“Relax,” Eliška said. “His name is—”
“Doghouse Reilly,” Noble interrupted. He didn’t want Miklos having his real name and Doghouse Reilly was the first thing that popped into his head. It came from one of his favorite films starring Humphrey Bogart. “You’ve got some information for us?”
Miklos shook his head and started to backtrack toward the door. “Not for you. I don’t know you.”
Eliška caught his sleeve. “Miklos, I need your help.”
Miklos stared at Noble. “He could be a cop!”
She gave his windbreaker a tug to get his attention. “Never mind him. What did you find out?”
Miklos shot a nervous glance at Noble and said, “I found out this American is no one you want to mess with. He works for some very unpleasant people. You want my advice? Walk away.”
“It’s too late for that,” Eliška told him. “He tried to kill me.”
Miklos jerked his arm free. “Consider yourself lucky.”
Eliška grabbed his lapels and pinned him against the balustrade. “What’s his name?”
“His name isn’t important,” Miklos said. “It’s the people he works for that you should be concerned with.”
“Who’s he working for?” Noble asked.
“A terrorist organization called the United Front.”
“Never heard of ‘em,” Noble said.
“Neither had I, until yesterday,” said Miklos. “And I wish I hadn’t gone snooping around.”
“What did you find?” Eliška asked.
“Enough to scare me,” Miklos commented.
“Who are they?” Noble asked. “What do they want?”
“That’s just it,” Miklos told him. “Nobody knows. They’re well-connected and well-financed. Anyone who runs afoul of them ends up dead. I’m telling you, Eliška, you need to get out of here. Go now. Before it’s too late.”
Miklos grabbed Eliška’s hands in an attempt to pry her fingers loose from his lapels and Noble noticed several of his fingernails were missing. The wounds were swollen and angry.
Noble said, “What happened to your hand?”
Miklos jammed his fist back into his pocket like a child trying to hide a cookie. “Nothing. Nothing. I hurt myself working on the house.”
“Looked more like someone yanked out your fingernails to me,” Noble said.
Eliška grasped his cuff and pulled his hand from his pocket. She saw the bloody nail beds and her nostrils flared. “What did you do, Miklos?”
When he didn’t answer, she gave him a shake. “What did you tell them?”
“I had no choice, Ellie.” His face melted and his chins trembled. “They came to my house. They know all about—”
There was a loud hiss, followed by a snap. The top of Miklos’s head disappeared in a shower of gore. His knees buckled. His body sank like a trapdoor had opened beneath his feet.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Noble dropped to his belly as a second bullet tore a chunk from the age-blackened stone. A third shot whistled overhead and a roof shingle exploded. Noble clawed the gun from his waistband. The smell of blood filled his lungs. His heart crowded up into his throat. Eliška was hunkered down with her back to the wall. Miklos lay on the ground at her feet with half his skull missing and dark-red blood forming a puddle. Eliška stared at the body with shock written on her features.
“The shots came from the west,” Noble said more to himself.
Eliška tore her eyes away from the body. “Probably from the other tower.”
Noble hadn’t heard the report, only the impacts. Elevation and wind helped, but the shooter must have been using a sound suppressor. Noble wondered if anyone on the bridge knew bullets were zipping overhead. A quick peek through the gap in the stonework showed him crowds milling about unconcerned. The shooter could plink at them all day without anyone noticing. Noble said, “We have to get out of here.”
Eliška gave a jerky nod.
They scrambled around the corner, staying low to avoid any more bullets. Noble slipped through the opening in a crouch as another shot blasted chips of stone from the door frame. Eliška was right behind him. The top floor was empty, but Noble’s ears pricked up the sound of feet on the steps.
Eliška held out a hand. “Give me the gun.”
“Not a chance.”
“Then the knife,” Eliška said.
He shook his head. “No way.”
She motioned to the head of the stairs. “They’ll be here any second.”
He didn’t know how many hitters were coming up—it sounded like more than one—and he didn’t know what kind of hardware they were sporting. He had the Kimber, but shooting it out on a spiral stair was suicide. He cast about for anything that might tip the scales in his favor. The only thing he found was an old fire extinguisher collecting dust in the corner. It probably should have been replaced twenty years ago.
Noble snatched it off the hook, and Eliška said, “What are you going to do with that?”
“Try to even the odds,” Noble told her and pulled the safety ring. “Stay behind me.”
Eliška crowded so close he could feel the points of her breasts against his back. With his heart ping-ponging around inside his chest and sweat soaking through his shirt, he moved to the top of the steps, aimed the nozzle and squeezed. The extinguisher belched a blinding white cloud down the winding staircase. Noble went down the first few risers and triggered another blast. He was rewarded with a surprised grunt from below.
He shot two more long bursts and then plunged into the blinding fog. The air was full of choking white powder. Noble put his shoulder against the wall, using it to steady himself, and screwed his eyes down to slits. He went slow. He was afraid of missing a step. It would only take one to end up at the bottom with a broken neck. Eliška was behind him, her hands clutching his coattail. He stopped every few feet to trigger the extinguisher. He could hear the hitters choking on the fire retardant. They were just around the next turn. Noble aimed the nozzle and loosed one long blast before switching the heavy extinguisher to his right hand. Tears welled up in his eyes, rolled down his cheeks and doubled his vision. Noble spotted the barrel of a gun through a wall of white and he swung the extinguisher.
