LEGACY Book 1: Forgotten Son Read online

  It was late when Ben pulled into Mike’s parking lot. He had told Stone about the bar during their trip, but it was obvious from the look on Stone’s face that he hadn’t believed how rundown it looked. The men walked into the bar and Ben nodded to Mike, who only grunted. Stone looked at Mike and felt his probing eyes. He could tell by his posture that Mike was armed.

  Ben walked Stone to the employee entrance and showed him the code.

  “There are cameras everywhere, including here,” Ben said, pointing to what appeared to be a peephole. “If you’re not in the database, the keypad won’t work.”

  “This is supposed to impress me?” Stone asked as the door swooshed open.

  “No, this is to keep the riffraff out. No one can access this part of the building without triggering a dozen alarms.”

  “So who is the guy at the bar? He’s armed to the teeth.”

  “Don’t worry about Mike,” Ben said, leading Stone to the elevators. “Never take the left elevator.”

  Stone looked around. Something wasn’t right.

  “And there’s no one else here?” Stone asked.

  “Just you and me,” Ben replied.

  Ben waited for the right elevator to open and the men walked inside.

  “Only choose the third floor,” Ben said. “Any other button will ruin your day.”

  The elevator slowly descended the three floors, but, as the elevator bell dinged and just before the doors opened, Stone felt it again but this time much more strongly; the slight wince in his bones that something was not right. It was the same feeling he got right before being shot. Adrenalin flooded his body with energy and his nerves automatically forced Stone to center his breathing.

  Had he been led into a trap?

  No, he could tell by Ben’s stance that he wasn’t expecting anything. As the doors opened, Stone shoved Ben toward the cover of the side of the elevator and prepared to take on whatever was on the other side of the doors.

  “Hi, Stone,” a distinctly familiar voice said.

  Ben’s FORtab began the dull pulsating vibration that signaled the presence of an intruder.

  Freya stood on the other side of the door with a weak smile on her face. Recognizing her from the reservation, Ben pulled out his FORtab and stopped the alarm.

  “I thought Stone might need some help,” she said. “We met at the reservation, remember?”

  “How…what’s she doing here?” Ben yelled to Stone.

  “Your security won’t stop her,” Stone said to Ben and then turned to Freya. “You ride in the trunk again?”

  “For a secret headquarters, you don’t have any alarms on top of the elevator itself,” Freya pointed out.

  Ben stared at his FORtab. It was functioning properly and not only had signaled that security had been breached, but had also identified the location of the intruder.

  So why had it not picked her up earlier?

  His FORtab lit up and Ben pulled back into the elevator to answer it. There was only one person on the other end of the FORtab and he knew that an intruder alarm would be dealt with in a serious manner.

  Stone pulled Freya back away from the elevator.

  “You’re gonna blow this for me. I’m here to help the tribe and you’re getting in my way again.”

  “I can help you, Stone.”

  “No, sis, you can’t,” Stone said softly. He looked at Freya and then lowered his head. “Sis, I know what you mean, I really do. But…”

  “At least let me talk to him,” Freya said, nodding toward Ben. “If I can’t get him to say yes, I’ll go home.”

  Stone paused as he looked compassionately at his sister.

  “Deal,” Stone finally said. “But after this, you go home, okay?”

  “Cole,” Ben said, answering his FORtab. How could he have let a girl waltz into his office? “Boss, I screwed up.”

  “There actually is an intruder?” the voice on the other end of Ben’s FORtab asked. “I had assumed you were demonstrating security protocols with Stone.”

  “No, it’s Stone’s sister. I have no idea how she got in. I guess she has Sinanju training. How many of these guys are there?”

  “Tradition calls for only one Master and one pupil. The girl must be an exception. If so, her abilities are beyond your scope to deal with. This organization will not incur the wrath of a Master of Sinanju by attempting to harm her. Why is she there?” Ben noted that even the FORtab couldn’t filter out the annoyance of Smith’s voice.

