The Tournament Trilogy

by B. B. Griffith

  The sky was blanketed with helicopters. All major entrances and exits to the city were monitored and broadcast live. There was a sense that the city was about to light up, and the spark could come from anywhere. But when the camera lens watches every single person, it’s easy for it to miss any given person, or, in this case, a small number of persons, spread well apart and mixed thoroughly with the masses, walking along the broad pedestrian bridge near Kiyevskiy Railway Station. Ellie Willmore was in the lead, walking alone, her hair tucked into a beanie, her face covered by a black bandana. Cy Bell and Tom Elrey walked ten or so people behind her, spaced evenly to form a triangle. The three of them were just three more amongst a sea of thousands covered in black. Ian Finn and Pyper Hurley flanked Ellie on either side of the bridge, Pyper in a thick wool hat and coat and Ian in a baseball cap and his puffy down jacket, zipped to the top of the collar. At the east end of the bridge, just as Ian and Pyper were set to break away from the group, Ian casually approached Ellie and motioned her aside. They stepped into a secluded corner near the side of the bridge and stopped, unnoticed.

  “Don’t get cocky,” he advised, voice soft and muffled.

  “Me? You’re telling me this?” Ellie replied, moving in close to him and speaking through her bandana.

  “Just because you’ve got the blood, don’t get cocky. Too many hits and—”

  “—I know what happens.”

  Ian looked into her eyes for a moment, then nodded and began to pull away, but Ellie held him.

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Keep your head, you’ll be okay. You’re what this group needs. You can change this for the better.”

  Ellie peered at him, her eyes narrower still in the thin visible band of her face.

  “I feel like you’re saying goodbye, not good luck.”

  Ian looked at his watch. “It’s a good plan. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure Pyper gets inside the house.”

  “Or you. Or both of you. So long as one of us from each team gets there, we should have a shot.”

  Ian looked down at his hand and then back up to her and his eyes looked as though they held another conversation, but his lips were stilled. In the distance the bells of Spasskaya Tower chimed, and others joined in. He turned away, following Pyper, who slowed for him as both of them crossed the bridge, went left down the street and disappeared.

  As she started walking again, Tom approached and fell in stride. “What was that all about?” he asked softly, looking forward.

  “I’m not sure. But I don’t like it. I don’t think he’s okay.”

  “Of course he’s not. He’s crazy, even more than the rest of us, which is saying something. Now come on, we’ve got thirty minutes.” Tom passed in front of her and ahead. She glanced at Cy, who watched her from beneath his hood as he hung back, waiting. She stood a moment more, watching where Ian turned the corner before she followed Tom off and to the right, Cy close behind.

  ————

  Just outside of the Kropotinskaya metro stop is an ornate bell tower set squarely in the middle of a wide plot of concrete that looks like a giant, baroque sundial. East of the bell tower is an outdoor café that overlooks the nearby Moskva River called the Meteorolog, the Weatherman, so named because from its tables you can watch the weather of each season alter the trees that line the river.

  The Noel triplets sat at three tables at the Meteorolog, alone, sipping vodka and coffee and waiting. They wore no disguises and already had received numerous glances, although none of them could be sure if it was because they were recognized as Silver or because of how they looked: Each had shaved his head down to stubble and all of them wore heavy black aviator glasses of the style Dominique preferred, and thin t-shirts despite the cold air.

  The outdoor waiter made another round at ten minutes to eleven, nodding brusquely when Yves asked for another glass of vodka. Vodka was better here, after all, like good Bordeaux in Bordeaux, but when the drink came and the waiter set the thick shot glass on the table, the clock chimed eleven and Yves stiffened. He startled the waiter by standing tall, downing the vodka and chasing it with the last of his coffee, then ripping his shirt over his head. Dominique and Tristan stood as well, stretching grandly. They, too, took their shirts off and tossed them on the table.

  “Welcome to the first act!” Yves screamed, first in English and then in French, holding his arms out wide. “We are Silver, from the Great Country.” He tapped the winged tattoo that ran across his chest with his two forefingers, then kissed them. “You may have heard of us.”

  Already he had to scream to be heard. Their tables became an island in an ocean of people, their cameras and flashbulbs like the lightning of a storm at sea. Yves’s voice rose from the cacophony. “Your captain, Eddie Mazaryk, he has called my brothers and me fools and drunks.” He paused, holding out a finger. “I strongly dispute one of the two.”

  He was surprised to hear laughter. Perhaps they had more fans here than they thought. Oh well, he thought. They’ll have to run with the rest of them.

  The crowd hushed and took an involuntary step back as each of the three men carefully donned his jacket: knee length, white half-coats, kept open at the chest to expose the mark of Silver. Each took bills from one front pocket and paid the tab, then took their gun from the other. With unhurried precision they chambered the first diode in their guns and flicked their safeties to the off position, then patted themselves down to be reassured of the spare clips.

  “Just remember, when this is over, which team cleaved the widest swath,” Yves called, punctuating his words with the barrel of his gun as a baton. He began walking towards the wide street that followed the curve of the Moskva River which would eventually lead them to where the old embassies stood, and the Black House. His brothers followed. The crowd was eager, too. Some of them came within an arm’s length of the triplets. One even reached out to touch Dominique. Yves saw this and paused.

