Noble Sanction

by William Miller

  Wizard nodded. “He’s got more than enough gnomes down there in the basement. They won’t be missed. Besides, I should only need them another day or two at most.”

  “What’s operation mousetrap?”

  He plucked the cigarette from his mouth. “You really want to know?”

  She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “This isn’t the sixties, Al. You can’t run unsanctioned operations without congressional oversight. Have you heard of the Church hearings?”

  A lopsided grin turned up one side of his mouth. “Relax, Director. It’s an intelligence-gathering operation.”

  “I hope so,” Armstrong said. “If you’re laying in a special operation without my knowledge, we’d be having a whole different conversation.”

  “Nothing like that,” Wizard assured her. “I need a couple of computer cowboys to collect intel on a suspected terror group operating out of South Africa.”

  “Does the Chief of Station in South Africa know about this?”

  Wizard inclined his head. “She gave me the tip that started the dominoes tumbling.”

  “Why do I get the feeling you’re holding out on me?”

  “Suspicion is built into the job description.”

  Armstrong fixed him with a hard stare. Wizard held her gaze. A contest of wills was pointless. The man could stare a hole through a brick wall if he set his mind to it. Armstrong broke off and rearranged the papers on her desk. “This better not blow up in my face.”

  “Like I said, I’m just putting together information.” He took a drag and asked, “What did the president decide about our friend in Iran?”

  “He wants us to run her in place for now.”

  “That’s a dangerous gambit,” Wizard croaked. “China? Sure. Russia? No problem. But Iran? Easier said than done.”

  “Which is why I want you to lay in the plumbing for a defection,” Armstrong told him. “I want the pipeline ready and waiting if this goes bad.”

  “I’ll get right on it,” Wizard said and cranked himself out of the chair.

  She watched him go. Wizard liked to play things close to the vest. He was a veteran of the Cold War, a holdover from the days when the CIA had been infiltrated by Soviet spies. It had been a dark time. Top-secret information was finding its way back to the Kremlin and good agents wound up dead. Wizard had lived through the worst of it. He had lost friends to the Red Menace. It had ingrained certain habits into him that he couldn’t let go of. Because of that, he never told the whole truth to anybody. He probably kept secrets from himself. And it was becoming a problem. Wizard liked to run his shop as if it were an independent organization from the rest of the CIA. But that was the old way of doing things. The new CIA was an interconnected organism When Wizard’s shop refused to cooperate and share info, it hurt the organization as a whole. Armstrong considered the fact that Wizard might be past his sell-by date. It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed her mind. She briefly thought about walking down the hall to the situation room. It would be easy enough to poke her head in and ask Cook and Witwicky what they were working on, but part of her was afraid to know the answer. The phone rang, pushing the issue to the back of her mind.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ezra and Gwen were less than thrilled to be working on an operation without congressional oversight, even if it was laid in by the DDO. Their varied careers with the Company thus far had taught them to keep their heads down, avoid notice, and not make waves. Other analysts considered the pair trouble on four legs. Of course, Gwen and Ezra didn’t go looking for trouble; it just seemed to find them. Both had been surprised and a little anxious when the DDO tapped them for a special assignment. Apprehension had turned to dread when Jake Noble walked into the situation room. No good could come of any mission involving Jake Noble—even if he was on the other side of the globe.

  “Did you see the look in his eyes?” Gwen asked.

  “Did I see it?” Ezra shuddered. “I nearly crapped my pants when he walked through the door.”

  “He looked mad,” Gwen said. “Like he wanted the whole world to burn.”

  “Guy like that probably does,” Ezra commented.

  Gwen agreed with the assessment.

  They had spent most of the night combing through countless hours of footage from every major airport up and down the East Coast. They finally found what they were looking for at JFK. A brunette had flown into New York the day before Fellows was killed. An imgint tech made a positive ID. The assassin had entered the States on a Canadian passport under the name Elizabeth Michaels. From there, it was relatively easy to retrace her movements as she bounced around the globe.

