Dax had never been great at talking his way out of trouble. His instincts just didn’t run like that. Being stuck in a sterile conference room with a bunch of bureaucrats and a guy he flat-out hated—it was everything he despised about life outside the Corps. This IMMAF tribunal had not been convened to mete out justice or even to get to the truth of what had happened that night. No, it was an underhanded way to sidestep both those things—justice and the truth—and they were using this private, “unofficial” venue to feel Dax out. To figure out what he wanted.
Words. Fucking words. He just wasn’t trained to fight with language the way these people were. They were too subtle, their rules too bendable. By limiting him to this private tribunal and framing the events of that night the way they wanted, these IMMAF delegates seated around the generic, beige table had him in a corner. He might as well not say anything. Hell, they’d already decided what wasn’t going to happen after this meeting.
But Dax Easterling had never backed down from a fight in his life. He wasn’t about to start now…not with that psychotic loose cannon, Thad Hollis, staring at him down the full length of the table. No way was he going to let that abusive prick get his own way without Dax first speaking his mind. But he had to be careful as well; he did, after all, have a career to protect. The only thing he knew how to do professionally outside the Corps was Mixed Martial Arts.
Okay then. Bring ’em on.
“I’m a bit confused,” he said, playing dumb for the time being. “Why haven’t you invited the others? Freitas and the referee? Why just the two of us.” He hated having to nod at the sick asshole across the table, but it was the only way to play the game—their way.
“Like we said, Mr. Easterling, this is not a formal investigation. We felt it would be best to try to settle this personal dispute between the two of you before we even think about taking it further. It was an unfortunate incident for all involved, not least for the IMMAF, as I’m sure you’ll both understand. But we’d like to hear your reasons for doing what you did, Mr. Easterling, then give Mr. Hollis a chance to respond. If we can get to the bottom of this here today, and hopefully come to some agreement about what happened, and what, if anything, should be done about it, then we’re in business. If not, well, we’ll just have to take it from there. But I sincerely hope we can put all this behind us. The last thing the sport needs is a drawn-out formal investigation into the way bouts are conducted; I’m sure you’ll agree. And don’t worry, we plan to meet with the ring officials and Mr. Freitas separately. You have my word on that.”
Langston, the tribunal chairman, a tanned, white-haired golfer type in his early sixties, was good in his role—clear spoken, congenial, even charming. But though he pretended to be neutral, it was clear to Dax that he was acting within very specific parameters here. Someone from on high had told him to nip this in the bud before it went any further, before the ring officials came under official scrutiny.
The IMMAF did not want that can of worms opened.
Dax nodded his acknowledgment of Langston’s explanation. “As long as I get to have my say, I’ll buy that.”
“Good for you. And Mr. Hollis?”
After sneering at Dax, Tiana’s ex scanned the faces around the table, paying closest attention to the stenographer, a willowy black girl of college age who kept looking away from his stare. Who could blame her? Hollis clearly wasn’t playing with a full deck. His eyes now seemed to droop a little whenever he turned his head. Whatever that meant. Nothing good.
“Mr. Hollis?”
“Huh? Oh yeah. Cool. I’m ready. Let’s hear this prick lie through his teeth.”
“You got that?” Dax addressed the stenographer, who didn’t stop typing but looked to Langston for help.
The chairman gave her the greenlight, then turned to Hollis. “Let’s try to keep personal remarks out of this. We want to know what happened and why it happened. Nothing more. So who wants to start us off…?” Langston glanced at his colleagues: three men and a redheaded woman, all in their forties or fifties.
The small, dour-looking woman with a nasal voice spoke first, saying, “I’d like to ask what prompted you to intervene at such a crucial moment in the match, Mr. Easterling? I mean, you’ve already told us you considered Mr. Hollis to be suffering psychologically. But we have ring officials to make those sorts of calls, don’t we? What made you want to overrule the judgment of trained professional ring staff? That’s what I’d like to know.”
And there it is! They want all my cards on the table. They want to know what I really think of professional referees in this sport. If they don’t know all about the corruption themselves, they’ve definitely heard the rumors, and they don’t want it splashed all over the media in a high-profile case. Maybe I have some clout here. But if I’m not careful, I could bury my career as well.
