Mason Walker series Box Set

by Alex Howell

  And then, because no mission could ever go exactly according to plan, the birds around him began to go crazy. They squawked, they chirped, they seemed to howl. They all but gave away Mason’s presence in the building.

  Well, he thought. I guess I’m the one to blow our cover.

  19

  August 19th, 2028

  10:31 a.m. EST

  Washington, D.C.

  Case stood outside the president’s office nervously. He knew that what he was about to ask was something that had to be said in confidentiality and something that might draw a suspicious gaze from President Morgan. It was a risk that could very well wind up being unfulfilled—frankly, if he put himself in the president’s shoes, he wouldn’t have granted the pardon.

  But there was just something bugging him. Some unresolved clue that seemed to point somewhere—where was unclear, but it was somewhere important. And the only people who could clarify were the Joras. Only the Joras knew who had paid them; the case was sealed tight otherwise, no apparent leads.

  And since Case could not pay them with money, he’d have to pay them back with a favor.

  Fortunately, he had an idea in mind from something Duke had told him earlier—but it would be a daring request, one that if the public ever found out about, would generate a great deal of trouble and PR damage to the president.

  A secret service agent escorted Case into the room, where President Morgan sat at his desk, his head in his hands, his hair seeming to grow grayer by the second, his frustration palpable and his anger at a boiling point. Case knew he had to lose the “cool guy” bravado. He cleared his throat, stood at attention, and patiently waited for President Morgan to look up. He could only imagine the type of 24 hours that he had had—not that he wanted to.

  “Tell me you got good news,” he said.

  Case cleared his throat.

  “Sir, I need to speak to you alone.”

  “The children…”

  It sounded less like a connection and more of an involuntary gasp, as if President Morgan was now at the point of just saying things out loud as a means to either calm himself or because he just could not shake them. Case charged ahead.

  “It’s not with that, sir. We don’t have any update for now. But it’s related to the case. And I’d like to speak to you alone. I have a request that needs to be asked in private.”

  President Morgan pondered the request for a few moments, leaving Case with nothing but doubt, hope, and fear. The emotions cycled through a hundred times in just a few short seconds, and Case had to fight like hell to maintain his stoic appearance. If he got rejected…

  Well, Case had made a living figuring things out, even when his first pathway got rejected. He’d find a way to get the information he needed.

  But if it was his only pathway?

  President Morgan waved his hand, and all of the agents and other personnel left quietly and without a word. Case tried his best not to smile; all he had done was given himself the chance to make the ask, not necessarily to guarantee himself a yes. As soon as the door shut with the last of them, Case gently breathed.

  “What do you need?” President Morgan said.

  “There’s a man in prison by the name of Anthony Cortez,” Case said. “He’s high-up in the Joras gang. To get right to it, Mr. President, I want you to give him pardon.”

  President Morgan cocked an eyebrow, but at least it wasn’t an outright rejection. It was a step in the right direction. Then again, could President Morgan give anything other than surprised and frustrated looks at this point?

  “And why would I do that?”

  He’s open to it. This is promising.

  “The Joras said that they were paid to say they took the children, but I think there’s more to it than that,” Case said. “I believe they know who actually took the kids. They’re playing coy right now. But, strange as it may sound, they have a code of honor to them. If we do something for them, I believe they’ll give us information we need. And, obviously, we’re not going to pay them in cash—that’s negotiating with terrorists. But Mr. Cortez is in prison on drug charges, not on violent crimes. I don’t think we should let it leak, but if you’re going to release a man, it’s hard to do better than a man who just had some cocaine, not a man who shot someone.”

  President Morgan leaned back, put his feet up on the desk, and stared at the ceiling. Case didn’t even want to know how often the president had to face decisions like these—the kind that had no good answer, the kind that required a moral sacrifice of some kind.

  “And you’re sure of this?”

  “Sure enough.”

  Case didn’t want to sound like he fully believed a notorious Washington D.C. gang, but the fact that he was still standing after two visits to their pool hall suggested that they were just mindless, evil thugs who killed anyone who got in their way. They had a method to their madness—no, not even madness, they just had their methods—and one of them involved eye for an eye.

  Namely, give them something, and they gave something back. Most of the time, it involved a crime for a crime. But here, it might just be a favor for a favor.

  That, or they just hated Duke so much that going there without him had allowed Case the chance to present his side without too much violent ramification.

  “I’ll have my head rolling if anyone finds out that I granted a pardon.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t tell anyone,” Case said. “I’m coming to you alone, sir. I haven’t run this by anyone else in Onyx.”

  It was a bold admission, one that might have threatened to undermine the chain of command established of going to Marshal, then Luke, then the president. But since the president had already contacted Mason directly, what mattered more at this point—following established protocol that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, or getting the damn mission done?

  “Really,” the president said, leaning forward. “And why is that?”

