Noble Sanction

by William Miller

  “How do you plan on doing that?” Gwen asked.

  “I’ll think of something,” Noble said and hung up.

  He looked at himself in the mirror above the headboard. The face staring back at him was barely recognizable. He hadn’t eaten in days and had barely slept. Maybe he could use that to his advantage? First, he opened the closet, took a wire coat hanger, and bent it into a makeshift holster for his weapon.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Noble entered the city morgue a few minutes before closing time, his head down and shoulders slumped, looking like a man who had spent most of the day crying. His cheeks were flush and his eyes were puffy slits. The color around his nose and cheeks was courtesy of lipstick he had picked up from a drugstore down the block from his hotel. He had dabbed a little on and blended it with the tip of his pinkie finger. The puffy eyes were achieved by onions bought from a local grocer. Noble had chopped them in the hotel bathroom and rubbed the slices under his eyes. As an added benefit, his nose was now running freely and he was forced to keep sniffing.

  Money is just one way a counterintelligence agent can illicit information, usually the least effective. People taking bribes are likely to hold back on pertinent details and prone to bouts of guilty conscience after the fact. The CIA often trades money for information, but the intel they get is considered unreliable and needs to be backed up by other sources. Appealing to a target’s patriotism, morality or, in this case, emotions is usually far more effective than offering cold hard cash.

  Noble stepped up to the counter, rubbing his nose and blinking. It was like looking at the world through a haze after swimming in a heavily chlorinated pool. Fluorescent lights bathed everything in a fuzzy glow. The morgue had a small waiting room with a few plastic chairs, a low table, and dog-eared magazines. A poster on the wall offered counseling services, along with a phone number. The place smelled like formaldehyde.

  A pretty black girl with dreads stopped pecking at her cellphone and looked up.

  “Uh … I’ve come to see …” Noble began. He swallowed like he was having trouble getting the words out and started over. “I’ve come to see my girlfriend. Elizabeth Michaels. Is this the right place?”

  “One moment.” She plugged the name into the computer. “Yes, we have an Elizabeth Michaels, but the brother has already claimed the remains.”

  Noble nodded. “I know. I just … I need to see her one last time.”

  She started to shake her head. “I’m sorry, sir, there’s really nothing—”

  “Please,” Noble choked out. He reached in his pocket and brought out a fake diamond on a ten dollar chain that he had picked up along with the lipstick. It looked real enough. Noble said, “This was hers. I want her to have it. Please. I just want to say goodbye.”

  The girl’s eyes fixed on the necklace and her shoulders slumped. Noble knew he had her. She pressed her lips together, glanced at the computer screen and then at Noble. “Okay. But you can’t tell anyone I let you back here.”

  “Thank you,” Noble told her. “You’re a good soul. Lizzy would have liked you.”

  She led the way through a pair of swinging doors and along the row of freezers until she found H-13. She popped open the door and rolled the gurney out to reveal a black rubber body bag.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” she said and added, “She was in a traffic accident.”

  Noble nodded.

  The attendant looked like she was having second thoughts, but pulled the zipper enough to reveal the head and shoulders. The fetid smell of decomposing flesh wafted from the bag. Noble got just a hint. His clogged nostrils kept out the worst of it. Even if he had known Elizabeth Michaels, Noble wouldn’t have recognized her. The face was a swollen mass of purple bruises.

  “Take your time,” the girl whispered.

  He bent over the body like he was going to place the cheap cosmetic-store chain around her neck and took the opportunity to unzip the bag, exposing the corpse all the way down to her bare feet.

  “Hey!” The attendant’s eyes opened wide in alarm. “You can’t do that.”

  “I need to see her tattoo,” Noble said. He turned the corpse’s left foot until he could see the ankle. The skin was cold beneath his fingers and the bones popped like celery. There was no tattoo. Just bloated purple skin.

  The morgue attendant was demanding Noble leave before she called the cops.

  “This isn’t Elizabeth Michaels,” Noble told her.

  “What are you talking about?” she said. Most of the color had drained from her face.

  Noble dropped the grieving boyfriend act. “I don’t know who you have in this body bag, but it’s not Elizabeth Michaels.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Elizabeth Michaels has a tattoo on her left ankle.”

