Chương 5
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Maya.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
Before Hannah disconnected, she said, “For what it’s worth, Mom thinks your hair looked nice.”
Maya closed her eyes.
“Good night.”
That evening Derek posted a video.
Richard learned about it from his attorney.
He was in his kitchen pouring a drink he did not particularly want when the phone rang.
“Tell me he didn’t,” Richard said.
His attorney, Ellen Cho, replied, “He did.”
Richard set the bottle down.
“What did he say?”
“I’m sending it.”
The clip arrived.
Derek sat in what looked like the office of his grappling gym. His black gi was gone. He wore a fitted gray shirt and had a faint mark along one side of his neck.
He looked composed.
Richard recognized the expression.
Derek had practiced it.
“What happened today was a demonstration that got intense,” Derek said into the camera. “Both participants understood there would be real contact. Unfortunately, after I tested her with a strike, Sergeant Bennett escalated with a dangerous technique that could have caused serious injury.”
Richard stopped the video.
He called his son.
No answer.
He called again.
No answer.
He sent:
Take it down.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Richard called Ellen back.
“How bad?”
“For him?”
“For everybody.”
“Bad enough.”
“Can the foundation issue a statement?”
“They should. Your company should issue a separate one.”
“What should mine say?”
“Nothing until I talk to their counsel.”
Richard walked to the sink.
Through the windows above it, the backyard lights had come on automatically.
His house was too large.
He noticed that sometimes when he was angry.
“Ellen.”
“Yes?”
“I knew he wanted to make it more aggressive.”
Silence.
“How much did you know?”
“He told Celia he wanted full resistance. She said no. She told me. I told Derek not to be an idiot.”
“That is not the same as removing him.”
“I know.”
“Did you insist he participate?”
Richard stared into the dark window and saw his own reflection.
“Yes.”
Ellen did not soften her response.
“Then we have a problem.”
Maya watched Derek’s video once.
Captain Norris had asked her not to respond, not not to watch.
She wished he had.
She sat on the edge of her bed with the phone in one hand.
When Derek said, “Both participants understood,” she felt her jaw tighten.
When he called the slap a test, she stopped the video.
She did not throw the phone.
She did not pace.
She put it facedown beside her.
Then she went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth.
She flossed.
She wiped water spots from the mirror with the corner of a towel.
She returned to the bedroom.
The phone had gathered fourteen new notifications.
She turned it off.
The next morning, the bruise had darkened.
Maya stood in uniform in the kitchen drinking coffee when Captain Norris called.
“His video was a mistake,” he said.
“That’s one word for it.”
“Foundation counsel has the written demo rules.”
“Good.”
“They also have an email where Cole asked to change the format.”
Maya stared into her coffee.
“What kind of change?”
“More competitive. Full resistance. The coordinator refused.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Celia told me.”
“Okay.”
Norris paused.
“There’s more.”
Maya waited.
“He asked the media volunteer if they could record a separate vertical clip of the match.”
“For what?”
“He apparently said, ‘In case something good happens.’”
Maya gave a humorless laugh.
“That’s not proof of anything.”
“No.”
“But it tells you what he wanted.”
“Yes.”
Norris shuffled papers.
“The original event stream also recorded the emcee explaining the rules before you went onto the mat.”
Maya closed her eyes.
She had forgotten that.
No striking.
Controlled demonstration.
Safety first.
The emcee had said it while the crowd was still finding seats.
Norris continued.
“There are at least twelve clear videos of the slap.”
“I’m aware.”
“Right.”
“What does command want?”
“For now? You come to work.”
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
Maya looked toward the clock.
“I can do that.”
“Maya.”
“Yes?”
“People are asking about your background.”
Her hand tightened slightly around the coffee cup.
“What people?”
“Media.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say we were answering.”
“Good.”
“There’s public information.”
“There is always public information.”
“Some of it is going to surface.”
Maya placed the mug down.
“I’m not doing a hero story.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“No deployment profiles. No award package. No people calling my old team.”
Norris was silent long enough that Maya knew he disliked the last request because it was the one he could not control.
“I’ll do what I can.”
Maya picked up the coffee again.
“That’s what everybody says before somebody uses a picture of you that you hate.”
“Which picture?”
“The Fort Jackson one.”
“You look fine.”
“I look twelve.”
“You were twenty-two.”
“Exactly.”
Norris laughed.
The tension broke for a moment.
Then he said, “There’s another issue.”
Maya waited.
“Cole’s attorney contacted the foundation.”
“About me?”
“About liability.”
“Of course.”
“They are preserving all footage and communication.”
“Good.”
“And apparently Derek’s position is that your prior training made the demonstration inherently unequal.”
Maya stopped.
“That is impressive.”
“What?”
“He hit me, and somehow I cheated.”
Norris sighed.
“Yes.”
Maya looked at her reflection in the dark kitchen window.
The bruise was visible even from there.
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing today.”
“Then I’m going to work.”
“That may be the smartest thing anybody involved does.”
At battalion headquarters, people tried very hard not to look at her face.
This was worse than staring.
A sergeant she had known for four years walked past her desk three times without saying anything, then finally stopped.
“You want coffee?”
“I have coffee.”
“Right.”
He stood there.
Maya looked at him.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
He walked away.
Two minutes later he returned.
“For the record, that reversal was clean.”
Maya pointed toward the hallway.
“Go.”
He went.
May you like
At lunch, nobody mentioned Derek.
They discussed a broken air-conditioning unit in one office, a missing shipment of printer toner, and whether the food truck outside the gate had changed ownership because the tacos had gotten noticeably smaller.
