Asher's War (Asher Benson #3)

by Jason Brant

  Heading for the stairwell, I went up to the next floor to meet Nami.

  The building we’d taken over fit our needs surprisingly well. The place had sat empty for the better part of a year when we’d moved in.

  It had been built less than two years ago for one of those shady security services contractors used by the military. They hired former spec ops badasses to run questionable operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that the government didn’t want to openly align themselves with. The DoD cancelled the contract after a handful of Afghani civilians were murdered during a black op last year.

  Because of its former use, the building had living quarters, office space, a gym, cafeteria, shooting range, and a full-on training center on the top floor. Hell, it even had a helipad on the roof and a secured room on the fourth floor Nami used for her digital forensics crap.

  Nelson had adapted a bit of it for specific purposes, but the fit had worked out quite well. The place was huge for how many people we had working in our operation, but it gave us room to grow.

  Not that I planned on being around for long.

  I pushed through the door leading to the fourth floor and walked down to Nami’s office.

  Secure rooms like hers required a lot of unique specifications during their construction. They used steel studs instead of wood, had small vent openings for heat and air conditioning, and a bunch of other little things that I didn’t know or care about. The designs were meant to make the room secure for storing classified information. That didn’t do a whole lot of good when you had a telepath hanging around.

  I stopped in front of the metal door and grinned down at its heavy-duty combination lock. Only two people, Nami and Nelson, were supposed to know the combination. It used a five-number sequence I’d long ago pried from Nami’s mind. I could get in and out whenever I wanted.

  Instead of putting in the numbers, I pounded on the metal with my palm.

  Having to get up and let one of us in all the time annoyed the hell out of her. Being the wonderful friend that I was, I did my best to get under her skin as much as possible.

  Nami opened the door, glared up at me. “I know your mind-raping ass figured out the combination weeks ago. Stop being a dick and just use it.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re such a douche canoe.” Nami stepped back and waved me past her. “Get in here. I gotta test some shit on that stupid head of yours.”

  6 – Needing Answers

  Allison sat in front of her computer, sipping coffee. The java tasted much better than the beer she would have cradled just a few months ago. Alcohol still tugged at her thoughts most of the day, but the burning desire to sprint to the store for a thirty pack had dwindled to a smoldering coal.

  As she did every morning, she searched the Internet for references to Asher Benson. And just like every other morning, nothing came up.

  The man was a ghost.

  He’d saved a lot of lives in West Virginia, had personally carried Allison from danger, and no one even seemed to know he’d even been there.

  “Who are you?” she whispered at the screen.

  She’d found some older articles about him, but nothing recent.

  The same applied to Detective Lloyd. The cop had protected her as the madness spread throughout the town and yet there was no mention of him in any of the news coverage.

  A veil of secrecy shrouded their involvement and Allison wanted to know why.

  She wanted to personally thank them for saving her life.

  And beyond that, she needed to know what she had seen Asher Benson do to a bench. While a crazy doctor was carving her up like a Thanksgiving turkey, Asher was tied to a bench, struggling against his bonds.

  One second he sat there, fury in his eyes.

  The next, he was standing in front of a destroyed bench, sections of the broken slats still tied to him.

  While he was a big man, the strongest person in the world couldn’t have done that. Something extraordinary had happened, and Allison ached to understand what it was. The secrecy surrounding them only amplified her intense curiosity.

  After a handful of surgeries to deal with her wounds and a horrible infection from the incision in her chest, Allison had left her life in Arthur’s Creek behind. She’d lived a sad, forgotten existence there anyway. The Massacre gave her the push she’d needed to drag herself out of the slump she’d floundered in since the death of her husband.

  She’d moved East, relocating to northern Maryland, and purchased a small house with a monetary settlement from the government. She owned nearly twenty acres of woods full of trails that she ran along every day. The long jogs helped her sort through the emotions, the guilt, and the horrifying memories that hounded her.

  Yet her thoughts always returned to what Asher had done. Everything else that transpired that day had a rational, if horrible, explanation. What he had done to that bench should have been impossible.

  A few days ago, Allison had called the police department that Detective Lloyd worked for. They’d told her that he was on sabbatical. Allison thought that was something only college professors did.

  If she could get a hold of Drew, then she might be able to get a few answers from him. If nothing else, she hoped that he could at least point her in Asher’s direction.

  It was her only play.

  She grabbed her cell and stared down at it for a moment, rotating the device in her hand.

  Not owning a phone had saved her life during The Massacre. She’d purchased one after moving to Maryland even though it seemed a crazy thing to do. Most of the country was petrified of technology at the moment, but Allison was just now embracing it.

  Living through the atrocities that she had suffered had emboldened her. Risk aversion wasn’t a primary concern anymore. Having a smartphone plugged her back into a world that she hadn’t realized she’d missed.

  She brought up previous calls and touched the number for the police department again.

  Held the phone to her ear.

  Listened to it ring a handful of times.

  “Homicide. Detective Johns,” a gruff man answered.

  “I’m looking for Detective Andrew Lloyd.”

