by Alex Howell
Matthew most certainly knew that this was not like Mason at all, to leave his daughter hanging like this.
But there were several questions that needed to be asked. For one—who was Mason’s current team? What was he doing? Where had he been?
Matthew could help and had many skills, but he was not God.
“Clara, it’s OK, I’m here to help. I do, however, need some questions answered from you. OK?”
Clara sobbed a bit, but got out a strong “OK” on the other end of the line.
“Exactly what was your father’s last whereabouts, what was he doing, and he was he with? Please tell me as much as you know, as of right now. And if you can let me know who his current team is, that would be great.”
Matthew didn’t say it out loud, but there was definitely a part of him that wondered if this team was one actively seeking out new members. He had grown tired of the meaninglessness of his security job and yearned for something where he could better use his skills. A security guard was meant to be seen, not to hide in the shadows for potential criminals.
Plus, if nothing else, maybe it would allow him to find some peace for what happened to his wife and daughter. Maybe not—probably not—but at this point, if nothing else had worked, what was the harm in trying?
“Okay,” Clara said. “My dad is on a mission. Not sure exactly for what—it’s classified, but apparently, he was looking around D.C. for suspects who had absconded with some sort of illicit material. The team name he’s working for is called Onyx. He joined under the supervision of one of his old commanders, Luke Simon.”
“Ahh,” Matthew said with a pleasant smile.
Luke Simon. That’s another name I haven’t heard from in years. Perhaps this Onyx team may yet be something worth joining.
“Sorry I don’t know more than that.”
“No, Clara, you did well,” he said reassuringly. “At least now I have something to go on.”
Admittedly, what he had wasn’t enough to just run into D.C. and rescue Mason. Sure, it narrowed down the location some, but that was still far too large an area to just work. But it was absolutely something to work on, and Matthew had sneaked in and out of places on far less intel and with far greater risk. There was no guarantee he would succeed, but his risk of failure was not a hundred percent by any means.
Just hope I’m not too rusty.
“Thank you so much, Matthew, you have no idea. I called everyone else in Onyx and they couldn’t find him, and I was starting to worry, and, and—”
“Hey,” Matthew said reassuringly, trying to calm her down. “We’ll find him. OK? That’s my promise.”
“Promise?”
Matthew firmly, truly believed it would work out. If nothing else, Mason was too stubborn and too strong to just keel over and die because of a failed mission.
“I promise.”
“Thanks,” Clara uttered meekly.
Thank me when this is done, Matthew thought.
“Hey—this might seem like a really dumb question to ask, but it’s necessary,” Matthew said, seeking more intel. “Are you sure your father had his phones on him? I mean—besides his personal phone, he should have a company phone with this Onyx group.”
“Yeah, he never goes out on a mission without both his civilian and mission phone on his person. But he’s not answering either one.”
Damn. Well, couldn’t hurt to have asked.
“Don’t worry Clara. I’m not far from DC, I’m going to go out my self and see if I can pick up his trail.”
“Got it. Thank you so much, Mr. Benton, I know I’m asking a lot of you.”
“Don’t even worry about it, Clara. Mason Walker is like a brother to me, and I’ve got to make sure he’s safe. He’s had my back more times than I can count—so the least I can do is make sure that I have his.”
With that, Clara hung up. Matthew looked out over the half-mowed lawn, chuckled, and kicked his legs over and off.
He’d never felt so happy to leave a half-mowed lawn as it was.
He was back in the game.
He just had to hope it didn’t come at the cost of a friend’s life.
21
September 19th, 2028
6:41 p.m. EST
Washington, D.C.
Matthew was running out of time, and he didn’t even know how long he had.
But in situations with a teammate missing, the relationship between time missing and the probability of death was like a lower case “r” shape—the first few hours saw a drastic likelihood of death, with chances going from zero percent at the start to about 80 percent within 24 hours. It slowed down after that, but, for most people, there wasn’t anything to slow down—they had just stopped.
Along the way, taking his manual vehicle from Richmond up to D.C., he had called Luke Simon, but Luke wasn’t answering his phone. He sighed, realizing that he would have to rely on the gadgetry and tools he wasn’t even authorized to have—as much as he loved his brothers in arms and the comrades, he had a strong distrust for government officials. He would have sooner operated as lone wolf than he would have been a security force for any politician. Just the idea that he would join Onyx, a private contracting firm, was a bit nauseating, but at least Mason and presumably like-minded crew would be on there.
He tried to do research on the other members, and he came up with names like Raina, Kyle, and Marshal from his digging through some archives thanks to his hacking skills he’d developed in his spare time, but the names didn’t mean anything other than just being names. Whoever had created the team and filed it with the government had done a good job of keeping the information vague enough to not be used against them at a later time—probably Luke.
Which meant, just as he had thought many times when he got to D.C., he was going to have to act on his own.