  They called Wizard just after seven in the morning to let him know they had picked up the assassin’s trail. The wizened old operations officer appeared in the situation room moments later. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth and a cloud of smoke trailed after him. “What have you got?”

  “Our intel on South Africa was correct,” Gwen said. “She flew out of Johannesburg under the name Elizabeth Krantz.”

  Ezra picked up the narrative. “In Paris, she was Erzabet Markowitz.”

  “And in Canada, she was Bethany Mitchel,” Gwen finished. “And get this: Liza Krantz owns a house in a rural town north of Johannesburg which she rents out to an Elizabeth Michaels.”

  “So her real name is probably Elizabeth or something close,” Wizard concluded.

  Ezra and Gwen nodded.

  It’s common practice for field agents to assume fake identities with the same, or at least similar, first names as their real-life counterpart. A field officer who responds to the wrong name in a foreign country ends up in jail awaiting trial for espionage. To avoid that mistake, agents are given legends that closely match their true identity. A CIA officer named Jessica Burns might be sent to the Ukraine under the name Jenika Burkov.

  “That’s good work.” Wizard shot smoke from both nostrils. “Noble’s plan should be landing about now. He’ll check in soon. Let him know what you found.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ezra said.

  “Um, sir,” Gwen said and swiveled around in her chair to face the DDO. “Are we sure Jake Noble is the right man for this operation?”

  Ezra shot her a warning look but Gwen ignored it. Her career had been sidetracked one too many times by Jake Noble. She didn’t want to end up in hot water again when he went off the rails, which was only a matter of time in Gwen’s estimation.

  Wizard plucked the cigarette from his mouth and blew smoke up to the ceiling where it formed a lazy halo around the buzzing fluorescents. “What’s on your mind, Ms. Witwicky?”

  “Well sir,” Gwen began, searching for the right words. “It’s just that he looks a little …”

  “Unhinged,” Ezra finished for her.

  Wizard sized up the two analysts before saying, “Jake Noble was in love with Samantha Gunn.”

  Ezra and Gwen sat there in stunned silence, staring at the DDO.

  Wizard said, “He was there the night she was killed. He watched her die.”

  They both knew Samantha Gunn was dead and they had heard rumors it was somehow tied to the affair that had put Gwen in the hospital, but they had never gotten the full story. The operation, and the events surrounding it, were classified. It was more than either of their jobs were worth to go digging.

  Gwen said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

  Wizard gazed off into the distance, like he was looking into the past, or maybe he was peering into the future. For a moment, he looked even older and more stooped, like the weight of the job was dragging him down. He abruptly straightened up and said, “Keep digging on Elizabeth Krantz and see what you can turn up on P. Arthur Fellows. Call me if anything breaks.”

  Then he was gone, leaving behind the overpowering stench of cigarettes.

  Gwen turned to Ezra. “Did you know about Sam and Jake?”

  “No, and I can hardly believe it. Sam with Noble? The guy is a walking time bomb.” He tu
rned to Gwen. “Can you think of any reason Sam Gunn would like Jake Noble?”

  A resounding no started up from her chest but got lost somewhere along the way. Gwen turned back to her computer screen and pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose. All girls say they want a nice guy who treats them with respect, but that’s just talk. Ezra was a nice guy and women weren’t exactly flocking to him. What girls really want is a guy who can protect them. Girls fall for the bad boy type, not because they’re attracted to danger, but because the bad boy can take care of himself. Jake Noble might not be a conversationalist, but a girl could feel safe around him. He reminded Gwen of an untamed lion roaming the Serengeti. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but if a jackal came calling, the lion would unleash hell. And the more she thought about it, the more that primal, untamed fury appealed to something deep inside her. She realized she was blushing and muttered, “Maybe a little.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Noble took a cab from the airport into the heart of Johannesburg, where he spent the next two hours running a surveillance detection route. It was just after two in the afternoon and the sun was a brilliant white eye overhead, banishing shadows and turning the streets to shimmering mirages. He squinted against the blinding light and sweat pasted his cotton polo to his back. He felt like a man trekking across the Sahara. He strolled the sidewalks, stopped in front of department store windows, turned down-trash strewn alleys, and doubled back to throw off pursuit. He had no reason to believe he was being followed, but he did the SDR out of habit. Better safe than sorry. Besides, it gave him a chance to familiarize himself with the city.

