by Alex Howell
Once Luke wrapped up, he advised that the president would be in within fifteen minutes to thank the team. The room dissolved into small chatter, as the smaller cliques broke off—Luke and Marshal, Raina, Chris, and Kyle… and Duke and Mason by themselves. Such is how we operate, it seems. We’re loners by trade.
It wasn’t something that Mason minded so much. What mattered to him most was having Clara safe at home and a country without chaos, and after the dealings with Warrior, he finally had both. Granted, in some ways, his greatest foe the past few days had been the stubbornness of his only child, but that was not so much an enemy to be conquered as a fact of life he would have to live with from now until the end of time.
Mason was jolted from his thoughts when he saw a hand place a cup of coffee next to him. He looked up in surprise to see Raina wearing an actual smile before him.
“You’re part of the team now, you know,” she said. “Come join.”
“Oh, thanks,” Mason said, unsure of how to handle it. He noticed at that moment that Case had come in and fiddled with what looked like the thermostat, but no one seemed to make any deal out of it, so Mason didn’t either. “I’m good, though. Thanks. I just… I’m not a big coffee drinker.”
“I see,” Raina said. “Well, I would love to take you out sometime when this is done. I like to know all my team members.”
Something about the way she made the request and the look in her eyes made Mason think that maybe she hadn’t made that offer to every member of the team upon initial greeting. He was admittedly a bit taken aback by the offer, not so much trying to be rude as he had just never been asked out—professionally or, well, possibly like this. He didn’t have any thing to say.
Raina just shrugged, patted him on the shoulder, said “nice work on this mission” and headed back to be with Kyle and Chris. Mason stared at the coffee cup as if it might give away some magic secrets, but, best Mason could tell, it was nothing more than another coffee cup.
About three minutes later, Mason noticed that the temperature was getting quite hot in the room and unbuttoned the top button on his shirt. He looked over at Duke, who looked like he was sweating like a pig, and nodded to him.
“Hot as hell in here, huh?” he said.
Duke just grunted.
“Would be nice to be sweating in a place with real heat,” he said, but he didn’t add anything more. Mason, unsure of how to react, just watched as Duke removed his jacket, placing it on a table. “I’ll be back. If the president shows up, just stall for like two minutes.”
Mason nodded he would.
As soon as Duke left, however, Mason saw Case going over to his jacket and laying it out on the conference table.
“Case,” Marshal said. “Do you have a reason for going through another man’s jacket?”
“You know how I do things just in case?” he said, although his joke—or perhaps his warning—wasn’t going over well with anyone in the room.
Then, to make it even more awkward, Duke returned earlier than expected. His eyes widened and he charged at Case.
“The hell you think you’re doing!”
Just before Duke would have tackled him, Case pulled something out of the jacket pocket, stepped to the side, and held it aloft. It looked like a ring of some kind. Mason didn’t realize the significance of it at first.
It took all of about five seconds after Case explained things for Mason to realize what had happened.
“Didn’t you ever hear the story of the sun and the wind making a bet as to who could get the man to take off his coat?” he said, nodding to the thermostat. “We needed to find the kidnapper. Guess what? We have.”
“Duke,” Marshal said. “Promise me that that was planted. Tell me why the hell you have a Joras ring in your pocket.”
He’s the kidnapper. He’s… the kidnapper?
One of our own…
Duke stared for a long time at Case, looked at Marshal, and then spun around the rest of the room. Mason wasn’t one to analyze things immediately off of just a single expression, but what he saw was very much unlike the face of an innocent man.
“You serve your country for as long as I have, and what do you get? Tossed to the side like a piece of lukewarm meat for something fresh?”
Guilty? But…why?
Out of the corner of his eye, Mason noticed Luke pressing on his phone, presumably to call security.
“The Joras at least acted with honor. They gave me something fair in return! They gave me what I asked for, and they did exactly as they said. Whereas this so-called great country that we serve is nothing more than a way for the rich to get richer while the real grunts lie on the ground, doing all the hard work, being rewarded with nothing.”
“Duke, why?” Marshal said, clearly pained by what he saw.
“I just said why, damnit!” Duke roared.
Suddenly, he made a beeline for his jacket. Mason and Case combined tackled him and pinned him to the ground as Raina went over to the jacket and saw what he had lunged for—a gun.
“You were one of us, Duke,” Raina said. “We would have had your back and given you everything the SEALs did and then some. And you threw it all away for some money and for some validation.”
Seconds later, security entered, handcuffed Duke, and escorted him out. Mason watched the whole scene in shock—a second veteran of the SEALs had just disowned his own country for personal gain. Was it something in the SEALs? Or were these just greedy, arrogant men who thought they would never get caught?
Mason looked to Luke, who waited until Duke had exited the room. Once he had, he shut the door, stood by it, and crossed his arms.
“I want to make one thing clear,” Luke said. “I brought all of you on here because I trust and believe in each and every one of you. I cannot say why Duke chose to betray us, but he has, he’s been captured, and the ramifications of his betrayal have been mitigated.”
