“I could stay. Help you to help those others. I owe you that.”
Finn glanced quickly over to Mac before his eyes returned to the road in front of him.
“I appreciate the offer Mac. You’re needed up in Alaska though, and if you owe anyone, it’s Alexander Meyer. He was the one who really made this happen. Without him, you’d still be rotting away inside of Allenwood.”
The sedan slowed slightly and then turned onto another side road, its speed once again picking up as Finn pressed down on the accelerator pedal. Mac said nothing as the car continued speeding toward whatever destination the attorney was taking him to.
The ride reminded Mac of his time with Jack Thompson in the passenger seat of a black Hummer as it catapulted down the desert roads of that cursed city.
Drive it like I stole it, Mac!
Jack’s life bled out in the front seat of that same Hummer, just a few miles outside the Benina Airport. And then Minnick was gone, and finally Benny, leaving only Mac as the sole survivor of that failed Benghazi mission.
Mac wondered if a new start in Alaska might be just what he needed at this point. He had started the mission in Benghazi still a relatively young man. Today, well into his fifties, having spent several years in prison and put there by a government he once served, he felt more than a little tired and used up. Maybe helping out others like him, people unwilling to bend to the will of this new global police state, was just the thing he needed to give his life a sense of purpose.
A small, homemade airport runway revealed itself as the sedan turned another corner in the road. It was no more than a section of low cut grass a few hundred yards long, extending from the front of a large red barn. Finn’s right hand pointed toward the barn as he continued speeding toward it.
“There – we have a plane waiting for you.”
Mac’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“You’re flying me out of here? All the way to Alaska?”
Finn Neeson nodded as he parked the car alongside the barn.
“Yeah – now hurry Mac. I want you in the air and on your way as fast as possible.”
Mac followed the attorney inside the large, red painted structure, where he found a beautiful Cessna Citation X jet parked inside.
“That’s your ticket to Alaska Mac. You’ll be flying at nearly Mach 1 speeds, and at fifty thousand feet. We’ll have you landing in a place that looks a lot like this just outside Juneau in about three hours.”
Mac shook his head, visibly impressed.
“Three hours? From here to Juneau? I have got to meet this Mr. Meyer of yours. I assume this is his?”
Finn Neeson nodded.
“Yes, his personal jet. He has landing strips like this located throughout the world. Places he can land and take off without having to deal with the authorities. Not supposed to be doing that of course, but, well, you’ll find out soon enough Alexander Meyer is a man who has been doing it his way for a very long time.
“Ok Mac, you better get going. There’s a set of clothes inside there you can change into, a winter jacket, boots – you need to dress for the Alaskan weather. When you land in Juneau you’ll be meeting a man named Yoti. He’ll be the one to take you to Mr. Meyer’s location up there.”
Mac paused in front of the jet’s boarding steps to look back at the attorney.
“Wait…who is flying this thing?”
“Hurry up Mr. Walker, I have a schedule to keep.”
Mac’s face broke into a wide smile as he heard the familiar and much missed voice of Ella Lerner call from inside the cockpit. Finn watched Mac’s grateful smile and answered it with a smile of his own.
“She’s a talented woman Mac, and demanded she be the one to fly you to Alaska.”
Before boarding the jet, Mac walked back to Finn Neeson with his right hand extended, taking the attorney’s hand and shaking it firmly several times as he looked into the eyes of the man who had done so much to free him from prison.
“I can’t ever repay you for what you did for me Mr. Neeson. Thank you so much. If you ever want to come see me up in Alaska, I’d be honored. I’d like to meet your family too, and let them know what an amazing father and husband they have.”
Finn Neeson grasped both of Mac’s shoulders with his hands.
“Thank you Mr. Walker. If this country had a few more like you, I’m pretty sure we’d all be better off for it. Now get your ass on that plane.”
Finn watched as Ella expertly maneuvered the thirty five million dollar Cessna down the grass runway, the roar of its twin Rolls Royce turbo fan engines reverberating across the open fields. Within seconds, the jet was moving quickly upward into the clouds, the sound of its trajectory diminishing as Mac and Ella rapidly became a metallic speck in the sky as they made their way toward Alaska.
XXXIX.
Finn Neeson’s estimate proved correct. After just three hours in the sky, Ella Lerner brought the Cessna down in an open field a few miles outside of Juneau, Alaska. Mac looked out the side window and saw light rain falling, and another red barn identical to the one they had flown out of back in Kentucky.
Ella drove the Cessna inside the barn as the doors closed behind them. Mac assumed the one closing the doors was the man named Yoti who Finn Neeson had told him about. Mac looked over at Ella, who was sitting motionless in the pilot chair, her eyes seeming to look out into nothingness.
“You aren’t coming with me, are you Ella?”