  “Says that she wants to help Stone. So what’s the call? Normal protocol would be that I kill all intruders, but I think there’s another protocol that says I’m prohibited from harming any member of the Sinanju tribe for any reason.”

  The voice was silent on the other end for a moment and then Ben thought he heard the creak of a chair as if its owner leaned back in thought.

  “You now have two field agents,” Smith said. “Make it work. By the way, the package we want to intercept…I have found it is just a single small wooden box. If that helps.”

  And the FORtab signed off.

  “Mr. Ben?” Freya asked shyly as she approached the elevator door.

  “You’re in,” Ben said. “But you follow my orders or you’re gone.”

  “What?” Stone asked in disbelief. “No way!”

  “I won’t let you down, Mr. Ben,” Freya smiled.

  “She’s your responsibility, Stone,” Ben said. “Bring her up to speed on operations and teach her whatever you can. I’ll set up security to clear her here.”

  “It’s really no problem, I can just bypass…” Freya started.

  “No!” both men shouted.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kylie sat her things down on the desk and turned on the computer. She had lost her job as campaign manager and no matter where she went, no one was willing to hire her, so she quietly returned to the Liz Worn campaign as a researcher. That’s how she started in politics and she was good at it.

  It was a major step down, but at least it was work. She would just keep to herself and hope no one recognized her.

  A man came and sat down across from Kylie and looked at her oddly.

  “What are you doing down here?” he asked.

  “I’m just doing research for the campaign,” she said.

  “Jonah…Jonah Miller,” the man said, offering a handshake. “Don’t worry about it. I was her fourth campaign manager. You know Lou, the guy who drives her, right? He was the campaign manager before me. You’re lucky that you only got demoted. She drove me so crazy that my wife divorced me and took the kids.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kylie confided. “She is Jekyll and Hyde.”

  “What did you do to get fired?” Jonah asked. “I forgot to pick up her dry cleaning.”

  “I was the one who broke the news to her about her Native American heritage.”

  “Ouch. I’m surprised she didn’t throw something at you.”

  “Well, she threw my career out the window,” Kylie said.

  “Hey, wanna have some fun and maybe get payback at the same time?”

  Kylie smiled. “I like the way you think. Nothing illegal, right?”

  “Nah. Our current mission is to research this ‘Sinanju’ tribe.”

  “I had never heard of them before this,” Kylie said.

  “That’s probably why she chose them,” Jonah said. “They pretty much stay on their reservation, so she figured no one would ever be able to challenge her claim.”

  “So what can we do?”

  “She wants to know everything about them — what they wear, what they eat, things like that. Guess what I found?”

  Kylie moved her chair to his desk and sat down so she could see his monitor. It displayed several images of a tall man dressed in what could only be described as a very campy 1950’s Tonto uniform.

  “That’s so much of a stereotype it’s almost racist,” Kylie said, wincing.

  “It’s an actual picture of their chief
. Well, they don’t have a chief. The official title of the tribal leader is ‘Sunny Joe,’ but that’s him.”

  “Well, except for the campy costume, he’s hot.”

  “Don’t get too worked up. These pictures were all taken in the sixties. Get this; he left the tribe for about twenty years to become a Hollywood stuntman. These are various set shots of him playing bit parts in sixties westerns, but they’re definitely him.”

  Kylie smiled. “Oh, my God. I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Yeah, we tell her these are pictures of him and find some cheap costume shop to get her dressed up in a Pocahontas suit. Let her make a fool of herself.”

  “Oh, you’re bad,” Kylie said. “I like you.”

  “There’s just one problem,” Jonah pointed out. “Her new campaign manager.”

  “Yeah, he’s so serious, he’s scary.”

  “We won’t have to worry about him for a few days. I booked him on a three day junket with the vice-president. They’re traveling to Ghana. Just him and the VP.”

