The Search

by Alex Howell

  Mr. Abdi chuckled.

  “It will not take four bombs to kill an entire school’s worth of Americans. Think of this as insurance in case one of us fails.”

  Mason had to actually face his body forward and away from Mr. Abdi and his men, like a petulant child, so that he would not crack.

  Despite this, however, he actually had some glimmer of hope come to him. It depended on something he had no way of knowing, and he knew that this plan might very well get him killed before he ever exited the car. But it sure beat having no plan with an absolute outcome.

  No, he had a plan—but he sure as hell knew it was the plan of a desperate man, one clinging to the absolute edge of possibilities and hope.

  And if it didn’t work, at least his mission would finally be over.

  29

  Date: May 13th, 2028

  Time: 1:10 p.m.

  Location: Washington, D.C.

  * * *

  Mason sat in silence for the remainder of the car ride, having holstered his gun back—but doing so in a loose, easy-to-access fashion. He’d need it soon enough.

  Soon enough, the skyline-less metropolitan of Washington D.C. came into view. Mason looked at the navigation system in the car and saw that he had about 20 minutes before he got to the school. What he was going to do would require almost perfect timing—wait too long, and the school would suffer. Act too soon, and Mason would be too far removed to make any sort of difference.

  And that didn’t even account for the fact that Mason’s strategy could literally blow up in his face within seconds of him pulling the first trigger.

  Fortunately, though, he had his SEAL training, and, for once so far on this mission, he felt glad to have his soldier’s instincts in his back pocket.

  He kept an intense eye on the timer, almost ticking down the seconds as they moved in. LBJ Elementary School, Mason knew, was home for many children of rich politicians and even international diplomats; it was highly likely that more than a few sons and daughters of wealthy Asian, Russian, and European businessmen attended this school. If Mr. Abdi succeeded, it wasn’t so much an expedition of the process as it was an explosive powder keg that would trigger retaliation within the hour. The entire world would plunge into war against the Middle East, causing all sorts of political strife and commentary that would tear countries apart at the seams.

  In other words, I live through this, there may not be a D.C. to live in before lunch time.

  So you better hope what you’re doing works.

  Mason took stock of the three men in the back with his peripheral vision. Two of them had guns in their holster, but the third seemingly did not—like he had removed it to sit more comfortably. Unfortunately for Mason, he had no idea if the man’s gun was far removed from him, or just to the side, barely out of sight. And that wasn’t even the most important variable.

  In any case, he had a clear line of shot from his position, and a swift stun attack to Mr. Abdi would jar him out of it for long enough to do what he needed to do.

  The vehicle pulled off of the highway. Mason had five minutes to go and about a mile and a half. He had to do this right. Had to wait until he was close enough…

  The vehicle pulled up to the last intersection.

  And this was the moment where Mason had to depend upon something that he had assumed before being wrong.

  Modern technology had made suicide bombs dependent upon the person’s biometrics. If a terrorist charged ahead and got killed, he would explode instantly, making it difficult to advance in. Even if they fell below certain levels or went above certain levels—such as the panic felt when captured by the enemy or from blood loss before being “saved” by the enemy—the bomb would go off. Mason had assumed that these were the same.

  But something Mr. Abdi had said before about them being a form of insurance in case something went wrong made him hope that the bombs attached were not dependent upon biometrics, but just standard bombs that had to be pulled. Mr. Abdi likely had a biometric-based bomb around his body, but the other three would not.

  That was the idea, at least.

  Clara… I love you.

  In one quick motion, Mason delivered an uppercut to the jaw of Harnad, whipped out his gun with his right hand, and killed the three men in the back instantly. He pointed the gun at Mr. Abdi as he waited for the bombs in the back to go off.

  Nothing.

  He had guessed right.

  But he was far from out of the woods—Mr. Abdi still lived, the car still moved forward, his daughter was still captive, and the mastermind behind the whole plan was still in the White House. Mason had only completed the first of many necessary steps that required some good fortune.

  “Stop!” Mr. Abdi yelled, but that only meant Mason dug the gun into Harnad’s neck. “You know what happens if you kill me?!?”

  He’s the one who will explode if he dies.

  OK, good to know. The public will only have to see me shoot one man.

  “My daughter dies, I’m well aware,” Mason said, pretending to be oblivious to the truth. “But I’m not going to let anymore people die than have to! She dies, fine, but you’re not going to accomplish your mission. The deaths remained contained.”

  Mr. Abdi looked up at Mason, looking like the coward that Mason had long suspected he was. People always looked tough until they had a gun pointed at him, and this was the moment where Mr. Abdi revealed himself to be the coward that he is.

  “No, Mr. Walker,” Mr. Abdi said, though his lips quivered and his breathing was on the verge of becoming a full-blown panic attack. “You will die too.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “No, I mean, when I die, you die.”

  “Nice try,” Mason said, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. “But I figured you’d be the ringleader and have that taken care of. Fine. I’ll step away and let your bomb go off.”

  “Not just my bomb.”

