by Alex Howell
Raina, with her head still hurting from the beating Tessa had given her earlier, groaned, “Why are you doing this?”
Frowning, Tessa replied, “Why is it whenever someone does something completely evil and uncalled for, the first thing a person asks is, “Why are you doing this?”
A smile flitting across her face, Tessa laughed, “Why am I doing this? Because I’m freaking evil that’s why.”
Something about her answer just didn’t sit right with Raina. In all of her years of working with terrorists, extremists and even out and out criminals, she had never once met anyone who claimed to be evil. Even though most others would certainly consider these miscreants evil—the perpetrator usually viewed themselves as simply being misunderstood.
She had known many dangerous and violent assailants with warped beliefs they used to justify their aggression, but she never knew someone to openly profess themselves as being evil. Usually no matter what the atrocity was committed, most had a way of rationalizing their misdeeds. Whether the reason for the perpetrator’s actions were political, religious, or even personal animosity, if given enough time, even the most heinous of assailants will give you an earful as to why they do the things they do.
They might blame society, they might rail against the system, blame the church, or even blame their parents—but no one had ever simply declared that they were evil incarnate. Where was Tessa getting this form? Looking at Tessa’s mask of a face, Raina figured that there was either something seriously wrong with Tessa or she just wasn’t being truthful with her motives. No one just wakes up one day and says, “Hey world—I’m going to be evil!” There had to be something else to it than that.
A part of her, knowing that her and Mason used to be kind of close, wondered if this was all somehow borne out of jealousy of her and his relationship. Raina seeking to somehow broker the topic, then proceeded to ask, “Okay Tessa…. I have a better question for you.”
Tessa becoming interested in what she might have to say, raised an eyebrow, and sarcastically quipped, “Alright sweetheart—what would you like to know?”
Raina, trying to control the emotions that welled up within her, steadied her nerves as she asked, “You’ve known Mason for quite some time, right?”
This provoked a thoughtful expression on Tessa’s face that seemed to be much different from facial expressions that had otherwise been contorted in the most cynical of grins. Tessa answered, “Yes… I have known Mason since I first joined the SEALs about a couple decades ago.”
Raina trying to think of the best way to approach her inquiry without unnecessarily setting her captor off, remarked, “Mason told me that the two of you have been through a lot together.”
Tessa’s expression now softened considerably, “Oh?” she asked.
Raina nodded, “Yes, he told me that on one occasion he saved your life.”
Tessa, trying to downplay that day in a back alley in Iraq, scoffed, “Well—if he had given me just a little longer, I could have fought my way out myself.”
Raina refused to accept this twisted version of events however as she insisted, “No—that’s not what Mason told me. He said that you were shot in the leg and surrounded. If it wasn’t for him breaking through you wouldn’t have gotten out of there alive.”
Tessa, seemingly not wanting to hear the truth, literally put her hands to her ears, as she shouted, “Why are you telling me this stuff?”
Raina desperately seeking a way to get through to Tessa, continued, “Because I know deep down you know what you are doing is wrong!”
Tessa seemingly regaining her composure dropped her hands from her head and coolly remarked, “Do you?”
As Raina’s eyes widened, Tessa then pulled a gun out of her pocket and aimed it at Raina’s stomach. Putting her finger on the trigger, Tessa suggested, “But who is to say what’s wrong or right? It’s really all relativistic isn’t it?”
Raina, unable to read Tessa’s erratic disposition began to grow genuinely concerned as she asked, “What are you doing?”
Tessa then remarked, “You’re right. I did always have a soft spot for Mason.”
She seemed lost in thought for a moment before her eyes narrowed and she sneered, “And you know what? Maybe I just don’t want him to be taking up with a bitch like you! Say goodnight Raina!”
Tessa began to pull back on the trigger as Raina shrieked, “Tessa—wait!”
Her protests fell on deaf ears however, as Tessa pulled the trigger. But rather than a bullet, a rubber pellet came rocketing out slamming into Raina’s stomach with a force equivalent to what you might find in a paint ball gun.
It wasn’t enough to cause serious injury but it would leave a painful welt all the same. Raina immediately doubled over and cried out, “Agh!!”
But the sting of the pellet wasn’t the only thing she had to worry about. Because as soon as the rubber ball made impact with Raina it released a noxious gas that quickly filled up the cage that she was confined in.
Through the noxious gas Raina choked, “What—what is this.”
Tessa stepping back and holding her breath lest she breathe in the fumes informed her, “Just a bit of knock out gas.”
Raina fell to her knees and grabbed the bars with her hands.
As Tessa turned her back and began walking in the other direction, with one last effort to garner some compassion from her captor, Raina cried out, “Wait!”
Tessa’s callous reply said it all however, “Sorry bitch. You better just take a nap for a bit. I’ve got things to do.”
15
Sorting Through the Chaos
After Benton’s invitation, Mason rocketed back down the highway to head for DC. But the vibration of his cellphone gave him pause when he picked it up to see the now very much hated caller ID of “Hawkeye” pop up on his phone. Tessa had just texted him. A part of him didn’t even want to look at the message, but she was the only one that knew Raina’s whereabouts, and that was more than enough of a bargaining chip to give her firm control of the situation.