He cleared his throat.
“Understand that none of us think anyone in this room or outside this room, that any nation, that any unit is perfect. I can speak to a dozen things I disagreed with in my time in the SEALs. All of you, regardless of your background, can speak to things you disagree on as well. But that should not let us fail to support one another, have each other’s backs, and understand that we serve our country because our country does more good than harm.”
Raina, for her part, had now chosen to sit next to Mason rather than with Kyle and Chris.
“I want anyone who cannot, in good conscience, support this country to leave right now. You will be allowed to walk out of here without consequence, without judgment, and without humiliation. We all have our different paths we need to walk, and unfortunately, Duke chose to walk a path that burned the one he had previously walked upon. Better to choose a different one than to light on fire what you’ve already done.”
For Mason’s part, he knew there was zero percent chance of him leaving that room. Everything Luke said was true—the country had made mistakes, the SEALs had made mistakes, and his friends had made mistakes. But he, too, had made his own mistakes, and to pretend that he was above it was arrogant and foolish.
No one else rose.
“Understand, Onyx,” Luke said. “We are one team, not many individuals or smaller teams. One team. We must all be true to one another. There is no team unless we move and work as one. Do we understand?”
“Yes sir,” everyone said in unison.
It was said in such harmony that it even got Mason to smile. And for Mason, nothing could have been a stronger statement to how much he liked something.
“Let’s get some rest,” Luke said. “I’d say after the past few days, we all need a little vacation.”
Epilogue
August 21st, 2028
10:07 a.m. EST
Washington, D.C.
Mason came home to a sight that he was pleased had not changed from how he had expected it to be—Clara still at home.
“I heard what happened with
Duke,” she said after a hug and kisses on the cheek.
“You what?” Mason said, surprised. “You weren’t there.”
“Kyle told me.”
The one who said she was cute. Oh, Jesus. Here we go…
“Well, it won’t matter, because remember? You are grounded for the rest of your life. I made that promise to you.”
Clara just smirked as Mason walked in and, seeking a quiet place, headed downstairs to his armory. He could have gone upstairs, but he wanted to be in a spot where Clara couldn’t reach him for just a little bit. Too much had happened over the past few days, and he had had too little time to reflect. He needed that chance to think about everything that had happened and prepare for the next time.
There was just one problem, though.
Clara had already set up a working space in the armory.
“Clara,” Mason said, not even bothering to hide the exasperation in his voice. “Do you remember what I said when we were in Kansas?”
“Yeah,” she said, fully aware of what he was referencing. “And do you remember what I said about how I’m able to make my own decisions now?”
Mason was about to fight back and say something about how it wouldn’t happen in his house… but then he thought of what Bree would say.
She would say that if he had raised a daughter strong enough to fight and join special ops, he had raised a special daughter indeed.
She would say that if she had survived her capture and then played a truly pivotal role in the rescue of President Morgan’s extended family, he had raised a special daughter indeed.
And she would say that if she was stubborn as hell like this… well, he had raised a very special daughter indeed.
I can fight it, or I can just accepted it.
Clara bounded down the stairs, her expression one of readiness to fight, but instead, Mason simply laid out a new gun given to him by Chris just before leaving the meeting—a self-defense pistol that could fold up and fit in the pocket to avoid looking like an actual gun. The look on her face quickly changed to that of sheer surprise.
“You might not be my little girl anymore—you might be mostly an adult now—but that doesn’t mean I won’t always do my best to look after you.”
Her eyes welled. So, too, did his.
“You know why I did this, dad?” she said. “It’s because you inspire me. You inspire me with your heroic deeds and self-sacrifice. I want to do that, too. I don’t know how yet, maybe for the CIA or FBI, but… it’s because of you.”
Mason went around the table and embraced her.
“I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, Clara,” he said. “You are truly something special.”
Book 3: The Cleansing
Prologue
August 30th, 2028
8:32 a.m. PST
Palo Alto, California
It was time to say goodbye, and to help with the moment, Mason had decided to say hello to an old friend—a very, very old friend.
So old, in fact, that Mason wasn’t even sure if the friend could have made it to Stanford when the idea first struck him.
But now, as his old Chevy pickup came to a stop right in front of the student center at Stanford University where his daughter, Clara, would now take classes, he knew he had made the right choice. The ride reminded him of the drives he’d take little Clara on, of the days when they were a full family, and of the days before Clara had gotten herself into Mason’s world.
Even if, right now, Clara seemed more intent on deriding the vehicle than appreciating it.
“Dad, did we really have to drive here in this old piece of junk?” Clara said with a sigh.
“Junk?” Mason scoffed incredulously. “We just drove this bad boy from Maryland to California in record time! And you’re going to call it a piece of junk?”