  “Okay,” the attendant said. She held up both hands and patted the air. “You’re in shock. This can be a little confusing for some people.”

  “Do yourself a favor and run dental records before you incinerate her,” Noble told her before walking out of the storage room. He let himself out of the dim coolness of the morgue and into the blazing-hot South African sunshine.

  Elizabeth Michaels had taken pains to disappear, right down to a fake corpse. Noble didn’t know how, but she had done it, and he was probably the only person who knew she was still alive. He made his way north along Durston, sticking to the shadows to avoid the worst of the heat, and dialed Gwen on his phone.

  “Goodman and Associates. How may I direct your call?”

  “Personnel,” Noble said. “I need to track down an employee who’s not at her desk.”

  “Going secure,” Gwen said.

  Noble waited to hear the tell-tale clicks and then said, “Elizabeth Michaels faked her own death.”

  “What? How did she manage that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Noble admitted. “But the corpse in the morgue is not hers. Give me the street address you found for her.”

  Gwen read the number off and Noble committed it to memory. It was outside Johannesburg and, in this blinding sun, no way was Noble going to walk. He reached the end of the block and spotted a parking garage across from a towering high-rise. He said, “What about the Secret Service?”

  “It worked!” Gwen’s voice rose several octaves. “Ezra called and claimed to be the agent taking over Fellows’s open cases. They close-copied the files to a dummy email. Only now we’ve got thirty-two case files to dig through.”

  “Start with the most recent and work your way back,” Noble told her.

  “We’ll call if we find anything,” Gwen said.

  Noble hung up and crossed the street to the parking garage.

  An hour later, Noble pulled to a stop along a dusty lane, behind the wheel of a dented pickup truck with one mismatched door and mud flaps emblazoned with Yosemite Sam brandishing twin revolvers and the words “Back Off.” A pair of steel balls hung from the bumper and the cab smelled like dirty socks. When the brakes locked, the tires kicked up a cloud of dust that drifted apart on the wind. A large yellow sun blazed in a patchwork sky of blue and white. It was the type of sky Noble’s father had always called ‘God’s canvas’.

  Fifty meters up the road, just visible through a stand of trees, Noble could make out the pitched roof of the farmhouse. It was built on a slight rise overlooking Johannesburg and surrounded by low vegetation. There were no vehicles around and no fields to speak of, just a plot of untended land with empty rows of earth dotted by poison oak and scrub brush. Noble shifted into park and let the engine idle.

  He took a moment to disable the dome lamp before getting out. The door cranked open with a loud squeal of rusting hinges and the sound carried on the quiet countryside. Noble stepped away from the truck, between a pair of stunted oaks and over hillocks of dead grass, then he waited, allowing his senses time to acclimate to nature. He doubted the assassin would risk coming back here after faking her own death, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If she was smar
t enough to fake her own death, she was smart enough to leave a few surprises for anyone who foolish enough to come snooping around. And Noble didn’t like surprises.

  He high-stepped over grassy tussocks toward the corner of the farmhouse, eyes and ears alert for danger, listening to the cicadas and watching every shadow, wondering what sort of early warning systems the assassin might have in place. He hadn’t gone far when he spotted movement. Noble hunkered next to a tree and his right hand crept toward the gun in his waistband.

  A gray-and-white wolf dog appeared around the side of the house. The canine was nosing along, tail wagging. A long pink tongue lolled from the side of its open mouth. The dog went a few paces, stopped, lifted his head and sniffed at the air.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The beast’s tail stopped wagging. It took a few tentative steps in Noble’s direction, nostrils flared and ears perked. Noble held still, not even daring to breath. His heart started to trot inside his chest. The skin around his mouth tightened. He had a soft spot for anything with fur, but the choice between killing a dog and getting mauled was no choice at all.

  The animal took another step in Noble’s direction before a sound in the underbrush caught its attention. Its head whipped around to the left and it let out a huffing half-bark from deep in its muscular chest, then bounded off through the trees.

  Noble breathed through pursed lips.

