by Powers, AJ
Mason’s work phone went off again. It was Winters.
We need to talk. NOW! the message read.
Mason’s moment of elation quickly waned; replaced by a deep pit forming at the depths of his stomach. He had been so distracted with everything going on over the last few days that he hadn’t taken a moment to even consider why his sergeant was pestering him almost nonstop when he knew he was out on sick leave. Suddenly, all those ignored messages started weighing heavy on his mind. He had missed something.
Something big.
“Everything okay?” Kayla asked, her voice edging toward worry.
“Huh?” Mason replied, trying to shrug off the fear. “Uh, yeah. I just need to call Winters back or he’s going to keep hounding me,” he said casually, excusing himself and walking down the hall.
The phone rang as he stepped into the bedroom, Mason immediately answered.
“This is Mason.”
“You need to take Kayla and Robyn and get out of the apartment. Now!” Winters said, his voice wrought with panic.
“What? Why?” Mason replied, trying to mask the shake in his voice. “What’s going on, Cody?”
“Listen. They know it was you, Andrew. They know tha—”
The line went dead. Mason pulled the phone away from his ear to redial but there was a red X where his signal bar should have been. His phone had been deactivated.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered with a great tremble in his voice.
Retrieving his pistol from his dresser top, Mason stormed out of the bedroom and down the short hallway.
“Hey, what was that—” Kayla cut herself off at the sight of the pistol in Mason’s grip. “Andrew!?” Kayla said worriedly, “What are you doing?”
“Get Robyn, we need to go. Now!”
Kayla, panicking but obeying his orders, scooped up their daughter and followed him to the front door. But as soon as Mason reached for the handle, he heard a sound on the other side.
“Get down!” Mason shouted just as the door exploded open, a flash grenade thumping off the carpeted floor.
Blind and deaf, Mason felt the concussive blasts of multiple gun reports in front of him. He felt a sharp pain just above his eye, but it lacked the white-hot sizzle of a bullet. He’d been struck by something else. A baton perhaps? Or maybe the stock of a rifle. A moment later, he was on the ground, someone twisting him over to his stomach as a knee dropped into his spine. They stretched his arms painfully behind his back and cinched the zip cuffs around his wrists, nearly cutting off the circulation of blood. The ringing in his ears was intense, screeching mercilessly through his head which only added to the pain and chaos of the moment. He opened his eyes, the image in front of him impossibly light, like an overexposed photo taken on a bright, sunny day. He could just barely make out numerous pairs of boots stomping into his living room as a small army rushed inside.
He blinked away some of the brightness, the world becoming slightly easier to see. He let out a raspy cough as the sound of muffled voices slowly penetrated his ravaged eardrums.
“Kayla,” he said loudly. “Please don’t hurt her. She had nothing to do with any of this. She knows nothing.”
He heard someone reply but it sounded as if someone was shouting at him while under water.
As his eyes regained focus, Mason looked feverishly around the room, unable to locate his wife. Resisting against the knee pressed into his back, he lifted his head just high enough to turn his neck the other way. His eyes met Kayla’s.
Her cold, vacant eyes.
“You bastards!” Mason roared loudly, his muscles tightening as he kicked and bucked on the ground, fighting with the man sitting on top of him, but the man drove his knee harder into Mason’s spine, forcing compliance.
“No…” Mason cried as he looked back at her lifeless expression, the crimson pool of her life inching closer to his face. Clutched tightly in her arms, Robyn lay as peacefully still as her mother, her back coated with blood. “Just kill me now, dammit!” Mason shouted angrily, “Just kill me!” he bellowed, once again fighting with his captor. But it was no use.
What little fight Andrew Mason had left in him was gone.
Chapter 37
“Two years,” Hagan said as he pulled a chair over and spun it. He straddled the chair and placed his arms on the back rest, propping his chin up on his hands. “Two, long years I’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive, Anthony.”
Gray, still feeling the effects of the sedative Solomon had injected him with back at the cabin, struggled to keep his head up. His hands were bound behind his back, his legs tied to the chair. “I know… I know what you want from me,” Gray slurred, “but I’m not going to tell you. So ju-ju-just kill me already and get it over with.”
Hagan cracked a smile. “Well, fortunately for you, I have no plans to kill you. Though, you might wish I had when this is all said and done.”
The man hung his head low, as if bracing for the pain that was surely to come.
“Let me ask you something,” Hagan said, causing Gray’s head to slightly raise. “When you ordered Operation Cassandra, did it even occur to you that innocent lives were going to be ruined because of it? I mean, did you take a minute and actually think about what kind of monster you’d have to be to authorize an attack on an innocent village—far outside your territory, by the way—just to try and take one, little girl?”
Gray had no response.
“I’m not stupid, Anthony. I know this didn’t come from you. Otherwise, you’d have no problem fessing up to it. You’re silent because you’re protecting someone. Either someone who scares you more than me. Or, someone that means something to you.”
Gray’s head lifted slightly higher with the latter statement.
