Mason Walker series Box Set

by Alex Howell

  “Oh my gosh, I’ve completely lost track of time. I’m going to be late.”

  She quickly closed out her work, saving it and putting it on a USB drive, as Mark mumbled behind her. But there was no time to pay any attention to him. She was already annoyed that she would have to jettison a perfectly good study session because of overbearing and intrusive, nerdy flirtation, so she most certainly wasn’t going to dignify Mr. Mark with a response. After stating her lateness, she simply packed up her things and walked right out of the computer lab.

  As she stepped out into the hall, she found herself to be equally frustrated with Mark and herself. She had every right to be in the lab as anyone else; why did she let his comments send her running? Why didn’t she just stand her ground, and if worse came to worse, tell the bothersome pest she wasn’t interested? Why did this have to happen on top of all the other nonsense that was happening in her life?

  These thoughts swirled around in her head as she walked down the hall to find another place to study. She had only taken a few more steps before a less ethical but much more practical thought surfaced—she suddenly realized that in her haste, she had left her flash drive plugged into the lab’s computer.

  “Damn it!”

  Now she had to embarrass herself by going right back to the lab. She chided her nerves for letting situations control her actions, and steeled herself to go back into the lab to retrieve it.

  Clara determined that she was just going to keep her head down, rush in, and grab the drive, and walk right back out. She would be quick and hurried enough that no nerdy guy would have the chance to bother her. If her father could sneak into secret compounds in the Mideast, then she could at least go in and out of a computer lab without incident.

  She hoped. The nerds had a way of making things happen.

  As soon as she had she stepped back inside the entrance to the computer lab, she noticed something unusual. From her vantage point she could clearly see Mark still seated at the computer furiously typing away in what looked like Stanford’s Online grade portal. This was normally not a big deal, as students—TA’s included—logged in to check their grades all the time.

  But still—something about it seemed suspicious, and as her father had taught her long ago, she learned to trust her suspicions. Perhaps it was his willingness to check his grades in such a public forum, or maybe it was just the voice in her head that said him being her TA and going to the portal right after their conversation was just a tad bit strange.

  Pulling out her phone and utilizing a little trick her dad showed her, she focused the phone at Mark and began recording video. This wasn’t just to record him, but to also turn the phone into a kind of telescopic lens to see just what the guy was doing.

  Once recording, she was able to use the zoom feature to zoom in as close as possible. So close in fact that she could now read exactly what was on Mark’s computer.

  To her shock, she saw her name and grades on the screen.

  The grading period for that grading cycle was already over, and she knew that there was no reason for this T.A. to be accessing such things.

  It was bizarre and a little bit too coincidental that he would just happen to pull up her grades immediately after she had bailed on him. Suddenly, the dots began to connect—her grades being lower than she had expected; Mark having a crush on her by all appearances; her rejecting him…

  As this realization took hold, she then noticed Mark pulling a manila folder out of his backpack and placing it next to him. He opened up the folder and proceeded to alternately look back and forth between it and the computer screen, as he typed directly into her record on the grade portal. Clara’s blood was at the boiling point when she observed him suddenly close the folder and get up to go to the bathroom.

  Now is my chance.

  She quickly raced over, not only snatching up her flash drive but also taking a good look at both the screen and the manila folder he left open.

  She was shocked and stunned beyond belief.

  As further confirmation, outside the blurry footage she shot, she clearly saw the quizzes she recently took on top of a stack of graded papers.

  She then looked at the screen and could see where Mark was indeed actively changing the online grades, making them different from what they were on the actual physical papers. You damn bastard. You!

  If this had been during a mission, she would have snapped and attacked Mark, but at Stanford, she had to resort to the proper means to get him taken care of, and that did not involve violence—it involved evidence.

  She quickly snapped off a few photos of what Mark had done, pushing down the fury of emotion that was welling up inside her. With her proof in hand, Clara quickly exited the lab. Now that she had gathered her evidence and her courage, she prepared herself to present her findings to her professor—and pray that he, too, wasn’t somehow involved in this.

  The idea seemed ludicrous, but for all that she had gone through, was it really that far-fetched at this point?

  His office was actually in the same building as the computer lab, it was just located higher up, on the fifth floor. She could have emailed him, but at this point, only a face to face meeting would suffice; it, again, wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility to believe that someone had hacked her email as well to help Mark—if he hadn’t done so himself.

  From the elevator, she made her way to the office of Marty Steinbeck, her Constitutional History professor and anxiously banged on the door.

  “Yes?” the professor said, much more calmly than Clara was. “Come in.”

  Oh, you’re in for a treat today, professor, just you wait.

  Clara stepped inside and her professor gave her a friendly smile.

  “Well hello, young lady,” the professor said with a smile. “The way that you were knocking I thought you might be the police coming to arrest me!”

  “Sorry for barging in like this, Dr. Steinbeck, but it’s important,” Clara said, ignoring the older man’s humor—for there was nothing to be funny about what she was about to present.

  The professor then squinted his eyes to look at her.

  “Oh, you’re in my Constitutional History class, aren’t you?”