  The dog was distracted for the moment but, sooner or later, it would have to be dealt with. Noble wracked his brain. There was nothing in the pickup truck that might help. He circled the edge of the property, giving the house a wide birth. The sun continued its slow trek toward the horizon and shadows grew long as Noble crept through the trees. He came upon an old rusted-out tractor on flat tires near a scrap pile with grass growing up through it. The dog was busy chasing a critter. A single bark echoed across the wooded landscape. Noble sorted through a jumble of rotting lumber, twisted scraps of metal, and an old leather boot teeming with cockroaches. He pulled out a tangled coil of barbed wire, and it gave him an idea.

  Wolf dogs make excellent security. They’re strong, with a keen sense of smell and a nasty attitude—and when they bite, they don’t let go. If a wolf dog gets hold of an arm or a leg, they clamp down and keep on jerking their head around, ripping skin and muscle, until you stop struggling. Noble hoped to take advantage of that trait.

  He moved along the wood line in back of the house, not taking any particular care to stay quiet. He wanted the dog to hear him and come running. He gripped a bit of wood from the scrap pile in one hand and the length of barbed wire in the other. The rusty wire was knotted securely to one end of the board. Noble stepped between trees into a clearing with a view of the farmhouse. No lights were on inside.

  Noble gave a high whistle and called out, “Here, pooch!”

  The dog came bounding around the corner, ears flat against its skull. Powerful legs covered the open ground with terrifying speed. Noble hunkered like a linebacker bracing for impact. The muscles in his neck and back tensed. Sweat sprang out on his forearms. He planted his feet and held his breath. If this didn’t work, he’d end up dead or maimed.

  The dog let out a deep growl and launched himself. Noble thrust the length of wood out and the dog’s jaws latched down with bone-crushing force. The impact slammed Noble right off his feet. He went down on his back and a hundred pounds of fur came down on top of him.

  Slathering jaws clamped down on the old two-by-four. Wood splintered and cracked like a tree bending in a hurricane. Claws raked Noble’s chest, shredding his shirt and savaging his unprotected skin. He quickly worked the barbed wire around the dog’s neck. The beast growled and whipped its head side to side. Angry yellow eyes and slavering teeth filled Noble’s vision. He looped the barbed wire several times around the length of lumber and the dog’s neck, fixing the bit of wood in place, then shoved the dog off him and rolled clear.

  The wolf dog scrambled to its feet and unhinged its jaws in an effort to let go of the wood. It took the animal a minute to realize that wasn’t going to happen. Never let it be said wolf dogs are dumb. The beast lifted his front paw and batted at the two-by-four in an attempt to dislodge it. When that didn’t work, it whipped his head back and forth some more, hoping to throw the wood clear. The dog turned baleful yellow eyes on Noble and let out a pitiful whine.

  “Keep working on it,” Noble told him.

  His shirt was shredded and bloody. A patchwork of claw marks crisscrossed his chest and stomach. None of the cuts were deep, but they stung. Noble climbed to his feet and stumbled toward the house. The dog followed. At the backdoor, Noble took the lockpicks from his wallet, slipped the tension tool into the cylinder and used the rake to scrub the tumblers into place. The dog let out a deep and futile growl.

  “Relax, will ya?” said Noble. “I’m not here to steal anything. Besides, she’s not coming back.”

  The dog gave another furious shake and then whined.

  Noble felt the last tumbler click into place and the lock turned.

  The dog growled one last attempt to scare Noble off.

  “You’re dedicated. I’ll give you that,” Noble said as he let himself into the farmhouse. He held the door open. “You coming inside? Or you going to stand out there and thrash around all night?”

  The beast padded into the house, looking dejected, plopped down on the rug and continued to work at the length of wood with its front paws. A puddle of saliva formed on the hardwood floor.

  Noble left the dog in the living room while he searched the house. He went slow, looking for pressure plates or tripwires, but the canine seemed to be the first and only line of defense. A dozen creepy marionettes hung from the roof beams. Noble found a CZ in an umbrella stand near the front door, another in the refrigerator, and a Glock 19 under a sofa cushion. The bedroom had perfumes and lotions, a stuffed rabbit perched next to a reading lamp, and more pillows than any one person could use. It was all there, everything you’d expected to find in a woman’s bedroom. But it felt like set dressing to Noble. The bathroom and the living room were more of the same. The only thing missing were selfies stuck to the mirrors.

