Noah Wolf Box Set 2

by David Archer

  “So, what’s the latest?” Kate asked as he poured himself a cup.

  “Well, I got the house—and why didn’t you tell me it was rumored to be haunted?”

  “To tell the truth, it never occurred to me. I’d heard those rumors once or twice, but I guess I just put them out of my mind. I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  “If there were actually such things as ghosts,” Noah said, “I’m fairly certain I would have been visited by some of the ones I’ve created.”

  Kate looked at him for a moment, then asked, “And how many have you created?”

  “Truthfully? I don’t actually know, but it would be well over a hundred. I’m pretty sure at least one of them would’ve found me by now, so I don’t worry much about the afterlife. I stay busy enough with this one.”

  Kate shuddered. “I don’t know how you live with it,” she said, “but I guess that’s what makes you the kind of specialist you are. Anyway, are you moving out today?”

  “Yeah, I think I am. I told my wife about the house a little while ago, and she’s got all her classes finished up so she’s heading here this afternoon. I want to get myself settled into the house and start getting it ready for her.”

  Kate sat there for a moment and looked down at her cup, then popped her eyes back up to Noah’s. “You want some help? You said the place was furnished, but you’re going to need a lot of things before you can actually live there. I mean, does it come with dishes, pots and pans, brooms and mops, and all that stuff?”

  Noah shook his head and remembered to put a grin on his face. “No, I checked all the cupboards and cabinets and they were bare. You want to come out and see the place? Maybe we can hit Walmart and get some of the stuff it needs before Angie gets here.”

  Kate’s eyes lit up. “Thought you’d never ask,” she said. “Trust me, the place is going to need a woman’s touch before your wife sees it.”

  They got into Noah’s car, and he drove her out to his new house so she could start making a list of what it might need. He unlocked the outer front door that led onto the enclosed porch, then unlocked the main door that led inside. Kate followed him and was slightly overwhelmed by how nice the place really was.

  She was even more amazed at all of the antique furnishings. “Rex, do you realize you got a small fortune sitting here? I know a little bit about antiques, and some of these are quite valuable. And just look at the condition—they look like they’re either brand-new or they’ve just been freshly redone. Are you going to hang on to them or put them up for sale?”

  “I thought I’d let Angie decide on that,” Noah said. “That way, if we need to go buy new furniture, she can pick it out. Right now, I’m more concerned about getting the things we need so we can live here for a while. You know, the dishes, pots and pans, cleaning supplies. I think maybe we ought to buy new sheets for the beds, don’t you think?”

  Kate agreed and started making a list. The bed in the master bedroom was a queen-sized bed, but the rest were simply full-size, or what were once called double beds. She noted the sizes and then checked the pillows. “Pillowcases, too,” she mumbled as she scribbled on her notepad.

  Each of the bathrooms, both spotlessly clean, got several notes. Toilet tissue, soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, and toothpaste… Noah admitted to himself privately that he would never have thought of putting such things in bathrooms that no one was using at the moment.

  And then they entered the kitchen. Kate looked around for several minutes, then turned to Noah. “Rex, are you sure you got enough money? If you want decent stuff in here, I’m about to set you back several hundred dollars, and that’s not even counting some basic groceries and staples.”

  “Have at it,” Noah said. “I’ve got a little extra stashed away.”

  “It’s a good thing. There is absolutely nothing in here. I found one old pie pan, but it was so nasty you wouldn’t want to try to cook anything in it.” She started adding to her list, and Noah told her he’d be back. He walked out the back door and around the house to his car, then headed back toward town.

  There was a farm supply store not far from where he turned onto Highway 221, with a nice convenience store built on to it. Noah went in and ordered two large coffees, dumped a lot of sugar into Kate’s cup, the way he’d seen her do back at her house, then grabbed a big box of the fried chicken they offered. It came with fried potato wedges, so it would be fairly easy to eat and clean up after.

  He paid for it all and ended up introducing himself to the guy running the cash register, who seemed pretty excited to be meeting Kate Madison’s brother. Noah smiled and promised to have her stop by sometime, then managed to escape with his purchases.

