Mason Walker series Box Set

by Alex Howell

  “Clara, this is not the time to be trying to be helpful,” Mason said. “We need—”

  “No, dad, I’m serious,” she said. “I heard something in the birds in the background. Can you go to that part again?”

  “Mason?” Raina asked, figuring if the girl was this adamant about it, she might have actually found something.

  He sighed.

  “We don’t got anything else to go on. Damn it. Yeah, play it back.”

  Mason’s mood reflected that of Raina’s. There just wasn’t anything else that they could depend upon. If this worked, great, but if it didn’t, it’s not like there was any real opportunity cost in trying to hear what Clara had in mind. Just a couple of minutes that otherwise would have been spent strumming fingers and praying for Warrior to call back.

  Raina rewound the tape and let it play. At some point, a little over two-thirds of the way from the call, Clara asked Raina to stop. She did, and Raina heard shuffling in the background.

  “Mason?”

  “She’s scrambling through her tablet for some information, I think,” Mason said. “Something about the bird song? Clara?”

  Bird song? Would that actually make a difference?

  “I recognize that particular bird call,” she said. “I just need to remember the name. But, hey. Remember all the bird listening I’ve done this summer? That might actually pay off.”

  Holy…

  Really.

  Mason’s little girl might yet actually help us.

  “You can tell that,” Raina said, more dumbfounded than anything else that an 18-year-old might just crack the code to finding Warrior.

  “Yeah, it’s a very distinct call,” Clara said, leaving Raina feeling even dumber than moments before. As far as she was concerned, the call was not distinguishable in the least. It just sounded like birds chirping away in the background, as if waking up with the rest of the world. “I know the bird, I just can’t quite place the name. Give me, like, two minutes, I know I’ll find it. I know I’ve got it. One second…”

  Of all the ways we would solve this case, Raina thought. I never imagined that we’d do it because of an 18-year-old’s bird-calling recognition skills.

  Granted, we’re a far, far cry from solving it. But…

  “It’s a Great Bustard,” Clara said, as if she was the student who had finally uncovered the teacher’s challenging problem. “And… it’s not very common in Kansas. It’s not native. So… it must be somewhere…”

  “Like a sanctuary or something,” Mason said.

  C’mon, c’mon. If that’s true, we’re so close!

  Already, listening in, Kyle was typing furiously at his computer, trying to find the various bird sanctuaries in Kansas. Raina almost smiled, but she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. One step at a time. Moral victories meant nothing; only the actual discovery would.

  “There,” Clara said. “There’s a sanctuary in Topeka that has them. The only one in Kansas.”

  I’ll be. Clara, you got yourself a spot on this team! Raina thought, even going so far as to give a slight smile.

  “We’re rolling out now,” Mason said. “Inform the rest of the team, Raina. Let us know any information needed. But we’re rolling out now.”

  The line went dead. Raina just shook her head in disbelief. She looked over at Kyle, who had a massive grin on his face.

  “What?” Raina said, already having her suspicions about his look.

  “Just… that girl’s cute and smart.”

  Raina rolled her eyes. Kyle laughed. Even Marshal and Chris shared a smile.

  “I’ll go let the president know what’s going on,” Marshal said. “Let’s not blow this opportunity.”

  “Agreed,” Raina said. “And Kyle. Finish the mission, and then you can deal with Mason before getting goggly-eyed for his daughter.”

  18

  August 19th, 2028

  9:20 a.m. CST

  Topeka, KS

  She actually provided a real help on the mission. She really, truly made a difference on this mission.

  Sitting in the front seat of the self-driving vehicle on the drive to the bird sanctuary in Topeka, Kansas, Mason could only fight his greatest fight yet to avoid smiling at what his daughter had accomplished. It flew in the face of the idea that she couldn’t provide any help on this mission and would only slow them down. If he encouraged her, it might send her further down the road of a soldier like this.

  But, goodness, had she discovered something that would truly make a huge difference in the mission? If she was right—and for as many times as Mason had pressed her after they had hung up, she sure seemed awfully confident she was right—then Clara would have played a role large enough to say that she had helped uncover Warrior’s whereabouts. She could have been the one to unlock the location of the president’s family and save the day.

  She actually did all of that.

  Now let’s just do our best to keep her here and do nothing else.

  “What else have you discovered?” Mason asked as signs for Topeka began to appear.

  “I’m still looking into it,” Clara said, her face glued to her tablet. Mason had to give her this, she wasn’t just gloating over her discovery and she wasn’t just riding the high of one single insight. That first discovery had set her on the path to searching for more and digging even deeper into the case, which was a… good thing? Maybe?

  I’ll figure it out once this is done. Treat her here and see if I can honestly discourage her from this life.

  “So far…” she said, as if waiting for some information to load. “The sanctuary used to be quite the popular attraction in Topeka. Apparently, it’s fallen into despair over the last few years. Not many people go there anymore.”

  “That’s kind of disappointing,” Mason said, although it was said more to keep the conversation going than anything else.

