LEGACY Book 1: Forgotten Son Read online

  “Yeah, I told him yesterday. I’ve been going stir crazy.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Stone said, glaring. “Sunny Joe would tear me a new one if he thought I let you come.”

  Freya realized she wouldn’t get anywhere with her brother, not in the mood he was in, though he was right about one thing. They were going to settle this, but she would wait until he had calmed down. Leaving Stone a disdainful glance, Freya turned and set off for the village, breaking into an easy lope that ate up the ground beneath her at a pace more suited to a cheetah than a human.

  Chapter Two

  Ben stared at the unmarked package, wondering when it would explode. It had been sitting on a desk in the middle of a darkened room and though it raised every red flag he had developed over his twenty-seven years of being an agent, the truth was that he just did not care.

  He tilted back the bottle of vodka he had nearly emptied and tried to squeeze the spent lime slice back in, but merely crushed it. Ben abandoned the slice to the floor and sat down behind the box.

  Then the box began vibrating.

  “Sara,” he whispered, fighting back tears. If he was going to die, her name would be the last word coming from his lips.

  In the mid-eighties, his name had been Benjamin Maugaine. He and his wife were stationed in Egypt as part of an Israeli sleeper cell, assigned to monitor activities of local militant Islamists and report back to Mossad, Israel’s famed intelligence agency. They had seen the ascent of a radical wing of Islam taking over larger and larger regions. But after living a peaceful life as the owner of a small electronics repair shop for three years, Sara fell under the lustful gaze of a provincial governor. She was invited to his mansion and survived multiple rapes over the next three days.

  When she returned, Ben reported the matter to the police. They went to trial within days, but Ben was prepared. He built an ironclad case that proved that the governor had raped his wife.

  Which only made it worse when the judge used that evidence to convict Sara of adultery. He threw out the charges against the governor and sentenced Sara to be stoned.

  After the sentence was read, Ben had to be forcefully removed from the courtroom as Sara was led out a backdoor. Facing her own death, but knowing the pain Ben was in, she managed a smile and blew him a kiss.

  Her body was returned to him that evening with a court order to have her buried within twenty-four hours. He sat with her body the entire night, cradling her head in his lap.

  As he thought back to that day, Ben hurled his empty bottle toward the wall, smashing it into a thousand shards. They both knew what they had signed up for. They knew they were risking their lives for the promise of a better future. And they both knew that if they were caught that they would be executed, but this?

  This was not part of the plan.

  The next day, Ben buried his wife and his humanity. He sent one last detailed message to his security director and then Benjamin Maugaine went to work. He studied the travel patterns of both the provincial governor and the local judge.

  He killed them both with his bare hands the next week. Ben found himself wounded and on the run. His local intelligence contacts were of no use. The governor had been too high a target.

  In desperation, Ben tracked down a CIA agent he had once worked with. The man stitched him up and smuggled Ben into the United States. Ben changed his last name to Cole in honor of the agent and over the next decade, became one of the CIA’s top covert operatives. When terrorists attacked on 9/11, every report Ben had filed became a national security must read. Ben was the first choice to head up the foreign studies division of the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security. His department was responsible for the killing or capture of over eighty terrorists and he excelled at his job.

  So when he was removed as head of his department and received an odd order to report to an empty building soon after September 11, finding only an unmarked package on a desk in a darkened room, he had figured someone had set him up.

  He didn’t really care; he had lived a productive life, getting rid of bad guys. It was more than most people could say. It was enough.

  Ben leaned back and took a deep breath as he opened the vibrating package.

  Only to find what appeared to be a computer tablet inside.

  It was unlike any tablet he had seen before. It was oblong and the screen was covered with some kind of thin, plated flap. As he opened it, the screen instantly turned on. It performed a quick scan and identified Ben as the only person in the room.

  The silhouette of a man appeared on the tablet.

  “Agent Cole,” the lemony voice greeted.

  “Yeah, who are you?” Ben asked, releasing the breath he had been unconsciously holding.

  “You may call me Smith,” the voice said.

  “Nice toy, Smith,” Ben said, twisting the tablet in his hands. Even when he applied full force, the tablet twisted and returned, but continued to operate. It was made of some kind of compound metallic material, but was deceptively light.

  “Hmm…bulletproof?”

  “Possibly, but it is inadvisable to test in that manner,” Smith replied. “This unit is called FORtab and there is nothing else like it in the world. I have remotely activated the synchronization routine, which will bind this FORtab for your use only.”

  The screen immediately turned into a rapidly blinking target. The target moved to where Ben’s eyes looked on the screen. It was disturbing and felt confining.

  “It can only be unlocked by a combination of vocal and retina scan. Follow the target with your eyes and when you think of a good password, just speak it.”

  Ben looked down at the small blinking target and scratched his beard as he took a second to think of a password.

  “Gimlet,” he said and the password took. Ben had seen a lot of advanced technology in his years with the agency, but had never seen anything like this. Sleek lines covered the face of the tablet, appearing to be a leather cover, but when he logged in, they

  disappeared into a very sharp screen.

  The texture of the screen had actually changed.

