The Tournament Trilogy Read online

  THE TOURNAMENT TRILOGY

  B. B. GRIFFITH

  Publication Information

  The Tournament Trilogy

  ISBN: 978-0-9899400-3-0

  Copyright: Griffith Publishing LLC ©2014

  First published 2014

  Written by B. B. Griffith

  Designed by B. B. Griffith

  All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written permission and consent of the copyright owner.

  Enquiries should be made to the publisher:

  [email protected]

  Publisher Information

  Griffith Publishing LLC is a registered trademark.

  www.griffithpublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information about the Tournament

  visit us online at www.griffithpublishing.com

  Contents

  Blue Fall

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Epilogue

  Compendium of Characters

  Compendium of Characters by Team

  Grey Winter

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Compendium of Characters

  Compendium of Characters by Team

  Black Spring

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Compendium of Characters

  Compendium of Characters by Team

  From the Author

  BLUE FALL

  THE TOURNAMENT: VOLUME ONE

  B. B. GRIFFITH

  If you’ve been known to open up a book simply to escape, then Blue Fall is dedicated to you.

  “Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry.”

  —Milo Minderbender

  Catch-22

  by Joseph Heller

  Prologue

  WILLIAM LEE BEAUCHAMP WHISKED his desk chair into the center of the cordoned test zone of his team’s lab, hundreds of feet below the rocky ground of Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado Springs. He wheeled a monitoring device behind him to which he was attached via five sticker tipped cords. He checked his surroundings before plopping down upon the chair and positioning the machine next to him. It beeped softly in time with his heart.

  He slapped his hands on his thighs. “Let’s do this.”

  One of his colleagues, a cardiologist named Baxter Walcott, pleaded with him. He held up one ink stained hand as if to ward off evil and rubbed his eyes under wire framed glasses as he spoke.

  “Bill, please. We have no idea what will happen here. It’s late. We’re tired.”

  “Nonsense! How many times do we have to run around in circles here? I’m in my prime, Baxter. I’ll be fine. Shoot.”

  “Absolutely not,” Baxter said, turning away.

  “Fine. Wuss. Sarah, you do it.”

  Sarah Foss was rolling what looked to be a standard bullet up and down her forefinger with her thumb. She popped it into the middle of her palm and held it up to her eye, as if checking its lines.

  “I don’t know, Bill. Just because the mice recovered doesn’t mean...”

  “And the rabbits. And the chimps. What else can we test? You want us to shoot cats and dogs? Why don’t you round us up a giraffe? Will that put you at ease?” Bill leaned back heavily in his chair, hands resting behind his head. “You said it yourself. The ratios are exact. The mice recovered, so will I.”

  Baxter Walcott shook his head and gazed at his cluttered lab table, his back to Bill.

  Until we test it on one of us, on me, we’re at the end of our research,” Bill said. “We can believe that we’ve eliminated the side-effects all we want, but we need real time feedback. You know this.”

  “It’s extremely painful. You’ve seen it. The animals scream. We’re talking pain
on every level. If we’re wrong it means severe vascular bruising.”

  “If the mice can bounce back, so can I,” Bill insisted, popping his neck back and forth like a boxer and settling in his chair once again. When his neck cracked, he winced and tried to cover it by smoothing his hair back into place.

  Sarah snorted.

  “Just shoot me, Sarah.”

  Sarah looked at Baxter, still turned away like a petulant child. She picked up a dull gray handgun from the workstation in front of her.

  “Attagirl Sarah.”

  “Bill—”

  “Bill nothing. Just do it.”

  Baxter allowed a look back at them, eyes widening, but he said nothing. Sarah swallowed and slowly sighted the gun at the trim, graying man in the lab coat twenty feet in front of her. The gun trembled so she grasped it with both hands. Bill straightened himself and gripped his armrests. His breathing quickened but he nodded.

  Sarah fired.

  Bill lurched in his seat and his chair rolled backward as he took the shot, pulling the monitoring cords taught. The snap-bang retort echoed loudly and acrid sulfur tinged the air. Bill heaved a breath.

  He let loose a garbled, primal scream of pain, and then he went limp, slumping over himself in his chair.