Ella’s thin smile answered Mac’s question. An hour into the flight, she had initiated the jet’s automated flight system. The hour that followed was a mixture of pent up emotions, lust, attraction, and understanding of the lives each of them had led. Ella Lerner was not the most naturally beautiful woman Mac Walker had met, but she was by far the sexiest. Her body moved with a hungry, athletic rhythm that initially surprised Mac, before he quickly found himself gratefully submitting fully to it.
In that all too brief hour, travelling fifty thousand feet above the earth, Mac Walker forgot everything that had happened before, thought nothing of what might be ahead, instead focusing every bit of himself into pleasing Ella.
And please her he did. He was Mac Walker after all.
“Ella, I understand if you still have work to do. That said…”
Mac’s words trailed off as Ella shook her head as she stared back at Mac.
“I am returning to Israel Mr. Walker. I…I am trying to save my own country. America is lost to us, and soon, Israel may vanish as well, but I have to try and help prevent that from happening. Maybe some day we can see each other again. Who knows?”
Mac simply nodded, and then took Ella’s head in both of his hands and kissed her. The two of them then rose from their seats and made their way out of the Cessna where they were met by a short, round faced man who appeared to be no more than thirty years of age.
“Hello! My name is Yoti! You must be Mac and Ella!”
It was just ten minutes later that Mac Walker stood next to Yoti and watched Ella depart by herself in the Cessna on her way back to her own homeland. Her departure left Mac feeling somewhat adrift, uncertain if he had made the right decision to come to Alaska.
Yoti, sensing Mac’s uncertainty, tried to focus the former Navy SEAL on the journey ahead.
“We have quite a drive Mr. Walker- many hours.”
Mac said nothing, and simply followed Yoti outside to a parked late model, dark blue Range Rover.
As they made their way toward Juneau, travelling down a narrow, dirt and gravel road, Mac spotted the solitary figure of a man on horseback moving slowly toward them. On his head he wore a simple tan cowboy hat, under which Mac could see a pair of clear, green-hazel eyes looking down at him as the Range Rover drove by. The horse rider gave a short nod toward Mac, tipping the brim of his hat with his right hand as he did so.
The Range Rover continued down the road while in the opposite direction, the Alaskan cowboy rode on toward his home the locals knew simply as Wyse Ranch.
XL
.
The drive to reach Alexander David Meyer took the rest of the day. Yoti chatted happily about nearly every subject imaginable, the friendly Eskimo laughing happily as each mile was added to the next. Mac couldn’t help but like the man.
Finally, after moving the Range Rover over a road that had devolved into something more resembling a goat path, Yoti pulled the vehicle over onto a small turnaround and pointed toward a barely seen path through the surrounding brush and trees that dominated the area.
“There you go Mr. Walker! Just follow that trail for about a mile and you will come to Mr. Meyer’s home. He is expecting you. I will call ahead and let him know you are on your way. Oh – and watch for bears!”
Mac glanced at the trail and then back at Yoti.
“Bears?”
Yoti waved away Mac’s concern.
“Don’t’ worry Mr. Walker. Just walk loudly, let them know you’re coming. If any are around, they’ll leave you alone.”
Mac’s mind was trying in vain to grapple with the surreal nature of the conversation. A day earlier he had been sitting inside of a Kentucky prison cell. Now he was being told how to keep bears from bothering him while walking through the woods in Alaska.
Thirty minutes later, Mac Walker walked into a small clearing and saw three smiling faces on the opposite side of the clearing looking back at him. One appeared to be a teenaged girl, with shoulder length dark brown hair. She was dressed in a simple white winter coat, with matching gloves and boots.
The second person was an older woman, her dark hair streaked with strands of grey. She had a proud, almost noble appearance, with deep dark eyes that looked back at Mac intently.
The last was an older man. His white hair was combed back from his forehead, and though the face was deeply lined, the eyes twinkled with a youthful, yet authoritative light. He began walking toward Mac, his steps swift and purposeful, his right hand extended out in front of him.
“Welcome to our home, Mr. Walker. I am Alexander Meyer. I want you to know, it is my distinct privilege and honor to finally meet you. This beautiful woman is my wife Adina, and this young lady here is our granddaughter Dublin.”
Mac shook the older man’s hand, finding the grip to be firm and confident.
“Well I want to thank you, Mr. Meyer, for uh…for everything.”
Alexander Meyer shook a finger at Mac.
“No, Mr. Walker, you don’t need to be thanking me. You are my guest, and if you so choose, my newest neighbor! I would very much like someone of your particular abilities to be a part of this community Mr. Walker. While the world outside falls into further chaos and depravity, it is my hope our lives here can exist beyond those troubles. To do so will require certain precautions be taken – precautions someone like you would know far more about.”
The older woman put her hand on her husband’s forearm, while looking back at Mac with a warm smile.
“Shush, Alexander! Mr. Walker has just arrived and you are already trying to put him to work!”