The metal tube impacted with a solid thump. Noble heard a grunt. There was a clatter as the pistol went tumbling down the steps and the heavy sound of a body collapsing. Noble kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other, hoping he didn’t take a header. He stepped over the body of the first man and tangled with a second shooter coming up the steps.
Noble shoulder-checked the goon. The man staggered backward into the wall. A pistol barked. The bullet impacted the stone inches from Noble’s head. Eliška let out a high-pitched curse. Noble swung the extinguisher overhand like a man breaking rocks with a sledgehammer. The first swing missed and bounced off the steps. The goon fired twice more. Noble felt the wind from a slug as it passed between his legs. His stomach twisted into a tight knot and his manhood tried to crawl up inside his pelvis. He swung again. This time he felt the crunch of metal on bone.
The goon went tumbling down the steps. He crashed into a third man coming up—Noble heard them collide. There was a surprised curse, the sound of a struggle, then five ear-splitting blasts.
The last man had gotten confused and shot his partner dead. Noble used the mistake to his advantage. He surged around the turn and swung the extinguisher, catching the man in the stomach. The goon doubled over in pain. Noble followed up with a kick. He managed to connect and sent the man tumbling.
Eliška had stopped and was hunkered down on the steps.
Noble said, “Are you hit?”
When she didn’t answer, he went back to check on her. She wasn’t injured. She was patting one of the fallen thugs in search of a weapon. Noble grabbed her arm and gave her a tug. “No time!”
Tears doubled his vision and his lungs were on fire. He felt like he would choke to death before he reached the bottom.
He buried his face in the crook of one elbow and focused on not missing any steps. He passed the crumpled body of the third man and then stumbled as his feet found the ground floor. He did a clumsy double step to stay upright, dropped the extinguisher and herded Eliška through the door.
She coughed and beat at her chest. She looked like she’d been caught in an explosion at a dumpling factory.
Noble flapped his arms like a bird trying to lift off in an effort to get the last of the smoke out of his clothes. He had been gassed in basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. All of eighteen years old, Jake, along with the other new recruits, had filed into a large olive drab tent flooded with tear gas. The point of the exercise was twofold: It taught soldiers to trust their gas masks—Noble clearly recalled standing in the dark and breathing through his mask, the sound incredibly loud in his own ears as the tent filled with thick white smoke—and it taught soldiers to fight through nauseating pain. Just when the recruits started feeling comfortable, drill sergeants had ordered them to remove the masks. Before they could leave the tent, every soldier was forced to clearly state name, rank, and military number. Once outside, another drill sergeant had ordered the recruits to flap their arms and spit. That’s just what Noble did now. He worked up a throat full of bile, turned his head to the side, and blew snot all over the cobblestones.
They were under the arch, near the foot of the bridge. White smoke billowed from the open door behind them. A crowd was gathering. Several people had cellphones out. A few were calling the fire department. The rest were taking video. One man asked if they were alright. The shooter was on Noble’s left, atop the western tower. On his right was Old Town. The labyrinth of narrow streets would be the perfect place to disappear. Noble started pushing his way through the throng and spotted a black van parked at the corner. Two men, hands buried in the pockets of their overcoats, climbed out.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ezra and Gwen had obtained shipping records from all the textile firms producing currency-quality rag paper, along with the sales records from ink manufacturers. They even had the locations of nineteen intaglio presses scattered around the globe, including one in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Un had bought the machine on the black market and thought it was a secret. The North Korean dictator used the print to counterfeit US currency. Langley knew about it and used the shipments of counterfeit bills to pinpoint North Korean intelligence operations around the globe.
They had crossed North Korea off their list of suspects after inspecting one of the confiscated bills from the Office of Technical Services—it was good, but it wasn’t a supernote—but the investigation into Korea got Gwen thinking about parts. Six months ago, North Korea had ordered a full set of replacement springs under the guise of using them in a newspaper press. Gwen had theorized it was possible to assemble an intaglio from spare parts and they had set to work pulling up a list of anyone who had ordered parts over the last five years.
“What did you find?” Wizard asked. He stood with his boney hips against one of the desks. Smoke curled up from the stub of a cigarette. The air in the situation room had gone from stale coffee and molding carpet to an overpowering mixture of ripe bodies and cigarette ash. Fortunately, as neither analyst had left in hours, they no longer noticed the smell. Ezra was in bad need of a shave and Gwen longed for a shower, but they were both too excited by their progress to worry about little things like personal hygiene.
Gwen pushed the glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Well, sir, we compiled a list of any company who ordered parts that could be used in an intaglio press. We found an unusually high number of parts ordered by a company in South East Asia called GenNext Infratech.”
Ezra added, “They specialize in infrastructure—mostly water-purification plants and sewage.”
“Why would they need intaglio parts?” Wizard asked.
“They wouldn’t,” Gwen said. “That’s what caught our eye.”
