The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  Nikkie Hix recognized Jinbo immediately and recalled Max’s advice of not providing him with a moving target. She simply dropped to the ground. Northern dove into the bathroom to his right. He was very nearly hit in the process, but the diode passed over his left shoulder and shattered the window behind him. He slid on the polished marble floor and smacked his head on the doors to the cabinet under the sink. His first instinct was to slam the bathroom door shut, but the sight of Nikkie Hix crawling to the far side of the bed stayed him.

  Six, seven, eight, nine shots and still nothing from Max. What the hell was he doing? Northern screamed at him through his earpiece, but the gunfire was too loud. Ten, eleven, twelve shots. Nikkie was moving very slowly. It occurred to Northern that she might be hit. But no, she reached the far wall up by the headboard, turned around, brought her gun up to her chest and nodded at him. Her lips were pressed into thin white lines, her blond hair hung over her face in wisps. She didn’t look to be in pain, but she did look angry and quite beautiful. BLAM BLAM BLAM. Where was his goddamn striker?

  And then everything fell into a ringing silence.

  And the fire alarm rang.

  Takuro Obata literally had to pull Amon Jinbo back from the room out into the hall. He slammed the door shut behind him.

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “Did you hit either of them?”

  “No.”

  “Then what the hell was that all about?”

  Jinbo, breathing hard, said nothing, and would not meet his captain’s glare.

  “That means there is one other—”

  And then the door to the room across the hall cracked open and both men saw a sliver of a face: Maxwell Haulden. Max tried to slam it shut, but Obata was too quick. He kicked out at the door and it snapped back into Max’s face. His teeth clacked together and for a brief second everything in his vision wavered in primary colors. Blood ran from his forehead down and into his eyes, stinging like warm soap. He screamed into the earpiece. Both men on the other side were kicking furiously at the door and it was crushing over his shoe where he held it precariously closed. His big toenail was slowly tearing from its bed as the door gained ground. The pain made him suck in a quick breath of blood through his nose. He coughed and sneezed a metallic spatter all over the wood of the door and still they slammed against his foot, taking quick turns at kicking. This was not how things were supposed to go. What a fabulous plan his captain had devised.

  He couldn’t stand the tearing pain. Without thinking he pulled his foot back and flattened himself against the wall of the room’s entryway just as both men exploded through the door and right past him. Seeing the opportunity to escape, he took it. Dashing outside into the hall he slammed the door shut behind him and threw all his weight into pulling back on the handle to keep it closed. Immediately he felt a pulling from the other way. He braced his knee against the wall for leverage. How quickly things had flipped.

  “John! They’re inside the room! I’ve got them!” he screamed, before it occurred to him that nobody might answer, that both of his teammates might be lying dead to the world in the room across the hall. That Nikkie might be bleeding out onto the satin coverlet or the pristine white carpet.

  And he realized that there were only two people inside of the room, not three. But before he could dwell upon this newest disturbing fact, Northern and Hix rushed out and to his side.

  “What happened?” Northern yelled. “Where the fuck were you—Jesus! You’re bleeding everywh—”

  “The sweeper!” Max yelled. “Tenri Fuse! Where is their sweep—”

  There was a single crack of gunfire, and Nikkie Hix fell to the ground.

  What in reality probably took no more than five seconds seemed a hundred times that long for Max Haulden. He forgot himself entirely, his split forehead with its steady, thin faucetstream of blood, his throbbing toe and stinging headache, all of that left him. He didn’t remember ever having let go of the door; he knew only that he looked at Nikkie for what seemed an inordinately long time as she clutched her left shoulder, rolled herself over, and kicked her way against the wall. She made no sound, never cried out once, but her eyes were watering.

  Suddenly he was firing down the hall. One shot was all Fuse got off before disappearing around the corner, bits of the plaster wall about him flecking off as Max unloaded half of his clip, but one was all he had needed to hit her. Max wanted to run towards the man, perhaps unload the other half right into his eye, but Northern was holding him back by the collar of his shirt and screaming something about retreat.

