by Alex Howell
He had turned off his lights just before making the final turn, but he spent a few seconds in his car, his modified rifle ahead, seeing if Warrior or one of his unknown minions might suddenly appear due to the noise. After about two minutes of no activity, though, Mason felt fairly certain that either he hadn’t been heard or he’d have to meet Warrior inside the warehouse anyways.
He got out of the car, gun drawn, taking care to make sure that every step he took was preceded by a sweeping of the area. Wherever Warrior and his men were, they were bound to be nearby—no terrorist like this would operate out of such an area without at least a few undercover men. Perhaps some nearby factory workers had been taken hostage and forced to work, or perhaps he’d just brought some of his own men.
And if he did operate on his own, Warrior would not be so foolish as to keep the place trap-free.
Even if Warrior was a complete nut-job who had no knowledge of weapons or protection and had just acted on an insane wish to hurt President Morgan’s family, Mason could not assume such a thing. Better to give him too much credit and take him down with ease than underestimate him and get killed.
As he moved forward, all of his stealth entry training slowly came back to him. His senses became as acute as a tiger’s, able to sweep the area and differentiate between the crunch of deer running nearby from the crunch of men’s feet. Not that there were any men right now—as far as Mason could see, he was alone.
But every movement in the shadows, even one so small as a hand moving to cover a mouth during a subdued cough, would get caught. It wasn’t where it was back in his days in the Middle East, back when Bree was alive and expecting Clara, but it was much closer than Mason would have expected for his first mission back. He had shaken off the rust almost instantly—now if only that removed rust allowed Mason to actually see someone and not just the darkness ahead.
He made it to the main entrance of the warehouse, a small door that swung out toward him. He tried to peer inside, but it was pitch black. There were no dimly lit rooms barely visible from his spot, no corners with candles, nothing. He grabbed for his night-vision goggles and flipped them on, but he saw nothing. At least from an initial glance from the crack, perhaps no wider than Mason’s fist, he had come to Warrior’s hideout either too late or at a very wrong time, leaving himself exposed to be ambushed.
Can’t think like that. Keep moving.
Carefully, he opened the door, gun still aloft. He had to take even more caution than before, as at least outside, nature, gravel, and grass had a way of blending his footsteps with the outdoors, even when he moved at a casual pace. Here, though, with the acoustics of such a place, there was no such guarantee of quieted noise; in fact, the opposite seemed true. Every step, every cough, and every breath would echo like an opera.
But Mason’s caution largely seemed pointless because he still didn’t see anyone. The main warehouse was deserted, save for some racks that didn’t have any equipment on them. Makes sense, I suppose. They wouldn’t have the kids out in the open like this. They need to have them hidden in case of a raid. Gotta explore the rooms. Or the basement if they have one.
He went up to the first door that he saw, one that said “Human Resources” on it, back from the last company to have owned this building—perhaps a few years ago, or perhaps over a decade ago. He pressed his ear against it, straining to hear on the other side, but he heard nothing. He switched his goggles from night-vision to infrared to X-Ray to the special vision, but he saw…
Well, he saw something.
But it wasn’t what he was hoping to see.
There were footprints going in and out of the room, but they were so faint that Mason had to strain to see them. The footprints looked to be about the size of his own feet, suggesting that either the hostage children were carried in or were not even in there. There was just as likely a chance that a state inspector had last been here as Warrior and his men.
“Damn,” Mason said.
He swung his goggles out to the rest of the warehouse, hoping that his infrared might catch the heat signatures of the young children from afar, but, unfortunately, they were not strong enough to pick up anything more than a few dozen feet away. With the warehouse roughly the size of a couple of football fields, it would take some manual labor on his part to explore everything with each vision setting.
Thus, Mason moved over to the next door and saw something much more intriguing this time.
Fresh, real visible prints.
A bit paranoid, he kept his thermal vision on and looked around the entirety of the place once more, wondering if he had somehow missed someone. But nope. He was definitely alone, or at least alone for a fifty to sixty foot radius or so.
Mason looked down at the prints. Putting the pieces together, if Warrior had made a call from here, he had done so within the last couple of hours; even if he wasn’t here, perhaps there would be clues inside. Granted, Mason had slept through Kyle’s first call, but having been on the train, it wouldn’t have made a difference. So in such a case, the call couldn’t have been older than three hours, meaning Warrior might have been inside three hours ago. Perhaps the answers lay within.
Or something more dangerous.
Mason had to find out. He hadn’t come this far to be so cautious as to not do his job.
He took a step back, cocked his gun forward, chambered his leg up, and shoved it into the door, splintering it as it pushed open. He swung his gun around in case someone had managed to elude the visions, but he saw nothing. No humans, no computers, no…
There was…
There was a goddamn bomb that had just turned on.
And it had five seconds.
“Damnit!” Mason yelled, dropping all pretenses of subtlety.
If Warrior had done this as a trap and would soon shoot at Mason, well, that was Mason’s own fault for putting himself in such an insane position. Should’ve been more careful. Should’ve examined all the rooms from the outside. Stupid!
