The Creed (Book 1): The Hunt

by Powers, AJ

  The door on the black SUV shot open, a bright, white Trident emblem on the side. A man with thinning silver hair hopped out of the car and talked to one of the CRG’s for a moment. He wore a gray camouflage uniform with polished black boots and a sidearm on his hip. He then walked purposefully up to the man that had been separated from the other residents, and the two began talking, though it was mostly a one-way conversation. Even from the distance, Hagan could see the man from the SUV—a high-ranking officer with the Guard, he suspected—was getting frustrated. His arms waved more assertively with each word he uttered, and he pointed to the men and women lined up against the wall multiple times. The man in his boxers had very little to say in response, which only seemed to agitate the officer further.

  Despite the idling diesel engines and squawking radios, Hagan could hear the angry shouts from the officer, though he couldn’t make out any of the words. An elderly man in sweatpants and a t-shirt stopped a few feet away from Hagan, looking down the block as other residents poured out of nearby apartment buildings to watch the drama unfold. His short, white hair parted unnaturally on the side of his head, revealing a long, ugly scar above his left ear. On the inside of his right arm were the words Semper Fi written in classic tattoo ink. The color had faded over the years, but the man’s dedication to the words, and to his oath, appeared to be as fresh as the day he swore in. The old man’s eyes were fierce with anger, yet heavy with sorrow. They were the eyes of someone who had witnessed the atrocities of a dictatorship before, likely in a desert on the other side of the world a lifetime ago. But a good man never forgets that oath he took, and he never gets used to seeing the innocent suffer. Like the man next to him, Hagan’s soul was filled with rage as the angst in his gut grew.

  Multiple hoplites joined the growing group of spectators but didn’t tell anyone to mind their own business or return to their homes. Instead, they stood by and watched, as if they wanted the people to witness what was about to happen. Nevertheless, once their presence was known, the speculative murmurings and neighborly gossip screeched to a halt.

  Hagan drew in a deep breath, then exchanged glances with the elderly man next to him. These men and women in front of them were about to be executed. And, from the look on the old Marine’s face, he knew it, too.

  No sooner did Hagan move his eyes forward did the CRG’s open fire. The echoes of the gunshots cracked down the block as the six men and two women were mowed down by a trio of full auto AK-47’s. Their bodies flinched and shuddered briefly as dust and debris erupted off the brick wall behind them. Within seconds, all eight bodies lay motionless on the ground.

  A few of the women behind Hagan gasped at the carnage, but, for the most part, the group of people huddled together remained silent, as if they hadn’t just watched eight of their neighbors get executed in broad daylight by their own government. That was almost as disturbing as the slaying itself.

  Almost.

  Hagan’s hand deftly slipped into his jacket and reached for the handle of the MP7 hanging from its sling. He knew it would be a winless battle, but the urge to take out as many of these monsters as he could had him on the verge of action. Not your fight, Matt! Stay in your lane, he heard himself shout in his head again. He listened to his inner voice this time, and slowly released his death grip on the machine pistol, exhaling furiously through his nose. His eyes met with the Marine’s one last time before turning back to the bloodbath in front of them. The ninth prisoner was quickly hauled off to one of the Humvees as the gray-haired officer calmly did an about-face and walked back to his SUV.

  Hagan felt someone step up behind him. The clanking of gear and heavy thumps of boots told him it was a hoplite.

  “May the enemies of Alexandria be damned to Hell for a thousand eternities!” the hoplite shouted gleefully.

  The crowd responded with a collective, “Damn them all,” in various levels of enthusiasm.

  “Damn them all,” Hagan muttered.

  Damn them all, indeed.

