“Pack a bag,” Wizard said. “There’s a ticket under your name leaving out of Tampa International at 1:30.”
“What time is it now?” Noble asked.
“11:15,” Wizard informed him and rang off.
Chapter Nine
Twenty minutes later, Noble passed through the doors of the Wyndham Arms in downtown Saint Pete. It was like walking into an oven. An old man with cloudy eyes sat in a wheelchair close to a fake fireplace that radiated real heat. The lobby smelled strongly of Bengay and talcum powder. Brochures on the front desk advertised, “A Safe Place for Active Seniors—We Treat Your Family Like Ours.” The brochures didn’t mention the cost of room and board, which could only be described as highway robbery.
Jake scrawled his signature in the visitor’s log and went in search of Mary Elise Noble. He found her in the art room, hunched over a ball of wet clay on a spinning wheel. Frail, arthritic fingers worried at the soggy lump, but it kept collapsing in on itself. An art teacher, not much younger than the “students,” was busy making her own pot and giving instructions about how it was done.
Noble leaned over his mother’s shoulder. “I don’t think it will hold water.”
“Well hello, stranger!” She let the runny mass of clay melt and the wheel slowed to a halt. “I’d be happy if I could get it to hold a shape.”
Noble followed her to a sink. She rinsed off the clay and dried her hands on a towel before wrapping him up in a hug. “I was beginning to think you had forgotten about your old mother.”
“Been busy,” Noble lied. “How are you feeling?”
She stepped back and studied him with narrowed eyes. “I should be asking you that.”
Noble got the feeling she could see right down into his soul. Mothers are like that. At least his was anyway. She always seemed to know just what he was thinking. He shifted his weight and stared at a spot on the floor, not sure how to start. He had come for advice but there was a lump in his throat the size of Rhode Island and he couldn’t get his words out. His brow pinched.
She threaded an arm through his. “Let’s take a walk.”
Noble allowed himself to be led out into the sunshine of a small garden populated mostly with cacti and other succulents that can survive the harsh Florida summers.
His mom said, “What’s up, bucko?”
Noble thought about how to answer that without divulging classified information. The job of covert intelligence doesn’t lend itself to idle chat. Spooks can’t go home at the end of the day and discuss work. It’s a problem for the people who make their living as spies and an even bigger problem for the government agencies that deal in secrets. Human nature is to talk. Sooner or later, even the most battle-hardened spymaster has the urge to rehash the past. For that very reason, the Company has several retirement communities scattered around the nation—places where former spooks can sit around the clubhouse and relive the glory days without exposing government secrets to the wrong person.
“I lost a soldier,” Noble said at last. It was close enough to the truth. “An operation went bad. Someone died.”
“ ‘There is a time and a season for everything,’ ” she quoted. “ ‘A time to be born and a time to die.’ We don’t get to choose when we go. God calls us home in His time.”
“Well, it wasn’t this person’s time to die,” Noble told her. “I planned the operation. I put her in harm’s way. She’s dead because of me.”
“And you blame yourself?”
“There’s no one else to blame,” Noble said.
“Is that why you’ve been drinking so much?”
He nearly missed a step. “How’d you know?”
“I’m your mother,” she said, as if that explanation alone should be enough.
“What’s the Bible got to say about good people dying while evil people live?” Noble asked. It was a sign of how desperate he was. Normally he avoided any mention of God or the Bible around his mother. Once she got started, she could go on for hours.
“God sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.”
Noble shook his head. “I don’t want to hear that, Ma. A good person is dead. I want to know why. Aren’t you the one who always tells me God works everything out for good? Where is the good in this?”
“ ‘And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who serve Him, who are called according to His purpose,’ ” she quoted. “His ways are higher than ours, Jake. Sometimes we don’t understand it. Often times we don’t like it. But we can’t see very far on this side of eternity.”
Noble bit back an angry reply.
“Are you mad at yourself or at God?” she asked.
He thought about it. “Both, I guess.”
“Have you tried talking to Him?”
He thought back over the last two months, every day sitting in the hardwood pew talking to God without answer. A bitter taste filled his mouth. “Yeah, I did, actually.”
“And?”
“Instead of a word from God, I got a call from Langley.”
“Maybe that’s your answer,” she told him.
They continued their lap of the garden and his mother said, “When do you leave?”
Noble checked his watch. “Couple of hours.”
“When should I start getting nervous?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing dangerous.”
She didn’t believe the lie and let him know it without saying a word. “Be careful.”
“I’d rather be lucky,” Noble told her.
Every soldier is careful. Sam was careful. And she was dead. Another hard lump formed in his throat at the thought of her body lying at the bottom of the Seine. He fought back another onslaught of tears.
His mother turned to face him and took both of his hands in hers. Her skin felt like dry parchment paper. She said, “Would you like me to pray for you?”
The sadness evaporated in a hot flash of bitterness and anger.
“Sam prayed,” Noble told her. “Right before she died. It didn’t seem to help.”
He slipped his hands free and made his way to the exit.
