The Leveling

He crouched down and found the recessed handle of the heavy trapdoor. When he pulled up, the trapdoor opened with the sound of metal grinding on metal. A sudden and overwhelming smell of shit made him gag.

Mark stepped back a few feet so that he could let some light in and better see down the hole. At the far range of his vision, he saw what looked like the corner of an enormous block of metal. He grabbed the ladder from the corner of the basement, lowered it into the hole, and climbed down.

Groundwater from the spring snowmelt had seeped into the hole, turning the dirt floor into a bog. Mark placed the AK-47 on the top of the safe and allowed his eyes to adjust for a moment. The safe was at least five feet tall and almost as wide and deep. A thin film of rust covered every inch of it, and its legs had sunk into the mud.

Mark’s hand trembled as he put it upon the first of four dials that lined the upper right side of the safe.

He set the dials to 1-9-7-9 and, without pausing to think, pushed down hard on the safe handle. It remained closed. He pulled up. Nothing gave.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

He wiped his forehead with his rust-covered hand and inspected the dials again.

It was 1979 when the Shah left and Ayatollah Khomeini took over. But the demonstrations had started a year earlier.

Mark tried 1978. The lever didn’t budge. He considered dragging Amir Bayat down into the hole and making him open the safe himself. Then he remembered that Iranians didn’t use the same calendar as the West. Instead of counting from the birth of Christ, they counted from the year that Muhammad had fled from Mecca to Medina. To convert the Western calendar to the Iranian calendar, you needed to subtract 622 or 621 from the Western calendar, depending on what time of year it was…

Mark subtracted 622 from 1979, entered the numbers 1-3-5-7, and pulled on the handle.

The safe opened. Inside sat a naked man, a broken giant, huddled up with knees pressed into his chest and his mouth pressed against the wall.




Mark hesitated before touching the body, not completely sure that it was even Decker’s.

The arms and legs were purple with bruises, the face swollen and caked with dried blood. The ammonia smell of piss made him dizzy.

Mark knew that Decker had always gone out of his way to operate anonymously when behind enemy lines. Which meant there were no SEAL trident symbols or other tattoos on his body that could identify him as an American.

But before he’d joined the SEALs, Mark knew that Decker had gotten a tattoo—a bad approximation of the Millennium Falcon—while in high school. He’d had it removed years ago, leaving only a slight discoloration on his left calf, which had grown less and less noticeable with each passing year.

Mark gently touched the left calf of the body in the safe, intending to scrape away some of the dirt and blood so he could look for the little bleached patch of skin. He noted, almost with surprise, that the body was still warm.




Mark didn’t have time to react to the onslaught.

One second he was crouched in front of Decker and the next he was rocketing backward, out of the safe and into the mud. Two hands were clenched around his throat. He tried to cry out but produced nothing but choking sounds.

Decker drove him through the mud like a plow, all the way across the dirt floor and into the corner.

Mark tried to cry out again, but couldn’t. Decker’s choke hold was blocking the blood flow to his brain while simultaneously crushing his esophagus. In a few more seconds, he’d pass out.

Despite the ferocity of his initial onslaught, however, Decker was weak. Mark felt a momentary slackening around his neck and used the respite to suck in a quick breath, throw a knee to Decker’s groin, and yell, “It’s Mark!”

Decker’s hands tightened again around his neck. But this time, Mark didn’t resist. Instead he allowed his head to sink back into the mud and with his right hand gave Decker two taps on the back—the martial arts signal that you’ve given up.

Decker continued to squeeze, but only for a second longer. Then he went completely slack and slipped to the side onto his back.

For a moment they were both silent, hyperventilating in the weak light. Mark looked over at what passed for Decker’s face. Both eyes appeared to be swollen shut—Decker was operating blind.

“Who are you?” asked Decker.

“It’s Mark. Your friend, Deck. Your friend.”





66




DECKER WAS SHIVERING and had trouble standing—his left ankle appeared to be broken, and the untreated bullet wounds on his left thigh and shin were oozing.

Mark helped him find the rickety ladder that led out of the hole to the basement floor. Decker pulled himself up it, but then collapsed in a fetal position on the dirty Persian rug.

Mark inspected his friend’s eyes. They were like a boxer’s after losing a brutal fight. “Can you see anything?”

Decker was still on the floor and seemed completely dazed by the turn of events. Mark repeated the question.

“A little bit.” He stopped to catch his breath. “Out of my right eye.”

“Can you fire a gun?”