Alexander Meyer frowned slightly as he nodded his head.
“I apologize, Mr. Walker. Adina is right, you need time to rest after your travels. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”
“Grandfather says you want to have a tavern. What are you going to call it?”
Dublin’s question left her grandparents slightly embarrassed.
“Ah, we’ve discussed your arrival with Dublin, Mr. Walker. I had been informed by Mr. Neeson of your dream of owning your own establishment, and must have told her about it. I hope you don’t consider that intrusive.”
Mac chuckled, surprised to find a Wall Street billionaire to be so concerned with offending someone like himself.
“Not at all, Mr. Meyer. I tell you what Dublin, if I end up owning my own place, I want to call it Freedom Tavern. That sound ok with you?”
Dublin grinned and nodded.
“I think that sounds awesome, Mr. Walker! Will you let grandfather smoke his cigars there?”
Mac’s chuckle turned into a laugh as Adina shook her head.
“I suppose I would. What’ s a tavern without some drinking and smoking, right?”
Dublin’s eyes grew wider as her enthusiasm continued.
“And are you going to have music too, Mr. Walker? Maybe one of those jukeboxes like I see in the old movies!”
Now Mac was nodding his head, his own enthusiasm matching that of Dublin.
“Oh, hell yeah! Good old rock and roll. I think I’m gonna need you to be my project manager for Freedom Tavern, Dublin! Where do you think we should put it?”
Dublin turned around and opened her arms wide.
“How about right here Mr. Walker? It’s a nice open area with lots of room!”
Adina put her left arm around Dublin and gently pulled her next to her as she apologized to Mac.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Walker. It’s her youth. I’m afraid her energetic imagination runs away from her sometimes.”
Mac shrugged.
Hey – we could all use a good helping of energetic imagination from time to time. So how about it? Do we have a deal?”
Alexander Meyer’s head tilted slightly to the left as he looked up at Mac.
“Deal, Mr. Walker?”
Mac opened his own arms wide, mimicking what Dublin had done moments earlier.
“Yeah, I help you out with keeping this place safe, and you let me and Dublin build Freedom Tavern right here on this spot. That sound like something you could live with?”
Now it was Alexander Meyer who found himself laughing.
“Why yes, Mr. Walker, I think that is more than fair. Thank you!”
Mac found himself staring up into the low hanging clouds of the late afternoon Alaska sky as he inhaled deeply from the cool, clean air around him. After the time spent in the suffocating confines of prison, he found the open space of the Alaskan wilderness a most welcome change of scenery.
It was more than that, though. Mac’s brief time with Alexander, Adina, and Dublin Meyer had already stirred in him something he had not experienced in a very long time.
Mac Walker felt like he had finally come home.
END.
MAC WALKER’S
HUNTED
(A Short Story)
1.
It was nearly a year ago that Mac Walker first arrived at the isolated Alaskan wilderness location that was home to the emerging outpost he had since dubbed, Dominatus. The creator of Dominatus, a Wall Street billionaire named Alexander David Meyer, his wife, Adina, and their granddaughter, Dublin, had made Mac welcome and offered him the opportunity to live in freedom away from the oppressive tyranny of the New United Nations’ mandates. Freedom from a government he had once served that wanted him dead, freedom from the corruption and lies of a world gone mad. And most important, freedom from himself – the man he once was, but was now determined to never be again.
In addition to Mac and Alexander Meyer’s family, twenty two others called Dominatus their home. The Old Man, a term Mac had taken to calling Alexander Meyer, with the billionaire’s half-smiled approval, indicated as more people learned of Dominatus, more were certain to arrive, and the continued safety and security of the outpost would fall primarily onto the combat-experienced shoulders of former Navy SEAL and government gun for hire, Mackenzie Walker.
“There are to be no free rides in this community, Mr. Walker. We all are to contribute. This is no socialist utopia, but rather a place of free market opportunity where the particular skills and efforts of the individual are to be rewarded. And all of this must then be protected, for our embracing of personal freedom and liberty places us in direct violation of the New United Nations’ mandates. This violation will not be allowed to go unanswered indefinitely. Sooner, or perhaps later, they will come, and I look to you to help to make us ready for that inevitable arrival.”
The more time he spent in the presence of the Old Man, the more Mac Walker found himself determined to protect Dominatus and everyone who ca
lled it their home. He had lost his entire team after a disastrous final mission in Benghazi, including two others who returned to the States only to have their lives snuffed out by the same government that had hired them for the assignment in the first place. Mac himself was sent to a high security federal prison, where he spent nearly four years waiting and hoping for eventual freedom. That freedom came due to the efforts of the Old Man, and a military rights attorney by the name of Finn Neeson.
Military Fiction: THE MAC WALKER COLLECTION: A special ops military fiction collection... Page 64