  “Yes sir, I am. And it’s that class that I came to talk to you about today.”

  “Please, by all means. Have a seat. So, just what seems to be the problem miss—”

  He then trailed off as he realized that he didn’t know his student’s name. It occurred to Clara that she probably had to engage in her classes a little bit more, but that was a discussion and a topic to worry about at a different date.

  “Clara Walker.”

  “Okay miss Walker—now what seems to be troubling you?”

  “I just caught your classroom TA altering my grades,” Clara said, getting right down to it. “His name is Mark.”

  “What?” Dr. Steinbeck said, seemingly blown away by the accusation. “You saw Mark doing this? Are you sure?”

  “Yes—Mark. I have evidence.”

  A long, tense silence came as Clara saw the professor seem flummoxed by what she had just said. A part of her was very fearful that he wouldn’t believe her, but she decided if he didn’t at least look at the evidence, she was going to the department head—she was not going to take it from anyone. She’d been through too much to let one old, tenured professor ignore her needs.

  “Are you sure?”

  Admittedly, Dr. Steinbeck seemed more just too stunned than he was trying to hide something. But Clara didn’t have time to let him collect himself. Without responding, Clara pulled out her phone and brought up the video she took of Mark actively changing her grades. Pressing play, she handed the phone over to her professor. Dr. Steinbeck frowned as he stared at the shaky footage of Mark in the computer lab.

  And once the video got to the point where Clara zoomed in on Mark’s screen, Dr. Steinbeck audibly gasped.

  “Oh my God...”

  He then watched a few more seconds before handing
Clara back the phone. The look on his face was imperceptible, but it definitely wasn’t dismissive or insulting.

  “I’ve seen enough.”

  For a moment, Clara’s heart sank, fearing that the professor didn’t want to fully embrace the evidence she had against Mark, and was somehow determined to defend his TA over her. After all, if Mark worked in his lab…

  But what Professor Steinbeck did next demonstrated that this was most definitely not the case. He picked up the phone and dialed a number, and a few moments later she heard the professor address her tormentor in a stern voice.

  “Mark? This is Professor Steinbeck. I have a problem with you.”

  The professor then paused for a moment before cutting off whatever Mark was saying, drawing a satisfied smile from Clara.

  “I have a young lady here with proof that you are altering grades. Yes, I have Clara Walker in m office right now—”

  Clara involuntarily cringed at the thought of being outed as the whistleblower for Mark’s mischief, but thanks to the professor’s open discourse, the cat was already out of the bag. There was nothing Mark was going to do now that was going to hurt her.

  At least, nothing with her grades.

  “I don’t know how you thought you would get away with it! In all my years of teaching, I have never had a TA do anything like this!”

  Silence came for a while as Clara saw the professor getting angrier and angrier. It was almost a beautiful sight.

  “Tough luck, Mark! I don’t care about your excuses. It’s too late—you are done!”

  Professor Steinbeck then hung up the phone and looking sympathetically at Clara. Finally, his facial expression was in favor of hers.

  “I just don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  The professor just put his hands up, as if beyond words.

  “He told me that he was only changing your grades to get your attention—and after he spent time with you, he planned on changing them back.”

  Clara felt repulsed at the thought and looked at the ground.

  “Wow…”

  Now, she, too, was beyond words.

  “But don’t you worry Clara, he’s done on this campus. I’m going to see to it that he is expelled effective tomorrow.”

  Finally, Clara thought.

  Finally, something went right here.

  23

  September 19th, 2028

  7:02 p.m. EST

  Washington, D.C.

  “Mason!”

  Out of the crevices of his consciousness, Mason thought that he heard his name, but where he was could not be described by any psychology or physiology textbook. He had lost track of time; at this point, time was as nebulous a concept as the afterlife. That was, unless he was in the afterlife.

  But there was something about the voice that he heard that was bringing him back to the real world very slowly; something about the tone and the manner in which it spoke, not to mention the voice itself, that was reminding him of some distant past.

  “Mason!”

  Somewhere… somewhere back in the days of the black ops… not Onyx… but not the SEAL teams either… something…

  More hidden…

  “Mason! It’s me, Benton!”

  I know that name. I know that name. It’s… it’s…

  “It’s me, the Ghost! I’m going to get you out of here!”

  Mason’s eyes then snapped open to see that this actually was Ghost standing right in front of him. Matt was certainly a sight for sore eyes, and as soon as Mason saw him it was as if his prayers had been answered. Seeing that brawny figure, and the hard-worn face of chiseled stone that made up Benton’s countenance, he was immediately flooded with a new sense of hope that had all but failed him just moments before. Mason attempted to form words of praise and gratitude, but his parched throat and cracked lips failed to make anything more than incoherent groans.

  All the same, though, Mason hadn’t felt such relief in, well, at least three days, but hopefully not more. The time since the two Italians and the one man had left was indeterminable—it could have been five minutes, or it could have been five days. The only thing Mason felt comfortable saying now was that, yes, he was alive, and yes, that really was Ghost before him; but damn if he knew anything else, because he sure didn’t.