  The man grunted. “Is this a joke?”

  Allison’s brow creased. “Excuse me?”

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m not sure what that has to do with—”

  “Are you the woman who called here earlier? You don’t sound quite the same.”

  Confused, Allison waited a moment before saying, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “Detective Lloyd has been away for months, and now I get two women looking for him within a few hours.” He breathed into the phone several times. “I’m handling Detective Lloyd’s caseload while he’s away for a while. What can I help you with?”

  “I really need to speak with him. It’s important. Do you know where I can find him?”

  Detective Johns huffed. “That’s what the other woman said. This isn’t passing the smell test, lady. What’s your name?”

  “Allison Henley. I met Drew in Arthur’s Creek.”

  A pregnant pause settled over the line. After several seconds, Johns said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Detective Lloyd works in Maryland, not West Virginia.”

  Something about the measured way the detective responded to her mention of Arthur’s Creek set off an alarm bell in Allison’s head. He knew something. She sat ramrod straight, her grip on the phone tightening.

  She wanted, needed, information.

  “That’s the official story, all right.” Allison gulped, her throat and mouth suddenly dry. “But I was there with him, and I need to talk to him. If you know how to get through to him, then I’d appreciate it if you would help me out. Otherwise...”

  Allison let the sentence trail off.

  “Otherwise what?” Johns’ tone turned defensive. “I hope you aren’t threatening—”

  “Other
wise, I might have to talk with the press about Drew’s involvement there that day. I’m sure they’d be curious to know why someone who helped save President Thomas’ life was also involved in the Arthur’s Creek Massacre.”

  Allison had no intention of speaking to the press. They’d hounded her for an interview after she’d left the hospital. Only her moving to another state had stopped their constant harassment. But she had to do something to get through to Drew, even if it meant a little fib or two.

  Silence stretched out between them for nearly half a minute. Allison opened her mouth to ask if he was still there when he finally responded.

  “Detective Lloyd is on indefinite leave right now.” The measured manner had returned to Johns’ words. “I’m handling his caseload in the meantime. If you have any concerns, I can answer—”

  Allison ended the call.

  Johns had called her bluff.

  “Damn it.”

  She poured the rest of her coffee out, and then walked out the back door into the brisk morning. Her mind wandered to a destroyed bench in the middle of her old hometown, its broken slats tied to a large man, as she jogged through the forest surrounding her property.

  7 – Testing Shizzle Out

  Nami’s long, black hair was pulled up in her customary pigtails that made her look all of twelve years old. The Naruto T-shirt she wore didn’t help. I wasn’t sure what a Naruto was, didn’t really care either, but I assumed it to be one of those weirdo Japanese cartoons she fawned over.

  “Douche canoe?” I asked.

  Nami walked through a secondary security door, which she never actually used, and stepped into the digital forensic center. “I have two gifts, Gigantor. I can hack computers like a boss, and I can come up with interesting ways to dump on your life. I’m not sure which one I’m better at.”

  The forensic center stretched twenty feet wide and thirty feet long. A dull drone filled the room from the dozens of desktops, servers, and data backups Nami had running at all times.

  Nelson had installed a secondary industrial-level air conditioner just for that room due to the heat baking off all the hardware.

  Nami plopped down in a chair in front of her primary workstation. It had four monitors stretching end to end, each running a series of windows full of computer mumbo jumbo that I didn’t understand. Code scrolled through several of them like a series of film credits.

  A fifth monitor, connected to yet another PC, sat on the edge of her desk with a bizarre anime playing on the screen.

  I nodded at the cartoon. “Glad to see you’re working hard.”

  “Says the guy who was rubbing one out in the gym.”

  I laughed and leaned against her desk. “What do you want, Short Round?”

  Even though we gave each other flak all the time, Nami and I had grown to become the unlikeliest of friends. We had little in common other than our penchants for foul language and hunting down Smith, but we got along like siblings. I thought of her as the annoying sister I never had.

  Nami didn’t have a husband or boyfriend, but she was extremely close with her mother. After she’d moved into our new facility, Nelson had transferred her mother into a type of witness protection program. He feared that Smith would go after our loved ones.

  Melissa, Drew’s girlfriend, had received the same. She didn’t take the news positively, however, and ditched his ass. I didn’t much care for Melissa and watching her skip out on Drew during such a rough time in his life really cemented my feelings.

  I couldn’t blame her, per se, but it still pissed me off. Who would want to stay with a man whose mere proximity put her life in mortal danger? Apparently not Melissa.

  He handled it decently. Better than Nami dealt with the relocation of her mother, anyway.

  “The final signal detectors came in from CAIS. They’ve supposedly cut the lag down to milliseconds.” Nami swiveled around in her chair, her feet dangling almost a full foot from the floor. “I need to test this shizzle out on your noggin.”

  I grunted. “Fine.”

  CAIS was a massive military contractor that specialized in computer and information systems. After Smith’s cell phone signal in West Virginia had sent an entire town into a murderous tizzy, CAIS had been granted a several billion-dollar contract to figure out how to detect and prevent another broadcast from happening again.