  Smith said, “I will make this short. You have been chosen to head a new department that detects and disposes of terrorist cells.”

  “And who chose me?”

  “That’s not important,” Smith said.

  “Okay, try this question. You’ve just offered me a big job. How big is this department?”

  “Two, counting yourself.”

  “Look I’m drunk, not stupid. You can’t do this with two men.”

  “You will not be going into the field. However, you will be allowed one field agent.”

  “That won’t be enough.”

  “This man has…special training that makes him specifically suited to this job.”

  “I’m gonna need at least twenty men. If — no, when your ‘specifically suited’ guy gets shot — and he will — I’m going to need another. Look, if you’ve read my stuff, you know what’s coming. We can’t stop it with just two men.”

  “That’s the offer.”

  Ben lowered his face only long enough to break eye contact with the FORtab. There was something that he was not being told, but he would not find anything from the outside.

  “Okay, I don’t have anything else to do, so count me in. Forgive me for being drunk the first day on the job. I thought this was a setup to kill me.”

  “And you still showed up?”

  “There are more important things in this world than my life,” Ben answered soberly. “So who’s my field agent?”

  “His name is Stone Smith. He was a member of Navy SEAL Team Six and…”

  “A single SEAL isn’t going to be able to…”

  “He is also a student of the martial art known as Sinanju.”

  “So what, he can break bricks with his head?”

  “He can dodge bullets.”

  “So, let me see if I understand you,” Ben
said, trying to put on his best serious voice. “You just put a drunk guy in charge of an organization that has authority to use lethal force and is armed with alien technology and a guy who can dodge bullets?”

  “I would not have worded it that way, but that is correct.”

  “Okay, I’m in. What now?”

  “You will set up your office and then travel to Arizona to meet your field agent. It is important that you brief yourself on all files referring to ‘Sinanju’ on the flight over.”

  The file appeared even as Smith spoke. As Ben began scanning the information, the tablet reacted to his eye’s movements, automatically moving text and pictures as soon as he was finished viewing them. It was awkward, but only for a few seconds. Then his eyes adjusted and he sped across the information.

  “Agent Cole, your forecasts are incredibly sobering and accurate, but your limited knowledge of the forces operating on this world cause them to be short-sighted. You will be provided whatever resources you need to accomplish your missions.”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

  “At the end of a conversation, the traditional thing to say is ‘goodbye.’” And the man on the other side disappeared.

  Ben leaned back in the chair. As he let go of his FORtab computer tablet, the screen returned to its original pattern.

  “Ben, Ben, Ben…” he moaned. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

  Chapter Three

  Kylie Holcomb bit her lip. As Liz Worn’s campaign manager, Kylie had been told that if she helped Liz get elected to the Senate, she would be placed on a fast track in Washington politics. How hard could it be? The last election had produced a Republican win but that was a fluke not seen in the previous fifty years. Returning a Democrat to this Senate seat would be about as hard as getting a baby to poop.

  She had no idea.

  The first thing she found out after taking the job was that she was Liz Worn’s sixth campaign manager in three months. The second thing was that the self-styled “People’s Senator” had a nasty habit of taking bad news out on the messenger and today the papers in her hand made Kylie the messenger. She quietly entered the luxurious office and left the papers on Liz’s handmade oak desk.

  But before she could turn to leave, Liz looked up at Kylie and flashed her famous “Everyman” smile.

  “What’s that, hon?” she asked in the sweet tone that had become familiar over the past few weeks of the campaign.

  The short straw, Kylie wanted to say. “All the local papers are going with this story tomorrow, page one.”

  The smile disappeared from Liz’s face and the age lines, carefully masked by four-hundred-dollar-a-bottle makeup and multiple Botox treatments teased their way back to her face. Liz slowly read the story and her scowl quickly disappeared into her jowls.

  “I don’t see the problem,” she said, tossing the paper into the recycle bin.

  Being green was a convenient way to justify multiple shredders in every room.

  “The story says that you claimed to be Native American to get jobs at Ivy League schools,” Kylie said, puzzled. Had she even read the story?

  “Dang right I did! The idiots wouldn’t just hire me because I was a woman. They said they already had their quota on women, so I had to do something.”

  “But you took jobs that should have gone to real Native Americans.”

  “Aw, crap-a-poo! I used some obscure tribe that no one’s ever heard of. I don’t even remember their name. Besides, it was just to get into Harvard.”

  “Their name is the Sinanju tribe and you actually did it eight times! The Sinanju were contacted for the story and they have no record of any of your ancestors being a member of their tribe.”

  “Pssh. It’ll all blow over.”

  “Ms. Worm, it is not going to blow over. Two papers are already calling it ‘potentially racist.’”

  Liz tilted her head in condescension.

  “Young lady, do you realize who I am? I am the founder of ‘Individual Diversity In Overtly Troubled Societies!’ They’re not legally allowed to call me racist!”

  “Ms. Worn, research is saying that unless you get the tribe to acknowledge your heritage, this could get ugly.”

  “Forget it. We have more important issues in this campaign, like finding out if my opponent cheated on his high school science project. How’s that coming along?”