  “Well, what do you expect, we all have VR systems that can play the sounds of any birds and make the sensations real and—oh!”

  “Oh?”

  Hearing an exclamation of emotion like that from someone usually meant good news, but Mason’s definition of good news compared to the rest of the world’s was admittedly a bit skewed.

  “This place is actually set to close in about a month’s time,” Clara said. “They’re in the process of transferring the birds to other locations.”

  Which means if they hadn’t transferred the distinct one. The Bustard or whatever. We’d still be high and dry.

  “Guess luck played in our favor here, huh?” Mason said. “Good thing they didn’t move the Bustard.”

  “The Great Bustard,” Clara corrected with a hint of pride.

  “Yeah, that,” Mason said. “But, hey, good thing you were here too.”

  “I know,” Clara said, her voice seeming to lift with the encouragement. Mason silently berated himself for giving Clara a sense of excitement at her accomplishment, knowing that it would only encourage her further to remain in this world. Pride was one thing—excitement?

  Mason could easily see how, in ten years from now, while Clara worked in some high-level agency, when someone asked her how she got into such a role, she would describe her rebellion at this moment, rebelling against Mason’s orders to stay at home, only for her knowledge of bird calls to come in handy and save the day. It made for such a “wonderful” tale.

  And Mason would be the one responsible for it.

  “Well, don’t get too ahead of yourself,” Mason warned. “This is a great lead, but we have to execute on a lead. And I need you to stay in the car when I do this.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Clara said, her tone immediately shifting to defiant.

  Oh boy. Here we go. The battle before the battle.

  “I survived a bomb explosion at the warehouse. You think I’m scared of an angry man with a gun?”

  “You don’t know that he’s alone. In fact, I suspect he’s not,” Mason reminded her. “And, in any case, that’s not even account
ing for traps and explosives and other devices that could give us all manner of trouble. And then there are things you won’t know to look for just because you lack experience.”

  “And what about the things you won’t notice because of your lack of experience?”

  Such a comeback sounded like the kind of thing an angry elementary school kid would say to a bully. But Clara said it with such certainty that she had to have some reason for saying it.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “This sanctuary, I know how they are supposed to be set up. If I see something that seems askance, I can point it out.”

  Damnit, Mason, why did you have to raise your daughter to be so observant and smart?

  “Then you can observe from the outside,” Mason said, although he knew, like last time, that wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Not good enough,” Clara said. “Give me a pistol or something, dad! I can help. If anything else, I got your six.”

  I suppose her being by my side and under my command is a better situation than her being rogue and getting herself killed. Which seems sadly more possible if I keep pushing her away than if I keep her in.

  “If you come in,” Mason said, emphasizing the “if” heavily. “If you are granted permission by me, you do everything that I say and you don’t stray from it in the slightest. This is not our training or a game, Clara. This is something where both of us can get killed, and I don’t want to live to see that happen. The only reason, the only reason, why I am allowing this is because I know you’ll defy me anyways.”

  “True.”

  “That’s not something to be proud of.”

  A tense silence filled the area as a notification that the destination was less than ten minutes away sounded from the vehicle’s computer. The time for arguing was up.

  “When we get back to Baltimore,” Mason said. “We’re going to have a long conversation about this.”

  “Just promise me you’ll take my wishes seriously,” Clara said. “You can object. But I don’t like you dismissing them as the acts of some petulant teenager. I really do want to help. And I’m not some damsel in distress. I’m 18 years old. I’ve survived hell with the incident a few months back. I’m tough. And you know it.”

  I do. Unfortunately, I very much do.

  Mason, however, did not respond, merely reaching into the box, finding a pistol, and handing it to Clara.

  “It’s silenced, so, if you fire, most won’t hear anything,” he said. “However, silenced does not literally mean completely silenced. If you take a shot up close and you miss, whoever you shot at is probably going to hear you. If you take a shot and the bullet hits something, someone is going to hear you. This will prevent a horde of bad guys from chasing after you, but you’re not invisible with it. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “In other words,” Mason continued, speaking as much for his own self-assurance as for Clara’s. “Only use this if you have to. We can win a sneaking mission, and while maybe we can win a gunfight, I’m not willing to test that theory.”

  What Mason did not say was he felt comfortable in a gunfight as well. So long as they weren’t surrounded, Mason had enough training that even a three-to-one gunfight was something he could handle. The last thing he needed, though, was Clara getting cocky in an area that she truly should not be.

  The vehicle arrived at the outside of the sanctuary, and the first thing Mason noticed was just how enormous it was. He hadn’t expected it to just be some small, tiny circular home, but he had not expected something that looked like it took up multiple floor and was the side of a soccer stadium. It was clear that before it had fallen into decay and disfavor, it had gone the opposite direction, expanding with new wings and such.

  “Too big for one person to hit,” Clara said.

  “Yep, that’s why there’s two of us,” Mason said, not thinking twice about what she had said.

  “I mean we should split up.”