“It was a gut reaction, ma’am,” Dax replied. “Just like I’d have had in the Marine Corps if one of our men had been behaving erratically. In combat, it takes a soldier to tell if another soldier is struggling, if he’s a step or two behind. It’s no different in the ring. Only this time Thad Hollis was out on his feet. His legs had gone. He couldn’t defend himself properly. And he’d been acting strangely since early in the second round.”
“Lies. Fucking lies!” snapped Hollis. “Did you hear that shit? ‘Acting strangely,’ he says, when even the ref didn’t see a goddamn thing, and he was right there, two feet away.”
“Mr. Hollis. Thank you.” Langston turned back to Dax. “In what way was he acting strangely?”
“I tell you what…run the video playback. Compare his behavior in the second and third rounds of that fight with any of his previous fights. Tell me his brain wasn’t freewheeling—all that showboating, missing his punches by a mile, making basic mistakes, no coordination. Either he took a hard knock to the head sometime in the late first or early second, or he just came unglued. Either way, if you don’t see that as erratic behavior, you’ve no business officiating a sport like this. And when his legs went, there was no reason to let the fight go on. None.”
“So that’s why you intervened?” asked Langston. “Because you thought the officials hadn’t spotted that he was in serious trouble?”
A leading question. The answer could bury me. And they’re steering the issue onto the officials, away from Hollis’s state of mind.
“Obviously they hadn’t spotted it, or they’d have stopped the fight. But when Freitas slapped that sleeper on him, it was obvious he wasn’t going to tap out. There was nobody home. He couldn’t defend himself. It went on and on, the crowd cheering, the ref just watching. Hollis was blank.” He ignored the hateful scoff and the muttered diatribe from across the table. “Where I come from, when you can see someone’s life is at risk like that, you don’t sit back and watch…you get in there and do something.”
“Again though, it is a dangerous sport, Mr. Easterling—as you know,” said the redhead, stating the obvious. “Why break ring protocol to intervene when there was a paid official right there, inches from Mr. Hollis, ready to make that call if required? I think that’s the crucial point here. What made you so certain Mr. Hollis’s life was in jeopardy?”
The key phrase there is ‘paid official.’ They’re baiting me again, wanting me to cry corruption. Well, there’ll be a time for that. But it’s more important we get Hollis under the microscope here. Make them realize he’s a dangerous piece of shit.
“Certain?” Dax glimpsed his enemy across the table. Hollis was watching intently, hanging on every word, as he palmed a few drips of sweat from his temples. The guy was struggling to keep his fury under wraps, but apart from a couple of outbursts, he’d more or less succeeded so far. Maybe it was time to draw him out a little, let the IMMAF see how unbalanced he really was. “I think ‘certain’ is a dangerous word to use in a sport like this, ma’am. All we can do is use our eyes and our intuition, right? I mean, to me it looked like he wasn’t in his right mind, that he’d lost control of his faculties. His coordination had gone. But short of giving the guy a CAT scan in the middle of the ring, no one could be certain.”
“But isn’t that the point—”
“The point is,” he interrupted her, “that in a situation like that, when a man’s life is on the line, you err on the side of caution. And the officials weren’t doing that. Even now, you’re still not doing that.”
“Explain that, sir,” one of the other men said. He was curious, not angry.
“I mean that you’ve got a genuine head case sitting at this table and you’re droning on about technicalities.” No reaction from Hollis, not even a raised eyebrow, so Dax went on. “The question you should be asking is, why would a professional fighter with more ring experience than everyone at this table risk his career to protect someone he doesn’t even like? What did I have to gain by jumping into the ring like that? Anyone?”
No one responded.
“Just like I thought,” he continued. “The ref didn’t make the call, so I made it for him. You people want to fuck around when there’s a psych job snapping right in front of you, be my guest. But don’t try to burn me for doing something about it.”
Well, well. Not even that provoked a reaction from said nut job. Interesting. He knows how to cork it when he has to, but he is a time bomb. They have to know that.