  Oh… crap.

  “The vests on all four chests depend on my vital signs,” Mr. Abdi said. “You kill me? You’ll have four bombs going off in this car.”

  Mason swore under his breath. One bomb would be contained to a parking lot, maybe cause some debris to someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it was unlikely to do anything more than terrify a few children.

  But four bombs? Four bombs was how something very close to a school turned into into a fiery soup. Four bombs would cause a real problem.

  Mason looked at the map. The school was now within sight. He had to stop the car now.

  He fired two rounds into the front of the engine while keeping a choke grip on Mr. Abdi, stopping the vehicle—temporarily.

  “Engine damaged,” a computerized voice said. “Fixing damage.”

  Mason turned his attention back to Mr. Abdi, who continued to quiver before Mason. For the first time of the entire mission, Mr. Abdi truly looked concerned for how this would all play out—which made Mason began to think that perhaps the vest on his was fake.

  If so, that just meant more bad news for Mr. Abdi when the three real vests blew up.

  “Don’t think I’m not afraid to shoot you from afar,” Mason said.

  “Yes, because that will be a great look for you, won’t it,” Mr. Abdi taunted. “Shoot me on the streets of a good neighborhood in Washington D.C. The feds will surely give you a pass as a former Navy SEAL at that point. Won’t they!”

  Mason laughed, pressing the gun further into the man’s head.

  “You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, Harnad,” Mason said. “You were the one that got me out of Baltimore in the first place. And because of that, I’m going to kill you.”

  And then he heard a tap tap on the window.

  And what he saw left him paralyzed with shock.

  30

  “Tessa?”

  But it wasn’t just that Tessa was standing there. It was that she had a gun pointed at him. And she did not look the least bit fazed by having to point the gun at him.

&nb
sp; “Get out of the car,” she said in an unusually monotone voice.

  Mason looked back at Mr. Abdi, who shrugged with delight at being saved. Mason muttered under his breath, holstering his gun, and stepped out of the vehicle, switching his views between the terrorist and his… friend?

  Mason had no idea what to make of what was developing, other than Tessa knew damn well this was not the time to pull a prank out. If this was some trick to save him, she needed to reveal it really fast before he killed her himself.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said, concern in his voice. “You think this is funny?”

  “I am here to continue the mission,” she said, again her voice sounding flat and monotone—very much unlike what she had done earlier.

  Something has happened to her. This isn’t Tessa. This is someone having control over her.

  Damnit!

  “What mission?” Mason said, pretending to play dumb.

  “The mission we tasked you to carry out.”

  “We? Tessa, you were working for me! I trusted you!”

  “We knew that. And we controlled you.”

  “Controlled me, what are you—”

  “Yes, we controlled you.”

  Ahh, hell. They put something in. They must’ve done something to her. They…

  I have to disarm her.

  “And how did you control me?” Mason asked.

  “Simple. We controlled you. We—”

  But then the car started moving. Mason couldn’t wait any longer.

  In one swift motion, he chopped Tessa’s gun away from her and threw an elbow that knocked her to the ground. Mason turned and shot the two tires in the back, stopping the car dead in his tracks. He then walked up to the front window, took a dozen paces back, and stared at Mr. Abdi—at this point, the embodiment of everything that had enraged him on the mission. Though Mr. Abdi may not have actually had his daughter, without him, his daughter would not be safe.

  It was time for some revenge. Some explosive, fiery revenge.

  “Thanks for making sure I don’t have to return your phone.”

  Mason pulled the trigger, watched Mr. Abdi lurch forward as the bullet went into his neck—not instantly killing him, but a fatal wound all the same—and began sprinting in the other direction, stopping only momentarily to pick up Tessa.

  “This bomb better knock out whatever they put in you, Tessa,” Mason growled. “I’m not about to let this go any further. This all ends here, this—”

  Seconds later, the explosion went off, sending the two of them careening through the air from the force of the blast. Mason’s hearing faded, his vision turned dark from all of the smoke and fire, and he rolled several times when he hit the ground.

  But aside from some cuts and bruises, he was fine. He had not suffered any broken bones or strained muscles. He could move, he could think clearly, and he had all of his senses, although they would need a little bit of time to return.

  Mason was able to rise, dust himself off, and look back at the explosion. It had taken out some windows from some nearby buildings, but in listening for the sounds of crying teachers or students, he didn’t hear any. As best as he could tell, he had managed to get the car to stop a few hundred yards away from the school. Close enough to cause property damage, but not so close as to cause loss of life, even with all four bombs going off.

  “I really need to retire,” he mumbled to himself.

  He looked down at Tessa and grimaced. She was not so lucky.

  Her leg looked mangled. She was groaning, writhing around on the ground in pain. There was little doubt that even if she still had the brainwashing in her, she needed to go to a hospital—Mason would knock out whatever he needed to from her later once her physical health was taken care of.

  “You might be suffering from internal bleeding,” Mason said. “We gotta get you to the hospital. Come on, I’ll call 911.”

  First things first.