  Chapter 10

  Every chair in the situation room was filled, leaving Mason with just a filing cabinet to lean against. Dozens of hushed conversations took place between the fifty to sixty people cramped inside the small room as they waited for the meeting to begin. The conversations ranged from unrelated cases to personal issues to soccer matches. Mason only heard one small group of analysts discussing the case at hand, and whether the facial recognition algos were broad enough to compensate for inaccuracies from the witness description. It was a legitimate question that Mason hadn’t considered. If the algorithms were too specific, facial recognition might look right at their guy but ignore him because his cheek bones weren’t quite high enough, or his eye color was hazel instead of green. However, if the algorithm was too broad, they would surely get hit with numerous false positives, turning the search into a game of boy cried wolf. Balance was key, and according to one woman among the group discussing the matter, she was confident that the system was properly calibrated for such concerns.

  As Winters walked into the room, he did a quick scan and zeroed in on Mason in the back corner. He slinked past multiple people and then down a row of folding tables to get to his Lieutenant in the back. “Sorry I’m late,” Winters said.

  “Gray’s not even here yet,” Mason responded.

  Winters leaned in close and whispered, “Colonel Price raided 454 Lexington Avenue about thirty minutes ago.”

  Mason was very familiar with the building, and the alleged insurgents that lived within. It had been one of the many residential buildings assigned to Mason’s surveillance unit in the past. There was never enough evidence to take down the suspected rebels at 454 Lexington, but evidence was more of a subjective issue for Colonel Price. Mason shook his head. “Arrests?”

  Winters frowned. “Not that I’ve heard.”

  “Mother of god,” Mason replied. But before he could say anything more, Secretary Gray walked in and the room fell silent.

  Wasting no time, Gray stepped up to the small podium at the front and placed his hands on the smooth, wooden surface, asking his taskforce for updates. The analyst team went first, explaining that the facial recognition software had been updated to provide minor adjustments to the scanning vectors and other technical jargon that most of the room didn’t understand.

  “English, Mr. Franklin. Please,” Gray said, holding up his hand to the scrawny man with glasses standing in the middle of the room.

  Franklin stammered over his words then reset. “Well, uhm, basically, sir, it means that we’ve tweaked the software to offer the best possible chance of accurately identifying the suspect while minimizing the chance of a false positive.”

  “And this update is live?”

  Franklin nervously scanned through his tablet, tapping on the screen a few times as Gray drummed his fingers on the podium top. “Uhh, yes, sir. As of twenty-three minutes ago, the algorithm has been updated.”

  “Very good,” Gray said, shifting his focus to another man in the audience. “Clemmons. Where’s your team at with getting us an ID?”

  Clemmons stood to his feet and spoke loudly. “Sir, we’ve tracked down a file photo that might be a possible match,” he said. He, too, pulled out a tablet and dragged his fingers across the screen. Moments later, a photograph popped up on the two TV’s flanking either side of the podium.

  Gray turned and looked at the image briefly. It was a photo of a freshly cut recruit in his Army Service Uniform wearing a red beret. There was a somber look on the man’s youthful face, as was common for such a photograph. The American flag behind him had been blurred out by the AI before being archived on the servers more than a decade ago. The nametag pinned to his uniform had a black stripe over it, obscuring the text. “Son, this photograph is older than you are.”

  Clemmons nodded. “Yes sir, nearly. However, once we got this possible hit from KARIS a couple of days ago, I had the forensic team analyze the photograph and compare it with the known partials of Typhon along with
the 3D rendering from the witness’ description, and they believe there is a 77% chance this is a match.”

  “Seventy-seven percent?” Gray shrugged. “Far from a guarantee.”

  “No sir, it’s not a guarantee. But this is the most promising hit we’ve had so far. There are hundreds of petabytes of data yet to scan. So, we’re optimistic we’ll find something more definitive, but we’re running at max capacity and it could still take a few weeks.”

  Gray sighed with the man’s last words. He didn’t have weeks. “What else did you find with this photograph?” Gray asked.

  “Unfortunately, not much, sir. All the documents associated with this file photo were either scrubbed or heavily redacted. All we know for sure was that the photo was taken at a…” he scanned his tablet again, “a Fort Leonard Wood, and that it was taken thirty years ago.”

