The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  They entered the medical complex through the deliveries route and it took them to the truck bay. Baxter parked his car along a darkened row of delivery trucks and took his keycard out of the glove compartment. At the sight of the hospital Ian took on a piqued look and his left hand trembled.

  “You ready?” Baxter asked. “We’ve got to be quick.”

  “I hate hospitals.”

  “It won’t take long at all.”

  “They’ll recognize me in there.”

  “He’s right,” Sarah said.

  Walcott saw how the early morning hints of sunshine cast a green light upon him. He did look like he was going to be ill. “Fine. Give me your arm.”

  Ian held out his arm and the shaking worsened until Baxter grabbed it firmly and quickly stripped the tape. He took the bloody towel off. “This should be plenty to sample,” he said, as he reached into the glove compartment again to grab a roll of paper towels. “Keep pressing on it. We’ll come back with a suture kit and I’ll dress it properly.”

  “I think I’ll sit with him,” Sarah said.

  Walcott looked like he was going to argue, but he checked the clock on the dash and pressed his lips together. He popped open his door.

  “Stay right here, both of you. I’ll run down the sample in the lab and be back. Twenty minutes tops.” And with that he was off. He paused for a moment under the fluorescent lights of the receiving dock elevator, flashed his keycard at the console there, and took the elevator up.

  The sun gathered ray by ray as the two in the car waited in silence. Ian fished out his cigarettes and offered Sarah one.

  “No thanks,” she said. “Just step out of the car if you’re gonna smoke.”

  Ian did and moved over to where Sarah had rolled down the passenger’s side window. He leaned against the back door and lit up, looking like a patient who stole away in the night for a smoke against doctor’s orders.

  “Nobody in this country smokes anymore,” Ian said, and he sounded almost sad.

  “It’ll kill you. Somehow I think if my father saw me smoking he’d be more distraught than he is about me and Northern and this whole thing...” She trailed off when she realized what she was saying.

  Ian watched his hand as it settled, pressing gently on the paper towels. There was only a spotting of blood.

  “I liked him, you know. We’re not supposed to say that, but I did.”

  “Who?”

  “Northern.”

  “So did I, I think.”

  “He was a fair man.”

  “Fair?”

  “Not a good man, not exactly. He was a mean bastard, but he was fair. He wasn’t cruel.” He took another drag, as if surprised at how much he was speaking.

  Sarah thought of Auldborne, and about the voice of his sweeper Christina Stoke as she stood in the lights, like the clanging of two wine glasses just before they break. She thought about how easily Draden Tate was able to swat a man down. There was cruelty there.

  “What about you? Are you cruel?”

  “I don’t know.” He stubbed his cigarette out on the flat end of his tarnished Zippo lighter. “Sometimes I think so, yeah.”

  “I don’t think you are,” Sarah offered.

  “No?” He looked up at her, sunlight fully upon his face. He was more settled now. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’ve seen cruel.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Ian said, his voice distant, in a way that told Sarah he’d thought this over many times. “The cruel ones seem to survive in this Tournament, and I’m not really surviving too well.”

  Sarah wanted to ask him more questions. She wanted to hear him talk. She could tell he was warming up to her, that the shell he pinned himself in might be cracking slightly, but then he stood and looked towards the receiving docks where he’d heard the elevators open again. Walcott walked quickly out and down the steps as Ian got back in the car. When Walcott sat down, he closed the door and set a small black bag on Sarah’s lap, then he turned around to face Ian, looking him in the eye with that knowing gaze that only those in medicine have perfected, the kind that tells them they need to sit down for this.

  “Do you know your blood type?”

  Ian furrowed his brow and shook his head.

  “O negative. You’re a universal donor. Compatible with all the other types. I ran down the Tournament charts and you’re the only one in the game with that blood type. Not surprising. One in fifteen is O negative.” Baxter paused and tried to think of the best way to explain.