“Like I keep saying: replay the fight, compare it to his other fights. And if you still can’t see what I saw, give Hollis a full psych evaluation. It’s the only way to be certain.” Dax thought about mentioning Tiana in a roundabout way. Not her name, but the fact that there was a witness who could testify as to Hollis’s mental instability, a witness whose details he could give them in private. Not a good idea. Hollis would know who that witness was, and he’d likely try to finish the job he’d started the other morning. The evil prick. Bad enough he’d hit her like that, but—and not for the first time—he’d also frightened her so much that she refused to file charges against him, for fear of what he’d do. Which made it unlikely she would testify in this case.
Langston cleared his throat. “Mr. Hollis?”
“Hmm?”
“Were you okay during the fight? Obviously you took some hard blows toward the end, but would you describe your performance as ‘erratic’, like Mr. Easterling suggests?”
“Oh, come on!” said Dax. “What’s he bound to say?”
“I think he deserves a chance to respond,” replied Langston. “Observations and intuitions are one thing, but I’d like to hear from Mr. Hollis’s own point of view.”
The others nodded in agreement.
All Dax could think about was Tiana’s sweet, beautiful face, now bruised and probably bloodied. She’d refused to see him since it had happened, but they’d texted each other and talked briefly on the phone. From what he could gather, Hollis had done a serious number on her. Not life-threatening injuries, at least not this time. However, what would happen when he finally did snap? The way he’d attacked Dax that day outside the gym showed that this was a mad dog they were dealing with, and it wouldn’t take much for jealous rage to turn homicidal.
A guy cracking like that could do one of two things: implode or explode. Either way, he could easily take somebody else with him. And these assholes were waiting for him to admit he was cracking up? Hell, that was like waiting for dynamite to tell you it was getting toasty…
Toasty.
Dax recalled the last time he’d heard that word. It took him back to one of the hottest days he’d ever experienced, in the Helmand Valley, Afghanistan. His unit was out on patrol, tasked with ensuring no enemy militia broke through one of the more accessible passes in the region. A sandstorm the previous day had completely changed the landscape. It had driven sand into soft, deep drifts as high as small dunes in some places; elsewhere, it had raked the top layer of dust and dirt from the flat ground, exposing bedrock and, here and there, the tell-tale signs of land mines close to being unearthed.
The relentless humidity and the noonday sun were oppressive. The bomb disposal unit had passed through several hours before and had marked a safe route through this area; they’d removed many of the landmines and would return to finish the job when they’d completed a pressing mission near a friendly outpost to the north. Dax and his longtime buddy in the Corps, Monte Slattery, had just finished their turn on point duty, a nerve-shredding job in a place like this, and damn it, they needed another drink. A quart of ice-cold Danish beer would be best, but tepid water from their canteens would have to suffice.
“Son of a bitch. I’ll never badmouth the California desert again.” Monte poured some water onto his neck and rubbed it around. “This shit’s science fiction. You ever read Dune?”
Dax thought he might have seen a movie by that name, but he couldn’t remember much about it apart from Sting being in it—yeah, and the old priest from The Exorcist. “The planet with the giant worms?”
“That’s the one. A total desert planet. The inhabitants wear these special suits that recycle the fluids from their own bodies, so they always have enough to drink.”
“They drink their own sweat and piss? Nice.”
Willy and Segura, the next pair to take point, nudged Dax mid-drink, making him spill a little. “You ladies want an umbrella or something?” remarked Segura. Dax and Monte both flipped him off.
Then Willy, the tallest member of the unit at six foot five, suddenly bent over as if he was about to puke. But he didn’t. Instead, he tugged at his collar, stumbled forward a few steps, and then started stripping out of his gear in front of everyone. He’d always been a bit of an oddball, and was prone to delivering the odd practical joke in camp, but everyone knew that anytime he slapped on his gear and stepped out into the field, Willy was one of the best, most diligent Marines in the unit. He was an example for others to follow, partly because he was one of the longest-serving members of the Corps.
“I guess that’s one way to scare the natives,” quipped Monte.
One or two of the others wolf-whistled Willy, who finally stopped stripping near a skeletal-looking camel thorn tree. All he had on were his boxers and his boots. Segura asked him what the fuck he was doing.