  “Please update me directly as soon as you have anything else, Mr. Clemmons,” Gray said before his eyes drifted over to Mason’s. “Mr. Mason, an update, please.”

  Mason cleared his throat. “I personally reprocessed the crime scene at Jericho Stevens’s apartment and, unfortunately, there wasn’t much that the original forensics team didn’t find. I did manage to get a few unique prints, but even they were just partials. I sent them for analysis, but I’m not terribly optimistic we’ll get actionable results.

  “Why’s that?” Gray asked.

  “Given Mr. Stevens’s line of work, sir, he probably had dozens of people in and out of his apartment each day. The fact that the original processing team was unsuccessful in finding a full print that could be a match for our guy tells me he was likely wearing gloves.”

  Gray’s ire grew. “What about the witnesses?”

  “They were a dead end, sir.”

  Gray’s shoulders slumped and his face turned red.

  “This wasn’t really a surprise for us, sir,” Mason said, nodding at his Sergeant standing next to him. “We were following up with them just to be thorough. I didn’t expect any new information.”

  Gray nodded, the anger seeming to let up, albeit just a little. “Okay, so, assuming that Clemmons’s photo is accurate, we know that Typhon is former United States military. The U.S. military doesn’t just redact information on an everyday soldier, so we can also assume that this man has served in special forces in some capacity during his service. So, the question is, why? Why would someone like Typhon go through the trouble to execute a drug-pedaling nobody like Jericho Stevens?”

  “What about the cartels?” a woman spoke from a table toward the middle of the room. “We know the insurgents don’t exactly get along with the cartels, either. Could this have been a hit from Cleon?”

  “Jericho Stevens, to our knowledge, has no direct association with the Raza Reyes,” Mason replied. “It’s highly unlikely this was an assassination by Cleon or the insurgents.”

  “And we have yet to verify that Cleon and Typhon are working together at this time. We should assume that both men are acting independent of the other unless confirmed otherwise,” Gray added. “Typhon has his own agenda, ladies and gentlemen, and I want to know what it is. If we can figure that out, then we might be able to take him down.”

  Just as soon as Gray finished speaking, Mason’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Numerous other phones quickly sounded off, a myriad of ringtones and whirring sounds filled the room as speculation began swirling around. Mason held his phone up, the lock disengaging as the camera focused on his eyes. The screen flashed and the message immediately popped up.

  “We’ve got a positive hit!” Gray announced excitedly from the podium. “Let’s nab this son of a bitch!”

  Chapter 11

  Ignoring the ringing phone in his pocket, Hagan eased his back into the brown, leather couch, his body slowly sinking into the over-stuffed cushion. Enjoying the warmth of the lavish apartment, he sipped on strong Arabic coffee and watched large snowflakes flurry past the fifth-story window. Taking a bite of a poppyseed bagel, Hagan closed his eyes as he reveled in the long-forgotten taste of such simple pleasures. He was lost in thought, reminded of his childhood by the scene outside the window. He would watch snow blanket his family’s 75-acres through the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room. For a minute, he was back at that farmhouse in eastern Ohio, back in a world where America existed. Before Matthew Hagan had seen the ugliness of war. Before he’d become the ugliness of war. It was peaceful. Serene. But then his eyes drifted away from the window and over to the dead body on the floor, tearing him away from the life of a farmer’s boy and back to the war-torn remnants of America.

  The plan had gone better than Hagan could have anticipated. Gaining entry to the apartment had been a breeze; just a simple deadbolt pick and an average Apex alarm system that Hagan quickly neutralized with a wireless jammer. Hagan assumed the lack of extreme security measures on the unit was because no one would be crazy enough to attack somebody inside Parkland Heights, much less someone who worked for the regime. Farhad’s assumptions was Hagan’s gain.