  “I remembered last night that I wrote out this huge cell compatibility chart on the wall of my old lab. It was massive. There were variables everywhere because we had to specifically match the properties in the serum to account for each blood type. Do you understand?” Baxter’s eyes were wide, his face animated. He was almost smiling.

  “Sure, I get it.”

  “Something always bothered me about the way we accounted for the differing blood types all in one serum, even years later, but last night I figured it out. We assumed that in accounting for all the other types, we’d logically be accounting for O negative as well at the same time. It’s the universal donor, after all. Ultra compatible. But we were wrong. I just ran a micro platelet test using the serum with your sample, and it’s just as I thought. Your blood reacts differently.”

  “But I get knocked into a coma just fine, same as the other players.”

  “Yes, but you don’t feel nearly as badly afterwards, do you?”

  Ian didn’t have to answer. He knew it was true. He was at the bar drinking whisky while Pyper was throwing up after the last cycle. While Kayla was dying.

  “The diode is a killer, Ian. You know it and I know it. I’ve tried from the beginning to get everyone else to know it too, but they won’t listen because it entertains them. Your platelet count suffers every time you’re hit, just like all the rest of the players, you will go into a coma, but you feel a fraction of the pain when you wake up afterwards. Mostly the physical bruising at impact points, if I were to guess. We never matched your blood, so your blood worked around it. Built a sort of antibody to the pain receptors. It’s remarkable, really. And it gives you a huge advantage in the round system. You’re up and ready after every moratorium, aren’t you? It’s like you have a corticosteroid built into your blood.”

  Walcott slowed again when he saw that Ian’s left hand was shaking. Ian followed his eyes and set it against the seat to calm it.

  “But you still shake,” Walcott continued, and all of the excitement he had at running down his findings seeped from him, not because it meant anything different, but because he’d factored this in, too, and Sarah knew then why he had stopped himself from smiling earlier. Because there was nothing to smile about after all.

  “You’re as sick as Kayla was,” Walcott said. “Your platelet count is the same as hers when she was unresponsive in her bed.” His voice softened. “You just don’t feel it. And because you don’t feel it, you never let yourself heal. You’re running on fumes.”

  Baxter took Ian’s hand in his own and felt the tremors there himself, like a moth caught in his hands. He had a strong urge to squeeze to still the shaking, but he felt that he might kill the moth.

  “Ian, if you go under one more time there is no way we can pull you back. One more diode coma, and you’re dead.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  FRANK AND LOCK STOOD with Claudia on the narrow sidewalk outside of Harry’s building. Frank traced the windows up the concrete face, counting off to Harry’s floor, as if he might see one last glimpse of the tired old man, even though he knew Harry Jessop was asleep in his matchbox bed. He hoped he was dreaming of his daughter.

  Lock shielded the screen of his handheld from the last cutting rays of the spring afternoon and waited impatiently for his search results. He was right. Harry did have another regular visitor: a young woman, according to the desk clerk. His ledger showed that she visited Harry once a month, and had done so for years going
back as far as the ledger recorded. The woman signed with the last name Mazyrksimov. The similarity was undeniable.

  “It’s gotta be her,” Lock said, bouncing his knee as he waited for the beep. “It’s Dahlia. How common is a last name like Mazyrksimov?”

  Claudia had walked away from them, down the street a bit, and was looking up at the sun as it inched its way behind the Moscow skyline. “It’s not common,” she said, as if hypnotized by the sunset. “Not common at all.”

  Claudia’s airy tone didn’t sit well with Frank. Frank was trained to look for red flags. Her whole demeanor since they’d found Harry had hoisted a red flag high. It was flying from the main mast of his mind.

  “Here it is! We have an address for the name!” Lock said, letting out a little whoop and hopping once up and down. “Novodevichiy 1275. Does that mean anything to you?” He looked up at Claudia, who still faced away.

  “I know it,” Claudia said. There was no conviction in her voice. The ribbon in her hair bobbed slightly as she nodded.