  “We’ve gotta get her out of here! We’ve gotta get ourselves out of here!”

  When the door to his left holding the other two at bay began to open, everything snapped back to real time. In a flash, Northern let go of his shirt and swept up Nikkie with his free hand. Hip to hip, they ran off down the hallway. Max spat out an accumulation of blood and kicked wildly at the opening door. It popped back in upon the two men with a meaty thunk and he heard two distinctive yelps. His empty grin was streaked with red as he ran down the corridor after his teammates, firing behind him all the way.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “WHAT IS THAT ON the door?” asked Diego, squinting into the distance at his own house.

  Lilia looked through binoculars. “Oh God,” she muttered.

  “‘Oh God?’ What’s ‘Oh God?’” Diego asked again, his inflection a breathy panic barely veiled. To him it looked like an angry red sore had sprung up on the clean white door to his home, but Lilia saw it loud and clear.

  “Is it blood?” Felix asked, the low calm of his voice odd and unnatural. He stood behind Lilia, hands clasped in front of him as he, too, squinted into the distance, like a somber choir boy scanning the audience for his family.

  Lilia brought the binoculars down to her waist, wiped her brow, and looked strangely at her own hand.

  “Lilia, give me the binoculars,” Diego said, his voice dead flat, his face sheet white.

  But Lilia looked out at the house in the distance and then back at her own hand, fingers spread wide. She seemed not to hear her captain, lost instead somewhere between the lines and curves of her own hand and the dark ink eagle marking just above it on her right outer forearm. The eagle mark was good and pure and she tried to focus on it as she looked back out at the house. In that very house Diego Vega had offered her succor and shelter when nobody else on earth did. That house was her only home. It was the polar opposite of the streets she’d prowled before. It was permanence and safety—until now. Now there was blood upon it. The red mark was blasphemous, a gross violation of the only place she had ever felt welcome. She could hardly control herself, and if it was this hard for her, it would be nearly impossible for Diego.

  But he was already gazing through the binoculars.

  “No.” he said, “No no no.”

  “Diego...” Felix began, approaching him as he might an unstable animal.

  “No!”

  Diego removed his wide brimmed hat and raked a hand harshly down his face.

  “He’s doing this on purpose, Diego!” said Felix. “He wants you to lose your composure! He wants you to make a stupid decision!”

  Diego began to walk towards the house but Felix grabbed him and spun him around. His look was wild and wide-eyed, his pulse hammering out of the side of his neck.

  “Diego! Listen to me! Rush down there and you will play right into his hands! Don’t you understand?”

  “Diego, please,” Lilia pleaded. “Please let me look first. There is an open window around the side. I can sneak in. Let me get an idea of the situation. I’ll come back and report. It might be that the English simply wish to bait us.”

  “Not even Auldborne would dare—”

  Diego waved his sweeper off with an angry flick of his hat.

  “Dare? Of course he would dare! That man is the worst thing that has ever happened to this organization. Can’t you see! The writing is on that door!”
>
  “Diego, please, let me look. Five minutes. I’ll be back.”

  “Go!” Diego spat. “Go and see what there is to see. If he has hurt my family, I will kill him.”

  So Lilia went. She wriggled through almost fifty meters of dirt on her belly then crouched low just outside of the chain link fence surrounding the small backyard plot of the house garden. Her olive face and dark hair were streaked with dry grit. Dust hung about her as she flattened herself further on the floor, but she was almost positive she had made it without alerting anyone. Just inside the fence was a low lying window, cracked slightly at the base, where she might be able to get a better idea of what was happening. She might even be able to pop in the window, look around, and then get out again. She’d done it back in her thieving days.

