Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  After each assault, Hank would inspect the sandbag, using a shielded penlight, commenting on the accuracy of the thrust. His command was always the same. Use what little light you have, and learn to judge the rest of the target from the part you see.

  Next, Hank had the students throwing fragile objects at each other in the almost total dark, then lunging with felt-tipped pens to slash at the opponent's pillow-buffered chest.

  And each time, Hank used the shielded penlight to assess the theoretical damage.

  Eventually the students weren't allowed the advantage of pillows. If a felt-tipped pen bruised your stomach, well, you should have been more careful. Imagine if the blow had come from a knife.

  In these and many similar ways, Hank trained his students to develop reflexes in the dark.

  They were taught to move with a knife as if it were an extension of the hand. In turn, to make the hand an extension of the arm. To sweep the arm, to make the hand follow it. And thus the knife to follow the hand. Fluidity.

  How to crouch while shifting sideways, never extending the feet beyond the width of the hips. Always slowly, gradually, shifting weight. Never to the rear, and never forward. Silently.

  They learned the parts of the body: spleen, epiglottis, testicles, sphenoid, maxilla, thyroid, transverse sinus, septum, carotid, humorus, orbital. And lunged through the dark at the sandbags or at each other with felt-tipped pins, and later with the palms of their hands or the tips of their elbows.

  As their training became more intense, they had the sense that Hank was preparing them for an ultimate test. Night followed night - how many, it became impossible to know. They couldn't help glancing more often toward the single-story structure that waited for them in the middle of the hangar's darkness.

  At last, after they'd successfully demonstrated their skill in stalking an opponent through the darkness across various surfaces that resembled a sand shore, a thick carpet, a slick waxed floor; after they'd learned how to step silently around and over shadowy obstacles with the same grace that they'd developed in their ballet classes back at the school, Hank said, "Okay, it's time. You're ready to find out what's in the compartment."

  Eager, they followed him through the shadows to its door. Hank opened it, but neither Drew nor anyone else was able to see inside.

  Hank pointed to Jake. "After I go in and shut the door, give me fifteen seconds. Then you come in and shut the door."

  Jake hesitated. "And?"

  "You never played hide-and-seek? Try to find me. Just one thing, though. I'm supposed to be your enemy. If you give me a chance, if you're not careful and you let me hear you or sense you, well, in real life, I'd be able to kill you. For now, we'll play the game this way -whoever surprises the other first, with a touch, is the winner. Simple enough?"

  "Sure."

  Hank went inside. Fifteen seconds later, Jake followed, closing the door behind him. In thirty seconds the door opened again, and Jake stepped out. Drew saw the frustration on his face.

  "What happened in there?" someone asked.

  "I'm not supposed to talk about it. He wants you all to line up, and one by one to go in."

  Drew felt uneasy. Standing near the end of the line, he watched each of the others go in. None lasted any longer than Jake had.

  Mike took his turn, and he too came out almost at once. Drew sensed his humiliation. Always competitive, Mike seemed to challenge Drew to do any better.

  Then it was Drew's turn.

  He opened the door, concentrated to heighten his reflexes, stepped inside, and nervously closed the door behind him. Almost at once he felt stifled, as if the air was thicker in there, squeezing him.

  And the darkness. He'd thought that the hangar was dark. But now he understood what darkness really was.

  In here, it was absolute, compressing him. The silence made his eardrums hiss; he debated what to do. Stepping forward in search of Hank, he bumped against a table. Its legs screeched on the concrete floor, and at once Hank grasped his right elbow.

  "You just got killed." Hank whispered so close that his breath tickled Drew's ear.

  Leaving the black room, trying not to look embarrassed, Drew noticed Mike's satisfied expression, his delight that Drew had been no more successful than himself.

  Hank called the group together and asked them to assess what had happened. He made them repeat the exercise, debriefed them again, and gradually instilled in them the principles of this type of confrontation.

  "All of you tried to find me too soon. You didn't let yourselves feel the stillness. Your anxiousness betrayed you. Take your time. It might be the last time you ever have, so why not prolong it? Sense it fully."

  Hank taught them patterns with which to search the room instead of merely moving blindly forward. He encouraged them to use the skills which they'd already developed in attacking the sandbags and avoiding obstacles in the hangar.

  "But this is different," someone said.

  "How?"

  "In the hangar, we had plenty of room. And the darkness wasn't total. Besides, you were in there first. You had the advantage of being able to hide."

  "Imagine that. And if you're up against an enemy, I suppose you'll complain to him that he isn't playing fair if he too has an advantage. In this game, you have to make your own advantage," Hank said. "By being better than your opponent. The most important thing you have to remember - apart from the pattern I told you to follow once you're in the room - the most important thing is to move so slowly that you're barely moving at all."

  They tried the exercise again and yet again, and each time they lasted a little longer before Hank touched them. Five seconds longer perhaps. Then ten. But that slight extension of their endurance was, by comparison, a major accomplishment. And the first time Drew survived for a minute, he had the exhausted but giddy sense afterward of having been in the room much longer.

