The Leveling by Dan Mayland Page A

him soon.”
    Decker turned toward the voice. The man who’d spoken had distinctive dark circles under his eyes and wore a black turban. But it was the cauliflower wrestler ears, bulbous and ugly, that Decker—a former heavyweight wrestler himself—really noticed. This was the man he’d been tracking.
    He was in what he guessed was a basement, seated in the center of a threadbare carpet that had been rolled out over a rough concrete floor. The concrete foundation walls were mottled with water stains. A workbench whose top was cluttered with assorted tools stood in one corner. There was a strong smell of mold.
    Decker glanced behind him. Two men with automatic rifles slouched beside a utilitarian staircase leading up to the floor above. Above him ran exposed floor joists.
    “And your friend,” said the man in the black turban. “What is his religion?”
    Decker didn’t really know. The subject had never come up. “Muslim.” Decker hardly recognized his own voice. It sounded parched and scratchy.
    “Then we will arrange for a proper burial. And your religion?”
    Decker remembered Mark Sava once giving him advice. If you’re ever captured by Islamists, Mark had said, don’t try to get them to sympathize with you by saying you’re a Muslim,or that you’ve read the Qur’an. If you get a genuine religious nut as an interrogator, things will be worse for you if he thinks you’ve been exposed to the word of Allah and have rejected it, or haven’t properly followed it. If he thinks you’re a Christian or Buddhist or Jew or whatever, he might just feel sorry for you.
    “Christian.” That was even kind of true.
    “You have read the Qur’an?”
    “No, never.”
    The man in the black turban asked why Decker had been at the ayatollah’s house.
    “I’m under orders not to say.”
    “Under whose orders?”
    “I can’t tell you.” Decker hoped they would think some government was actually issuing him orders—that someone would actually care if he disappeared.
    “You wish the same fate as your friend?”
    Confuse them. Buy time. They won’t kill you until they think they’ve learned everything they can from you.
    “In two weeks you’ll figure it all out for yourself.”
    “Two weeks? Why two weeks?”
    “In two weeks you’ll find out.”
    “You lie.”
    “Whatever, dude.”
    “You speak like an American.”
    “I am an American.”
    “What is your name?”
    “John Decker.” Decker hoped that they’d find out about his Navy SEAL experience and mistakenly assume that he was still a SEAL, and think that he was a high-value capture.
    The man produced Alty’s iPhone and placed it on a stool a few feet in front of Decker.
    Decker tried not to stare at it, tried not to show his distress.
    “You sent an e-mail from this phone just before you were captured. Why?”
    “That’s not my phone.”
    “One of the people you sent the e-mail to is a CIA agent named Mark Sava. Are you working for him?”
    So they knew about the photos he’d e-mailed to Mark and Daria. It was so stupid of him, forgetting to put the damn iPhone in his gear bag inside the chimney.
    “I said that’s not my phone. I didn’t send any e-mails from it.” Decker gestured to Alty with his chin. “It’s his phone.”
    “Then why wasn’t it with him?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe he dropped it.”
    “It was recovered from the roof.”
    “So maybe he dropped it when he was on the roof with me.”
    “When was he on the roof with you?”
    “Before you shot him. We were both up there.”
    “If this isn’t your phone, then surely you have a cell phone of your own. Or a camera?”
    “They’re with my partner.”
In two weeks something happens. You have a partner. Keep track of your lies. Believe your lies.
    “Your partner is dead. You can see this for yourself.” The man wearing the black turban lifted Alty’s chin and let the lifeless head drop.
    “Alty was our guide. My partner wasn’t captured.”
    “You have no