  “Okay... what is it?” Lock asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “Let’s go then!”

  “I’m not coming with you.” She slowly turned.

  Frank crossed his arms over his belly, a slight smirk on his face as he eyed Lock with an I told you so look.

  “But what if we need you? We had a deal!” Lock said.

  Claudia walked up to Lock and pulled the wad of cash out of her hip pocket and tried to hand it to him. Lock shook his head. She turned on her heel and walked over to Frank and handed it to him. Frank eyed her for a moment, then took the cash.

  “It’s all there,” she said quietly.

  “What’s your deal, Claudia?” Frank asked gently.

  She gathered her nerve and looked him right in the eyes, but when she saw concern there, not anger, she broke away. She stepped to the curb and hailed a passing cab.

  “Wait!” Lock yelled. “Claudia!”

  She turned to Frank and the last light of the day cut across her face and illuminated all of the dust in the air around her. It looked like she was crying, although in the flat light it was hard to tell.

  “Take any cab, tell them Novodevichiy. They will know where to go.” Then she ducked into the cab and was gone in a gray cloud of exhaust. Frank and Lock stared after her until, a minute later, the sun eased behind the skyline. The streetlights flickered on with a strangled buzzing sound and the temperature abruptly dipped.

  “Was it me?” Lock asked.

  “Normally, I’d say yes.”

  “That’s funny, because I usually say that about you,” Lock said, scratching the back of his neck.

  “Something wasn’t right with that girl. We’re better off without her. You’re better off. You used to do this better than anybody, remember?”

  “Not really.” Lock stared off down the road after her.

  “Shall we catch a cab?” Frank prompted. He was forced to hold a lot of hands these days. Lock shivered and nodded, zipping up his jacket and pulling a folded wool beanie from his pocket.

  ————

  Claudia tapped her legs nervously the entire cab ride, ignoring her driver’s idle chatter. She was facing trouble. She knew it. She felt it like a pressure drop before a storm. She’d been too helpful, and it was all her fault. She never should have outed herself at the food stand, even though she’d been given permission if that’s what it took to keep tabs on the pair. That was a mistake. She was supposed to keep the two of them in check, corral them like sheep around the pasture of Moscow. Instead she’d opened the gate. To her credit, she had no idea about Harry Jessop: that he had worked with Pollix Mazaryk himself was as much of a surprise to her as it was to Frank and Lock, but still, one minute they were ordering food, badly, and then in the blink of an eye they’d charmed Harry into giving up a name. An important name.

  She never would have guessed that the two could be so resourceful. Looking at them, you wouldn’t think they could find the ground they stood on, but Lock, the thin little weasel, was tenacious. And fat Frank had that strange sort of clumsiness about him, the type that falls ass-backwards into success. At some point she had to cut her losses and ditch them, although she knew it would only make them more determined. Even worse, she was starting to like them. That was the kiss of death.

  The cabbie snapped his fingers to bring her from her thoughts and told her that this was as far as he could get her. They’d pushed a cordon out recently that blocked all auto traffic near the park. Too many people. She paid him and stepped out, and as he carefully backed his way out of the restless crowd, garnering several hood slaps for his troubles, she turned towards the Black House.

  As she approached, a policeman at the cordon recognized her and gestured for her to swing wide around the far end of the ropes that sectioned off the walkways. The throngs of Gamers thinned at the far edge and she was able to weave into a lane that led around the back of the house. The policeman met her here and opened the cordon, no questions asked. He closed it after her, shoving two drunken revelers back to hold the line. Claudia moved briskly now, following the lane around the house to a maze of service buildings at the rear.

