Mason Walker series Box Set

by Alex Howell

  “We have a problem.”

  “The hell?”

  When do things ever go perfectly according to plan?

  “It’s not working,” Matthew said, becoming visibly frustrated.

  “Hey Ghost, I think I see the problem,” Kyle said. “Try taking the glasses off, folding them up like you’re putting them away, and then simply putting them back on again. That should reset the equipment.”

  Benton dutifully did as he was told. He put the glasses back on, aimed, and fired off the projectile from the glasses. This time around the needle was released and found its target. The man who appeared to be blissfully sipping on some sort of fountain drink didn’t even know what had hit him.

  That’s two.

  But there were three in the room.

  Mason tried to make moves to procure the two targets, but then someone else—Mason saw that it was Chris and Case, dressed in medical uniforms—had come to drag them away. Mason felt a surge of relief that the two had thought to improvise and do such a thing.

  Still, the third suspect—likely the older man, since the two targets were the Italian-looking ones—was on the loose.

  “Got him.”

  But it wasn’t Ghost or Mason who had said that.

  It was Raina.

  “But Raina, you don’t even have a weapon,” Ghost said. “We can’t let you become a liability—”

  “I don’t need a weapon as long as I have my own two hands.”

  Oh, heavens. I always knew she was a little crazier than I thought.

  “Hands?”

  “Yeah,” Kyle interjected. “Raina is a black belt in like seven different martial arts. She really can handle herself in a fight.”

  Or not. I’m just a little more forgetful than I usually am.

  Mason spotted Raina in the barely-lit grassy knoll, approaching a man, putting a chokehold on him, and then dragging him away. The move brought attention—that was going to make for some fun conversations with Pierce Richards—but the damage had been avoided. It might have even had a positive side effect if the speech got canceled and moved elsewhere.

  But the day’s work had only just begun.

  “All right,” Mason said. “Congrats Raina, that was truly awesome. But let’s keep in mind that even with the suspects down for the count, we still have to find a way of stopping that mechanism before it goes off.”

  28

  September 20th, 2028

  7:41 a.m. EST

  Washington, D.C.

  By Mason’s time, the team had no more than 19 minutes before Pierce Richards began his speech—and once that started, it was unfortunately safe to assume that the device, if not manually operated, would automatically release.

  “All right,” Kyle said, getting on the line. “I have the info you’re going to need in order to get a hold of that mechanism. After going though all of the available surveillance footage from the security cameras, it seems that the suspects did something just behind a big banner, just off to the side of the staging area. It should be right by you guys. Do you see it?”

  Mason looked up to see what could only be described as the tackiest banner he had ever seen, a blue banner with American stars and two thumbs up, looking more like cartoons than actual thumbs. Guess he’s not getting elected on his drawing skills, Mason thought.

  “Yeah, we see it,” Mason said.

  “All right—yep, just go back to the secured area behind the banner,” Kyle said. “We have to take a look at just what these guys were up to back there.”

  It was a truly horrific thought to consider how quickly the virus would spread if Mason didn’t get back there. Mason knew that with the way the wind was blowing in D.C. that day, the Ebola would be all over the city in less than 15 minutes time if he didn’t do something to stop it—all before most of D.C. had really begun to dig into its work.

  Using some subtlety as he moved in, he made his way with casualty and ease, pretending to be an agent for Mr. Richards. He got on the right side of the banner, but still had some work to do.

  “Mace! Did you find the delivery mechanism?”

  “Affirmative,” he said. “Looks like they’re going to use the outdoor heating vents above where Lisa Mitts is speaking.”

  “Really?! Don’t let them turn the heat on!”

  Mason rolled his eyes.

  “You don’t say. Any advice on how?”

  A silence came as Kyle sounded like he was shifting through a variety of papers.

  “There should be a control panel on the side of the platform. Head over there and you should be able to switch it off”

  As Kyle issued this command, Mason looked up to see one of Pierce Richards’ aides walking up to that same panel to switch on the fan. Though Mason wanted to believe that this was just someone who thought blowing some heat on would benefit Lisa and Pierce, there could be no risks taken for having someone act in the name of some cult. Mason rushed up to him and with his service revolver drawn, pointed it squarely at the startled aid, and shouted.

  “Don’t even think about it!”

  “Jesus, what are you doing?”

  Mason didn’t think the man was guilty, but there was no time for that. He shoved him out of the way and looked down at the control panel for the fan.

  It was set to a timer.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a timer.”

  Now Mason’s suspicions were starting to rise. Now he believed that things were looking bad and that the agent was in cahoots with the cult. He still had the gun pointed at the aide, but he was feeling mighty tempted to pull the trigger and take a different kind of heat.

  “A timer for what?” he growled.

  “For the heat! What do you think?! The heat is timed to come on when it gets too cold!”

  Still sounds a bit too suspicious. That’s still just a little bit too easy of an answer.

  “Then why were you trying to turn it on just now?”

  “Well—I can override the timer and turn it on any time I want.”