And he knew where he’d start—he’d trace the location of Mason’s cell phone on his last call. Perhaps Onyx had already done this, but if Matthew didn’t have the intel, it was as if he had to do it all on his own.
Sure enough, tracing the last call showed a last known location in downtown D.C. But immediately after this last ping hit a nearby cell tower, the phone went absolutely dead.
This told Matthew that either both of Mason’s cell phones went dead at the same time, or someone came along and switched them off. He most certainly believed it was the latter; otherwise, he would be admiring his lawn mowing skills back in Richmond right now. And thus, his mission began.
The cell phone trace brought him right to the immediate vicinity of Mason’s last verifiable location. It was a rundown, decrepit part of D.C. to be sure, with numerous warehouses and factories long shuttered up and abandoned. This part of town was definitely not on the itinerary of any Washington tour guides—hell, it wasn’t on anyone’s itinerary except the most desperate and most hopeless of people.
As Matthew walked through the streets of this seedier side of Washington D.C., he couldn’t help but think to himself that if there were ever a place to hide out and hold someone hostage, any single one of these buildings would probably do the trick. It was obvious that it was going to take some luck to get the job done, but that didn’t mean he had to rely on the luck; he just had to accept its existence to some degree. He put his hood up, lowered his head, and tried to make himself obscure as he stood pretending to wait for the city bus.
And that’s when a prostitute approached.
The woman was wearing a skimpy mini skirt, fishnets, and a small fur coat that barely concealed her chest and torso. He saw her out of the corner of his eye walking up to him, and immediately turned his face.
But the woman wasn’t having it.
“Hey baby, I haven’t seen you around here. You up for a good time? What’s your name?”
Matthew ignored her, but the woman kept trying to catch his eyes. Realizing that the woman was either immensely desperate for a sale or just downright crazy, he went for the one line he had used in various languages to escape such situa
tions.
“Look, lady, I’m a cop, so don’t press your luck.”
The smile that had been plastered onto the woman’s face immediately fell.
“I could easily put you behind bars, but I’m feeling nice today, so if you get lost right now, I’ll pretend I didn’t see you.”
“Ye—yes sir.”
The woman walked away, and Matthew resumed looking around. There’s just nothing to see here. Would be nice to have another pair of eyes.
Wait…
“Hey,” he said, grabbing the prostitute’s attention again. “Hold on a second. I want to ask you something.”
The woman, unsure of where things were now going, raised one of her painted-on eyebrows. Matthew did his best not to look like he was interested in the least in her, but he recognized that asking her to come back had a certain appearance to it.
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to ask if you have seen anyone unusual around here lately? Anyone who just seemed like they didn’t quite fit in?”
The lady reading between the lines realized exactly what he meant. Did she see anyone hanging around who wasn’t one of the usual pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, or homeless transients that roamed this downtrodden section of D.C.? Was there anyone who stood out from the typical cadre of miscreants? Was there anyone who might have looked typical in other parts but looked very atypical here?
“Yes, yes I have.”
“Who?”
The woman cleared her throat, and pointed at an old abandoned church down the street.
“Over there. I don’t know who these guys are, but they suddenly showed up a week ago and started hanging out in that church.”
“They go to church?”
Admittedly, the church did look incredibly run down, but it wasn’t like it was unusual for people to go to church, especially in areas where people felt like they needed divine help.
But when the woman chuckled, he knew he had his answer.
“Oh, hell no. That church has been shut down for a long time now. I knew a couple of crackheads that used to stay in there. They had broken in through a window and slept right on the pew, but I think the new guys ran them right out.”
I’m gonna be quite pissed if this is a bad lead. But someone running out drug addicts to take over an abandoned warehouse sure sounds like the kind of thing that would want to be kept from military eyes.
“What do these men look like?”
“I think… Hispanic. Dark black hair, brown eyes—or wait, maybe they’re Italian or something. European, Mediterranean, I don’t know.”
It was more than enough to get Matthew going, though. He didn’t need perfect intel; he just needed intel that would narrow down the possibilities. Since he could now say these weren’t, say, Asians or whites from the South, it helped him know what to look for. Surprised Onyx didn’t do this yet. Or maybe they just weren’t lucky. Either way.
“Okay ma’am, that’s all I need to know. You are free to go. Just don’t let me see you around here anymore.”
She didn’t need to be told twice; Matthew watched her as she quickly walked back down the street from where she had come, her high heels clicking on the pavement like the hooves of a galloping horse as she hurriedly departed. Momentarily free of interference, he scanned the buildings up and down the street to make sure he wasn’t being watched before allowing his eyes to settle upon the Catholic Church that the hooker had told him about.
He started by moving across the street, meandering slowly, doing his best to look like one of the homeless while keeping an eye on the church, trying to see if anyone would suddenly enter or exit the building. He purposefully stared at the double doors on the front of the church before moving his attention to the side of the building.
