by Alex Howell
But Mason knew that the war raged on—and if they didn’t move quickly enough reinforcements would arrive. Without saying another word, he hoisted the injured Tessa up over his back, and crouching as he ran to avoid sniper fire, made a break for the other side of the alley where the rest of the SEALS were located.
He saw his comrades in arms huddled by the mangled wreckage of what had been their Humvee just prior to its encounter with a road side bomb. As Mason screamed, “Mason and Tessa in need of SOS!”
In those perilous few moments, Mason prayed that he didn’t become the victim of some trigger-happy troop’s friendly fire. Fortunately, his commander spotted him in time and shouted to everyone present, “Hold your fire! It’s Mason! Hold your fire!”
Mason was able to get his wounded comrade to safety. A short time later the beleaguered convoy returned to pick the shipwrecked troops up. As Mason helped to load Tessa into the waiting Humvee, she suddenly grabbed him by the hand and declared, “Mason Walker, you saved my life. I owe you everything. If you ever need anything I will be there.”
As he stared at her dirty, battle wary, yet happy face, he heard the words echo through his mind, “I’ll be there… I’ll be there….”
As he continued to stare, the attending MEDIC inside seated next to Tessa then slammed the Humvee door shut in Mason’s face. The next thing he knew he opened his eyes, and with a gasp realized that he was dreaming.
He felt the warmth of someone’s embrace, he turned his head to the left, and saw Raina with her arm wrapped around his chest. Reaching for his phone on the nightstand he looked at the time. Mason muttered to himself, “Three-thirty in the morning…crap…”
It was still early, he should be sleeping, but he knew that he couldn’t sleep. And so, after extricating himself from her loving embrace as gently as possible, Mason got out of bed, put on a pair of pants and t-shirt and headed back down to his own personal war room in the basement. He goes back to the board, and his eyes immediately go to the newest suspect in their long war on terror and religious extremism.
It’s a photo of Tessa Rogers, the same woman that he often had recurring nightmares about, in regard to their time together in Iraq. She had told him that she would do anything to help him, and now she was actively involved with a terror cell that he was determined to destroy. How could this have happened?
The very thought of this previous worker of good going to the side of terrorists sickened him to his core. He just couldn’t quite get himself to believe it. But the evidence was irrefutable. She was seen on several surveillance cameras that Onyx had set up, going back and forth between known meeting grounds of the religious extremists known as “The Blood”.
Their motto was “By Blood we Cleanse” but when it came to Tessa, Mason thought that their efforts seemed more akin to by blood we brainwash. For him it seemed like she must have been hypnotized—it looked like pure mind control. He just didn’t understand how such a previously noble person could be sucked into such a nefarious group.
Sometimes he wondered if she had been more than physically injured that day on the battlefield. Perhaps there was some PTSD involved injury that had impaired her judgment. She certainly wouldn’t be the first veteran to fall under such perilous circumstances.
At the dawn of the 21st Century, a former veteran turned DC Sniper had succumbed to similar conditions when he went from patriotic American hero to treacherous terrorist. But Tessa? It was just all too much for him to fathom. Thinking about how far Tessa had fallen, Mason muttered to himself, “I know there’s still good in you Tessa—I just have to find it.”
A FEW MOMENTS LATER AT A CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL IN WASHINGTON DC.
The Church was empty except for just a few stragglers in the lobby. Mass was long over but a woman adorned in a heavy veil was seeking the confessional. She quietly sat down in the booth and looked over to the partition that separated her from the priest sitting on the other side and remarked, “Bless me father for I have sinned.”
The priest recognizing the voice that spoke to him, inquired, “Tessa? Tessa Rogers?”
Tessa nodded, “Yes…”
The priest remarked, “What have you come to confess my child?”
Tessa staring off into space was quiet for a moment before finally answering, “I have failed in my mission.”
The voice behind the partition benevolently asked, “Oh and why have you failed?”
Tessa replied in a monotone, almost robotic voice, “Because I’ve let my feelings get in the way.”