He made a beeline back for the doors he had come from, thanking his lucky stars that he had chosen the second door closest to him. Any other door would have had the warehouse explode with him still inside of it, doing nothing more than praying to a God he hadn’t really given attention to in years, if ever. Still, five seconds wasn’t nearly enough time, it—
In one single moment, his ears went deaf, he felt himself being lifted off the ground, and an enormous amount of heat burned him from behind, shoving him toward the doors. He raised his arms in preparation for the crash, yelled some swears, and closed his eyes.
He wasn’t sure which hurt more, the collision with the door or the bomb having gone off behind him, but it was a miracle that he hadn’t died. The bomb had been massive—it was not just a mere room bomb that had caused some fire, not just an IED meant to create damage within a short vicinity. The whole damn place seemed to be going up in explosion, and only the will of all of his Navy SEAL training seemed to compel him forward, to ignore the pain in his body and to get out before the building entirely collapsed.
Dragging himself, crawling forward on his arms and legs, he gasped for the sweet breath of oxygen as the building slowly burned behind him. Mason suspected that no matter which room he had gone in, aside from that first one, he would have triggered something. Maybe not every room, but the way the building burned made it clear there was more than one bomb.
It wasn’t until he had gotten about two dozen feet away that he rolled over to his back and examined himself. He hadn’t broken anything, and, if he had, it wasn’t affecting his ability to stand or move. His back hurt like someone had lit a torch and blown on it near him, and his hands and arms had all sorts of cuts, but there was nothing debilitating about what had happened. He would easily recover his physical wounds, but his disappointment in himself for not catching Warrior would only heal if he actually found the terrorist.
He reached into his pockets for his phone, unlocked it, and called Kyle, knowing full well that Raina, Mar
shal, Luke, and probably President Morgan would all get to hear how he had failed spectacularly.
“Mason?”
“Kyle,” Mason said, groaning. “I think you’re going to have to find a new place. That warehouse? Just blew up. Bomb went off when I was inside.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Oh my God. You’re ok, though?”
“I didn’t go to BUDS to get cold,” he snorted. “I’m fine. I—”
But he dropped the call when he heard a cry of pain.
A very familiar, terrifyingly familiar, disturbingly familiar cry of pain.
12
August 18th, 2028
9:15 p.m. EST
Washington, D.C.
In the back of a pool hall called “Sharky’s,” a place so sketchy just by the outside appearances that not even the cops seemed interested in approaching, with dilapidating walls, smokers outside, and bouncers who seemed more interested in picking fights than in checking IDs, Case and Duke made their way through, ignoring the glares that resulted from the two well-put-together men had entered. It had taken enough effort to get past the bouncers—only twenty bucks each had let them enter, and Case knew that this wasn’t going to get him his money’s worth.
Case hated what they were doing already. This wasn’t just walking into enemy territory. This was walking into enemy territory with middle fingers held high, dropping slurs and taunts everywhere they went, and then laughing in the faces of said enemies. About the only reason no one had killed them yet, it seemed, was because they were so curious who the two men were that had the gall to enter into one of their hangouts.
And for what purpose? To get them to talk? These weren’t canaries in a coal mine. These were hardened Joras criminals who were notorious for frustrating local and federal officials alike. Ask a local cop about getting a Joras to talk, and they’d say they had better luck getting their rebellious teenagers to listen to them.
Duke, for his part, just didn’t seem to care either way. He was here to talk to members of the Joras, not to make appearances. If he seemed to be showing up the Joras, bully for them. He had a gun, he had training, and he had a partner. He didn’t care how this went down, especially when he could be on actual missions with actual international criminals, not some D.C. hood rats.
“These guys don’t like me,” Duke grumbled as both men noticed one of the Joras leaning into a fellow member, saying something, and drawing snickers, all the while both gangsters never let up staring at the two SEALs.
“You don’t say,” Case said, his voice less charismatic and cheerful and more accusatory and aggressive. “Do you think we should have rang the doorbell before we walked in? Maybe we should have asked the bouncers to give us a parade in?”
“That’s not how Joras operate, Case,” Duke said. “I arrested them back in the day for some stuff when I was in the police here. They haven’t forgotten it. They don’t forget anything.”
At that moment, as if to emphasize the point, about a half-dozen Joras surrounded them, guns raised, while another man walked up, clapping his hands. He bore several tattoos in Spanish, some of which Case recognized as meaning “Death in God’s Name” and one in “Chosen One.”
Suffice to say, Case was suddenly beginning to think that maybe ringing the doorbell actually would have been the smart move. At least if that had happened, they could have run away when the bullets rang out. Now it just took one trigger-happy Joras, looking to prove himself, to end both of their lives. Duke might just have a point when he says he prefers the overseas missions. At least the gunfire would typically come from a far away location.
“You got a lot of nerve coming to my home, friend,” the man behind them said.
“Marco,” Duke said. “I see you served your time.”
Man, he really does know them, huh?