  Baxter ran to him and shook him violently.

  “Bill!” he screamed, one hand to his pulse as he moved his ear by Bill’s mouth. He glanced at Sarah, where she stood immobile, horrified.

  For ten seconds of eternity, their small, secluded laboratory was as silent as a tomb. Then Baxter nodded.

  “He’s breathing! The adrenal! Get me the adrenal!”

  Sarah was rooted and useless... terrified. Baxter swore at her and scrambled back to his desk where he withdrew an inoculation with a wicked needle from a cache of similar shots encased in bright red plastic. He primed it as he moved back to Bill, then popped it into his thigh and depressed it as steadily as he was able.

  “C’mon Bill, c’mon. Please,” he whispered, placing his ear next to Bill’s slack mouth once more and feeling for a pulse. “It’s so light. It’s barely there.”

  For another ten seconds, all was silent.

  Then Bill Beauchamp sighed softly and took in a deep breath.

  Dr. Baxter Walcott dropped his forehead to Bill’s chest in exhaustion. “Thank God. You stupid, stupid man,” he muttered as Sarah found herself and rushed to Bill’s side.

  “You sonofabitch! I thought I’d killed you, you sonofabitch!” she screamed.

  Bill smiled weakly, eyes still closed.

  “See? Piece of cake.” Then he rolled slightly to his side and vomited on the linoleum flooring.

  Just over one month later, as Bill Beauchamp was dancing with his wife Jeanie at the wedding of their eldest niece, Bill suddenly stood back and away. He rubbed his left arm and looked at his wife as if she had asked him a particularly perplexing question.

  “Bill?” she asked.

  Bill dropped dead on the dance floor.

  Chapter One

  FRANK YOUNGSMITH WAS UP in the middle of the night visiting the toilet. Last night he felt the beginning of a cold coming on, and in a preemptive strike had swallowed three multivitamins and three full glasses of water. At four in the morning he was up and in the bathroom when his phone rang.

  He heard it, but didn’t move. His face had an oily sleep sheen to it. There were pillow lines down one baggy cheek and a patterned dimpling across his upper forehead that resembled his blanket. His hair, usually a springy bed of tight little curls where he still had it, was flung awry around the back of his domed head. Dried spittle flaked the beginnings of stubble on his rounded jaw. The phone still rang. Answering wasn’t an option. He could barely open his eyes in the harsh fluorescent light, much less hold a conversation. Probably a wrong number. He finished up, climbed back into the bowed spot at the middle of his twin bed, and was drifting off when the phone rang again. He jostled violently awake. His bed creaked for a moment even after he settled himself.

  “Yes?” he answered hoarsely.

  “We need you to go to investigate an incident first thing in the morning. One of our major policy owners just had a heart attack.”

  “What time is it?”

  Winston Pickett, Frank’s boss, ignored Frank’s question and rattled off a residential address.

  “The life insurance payout is outrageous in this one, Frank. The numbers don’t add up. I want a full report on my desk tomorrow afternoon before we pay out dime one.”

  Pickett hung up. Frank sighed and clattered his phone back onto its cradle. Groggy though he was, Frank was still unable to sleep for the final two hours of his night. He shook his head and cursed his job as he stared at the water-stained ceiling above his bed.

  Frank’s neighbor, a thin, wiry fellow named Andy Billings, called out hello just as Frank locked his door behind him on his way out. Dressed in a small, pin-striped shirt tucked into thin, charcoal gray pants, Andy’s appearance suggested a vaudeville performer, but he was in fact employed as a security guard at a telecom company just south of the city. His bushy gray hair was combed back in tufts and frozen in place with hairspray, and the walrus moustache he had grown to offset his meager stature was waxed into a handlebar with two severe upswings. Just as he did every morning, Andy tried to strike up a conversation with Frank as Frank was running late.

  “I heard your phone ringing last night neighbor! Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine, Andy. It’s just work.”

  “I’m up playing solitaire and I can hear it through the wall. Right through the wall! I figure a late night phone call is never a good thing, am I right?”

  “It’s just work Andy, always work.”

  “Just making sure no one you know’s dead.”