  The spare bedroom was the only room that didn’t fit. Noble found an array of wigs on Styrofoam heads, racks of clothing in all shapes and sizes, and enough shoes to outfit an entire modeling agency, along with expensive stage makeup. There were even a few prosthetics. This woman could transform at will. She could look like anybody. One of the Styrofoam heads was empty, a wig was missing, and Noble wondered what Elizabeth Michaels looked like now.

  In the garage, he found a coil of rope and wire cutters. He carried the tools back to the kitchen, turned on the stove, and rummaged through the refrigerator until he found a steak. The dog was still trying to free itself when Noble dropped the steak into a pan. It landed with a sizzle and the smell of frying meat filled the old farmhouse. The dog stopped fussing with the bit of wood and let out a plaintive whine.

  Noble said, “Smells good, huh?”

  Matchbooks from an auto repair shop on Jonkershoek Road filled a small dish on the kitchen island. Noble examined one of the matchbooks and stuffed it in his pocket before turning the steak. He put the side of meat on a plate and placed it on the floor. The dog’s eyes went to the steak and it sat back on its haunches.

  “Think you can behave?” Noble asked.

  The dog blinked at him with big doggie eyes.

  He patted the beast’s flanks and scratched behind its ears until the animal settled. Then used the wire cutters. The dog spit out the length of wood and set on the steak with slavering noises. Noble watched it eat and when it finished, Noble asked, “Feel better?”

  The dog panted in response. A long wet tongue hung like a banner from one side of its mouth. Closer inspection told Noble it was male and not just a wolf dog—it was a Czechoslovakian wolf dog. In the fifties, the Czechoslovakian military had crossbred German shepherds with Carpathian wolves. The resulting breed had the all trainabilit
y and temperament of a shepherd, combined with the ferocity of a wolf. Soviet Special Forces commandos had used the breed before the collapse of the Communist empire. Now they were mostly used as search-and-rescue dogs.

  While he rummaged through the spare bedroom for medical supplies, Noble considered all the facts; CZ pistols, marionettes, and a Czechoslovakian wolf dog. Everything traced back to the Czech Republic.

  Noble left his shredded shirt on the floor and used alcohol swabs from a makeup kit to disinfect the wounds on his chest. A few dabs of prosthetic glue closed the worst of the cuts. When that was done, Noble found a plain black shirt that fit him well enough and then secured the rope to the animal’s collar. The dog didn’t seem to mind. Noble scratched behind its ears and said, “I’ve got a few more errands to run. After that, we’ll see about finding you a home.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Eliška prowled the narrow lanes of Old Town, enjoying the sound of Czech in her ears. It was strange being back. She hadn’t been home in years. Everything was familiar, yet different. The streets were now crowded with tourists armed with cameras. A wax museum had popped up just down the street from the Astronomical Clock—an uncanny resemblance of Bruce Willis stood in the window—and a museum dedicated to the horrors of Communism had been installed next door to a McDonald’s.

  The sun was going down, casting the streets in shadow and bathing the rooftops in a rich orange glow. Eliška stopped at the door of the Communism Museum for a peek. Through the glass, she spotted a satirical poster of a happy woman holding up a flag. The caption read, You Couldn’t Get Laundry Detergent but You Could Get Your BRAINWASHED. There was a statue of Marx in the entryway and the words, Dream, Reality, Nightmare.

  Eliška smiled, turned the collar of her leather jacket up against the cold, and continued on her way. She had been born shortly after the Velvet Revolution and remembered the poverty left in the wake of Socialism. She had grown up hungry but hopeful. Decades of Marxist economics were hard to shrug off. As Eliška entered puberty, more and more people were opening their own businesses. Jobs were slowly returning. The price of goods fell and the quality of life improved as competition and better manufacturing fueled market growth. Eliška didn’t have much in the way of formal education—schools were slow to be restructured after the revolution—and by the time she was old enough to work, military service had been her best bet. Her only bet. She was just seventeen when she enlisted. That seemed like a lifetime ago.