  “After you tell me who did this to you.”

  Tess groaned. It was unclear if this was still the effects of the hypnosis that she had been put under, or if this was something else. Mason gently patted her cheek, trying to snap her back to attention. She was definitely awake, but she was not going to be conscious much longer. She was about to go into shock.

  “Mason…”

  At least her voice wasn’t as bad as it was before. Maybe she’s come out of it.

  “Go to the White House,” she said. “Your old boss…”

  But then she passed out.

  Mason cursed to himself silently. And then, as if on cue, the blocked number called once again.

  “You have a way of making life very difficult for yourself, Mason Walker,” the voice said. “You reneged on our deal. You wanted to see your daughter alive? We wanted to see our mission carried out to fruition. We don’t get what you want. You don’t get what you want.”

  Mason pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at a link that had just been sent to him. He opened it and watched with horror at the live video feed of a man with a black mask on moving a barrel of dirt over—in a big hole, it would have made no difference, but for where Clara was, it was going to slowly rise before killing her, likely within the next half hour.

  “You should have known the terms of our deal, Mason. In any case, you have only delayed us for what we have done. You…”

  The voice continued, but Mason was no longer paying attention to it. Instead, he noticed that in this video, perhaps because of the frustration with what he had done, the captors had not taken as much care to cover their tracks as before, and it confirmed everything that he suspected.

  For example, on the hand was a simple arc tattoo—one that immediately told him who the group was affiliated with.

  Second, in the background, he saw the positioning of some windows, a door, and two large tables. Though they may have seemed innocuous, the tables were designed for a very specific reason—to torture and interrogate terrorists.

  He had a reasonably strong grip on what was going on before, but this sealed it. Mason’s progress had caused the man behind the mission to unravel, taking less and less care to cover his—yes, he knew by now, his—tracks.

  As much as he didn’t want to believe who it was, he knew who was behind the masterminded plan. He knew where his daughter was.

  And he knew it was time to set things right.

  31

  Mason could not, however, be in two places at once. He either had to pick going to the spot where his daughter was being held, or he had to head to the White House where he knew who, exactly, had executed this mission.

  The decision was obvious immediately.

  He had to go to the White House.

  It may not have seemed obvious to himself even half an hour ago, but the White House was but a five minute run away. The spot where Clara was would take him 15 minutes, and Mason needed to only place a call in to powerful but unaware authorities to get an entire team on the ground there. Whoever was watching her likely thought that they were safe, having covered their tracks with the best of technology, but Mason Walker was no ordinary man.

  He disconnected the call as the voice on the other line continued and quickly dialed 911.

  “Yes, there is a hostage situation in the abandoned warehouse for weapons manufacturing near the Pentagon,” Mason said, pretending to sound panicked. “My daughter is in there, please, hurry!”

  The operator hurriedly advised she would have a SWAT team out. Mason disconnected the call as quickly as he could, aware that the longer he stayed on, the better the chances were of someone tracing the call and ordering the death of his daughter.

  Just before he took off, though, he looked back at Tessa—too close to the smoke.

  “Damnit, Tessa,” he said. “Next time you get brainwashed, you’re becoming Pigeon-Eye instead of Hawkeye.”

  He moved her out of the danger and on to a sidewalk before breaking out into a full sprint toward the White House.

 
Two blocks before he got there, though, he stopped. He needed a better plan than just showing up and knocking on the door—most especially if the person he knew to be behind the action was inside. The man, if he saw Mason on any security feeds, would have him gunned down within seconds.

  He had to pull some strings.

  He had to ask one more favor as he pulled out his phone and dialed a familiar number.

  “Hello?”

  “Luke,” Mason said. “First, sorry, it’s gonna take some time to get your phone. In the meantime, I need this to be quick. I need you to get me a pass to the White House today.”

  A hesitated gasp came on the other side of the line. Oh, come on, Luke, don’t fail me now.

  “Are you watching any news right now? An explosion went off like half a mile from the White House. If you think they’re going to let anyone in, you’re mad and suicidal. They have the place on the mother of all lockdowns.”

  “You got that right, I am mad and maybe a little suicidal,” Mason growled. “But guess what? We’re former SEALs. You know how to make things happen. I don’t care what it takes. Call in an attack if you need to.”

  Luke let out a loud swear on the other end of the line. Mason knew there was a good chance this would show up in a recording some day, but, by then, he’d either already be fully exonerated or dead. The game of subtlety was all but over. Once he got in the White House, it truly was completely over.

  “I know full well you need this, but, damnit, Mason, do you have to make it so difficult?”

  “Do I need to repeat myself?” Mason growled. “Get me access there. We’re the SEALs. We get it done no matter what. We protect against enemies both abroad and within our borders, and I don’t know if you’ve picked up on it yet, but I’m dealing with an enemy within our borders right now. Within the White House, in fact.”

  Luke let out a long sigh on the other line, but Mason wasn’t waiting for him to finish. He was already moving to the White House, even as those around him hurried to the scene of the crime, wondering what in the world had happened.