  The back of the Black House held none of the aristocratic trappings of the front. It was utilitarian: a high, cobbled rock wall fronted by a series of service sheds. There was nothing to see here, and the crowds were smaller. Claudia found the shed she was looking for, waited for an errant group to pass and opened the door with a small silver key she had attached to her jacket pocket by a thin chain. Inside was what appeared to be a rarely used groundskeeper’s shed. Lawn implements and shovels hung on racks, gathering dust and rust. Cobwebs waved lazily about in the air. She moved to the back and pushed aside a hanging pair of workman’s overalls to reveal a keypad. She entered a code and after a moment she heard a click and buzz. She pulled on a leather strap at the base of the wall and opened a small, square trap door. Without a moment’s hesitation she dropped down into the underground of the estate.

  She navigated the cramped subterranean tunnels with ease, blowing past creaking pipes and hissing steam until she reached the wine cellar, a massive, cool room encased in granite with hundreds of bottles of wine from around the world gleaming dully in the weak light. A sommelier was there at all times, ostensibly to manage the collection, but also to monitor the passage, and he nodded as she passed. She walked up the stairways, first concrete, then wide wooden slats, past the bustling kitchen and through the servant’s quarters into the anteroom. She stopped in front of a dour faced bald man dressed in a trim black suit. He was old, but precisely how old Claudia couldn’t say. He had the posture of a young man, but the slightly falling face of the elderly. He stood before a small wooden podium reading a ledger, thin eyeglasses perched at the end of his nose. His name was Vasya, and he was the foreman of the Black House.

  “I need to speak with him,” Claudia said.

  “That’s not possible,” Vasya replied, not looking up, his Russian clipped and formal. “He’s meeting with the captains currently. His next opening for report is tomorrow morning. Eight.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “As I said—”

  “It’s about the two Americans.”

  “The courier and the fat man?”

  “He will be very angry with you if you keep this from him.”

  At this Vasya looked up and popped his glasses from his nose, pocketing them. He closed his ledger with more force than was necessary but Claudia would not look away or back down. Vasya sighed. “He’s in the west tower, but he’s in the middle of—”

  “—Thank you,” Claudia said, already on her way.

  Claudia passed through the Red Room, the centerpiece of the house where it always seemed heavier and quieter, like a bank vault. The striker and sweeper from Japan’s Team Red were there, at the extensive black-lacquered bar in the far corner. Amon Jinbo glanced up at her, his thick glasses magnifying his eyes as she passed; she sensed he was markin
g the cadence of her steps with tiny bobs of his head. Tenri Fuse didn’t even turn around. He only sat stroking his long, thin beard and spinning a tumbler of whisky in a slow circle on the wood. Claudia passed quickly from the room. It was prudent not to get noticed by any of the players who floated about the Black House.

  There was no door to the west tower, only a winding staircase that ended in a room at the top, and so Claudia could hear the captains talking in English. Her proficiency was part of the reason she’d been contacted by Team Black in the beginning, and so she couldn’t help but overhear. She paused. She recognized the terse, halting voice of Takuro Obata, the captain of Red.

  “The bettors will never agree to this,” Obata said.

  “Many of them already have,” she heard Mazaryk respond, his voice calm, difficult to hear. “It’s not hard to see why. Their administrators have influence within their governments, and their governments recognize that the current system for global arbitration is ineffective. The UN is hamstrung by legislation. Global courts are toothless.”

  “But what about the veto power? No county that has one would willingly give up a veto power.”

  “Everyone will have a veto power under the Tournament. All they have to do to exercise it is win.”

  Then a new voice, the raspy timbre of Tessa Crocifissa: “I think it’s wonderful. It’s what we were born to do. The Tournament set on the biggest stage possible.”

  Claudia leaned against the lower wall and waited while there was a pause in the conversation. She could imagine Eddie Mazaryk looking at Obata with a flat, keen gaze. She’d seen that gaze. It was strange. It made you ask questions about yourself without him having to say anything at all.

  “What about the others? Blue and Silver, and Green and White?” Obata asked.

  “We may have to show them the way.”

  “The Americans would never wager like this on the back of a new team,” Obata asserted.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Mazaryk said, in a way that implied he’d sent a butterfly long before to whip up a hurricane. “Claudia, you may come in now.”