  Johannesburg is one of the last great boomtowns of the late nineteenth century. Located more than five thousand feet above sea level, prospectors found gold here in 1885. Ten years later, the mining camp had swollen to a city of over one hundred thousand souls. The British took over after the Boer War and it’s been a city characterized by race relations ever since. Whites had enforced strict segregation through apartheid until the early nineties, when blacks had risen to power and they had set about punishing whites through reparations. Turnabout, it would seem, was fair play.

  The city’s architecture reflected the turbulent history. Neighborhoods were clearly segregated. Glass-and-concrete skyscrapers loomed over shanty towns where reeking piles of garbage filled the curbs.

  When he was sure he hadn’t been followed, Noble stopped in a sunglasses shop, bought a pair of Ray-Bans, and then made his way to the Legacy Guest Lodge on Fortesque Road. The place was in bad need of a facelift. The lobby was a mixture of opulent and shabby and told the story of a swank hotel past its prime. Pink marble pillars supported a whitewashed ceiling of cracked wainscoting. Thick cobwebs clung to a dusty chandelier. A bored desk clerk managed a half-hearted smile as Noble entered. He had skin so dark it was nearly blue and eyes tinged with yellow. “Checking in, sir?”

  “You’ll find the reservation under Jacob Goodman.”

  “Fifth floor okay?”

  “Second floor would be better,” Noble told him. “Preferably close to the stairs and away from the elevator.”

  The clerk ran Noble’s credit card and handed him a room key.

  “You should have a package for me,” Noble said. “Some product samples.”

  The clerk disappeared into the storage room and returned with a FedEx container roughly the same size and shape as a cereal box. He passed it to Noble and instructed him to enjoy his stay. Noble had been told to go to hell and die with more enthusiasm. He turned toward the elevator and spotted a stack of newspapers on the counter with the headline, deadly hit and run.

  An unidentified driver behind the wheel of a Ford Explorer had plowed through a crowd of pedestrians near a busy shopping arcade, killing two people and injuring three more. There was a picture of the carnage and, below the fold, two headshots of the victims. One was a young black man who had been riding his bicycle. All of sixteen years old. The other was a blonde in her late twenties. The caption beneath the photo read, Elizabeth Michaels was pronounced dead at the scene.

  “It’s free,” the clerk said.

  Noble looked up, a frown fixed on his face. “What?”

  “The paper,” the clerk said. “It’s free. You can take it.”

  “Thanks.” Noble tucked the paper under one arm, rode the elevator up to the second floor, and let himself into a moldy room with a small balcony and a bed covered in stiff sheets. If the lobby need a facelift, the room needed a complete overhaul. Grime crusted the shower floor and the whole place smelled of mothballs. Noble tossed his carry-on and the FedEx box down on the bedspread and took out his phone. He waited through a dozen rings before Gwendolyn Witwicky’s voice came on the line. “Goodman and Associates. How may I direct your call?”

  “It’s me,” Noble told her. “I just landed.”

  “Oh hi, boss! What time is it there?” Gwen asked.

  It was part of a prearranged call and response.

  Noble consulted the Tag Heuer on his wrist. “It’s four-thirty local time.”

  If Noble had been followed, or captured, he would have told Gwen he had forgotten to update his watch. The emergency code would let Langley know he had been arrested and was being played back, in which case they would cut off all communication.