Remind me why we couldn’t just do this over the phone?
“My time? Or the time you forced me to take?”
The man with the multiple tattoos, who also had height and weight on the two SEALs, stepped forward, gently patted Duke on the cheek—which only seemed to bring Duke closer to causing both of their deaths—and smiled. It was a bold gesture, one meant to taunt and demean Duke, and there was nothing that either SEAL could do. Case really began to believe they had just dug their own graves.
“You see, friend, I should kill you and your little white friend here right now. Both of you come into my home, knowing full well what would happen. That alone should qualify your deaths as suicide.”
Well, this always ends well.
“But, in a way, I am impressed with what you have done. Either you are insanely stupid, or you have something that you are willing to die for. So tell me, Duke, tell me why it is the latter and not the former.”
Case thought to speak, but closed his mouth before anything came out of it. As much as he wanted to charm his way out of such a spot, he knew that some people went the other way when the charm came out—and, if he failed, he wasn’t going to lose a negotiation for money or for a deal, but for his life.
Plus… something did not seem right. The Joras didn’t really leave room for self-saving in moments like these. This was either a cruel ploy to mess with their emotions just before death, or Diego figured the two of them had money they could pull from.
“Smart boy,” the man said. “My name is Diego, in case you are curious, boy. But keep it shut.”
Case just nodded. No reason to disagree here.
“What did you do with the three kids you kidnapped?” Duke said, staring straight into the eyes of Diego.
“What do you mean?”
Duke glared at Diego for a few seconds before adding a bit more context. The unease Case felt was still quite palpable, and Duke’s history with these guys did nothing to make him feel better—did quite the opposite, in fact.
“Three kids, all under the age of ten. Two girls, one boy. Abducted outside Alexandria. One of your boys left an imprint of the ring you all got on the window sill. What did you do?”
That’s… probably about as neutral as Duke could make it sound.
“Hmm,” Diego said, crossing his arms and cocking an eyebrow. “We did what we always do. We do what we’re paid to do. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“I’m not stupid, I know how you guys are,” Duke snapped. “You make Wall Street look like a bunch of goddamn saints. I’m not here to ask about your money.”
“Maybe you should.”
If we ask him what he did with the money, maybe he’s going to tell us what he did. Duke, you better realize this.
“What did you do to get your money?” Case asked, perhaps boldly stepping out of line.
Surprisingly, it was Duke who seemed the most aggrieved, perhaps believing only he could speak without drawing the wrath of Diego and the rest of the Joras. Fortunately, no bullets flew and no punches were landed.
“Smart man,” Diego said. “Here’s what you failed to realize, Duke, when you had me in jail. Joras, we do things for money, yes, but we have a code. You don’t realize it, because of how far you have a stick up you. But we do.”
A long, tense pause came as the two seemed to stare each other down over who would blink first.
“We got paid to say we took the children,” Diego said, glancing at Case as he spoke.
“What do you mean?”
Case couldn’t help himself. He’d blurted out the question before he thought better of himself. Diego, amused by this, stepped forward, coming close enough that he could have kissed Case if he wanted to.
“You don’t know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?” he said. “Both of you seem to have a failure to respect the person you are talking to. Here is the deal. I just told you what we got paid to do. That is all we got paid to do. We didn’t get paid to do this and then answer questions from the authorities. You figure out the rest.”
Diego then turned his back, and Case assumed the worst. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, and waited for the end to come.
“I will let you leave here alive if that is all you take out of here.”
Wait, what?
Case couldn’t believe he was thinking it, but something somehow seemed off about the Joras letting the two of them live. He couldn’t figure out what, but there was definitely something unspoken going on.
“But so help me God, if I so much as see a police cruiser drive by this pool hall, I will have both of your heads be the eight ball in my next pool game. Understood?”
Case nodded quickly. Duke grumbled a response, but he thankfully seemed to be on the same page with that. Case didn’t want to waste a miraculous second chance at life.
“Now, get the hell out of here,” Diego said.
But before they could move, both of them took pistol whips to the face, dropping them to the ground. A swift kick from all six of the Joras came as well, hurting their rib cages and knocking the air of Duke and Case. Case coughed up blood, while Duke swore in Diego’s direction a few times before the beating eventually stopped.
“I said you would leave alive,” Diego said. “I said nothing more. Don’t ever come back here or you’ll be six feet under at this very spot.”
Case didn’t need to hear anything more. He’d heard what he needed to for the mission. Duke could handle his own business later. Granted, Case still had questions, but they more had to do with the Joras treatment of them and less to do with the mission itself. Everything has a way of being connected, though. I’ll bet there’s something here.
Ignoring the glares that followed, Case quickly picked Duke up, dragged him out of the shop, and took him back to their automatic vehicle, all the while enduring taunts, laughter from Diego, and threats of what would happen if they returned. Even the bouncers spat on them and taunted them as they laughed. Only when they actually got inside the vehicle did Case speak.
“What sort of stuff did you get into with them?” Case said.