Chapter Ten
On the top floor of the Apollo Fund, headquartered in Bern, Otto Keiser pushed his wheelchair up to an expansive conference table of immaculately polished African blackwood. His top staff had gathered around the table, laptop computers open in front of them. Beyond the windows lay the stunning panorama of the Swiss Alps. The sawtooth ridges were capped with snow, but Keiser wasn’t interested in the view. He studied a half dozen flat-screens showing a continuous stream of stock tickers and candlestick charts.
Steve Fellers was pitching a tech stock that had taken a hard dip over the last month. “This is the lowest it’s been since the IPO and it has nowhere to go but up. Sources inside the company promise me they’ve got a new chipset that will rival Intel, but we need to move on this before they make a public announcement and everyone starts buying.”
Keiser nodded. His double chins worked like a pair of fleshy bellows beneath pouting lips. “Buy a seven percent stake and increase it by a quarter percent every day until they announce the new hardware. Anyone else?”
A hand went up at the end of the table. Keiser waved for the young man to speak.
“Sir, Pelax Corp has taken a shellacking. Our analysts expect them to post an eight point two percent loss.”
“How much have we got invested?” Keiser questioned.
“We have a three and a half percent stake in the company,” the young man prompted.
“Sell it all.”
“All at once, sir?”
“No reason to wait,” Keiser said. “Soon as they post their yearly earnings, the stock will take a hit and we’ll lose money.”
“If we sell off all our holdings, it’ll cause a panic, sir. Other stock holders will rush to sell and Pelax will go bankrupt.”
“That’s Pelax’s problem,” Keiser told him. “I’m not running a charity.”
The young man ra
pped keys. Within moments, the sell order would go through. Other investors would see that Apollo, the largest private fund in the world, was dumping Pelax Corp. There would be a race to unload as average investors tried to pull out before Pelax hit rock bottom. Larger shareholders wouldn’t be able to sell their stock in time and a handful of millionaires would find themselves bankrupt. Years ago, Keiser would have watched it happen, like a scientist injecting a virus into living tissue to observe the effects through a microscope. But bankrupting a handful of millionaires had lost its thrill. Watching an international company crumble was no more exciting than watching paint dry. Corporations rose and fell. Keiser was above it all, observing with casual disinterest, like an apathetic god viewing the machinations of man through the eons. He only reached down to move mountains when it benefitted him.
On the wall of flat-screens, Pelax’s price fell from twenty-seven dollars a share to twenty-four, then twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty. After that, it went into a free fall. Investors unloaded as fast as they could and the price of the company plummeted, bottoming out at four dollars and twenty-seven cents a share.
Steve Fellers made a low whistle that ended with an explosion. Someone else chuckled.
Keiser had already turned to more important matters. He checked the figures on his private work station and said, “Short another hundred million in US dollars.”
Linda Bhakti’s hand shot up. Bhakti was the newest edition to Keiser’s team of analysts. She had recently graduated from the Hong Kong School of Finance and showed real promise.
“Speak,” Keiser barked.
“Sir, Quantum Fund has been shorting a lot of dollars lately. So much so that IBD and other sources are starting to speculate.”
“What of it?” Keiser grumbled.
“Well, sir, there are no indicators of trouble in the American economy and no one expects the dollar to go anywhere but up.”
Unruly grey brows bunched together over the bridge of Keiser’s nose. “Is that a question or a statement, Ms. Bhakti?”
“Sir, we’ve shorted over three hundred trillion in the US dollar in the last few weeks.” Bhakti paused to adjust her glasses and continued. “The prevailing opinion on Wall Street is that we are buying in anticipation of a sell-off.”
“What’s your point?”
“We have a duty to protect our clients’ investments, sir.” Bhakti said, “If you are wrong, you’ll bankrupt the fund.”
Keiser slammed a beefy fist down on the tabletop and levered his bulk out of the wheelchair. Spindly legs trembled under the strain of holding up his corpulent mass. Keiser kept himself on his feet through sheer force of will. His face turned red. His eyes bulged. “Don’t tell me how to run my own fund! I made my first billion in this business before you were even a wish in your mother’s heart. Nations rise and fall because I allow it. I don’t need you to tell me what’s at stake!”
The meeting room sat in stunned silence at the sudden outburst.
Keiser thrust one trembling finger at the door. “Clear out your desk.”
Linda Bhakti sat there, her eyes magnified by her glasses, unable to speak.
“Now!” Keiser barked.
She got up and fled the meeting.
Otto Keiser settled his corpulent body back into the chair and adjusted his tie. “Anyone else have a problem with the way I run things?”
The question was met by silence.
“Then we’re done for the day,” Keiser said. “I want you all here bright and early. Remember, money never sleeps!”
The meeting room cleared out and Keiser took a moment to compose himself. Though he hated to admit it, Bhakti was right about one thing: People were starting to speculate. He would have to lean on the editor at Investor’s Business Daily. It wouldn’t do to start a panic. Not yet anyways.
His phone chimed and Keiser checked the caller ID. It was an encrypted line. Only Keiser’s closest associates had the number. He thumbed the green button and put the phone to his ear. “How is our latest venture coming along, my young friend?”