“You guys…ain’t feeling it?” Willy rummaged through his gear and retrieved his sidearm. Eyes closed, facing the sun, he pretended to fire off a couple of rounds. “This is what toasty feels like, bitches. Boo-yah!” He seemed to be aiming his pretend shots at the sun.
Dax and Monte looked at each other. There was something very wrong with Sergeant Willy. Dax’s first thought was heatstroke. That had been known to send even the toughest hombres sliding off their crackers.
“You working on that tan there, Willy?” someone shouted ahead. “You always were a pasty motherfucker.”
“Willy!”
Dax, Monte, and Segura stepped aside for the unmistakable arrival of Captain Darnell, a West Point lifer who’d never achieved the rank he’d probably deserved on account of being too much at home in the field, on patrol. The guy loved this shit, lived for it. No way was he ever going to trade it in for a damned satrapy desk job, stuck indoors while he sent others out to have all the fun.
“Willy! What in the blue fucking flames of damnation are you doing? Get dressed. Right now, Marine! There are hostiles crawling all over this region. You want them to use your pasty-white ass for target practice, is that it?”
Willy leapt out from behind the trunk of the camel thorn tree, tried a sort of half-assed commando roll that left him in a heap. Then he crouched on all fours in the sand, holding his head high as though he was Tarzan. It was either the funniest thing Dax had ever seen or the scariest. How a guy as experienced and “together” as Willy could just flip out like this.
When Darnell went after him, Willy got to his feet and took off at lightning speed, bellowing and howling. The rest of the unit ran to try to keep up. They were laughing and egging him on. They didn’t want to miss a thing.
But everyone stopped dead at the cry of “Hostiles! Eleven o’clock!”
Dax froze, scanned the desert ahead for signs of Willy and Captain Darnell. They’d disappeared down a dusty incline ahead, not exactly in the minefield but close enough to it to be of concern. The next thing he saw was a black, robed figure approaching the two wayward Marines from their left. He appeared to be carrying something heavy.
The next thing he heard was the crack of an explosion.
Dax snapped upright in his seat at the conference table. He was shivering. He’d started to sweat all over, but not like he did during the worst flashbacks. No, this one had been less about the bangs and bullets and more about a sane man suddenly flipping his lid. Willy’s behavior had seemingly come from nowhere. But Dax now wondered, if he or the others had been paying closer attention, whether they might have spotted the warning signs. Could they have predicted Willy’s snapping like that, maybe done something about it before it happened? Told their C.O.?
It was all academic now. Only it wasn’t…not really. Something similar was happening right here in front of him. Another man was getting ready to snap. And instead of waiting for it to happen, there had to be something Dax could do to prevent it going off so…explosively.
He realized he’d missed the start of Thad Hollis’s account, but he quickly got the gist of what the guy was aiming for. Once again, Hollis was keeping his rage buttoned down, his mind on track. It was a pretty decent performance, and the stiffs seemed to be buying it…so far.
“So yeah, there’s a big difference between trying to recover after taking a few big hits, and Easterling’s assessment of my performance. We all have off days, especially when we’ve taken a few knocks. Easterling reckons the showboating was proof of some sort of mental breakdown, right? Just because I don’t normally do it? Well, that’s just dumb. I’d have tried anything to get myself back in gear. You heard the crowd’s reaction. They loved that shit. And it pumped me up, too. Unfortunately not enough, because I couldn’t get any momentum. Freitas just wouldn’t let me; dude really dug in, made it tough. By the end, I was out on my feet, swinging and missing, yeah. But if you think that’s anything more than exhaustion, you’re seeing things. No, more than that, you’re seeing what you want to see.”
Hollis pointed at Dax. “That asshole hates me. Anyone can see that. Look at him: getting ready to tell y’all another pack of lies. He’s the one who needs his head examined!”
Langston leaned forward, clasped his hands on the tabletop. “Let me see if I’ve got this clear. You’re saying Mr. Easterling interrupted the fight because he has a personal beef with you?” He unclasped his hands, laid the palms flat. “I don’t follow, Mr. Hollis. Why would he stop the fight, with you in a probable losing position, if he was so much against you?”