  Kate was still making notes when he got back, but she was delighted to declare herself finished when she saw the food and the coffee. They pulled out the old oak chairs and sat down at the table to eat.

  “I found something for you while you were gone,” Kate said. She pointed to the counter, where a pair of garage door remotes were sitting. “I already tested them and they work. They were hidden in the back of the little cabinets over the refrigerator. I had to stand on a chair to look in there, but something told me I’d find a surprise.”

  “Cool,” Noah said. “It’ll be nice to be able to put the Charger inside.”

  “I’m amazed that this is so good,” Kate said, after biting into a piece of chicken. “I’ve seen the sign for their chicken a thousand times, but I never got up the nerve to stop and check it out. This isn’t bad at all.”

  “Yeah, you ought to stop in there and get some now and then,” Noah said. “The kid who works there seems to think he’s your biggest fan. I told him I’d try to get you to stop by and give him an autograph.”

  “Be glad to,” Kate said. “You always have to take care of your fans. The more they like you, the better your ratings, and the better your ratings, the better and longer your pay keeps coming. I like to get to know as many of them as I can.”

  They chatted while they ate and then cleaned up the best they could. Noah used the bag he’d carried everything out of the store with as a trash bag and took it out the back to where four steel panels with holes in them had been set up as an incinerator. There was nothing inside it, but Noah tossed the bag in.

  “That’ll be gone by the time you get around to looking at it again,” Kate said. “Raccoons, possums, even wild house cats—they all run loose around here. Something will climb in there and eat what they can, and drag the rest back to wherever they keep their nest.”

  “Everything’s gotta eat,” Noah said. They climbed into the car, and he headed back into town toward Walmart.

  Kate had been somewhat optimistic on her estimate of what Noah would spend. After two hours in Walmart, the grand total came to just over twelve hundred dollars. Noah simply pulled a wad of hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and peeled them off as if it were no big deal.

  Kate watched hungrily as he did so but said nothing until they were back in the car. Once he had driven away from Walmart and was on Industrial Park Road, she finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  “Are you just naturally rich?” she asked. “Or does your outfit give you an unlimited budget?”

  “It depends on the mission,” Noah said. “For this one, it was decided that I should look like I came to town flush, but getting to the bottom of my cash stash. Buying the house definitely put a dent in my reserves, but I thought it was a logical move. If it took me some time to get in with the Morgan people, I could always work at the chicken plant. Owning the house means no rent or mortgage payments, so my cost of living would be lower.”

  Kate shook her head. “I guess that makes sense. I have to live on my radio salary, and trust me, it ain’t much. I shouldn’t gripe, though, at least it keeps me out of the chicken plant. I worked a while there in deboning, and I’ve got so many scars on my hands it’s ridiculous.”

  Noah looked over at her. “I can help, if you need a little extra cash. That wo
uld be in character, since I’m supposed to be your brother. Do you need a few hundred right now? I can spare it.”

  Kate shook her head. “No, goodness, no,” she said. “For one thing, I don’t need my bosses wondering how I’m spending more money than I’m making, but I also don’t want to get dependent on you. I hate to be this blunt, but every other agent that has gone after the Morgans has ended up dead. If they figure out who you are, they’re going to be coming after me, too. Bear that in mind, okay? If you blow your cover, you’ve blown mine, as well.”

  “Relax,” Noah said. “I don’t plan on blowing anything.”

  They got back to the house and carried everything inside. Kate set to work changing the bedding while Noah began opening boxes in the kitchen. It wasn’t difficult for him to figure out where to put the dishes, and the pots and pans went into some of the lower cabinets near the range. Brooms and dust mops and cleaning supplies went into the hall closet, along with the vacuum cleaner and hardwood floor system he had bought. He even managed to set up the coffee maker they had purchased by the time Kate got done in the bedrooms and bathrooms.

  “You surprise me, little brother,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t have thought you could organize things so well.”