Wizard breathed smoke. “Have they got enough to assemble a working machine?”
“No,” Ezra shook his head. “But we found a half dozen other companies, scattered across Asia and the Middle East, who also ordered parts.”
“And you think they’re working together?”
“We know they are,” Gwen told him. “They’re all owned by an umbrella corporation called Regency International based out of Bern, Switzerland.”
“I’ll be damned,” Wizard rasped. “Who owns Regency International?”
“That’s where we hit a brick wall,” Gwen admitted. “Regency is a conglomerate and the controlling members are a collection of law firms.”
Wizard straightened up. His wiry salt-and-pepper brows pinched. “It’s him.”
“Him?” Ezra asked. “Him who?”
“Him,” Wizard said, as if that explained it. “He’s the only man I know with this kind of reach. It’s got to be him.”
Gwen and Ezra shared a look. Gwen said, “We’re still looking into the fact that it might be controlled by Saudi Arabia or China.”
Wizard shook his head. “It’s him. I know it is. I recognize his handiwork. Keep digging. Find out everything you can about the law firms running Regency International.”
Before they had even turned back to their computers, the door flew open and Director Armstrong materialized in the frame. She asked, “What in the hell is going on here, Al?”
“Just tracking down some counterfeit bills, Director.”
“Yesterday, you told me you were putting together a profile on a South African terror group. Today, I learn Jake Noble flew out of DC on a jet bound for Johannesburg. Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”
Wizard put the cigarette to his lips and took a drag while he studied the Director, like he was deciding exactly how much he wanted to tell her.
Armstrong crossed her arms under her breasts and nodded at the pair of analysts. “Do I get it from them or from you?”
Wizard told her about the dead Secret Service agent, the assassin, and the counterfeits. He laid out the whole operation from beginning to end, but left out the part about his shadowy adversary.
Armstrong shook her head. “So you sent Jake Noble to track down an assassin. He’s not cleared for field duty. Three days ago, he was a pass-out drunk!”
“Kid’s done alright so far.” Wizard lit one cigarette off the end of another.
Armstrong rubbed the tips of her fingers against her forehead. “I just came from a budget meeting on the Hill where I assured Congress we weren’t running any covert ops.”
“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” Wizard said. “I wanted you to have plausible deniability. If it blows back on us, I’ll take the heat.”
“In the current political climate, you’ll go to jail,” Armstrong countered.
Wizard didn’t seem phased by the threat. He went on smoking as if the Director had informed him he might need to push his lunch break back an hour.
Armstrong turned to Cook and Witwicky. “What have you learned about this counterfeiting operation?”
Gwen told the director about the intaglio press and Regency International. She wanted to justify her part in the operation and tried to make it clear that she and Ezra were following orders. She ended with, “Wiz … I mean Deputy Director Dulles believes that a hitherto unknown criminal element is behind the plot.”
Wizard shifted his weight. His head moved side to side. It was a subtle gesture, nothing out of the ordinary, but it spoke volumes. He let Gwen know she had said too much without saying a word.
A disbelieving smile crept onto Armstrong’s face. “Is that what this is all about? Your illusive mystery man? Another wild goose chase in search of your arch nemesis?”
“He’s real,” Wizard insisted.
“Do you have any evidence?”
Wizard waved an arthritic claw at the pair of analysts. “The evidence is right here. You heard them. Someone built an intaglio press from spare parts and they’re using it to forge supernotes. Who else would have that kind of
reach?”
Armstrong threw her hands in the air. “Oh, I don’t know … the Russians, Iran, China. Just to name a few.”
“It’s not the Russians,” Ezra said. “We looked into them firs—”
Armstrong silenced him with a withering look and turned back to Wizard. “There is no super villain pulling strings from the shadows, Albert. You don’t have any evidence that these spare parts have been used to make a working press, and if it turns out to be true, I promise you it won’t be some sinister figure working behind the scenes to manipulate world affairs. It’s just another pathetic attempt by an unfriendly nation to upset the reserve currency. Now, I’m shutting this operation down.”
“What about the dead agent?” Wizard asked. “What about the supernotes?”
Armstrong held up a hand. “We’ll continue to look into the parts and follow it wherever it leads, but this Big Foot expedition is officially over. I’m not going to have Jake Noble running around out there causing an international incident.” She pivoted back to Ezra and Gwen. “I want you two to pull Noble in immediately.”
Ezra said, “He’s in the middle of—”
“I don’t care if he’s at tea with the Queen. Pull him in.”
Gwen picked up the phone and dialed. She waited through a dozen rings, hung up and tried again. “He’s not answering.”
“Keep trying until you get him.”
Gwen did as she was told. She dialed the number a third time and got and out of service message. Her brows inched up her forehead. She said, “That’s odd. The number is not currently in service.”
Armstrong turned back to Wizard. Her voice was frosted glass. “Can I see you in my office?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Noble felt like a rat in a cage. He was pinned in. The pair of hoods were less than twenty meters away, pushing and shoving through the crowd. Eliška, still mopping tears from her eyes, was moving right toward them. Noble caught her arm and managed to choke out, “Not that way. Two more.”
Noble Sanction Page 13