  Of course, the little produce stands and bread cart owners she’d snuck in on back then hadn’t had guns. She could be fairly sure of that whenever she decided to steal. Still, there had been risk, and she had, on the whole, performed beautifully.

  But back then, she risked only herself. She quite clearly heard the muted wailing of a child inside. Or maybe of a woman. She would have to get to the window to take a more educated guess.

  So much of the art of silent movement was instinct. She couldn’t see through the glare of the sun on the window, but she felt that nobody was watching. In one deft movement she flipped up onto the fence, and in another she dropped over to the other side, landing expertly with cat-like agility. The chain links tinked softly against each other once. She froze and listened. There was only the soft mewling, nothing more. Lilia always prided herself on being able to feel when someone became aware of her presence of sensing the precise moment when their bubble of privacy popped. She had practiced by sneaking up on ratty street cats in her youth, the kind that were both abnormally patchy and abnormally large, and she got to the point where she could identify the precise moment when she knew that they knew she was there, even when they made no movement as such. She still felt the bubble emanating from the house, but it was fragile. She crept to a point directly beneath the window sill when she heard footsteps and froze, not daring to breathe. They were heavy and they were coming her way.

  Back on the hill, away from the house, an agitated Diego Vega was watching his striker’s painfully slow progress through the binoculars. Felix Ortiz was in turn watching Diego warily, half expecting him to take off down the hill towards the house at any moment. Suddenly, Diego paused his rapid scanning and hitched up, mid breath.

  “What is it?”

  “The big black man, Tate, he’s walking towards her.”

  “Does he see her?” Ortiz asked, shading his gaze as he peered down the hill. With the other hand he unbuttoned his collar and fanned himself. Dark sweat stains streaked the back of his shirt.

  “I don’t know. No, not yet.”

  “He might just be checking the perimeter, making the rounds,” Ortiz said, but he checked and rechecked that his gun was chambered nonetheless. For a long moment, Diego simply watched.

  “No,” said Diego, still gazing at the house. “He’s either heard something or he’s waiting. Either way she’s got seconds before he looks down and sees her. Not even Lilia can get that low.”

  Diego started walking down the hill. Felix grabbed for him, but Diego snatched his arm and bored his gaze into the sweeper.

  “I’m going, Felix. You will let go of me now. Cover me.”

  Ortiz gently let go, his arm dropped to his side.

  Diego replaced his hat and walked on.

  ————

  Miraculously, Tate hadn’t seen her. She was staring right up his nose. She greatly regretted not having her weapon in hand, but if she moved to grab it she’d be dead in the dust, so she watched. Jesus the man is big, she thought. In profile as he was, all she could see were his bulging pecks and the superhero angles of his massive jaw, of a black as pure and dark as obsidian. His dreadlocks hung like frayed ropes down to the windowsill, some spilling over. They must go down to his ass! Where do you even find a guy like this?

  And he was going to see her. She felt like she’d stumbled into the cage of some deadly animal that, by the grace of God, had been too preoccupied with current prey to notice her. Yet.

  But then she heard a voice calling. This one came from outside of the house, around the front, and she realized with a sort of gleeful horror that it was Diego Vega. He had foregone his broken English in favor of a deep and robust Spanish, and he was screaming with authority.

  “I always knew you were all petty criminals and cowards! Why don’t you get up from behind the women and children and come outside?”

  In a flash, Draden Tate was gone. It was now or never. Lilia slid up the wall, peered in, and saw an empty kitchen. She popped herself up onto the ledge and into the house.

  ————

  Inside the living room it was getting hot. The air hung about Alex Auldborne like a fog. Michael Vega had simply shut down, but his wife kept muttering to herself like a bag lady and the boy would not stop wailing. It was enough to drive a normal man crazy, and was beginning to tax even his patience.

  But then he heard the calling from out front and he knew his wait was almost over. He peered around the side of the curtains and smiled to see Diego Vega walking towards the house and shouting.

  “What the hell is that Mexican saying?” Auldborne asked.

