At first it looked like Thomson’s old boy network in the Pentagon would be able to effectively blockade the progress of anyone Thomson didn’t agree with. But upon receiving pressure from the President of the United States, Verne Landers himself—Thomson was finally forced to back down.
As summer drew to a close, General Thomson ultimately convened an emergency meeting of Onyx in which he reactivated all members of the team, no questions asked. At least Thomson hoped that no questions would be asked. But Mason couldn’t let him off the hook quite so easily.
On the day of their reinstatement, Mason sat right across from the General at the conference table in Onyx HQ and demanded to know, “So what caused your sudden change of heart General?”
Thomson attempting to be as smug as ever however, brusquely replied, “We just thought that we would give you guys another chance that’s all.”
Mason looked over to Raina who was seated next to him and then back to the General as he sarcastically quipped, “Just out of the kindness of your own heart you wanted to put us back on the payroll huh?”
Thomson wasn’t going to take the bait however, as he snapped, “You heard me. And I really don’t think that there is anything else here to say. So, if you don’t mind—I’m going to go ahead and declare this meeting officially adjourned.”
The Onyx team then watched as General Thomson got up, nervously cleared his throat and stormed out of the room in silence. After Thomson was out of earshot, Benton remarked, “Is that guy for real? I mean seriously?”
Nevertheless, Mason declared to his assembled teammates, “I guess we’re back in business.”
To which Kyle lamely remarked, “I guess you just can’t keep a good Onyx down.”
But Mason knew that there was more to it than that. In the end it was only through the direct intervention of the President of the United States as well as his own friends in high places such as Luke Simon who endlessly advocated on his behalf, that Onyx was able to be kept on life support.
At first glance, things on the professional front would seem grim for Mason. But he had been through the mill before, and he knew that as long as he had a little help from his family and friends, he knew it really couldn’t be that bad after all. In the end it was just a few passing storm clouds that he had to weather his way through.
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CRISIS MELTDOWN
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Mason didn’t listen to his gut. And now it may cost him his daughter.
Nearly a full year has passed since Mason Walker’s last dangerous mission. Clara, his daughter, has finished her first year at Stanford and her first professional job. To celebrate, Mason and Clara jet off to Egypt for two weeks before her sophomore year begins.
All seems normal on the trip. They sight-see, meet other travelers, and take photos. But as soon as they land back in Baltimore, Onyx calls. They need Mason’s help.
What Mason and the rest of Onyx don’t know, however, is that soon, a new mission comes up, one even more important than the one Onyx requested.
One that will leave Clara’s life in the balance.
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1
Prologue Crisis Meltdown
Every Opus has it’s Day
As she toured the hallowed ground of the Vatican, Clara Walker believed that she was in the midst of a grand and exciting vacation. But her father Mason, and his girlfriend Raina who accompanied them, knew that the pleasant idea of vacationing in Rome was just a subtle little ruse used to mask the truth. Because Mason and Raina were not simply sightseeing tourists, they were special agents on a mission to track down terrorists.
Since the early 2020’s a shadowy Catholic extremist group known simply as, “The Blood” had been nurturing radical enclaves all throughout Western Europe, but primarily centered around Italy. The group held fast to a far-right ideology that believed the Catholic Church had become too progressive and secular. These reactionary extremists wished for the Catholic Church to turn back the clock and go back to what they viewed to be its hardline roots.
These ideologues called for a “new crusade” in the form of a grand inquisition. They called for a purging of the ranks through what they called a “baptism in blood” in order to pull the rest of the world’s Catholics into a more militant state. They were looking to stir up what they believed to be a hive of latent religious fervor. And they were going about their provocation in the worst ways imaginable.
In the previous year the group had committed the unthinkable, when they had one of their henchmen detonate an explosive device lined with the deadly Ebola virus, right in the middle of downtown Rome. The target had actually been the Pope’s very residence in the Vatican. This carnage was only averted by a quick-thinking cab driver, who managed to spare the Papal grounds by diverting the attacker to Rome’s busy downtown district instead.
The Pope and the Cardinals of Vatican City were spared, but the shoppers and tourists of Rome proper were not. This was quite a traumatic event for Europe and shocking for anyone who heard of it overseas. And even though Clara thought that they were simply visiting Italy on vacation, she had been following the story on the news. She also wasn’t blind. She could tell just how shaken up the general populace was even months after the fact.
The events of September 11th, 2001 occurred before Clara was born, but anyone old enough to recall the dark days in New York immediately after
