The Hidden Entity
Chapter 1
Your Next Assignment Mr. Mason.
I stood at the window, starring out blankly over what used to be Los Angeles, California as one of the largest rebuilds in US history was beginning. Work boots were being dusted off, flags raised and anthems sung as America regained it's footing on the day after the deadly drone attacks by the vicious terrorist named Menendez.
"Mr. Maxwell." My assistant walked into the room. "Mr. Maxwell?" He broke my attention on the city still very alive and well many hundreds of feet below us. "What is it Johnson?" I lit a cigarette, raising my hand to stifle Johnson's protests of the federal laws concerning smoking indoors. "It's my building Johnson, now what did you disturb me for?" He smiled, "We got him, sir. Conference room B." He said. "Hot damn, day just keeps getting better." I smiled. He handed me the files on the subject and I began my walk towards the elevators, down three floors to the meeting offices.
I stepped through the door, extinguishing my cigarette in my palm I smiled at the man in off-duty fatigues. "Mr. David Mason." I said flipping open the file folder and scanning the page even though I'd read his after-action reports many times already. "Who are you, and why am I here?" He asked. "My name, Mr. Mason, is Jimmy Maxwell. Founder and CEO of Dark Eagle. Never heard of us? Good. We like it that way. My company specializes in covert or 'Black' operations. Of course you already know these terms, Been in the military since you were legally old enough, your father, Alex Mason served in Vietnam with Mr. Woods, under the C.I.A. handler Hudson." I took a breath and glanced at the soldier sitting at the solid oak table.
"Who are you?" He asked again, looking rather baffled by my knowledge. "Mr. Mason, when you were in the luxury city you made it past security with some very fun toys packed away behind some very expensive shielding material so that you could enter the facility and locate Chloe, which you didn't know that was her until you reached main server room and searched for 'Karma'." I finished.
"If you already know my every foot step then why am I here?" He asked. "Mr. Mason, my father served alongside Mr. Woods, in Vietnam, they shared the same passionate hate for Menendez as you and I do but for different reasons. Remember when your father left to rescue Mr. Woods in Vietnam when you were about eight?" He nodded. "My father was in the same shipping container as Mr. Woods. Still very alive, when he came to from exhaustion and hunger he escaped on shear will power and made his way back to the states, five years later I was born, seven more years later my sister Chloe was born."
The understanding dawned on his face, "That means Menendez killed your sister." He said slowly. "Correct." I said lighting another cigarette. He motioned at my pack so I bummed him one and handed him my engraved USMC '1965' Zippo. "Every system and gadget my company uses, she designed. She was in that club that day because she never was tied to one place for too long. But when it came to it, all I had to do was call her and she was on a plane an hour later bringing the solution to whatever problem I had. She was a super wizard when it came to tech." I took a long drag on my cigarette, stuffing back the mourning I felt thinking about her.
"Why did you two do all of this? Her with the tech, and you with the massive, secret security corporation?" He asked. "Two days before my seventeenth birthday, Menendez walked into my living room a and had a lackey he'd brought with him put two bullets into my fathers left lung. He died ten minutes before the paramedics arrived. His last words will never leave my thoughts. 'Semper Fi, kill that son of a bitch.' I nodded and cried for about twenty minutes before I began all of this, starting with my enlistment in the Corp. I served in the very first wave of Operation Iraqi Freedom. One of the worst military operations in US history since Vietnam." I said finishing my smoke and lighting another. "And you sir, made it to Menendez before we did. So we brought you in."
He looked at me puzzled. "But why? We captured him, he's now serving a hundred life sentences in the new Guantanamo Bay." I shook my head. "Mr. Mason, we've been tracking the next big terrorist, a man by the name of Ahmed Takarov. Half Afghani, half Russian. He hates America with a passion and was Menendez' third biggest backer. We want to bring you on as my second in command both in the office and the field. Your pay will be better and you'll be home except for when we call you in for operations. And if you thought the D.O.D. had toys like those nano gloves and air wings you're so fond of then you're about to feel like a kid at Christmas." I said finishing my second smoke. "I'll need you answer in 48 hours. My assistant will show you to the door." I walked out leaving the files on the table.
"Mr. Maxwell said you could take those." Johnson said entering the room seconds after I left." Mason scooped them up and followed Johnson to the elevator bank in the south wall. "Here's the private line to Mr. Maxwell's office, and all the paperwork you'll need to read if you decided to sign on with us. Have a nice day." He said as Mason exited through the lobby. I sat down and poured a glass of whiskey.
After everything that had happened in the last 48, I prayed Mason would help us. The people of the US wouldn't be able to take another massive attack any time soon.