part0008

Mason awkwardly untangled himself from Raina and as the two stood up, she informed him, “Mason… A part of me wants to thank you. But another part wants to tell you off.”

Taken aback, Mason gazed at her, raising a brow, “Really?”

Raina nodded, “Yeah… I mean you did sort of save my life just now, but at the same time I don’t appreciate the special treatment.”

Mason almost laughed, “What? Special treatment?”

Raina sighed, “Seriously… You went out of your way to save my ass…”

A remark which prompted Mason to chuckle, “But I like your ass…”

Only to have Raina snap, “Mason! I’m being serious here!”

The conversation was cut short however, when Kyle chimed into their comm links, “Hey! What the hell just happened?!”

Mason grunted into his receiver, “Did you hear that shit?”

Kyle answered, “Just heard a bunch of yelling, screaming and explosions!”

Listening in, Kyle’s choice of words caused Mathew Benton to laugh and look toward Mason with wistful admiration, as he remarked, “Yeah that was just classic Mason William Walker at work...”

Mason couldn’t help but grin at Benton’s remark, he knew that when Matt started calling people out by their middle name, he really meant business.

Kyle meanwhile, seeking to stay on subject inquired, “Uh—Okay, well who the hell was it that you guys were doing battle with? Were they the hostage takers?”

The mention of which brought the group’s minds back to their erstwhile hostage Nelson. Mason turned just in time to see the trees rustling as he ran down the wilderness path. Mason shouted, “Shit!” before springing off after him. Benton and Raina followed close behind.

Like a human freight train Mason bulldozed right through trees, vines, and branches right back onto the trail. And seeing Nelson in the distance, he screamed, “Stop right there or I’m going to throw a grenade at you!”

The words must have struck home, because as soon as Mason uttered them, Nelson—his will to resist completely sapped—collapsed onto the ground. Mason and Raina then ran toward him as Benton remained at the mouth of the trail to guard it against any potential further interlopers.

Upon reaching the pathetic form of the former hostage it was obvious he was sobbing. Mason was relentless however and kneeling down in front of him he put the gun right to the man’s head as he warned him, “Listen—don’t think I’m about to feel sorry for you. After what you pulled you could have gotten us all killed.”

He then glanced over to Raina and muttered, “Or worse.”

Mason knew all too well the horrors that Raina may have been exposed to if she had been captured. It wouldn’t take much for a bunch of drug dealers to decide to sell a beautiful woman like her into sexual slavery. A fate that Raina, his daughter Clara, and even his daughter’s roommate, all three had just barely escaped a few months back when Onyx crossed paths with an out and out sex trafficking ring. That was a close call—since then Mason wasn’t about to take any further chances.

It was Raina herself however who proved to be much more sympathetic however, as she knelt down before the huddled mass of Brian Nelson and chastised Mason, “Hey! Come on! We don’t even know exactly what happened?”

Mason growled, “I know enough! This guy was the bait that almost got us captured—and or killed!”

After Mason made this heavy proclamation, Nelson practically curled up in the fetal position, could be heard whimpering, “What choice do you think I had?”

Mason wasn’t going to have it however as he snapped, “You had a choice to not help a bunch of narcos spring a trap on us!” Mason took a breath and continued, “If you would have simply asked us for help—”

The man then sat up and wiping his tears away, answered frankly, “I’d be dead.” Coughing and taking a deep breath he then offered, “Look, I can’t outrun bullets. They had their guns aimed right at me the whole time and I would have been made target practice for Amigos dos Amigos.”

The man then lifted up his pant leg to reveal a bloody, open wound, festering with maggots, as he informed them, “Believe me I know.”

Sickened at what she was seeing Raina gasped, “Oh my God—when did this happen?”

Nelson quietly answered, “The last time I refused their instructions.”

Mason still not wanting to show any compassion for the man, glowered, as he grumbled, “Hmm—likely story.” He then grabbed some handcuffs and roughly jerked the Nelson’s hands behind his back as he slapped the cuffs on him.

Nelson, his tears already dry, with surprising ferocity complained, “Damn—what the hell is this? Am I under arrest?”

Mason laughed, “No—I’m not a cop. That’s just a little extra restraint because I don’t trust you in the least.”

This harsh treatment and a pained look on the young man’s haggard face prompted Raina to protest, “Mason! He’s a victim here!”

Mason sternly rebuffed her however with, “Raina there must be something seriously wrong with your memory because just a few moments ago this creep nearly got you killed—remember that.”

Raina knew that Mason was just trying to look out for her, but she was infuriated all the same. He didn’t have to explain to her the danger that she was in. She knew the stakes; she just saw it differently that’s all. She knew that sometimes people like Brian Nelson were simply given a bad set of circumstances and led to make bad decisions. She knew that what Nelson did wasn’t right, but she was willing to have a little bit more mercy for his mistakes than Mason was.

Feeling the need to set the record straight, Raina rebuked Mason’s previous analysis, “My memory is just fine Mason. I’m just trying to see the big picture here. I know what Nelson did—and the danger he put us all in. But I also know he was under severe duress.” Raina paused before adding, “And I know that people can crack under the pressure.”