As such, Mason immediately grabbed the phone and opened up his inbox. Here he found a message that seemed to start out friendly before turning downright nasty. It was from his old friend turned bitter antagonist Tessa Rogers—otherwise known as “Hawkeye”.
It read, “Hey Mason, just wanted to check on you to see how you are doing. I know you must be tired and in need of a place to sleep. But please keep in mind that I have eyes and ears watching you all over the place. So, if you think that I am going to lose your trail you are gravely mistaken. I know the moves you make before you even make them.”
Reading these words, Mason thought to himself in disgust, ‘Such arrogance. Tessa didn’t spout this kind of hubris in the past.’
Mason putting his phone back down decided not to respond to the text, but he roiled the words around in his brain nevertheless. He couldn’t help but think that Tessa had agents everywhere. How else was it that she could figure out his location so quickly?
He now realized that she must have people literally watching his every move—watching everything he does. Mason thought that he was tracking her, when all the while she was tracking him. The cat had most certainly become the mouse. ‘But why this cat and mouse game in the first place?’
Mason thought to himself. ‘What’s the point? Was she just toying with him before she moved in to take him out?’
These were the dark thoughts that crowded Mason’s tortured psyche as he considered the possibilities. He really didn’t know how much of Tessa’s claims of surveillance were hubris and how much of it was reality. Seeking to shake any bogies off of his trail however, he found himself taking exit ramp after exit ramp, going around in literal circles.
Only when he was absolutely certain that no one was following him did Mason finally relax enough to head on over to Benton’s condo in DC. When Mason arrived in front of Benton’s pad, True to Matt’s word he was able to pull right into his garage, shut the door and under
the cover of night, there was no one the wiser. If anyone happened to notice the car pull in at all, for all they knew it was Mathew Benton returning from a long trip, as had often been the case.
Upon entering Benton’s condo, he headed straight for the couch where Benton had a laptop already open and connected to the Wi Fi. Mason pulled up a google search toolbar and began vigorously typing, “Known Catholic Extremists”.
Upon looking at the results, Mason was surprised to learn that over the past decade the Catholic Church had moved decidedly to the right. At one point in time, the Catholic Church had a more liberal bent on many issues, but as is often the case the pendulum had swung in the other direction.
It seemed that much of this shift had occurred around the year 2019 when a former political operative from the United States by the name of Steve Gannon began to actively stir up rightist sentiment in Catholic enclaves in Europe. Railing against globalism, Gannon had used his own personal resources to create Catholic schools of indoctrination in which nationalism and personal piety were held above the more global framework that had previously been taking shape.
At first underestimated, the old, slightly obese, craggy faced Gannon became a tremendous thorn in the side of progressive Catholics. And it was his efforts that extremists latched onto to infuse a more radical strain of Catholicism in the Church. As a result, soon young hardliners identified with sword wielding Crusaders and gun toting Jesuits more than they did the sermon on the mount.
Although all the ingredients for the creation of these irrational ideologues had been in place for some time. The world was still caught quite off guard by these developments. As Mason would recall, the Catholic threat seemed to come completely out of left field. He had spent most of his career fighting Islamic extremists, he never imagined that a Christian terrorist group would arise to such a level.
But in recent years, Islamic extremism was actually on the decline. Many sighted the so called “Arab Atheist Awakening” that began in 2025 as playing a major role. Much of the world didn’t know it, but even while religious terror groups like Al-Qaida and ISIS were springing from the fertile crescent, there was a growing youth culture of Atheism afoot. These youngsters who had secretly rejected the religion of their forefathers looked at the Quran as something akin to fairytales, and saw no reason for it to rule their lives as it did the for their ancestors.
But in an environment in which stating your “non-belief” in God could get you burned at the Muslim equivalent of the stake, these young atheists remained quiet. All the while they increasingly viewed Islam and all of its trappings as utterly absurd, longing for a society based upon science, technology, and progressive values—not Sharia law.
This silent majority of the youth culture in many Arab states remained unknown by the wider world. But by the late 2020’s the new generation of Arab atheists were ready to finally speak their minds. The watershed moment came when in Saudi Arabia, due to mounting pressure, the Saudi Royal Family was forced to make massive reforms significantly curtailing their power, and imbuing the so-called “Constituent Assembly of Saudi Arabia” with the actual power to create laws and effectively represent the Saudi people.
In similar fashion to Britain, the Saudi King took a back seat to the Saudi version of Parliament. In this new quasi democracy that took shape, it wasn’t until the Saudi Royal family was forced into the backseat, that the new generation of Arab thought began to take root. For the first time since Muhammad seized control of Mecca and Medina in 630 A.D., this new generation was able to effectively separate religion from their own personal identity.
They were able to fully take pride in speaking Arabic, eating Arabic food, and other facets of Arabic/Mideastern culture, without embracing Islam. The new crowd was able to effectively posit the question, “If Europeans do not have to automatically identify as Christians then why is it that us Arabs/Mideasterners have to automatically identify as Muslims?”