  “Okay, buddy,” Mason said, making it a point to stretch the gun and click the safety off. “How about overriding it to turn it off completely?”

  “Sure, sure, I can do that,” he said, a nervous mess. “I just have to put in my password. But why would you want to do that? Don’t you know how cold its going to get up there?!”

  “Do it!” Mason snarled.

  “Okay—okay. Let me put in my password.”

  But right when the man was pulling up the menu that would allow him to input his login credentials, Mason noticed something out of the corner of his eye. In a split second, he saw movement and instinctively moved to the side just in time to avoid a stun grenade lobbed by an approaching secret service agent.

  The grenade had been aimed right at Mason, but missed and struck the aid in the head instead. The blast knocked him out cold. Mason stared down the agent, looked up at the approaching agent, and flashed his badge for Onyx.

  “Look, I don’t know what you think your doing, but I’m on your side!”

  “My side?” the agent said, his gun pointed at Mason.

  “Yes! I’m part of a special investigations team. According to our intelligence, a group of terrorists have loaded up a deadly virus to be released through the heating system.”

  The agent sized him up, looked at the badge closely, and then took the safety off of his gun. Damnit, Mason thought. He could do a lot to help the cause of a mission, but get out of a situation where a U.S. agent had a gun pointed out of him was stretching the limits of his imagination.

  “Nice try, but if there were any threats to Pierce Richards, the Pentagon would have told us about it in advance.”

  “The Pentagon missed this one,” Mason said.

  “Hey!”

  The agent turned just a hair. It was all Mason needed. He quickly dashed forward, catching the U.S. agent off-guard. He got him in the fastest headlock Mason had ever applied in his life, making sure to also disarm him in
record time. Once the man did not move—and had given a few seconds to boot, just in case the man was faking it—Mason dropped the man and hurried back to the screen.

  He had two minutes to go.

  “Kyle!” Mason shouted into his earpiece. “We have a problem!”

  “Mason?”

  “One of the secret service idiots just knocked out the only Pierce Richards aide who knows the password to deactivate the heater.”

  “What? Well—then you are just going to have to manually override it.”

  Kyle said it so simply, like Mason just had to execute some target practice and the issue would be solved. I wish it was that easy, Mason thought.

  “And how the hell am I supposed to do that?”

  “Okay, I’m accessing the camera on your eyeglasses and can see exactly what you’re seeing.”

  Well, that’s comforting. But I suppose this whole hacking into virtual devices thing has been going on for some time now, huh.

  “I’m going to walk you through the whole thing.”

  “Okay.”

  Mason’s heart was racing in conjunction with the timer—the lower it went, the higher his went. He had great control over his body, but there was pretty much no one alive who could keep his heart rate low in the face of less than a minute left before all of Washington D.C. suffered from the worst biological attack ever.

  “Listen carefully, Mason, you’re going to do a complete system override by going through the BIOS on the computer.”

  The hell?

  “Hey Kyle, you are talking to a guy that’s not real computer literate. You are going to have to explain this to me down to the T—but do it fast.”

  “Right. Don’t worry its easy.”

  You better be sure of that, buddy.

  “Just press F2 on the keyboard, Mason.”

  Mason pressed F2 as directed and the BIOS menu appeared. To Mason, it just looked like a giant screen of text, but to Kyle, it probably looked like salvation.

  Whatever got the job done, Mason would work with it.

  “Okay got it! Now what?”

  “Okay, from their toggle down to the ‘RUN” option.”

  Mason did just that and hit enter. A space appeared, as if it was a spot he could type into.

  “All right now type in ‘heat system authorization manual override 1207.’”

  That was a mouthful to type in, but the clock was ticking. Mason typed in the words, repeating them back to Kyle as he said them. When he got to the word “authorization” he only had ten seconds left, and his pulse quickened. Mason wasn’t the fastest typist in the world, but, in this moment, he was sending his finger tips into overdrive as he typed in the rest of the code.

  Hitting the enter button, Mason held his breath with just two seconds left. He closed his eyes—he’d done everything he could have at that point. If anything blew up, if the gas released, if it all went to hell, there was nothing more Mason could do. It was now up to him having hopefully done the right thing.

  But to his immense relief, two seconds later, he heard the subtle little click that was indicative of the entire system shutting down. He opened his eyes, literally felt his body collapsed, and smiled.

  “All right folks, I’m about to turn into a human ice cube up here. So, before I freeze, let me introduce you to your future president—Pierce Richards!”

  Lisa’s words reached back to Mason just as the soon-to-be president came on stage, beginning his early-morning campaign. Mason shook his head in disbelief as he muttered perhaps the greatest understatement of the century.

  “Just barely avoided a major disaster here.”

  The bottom of the unit then slid open to reveal the three missing vials of Ebola virus lodged right underneath the fan of the heating unit. Right there, Mason thought, was the three vials that could kill thousands, if not millions, of people.

  All in three containers that couldn’t have possibly been larger than three pens each.