  Case almost smiled, his cocky side returning, but he stopped himself before coming across as rude and disinterested to the president’s family predicament.

  “I just believe in keeping things close to the vest,” Case said. “I’ve done some recon with the Joras. I wouldn’t say they trust me, but they know me, which is more than they can say for anyone else in Onyx.”

  He deliberately ignored Duke, deciding that bringing up the veteran’s history with the Joras would undermine his point, not support it.

  “If I can genuinely say that no one else on my team knows what I did, it will carry weight when I bring Anthony Cortez to them.”

  “I see,” the president said.

  Case could only hope that President Morgan’s words were not just an instinctive reply, but how he really felt.

  “And what do you hope to get from them in return?”

  “Information to help understand who kidnapped your nieces and nephew, sir,” Case said. “Like I said, I believe the Joras have a code. And when we bring them Anthony Cortez, they will be obligated to tell me what they know.”

  “That’s a strong assumption.”

  And yet, the president’s response seemed more reflexive than denying. There was definitely truth to what Case had said, and he knew it; he just needed to fully convince the man of the truth of what he had said.

  “It’s about all we have right now, sir,” Case said. “Warrior did not act alone. We know this. So we need to pursue all the leads possible. Maybe it won’t put us in physical proximity to Warrior, but it’ll help us interrogate someone who would know more about him.”

  The President let out the longest sigh Case had seen yet. He stood, turned his back on Case, and looked out the window.

  “This job makes me do some things that I will never be able to sleep easy thinking about,” he said. “Everyone thinks I just do this job in appeasement of my party, go to sleep, and don’t give a rat’s tail about the other side. But, when you’re the president, you have no choice but to hear all sides. And when you hear the things we
have to do to keep the peace, it ensures you never have individual peace.”

  One thing was for sure in that moment—Case did not envy the president’s position. Although many a man who had sat in that chair had gone down in history as great men, men who had saved the world or the country or created history-altering legislation, almost all of them emerged grayer, more worn out, and less chipper than when they had entered. The job didn’t allow for anything other than full commitment—and a level of stress that would have killed many a man.

  “And that’s just on the political issues,” the president continued. “I have made so many morally questionable decisions that I pray God can find sympathy for what I have done. I’m not narcissistic enough to think I’ve done some truly atrocious things, but every decision I make hurts someone more than I ever imagined I was capable of. And right now, you’re asking me to either release a high-level criminal from what I assume would be maximum security prison in return for the chance—the chance!—to get information on my family’s whereabouts, or leave that prisoner to suffer for his sins, but then still risk losing three little kids in less than two days.”

  Case said nothing. He knew that he said all that he could; whatever was left to be decided, the president would make on his own. Anything he said at this point was just going to aggravate the president. He held his breath for several seconds.

  “Go ahead and head over to wherever Anthony Cortez is being held prisoner,” President Morgan said. “By the time you get there, his pardon will be in place. I don’t think I need to tell you that this remains between us.”

  Case felt relief, certainly, but it was not as strong as he would have expected. He had never better understood the president’s position than in those two minutes, and he recognized that there was not much in the way of a “win” there. At best, there was a step in the right direction—but it felt like it had come because they had taken a hundred steps forward and ninety-nine drastic ones backwards.

  “Absolutely, sir,” Case said. “As soon as I have intel, I will let you know.”

  “See to it that you do.”

  The words were not a threat so much as the best a man under an enormous amount of stress could muster. Case thanked him, left, and prayed that his move had actually helped and not just sent a major criminal back onto the streets of Washington D.C.

  Well, they had done that. There was no denying that the Joras would be stronger and more unified after this.

  Better an honorary gangster than a sociopathic terrorist.

  20

  August 19th, 2028

  9:31 a.m. CST

  Topeka, KS

  As soon as Clara heard the chirping of the birds, she knew she had to hurry.

  Strangely enough, though she had played this potential scene out in her mind many times—the scene of the enemy being aware of her presence, if not her exact location, and working to find her—the emotions and sensations that she felt were nothing like what she had expected. She had feared that adrenaline would overwhelm her, that her nerves would get shot, and that she would not be able to handle the stress of the moment.

  But instead, she felt unyieldingly focused. Nothing could waver her. She had to explore everything that she could, as quickly as she could, and if she saw someone she did not recognize, she had to hold them up. And if they came at her with weapons and bullets? She had to shoot back.

  There were terrifying implications to everything, of course, but this rush of adrenaline did not leave time to think about said implications or how she felt. She just had to do.

  Taking her cues from what she knew from her father and elsewhere, she led with her pistol down the hallways, into new rooms, and into open expanses. Her gun was like an extension of her; it was not so much a tool as it was a part of her, as much an organ of hers as her lungs and her heart. If it shattered, her life suffered.