Hollis narrowed his eyes at Dax. “To humiliate me. You heard everything he’s said. He wants the whole world to think he saved my life, that I actually needed saving. That’s how you stick it to a fighter you hate when you don’t have the guts to get in the ring and fight him yourself. You asked before: what did Easterling have to gain by jumping in like that? And I’m telling you: he’s got that hero complex so bad he has to invent scenarios to make himself look good. It’s fucking delusional. And at the same time, it makes me look bad. So, for a prick like that, it’s two birds with one stone. He makes out I had a mental breakdown, comes to my rescue all-chivalrous-like—yeah, whatever—and convinces y’all he’s this hoo-rah war hero saving the helpless. Like I said, if anyone needs a brain exam here it’s that asshole right there. You know I’m right.”
Each of the committee members scribbled a few notes on paper, while the stenographer glanced up at Thad. She stuck out her bottom lip just a fraction, perhaps unconsciously. Dax interpreted it as either incredulity or dislike—or maybe he just wanted another person in the room to have the same reaction as him. Hollis had spun his yarn in a surprising way. Not convincingly, but the guy had earned points for at least trying to be clever. Throwing Dax’s charge of mental incompetence back at him was a novel approach.
And no, the committee members wouldn’t swallow it. It didn’t stack up against the truth on any level. In suggesting Dax was delusional, with such feeble evidence to back up the claim, surely that in itself was further evidence that Thad Hollis was the delusional one here.
Or maybe, just maybe, they prepped him to say that…
Dax sat up, straightened his tie. He scanned the inscrutable faces of the IMMAF officials.
What if they’ve framed this whole thing as some sort of stalemate? I call him nuts; he calls me nuts. It’s my word against his, and they don’t take it any further.
Jesus, that makes sense. And it would be just like them.
With rumors of corruption hanging over them like a sword of Damocles, no way could they ever let this go further than this room. An official investigation? Maybe even a trial? With lawyers and witnesses and all sorts of accusations flying about—all going viral in the media? They couldn’t risk it, any of it.
They are under orders to bury this right here! Interesting.
“So it’s my word against his, right?” said Dax. “You’re obviously not looking at the fight footage. How about we both submit ourselves for a full psych evaluation, then? Hollis and me. If we’re both A-One, I’ll accept whatever decision the IMMAF makes. If not, then the IMMAF has to promise to take the appropriate action. If one of us is deemed unfit to fight, his license must be revoked and he must receive whatever medical treatment he needs. Oh, and one last thing, the evaluations have to be conducted by an impartial, independent party. Not that I don’t trust your organization, but…okay, I don’t trust your organization. I don’t trust your referees, ring officials, drug tests, doctors, fight managers, or your fighters. Especially not your fighters. Take that asshole over there. He’s a freaking poster child for all the juicers in professional sports because he’s been doing it for so long, he’s gotten away with it for so long. And how has he gotten away with it? Because your organization is so fucking corrupt it would topple like a house of cards if the bribes suddenly stopped being paid.”
He addressed the stenographer: “Did you get all that, sweetheart? You did? Good.” And to Langston: “All that can go viral. Trust me, I don’t give a shit. Or here’s a better scenario: you do the right thing and arrange for those tests. Then you investigate the ring official from that night, find out who forced him to keep the fight going for a KO or a tap out. Either I’m mistaken, or your guy was bought that night and I’m not mistaken.”
“I see where you’re coming from, Mr. Easterling,” replied Langston. “And believe me, we take all those sorts of accusations seriously. There is corruption in our sport, and we’re doing our best to eradicate it. But I won’t beat about the bush. My colleagues and I have watched the fight footage closely; we’ve also interviewed the ring officials, as well as some members of the press commentary teams who were ringside that night…”
“Which ones?” Dax retrieved a tiny black notebook with a pencil from his shirt pocket. “What are their names?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to give that information. It wasn’t a formal investigation; it was more of a…preliminary inquiry, to give us a better idea of what those spectators with professional knowledge—like yourself, Mr. Easterling—saw during the fight. What they perceived, based on Mr. Hollis’s performance, his conduct in the ring. And I’ll be frank: not one of them corroborated your version of what happened. Now, we’re not saying you were wrong, or that you didn’t have cause to do what you did, but so far, based on our initial inquiry, there doesn’t appear to be enough evidence to support a formal investigation into the conduct of our ring officials.”