  Thinking fast, Mason carefully grabbed hold of the vials and placed them into his coat pocket. He’d take them back to Onyx, figure out a way to properly dispose of them, and then call it a much needed day.

  Right when he was about to turn to leave, however, several secret service agents converged on his position. Damnit…

  Mason could have attempted to fight his way out, but he knew that if one of these giants grabbed hold of him and inadvertently smashed open the vials of deadly Ebola he carried, it would be a disaster. And this was simply not an option that he could entertain, not when he had come so close to accomplishing his mission—no, not when he actually had accomplished his mission.

  “Freeze!”

  He did just that.

  “Hey look—I don’t want any trouble. I’ll cooperate—all right?”

  “Come with me!” the first agent said, ignoring what Mason had said.

  The men then escorted him away from the platform and led him back to their security station for temporary detention. Alone, and locked behind a door, Mason was glad that this had happened only after the fact.

  And, thanks to his very small ear piece, he could still reach the outside world.

  He immediately rang through to Kyle and told him what had happened. He also told him to get the other team members to conduct surveillance around the church he had escaped from previously, just in case any clue, or any other acting member could be discovered, and could be stopped.

  After all, just because the specific plot had been stopped did not mean the ideology that had given rise to this plot had been stopped.

  29

  September 20th, 2028

  1:21 p.m. EST

  Washington, D.C.

  By the graces of the higher ups and connections, Mason and, as it turned out, Matthew, who had also been kidnapped, had managed to only have a short stay at the temporary detention center.

  Unfortunately, that just meant they were being moved to a slightly less restrictive but still captive FBI office in D.C. Mason and Matthew had been advised that while they could avoid punishment, the FBI wanted to cover their tails before getting in too much trouble and wanted to know more. Mason, for his part, just wanted to get it over with so he could reconvene with Onyx.

  “Just what kind of a briefing are we in for?”

  Matthew’s question was one that Mason himself had wondered about. By this point, he was over it all—he’d saved the day. He just wanted to go home.

  The door suddenly swung open and two FBI agents flanking a familiar face barged into the room. Staring up at the man, Mason’s mind immediately made the connection.

  “General Fanelli…”

  “That’s all right, gentlemen,” the general said to the agents flanking him. “I’d like to talk to them alone if you don’t mind.”

  Without another word the men departed, leaving Mason and Benton by themselves with the old general. Sitting down across from them at the conference table, Fanelli addressed them.

  “Mason Walker and—Matthew Benton, is it?”

  “Yes,” they both said.

  The general shuffled some papers around before clearing his throat.

  “My apologies for this morning. It never should have happened.”

  “What never should have happened, sir?”

  “You guys getting tailed by the secret service like that.”

  “Yeah,” Mason said. “We were a bit taken aback by it.”

  However, there was something more bugging Mason about all of this—namely that he was even here. The fact that they were there in that office was a sign, to Mason, that they were just wasting time—they had to get right to why they were there.

  “General Fanelli—I trust that you are still on leave from your post in Italy?”

  “Yes—yes I am,” he said, surprised.

  “All right then, with all due respect, sir—I know you are a busy man. Could you please tell us exactly what’s going on? Why are we here?”

  Mason knew that Fanelli had to have known that there w
as a secret operation going on and was offended that he didn’t seem to be acknowledging it. General Fanelli, after all, was right there in the presence of General Thomson when part of the mission was being planned and hatched out. So why on Earth would Fanelli, of all people, allow for such confusion on the ground?

  “I know, and I am sorry for the mix up. We thought we had tied up all the loose ends when it came to security for Richards’ speech, but it seems that some of the agents didn’t know that you were working undercover.”

  “I guess not,” Mason dryly said.

  “We will make sure that it will never happen again.”

  Nothing the general said would ease the fury Mason felt for the critical failure of the secret service during Richards’ speech. This failure very nearly cost the lives of an entire city. As these thoughts rolled through his brain, Mason stared silently at Fanelli, practically having to bite his tongue so as not to say something he might regret later.

  “These miscommunications between different organizations and agencies can be dire,” Fanelli said, nerves becoming obvious. “We will make sure that our lines of communication are corrected going forward.”

  Mason continued to stare at the general, still not quite understanding why he was there, and why the General couldn’t have cleared things up sooner. Until his original question got answered, he wasn’t going to let anyone off the hook. Fanelli, growing more and more anxious under Mason’s withering stare, offered a weak explanation.

  “I was placed as a temporary head of the operation. As soon as I heard about what had happened, I rushed right over here to see what I could do.”

  “It seems you came a little too late.”

  General Fanelli grimaced and sighed.

  “As I said, I did all I could do. At any rate, moving on. I would just like to personally extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to both of you for all of your hard work. You two are true heroes. You guys really saved the day—and the city. I just wanted you to know that your efforts are appreciated.”

  The statement immediately struck Mason as being disingenuous and as he exchanged a look with Matthew, he knew that he very much felt the same way. But as their old military conditioning took hold, they knew that it was not up to them to ask questions, so they remained silent.