Mason wasn’t about to give ground in this argument but more immediate matters would intervene as Benton came jogging up to announce, “Hey we better get a move on, I think I just heard some footsteps in the distance! More might be on the way!”

Mason growled, “Shit!” And with the full ruthlessness of a hardened soldier taking over, he roughly yanked Nelson to his feet and pointing a gun to his back shouted, “Move! We’re heading back into the bush!”

Once back in the cover of the wilderness, Mason paused for a moment to allow everyone to get their bearings. Nelson for his part decided to take a load off his painful foot by sitting right down on the forest floor, as Mason and Raina stood looking on. Mathew Benton then walked up to Mason and handed him a high-tech looking piece of eyewear.

Taking it, Mason asked, “What the hell is this?”

Benton grinned, “You wanted glasses right chief? Well there you go!”

Mason holding the flat piece of folded eyewear in his hands thought they looked like something from the movie Bladerunner. Mason unfolded the glasses to look at the lens as he asked, “What the hell are they?”

Benton as cryptic as ever responded, “Just something to see with! Those optics pack a punch. You can see as much as a mile away.”

Putting them on Mason muttered, “What like binoculars?”

But as soon as the glasses closed around his eyes and he was seeing through them, he realized the magnification was way off. He saw trees as if they were right in his face, and as he turned his head the overmagnified trees swirled around him in an out of focus, and nauseating fashion.

He then found Benton, who even though he was several feet away looked as if he were right in his face as well. Mason cursed, “Damn…”

Benton asked, “Well—how you like them? Chris Bradley just made these bad boys at the base before we left.”

Staring at the zoomed-in visage of Benton, Mason sarcastically quipped, “Well Matt, one thing is clear, I can certainly see your nose hairs like never before, this is truly a marvel of modern technology.”

Benton laughed, “What?” Before he realized, “Oh shit—yeah you’re going to have to adjust the settings Mace. Just use your eyeballs!”

Mason asked, “Just my eyeballs?”

Mason chuckled, “Well that’s funny. I can recall a certain Sergeant back in the SEALS who in a real pinch would tell us to use a totally different set of balls.”

Raina always acting like the resident mom correcting the boys, chided him, “Mason!” But as the absurd look on his face and the goofy way he said his words repeated in her mind, she couldn’t help but burst into laughter seconds later as she exclaimed, “Mason you are something else.

Prompting Mason to grin ear to ear, since he always loved it when he could get no-nonsense Raina to laugh at him.

Benton ploughing right ahead however, continued to instruct Mason “Yeah, its sensitive to the movement of your eyes. Look to the corner of the lens and you will see a toggle switch.”

Sure enough, Mason looked to the corner of his right eye and saw a tiny pinpoint of red light in the corner of the lens.

Benton then instructed him, “Just focus on that toggle switch and move your eye from left to right—when you do, everything will zoom out.”

As Raina and Nelson waited on the sidelines, Mason did as he was instructed and the lens dutifully picked up his ocular movement as the scenery zoomed out a degree when he moved his eye left to right on top of the toggle switch.

Mason continued to zoom out, as Benton informed him, “And if you need to zoom back in, just do the opposite—just move your eye right to left. ”

Doing as directed, Mason found himself being halfway fascinated, yet halfway disgusted with the technology. It seemed to exemplify his entire love/hate relationship with much of modern life. He often longed for the day that man was not quite so augmented with tech, but had to rely on his own natural God-given senses.

Nevertheless, he appreciated the edge that the extra vision provided as he scanned the horizon all the same, as he remarked to Benton, “Alright man, nice toy.”

It was just then that Nelson decided to speak up, “Are you guys just going to leave me handcuffed, sitting in the dirt?”

Mason turned to Nelson and stared at him through his glasses, as he snapped, “I really don’t think you are in the position to be giving orders.”

Nelson then warned, “Okay tough guy. Do what you like but I know the longer we stay here the greater the chance that we get ambushed again—this place is crawling with narcos.”

Hearing this, Mason then abruptly stood the man to his feet and asked, “Alright then, well what about you? Can you walk?”

Nelson muttered, “I can manage.”

Raina put her hand on Nelson’s shoulder, a sudden expression of comfort that the man did not expect, and told him, “But as soon as we get you to higher ground we are going to have to see about that injury.”

Nelson, a bit overwhelmed by this one small act of compassion. answered softly, “Okay…”

Mason then led them back to the opening of the trail toward the house, and zooming in, took a look at the building, as he cursed, “Shit the kid’s right—we’ve got some bogies up there right now.”

Raina peering over his shoulder then asked, “Mason what do you see?”

Mason nodded, “I saw two guys just walk into the house.”

Mason then turned to Nelson and asked, “What exactly was this house used for?”

Nelson looked in the distance but with his natural vision wasn’t able to see anything but his own tortured memories. It was in the midst of this sad introspection that he answered, “Yeah—it’s a kind of outpost command center.”

Mason echoed, “Outpost command center? What the hell is that? What do they do there?”

Nelson replied, “It’s where they keep track of the main trail back and forth to the main compound. It’s like a nerve center and main hub for the whole drug enterprise.”

Mason looked over to Benton and grunted, “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s take them out!”