  That got Mason to think more than twice—it got him to ponder all of the implications and potential outcomes of that statement. About two of them had happy endings. About a thousand had dark, sad, depressing endings.

  “Not a chance,” Mason said. “You stick by me.”

  “Dad, this is just sound decision-making.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mason said. “You’ve pushed me way further than I should have let you push me. You provided some good insight with the bird call, and I am grateful for that. But intel gathering and ground fighting are so different that it’s like comparing bird watching and bird hunting. OK? You keep pushing back, and…”

  He didn’t want to say it for how horrible it sounded, but he certainly thought it—he’d have to knock Clara out or put her to sleep for a couple of hours if she kept insisting on fighting his orders in such a dangerous spot. He already regretted allowing her to join him with a weapon. Even if she was a sharp shooter in practice, Mason had seen too many soldiers get perfect scores in training and then fall apart on the battlefield.

  “Dad, I really, honestly think it’s just smart,” she said. “You see how big it is? I promise to stay out of trouble and only use my pistol if it’s in self-defense. I won’t try to be the hero. I know that the only heroes in combat are the ones who are six feet under.”

  “Well, I’m glad you listened to something,” Mason grumbled. “But, for now, you stay with me. Maybe if we keep moving and we realize we have to, fine. But you’re not splitting up with me.”

  Clara said nothing. Mason gathered his equipment, readied himself, and led Clara to a side door.

  As he walked closer and closer, though, he could see that the sanctuary got even bigger than he had anticipated from afar. This was not something that he could tackle by himself in the span of a few minutes. Perhaps Clara was right. Perhaps they did need to…

  Nope. Not happening. Not with Clara.

  He carefully opened the first door, listening for the buzzing of alarms or anything else that would give away that someone had entered. But nothing happened.

  He walked inside, swung his rifle around, and listened carefully. Clara, picking up on the cue, also did not move, also listening.

  The occasional bird call filled the air, but, otherwise, it was pretty silent. Warrior was likely deep within the building or perhaps in some basement, meaning Mason and Clara would not hear him or the kids from their current vantage point.

  And judging from the layout of the building by the fire evacuation sign Mason saw a short while later, the complexity and layout of the building also did not allow for a quick search and rescue by one person.

  “Damnit,” he whispered. “OK, Clara…”

  “Split up?”

  He hated that he was acknowledging this. He hated that he was giving her yet another step forward—making that much harder to pull back later. There was no coming back from this, no sending her back to her old life of studying at Stanford. She’d still do that, for sure, but with the intent of following in his footsteps in special ops. So much for her getting into the tech sector of self-driving cars and social media. Now her only tech will be weapons and spying.

  “You should be so cautious you’d think you’re acting like a grandma,” he said. “I’m serious.”

  “I am too,” she said.

  Nothing would completely reassure Mason that Clara understood him, but there was enough that he begrudgingly gave her directions for the floor above theirs—he figured Warrior would have moved down, not up, so the floor above was likely safe. And, even if he had gone up, he’d probably gone to the highest floor, not the middle one. It didn’t make much sense for him to be smack in the middle.

  “We meet up at this stairwell,” Mason said, pointing to one on the fire exit. “We report in. Also.”

  He reached into his pocket and gave Clara the Onyx phone. Admittedly, that left him cut off from the rest of the team, but it was far more critical for Clara to have outside support than Mason.

  “You call into the team if you discove
r anything. And I mean anything. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Ok,” Mason said, taking a deep breath.

  Clara moved in for a tight hug. Mason hadn’t realized how badly he needed something like that until he noticed he was beginning to feel emotional. The prospect of Clara getting shot, getting hurt, getting captured again…

  “I’ll be ok, dad, I promise,” Clara said. “I’ll meet you at the stairwell, ok? Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Mason said.

  Goddamn. She’s too much like me.

  She’s the spitting image of Bree in her appearance and the spitting image of me in her spirit.

  That’s a pretty badass combination.

  Seconds later, Clara disappeared to a new hallway. A paranoid part of Mason expected something horrible to happen seconds later—the sound of a gunshot, a scream from Clara, anything—but nothing came. Mason couldn’t even hear her footsteps. Maybe she does know a thing or two.

  Mason, meanwhile, headed in the opposite direction, listening carefully outside each room, exploring each one, and moving on to the next. So far, the place was a dead-end, but they’d really only explored less than ten percent. Only one room would have what he wanted, anyways.

  After he explored the hallway, he paused at the main atrium. It seemed unlikely that Warrior would be here… but it would make for a more dramatic appearance. And given his emotional outbursts and demonstrative laugh, maybe that’s what he wanted.

  Plus, if the laugh had come from a place where Clara could have picked up on the bird calls, this would be the place to have spoken from.

  Mason opened the door slowly, pointed his rifle in, and switched to infrared.

  The vision blurred with the pulses of the birds around him, making it difficult to see anything above him, but, on the ground, he could see relatively fresh footprints, suggesting that yes, he had come to the right spot. Just no more bombs, please. Could really do without that.