  It had taken them several months, and a handful of faulty prototypes, but they’d eventually managed to get a working system in place. Nami had explained how it worked to my dumb ass, but I didn’t fully grasp any of it.

  What could I say? I punched and shot things for a living.

  She’d spewed a lot of buzzwords like end-to-end encryption and microchips, which didn’t mean a whole lot to me. Basically, they were soldering some kind of system into cell phone towers that would automatically scan any outgoing calls or data for the madness signal. If the call was clear, everything would work normally. At least, I thought so. Hell, I didn’t know. I drank beer and lifted weights during my free time. Tinkering with nerdy stuff wasn't even on my radar.

  The first prototypes had introduced a significant delay into the system and made phone calls a garbled mess full of people talking over one another. Using the Internet was almost impossible. Nami couldn’t watch her nonsense cartoons on her phone without wanting to throw it across the room.

  “You have that constipated look on your face again,” Nami said, peering back at me over her shoulder. “Thinking really does hurt you, doesn’t it?”

  “What, exactly, keeps me from twisting you up like a pretzel and depositing you in this trash can?” I tapped the receptacle beside her desk with the front of my shoe.

  “My cuteness. That and the fact that I’d whoop your big ass.” She grabbed a set of headphones from under the rank of monitors and handed them to me. “Put these on like a good boy.”

  I snatched them from her. “If anyone ever listened to the way we talked to each other, they would think we were mortal enemies.”

  “Who says we aren’t?”

  “The fact that you’re still alive is a good indicator.” I pulled the headphones down over my ears and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Nami didn’t trust CAIS to get the job done right, so she had Nelson secure her each version of the prototypes for testing. And by testing, I mean she would blast a version of the signal at me.

  We’d learned I was immune to the insanity-inducing effects of the signal, much in the same way that another telepath couldn’t read my mind. That was great and all, but it gave Nami a reason to use me as a guinea pig. Even still, she always got nervous that the signal would work on me one of those times, and I would actually follow through on my pretzel-twisting threats.

  Her fingers blurred across her keyboard for a second before she looked back at me. “Ready?”

  “That’s what a thumbs-up means.”

  “Fair warning, Gigantor,” Nami said, pointing up at my face. “If you go all psycho on me, I’ll have to put you down.”

  “I’m quaking in my boots. Get it over with.”

  She grabbed another headset with a microphone attached and slipped it on.

  Took the computer’s mouse in her hand.

  A series of small clicks came through my headphones. I paused, listening. Even though I knew that nothing would happen to me if the system failed, the idea of the madness signal blasting into my ears always made me anxious.

  Nami pushed the microphone in front of her face closer to her mouth. “Goddess to shitbird, Goddess to shitbird. Do you read me, shitbird?”

  My body went rigid.

  I stared straight ahead.

  Mouth fell slack.

  “Respond, shitbird.” Nami glanced back at me. “Shitbi—?” She gaped up at my unresponsive face. “Ashley?”

  I didn’t respond, just stared at the wall above her monitors.

  “Balls!” Nami tore the headset off and jumped from her chair with the nimbleness of a drunk. Agility wasn’t an attribute of hers. Sh
e hissed a long stream of curses, the words blurring together. “Fuckfuckfuckfuck!”

  My hand shot out, grabbed hold of her tiny wrist.

  She tried to tear out of my vice-like grip.

  My eyes cut down to hers, drilled into them.

  Panic lit across her face.

  Then I smiled. “So much for putting me down.”

  Nami stared at me for a full second, and then deflated, slumping against the wall. “You son of a bitch. I think I just unloaded in my pants.”

  “Charming.” I took the headset off. “I didn’t notice any lag in the signal that time. I think they’ve got it down.”

  “To hell with the signal. My heart is jackhammering like a Chippendale on ladies’ night.” Nami took two shaky steps back to her chair and hopped into it. Putting her forehead on the desk, she mumbled, “Gods, I hate you.”

  I almost felt bad for scaring her so much.

  Almost.

  It was too funny.

  “Just remember that the next time you feel like giving me ‘tude.” I grabbed another chair from the desk adjacent to hers and pulled it over, sat down. “Besides, you took on Murdock—you could handle me, no problem.”

  Nami lifted her head. A sticky note stuck to her forehead. “You killed Murdock, not me.”

  “Only because you brought that big-ass pistol back for me to use.”

  “That’s true.” She pulled the square piece of paper from her face and dropped it into the trash. “I am pretty awesome.”

  We sat in silence for a moment, both focused on the sticky note in the garbage can. I felt awkward. There was rarely a moment when we weren’t trashing each other.

  “Ashley—” Nami paused, then closed her mouth. She stayed quiet for a moment. “How do you get those images out of your head?”

  Even though she hadn’t come out and said it, we both knew she meant the things we’d seen in that mountain town not so long ago.

  “I don’t know that you can.” I thought about Barker, a soldier who had died while under my command. “I think you just learn to live with it.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “It does.”