“Ah. So, it’s someone you care about, then,” Hagan said, seeing the man’s eyes drop to the floor. “Was it that Indian woman that paid you a visit the other night?” Hagan asked, a smirk on his face.
“What are you doing?” Gray spoke, his gravelly voice filled with exhaustion and ire. “I already told you that I’m not going to tell you anything. So, do whatever you have to do to feel better about yourself, then either kill me, or set me free. Either way, you’re a dead man.”
Hagan laughed. “You’re putting the cart before the horse, my friend. The regime has wanted me dead ever since I stepped foot into your country, and yet, here I stand,” Hagan said defiantly.
“They will find you. And they will—”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Hagan interrupted, standing up from his chair and walking around the small, dark room. “I know. I’ve heard it a million times, Anthony. They’re going to kill me. Or kill my family. And carry out all the different hideous acts that dictators do to keep the fear instilled in their people,” he said, walking over to Gray and crouching down in front of him. “Here’s the thing, though…” Hagan growled, inching closer to Gray’s face. “I. Don’t. Fear. You,” he whispered. Standing back to his feet, he continued pacing the room. He found that the simple act of walking around a bound man generated anxiety, making them more likely to talk. “You guys think mighty highly of yourselves for believing that you’re the worst tyrants I’ve dealt with before. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you all deserve the Hell that’s coming your way, but seriously,” Hagan chuckled, “you’re pretty mild compared to some of the monsters I’ve faced in my lifetime. So, that ‘We’re coming for you’ tactic won’t work on me, Secretary.”
Gray was silent, then after a long moment, asked “Why? Why do all this over a girl? It’s not as if she was your own child.”
“How do you know that she’s not?” Hagan replied.
Silence.
“Ahhhhh,” Hagan said, bouncing a pointed finger at Anthony, “It’s because you do know that she’s not my daughter. Because you know who her father is, which means, and correct me if I’m wrong here, you also know who the mother is. And I’m willing to bet she’s the one that told you to order the mission.”
More
silence.
“It’s all starting to make sense now,” Hagan said, pulling at the threads like a detective would, assembling the case in front of the perpetrator to see what gets a rise out of him. “That woman who visited you the other night. It’s her, isn’t it?”
“Go to hell,” Gray said through clenched teeth.
“I will do no such thing, but thank you for your confirmation,” Hagan replied.
“You’ll never get to her,” Gray declared boldly.
“Yeah. People said the same thing about you.”
“Again,” Gray said, “Why do you care so much? She’s not your daughter. Hell, we didn’t even succeed in taking her. Why go through all this for retaliation over a failed op?”
Hagan rubbed a hand through his scruff as he contemplated the question. “You know, a week ago, I would have had a different answer for you. I would have told you that a lot of good men and women died during that attack, including my son,” Hagan said, his jaw tightening with disdain. “That’s why I came to your little despotic paradise. That’s why I started taking out every piece of trash that had anything to do with that operation. That’s why I raised as much hell as I possibly could over the last two years. To make you experience just a taste of the misery you put me through,” Hagan said, his hands balled into shaky fists, his knuckles turning ashen.
There was empathy in Gray’s eyes, telling Hagan that the man wasn’t a complete sociopath, even if he worked for some. “So… What would your reason be today?” he asked.
“Recently, a friend of mine reminded me that some things are bigger than me. And that the best way I could seek retribution for my son was to not let his death be in vain.” Hagan stepped across the room and rapped his knuckles on an old, metal door. With a loud clank and piercing screech, the door opened, and a tall, slender woman walked in, stepping into the light. “Mr. Gray, I’d like to introduce you to Aileen O’Connor. You might also know her as Cleon.”
Gray’s eyes widened, his skin turning pale.
“My men and I are very much looking forward to having some deep discussions with you, Mr. Gray,” she said, her bright red lips forming into a smile.
“War’s coming to Alexandria, Anthony,” Hagan continued, “and freedom will ring in this country once again. And if my son’s death played a part in that happening, well… I know that he wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
“You won’t win that fight,” Gray said.
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” Aileen replied. “I’ll see you again shortly,” she said confidently before walking out of the room.
Hagan looked at Gray, offering a nod. “Take it easy, friend,” he said with a smirk before following Aileen out of the makeshift cell.
As soon as the door was locked, two armed guards swooped in and flanked either side.
“Thank you,” Aileen said to Hagan, sticking out her hand. “This… This is a huge victory for us. I know how much you wanted blood.”
“You’re right. I want to see him hang,” Hagan replied immediately. “But not until you’ve bled him of every last bit of intelligence he’s holding.” Hagan took Aileen’s hand into his and firmly shook it. “That man is responsible, directly and indirectly, for thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of American lives. It would be a waste for his life to end over just one man’s revenge.”
Aileen cocked a smile, a mixture of business and pleasure in her eyes. “Does this mean that you’re willing to join us?”
Hagan dipped his chin. “Yeah, I guess you’re stuck with me now.”
Aileen smiled. “I can think of worse things,” she said, biting her lip.
