by Alex Howell
“I get it, man, it’s tough, you know? Well, maybe I don’t get it, but I’m trying to. I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through with the SEALs.”
Duke at least looked a little softer in the face—relatively speaking. Compared to, say, Case’s family and friends, Duke always looked angry by default.
“Still, this is to rescue the First Lady’s family, man. Every part of the mission matters. It all comes together. And, speaking of…”
Something came to him too quickly for him to verbalize that he saw by the window. He grabbed a piece of paper that could not possibly have been touched and a crayon and went to the window sill. He laid the paper over a dent and began tracing the crayon, revealing a slight image from the impression. It was like…
“We need to get going, there’s nothing here,” Duke growled.
“One moment.”
“What have you found now, Detective? Care to share?”
Case ignored the words and continued his work with the shading in and outline of the dent. Duke, tired and hungry for Kansas, walked over to see what the hell Case was working on.
His face grew beet red when he saw what was happening. To Duke, at first, it looked like nothing more than his Onyx teammate playing around like a first grader who’d just discovered how to color.
But when he got closer, he saw Case was not playing around. And when he saw what Case had outlined, there was nothing but playing to be done.
“I know this,” he said. “This is a symbol… it’s a ring from the members of a gang. The Joras. They must be involved with this somehow.”
Lovely, Case thought. We get to bring in D.C. gangs into this too!
“But aren’t the Joras more into hired crime than hostage?” Case asked. “Don’t know them that well, but I always thought you hired them to rob a bank, not to take people hostage for nuclear war.”
Duke, still examining the sheet with great care, shook his head.
“Well, they’re criminals for hire, right? So Warrior probably hired these assholes to handle the job. Question is, who else is in between Warrior and the Joras? Unlikely that it was a direct relationship, he knew someone would break. The Joras don’t usually break, but everyone has a tipping point. Doesn’t help that one of their senior members is in jail.”
Duke ran his finger over the dent in the wood from the ring. It was obvious someone had pressed too hard on the wood when trying to enter.
“Careless fool,” Duke muttered.
Case smirked, having felt like he’d proved himself a little to Duke. Not a lot, but enough that Duke wouldn’t outright rebel against working with him.
“But not on our part,” he said. “Let’s go talk to the Joras and see how much they’ll sing.”
“That’ll be lovely,” Duke said, digging his hands deeper into his pockets.
“You wanted action, right?” Case said, standing up. “You’re gonna get it.”
Even if it’s not the action where we stand much of a chance.
“Good,” he said. “Guess you’ve got a thing or two of value, Case.”
Case just gave a short laugh, relieved that something would finally give Duke a reason to be engaged on the mission. Something like this couldn’t afford any dissenters, anyone disinterested with any part of the mission.
It needed full engagement from everyone at all times.
8
August 18th, 2028
6:00 p.m. CST
Kansas-Missouri Border
Although Mason’s ride got him to the bullet train, it took another five hours for Mason to actually have a train arrive, which gave him plenty of time to think about what Clara had said—to say nothing of the actual train ride from Baltimore to Wichita.
It wasn’t as if his thoughts on the matter wavered at all. There was precisely zero chance that Mason was going to let her come. Even if she pointed a gun at Mason or, God forbid, herself, Mason would only play along long enough to disarm her before forcing her into her room as punishment. As it was, she was probably in for some punishment when he got back and had a chance to teach her some lessons that weren’t very fun.
What was troubling, though, was that Clara was, as she said, 18 years old. There was only so much more that Mason could do to keep her out of harm’s way; granted, Stanford wasn’t exactly known as a military school, so it wasn’t like Clara would exit in four years with a job killing terrorists in Iraq, but that wasn’t to say that this wouldn’t continue in some fashion. What if she got a high-level job in the government with her brain power? What if she took a job in the military?
Or, hell, with Onyx?
What if she even just took a job that put her in a foreign country where the risk of violence was high? What then?
Thankfully, for at least another three or four days, Mason had nothing to worry about. Clara would remain homebound, unable to join Onyx or the Navy or anything else that could put her in harms way. He could focus on the task at hand without any external pressures, and she could remain safely at home, fuming as much as she wanted.
But in three to four months? Three to four years?
What then?
Remember what you kept telling yourself when she was kidnapped? Keep your emotions in check, Mason. Stay present. Don’t think too far ahead. You do all of that and things will take care of themselves. You look far ahead, and you’ll be stressing more than she ever has.
Still, that was easy in the middle of a mission. While Mason supposed the mission had technically started, it was more like the preliminary stages than actually being on it right now—only when the interrogations, the gunfire, and the fists flying begin would Mason actually consider it being in the middle of a mission. Right now, there was no real difference between Mason and someone visiting some distant relatives in Kansas.
