Michael Bunker - WICK

Todd gave him a clue. “I was pretty sure that you were a spy sent by American intelligence. It was just a matter of deciding which outfit you were with.”

Clay decided to press his case, but cautiously. “I was with me,” he retorted blandly. “Only me.”

“Yes, maybe. But how could we have known that? A man who takes pictures… he could be anyone, couldn’t he? And besides, it didn’t matter. It’s not like you’re innocent, Clay. The sign did say you’d be shot if you didn’t stay five hundred feet away. I even told you that myself, and you agreed. You even asked for it! Remember? Either way, of course— ”

“The pictures were innocent, a stupid mistake, and I was dying, ” Clay intoned.

“Well, you still are, Clay,” Todd shot back, laughing at his own wit. “I guess, in the end, we all are, but some sooner than others.” Clay buckled again, causing Todd to have to stop and shake him violently, as a warning to keep moving.

Todd went on, “Anyway, the whole world is about to go bottom-side-up and you’re getting a ringside seat, at least for the opening bell… aren’t you excited?” Clay looked at him. Layers of incomprehension were turning into utter confusion. The pieces of fact and truth that he thought he held were being scattered one by one. He wondered to himself if this might be, perhaps the moment when he stepped off into the abyss.

“Is there any way we can do this,” Clay asked, “without the chit-chat?”

“I doubt it,” Todd replied dismissively. “You see, we weren’t expecting the main event until Tuesday. Didn’t you say you were a Democrat, Clay? I forget… Oh yes, I remember… you said you were whatever I wanted you to be. It probably would have been better if you were CIA. I mean, you probably would have lived longer. You would have had some value then,”

Still no real comprehension.

“Anyway, Tuesday and your ringside seat… We were planning for it all to happen later, but the storms happening together as they did, well, that pushed up our plans considerably.”

No comprehension.

“But then we had to take over the town, and that took a moment, so—”

“Enough, Fedya Leonivitch,” Mikail snapped, and then leaned into two double doors which he’d just unlocked, revealing what in the utter darkness appeared to be a very bright line of light at the place where the two doors met and which grew larger as the doors swung outward into a courtyard where Clay saw, once the bright moonlight had washed over him, laid out in the valley, tucked in the hollow of a range of mountains that rose up and shielded it on all sides, a hamlet that for all the world seemed as if it belonged in the Caucasus Mountains.

Warwick, Russia, America.

Comprehension.

The cold hit them like an icy frozen wave and the snow was still falling, only not as violently as before, and their boots (his shoes) crunched on the frozen snow and ice that had been trampled down by the weight of many feet.

They passed through a gate set in a heavy chain link fence like the one he’d seen when he first stumbled upon the prison, and heavy razor wire reflected the moonlight and the beams from the flashlights. Then they headed down a slight hill on a well-traveled path through the snow and eventually they were on a sidewalk that was packed hard in trampled down snow and ice and Clay had to slow a bit because his prison shoes had no traction.

Arriving at what appeared to be an old school gymnasium, Clay looked around and decided that this was exactly what this structure was. It was the only building in the hamlet that was lighted, but the snow and the moonlight gave the whole town a beautiful, blue shade and the buildings and the town folk could be seen clearly as they moved toward the gym. People were going in, chatting nervously in Russian, and Clay could see armed men—boys actually—all around the place and directing the people into the building.

Once inside, Clay saw that the gym was set up for an assembly with chairs arranged in neat rows covering the floor and there was a small stage to the left but it was dark and the deep red curtain was drawn closed. Clay glanced around and saw that the gym looked like any old American gymnasium built anytime between, say, the 1940’s and 1960’s, with a hardwood floor deeply worn by thousands of feet, and the smell of All-American high school sweat hanging in the air. The main difference between this gym and any other that he’d been in throughout his life was that the signs in this gym were all in Russian lettering, and the scoreboard also seemed to be sprinkled with Russian figures as well. There was an old banner hanging limply on the far wall and Clay wondered what it said. Probably something like “Go Bears! Beat the—“ who? Who would these Russians play in a basketball game? The Chinese? Latvia?

Mikail’s entourage lined up in front of the stage on a low podium as more chairs were brought in. Todd, a little too roughly, forced Clay into a seat and then sat down in the empty seat beside him. Todd seemed to be absolutely loving every minute of this bizarre pageant, as if he had waited for it all of his life.

Clay watched as hundreds of people filed in—the citizens of Warwick, he presumed—and he noticed that they were an interesting mix of young and old, mostly middle class, it seemed, and neither expensively nor shabbily dressed. There were some Asians and what looked like Arabic people among them as well. The crowd resembled what Clay would assume any small town in rural Russia might look like, though their faces showed signs of strain and worry and it was obvious that they were not used to having men with machine guns everywhere.

Clay heard a noise start from somewhere within the crowd and the noise grew outward exponentially like a wave. At first it was just a whisper and then it became a general gasp, slowly growing into loud murmuring as the back door to the gym was thrown open and a cold air rushed in along with four heavily-armed boys dressed all in black who pushed before them in chains an old man with a thick gray beard. The man had evidently been severely beaten during his ‘capture.’

The man looked old and wise and his condition readily discomfited the crowd as he passed along a makeshift lane that formed in the standing room only crowd that had formed at the back of the gymnasium. The old man proceeded to walk into the crowd and the lane continued forming before him, giving off an impression of Moses parting the Red Sea by walking into it one belabored step at a time. Women put hands over their mouths to stifle gasps and men had looks of outrage on their faces, but none were brave enough or outraged enough to do anything other than gape and murmur and then slink slowly back into their seats.

The old man had trouble walking and stumbled to the ground several times as he was pushed rudely and disrespectfully from behind by the armed boys. As he fell to his knees, his head drooping low, one of the boys snatched him up roughly, pushing him forward once again until the group had joined the “leaders” at the front of the assembly. Volkhov (Clay assumed this must be the one they had called Volkhov, and it turned out that he was right) was thrust down into the empty chair next to Clay, and his head hung down so that Clay could not see his face.

A deathly silence finally overtook the crowd. The tall young man named Vladimir stood and walked forward and indicated with his hand upraised in the ancient style of the Romans that he had something to say, as if he were Cicero about to address the Assembly.

The general din in the room died down, as all eyes were turned to him.

Clay suddenly felt someone behind him, slightly at his side. He felt the person put a hand on his shoulder and lean over and whisper into his ear. “I am to be your interpreter. I am called Alyona,” He tried to turn his head to see who it was and then realized to his surprise that it was a young woman who was maybe eighteen years of age. She, too, turned her face, so that she could look him in the eye, and he saw that she had the slightest smile and sadness in her eyes.