  “Ah,” he said, and his face darkened. Malice seemed to flow from his eyes and prick around the stubble of his shorn head. “I almost forgot. We need all of you screaming in terror.”

  He raised his gun and pointed at the bell tower, fresh off of its hourly ditty, and the massive stained glass windows that enclosed its belfry. He fired indiscriminately upon them, stepping out of his way to get an angle on all three of the panes that faced them. The staccato gunfire mixed with the distinct whump of the diode connecting with the glass. The sound resonated deep in the chest of everyone nearby and the panes flared for an instant before exploding outward in a shower of razor sharp color. It looked like massive buckets of water were tossed from on high, glimmering like an oil slick as they fell upon the crowd. The triplets never stopped walking, even when all around them people shrieked. What remained of the stained glass windows hit the pavement with the sound of pouring sand that mixed with louder crashes of plates and cups and silverware being strewn about. The triplets smiled, remembering when Mazaryk had come to their home and rained glass upon their people. Petty? Perhaps. But fitting nonetheless.

  The shooting didn’t stop at the bell tower. As the triplets walked north along the Moskva River Road they aimed for glass. They passed along a series of waterfront shops, all of them designer, all of them with large bay windows. Dominique timed their passing such that he was able to cross his body with his handgun and fire at a lagging angle to obliterate them after they went by. Glass skittered along the street and bounced off of the fumbling Gamers and arriving press, people torn between running for their safety and staying to witness the spectacle. The triplets weren’t masochists; they avoided hitting pedestrians with the full force of any glass blowback, but none of them begrudged the other for a few cuts here and there among the most overeager of the crowd. The people wanted a show.

  While Yves cleared a path and Dominique aimed for glass, Tristan watched for individual threats. They’d been warned about the agents the Black House scattered among the ordinary Russian citizens. Any one of them cou
ld step in at any time. Helicopters were on the horizon as well. He felt their sound, and he panned the sky for them. All of them looked to be press, but the first responders would come soon. The French assumed Mazaryk would have done something to hold the police back, but only to a point, and he was fairly sure they were crossing it right now. Their best chance was to keep up the destruction and to keep moving.

  When Tristan fell back to panning the crowd, he caught movement in the corner of his eye. A young man in a blue blazer with gold buttons froze when Tristan marked him, his hand in the breast pocket of his jacket like a kid caught in a cookie jar.

  Tristan shook his head in warning. “Show me your hands!”

  The man didn’t move, his arm still in his jacket. Then he jerked backwards and fell onto the ground, and the report of Yves’s gun echoed across the road. The man writhed a moment, then fell still. Yves turned back to Tristan and nodded, then addressed the scrambling crowd.

  “If you look suspicious,” he warned, falling hard on each syllable, “that is what happens!”

  They continued. Tristan saw two people drag the man from the street, cursing at the same time. He felt no remorse. This is what happens when you dive with sharks and get out of the cage.

  In the distance was the Aleksandr Library, its great triangular front face soaring above the river like the bow of a floating warship. All of it glass. When Yves saw it dazzle in the late morning light he stopped, heedless of the hundreds running frantically around him like ants dug from the ground.

  He pointed at it and he began to run, his brothers close behind. When people saw where they were headed they cried out in dismay and screamed in anticipation, grasping after the triplets, their hands clutching air. Closer and closer they came and Yves began to yell, a guttural call that started low and ended in a loud, full scream like an ancient Saxon war cry as all three brothers raised their guns in tandem. He bellowed in French: “Mazaryk! Come get us you bastard!”

  All three unloaded a full clip each, and with the sound of a Howitzer cannon the great Aleksandr window exploded into infinite tiny pieces. Like the fluorescent scales of a monstrous, mythic fish it flashed silver and fell into the river and was swept away.

  ————

  Mazaryk heard the disruption before Vasya knocked upon the closed door to the Red Room. The helicopters made rapid movements and the crowd in the park ratcheted up in volume. More than that, he felt that something had broken in his city. When Vasya leaned down and tersely apprised him, he only nodded. When Vasya mentioned the French, his eyes shadowed. He looked over to where Brander and Ales stood against the far wall near the mantle, watching the television, their expressions blank. Brander caught his glance. He opened his coat to show his .50 caliber handgun and popped his eyebrow to make it a question. Mazaryk deliberated for a moment before shaking his head. Brander returned to the screen, where the breaking news was announced.

  Mazaryk contemplated each of the teams around the table before standing.

  “The French are near the Arbat district smashing things like children in a tantrum. Since they are south of us banging pots and pans I can only assume we must look to the north.”

  Mazaryk paused as Vasya pressed a wrinkled hand to his earpiece and then bent to Mazaryk’s ear once more to tell him that the Kropotinskaya bell tower and the great window at the Aleksandr library were no more. Mazaryk ground his teeth, his mouth closed.

  Tessa Crocifissa watched him closely. “We can make noise, too,” Tessa grinned, teeth brilliant white against her sun darkened skin. “It’s the whole reason Gold is here. For the glory of the spectacle. For the feast of the senses.”