This thought circle played out for those hours before the train arrived, where Mason would think about Clara, worry about it, bring himself back down, remind himself how easy it was to be back down, and then the process would start all over again. It was quite draining and exhausting, but Mason couldn’t see a way out of it. After all, if the worst happened to Clara, what did he have? Onyx? They were nice, but they weren’t loved ones. Mason barely even remembered everyone’s name.
An hour later, when the train finally did pull up, Mason was relieved to see he had an entire section to himself, a move pulled by Luke undoubtedly. Though Mason had never actually been on a bullet train like this, he knew enough about them; he knew they had originated in China and Japan and that they had originally been built as a cross-country alternative to flying, and that the technology had been cleaner, smoother, and recently even faster than air travel.
Most important was that last point—he knew that the fastest way to Kansas City was through the train.
At least I’m not having to pretend to be Jordan Richardson this time. God, what a disaster that was.
Mason boarded, noticing that no one ever bothered to check his ticket. Perhaps that was another function of Luke’s; having given him the entire section by himself meant that only one ticket needed to be checked, and if that person didn’t need a ticket, then all was good.
For the next few hours—the first half of a three-hour trip—Mason did his best to keep his mind off the mission, especially since he hadn’t gotten any new intel. He napped, he read, and he listed to music. With the entire cabin to himself, he was able to prop his feet up and get plenty of rest, which was just as well after the day he had. He thought of checking the camera feeds of his home to ensure that Clara had not disobeyed him, but if anything felt like an invasion of privacy, that was it. He trusted that she had not done anything too stupid.
Mason checked his watch when the computerized system announced they had an hour to go. It was only six o’clock, with sunset still a little bit out. It would be dark by the time Mason went anywhere—if he went anywhere tonight—but that was preferable in some ways. Whoever this Warrior was, unless he was secretly Luke Simon—a thought that Mason played
in his head more than he cared to, no matter how ridiculous he knew it to be—he did not have access to the technological weaponry and gadgets that Mason had. The night gave Mason another layer of protection. The night took away a layer of protection from Warrior.
Before Mason could think too much on how much the night would or would not matter, though, his special, secure phone that was included in his welcome packet rang. It was noticeable because the ring seemed to be particularly piercing to the ear, almost like it would benefit Mason more to answer it than to ignore it. It was most certainly not the kind of ring that other people would ignore in public—it sounded more like metal being shredded and smashed together than a melodic tune. Perhaps the idea was that Mason would have to answer it immediately—or perhaps whoever had programmed it had just failed to consider that sometimes, security and silence were best.
“This is Mason,” he said, double-checking to confirm that no one was somehow sleeping in one of the other rows or eavesdropping.
He was alone.
“Hey, it’s Kyle.”
Mason tried his best to remember Kyle. The comms guy, he believed. Well, no, that was Raina—but he was probably working with her. The tech guy. Yes, it was the tech guy.
It’s going to take some time to remember all these damn names. I’m not used to having to care about my coworkers.
“We, uh, we got bugs set up in the phones all over the White House. The next time this guy calls, we’ll, umm, we’ll have an instant trace on him and we can tell you where to go next. What we had before just wasn’t that strong, but this should, uh, this should do the trick.”
“Good deal, thanks Kyle,” Mason said, telling himself to speak slowly and softly to the tech guy who seemed to have trouble relating to anything that wasn’t computerized. That, and he wanted to establish such relationships with his peers, if only because they spoke his same language. “I take it we have not heard back from Warrior or anyone related to him?”
“Well… no, no, not really, not in that way.”
Mason breathed, trying to understand that the way Kyle spoke was not the way he would speak. He wasn’t as direct a person as Mason or anyone else in the SEALs, but he probably had technological knowledge that Mason and the other crew members could only dream about understanding. Him saying “not in that way” didn’t mean that Warrior had called them; it probably just meant he had not called at all, plain and simple.
“What we, uh, what we do have though is that Case and Duke, they discovered the kids were chloroformed and taken out of their bedrooms. It’s horrible.”
Jesus, Mason thought, remembering the violent way in which Clara was abducted. The one thing he could say for certain was that there was no “good way” to get abducted. It all was traumatizing for multiple parties and could only be done by savagely evil people.
“Do we know by who?” Mason inquired.
“Oh, yeah, we do,” Kyle said, at first not saying anything else before suddenly remembering that detail mattered. “Yeah, I think it was the Joras gang.”
Joras. The ones who are the most cold-blooded people on the planet. The ones who would cut their grandma’s throat for a nickel and then demand a dime to dispose of the body.
Well, this should be great. Just great.
“They’re basically mercs for hire,” Mason grunted. “They probably don’t have the kids. Definitely took them, but they would have no reason to keep them. They don’t want to keep anything but money.”
“Huh, that’s what Duke said as well.”
Then Duke needs to head over there now.
“Are they on their way?” Mason asked. “Are they going to go see them?”
“Yeah, I think Duke said so.”
That’s not going to be a fun encounter for them. I daresay it might be the most violent part of the mission so far.