  "You're still not moving slowly enough," Hank insisted. "You're still not feeling the dark. Did you ever watch the way a blind man knows an obstacle's in front of him, even if he doesn't have his cane? It's because he's so used to living in the dark that he can feel the air bounce off his surroundings. He can sense things around him, almost as if they give off vibrations. And that's what you've got to learn to do. Compensate for your lack of sight by heightening all your other senses. Jake, you moved silently, I have to give you credit. But you're a smoker. I smelled stale cigarettes on you and knew your exact location, even though I couldn't see or hear you. From now on, nobody on this team is allowed to smoke. And I don't mean just while we're here. Ever. Mike, you use deodorant. I smelled you coming too. Get rid of it."

  "But we can't help giving off some kind of odor," Mike said. "Sweat, for instance. That's natural under stress."

  "No. The kind of stress we're dealing with makes your sweat glands dry up. They stop functioning. Oh, maybe one or two of you aren't typical, and your glands won't quit. We'll soon find out. And you'll be out of the school."

  Soon the students were able to survive the exercise for an even longer time. Two minutes lengthened to five. And then to ten.

  Drew gradually learned about the objects in the room. Proceeding slowly, methodically, he discovered that the layout resembled that of a living room: chairs, a sofa, a coffee table, a television set, a lamp, a bookshelf. But one night, the furniture had been rearranged, and instead of a concrete floor, there now was a rug. Another night the set-up had been transformed into a bedroom. Yet another night, the room was filled with crates at random, as if in a warehouse.

  "You can't assume anything," Hank warned.

  At last, each member of the class was able to stalk Hank for an hour without being touched. Then Hank changed the exercise. "From now on, you stalk each other. One of you goes in, then someone else goes after you. After that, you'll do it in reverse, the second man going in first, so the hunter becomes the hunted. And you'll keep changing partners. Everybody gets a chance to go against everybody else."

  Drew glanced at Mi
ke, who returned his look, clearly anxious for the chance to test his skills against Drew. They weren't paired right away. Only after four other partners did they find themselves in the room together. Drew, the hunted, won the first time. But when Mike became the hunted, he won. And later when they were paired again, their score again was tied. The final time, after they stayed in the room for three hours, neither winning, Hank broke up the game.

  14

  Now, after sixteen years, they were paired again. But their weapons would not be felt-tipped markers, and Hank wasn't here to stop the exercise. Their rivalry had reached the ultimate. There'd be no question about who was better. And no rematch.

  Drew didn't want to kill. He had to keep Mike alive, to make him talk about Janus. But his reluctance to kill was a liability. Because Mike for sure wouldn't hesitate.

  The instant Drew realized the terrifying implications of this pitch-dark basement room into which Mike had lured him, he automatically bent his knees, assuming the crouch Hank had made second nature for him. He spread his feet apart, the width of his hips, and stretched his arms before him, also spread apart, the width of his shoulders, testing the dark with his hands. He spread his arms farther apart, feeling the emptiness to his right and left. At once, he changed his location, shifting to the left, not far, just a body's width, and stopped.

  These initial tactics had one purpose only - to move from where he'd been as he came into the room, lest

  Mike take advantage of the inadvertent sounds Drew made and attack while he was still unprepared. But now Drew was one with the dark, just as Mike was. The stalk would begin.

  Drew was even more sure that Mike had not been carrying a gun; there'd been too many chances for him to use one. Certainly as Drew came into this room, an instant before the door swung shut, cloaking him with total darkness, Mike would have had a reliable target.

  Even so, Mike might have a knife. Drew considered that risk and decided that Mike would have thrown it when Drew first entered the room. The moment Mike heard the knife hit Drew, he would have attacked, taking advantage of the blow's distraction to kill Drew with his hands if the knife hadn't done the job. Hank Dalton had drilled that tactic into them. Second nature.

  So there had to be a reason for Mike to hang back. The only explanation Drew could think of was that Mike didn't have a weapon, that he was depending on his skill in hand-to-hand combat. Which meant that Mike would wait for Drew to come close and then take him by surprise.

  Drew did have a weapon, the Mauser he clutched, but in the dark it was useless - even a liability, because it limited the right hand with which he held it. Under the circumstances, Drew would have preferred to have his right hand nimble, so it could better sense the feel of the stillness, the subtle vibrations of the dark. But he didn't dare risk the sound of putting the gun in his pocket.

  He waited, crouching, on guard, for five minutes, listening intensely. This room was apparently so deep within the ground, its walls so thick, that no outside sound intruded. He strained to hear subtle breathing. Or the brush of a footstep. But he heard nothing except the pounding of blood behind his ears.

  Inhaling slowly, he assessed the smells in the room, separating and identifying them. A turpentine odor. Paint. Something like varnish. A vague whiff of gasoline.

  A storeroom? he wondered. The more he judged the odors, the more his conclusion seemed correct. Maintenance supplies. Maybe even a lawnmower. Maybe tools.