“Everything is just fine. That little problem in Washington has been taken care of.”
“Excellent,” Keiser said. “Then I think our contract employee has outlived her usefulness at this point, don’t you?”
“Agreed.”
“You will make certain she doesn’t violate her nondisclosure agreement?”
“Consider it done.”
“I’ll leave the details up to you,” Keiser said and hung up.
Chapter Eleven
Noble landed in DC just after three o’clock. He picked up a rental from the airport and crossed Key Bridge toward Langley. Rain was coming down in sideways sheets that tried to rip the little Hyundai right off the highway. Noble motored along the George Washington Memorial Parkway to Dolley Madison Boulevard and almost missed the turnoff to CIA headquarters. Pranksters had carried off the sign again. Nice to know some things never changed.
As a non-official cover operative, Noble had no credentials and no parking pass. He was forced to join a line of cars at the main gate where a guard, dressed in black fatigues with an MP5 slung across his chest, inspected driver’s licenses. Another man used a mirror on a stick to search for explosives. A pair of German shepherds sat on their haunches, soaked to the bone and seemingly oblivious to the rain. Their yellow eyes watched the vehicles, noses twitching and ears perked. The taillights in front of Noble winked and flashed as the line crept forward. When he got to the front, Noble switched off his wipers, buzzed the window down and gave the guard his name, along with a prearranged code phrase.
The guard, water dripping off the bill of his cap, plugged the information into a handheld tablet and waited. Icy droplets blew in through the open window, landing on Noble’s shoulder while the guard compared Noble to his photo in CIA database. His eyes narrowed at the gaunt figure in the rental car and then went back to the Company photo.
“I’ve been sick,” Noble lied.
“Uh huh.” The guard didn’t sound convinced, but waved Noble through.
Rain continued to lash the windshield as Noble swung into an empty parking space and switched off the engine. He double-timed it to the front entrance. It was a wasted effort. He was thoroughly soaked by the time he reached the safety of the overhang.
Inside, he went through another round of security checks before crossing over the CIA emblem on the marble floor. He stopped at the memorial wall. Three new stars had been added in the last twelve months. One for Torres. Another for Sam. The third represented the corrupt Frank Bonner. Noble paused and stretched out trembling fingers to touch Sam’s star. The simple impression struck in the stone was the only testament to her sacrifice. Battery acid filled his mouth. His stomach wanted to empty its contents all over the floor. He took a few deep breaths. He was struggling for control of himself when he caught a whiff of smoke.
Wizard stood near the bank of elevators, looking like the specter of death in a slim black suit and a knitted tie. A cigarette dangled from thin lips and a file folder was clamped under one spindly arm. Sharp blue eyes studied Noble from beneath scraggly gray brows.
People muttered under their breath about the presence of a cigarette in a clearly marked no-smoking zone. Others, who knew better, remarked on the sudden appearance of the legend in the flesh. “They call him the Wizard,” someone hissed. “… since the Cold War … ” someone else was saying. “… spymaster …”
Wizard ignored the whispers, crossed the floor and stuck out a gnarled hand. He had a surprisingly strong grip for a man of his age. “Good to have you back, Jake.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I wish it was under better circumstances.”
What could Noble say to that? If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. That’s what his mother would say. Noble simply ducked his head. “Thanks.”
“Let’s not waste time shooting the bull.” Wizard jerked his head at the bank of elevators.
The crowd edged away, giving t
hem a car to themselves, and Noble realized not all the whispers were about Wizard. Some were about him. “… Jake Noble …,” he heard someone say. “… wiped out the Los Zetas Cartel …” And “… took down Frank Bonner …”
The corrupt chief of Paris station was classified top-secret/eyes only, so naturally everybody at Langley knew. It was surprisingly hard to keep secrets in a place where keeping secrets was a part of the job.
Wizard thumbed the button for seven and the doors rolled shut, sealing out the crowd. In a casual tone, he asked, “How’s our friend Sacha Duval?”
“Safe,” Noble told him. “How’s the director handling it?”
Wizard shrugged. “She’s coming to terms with it.”
Armstrong hadn’t asked about the infamous hacker since the fallout in Paris. Duval was still on America’s most-wanted list. If the Company knew where he was, they would be forced to do something about it. Noble had stashed Duval and ordered him not to make contact unless his life was in danger.
Wizard passed Noble the file folder he’d been holding. “Here’s everything we have so far,” he said. “Friday morning, a Secret Service officer named P. Arthur Fellows turned up dead in a hotel room on K Street. DC police are still operating under the assumption it was an accidental death, but we have reason to believe he was killed by this woman.”
Noble flipped open the folder and found a grainy traffic cam photo of a knockout in a slinky green dress leaving the Hamilton. Her face was hidden by Jackie O. sunglasses and a curtain of red hair. Noble leafed through the file. The assassin had landed on the CIA’s radar when she murdered a Bolivian colonel. She was the prime suspect in a dozen other high-profile assassinations over the last decade. Noble turned to her profile page at the very back:
Name: Unknown
Alias: Angel of death
Age: Unknown
Noble Sanction Page 4