  “Nope, everyone’s alive. Thanks though. I really do have to go.”

  “No prob Frank, I’ll be seeing you.”

  Andy waved goodbye as Frank drove up his narrow street to the wider end where he could flip his two-seater around, backtrack, and head to the highway. When Frank passed Andy again, Andy waved again. Frank didn’t want to wave, but did anyway.

  The streets were practically empty as Frank turned his cramped coupe east into the sun glare. He drank his coffee and followed the badly written directions he had scrawled on a Chinese takeout menu while half awake. He missed his exit twice, peering at the number seconds too late both times. His assigned interview, Mrs. Jeanie Beauchamp, wife of the deceased, lived in the affluent Monhannon suburbs by Colorado College. Pickett hadn’t told him the actual numbers involved on the life insurance policy; he insisted his adjusters proceed objectively, but perhaps a high payout wasn’t so inconceivable after all. Frank steeled himself, as he did every time, by shutting off the radio and listening to the rhythmic clanks emanating from his car. He dreaded the job ahead, as he did every time.

  There was simply no way not to come across as a cold-hearted bastard when grilling the newly widowed about the cash they are about to receive. He had lost the drive for it. It made him feel slimy. Worse, he wasn’t even good at it. Frank had played the part of investigative adjuster countless times, endured numerous blowouts, and was even hit in the face once, but in all his years, his work had never led to a conviction. He sometimes hoped for an assignment to an outrageous case of blatant fraud—anything to get his name recorded somewhere in perpetuity, even if only in the vast records of a courthouse. The only thing worse than doing something you hate is doing something you hate without a damn thing to show for it.

  Frank found the address and parked behind a long row of much larger and cleaner vehicles. Naturally Jeanie would have company in her grief, family and friends to help her through these worst first days in which she would be vulnerable, reeling right along with her freshly unhinged world. Unfortunately, this was also the best time to unearth evidence of fraud. Traumatized people slip up. Sometimes there are inaccuracies in the telling of chains of events, or questionable grieving behavior
: Too sad was a tipoff. Not sad enough was a tipoff. Frank was trained to read emotions like these.

  Frank straightened his tie, cleared his throat, and knocked three times on her open door. He was called inside. He was often mistaken for a friend come to pay his respects at first. They would soon learn otherwise.

  Once inside the foyer, Frank joined an encircling group of perhaps fifteen soberly dressed men and women murmuring and sipping on drinks. In the middle, on a wide leather chair, sat the ample form of Mrs. Jeanie Beauchamp. She wore a wide black satin dress and a black gem the size of a goose egg hung from a bright gold chain around her neck. A glittering black butterfly broach perched on her heaving bosom as she silently wept into the shoulder of a large woman sitting next to her, no doubt her mother. As the circle opened, Jeanie looked up to see this newest arrival, leaving an outrageous caking of makeup on her mother’s shoulder.

  Frank wiped the sweat from his palms on his slacks and began the speech he’d memorized years before.

  “Mrs. Beauchamp, I’m terribly sorry for your loss. My name is Frank Youngsmith, I’m with Barringer Insurance.”

  “We’ll deal with the money in good time, man. All she needs at the moment is to grieve.” This from an older fellow weaving to Jeanie’s left, probably the father. His face was ruddy and an amber liquid sluiced from the edges of an overfilled plastic cocktail cup in his hands. Frank let out a short breath.

  “Mrs. Beauchamp, may I speak to you alone for a moment?” Frank asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, sir? My Jeanie is going nowhere!”

  “Ma’am, I’d really rather speak—”

  “You’d better goddamn well say what you’re going to say right here, or by God I’ll throw you right out on your ass,” the man blustered, his white walrus mustache twitching. Several others stepped towards Frank with squared shoulders.

  “Ma’am, your husband’s life insurance policy has caught the eye of Barringer’s wrongful claims division. I’m an adjuster that Barringer sent to determine if a case needs to be opened. Trust me when I say it is in your best interest to speak to me,” Frank said, warding the group off with his pudgy hands.

  The moustached man tossed a full glass of scotch into Frank’s face and moved to follow it with his fist when Jeanie warbled aloud.