  “That’s just wrong,” Kylie said.

  “It’s about to get wronger,” Jonah said, opening a folder full of sketches and hand-written notes, spreading them across his desk. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  That afternoon, Kylie and Jonah met with Liz for their weekly briefing.

  Liz looked curiously around the room as if she were missing something.

  “Did I fire another campaign manager?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” Jonah said. “He will be with the vice-president for the next three days.”

  “That guy’s a retard,” Liz said, rolling her eyes. “So, what did you two find out about these Sinjuns?”

  Kylie stood to give her presentation. She was both upset and relieved that Liz did not seem to recognize her.

  “The Sinanju tribe is not what you would consider a traditional Native American tribe,” Kylie began. “They are of Korean descent. They travelled to America sometime in the late 16th or early 17th century.”

  “That’s racist, isn’t it?” Liz asked. “Why are Koreans pretending to be Indians?”

  “They aren’t pretending. This is how they live their lives. We’ve taken extra time to study the customs of the tribe and have found out all the basics.”

  Kylie nodded to Jonah. He turned on the projector.

  The first slide showed a man’s face with the title SUNNY JOE ROAM below it.

  “This is their chief, Sunny Joe Roam.”

  The next slide showed a younger picture of him in one of his bit parts in a 1960’s western. He was dressed in a campy brown Indian suit, complete with tassels and a feather in his hair.

  “I thought chiefs have a full feather headdress,” Liz pondered.

  “Oh, this was back when he was just a young Indian,” Jonah said, pushing the button. The next slide showed Sunny Joe in a full headdress. He was holding a cavalryman’s head in his armpit, pulling on his hair. It was a set photo from “That Darn Injun,” the only comedy credited to Sunny Joe.

  “Now, that’s more like it!” Liz said, smiling and clapping.

  Kylie rolled her eyes. “We’ve arranged for a tribal uniform to be custom made for you. But understand, we have to use the same materials they use for it to be an authentic tribal uniform.”

  “Is it itchy?” Liz asked, already scratching her arms. “I hope it’s not wool.”

  “I’m sorry, but you’ll only have to wear it for as long as it takes their rite of passage,” Kylie said, making a mental note to construct the entire costume from wool. “If you don’t show up in an authentic uniform, some clown on the internet will say that you’re wearing a rival tribe costume and that will just stir the controversy even more.”

  “Whatever I have to do, let’s just get this over with. What does Slim Joe say?”

  “We contacted him again today. He still wants no part of it, but the reservation has no known security, so you’re going to just show up Tuesday dressed like this offering a peace pipe.”

  Liz’s eyes widened.

  “Do they smoke pot?” she asked, smiling hopefully.

  “No, that was a figure of speech,” Kylie said.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?”

  “We have no other choice.”

  “Ms. Worn!” a man yelled, entering the room, holding papers as if he were strangling them. “Bad news!”

  Jonah and Kylie smiled. They had given the intern twenty dollars to bring the article to Liz’s attention.

  “Now what?” Liz asked.

  “A paper has found another one of your college applications. They’re releasing a story tomorrow that says when you applied to MIT you claimed to be 1/32nd Jamaican.”

  “So what? I never got to attend MIT. Those jerks wouldn’t let me in.”

  The intern stood there, smiling, waiting for a reward of some kind. Liz leaned into his face.

  “Are you waiting for a cookie? Run away, you little turd!”

  The intern ran out the door more quickly than he had come in.

  “You claimed you were part Jamaican?” Kylie asked innocently.

  “Yeah. I overheard one of the department heads saying that they needed more black people. I hired this black guy once and he came from Jamaica, so I thought if I could just imitate his accent that it would help me get in. But do you know what those idiots said? They dared to say that I wasn’t smart enough! Sexist racist woman-phobes! Everyone knows that they rig those tests so they’re hard on purpose!”

  “This isn’t good,” Kylie said, faking the concerned look already showing on Jonah’s face.

