by Alex Howell
The Onyx team leader Marshal Oliver who frequently admonished them for being too heavy handed with their charges would no doubt throw a complete conniption fit—but they couldn’t just sit and wait for the terrorists to strike back either. Something had to be done all the same.
14
Finding Answers in Unlikely Places
MOMENTS LATER, IN KYLE’S CAR, LEAVING DOWNTOWN MARYLAND.
As Kyle Garrison and Clara Walker patiently waited for the red light to turn green, for the moment nothing but awkward silence permeated the vehicle. After their encounter with a jumbotron at the ballpark they were both hopelessly embarrassed. In the aftermath, Kyle felt so flustered that he was quite thankful for the convenience of a self-driving car.
In his extreme agitation he felt much more comfortable burying his head in the latest status reports for Onyx on his tablet than actually having to look up over the steering wheel and face the world—or even more daunting at the moment, engage Clara Walker in conversation.
Both Kyle and Clara’s solitude was interrupted however, when they were startled to hear someone knocking on the windshield of the car. For the ride, Kyle had switched on the privacy filters that turned all windows completely black. The feature was similar to the old concept of tinted windows except that it not only tinted the windows from the outside, but also the inside.
Since the advent of self-driving cars, motorists had come to realize that having to look out the window had suddenly become optional. And so just like someone drawing the blinds in their home, it soon became in vogue to have a means to shut out the outside world from their vehicle. They called it “driving dark”.
But being in the dark like this meant that someone could come right up to your vehicle and you wouldn’t even know it—as was now apparently the case as they heard someone methodically knocking on the windshield while they were stuck in traffic.
To see what was going on Kyle immediately shouted out the voice command to his car’s AI, “Okay car—window tint off!” And with that the black film covering all the glass dissolved in an instant and Kyle and Clara were startled to see a bedraggled, filthy, bearded man with long matted hair pouring a cup of water onto the windshield. Kyle exclaimed, “What the heck is this?”
The crazed man then made eye contact with Clara, as she hissed, “Oh my God who is this guy?”
It was then that Kyle noticed the strange cleaning utensil in the guy’s hand and found himself exclaiming, “Oh shit! He has a freaking squeegee!”
And then sure enough, the man finished pouring his cup of water on the windshield before vigorously rubbing his squeegee brush across the glass. Squeegee guys used to be quite common in NYC in the late 20th and early 21st Century before various crackdowns on vagrancy and panhandling led to the trend dying down.
But as it turns out, you can’t keep a good squeegee man down. And just like plaid, they seem to just keep coming back in style. Despite all the modern conveniences that self-driving cars and the internet of things could provide, a man with a squeegee, if he were aggressive enough could still make his rounds.
And now Baltimore, Maryland was the latest to be in the grip of the phenomenon. Getting a shake down from a squeegee guy usually went a little something like this; an individual who was usually homeless, and almost always down on their luck, would approach a car with a squeegee with the intention of strong arming a few bucks out of passerby.
The basic MO of the squeegee guy was always the same, they would wait to find a car stuck in traffic, run up on it, douse it with water and scrub the window with a squeegee brush. For this unsolicited effort they would then demand a donation.
If you refused to pay you could expect to be cussed out—or worse. Clara who had never heard of such a thing, stared in amazement at the man vigorously scrubbing the windshield as she gasped, “What is he doing?”
Thoroughly disgusted, Kyle muttered, “Exacting tribute.”
Clara questioned, “Exacting tribute?”
Kyle nodded, “Yep—for having the audacity to drive through a public street the squeegee guy has come to collect.”
As the man grinned a line of yellow and green teeth at them through the glass, Clara wished that Kyle had kept the windows darkened. Over the squeaking of the man’s back and forth squeegee brush strokes on the glass, Kyle tried to explain, “These guys go around ambushing people, randomly cleaning windshields no one asked them to clean—and then demand money from you!”
Looking at the maniac working their windshield as if he were about to polish a hole through it, Clara was amazed, “What?!”
She then felt indignant, as she challenged, “This is ridiculous! You’re not actually going to pay him, are you?!”
Kyle looking around at the traffic that had him completely blocked in and at the mercy of the squeegee guy grew quiet. Kyle Garrison was not a fighter, and he hated confrontation—yet this is precisely what such a situation called for.
Growing nervous from his silence, Clara asked, “Kyle? Kyle?! What are you going to do?”
After he didn’t respond, Clara reached to roll down her window as she muttered, “This is so stupid, I’m going to tell that guy off.”
Kyle slamming down on the controls, immediately locked her window and door so she couldn’t open them as he screamed, “Are you nuts?! Don’t talk to him! Don’t even look at him!”
Clara then glared at Kyle, “Open this door! If you don’t get this guy off our ass—then I will!”
After being thoroughly chided by Clara for his timidity, something rose up within Kyle, and unlike his usual meek and mild nature, he suddenly grew determined to fight back. Taking a deep breath, he glanced up at the squeegee man who appeared to be finishing up his work.