After a pause, the priest responded to the vague remarks, “Well—that’s quite common. People often let their emotions get the better of them.”
The priest then asked, “So what are you going to do the next time your feelings cause you to hesitate.”
Tessa slightly raising her voice, responded, “I will cleanse myself of these faults and human frailties by the blood.”
The priest then remarked, “Do you then, hold fast to your mission as “The Blood” has ordained of you?”
As if in a trance, Tessa confirmed, “Yes.”
The Priest then asked in a strangely hypnotic voice, “Do you Tessa Rogers agree to help us bring the whole world to the altar of repentance?”
Tessa now almost in some sort of ecstatic ecstasy, exclaimed, “Yes! Yes, I do!”
With this, the confessional door slid open and a man not dressed as a priest, but outfitted in military fatigues, looked Tessa in the eyes as they both cried out in a loud voice, “By blood we cleanse! By blood we cleanse!”
5
Just Waking Up
SUNRISE IN MASON’S BATLTIMORE BASEMENT. Mason didn’t know what time he had fallen asleep but to his embarrassment he was sprawled out on his chair at his command center in the basement. It was early morning and the sun had just risen over the horizon bringing its first rays of light and warmth to the Eastern Seaboard. The rise of the morning sun found Mason in a rather precarious position, asleep in his chair at his basement command center.
Slumped back in his chair with a computer printout he had been attempting to read his lap and a cup of cold coffee in front of him at his desk. Mason’s head was back, his mouth was gaping open, and he was snoring away when the incessant ringing of his phone brought him back to consciousness once again.
Grabbing his phone off his desk, Mason cursed, “Damn it…”
He was not normally a morning person, and after the rough night he put in, he definitely wasn’t any more inclined to be one at the moment. Scowling at the phone in his hand, he didn’t intend to answer it. He was about to simply switch it off and go back to bed.
But seeing that it was Kyle Garrison that was trying to call him, he realized he had to respond. He recalled how Kyle said he would check back in the morning with results from the lab’s DNA testing, and he knew he had to pick up.
Clearing his throat, he answered, “Yeah Kyle—I’m here buddy. What’s up?”
Kyle not one to beat around the bush, immediately informed Mason, “It’s negative Mason.”
Mason questioned, “What?”
Kyle elaborated, “We can’t find any hits in our database from DNA testing of the scraps of clothing. Nothing’s there.”
Mason envisioning yet another door slamming in his face as the lead grew cold, cursed, “Shit…”
Kyle then surprised him however as he told him, “I would log into the Onyx database right now though if I were you.” Mason automatically began typing into his login on the computer in front of him before he even questioned, “Why?”
Kyle informed him, “It’s Tessa Rogers. We’ve tracked some recent movement by her in and around some places of known terrorist activity.”
Mason remembering his dream, began to wonder if he was having psychic premonitions. Not one to dwell on the superstitious however, he shrugged off the notion, as he brought all of his attention to bear on the GPS tracking program that showed Tessa’s every move.
Coincidentally enough, it was the same t
echnology that Raina had offered Clara for her own protection, the only difference being that this one was not a voluntary GPS emergency beacon, it was a constant signal Tessa was beaming out which she was completely unaware of, and unable to control.
Looking at the data on the screen, Mason saw that she was heading for DC, prompting him to tell Kyle, “Alright man she’s near my turf now. I’m going to converge on her location to see what I can’t find out.”
Kyle trying to show some concern, cautioned him, “Mason… You shouldn’t go by yourself.”
Mason scoffed, “What is this? You’re starting to sound like Raina.”
Kyle offered, “Just trying to show I care…”
Mason shook his head, “Don’t worry I’m going to put an all-points bulletin out for all Onyx members.”
After saying as much, Mason then sent out a group text to all Onyx members—sleeping beauty Raina included—that read, “Sanguine” which translated into English as “Blood”. This was their codeword that the evil terrorists were afoot, and all the heads up that Mason felt like he needed to give his teammates.