  “I’ve no fucking idea,” said Christina. She still trained her gun on the three on the sofa, but the heat had forced her, very reluctantly and with visible distaste, to sit down upon the lounge chair across the table. Her legs were crossed.

  “Just shoot him,” she said, just as Draden Tate came in from the kitchen.

  “What are you doing here?” Alex asked, his voice suddenly hard.

  “I heard shouting.”

  “Yes. You did. It’s their damn fool captain finally arrived, drawing you to the front of the house,” Auldborne said quickly, snapping each word. Tate narrowed his eyes.

  “Which means that someone is coming in the back, you idiot,” he continued, physically turning the big man around and pushing him back towards the kitchen.

  “These Mexicans are tricky!” he called after Tate. “They love to sneak about!”

  Tate loped back into the kitchen and saw that the window was opened. Had it been opened before? Surely not that much.

  “Someone is in!” he called back, his voice only slightly annoyed.

  “Fine,” Alex said from behind him. “It’s most likely that lithe bitch Alvarez, and now she’s trapped in this mess of a house. I trust you can take care of her.”

  Tate grunted in agreement and pulled his gun.

  Outside, Diego was bellowing and gesturing wildly like a man on a pulpit.

  “Listen to him! He’s having a fit!” Alex said, grinning.

  “He’s going to bring the neighbors out. If you don’t shut him up, I will,” Christina asserted, rubbing her temple with her free hand. Auldborne shrugged. He stepped over to the door, turned the knob, and with one fluid motion he swung it open and stepped to the side, covering himself. The door swept silently outward, as if in anticipation of a grand exit. Diego paused in his diatribe. He could see inside the house. It looked dark and hazy.

  Suddenly Alex Auldborne appeared in the silhouette, his thin figure set perfectly in the center of the door frame like a Victorian painting of a man and his gun. Diego hit the ground seconds before a volley of shots exploded outward on to the common park. He scrambled on all fours into the shelter of the small playground to his left, where Miguel Jr. and his ragtag band of young friends would gather. He came to rest under a polished wooden slide. The firing stopped. He heard laughter.

  But Auldborne’s aristocratic guffawing was cut short by a second explosive volley of shots, these in response from up the hill: Felix Ortiz was answering. Auldborne wasn’t prepared for this. He jumped about and dashed back inside, slamming the door shut. Although he was far too modest to gloat openly,
Diego imagined his sweeper laughing a bit to himself, perched on high with the sun behind him. Unfortunately, Auldborne was way out of Felix’s range. Diego doubted his shots had even hit the front of the house.

  Inside, Auldborne cursed and spat on the carpet, mortified at his display of indignity. “One of the bloody Mexicans is up on the hill somewhere. I can’t move on Vega unless he’s out of the picture. You’ll have to go after him.” His grin was now a glare, his lips peeled away from the tips of his teeth. Christina nodded and slowly stood. She knew better than to try her captain when he was like this. There was a time for jibes and a time for action.

  “I’ll keep an eye on these three,” Auldborne said, flicking a hand absently in the direction of the couch. The boy still sobbed mutely onto his woozy mother. Miguel Sr. had gone catatonic.

  “Draden!” Auldborne screamed. “What the bloody hell are you doing in there? Why isn’t she dead yet?”

  “I dunno mon!” came the gruff reply. “I don’ see ‘er, and I don’ wanna move about too much or she’ll get me in da back.”

  “Get you in da back? Christ! Do you need me to come hold your hand?”

  “I’ll take care of her,” he said, his voice a growl.

  ————

  From under the slide outside, Diego saw a small shape dart from his house out and into the neighborhood towards the hill from whence his team had come. He screamed a warning to Felix.

  “Felix! Someone is coming your way! I think it’s the girl!”

  “Stoke?” came the muted reply from on high.

  “Yes!”

  “I hate that girl!”

  “Then take care of her!”