  He'd soon find out. Because he had to begin the hunt, just as, he assumed, Mike had started to hunt for him.

  "Never head directly into the room," Hank Dalton had insisted. "Avoid the middle. Check the perimeter first. Which means you've got two choices. Right or left. Keep your back against the wall. The layout of the room - its obstacles - will determine which direction seems better."

  In the present case, neither right nor left seemed to offer any advantage. True, he'd moved to the left when he entered and recognized the trap. Mike might assume that Drew would continue toward the left. The way to fool him, then, would be to shift in the direction Mike didn't expect, to the right.

  But guessing, and second-guessing, and triple-guessing, were part of the hunt. Mike might anticipate Drew's logic. He might assume that Drew, having started toward the left, as a feint, would then switch direction. Eventually, no matter what logic either opponent used, there was no way for one or the other to anticipate in which direction the hunt would begin. To think about it too long would lead to paralysis.

  Arbitrarily, Drew decided to keep going left. With agonizing slowness. Shifting his arms, his hands, testing the darkness. Gently moving his feet.

  The floor, like the hallway outside, was earth. But at least the dirt was packed solid, absorbing his weight as he slowly eased his foot down. No crunch communicated his position.

  He paused again, listened, smelled, sensed. Again he tested the darkness with his hands and slowly crept a few inches farther to his left.

  Gingerly moving his feet, he stiffened as the edge of his left shoe touched an object. Almost imperceptible pressure against his left leg and hip warned him that the object was large, but when he moved his left hand in its direction, he felt nothing. Whatever it was, the object rose no higher than his waist. When he lowered his hand to that level, he felt wood, gouged and battered, heavily grained, somewhat oily.

  A workbench. Silently exploring with his hand, he felt a metal vice clamped onto the side of the bench. A pockmarked pair of pliers. A gritty oil can with a spout.

  From now on, the complications multiplied. For all he knew, Mike was waiting on the other side of the workbench, ready to attack as Drew inched around the bench to return to the wall. Or maybe Mike was directly across from him, against the opposite wall, and as soon as he sensed that Drew's attention was fully occupied with the problem of getting around the bench...

  Second-guessing, triple-checking. As Drew began to ease around the table, he imagined Mike's thoughts.

  Hey, Drew, it's just like back in Colorado, when we were rivals. Sure, we looked so much alike everybody wondered which of us was better, didn't they? But we never settled the issue. Not to my satisfaction. Of course, the higher-ups had their own stupid idea that you were better than me. Otherwise, they wouldn't have chosen me to act as a double for you instead of the other way around. You were the star; I was the stand-in. Shit. But I outlasted you. You're supposed to be dead. I got to take your place. I became you, and I like it that way just fine. I won't switch places again. I won't go back to being second-best. This time, I plan to make damned sure you stay dead.

  His muscles aching from tension, Drew inched through the darkness around the bench. But to check out the corner between the bench and the wall, he'd have to leave himself partly vulnerable to an attack from across the pitch-black room. He sharpened his senses, on guard against the slightest sound or shift in the dense, still air.

  Subtly, silently, he waved his left hand in front of him, toward the continuation of the wall. He wanted to cause a gentle waft of air that might make Mike think Drew was closer than he was, that might prompt Mike to attack prematurely from the corner of the wall and the bench.

  But no attack came, and as Drew eased around the other side of the workbench, coming closer to the wall, he aimed his Mauser toward it. If Mike indeed were hiding there, if he attacked, Drew would shoot as soon as he felt Mike's body.

  But nothing happened. And with a mental exhalation of relief, Drew reached the wall, pressing his back against it again. He waited in the darkness, mustering energy, concentrating.

  "Discipline," Hank had told them. "Patience. Those are the secrets to winning this game. One thoughtless move. One careless gesture. That's all it takes, and you're dead. You have to ignore the future. You can't let yourself imagine how good it'll feel to win and leave the room and relax. Because now is what counts, and if your enemy's concentrating on now while you're in the future, well, pal, you'll never see the future. You'll be history."

  Drew contin
ued to shift along the wall to his left. As before, he used his feet, the side of his leg and hip, to test for obstacles. Aiming the Mauser with his right hand, he moved his left hand before him, almost caressing the dark. His silent foot touched an object to his left; indeed, he sensed that the object was there even before his shoe touched it. The object was wood. It projected sixteen inches into the room. He felt it with his left hand. The object rose all the way to the ceiling. And when he eased his fingers around its side, he touched cold circular metal. Paper, wrapped around it, was partly peeled away. Here, the odor of turpentine was stronger. A paint can? Yes, he decided. Ceiling-high shelves of paint cans. Keeping his back against the shelves as if they were the wall, he continued to his left.

  He'd progressed no more than ten or twelve feet and had been in here for possibly forty minutes, maybe longer. It was hard to know. In a black room, time was distorted by the agonizing slowness of movement. Every second seemed eternal. Terribly full.