For what it was worth he then hung up with Kyle, put on his shoes, and made a beeline to his SUV. Setting his computer to follow Tessa’s GPS signature, as his car followed the trail Tessa left in real time, all Mason had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride. But in reality, of course, enjoyment was the last thing on Mason’s mind.
He was tracking a woman that he respected and at one time viewed as a sacred sister in arms, he was stalking this previously noble woman with the intention of ensnaring her in terrorist plots. If he was successful in his mission of bringing Tessa and the terrorists she was cavorting with to justice, it meant definite prison time and possibly even a death sentence for treason for the former SEAL.
Mason couldn’t help but feel the conflict between personal attachment and patriotic duty that tore him apart at the seams. It was times like this that Mason hated the modern automated car with a passion since in the past it was the act of manually driving a car that often got his mind off of his own troubling thoughts, focusing them instead on the steering wheel and the road in front of him.
But in AI driven vehicles he felt like a helpless passenger with nothing to do but brood. Fortunately for him, the trip didn’t last very long and soon his AI was stopping right where Tessa had stopped. It was an Italian restaurant called “Lucky Linguini”, right in the middle of downtown DC. Just prior to arrival Mason was prompted with parking preference, and was sure to instruct his car’s AI to take him to the back-parking lot, in order to avoid detection.
As his car parked, he was still staring at the computer console on his dash trying to make sense of what was happening. The GPS only indicated general city block locations, not finite movements such as say walking to the bathroom in a building. And so, since the GPS had long since stopped moving, it was safe to assume that Tessa was already in the restaurant.
Mason was going to be careful all the same. And while he wasn’t going to put on some elaborate disguise, he was going to muddy the waters of his appearance all the same. He put on dark shades to hide his eyes, and shoved a ballcap down over his head to obscure his features.
For long term exposure he wasn’t fooling anybody, but he figured if he just happened to walk by Tessa in the lobby, it would at least give him enough cover to turn his back and go the other way before she recognized him. Mason was lucky however, because by the time he stepped into the main lobby of the restaurant Tessa was already seated and waiting on her contact.
After Mason was greeted by the restaurant’s waiter and taken into the main dining area he saw her in the back corner, sitting all by her lonesome. Spotting a table nearby obscured by several bushy plants, he informed his waiter, “Hey—I’d like to sit over there by those ferns.”
The waiter then promptly sat him down at the requested table, gave him a glass of water and a menu, telling him he would be back in a few minutes to take his order. In the folded, well-worn pages of the bistro’s menu, Mason pretended to have a vested interest in the entrees. But in reality, his real attention wasn’t for pesto and pasta sauce, it was for the what was going to transpire on the other side of the potted plants that separated him from Tessa Rogers.
And soon enough, Mason’s ears heard the arrival of Tessa’s dinner date. He thought he heard a man speaking in a low voice remark, “Ms. Rogers! What a coincidence meeting you here!” Mason strained his ears to hear, as he heard Tessa laugh and sarcastically quip, “Yes—what a coincidence it is.”
After their bizarre greeting, Mason found it increasingly hard to make out their conversation. Along with chair shuffling, Champaign pouring, clinking of glasses, and the sound of silverware that permeated the whole entire restaurant, he found their low voices exceedingly hard to pick up.
At one point he thought he heard Tessa mention, “I’m fully committed—are you ready to go forward?”
Upon hearing this statement Mason mentally cursed, ‘Damn it Tessa—fully committed to what? Brazen acts of terrorism?”’
The man replied to her, but he couldn’t quite make out what he said. He had mentioned something about, “finding the right time” but after that his dialogue was nearly incomprehensible. Just then the waiter came back to his table and was getting ready to ask Mason what he wanted.
As the waiter began his inquiry, “Sir, have you decided—”
Mason wishing to wrap up his time with the waiter as quickly as possible, and get back to his eavesdropping, rattled off, “Give me the lasagna and meatballs.”