  “What are we going to do?” Liz asked, copying their worried expressions.

  “We can’t do anything that would take away from your claim to be a Native American, but you’re going to have to do something to address your alleged Jamaican roots.”

  “I am Jamaican!” Liz protested.

  “I thought you just claimed that to get in.”

  “I did!” she screamed. Then when they continued staring at her, she asked, “What? What’s wrong?”

  “I know what she needs,” Jonah said, snapping his fingers.

  “I know what you mean,” Kylie said, smiling.

  “Dreadlocks,” they said in unison.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Liz said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Tomás!” Manny barked as he burst into his office, displeased with his nephew for the first time in his life. “Please, make me understand what you have done!”

  “Uncle, I cannot have untested men enter the battlefield,” Tomás said, his eyes remaining on his laptop. “They need the experience of battle.”

  Tomás watched the live video feed as his Mexican Ninja Army advanced on the battlefield. While none of them had been trained in any martial art, the sudden appearance of ninety black-clad soldiers had startled the guards stationed at the house of José Moreno, head of a competing cartel.

  “You are attacking my friend,” Manny said. “We have a pact. We have been at peace since childhood. I am the godfather of his children and now he is on the phone asking me why I am attacking his home.”

  “That was his mistake, uncle,” Tomás said coldly. “We need a trained army and José had let down his defenses.”

  “How many of my men have died?” Manny asked, seeing a few ninjas lying on the ground.

  “Thirty-two,” Tomás said.

  “I gave you ninety men! No, Tomás, this is something that you cannot do!” Manny said, closing the lid of the laptop.

  Tomás simply continued to stare forward as if nothing had happened. Manny thought he saw a slight smile crack Tomás’ otherwise harsh face.

  “Uncle, you have given me a very difficult mission; one that you have not been able to accomplish yourself, even though you have tried twice. If I am to complete this mission, then I will need to think outside the box.”

  “But José is my friend!” Manny said, standing back. “You cannot attack
my friend!”

  “This is why I attacked your friend,” Tomás said, opening his laptop. The screen turned back on. After a click of the mouse, the screen began showing a video of José and Tomás’ mother in an unflattering situation. Tomás made sure the audio was turned all the way up.

  “How can he do this to me?” Manny shouted, inflamed.

  Tomás changed the screen back to the video feed from one of the ninjas. The walls to Fortress Jefe Duro had already been breached and the fortress had been set ablaze. The ninjas waited for the people to run out of the burning building, only to gun them down as they did.

  “Shoot them harder!” Manny yelled.

  Tomás turned the laptop away and looked his uncle directly in the eye.

  “This is only the beginning, uncle. No more family cartels. We rule them. All of them.”

  Manny’s cell phone began ringing. No doubt that capullo José was begging for mercy. Manny answered the phone without looking.

  “We need to talk,” the cool voice of Helmut said as he answered. “Alone.”

  Tomás noticed the change in his uncle’s demeanor and saw a look he had never seen before on the face of his uncle: fear. Manny waved Tomás on with the war and exited the room.

  Tomás made a mental note to follow up on this weakness his uncle was showing.

  “This call has nothing to do with José or the small war your nephew has just launched.” Helmut’s voice over the cellphone was brisk and sharp.

  Manny looked back at the closed door of his office and in his mind’s eye recalled Tomás gleefully watching the death and destruction from his computer as if it were just a video game.

  There had been no sign of human empathy, just the cold eyes of one machine killing another. It was the curse of the younger generation; they thought people were just like game machines which did not ever bleed.

  “You are in danger,” Helmut continued. “An American agency has sent two agents to kill you and your nephew; a man and a woman. I will send pictures of the two to your computer and inform Tomás of the orders. Kill them if you must, but I would prefer they be kept alive for interrogation,” Helmut ordered. “This is important, Manuel. Your nephew cannot be allowed to alter this order. Do you understand?”