  However, Ghost put his finger to his lips and told him to stay quiet. He then pulls a box cutter out of his coat pocket and expertly sliced the ropes that had been restraining him, right off as Mason watched his knotted shackles fall to the floor. He had the idea that stealth was still of value, suggesting that the plot had not yet taken place—although that still, at best, meant they had less than 24 hours left, if that.

  “Now quickly—don’t talk, just nod, and tell me if you know where you are,” Matthew whispered.

  Mason shook his head no.

  “Okay, you are in the basement of an old abandoned church—except it’s not really abandoned.”

  That church… the one I was looking at when I left the bar… the one Sam guided me to…

  Ahh, hell.

  “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Mason tried to open his mouth to say the words, but such a move was so painful that his eyes went through the movements of tearing up—but he was so dehydrated even tears seemed to have trouble following. He was in a world of pain, but, right now, Ghost just seemed too singularly focused on getting him out of the building.

  That couldn’t happen.

  Mason, with his hand free, moved to shove Ghost away. But he just collapsed forward to the ground, drawing swears from Matthew about the enemy coming to find them.

  “What the hell, man? Is that my thanks for rescuing you?”

  Mason shook his head “no”. Again, he opened his mouth to talk, but nothing came. Mason punched the floor weakly, which in his state was more akin to giving it a soft bump than anything else.

  “Well what the hell, Mason? Come on, we have to leave! We can’t be sitting here!”

  Mason once again shook his head “no.” He just had to pray that Ghost got it. So do more.

  In his desperate attempt to explain the need to obtain the missing vials, Mason tried to mimic holding one in his hand. He made a shape of the vials and the containers and widened his eyes, trying to demonstrate the urgency of the situation.

  “What is it a container of something?”

  Mason nodded vigorously.

  “What kind of container?” Benton inquired.

  Attempting to demonstrate the poisonous nature of what the container held, Mason then lifted his imaginary container up to his lips as if he were taking a drink, before falling backwards in the chair as if he were dead. He felt beyond stupid playing this game, feeling like a kid at a ten year old’s birthday party right when the city of D.C. was in danger of the world’s worst biological weapons attack ever.

  “What’s that? You want a beer? This is hardly the time to get wasted, Mason!”

  Mason growing infuriated, shook his head violently back and forth. He realized that he wasn’t going to get the message across with charades and instead mimed water.

  “Okay, okay, just lead me to whatever it is that you are looking for, and we’ll get it.”

  Ghost helped Mason to his feet and allowed him to guide the way. For Mason, it was more of a shuffle than a walk, but it got him moving all the same.

  Fortunately for him, as they headed down the hall, they found a water cooler filled with bottled water that the terrorists had used to supply themselves. Mason had never been happier to see spring water in his life. Grabbing a bottle, he quickly downed the whole thing. The flood of water was like jumping into the world’s purest and cleanest pool after a week in the desert sun; he had never felt so refreshed, and tears began streaming down his eyes at how overwhelmingly good the whole thing felt.

  It was not an exaggeration to say it was the greatest drink of his life. Mason was never again going to take for granted the water that he was consuming.
r />   “Mason, I’m sorry, brother, but we have got to hurry.”

  “I know,” Mason said, then smiled like crazy when he realized he could actually talk. “One more minute.”

  Ghost watched nervously as Mason all but drowned himself in about three bottles of water. Even that didn’t feel like enough, but at least he was finally mustering the energy and the hydration to carry on. He would probably need medical attention at some point, but for now, he had enough to get him from point A to point B.

  The problem was trying to figure out if point B was even a point worth going to anymore.

  But for now, Mason could drink easily.

  “Where the hell did you come from, anyways?” Mason said with a half-laugh. “Onyx ask for your help?”

  “No, actually,” he said. “Clara did.”

  Oh my God.

  Clara made the phone call. And she helped in Kansas.

  She might actually be more cut out for this than me.

  I certainly have a hell of a lot of things to say to Onyx when I see them.

  “What’s today?”

  “September 19th.”

  Mason quickly did the math. It had been three days still since their self-imposed—but now actually imposed—four day deadline. They still had time.

  But why had Onyx not been able to get him back in that time? Save it for later. Right now, you’re a two-person team with Matthew “Ghost” Benton. Yell at Raina and Marshal later.

  As Mason stood up, still a bit shaky but a little more coherent now, he explained everything to Ghost.

  “They have toxins—vials of toxins,” he closed with.

  “Here?” Ghost said.

  “I think so, but not sure,” Mason said. “If they kept me here, seems like as good a guess as anything.”

  Problem is, “as good a guess as anything” has not particularly worked out well for me so far.

  “Okay, buddy, we’ll have a look around.”

  Ghost’s words were more of acceptance than enthusiasm, but Mason didn’t much care. If they found the vials, Ghost could go back into retirement for all he cared.

  As they passed through the sanctuary, something caught Mason’s eye—the baptismal fountain. It seemed to be filled with a dark red liquid. Matt and Mason stopped right in front of it.