His gaze shifted just in time to see a few guys pop out of that very door. They stepped over to a car parked nearby and stood around talking for a moment. Knowing he might need some evidence later on, Matthew quickly pulled out his phone and began to take some video of the crew before they all piled into the car and had the vehicle drive down the street. It was moving far too quickly for him to follow it, but thanks to his hacking skills, with his phone, he simply needed to locate the IP source of the vehicle and follow it.
Quickly acting, he got a bead on it, but it was moving a little bit too far away for him to follow it without wasting time. The church still was a place of interest, and if Mason was inside there, it would make more sense to rescue him and then chase the car than to chase the car and have something happen to Mason. Deciding to take what was right in front of him, Matthew sneaked into the same side door the other men had exited, pulling a pistol out from his pants in preparation for the worst. It was a good thing he had seen the men exit, too—the door on the side of the building was so well blended in with the church that it was almost impossible to believe that there was one there.
But inside, to start, the church was empty. It was just a graveyard of old rickety pews and a deserted pulpit from which sermons at one time were delivered to the faithful. This church was indeed deserted, and it seemed that it had been so for quite some time. It was actually a bit spooky, but Matthew had been on far too many missions to be scared by something like this.
He was almost ready to turn back when he noticed an exit ramp by the stage and realized that this church had a basement. Still with his pistol forward, he moved carefully, ready for an ambush or a sniping attack.
Nothing happened.
The steps to the basement led him down a long, narrow, darkened hallway.
As he progressed down this passage, he eventually reached a door at the end of it and, with gun drawn, carefully cracked it open. He didn’t know what to expect, and was prepared for the worst.
But as he dared to peer into the room, he didn’t see a band of terrorists waiting to strike. No group of enemies were standing by to ambush him. All he saw was one emaciated man, tied to a chair, with his head tilted back as if her were asleep. The man’s face and head were swollen from a terrible beating, but he was breathing.
Even through the bruises, Matthew knew who he was looking at. Seared into his memory from multiple high-adrenaline engagements from the past, he would recognize that face anywhere.
It was Mason Walker.
22
September 19th, 2028
4:17 p.m. PST
Washington, D.C.
Clara felt immensely relieved after she knew that Matthew Benton was actively looking for her father.
It had taken her three days for someone to actually seem to move with urgency and find her father, but finally, someone was actually working to find him. Raina and the team at Onyx surely would eventually, but, for now, she felt relieved that there was an active pursuit of her father. So much so, in fact, that she finally felt well enough to go to the computer lab to work on some of her assignments. She was busy plugging away on an upcoming paper for her Constitutional History class when a young man sat down next to her.
She was trying hard to focus on her work, but out of the corner of her eye she kept noticing the guy looking at her screen, or even more creepily, looking at her. Although she had dealt with situations far worse than being stared at, it was unnerving to have this happen in such a public place and on a campus that billed itself as a safe space. Unable to take it anymore, she turned toward her interloper to confront him.
The intruder was ready however, and as soon as she made eye contact, he smiled.
“Oh hey, Clara—how are you?”
Clara was shocked that this person knew her name. She looked right into his gaunt, freckled, and pockmarked face, sparing no mercy. The guy seemed taken aback, but in Clara’s mind, he’d lost the right to comfort when he acted so creepily.
“I’m sorry—do I know you?”
The guy frowned, nerves evident all over his face.
“Well no—no, not officially. You are in my Constitutional History class. I sit behind you. I’m a T.A. I’ve heard the teacher call on you
before—that’s how I know your name.”
There was still something very unsettling about the scene; what T.A. would have just at by her in a computer lab like he had and gawked at her? It felt incredibly unnecessary and borderline harassing.
But what was Clara to do, whine about everything? She told herself she would just be cognizant of it and perhaps avoid this particular computer lab in the future.
“My name’s Mark. Nice to meet you.”
Mark extended his hand. Clara already hated having him here as he was, and seeing his sweaty palm only made things worse. She ignored the handshake, nodded her head and turned away.
“Likewise,” she grumbled.
Mark said something like “yeah, cool,” but he then went silent.
For a few minutes, she thought she had just gotten past the worst of it. It was a horribly awkward encounter to be sure, but it wasn’t the worst thing that Clara had ever dealt with.
But then, just as she was starting to get into a nice flow with her writing, the annoying voice piped up from behind.
“So what do you like to do on the weekends?”
Clara groaned.
“What.”
It wasn’t even a question. It was the equivalent of a grunt—just polite enough to not be totally rude, but not so rude as she would feel bad.
Not that there was anything she felt she had to apologize for at this point.
“I was just thinking—there’s a few good movies playing this weekend. I was thinking about seeing one myself. Y-you like m-movies?”
Clara knew exactly where this was all going. And considering where it was coming from, it made her sick to her stomach. At this point, whether or not she was going to be cruel, she didn’t care.
And she certainly wasn’t interested in being pestered to death while she was trying to do her work.