The Waiter then attempted to get him to elaborate further, remarking, “Very good sir. Which kind would you be having, the—”
Mason cut him off again, while absent mindedly looking through the ferns at the obscured forms of Tessa and her guest, Mason shouted, “Just regular freaking lasagna. That’s all!”
The waiter taken aback by the roughness with which he was dealt, gasped, “Sir?” Mason looked sternly at the waiter, and said the magic word, “Please.”
The waiter finally took the hint that Mason wanted to be left alone, and turned and went back to the kitchen. As soon as he was gone Mason pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket. Inside were a special optic lens and an earpiece. The optic lens was an adhesive piece of eyeglass that could be fit right into any normal pair of glasses.
Mason pressed the lens to the inside of his eye glasses and the screen imbedded into the lens immediately came to life. Mason could now toggle with his eye to zoom in or out the visual magnification, as seen through the lens.
Next, he dug into the bag and pulled out his special ear piece—a comm link that patched him in to all the other Onyx members. Putting the piece in his ear, he quietly spoke into it, “Attention Kyle—I’m recording now.”
Kyle shouted back over the comm his acknowledgement, “Got it!”
Kyle then informed Mason, “Everything you watch and hear is now being monitored and recorded. With his gear in place Mason tried to play it low key. And after his waiter returned with a piping hot plate of lasagna. He thanked the waiter, and to his amazement, proceeded to give him a 100-dollar tip, before requesting that he leave him alone for the next hour or so.
The waiter was more than happy to take the money, but nevertheless seemed genuinely upset that he was being forced out of the picture so soon, and not even allowed to come back with a complimentary box of breadsticks. At any rate, Mason continued to watch and wait. By virtue of turning his earpiece up he could now hear exactly what Tessa and her mystery guest were up to.
He heard the man remark, “You are our best shot Tessa. I hope that you still believe in the mission?”
He heard Tessa reply, “Yes—yes I do.”
The man then remarked, “Such dedication…”
Tessa slightly laughed, “Well you know what they say about us catholic girls….” The man not seeming to quite get it, asked, “What do they say?”
Tessa apparently wishing to get past the joke, created her
own lame interpretation, “Uh—they uh say that we’re really dedicated.”
The man then abruptly stood up, as he remarked, “Good—good Tessa. I’m certainly glad to hear it.”
Eavesdropping Mason meanwhile, was also glad the man stood up, because now he could get a clear view of him—at least the back of him. He zoomed in his lens right on the back of the man’s head. It was so clear he could see the beads of sweat dripping down his neck.
It was when Mason focused on the guy’s neck however that he received a true revelation. On the neck was a tattoo that seemed to be quite familiar, with the expression, “Con il Sangue Puliamo”. The Italian words translating as “With blood we cleanse”.
It was the freaking motto of the terrorist group, “The Blood”. And not only that, Mason had a pretty good idea of who the tattoo belonged to. It looked just like the tattoo that General Fanelli sported.
Fanelli was in charge of a U.S. base in Italy and Mason had long suspected him to be somehow in cahoots with terrorists, he just had no idea that it ran this deep. Until now he also didn’t have any proof, but Mason hoped that after a few incriminating recordings were made, he would have all he needed to put Fanelli out of business.
Mason hissed, “Damn bastard….”
Nevertheless, he continued to focus and scrutinize on the back of Fanelli’s form hoping to get more confirmation that it was indeed him. Peering through the potted ferns, Mason muttered to himself, “Go ahead—turn around you bastard.”
But to his utter disbelief, the man waved at Tessa and walked forward toward a back exit. He didn’t turn around at all—he simply just walked off in the other direction, with his back turned the whole time. Mason knew that the man had no way of knowing he was sitting there, but it seemed almost like it was done on purpose.
Mason could have hopped up and ran in front of the suspect to confirm it was Fanelli, but to have done so would have completely blown his cover. So, he had no choice but to wait and make due, with the bit of evidence that he had collected. Thinking as much, Mason quietly spoke into his comm link, “You get all that Kyle?”