“So you’re not giving me any names? I just have to take your word for everything you’ve just said?”
“Having heard from you both, it’s clear we’re at an impasse here,” said Langston. “And we would never force anyone to undertake psychological testing without their consent. So, gentlemen, is that something you’d both agree to? Mr. Easterling’s suggestion is problematic in that we can never know someone’s state of mind at a specific time in the past, but if you’re both willing to consent to an exam carried out by an independent third party, that might be the only way to address these allegations you’re both putting forward. Mr. Easterling?”
“Agreed.”
But he knew full well it was an empty promise. Hollis would never consent, and they knew it. So it was a way of making them appear impartial, even accommodating, while at the same time giving them license to do absolutely nothing. No tests. No formal investigation. They weren’t going to give Dax a goddamn thing.
“Mr. Hollis?”
“Agreed.”
Huh? Dax leaned in, certain that he was hearing things. A grasping paranoia came over him. These assholes were up to something. They’d cooked something up with Thad Hollis. This had all been figured out in advance, and at some point they were going to pull the rug out from under Dax and bury his dumb ass somehow. Otherwise it made no sense!
“On one condition…” Hollis interrupted Langston before he could proceed. Everyone looked across to the man with the head full of bad wiring. He was sweating more than ever. “Easterling apologizes. Then he gets down on his knees, right here, and kisses my ass crack.”
On the outside, Dax was calm under pressure; that shell would never falter unless he let it. Inside, however, he had no such control, not when he thought of Tiana, and what this prick had done to her, what he was still doing to her, and what he’d continue to do unless someone stopped him.
“Don’t know about that, Hollis, but I’m about two seconds from kicking your sick ass all over this fucking room. For what you did to Tiana.”
Hollis leapt to his feet, spilling his chair over. “Don’t ever say her name! Not you, you…”
“Can’t find the words, huh, Section Eight?”
“Stop calling me that!” Hollis pressed the heels of his palms hard against his temples. “You made her call me that. You! I know it was you. She’d never have turned on me if it wasn’t for you. Bastard.”
The others were too afraid to move from their seats. Dax knew he had his opponent right where he wanted him, on a knife’s edge, but also that this could get real ugly real quick if it carried on. The guy was in the grip of ’roid rage. He was ready for snapping altogether.
“How about we call it a day?” Dax suggested. “Guys? Langston?”
“I, um, I mean we—okay, yes, that might be best. I think we’re concluded here, gentlemen.”
At least they’d glimpsed the real Thad Hollis. If they hadn’t known how bad he was before, they knew it now. The tribunal had gone nowhere—nothing had been settled, no investigation had been promised—but they’d seen a part of what Dax had seen that night in the ring. That had to count for something.
“Concluded? You mean…the case is dropped? We’re done? We don’t have to come back?” Hollis, attempting to put his mental mask back on. Too late.
“We’re done for now,” Langston assured him.
“But he needs to be punished!” Hollis said. “He made a mockery of the whole IMMAF. The whole world saw it. Tell me you’re taking action!”
“A decision will be made in due course, Mr. Hollis. But it’s not a matter for this tribunal, not anymore. You’ve both made your positions perfectly clear. That’s the main thing.”
“You’ll be hearing from me,” Dax answered. “I don’t intend to let the matter drop, and you shouldn’t either.”
“Understood.” Langston motioned for Dax to leave the room first—protocol, as he was closest to the door—then he led his colleagues out into the corridor. It was a nondescript office building, shared by dozens of administrative organizations he’d never heard of. It was all vaguely legal and vaguely official: a shadow world with the generic trappings of authority. His new shoes squeaked on the polished floor. He hated places like this. Always had.
It was the kind of place you worked at if you didn’t question the way things were done. A place where loopholes were found, exploited, and quickly became the new common language. A place where investigations into corruption became inside jokes and circle jerks.
Asking the IMMAF to investigate itself was like hiring cancer to root out the cause of its host’s sickness.
And Thad Hollis being at large, free to do what he’d been doing, was just a symptom of that sickness.
Somebody had to stop him. Somebody had to make sure he never hurt Tiana again.