He then looked over to Clara and told her, “Alright Clara, don’t worry—I’ll handle this.” Clara was amazed at his renewed sense of confidence as she softly replied, “Okay…”
Kyle then motioned for the squeegee guy to come over to his window. The guy thinking that he was about to get paid, grinned at them, displaying his full set of green and yellow teeth. Kyle then rolled his window down, made eye contact with the man and flatly told him, “I’m not paying for that.”
The man’s face immediately contorted with rage as he went into an insane tirade, “Hey! What the hell you think this is? You think I work for free?! I cleaned your freaking window! I’ve been busting my butt all day with a squeegee. I need to eat! Give me some money damn you! Give me some money!”
Kyle steadying his nerves, was resolute however, as he told him, “I didn’t ask you to clean my window. And I’m not paying for it!”
The man then put his hands on the driver’s door and like an enraged bear on steroids began violently shaking the vehicle back and forth. The amazing thing about this whole spectacle was that it was taking place in broad daylight in a highly trafficked area with people all around.
There was bumper to bumper traffic and other motorists had to have seen what was going on. Yet no one was willing to lift a finger in their defense. Buried in their tablets and personal conversations, the passerby was probably just thankful that it wasn’t them that was at the receiving end of such harassment.
As the squeegee man started shaking the car, Clara cried out in desperation, “Kyle! Do something!”
The guy was now rocking the vehicle so bad it seemed as if it were about to flip over. And in the few moments the man took a break from rocking the car, he took the time to scream such endearing things as, “You don’t know where I been! You don’t know where I was cuz! I’m not messing around! I just got out of prison—I’ll beat both you and your girlfriend’s ass!”
‘Just got out of prison?’ Kyle thought to himself. He figured he must have been yet another recipient of one of President Verne Landers get out of jail free cards. Nevertheless, Kyle knew that things were indeed getting desperate at this point, and something had to be done before someone got hurt. Kyle fortunately had an ace up his sleeve.
And
as Clara screamed, “Kyle do something!” he put his plan into action. Pressing the side of his glasses, a thin long needle that was concealed in the frame shot out, sailed right through the crack in Kyle’s rolled down window, and pierced the man’s shoulder as he screamed, “Aghgh!!”
The needle only went about a centimeter deep—just enough to stick out of the guy like the quill of a porcupine. But it wasn’t the piercing that was the main purpose of the device, it was the thousands of volts of electricity that immediately followed. The device which was basically a high-tech version of a taser gun had been designed by both Kyle and the Onyx weapons expert Chris Bradley.
The device had proven quite successful in the past when the group was up against terrorists in situations in which other means of subduing them was not possible. The voltage was just enough to knock out the target without doing any lasting damage. But even though it wasn’t fatal, it was most certainly painful and for the outside observer, incredibly funny to watch.
Kyle was not usually one to derive sadistic pleasure from the suffering of others but as the previously aggressive squeegee guy staggered backwards and with squeegee still in hand began shaking just as violently as he had been shaking Kyle’s car—he couldn’t help but laugh. Clara watched as the man fell back right into the car next to them whose passengers had been trying so hard to ignore the whole thing to begin with.
‘Divine justice…’ Kyle thought to himself with relish. These fellow motorists had been unwilling to lift a finger to help and now they had an electrified squeegee guy, shaking, quivering, and twitching all over their vehicle. In light of this horrific scene, Clara became concerned for the man as she shouted to Kyle, “Stop! You’re hurting him! Shut it off!”
Kyle not seeming to sympathize, replied, ‘It’s completely non-lethal. He’ll be alright.”
Clara was insistent, “That’s enough Kyle! Shut it off!”
Hitting the switch on the frame of his glasses once again, Kyle quickly complied, as he acquiesced, “Oh alright…”
As the electrical current subsided, the man now laying directly on the neighboring car’s passenger window—to the horror of the occupants—could be heard, groaning, “Oh shit… what did you do that for man? I was just trying to squeegee! I didn’t mean no harm!”
The man then managed to stand himself up and looking at Kyle as if he were the devil himself made the sign of the cross as he staggered away to the other side of the street. As if right on time, the flow of traffic then began moving once again, and Kyle’s car automatically entered the stream to send them onto the freeway and back to Clara’s father’s house.
MEANWHILE, JUST OUTSIDE THE TERRORIST’S SAFEHOUSE IN DC
Mason Walker and Matthew Benton herded the terror suspects in their custody into the living room of the home where they kept them under watch until the SWAT team Marshal Oliver had called up, could arrive to take them away.
Mason seeing one of the suspects struggling with his restraints offered sarcastically, “You don’t like that? Well too bad—you are going to have to get used to it soon enough—in prison.”
It was the same guy that Mason himself had thoroughly pummeled previously; the man named Kareem.
Taking umbrage at Mason’s remarks, he haughtily snapped back, “So what—we got our get out of jail free card already lined up. Don’t you worry about that.”
Mason not sure if the guy was bluffing him or not, inquired, “Get out of jail free card? What the hell are you talking about?”
Kareem nodded, “That’s right—they can’t keep us.”
The man then glared menacingly at Mason as he coldly informed him, “And as soon as we get out, we’re coming after you and your family. You better believe it.”