Clara gave him an eye roll, but a hint of a smile formed as she struggled to keep up the image of “daughter embarrassed by her out of touch father.” Clara had insisted that they get plane tickets and fly out from Baltimore to the California campus of Stanford, but Mason, as unorthodox as ever, had just as adamantly insisted that a week-long road trip to Stanford would be a bonding experience they simply couldn’t miss.
Mason, realizing how taxing his idea of fun had actually been, began to back pedal, especially considering he would soon have to say goodbye.
“But this truck is one of a kind,” Mason said.
If they were words meant to make Clara happy, they didn’t work.
“One of a kind? It looks like it’s been through a war zone!” Clara said as she pointed up at a long meandering crack in the windshield, originating from an impact in the corner of the glass, that could have been from either a rock or a bullet.
Of course, it had come from a rock, but it wasn’t exactly an inaccurate ambiguity.
“Yeah—maybe,” Mason said with a laugh.
But then he thought about it, and he realized it had more truth to it than either of them probably suspected.
Shutting the driver’s side door and walking around to the passenger side, he opened up Clara’s door for her as he said, “Been through a war zone, huh? I guess it’s been through the mill.”
Just like…
“Just like me.”
“Dad—”
As awkward of a look as this was, especially in a sea of automated cars, Teslas, and expensive luxury cars, Clara knew she couldn’t be mad at her dad for long. Really, compared to some of the more serious fights that they have had—and the actual serious circumstances they had found themselves in—something like this was nothing.
And as they walked toward the arching double doors of the student center, despite her previous complaints, she knew she couldn’t quite find the words to describe how much her father actually meant to her.
Since her mother had died of breast cancer, he was all that she had. He took care of her every need, and he was her hero. But he wasn’t just her hero in the figurative sense because he was her dad—he was a hero in the quite literal sense because of the service he had performed for his country.
He was a veteran—sure. But he was much more than that. Her father was a living legend, and, even though the rest of the world may have been blissfully unaware of his legendary status, she knew it all the same. Her father had been working on secret operations ever since he first became a Navy SEAL, and even in retirement he had continued to do so as a private contractor for a special ops team, Onyx. He had saved lives countless times, but, for him, there would be no press conferences, no headlines in the New York Times filled with praise for his sacrifice. There would be no word of acknowledgment for her father’s heroics anywhere to be found. Due to the absolute secrecy necessary for his work, Mason would quite literally have to remain an unsung hero.
But even though the world didn’t know enough to thank him for his service—Clara knew. And more than that, she literally owed her life to him. It was his efforts just a few short months ago that had saved her from a domestic terrorist conspiracy.
Of course, she liked to think that she had helped him solve his most recent mission, so maybe they were even.
All the same, she was suddenly filled with overwhelming respect and admiration for the man—old school, barely-functioning pickup truck and all.
The two of them headed into the student center, where it felt like an overwhelming crowd of overly excited 18 year olds getting their dorm assignments, booths for activities, and notices for orientation week events. Mason and Clara had two very different reactions to it all—Mason felt a bit overwhelmed, like he had stepped into a party that he was over two decades too old to attend. Perhaps no other event would ever give him that feeling of “I’m old” quite like this.
For Clara, though, it was like stumbling into paradise. Though she had plenty of friends back in Baltimore and had never imagined coming to Stanford—she hadn’t even applied last fall; the admissions was a gift from the government for the hell that she had gone through—this was on a v
ery different level socially and intellectually, and she wasn’t about to waste it. Not only was she dealing with the brightest in her school, she was dealing with the brightest in the world; the sons and daughters of entrepreneurs both in Silicon Valley and in places like China, Russia, and Europe were here.
The world was quite literally hers for the taking because of this school.
But, for now, she just had to get to her dorm.
They found the line for “W-Z” and she got her keys to her dorm. Mason tried to keep up while simultaneously keeping a distance in case she engaged with any of her peers, for he was already self-conscious about being “that dad.”
Most especially because the other parents here had net worths possibly thousands of times greater than Mason.
Nevertheless, all seemed to go well as Mason got back into the truck and began the drive to Clara’s dorm. He felt a little silly as he struggled with the directions, making a joke about how the California roads weren’t as intuitive as the Baltimore roads. Truthfully, he was just awestruck by how nice Stanford was in person—Clara was going to have an absolute gem of a time over the next four years.
And, best of all, dad doesn’t have to pay a dime to this place.
When he pulled up to the dorm, though, the feelings of cheerfulness and optimism faded a bit. It wasn’t because of anything bad, but, rather, because Mason recognized what this was.
As soon as he dropped off Clara and made sure she was safe in her dorm, an era would have ended.
The era of her being his little girl, of him having to raise her, of him having to teach her right and wrong… it was done. She would go from Clara, little girl, to Clara, grown woman. He wasn’t going to be there to make sure that she did her homework or went to bed at a reasonable hour; he wasn’t going to be there to make sure that she only dated good boys; he wasn’t going to be there to have her keep his butt in line for morning workouts.
