” Mazaryk asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And what? I’m not authorized to weigh in.”

  “But you don’t approve.”

  “I’m not authorized to weigh in, Eddie.”

  “Hmm,” Mazaryk said, as if pondering an odd puzzle piece.

  The screen beeped. Lock secured it once more in his pack.

  “It’s unfortunate,” Mazaryk said, “that those idiot Frenchmen still think they are playing a children’s game. It was a hard lesson for them. Dearly bought.”

  Lock zipped his pack up and shouldered it, turning to go. As he stepped forward, Mazaryk placed one hand lightly on his shoulder. It was the first time Lock had ever been touched by any member of Black. It stopped him cold.

  “I want you to deliver a message for me.”

  “From you?”

  “Yes. To Northern.”

  “Johnnie Northern? Eddie, I’m not going to play a part in any sort of strategy—”

  “And I wouldn’t ask you to. I’m afraid you can’t read it, nor can anyone else other than him. I’ll need to see your handheld again.”

  “This is ridiculous—”

  “It’s your job!” Mazaryk snapped, sudden fury washing like a quick gale across his face.

  Lock froze mid-sentence. The snow whipped at the windows and the heaters hissed loudly.

  “Forgive me,” Mazaryk said, as he exhaled a singular breath. “You deliver correspondence, and this is important. The handheld, please.”

  Lock looked at Ales, who braced himself on the table with both hands as if it was the only thing keeping him from ripping Lock apart. Lock swallowed. He didn’t want to be bleeding heavily this far from help. He flipped his pack around, unzipped it, and took out the handheld again. He looked at it for a moment before surrendering it to Mazaryk.

  “Thank you,” Mazaryk said, as he took a flash drive from his pocket and clicked it into a port on its side. After a moment he took it out again and handed the device back to Lock.

  “The message is thumbprint activated and he’s going to want it immediately. Hopefully it isn’t already too late.”

  “I swear Eddie, if this is some tracer program, or key logger...”

  “Don’t patronize me, Allen,” Mazaryk said, his small beaded eyes reflecting glints of terrible emotion, like sunlight off roiling water. This clearly meant more to Eddie Mazaryk than the fine did. No doubt it was the reason he wanted Lock in the first place. A personalized message between teams was unheard of. Teams never communicated. Lock felt as if his trusty handheld had suddenly turned into a time bomb.

  He stood his ground for half a beat longer, then turned to go.

  “Immediately,” Mazaryk said once more, fitting his silk brown hair behind either ear and straightening himself.

  Lock trudged back out into the silent night. Brander, dusted with white, was hunched over and seemed not even to notice his passing.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ALEX AULDBORNE HELPED HIMSELF to a bottled water from the small refrigerator in the Vega’s kitchen while Christina Stoke huddled their three captives on the couch. Her gun remained trained on Miguel Jr., its hammer locked back. Maria petted her son’s hair until he was calmed and now he sat on her lap, his tear streaked face watching Auldborne with a newfound curiosity. Auldborne held the cool bottle to his forehead for a moment before cracking it open and taking a long drink. Miguel Jr. watched him through bleary eyes, his little hands palm up in his lap. Auldborne sat heavily in a faded green chair and set his burnished handgun on his leg.

  “Cuál es éste?” squeaked the boy. His mother hissed at him to be quiet. Auldborne looked at him.

  “What?”

  The boy stared at the gun but hunched down into hi
s mother’s arms.

  “Ah. You want to know what this is,” Auldborne said, picking up the gun and spinning it about. The boy’s eyes danced with it.

  “This,” Auldborne said with authority, “is called a gun. Say it with me. Gun.”

  The boy was preemptively hushed again by his mother, who was growing increasingly terrified with this newest interaction. Miguel Sr. muttered a prayer, his head between his hands.

  “Watch,” Auldborne instructed.

  With a snap he released a round, popping it from the side of the gun and catching it in midair. The boy gave a small smile despite himself.

  “But it’s a special gun. See? Do you see this?” asked Auldborne, twirling the diode around his fingers like one might flip a pen. “This isn’t a real bullet! It’s much better because with this I can kill the same person again and again!” He held it out to Miguel Jr. who snatched it up like a small piece of candy. Caught up in Auldborne’s jovial tone, the boy even giggled. Auldborne tussled his hair and winked at his horrified mother, who grabbed it from him and tossed it away.

  Auldborne thoughtfully finished his bottle of water, capped it and set it gingerly upon the television.

  “I’ve an idea,” he told the boy. He called Draden Tate back inside.

  “Draden, watch the man. If he moves, shoot him until he cannot. Christina, get me the boy.”

  As soon as Christina moved towards Miguel Jr., Maria started screaming again. Christina flipped her revolver around and slammed it once into her left temple and she went limp. Then the boy screamed. His father moved to get up. Draden Tate quickly planted his knee into the man’s sternum and shoved a gun into his nostril. So pinned, the man resorted to a throaty bellowing.

  “My God,” Auldborne said wearily. “Such a production.”

  “He might rouse da neighbors,” growled Tate. “Do I beat ‘ihm down?”