And so it was that just as Islam initially sprang from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula in the first place, as the Arab Atheist movement took root, a new generation all across the Mideast rose up, able to cast down Islam, and proudly proclaim their separation from religion without fear of persecution for the first time in over a thousand years. And with this newfound freedom, the popularity of extremist groups died down considerably.
And for those who did choose to remain in their faith, they felt compelled to adopt much more moderate—some would even say liberal—views as a result. So, for someone like Mason that grew up in the United States in the 911 years when the world was awash with Islamic terror, the idea that Christian based terror would surpass it, was an unexpected development. And now that these Christian extremists seemed poised to become the greatest threat and challenge to the world order, from the 2030’s onward—it was indeed quite a surprising shift in fate.
As fascinating as this tremendous turn around might have been however, on a more personal level, Mason had much more pressing matters to be concerned with. He had to figure out just how it was that his former friend and colleague Tessa Rogers had herself become entangled with Christian extremists.
They say that there are no atheists in fox holes, but even in the heat of battle, Mason had never known Tessa to be particularly religious. So how in the world did she come to be brainwashed by that group of Catholic zealots who called themselves “The Blood”? Mason knew that she had long been working on cases involving these radicals. He almost wondered if she had become so engrossed in the work that she conducted, that she herself started believing their propaganda.
It was just so hard to fathom, how she could so completely turn against him and strike out in such an insidious manner. She didn’t even know Raina, yet she was ready and willing to inflict harm upon her if it managed to deal damage to Mason. Unable to handle his own chaotic thoughts on the matter any longer, Mason closed his browser, turned away from the laptop and activated the comm link on his earpiece.
Kyle answered, “Mason—we’ve been waiting for you. Are you settled in?”
Without naming the location of where Mason was “settled in” at, Kyle was trying to make sure that Mason was secure enough to conduct business. Mason confirmed, “Yeah Kyle, I’m settled in.”
Mason tried to steal his nerves, but his voice cracked all the same as he asked, “Now—let’s try to find Raina.”
Kyle nodded in agreement, “Yes sir. Let’s get started.”
After a moment of looking through the latest data on his end, Kyle informed him, “Well—unfortunately as far as tracking her GPS… The phone was turned off a long time ago, and the last ping we got was somewhere in Georgetown, DC.”
Mason growled, “At the freaking flea market, those creeps must have turned her phone off as soon as they grabbed her.”
Kyle nodded, “Yep—I figured as much too.” Kyle then conceded; without GPS we’ll just have to use good old-fashioned detective work to find her.”
Mason agreed, “I’ll just have to keep my ear on the wall and my nose to the ground until I find something—but mark my words, I will find her.”
16
Mason’s Unlikely Advocate
INSIDE A BACK ROOM IN THE BACK OF AN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE.
Sitting at a conference table, in a scene that looked like it was something straight out of “Dr. Strangelove”. A nefarious cast of characters were meeting. And among them were Tessa Rogers and General Fanelli. Fanelli was standing over his subordinates—various leaders of terror cells near and far—extolling them, “It’s within our grasp. We have to keep pushing forward until we meet our destiny!”
The General then raised his fist in the air before opening his hand as if clasping a chalice. As the assembled group members watched in rapt anticipation, Fanelli exclaimed, “By blood we cleanse!” before turning his cupped hand upside down to simulate the emptying of its contents.
This was the cue for everyone else in the room to shout back in confirmation, “By blood we cleanse! By blood we cleans
e!” This was the radical’s calling card and rallying call, and with that the meeting was dismissed.
As all of the terrorists and low lives in the room got up from the table and walked out, Tessa couldn’t help but laugh to herself at how much they resembled characters from a bad James Bond movie. All of them assembling together to speak with General Fanelli—Dr. Evil himself. And now that they were gone, Tessa had to deliver news to the General that she knew would bring all of his ire and animosity down upon her.
Attempting to approach the matter with the mad man as gently as possible, just as Fanelli was getting ready to get up and depart, she stopped him, “General I have some information that you might be interested in.”
Fanelli paused, and sat back down in the chair as he inquired, “Really?”
Tessa nodded, “Yeah, I think there are some things about Mason that you should know about.”
The General frowned at the very mention, as he openly admitted, “I hate that guy….”
Tessa not quite able to agree, simply nodded, “Yeah…”
Before she continued, “Well about him… I was able to track his every movement as of late… But just recently he managed to evade detection…”
The General raised an eyebrow, “Evade detection?”
The General then finished her explanation for her, “So you lost him?”
Tessa sensing his wrath, attempted to backpedal, “Well—I didn’t exactly lose him…. He was just able to temporarily shake us off his trail…”
General Fanelli slammed his fist on the table as he erupted, “Do you speak English? You just said that were shaken off his trail. That means you lost him! There is no other way to say it!”
Tessa protested, “Well—at any rate, we know that he is in the general DC area, he couldn’t have gotten far!”