  Mazaryk looked pointedly at Tessa, then nodded. “Destroy them.”

  “With pleasure,” Tessa replied, standing and giving a grand curtsey. Andizzi followed, holstering his matching guns down his back, one silver, one gold. He whisked a pinched thumb and finger across an absent moustache and broke into a smile. Lorenzo Aldobrandi, the sweeper, stood last. He was the most reserved, and he eyed Goran Brander briefly. Brander had been shot by the French in the last cycle. He knew that the French weren’t to be taken lightly. Aldobrandi rapped briefly on the table, nodding to himself, then all three walked from the room.

  Mazaryk turned to Vasya and spoke in soft Russian. “Keep me updated to the minute. Watch the north of the city. The police are not to interfere. This is my fight.”

  Vasya bowed and excused himself.

  ————

  North of the Black House lies the Solkolniki district. At the heart of the district is Solkolniki Park, a tended open space, part lawn and part forest, that spreads out like an open oriental fan from its southernmost point. There, an aging carnival has operated for decades, complete with a tarnished brass merry-go-round and a slightly rusted Ferris wheel that remain popular. Food and drink stands with faded wooden signs were set up around the park’s namesake fountain daily, and had been doing an especially roaring trade since the Black House announced itself. The line for a popular cart that served lamb skewers was nearly twenty people long, and one of them was a man in a cowboy hat who was slowly attracting more attention than any of the food or the rides. When he got to the front of the line he paid for his skewer, smiled, and showed a big, golden tooth.

  People followed him as he walked away from the cart, scrambling out of his path to give him space yet bunching up behind him. Diego didn’t seem to mind. The reclusive captain of White, rarely seen, almost never heard, strolled over to the lip of the center fountain with his food where he sat heavily. He looked up and acknowledged the bevy of phones that had appeared around him with a nod and a tip of his brim, then he ate. Shortly he was joined by Lilia Alvarez, who approached with her hands in the pockets of her coat, her long black hair pushed up under a classic Russian fur cap with ear flaps. She sat next to him, one knee up, relaxed and ready. The noise around them redoubled. There were shouts and calls for their attention that were ignored. A few of the more savvy Gamers in the crowd looked about for Ortiz. Sure enough, there he was, walking the circular rows of carts as if on a lunch time stroll. He nodded at his partners and kept walking, eyes alert.

  After Diego finished eating, a small boy walked up to him holding a souvenir booklet as big as his torso. He was dark skinned and dark haired and looked up at Diego with wide eyes as he asked, in perfect Spanish, if he could have his autograph. Diego smiled and swept up the booklet and signed it readily using a crayon the boy had in his hand. He returned the book to the boy and mussed his hair before gently gesturing him away. This was all it took to send the crowd into fits. They pressed forward but Lilia stood quickly and gestured with both of her hands stuck straight out that if anyone wanted to talk to Diego, or to her, they would form a line. The weighty lump in her jacket pocket was ominous. People began to line up.

  ————

  Vasya entered the Red Room again, not even ten minutes after he had departed. He waited to be acknowledged.

  Mazaryk said: “Please, Vasya, in English. All need to be kept abreast.”

  Vasya nodded curtly then spoke. “It appears you were right. They did come from the north.”

  “Mexico?” Mazaryk asked.

  “Yes. In Solkolniki Park. It should be on the news shortly. But there are no reports of shooting or violence.”

  “No?” asked Auldborne, spinning the ice in his glass. “Then what the hell are they doing?”

  “Eating. Signing autographs.”

  There was a pause, and then Auldborne laughed. “Kissing babies and holding hands, too, no doubt. No backbone to speak of. He and his team are pudding.”

  Takuro Obata said: “Or they are biding their time. Taking a quieter approach.”

  Auldborne sneered at him. “This isn’t Shinto nonsense, Obata. This is gun fighting in the middle of a rabid city.”

  Obata returned Auldborne’s cold gaze, then turned to his partners and spoke several syllables of quick Japanese.

  “They may be working with the French
. Perhaps I and my team should go assess the situation,” Obata said, turning to Mazaryk.

  “I have no doubt that they are,” Mazaryk said. “And I am glad. The more total their defeat, the stronger our new order will be. Go. I trust you will make quick work of them.”

  Obata nodded and even allowed a slight bow. “It will be short. And complete.” He gestured to his other two. Amon Jimbo quickly buffed his streaked glasses and plopped them heavily in their place hanging on dearly to the bridge of his nose. Then he pulled his oversized revolver from a holster and spun it as he turned for the door. Tenri Fuse, the sweeper, gave his wispy beard one final, drawn out stroke and then rose to follow.

  When they were gone, Auldborne spoke up again: “If they are working together, then I expect we will see the other two teams shortly.”

  “Hit White and Silver hard enough and we’ll flush the others from their holes,” Mazaryk said.

  Auldborne spun his ice, lost in thought.

  ————

  Yves heard the low tonal beep of his earpiece and pressed the com switch there to receive the call with one hand while he shot out a second story window with the other.