  But for the first couple of hallways on the second floor, she did not have to use her gun. She just came across empty labs, old offices, and empty closets. A few storage rooms littered the area, but the storage rooms didn’t have anything of interest to the case. There were no children being held hostage, no notes from the enemy, nothing of that sort.

  Noticeably, as Clara slowly circled her way back around to the spot where she and her father would convene, she noticed the hallway lights getting dimmer and dimmer, as if they had been in use for much longer and much greater amount than the other hallways. When she looked down, she also saw scuff marks on the ground, suggesting that this Warrior character and whoever else he was with had worked here. Although, she noted, she could only see one pair of shoes and one set of scuffs, suggesting that if Warrior was working with someone else, he was doing so remotely.

  Maybe that made sense. If he wanted North Korea to fall, maybe he had an agent in South Korea or somewhere else in the United States. For her purposes, it was nice to know there was only one person.

  One person, though, could fire one bullet, which was all it took to kill her.

  Clara gulped, tightened her grip on her gun, and continued. She swore not to be stupid, but she also swore that she was not doing this just for the sake of looking cool. She had a sincere interest in making a difference on this mission, and if that came in the form of shooting an enemy, so be it. Just because she had never done it didn’t mean she could never do it; there had to be a first time for everything.

  Then she noticed one door which was not shut all the way.

  The birds continued to call in the background, making Clara believe that someone had either just left this room or had hunkered down inside. One would allow her to hopefully gather useful intel or even rescue the kids; the other would be like opening the door to a bullet to the face.

  You don’t get to be a soldier without taking some risks. You don’t get to someday join a top-secret agency without facing death. And you don’t get to follow in your father’s footsteps without doing what he does.

  What would dad do?

  Do that.

  Carefully, leading with her pistol as always, Clara pushed open the door to the office.

  Inside was the biggest clue yet it had just been used—a fresh cup of coffee sat on the desk, still steaming.

  “Oh my God,” Clara mumbled, noticing then the various papers and documents littered across the table.

  She quickly swept the area, making sure that she was alone in the room. It took only a couple seconds to confirm that whoever had sat down had gotten up just minutes—maybe even seconds—before, perhaps in response to all of the birds chirping. She quickly shut the door behind her, locked it, and holstered her gun.

  “All right, let’s see what we can find.”

  She went over to the desk, moved the coffee to the side, and looked at the documents.

  Unfortunately, most of them were not in English, making full comprehension impossible. However, she could speak the language of numbers and maps, and she saw numerous references to impossibly large bank accounts, North Korea, and targets.

  Quickly getting a hold of herself, she pulled out her phone and took as many pictures as she could. Pulling up Raina’s number, she sent them over, hoping that someone on the team could translate what she was looking at—or at least know someone who did.

  As soon as she did, she called Raina.

  “Mason, what’s going on?” Raina said.

  “It’s Clara, actually.”

  “Is Mason ok?”

  The concern in Raina’s voice was very unlike her; usually cool and calm, the distress in her voice was obvious and notable, catching Clara a bit off guard.

  “He’s… he’s fine, I think. We split up. We’re at the sanctuary. He gave me his phone to call you in case of anything happening.”

  “So what’s happening?” Raina said, making an overt effort to calm himself down.

  “I think I uncovered Warrior’s plan,” she said, smiling at how she had, once again, made a real difference in the mission. “I just sent you a bunch of photos over. I found his d
esk with different documents and notes.”

  “Hold on.”

  Raina pulled back from the line as she seemed to look through all of the photos. Clara tried to decipher anything she knew from what she could see, but, best as she could tell, everything was written in Korean or in such sloppy handwriting that it was impossible to tell. There were some bank account numbers that seemed to suggest the trail for which the billion dollars would funnel through, undoubtedly something the United States forces could easily freeze.

  For now, though, she just had to wait. She sought a good hiding spot in case Warrior came back and decided that underneath the desk was best. If he did return, she needed the element of surprise. Unfortunately, the layout of the room all but guaranteed that she would have no such advantage when he walked in. Lying under the desk, however, would give her the closest thing, especially since the front side would hide her from view.

  It limited her shooting options, but she’d have plenty of time to prepare herself if that came across.

  “Clara, you are incredible,” Raina said. “Listen. We’ve already got forces moving over there now. Stay put. If you see Mason, tell him to stay put. If you come across Warrior and he doesn’t see you, you stay hidden. If he sees you, do whatever you have to to protect yourself. Most of all, don’t play hero. Understood?”

  Even though Mason had said the exact same thing to Clara earlier in the day, there was just something about hearing it from Raina that made the advice sink in that much more. Clara figured that that was just the classic case of a child being unable to listen to their parents, but perfectly following the advice of another adult.

  In any case, though, Clara definitely wasn’t about to die.

  “Understood, Raina.”

  “We’re taking military jets over,” she said. “See you soon.”