Mason thought back to the missions when he’d crossed the Joras. This was a gang that existed purely for the green, only interested in money, with almost no regard for the circumstances of how they got that money; if nuclear war broke out or if two neighbors ended up bickering, it didn’t matter to them so long as they got paid. In some respects, then, they were almost overly simple to figure out. Simple, though, didn’t equal easy.
What made it tough, then, was that they would deliberately keep themselves in the dark, asking only for what they needed to do and what their compensation was. That meant that getting them to talk was often a futile exercise, or at least not one that would provide a smoking gun; and even then, it would prove very difficult to get them to talk. Joras members were notorious for being able to withstand all sorts of interrogation and pressures.
The only thing that usually got them to talk was money or some trade of lopsided value. And given that the United States didn’t bribe or pay off criminals, Mason did not see a way that the Joras would be talking anytime soon.
“All right, keep me updated,” Mason said. “If they need my help in any way, let me know.”
“Yeah, of course, thanks, umm, Mason.”
“Yeah,” Mason said before hanging up.
This mission was about to get a whole lot tougher for everyone if the Joras lived up to their reputation.
9
August 18th, 2028
7:08 p.m. EST
Washington, D.C.
He seems like a nice guy. A bit to the point and a bit gruff, but nothing like Duke. That man scares me. I don’t ever want to be in a room alone with that man.
Kyle continued to tap away on his computer as he tried to decrypt the call that had come from earlier in the day from Warrior, the one that had triggered this entire investigation. While he had the best technology that the United States could provide, Warrior had covered his tracks well and knew how to hide himself. That, and the infrastructure set up to trace the call had not been updated with the most recent technology; that combination had made it all but impossible for Kyle to effectively track the terrorist. Kyle didn’t have magic, not that he would ever believe in such a thing.
To his side, Raina and President Morgan went over strategies for what to do if Warrior called back. The president seemed inclined to talk tough and demand to speak to the children, while Raina politely but firmly encouraged him to merely listen to Warrior. Warrior was a dead man if he pulled the trigger, Raina said, and few men were just that eager to give up their lives.
To Raina, it felt like the president was a man who, perhaps justifiably, was a bit closer than desired to coming unhinged. Raina knew how tough it was, but she had to stay firm with the president. If nothing else, she figured it might set a positive example of a person retaining control over themselves in the face of harsh realities associated with the situation.
For his part, Kyle still found himself a little bit in awe that here he was, helping President Morgan, a man he had voted for, in a mission in which members of his family depended on him. Just a few years ago, Kyle was something of a geek amongst his class in the Army; now, he was handling quite possibly the most critical mission in America at that moment.
Then the phone rang.
Kyle, Raina, and President Morgan all shared a look. The time for looking at the president in awe had ended. The time for work and nothing but work had begun.
“Remember what I said, Mr. President,” Raina said. “Stay calm for the kids. Kyle, are you ready?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “Fully ready. Yes, yes.”
“Good, on your cue, Mr. President.”
Raina put on a headset that would let her listen in to the call and even chime in if necessary. President Morgan picked up his phone, took a deep breath, and answered the call. Both Kyle and Raina noticed that President Morgan was having to actively restrain himself; Kyle was no psychologist, but he had a feeling that Warrior would easily provoke him. His biggest fear in that moment was the president hanging up in frustration or rage at Warrior.
“Hello?” President Morgan answered.
“Well, Mr. President?”
An
awkward silence came. Raina could tell the president was trying his best to just let Warrior talk, but it seemed Warrior had come in with the same strategy. Stay strong, Mr. President, she thought. If you speak next, speak calmly.
“Well, what?”
The tone was not too harsh and not too grating. Perfect. Good so far.
“Do I really need to tell you? Are my demands being met?”
He was definitely trying to provoke the president, and, unfortunately, by the exact precision of the way he spoke, Warrior seemed to know all too well what he was doing. Though Raina couldn’t say for sure, she felt pretty confident that Warrior didn’t speak with his tone by accident or choose his words by mistake. She suspected that Warrior knew what kind of a toll this was taking on the president. Granted, she also suspected that Warrior was a bit unhinged, but a madman could still know exactly how to provoke his enemies.
His taunting and mocking, if the goal was to provoke nuclear war with North Korea, seemed like a mighty effective strategy. It would get the president riled up and angry enough to do whatever it took to see his nieces and nephew, and North Korea wasn’t exactly what one would call an American ally. This wasn’t someone demanding the US to bomb the UK—this was something many people in America would secretly rejoice over.
And then they’d realize their mistake when China entered the fray and everything went to hell quicker than the length of this phone call. Raina knew full well that no matter how this got spun in public, if it ever got that far, she and the rest of Onyx had no choice but to capture Warrior and prevent the bombing of North Korea.
“What part of your demands?” President Morgan said.
Raina motioned for him to remain calm. It seemed to be working, but there was only so much she could do. A man whose nieces and nephew were being held captive was never going to be the model of calm.
“All of it.”