It was times like this that Mason wished he could throw down the bonds of civil society, and instead of idly standing by while a cuffed terrorist openly threatened his family, he wished he could take matters into his own hands.
As he tried to push these dark thoughts to the side however, he simply glared at the terrorists and informed them, “Fat chance buddy! You are all going to die in prison!”
Right as Mason uttered these words, a few SWAT team members stormed into the room. Motioning toward the terrorists, Mason addressed the SWAT personnel as if he were their ad hoc commander, as he ordered, “Take them away!”
15
Living in a World of Pain
After the SWAT guys hustled the bums outside, Mason and Matt followed them back out the door. Now that Mason had these cretins in his sights, he wasn’t about to let them go. As Mason watched, one of the detained suspects looked up and made eye contact with him while being placed in the SWAT van.
It was Kareem. He looked up just in time to see Mason as he growled, “You’re going to regret this!”
As the SWAT guy tried to shove him into the car, Mason and Matt both sidled over to him as Mason told the guy, “Alright let me talk to this jerk a minute.”
The SWAT officer seemed a bit confused as he asked “Are you sure?”
Mason nodded, “Yeah I’m sure.”
The guy then unceremoniously yanked the suspect back out of the car and announced, “He’s all yours. Just put him back when you are done!”
The suspect not much appreciating being treated like some kind of object to be cast aside and put back into the cupboard after use, snarled, “Asshole!”
The SWAT officer perhaps with a bit of a sadistic streak, grinned at the man’s outrage and giving him a sarcastic thumbs up. He then turned and took a seat in the air-conditioned cab of the vehicle, waiting for Mason’s go ahead to resume the apprehension process, and haul the suspects off to jail.
Kareem now left to sit awkwardly on the curb, as Mason stood over him, was still full of rage, muttering under his breath, “Freaking pig—I’ll kill him. I’ll kill you all.”
Mason knew that besides threats and physical interrogation, the best way to get a suspect like this to talk, was to appear to sympathize with their pain. Mason seeing an opening, tried the latter as he calmly related to the suspect, “You don’t like cops much huh?”
Kareem scoffed, “Well… you see how they treat me—why wouldn’t I?”
Mason wasn’t going to sympathize enough to be illogical however, as he reminded the terror suspect, “He’s just doing his job.”
The man then surprised Mason by suggesting, “And I’m just doing mine as well.”
Mason raised an eyebrow, “What? Kidnapping and holding folks for ransom is your job?”
The man lowered his gaze as he muttered, “Desperate times call for desperate actions, don’t they?”
At which Mathew Benton standing nearby remarked, “I don’t care how desperate you are—none of it could justify hurting innocent people.”
The only response that came from Kareem however, was a belligerent one, as he howled, “Go to hell!!”
Mathew thinking of his own family that had been targeted and senseless murdered by terrorists years ago, then came back with a somber, “I’m already there.”
Unbeknownst to Matt, Kareem knew all about what had happened to his family, in fact he was linked to the extremists that had murdered them. And as such a knowing look crossed Kareem’s face as he remarked, “I know.”
MEANWHILE, MOMENTS LATER INSDE THE HOUSE
While Mason remained outside questioning Kareem, all of the other Onyx team members regrouped in the living room of the house. Still seated on the couch was the traumatized family members who for the moment—refused to leave the home. This was all due to the fact that the mother of the children was under the impression that her very rescue would put her son who was said to be in the custody of a different terror group—in danger.
It was a bitter sweet victory. It was rather strange that instead of being thankful for the aid, this family was actually upset at the intrusion. And the mother told Raina as much as she complained, “Look, I don’t know who you guys are or who sent you down here—but you are not helping matters.”<
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Raina attempted to console the woman, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but I can assure you that we are going to do everything that we can to make sure that your son is returned safely.”
The woman didn’t believe it however and as she considered the predicament she was in; the tears began to flow. Putting her hands to her face to hide her despair, she sobbed, “My son! Oh—my son! I was supposed to protect him and they ripped him right out of my arms.”
Trying to get some more details about what actually happened, Raina asked the woman, “Ma’am I’m sorry to make you talk about something so obviously painful, but we need to know exactly what happened. You say that they ripped your son right out of your arms? Exactly what happened?”
The woman then took a ragged breath, before replying, “I was sitting right here on this couch, at the mercy of those…”
She couldn’t hardly find the words for the perpetrators she so despised, until she finally settled on a vengeful and bitter sounding, “…those men! Those men were harassing me right in front of my children!”
Her eyes filling with a mixture of tears and rage, she remarked, “If my husband were there… He would have made short work of them….….”
She then broke into tears again, as she recalled, “But my son… as little as he is…Without his dad around, he decided to be my defender.”
Raina greatly moved at the thought of a small child defending his mother asked, “Please… go on.”
Taking a deep breath, she continued, “They were pulling my hair, slapping me, yelling—you know, about the typical treatment that I have endured the whole time they’ve had me here—and my son suddenly jumped up and started kicking the guy.”
David hearing as much, remarked, “I like your son already…”
The woman nodded, “As small as he was… the kicks my son dished out actually nearly caused the guy to fall down as he kicked the man’s legs out from underneath him…”