Hurried footsteps came rushing down the hall, interrupting the moment.
“Is everything okay, Dubrow?” Aileen asked to the panting man.
“A few of our men just received a defector. He claims that he works on some special task force with Andrew Mason…”
Worry filled Aileen’s features. “Who is this defector? What did he say?”
“His name is Winters, I think,” the man said, not completely sure of himself. “He said that a team of Civil Republican Guards raided Mason’s apartment unit yesterday evening. He was arrested, but his wife and daughter were killed in the process.”
Aileen cupped her mouth as she gasped. It took a moment for her to recover. “Have we been able to confirm this?”
“I’ve not been able to reach any of our other contacts inside the regime. But one of our radio surveillance units confirmed that a raid did occur last night inside the city, and that there was one arrest made and two civilian casualties, including a minor,” the man said bleakly. “It lines up with the defector’s account.”
Aileen looked at Hagan.
“Could be trying to lure us out,” Hagan said.
She turned her head back to Dubrow. “Do we know where Mason is, now?”
“According to the defector, he is scheduled to be transported to the Yellow House in the morning.”
Aileen exchanged glances with Hagan again. This time, Hagan simply nodded. She turned back to Dubrow. “Does this Winters person have a location on the Yellow House?”
“Yes, he does.”
Chapter 38
“Come on, let’s go, traitor!” the big brute said, opening the cell door and stepping inside with a pair of zip cuffs.
Three additional guards waited outside, each decked out with enough gear to storm the beaches of Normandy. The man closest to the cell door slowly spun his baton in his hand, a not-so-subtle gesture that told Mason what pain awaited him if he got out of line. But it didn’t matter. Mason’s will had already been broken. He had no fight left in him. Not right now, anyway. Not while there was so much mourning left to do.
Being led through the cellblock, Mason felt dozens of eyes following him from behind bars. Most of the men locked inside the facility were not evil. Many of them not even bad. In fact, a great number of them were good, honest folks who were just tired of living under a tyrannical regime. Men that had been pushed too far and snapped back.
Mason avoided their depressed looks and sunken eyes from years of malnourishment. He didn’t want to see their sullen faces—some of whom Mason was certain he had helped lock up. He hated working for the regime. He despised having to hunt down and arrest people who were considered enemies of the state, most of whom were just exercising freedoms they once had many years ago. It kept him awake at night knowing that he was sending good men and women to prison, or worse, to their deaths, for nothing more than living their lives how they wanted. But his role in taking down the regime from within required such sacrifices. And he had planned to redeem those hard choices someday down the road. When the ends would justify the means.
But that was done, now. Mason would cease to exist the moment the regime deemed him worthless, and all the people he helped bring down for conspiracy, contraband, illegal speech, and countless other repressive laws would continue to waste away in their cells until their bodies finally gave up.
Their deaths all for nothing.
Mason was escorted into a parking garage and shoved into the back compartment of an armored truck. There were no windows. There were no seatbelts. Just a hard, metal bench on either side. After being chained to a hook welded to the floor, the doors were shut, plunging Mason into total darkness.
Why didn’t they just kill me? Mason thought as the truck belched to life and bucked forward, racing out of the garage and onto the streets above.
Don’t you get it? he heard himself say, as if a new, unknown conscience was joining the conversation. Kayla and Robyn’s deaths were not an accident. They were just the first phase of your interrogation. The beginning of your suffering. They wanted to break you before you were even questioned.
Then they pulled the ace out of their sleeve far too soon, his usual voice countered. I have no motivation to tell them anything, now.
They are masters at inflicting pain, the newcomer replied. They will find other ways.
There was no reply to this.
If I cannot kill them all, then I just want to die. Maybe they’re going to just get it over with and kill me. Maybe there will be an air bubble in the syringe they use to pump me full of God knows what when I get there…
Maybe, the new voice replied, but you must prepare yourself for the worst.
“I have seen the worst,” Mason said aloud, “There is nothing worse they can do.”
The voices in Mason’s head fell silent and soon the only sound he heard was the drone of the diesel engine cruising toward its destination. Mason wasn’t stupid. He knew exactly where he was going. And that he was going to be tortured. For how long, he did not know. Days? Weeks? Months even? He couldn’t be certain. But he readied himself for his stay at the Yellow House to be a long and very unpleasant one.
After a couple of hours, the truck slowed down and took a hard turn. Mason could hear gravel crunching under the tires as the metal box he was in bounced and bobbed from the unpaved road. The driveway seemed endless, the truck spending the better part of fifteen minutes navigating the long and winding path. Finally, the air brakes squealed, and the truck jerked to a halt, idling loudly for a moment before the driver killed the engine.
The rear doors opened, flooding Mason’s dark-adjusted eyes with painful luminance as two men hopped inside. They released him from the chain connected to the floor and led him to the door, all but pushing him off the edge. Falling to the ground, his hands still bound behind his back, the men grabbed Mason’s arms and dragged him to his feet.