  He only waited about ten minutes before Farhad’s keys were jingling outside the door. Farhad, oblivious to the assassin standing on the other side of the oak door, was the first to walk inside. Once his security detail crossed the threshold, Hagan kicked the door shut and pressed the suppressor up against the man’s temple and pulled the trigger. Before Farhad could process what was happening, Hagan lunged toward him with a needle in one hand and his Mark VIII in the other. Farhad went for the pistol tucked into his waistband but was unable to draw before Hagan plunged the contents of the needle into his veins. Farhad’s body went limp and he fell to the ground with a hollow thud. Hagan heaved his unconscious body onto the dining room table, where he had been ever since.

  A long, noisy breath escaped from Farhad’s nose as he slowly regained consciousness. The more he woke, the more rapid his erratic breathing became. He grunted loudly before wheezing out an unpleasant cough. His body twitched as he groaned once more. He began to panic.

  “Buenos dias, sweetheart,” Hagan said from across the room.

  Farhad gasped, his eyes flicking around the room as he realized he was unable to turn his head. “Who is there?” the man demanded, his voice strong and authoritative. “What have you done to me?”

  “Relax,” Hagan said casually, walking toward the table but remaining out of Farhad’s limited field of view. “I hit you with a mild sedative. You might feel dizzy or lightheaded for a while, but that’s to be expected. It should go away in a couple of hours,” Hagan smirked, “In theory, anyway.”

  Farhad groaned again. “I can’t… I can’t move my legs!” he said, his voice edged with fear.

  “Or your arms, or neck… Yeah, that’s the snake venom I gave you after the sedative.”

  Farhad’s eyes stretched wide.

  “Don’t worry, Farhad,” Hagan said nonchalantly. “It’s not actually snake’s venom. It’s just what some of the spooks used to call it back in the day. It took the boys at Langley quite a while to find the perfect balance to completely immobilize a person’s body without effecting the ability to breathe or speak. I think it’s some concoction of Succinylcholine and nerve blockers or something like that. Honestly,” Hagan said with indifference, “I don’t really know what it is, and I don’t really care. They just taught me how to use the stuff on scumbags like you. And brother,” Hagan said, finally stepping into Farhad’s view, “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  Farhad’s olive-tone skin glistened under the chandelier suspended above, beads of perspiration slid from his forehead. His eyes darted around the room, as if he was searching for someone or something to come to his aid. He resisted against his neurotoxic restraints again, finding no luck. Then, finally conceded. “What is it that you want?”

  “We’ll get to that in a moment,” Hagan said, sticking his index finger up for a moment before he placed the same finger on his chin. “But first, I gotta know… How does a good Persian boy like you end up working for La Raza de los Reyes?�
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  The man’s brow tightened; his jaw clenched. He looked around the room again, then back at Hagan. “I know not what you speak of.”

  “Oh, come on, Farhad,” Hagan said, giving the man a playful slap on the shoulder. “The guy that ratted you out learned the hard way that I don’t like liars. So, keep things on the level and we’ll be good. Otherwise, you’re going to be joining your hombre over there on the floor with 40-grains of shrapnel scrambling your eggs. Capisce?”

  The man grunted; his body flinched again as he wrestled with his paralysis. Hagan held up the .22 pistol for him to see, but Farhad wasn’t fazed.

  “I am not scared of you, American pig.”

  Hagan leaned over the table, getting within inches of Farhad’s face. “That’s your problem, Farhad… You really should be,” he said, standing back up and slipping out of view. From the living room, Hagan said, “And the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be, my friend.”

  Farhad remained silent.

  “You look a little uncomfortable on that hard table. Here,” Hagan said, returning with one of the sofa cushions in his hand, “let me help with that.” Hagan grabbed Farhad’s dark, wavy hair and yanked him up into a sitting position. He ignored Farhad’s bark and threw the pillow down on the table before letting go of his hair. Farhad’s body fell, the back of his head smacking off the solid oak surface with a sickening crack. Hagan had placed the pillow about halfway up Farhad’s spine, causing everything above that point to be at a downward angle. Hagan briefly walked out of sight again, quickly returning with a pitcher of water that he held over the man’s head. “Thirsty?” he asked as he dropped a towel over Farhad’s face and began pouring.