  With the call and response complete, Gwen said, “Glad you’re safe. Going secure.”

  There was a series of clicks and she came back on the line. “Good news. We were able to pick up the assassin’s trail and trace her all the way back to South Africa. We’ve got a name and an address.”

  “Let me guess,” Noble said. “Elizabeth Michaels?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I’m looking at a copy of the Daily Sun,” Noble told her. “Elizabeth Michaels was killed early this morning in a hit-and-run accident.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone while Gwen processed that information. Noble tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, ripped open the FedEx box and emptied the contents onto the bed. Inside was a half dozen tiny microdot transmitters hidden inside a folder labeled “Inventory Management” and disguised as the quality-assurance stickies you find on garments in department stores. There was also a set of lock picks hidden inside the spine of a leather notepad, a ballpoint pen—the kind any executive might carry—with a titanium body, and a collection of milled aluminum parts inside a clear plastic bag labeled “Sample Products.”

  “How is that possible?” Gwen asked after a moment. “I mean … what’s the likelihood?”

  “First rule of assassination,” Noble told her. “Assassinate the assassin. Someone wants to make absolutely sure nobody ever finds out why P. Arthur Fellows was killed. Where are you on his case files?”

  “Errr … ” Gwen said. “Wait one second.”

  She covered the phone and Noble could hear a muffled conversation on the other end.

  He sorted the bag of parts. Useless metal widgets had been thrown in to disguise the real contents—Noble set those aside—and assembled a stainless-steel Kimber Ultra Carry chambered in 9mm, along with two full mags. A wire hanger from the closet and some masking tape would make a useable holster. Noble made a mental note to thank the South Africa Station Chief.

  Gwen came back on. “We’re working on accessing Fellows’s case load now, but it’s going to take time. The Secret Service isn’t playing ball. Our only other choice is to hack into their database.”

  “Did you try calling?” Noble asked.

  “Calling?” Gwen repeated the word like she had never heard it before.

  “Yeah,” Noble said. “Someone has to take over the dead guy’s case load, right? Call the file clerk at Secret Service, claim you’re the officer taking over the open cases, and have them fax the documents to your office.”

  “You want us to lie to the Secret Service?” she said. “We could get in major trouble.”

  “More trouble than hacking into their database and stealing government files?”r />
  “Good point,” Gwen said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

  “All the phone lines inside Langley are heavily encrypted,” Noble told her, like a teacher explaining something simple to an especially slow student. “Even if the file clerk at the Secret Service realizes you’re bluffing and tries to trace the call, he’ll hit the Company firewall. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “That’s a really good idea,” Gwen said.

  “Yeah, I have those every once in a while,” Noble said. “Find out where the body of Elizabeth Michaels ended up.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “My gut’s telling me something’s not right,” Noble said. “Call it a hunch. This assassin, whatever her real name is, didn’t survive this long by making mistakes. Can you track down the body?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard,” Gwen said and said to Ezra. “Find out what hospital they took Elizabeth Michaels to.”

  Noble waited, puzzling over the facts. Who would want to kill a Secret Service agent and why? What was Fellows working on? The assassin might be their only link to the person who ordered the hit. If she was dead, then the trail was cold. Noble opened the mini fridge and took out a small bottle of scotch. Ignoring the price tag, he tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, twisted off the cap and drank. The liquor hit his system like a sledge hammer. His brain welcomed the alcohol even as his stomach recoiled.

  Gwen came back on the phone after a few minutes. “Michaels is at the city morgue on Durston Avenue and get this: Next of kin has already claimed the body. It’s scheduled for cremation.”

  “That’s curious,” Noble said. “Assassins don’t usually have close family ties. Who claimed the body?”

  “A James Naidoo. We checked: Those are two of the most common names in South Africa—the American equivalent of John Smith.”

  “Cute,” Noble said. “I think I’ll go have a look at the body.”