  “We’re talking with one of his old girlfriends, but she’s having trouble remembering the exact details and we can’t afford to go public until she’s consistent.”

  “Get on it,” Liz said, no longer with any pretense at a smile on her face. “Now!”

  Kylie rushed out of the room, relieved that she still had her job.

  Liz watched Kylie leave the office and her temper broiled over. How dare she imply that Liz Worn, champion of the underdog, was a racist? Liz buzzed the receptionist.

  “Yes, Ms. Worn?” the receptionist asked.

  “Make sure that girl never works in politics again.”

  Chapter Four

  “You can’t just keep tagging along!” Stone said, slamming the door behind him. “This isn’t kid camp!”

  Freya swiftly entered before the door had a chance to fully close. “Everyone’s saying that I’m turning sixteen, so it’s time to start acting like an adult. Then, in the next breath, they tell me that I’m too young to do anything!”

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Stone said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re good at Sinanju and I know you want to help, but there’s a whole world out there that you’re just not ready for yet.”

  “Really? I spent the first eleven years of my life traveling across Europe, watching my mother fight off rapists, murderers and drug dealers. I’ve saved your sorry butt at least twice and you call me naïve?”

  “You can’t work with me and that’s that.”

  Freya stood directly in front of Stone.

  “If you can stop me from reaching your back door, I’ll stay.”

  Stone locked eyes with Freya and took in a deep breath.

  The first Sinanju lesson that his grandfather Sunny Joe taught him was proper breathing. Ninjitsu, Kung-Fu, Karate. Each was based on a small splinter of Sinanju and as such, each was a pale comparison.

  The air flooded his body with strength and his awareness expanded as the world around him slowed to a crawl. The dust that had been lazily dancing in the air froze in place. The steady click-clack of the clock on the wall turned into a slow, almost imperceptible tap.

  And then Freya smiled and disappeared.

  One moment she was standing in front of him and, during the time it took him to blink, she was gone. Freya was suddenly behind him, holding her finger to his throat as if it were a knife.

  “You’re not naïve, Stone. You’re just dumb. And stubborn,” she said, walking out the door.

  “That’s cheating!” Stone yelled without turning around.

  Stone cursed. She was trained well enough to kill just about any man on Earth — but that wasn’t the point. He couldn’t get by this blasted feeling of protecting her. When she first arrived at the reservation, she was the outsider. It took a couple of years for her to fit in. There were arguments over who got to date her.

  Then at fourteen, when she was trying to break up a fight, one of the guys actually tried to hit her. While the guy eventually recovered from his broken bones, Sunny Joe had to make a rule preventing any Sinanju boy from dating her. But that only further isolated her, preventing her from bonding with the tribe. She was always ‘the outside girl,’ ‘the princess,’ the unobtainable girl that caused all sorts of teenage angst in local dating patterns as other Sinanju girls were inevitably compared to Freya.

  It wasn’t like that for Stone.

  He had arrived earlier and was quickly able to connect with someone at a family level for the first time in his life. There had never been an emotional attachment to the uncle who raised him, but now Stone’s grandfather, Sunny Joe, w
as always there and he was able to recognize the Sinanju tribe as home.

  Stone knew it was different with Freya. Despite her outside toughness, Stone could see the walls she had erected to hide behind — to protect her from the social environment where she was truly vulnerable. He knew her well enough to see the fake smiles and could tell when she was being polite.

  He could almost hear her silent screams…for the mother she had lost, and for the father that she had met only fleetingly.

  Stone shared the same father, this Remo Williams, but whatever affection he might have had for the man had been transferred to his grandfather Sunny Joe. And all Stone knew of his mother was that she gave birth to him and then left town. It really didn’t bother him.

  A knock at the door.

  Sunny Joe had just finished speaking with Freya. Stone opened the door and motioned for him to enter.

  “Grandpa,” Stone greeted. “Freya’s been bugging me to tag along with the patrols. I tried to tell her…”

  “She’s right, you know,” Sunny Joe said, interrupting. “This is her home, too.”

  “But she’s only fifteen,” Stone protested. “I was a punk at fifteen.”

  “You’re still a punk,” Sunny Joe said, laughing. “But you’re family and yeah, she may be fifteen, but your sister is tougher’n you think.”

  “I just don’t want to see her getting hurt.”

  “Remember that boy that tried to punch her a few years ago? He’s good enough to walk with a cane now.”

  “I get it; I know she’s a natural when it comes to Sinanju, but grandpa, she needs…I don’t know. She needs some down time. Learn how to be normal.”

  “Neither one of you is ever gonna be normal. You got Sinanju blood. This is her tribe, too. Let her help defend it.”

  Sunny Joe turned to leave.

  “But…” Stone started to protest.

  “Next patrol, she’s going with you. No buts. Don’t make me kick yours,” Sunny Joe said as he left.

  Chapter Five

  Manuel “Manny” Gonzalez could almost feel the wrinkles that had taken hold at the edges of his eyes. Age had begun to claim the fifty-eight year old Mexican drug lord. Involuntarily, he turned to glance at the reflection in his large glass window and flexed his arms.