  “It’s that thing we talked about that happened when I was a kid,” Noah said. “It left me with an extremely logical mind. I had a friend who actually used to call me Mr. Spock, because I had no emotions and thought everything through to its logical conclusion. Logic dictates that certain things need to be in certain places, so putting all this away wasn’t that big a deal.”

  Kate nodded and smiled at him. “Rex,” she said, “it’s—it’s good to have you back.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Noah’s phone chimed, and he glanced at it to see that it was a text message from Neil. He opened it up and read, “I need rest. Just keep looking at the new moon, and we’ll be there before you know it.”

  The message meant that the mole had been in contact through the car forum’s email system, and it had been relayed into the game that Neil was playing as part of his cover. Neil and Noah had devised a simple code that would allow him to send Noah the phone number that always appeared in the messages. The first seven words of the message would start with a letter that corresponded with the correct number on a telephone dial pad. Noah’s mind read the message and instantly translated it to 467-555-2866.

  “Kate, I’ve got to step outside and make a phone call,” he said. She only nodded, still checking the cabinets and drawers to make sure he had put everything in its proper place.

  Noah stepped out the back door and walked far enough away to be sure she could not overhear him, then dialed the number. It rang twice, and then the distorted voice answered.

  “I wanted to tell you that you were quite effective in Odessa,” the mole said. “I also wanted to discuss something else with you, if you have a moment.”

  “I’m all alone,” Noah said. “Just spit it out, will you?”

  “I get the impression, Mr. Wolf, that you are not entirely happy in your present employment, and yet it seems perfectly suited to you. May I ask what the problem might be? Oh, and that was a polite way of saying tell me what the problem is.”

  Noah hesitated for a moment, then let out a sigh. “You already know so much about me, so I’m sure you know I just got married, right?”

  “Of course. Go on.”

  “We both know, my wife and I, that our lives aren’t likely to be very long in this business, and one of us is going to end up alone, sooner or later. I don’t like the fact that my wife has to be part of my team. I know we both got recruited because we were looking for a way out of the penalties we were facing, but I just wish there were a way I could get her out.”

  “I actually thought that might be part of the problem. Tell me something, Mr. Wolf, what would you say if I told you I could accomplish that? That if you were to agree to work exclusively for me, I can make it possible for the two of you to be certified dead and then give you new identities. I have it within my power to completely erase you from the system so that your fingerprints, your DNA, no matter what system might be used, will not come back to you. I could pay you very, very well to handle situations for me, and you would be sleeping at home with your wife most nights. Considering your skills, I suspect you will survive any mission I might send you on. You could give your family a normal life, Mr. Wolf, even have children if you wish.”

  Noah was quiet for several seconds, but then he spoke rapidly. “Don’t play with me,” he said, “don’t tempt me with something you can’t deliver. If I tried to cut out on the outfit I work for now, they would never give up trying to hunt either of us down, not me or my wife. I won’t even listen to any idea like that unless you can guarantee they will consider us dead. Can you do that? Can you really do that?”

  “Of course I can,” the mole said. “All I would need is to know the location and nature of a mission that requires your entire team. I know that she’ll be joining you in a couple of days, so it might even be possible to use this particular mission that you’re on at the moment.”

  “Holy crap,” Noah said. “Geez, man, this is outta left field, you know?” He made a point of stomping around in the gravel for moment, holding the phone down so that the mole could hear his footsteps. He put it back to his ear a moment later. “I’ve gotta think about this. Hey, what about—there’s another kid in my team, Neil, the computer guy. What if I wanted to bring him out, too?”

  “Could you honestly trust him? If he made any contact with his past, it could lead back to you and Sarah. I think you should consider carefully before risking your lives for a third party.”

  Noah sighed deeply. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I just hope they reassign the kid; he’s pretty good at what he does.” He stopped talking for a couple of seconds, then went on. “You said I’d be home most nights. What’s the risk rating on the missions you would send me on?”

  “Rarely higher than a four. Most of the time it will be like Odessa, simply applying persuasion. Occasionally, I may need to take advantage of your skills as an assassin, however. I manipulate powerful people, Mr. Wolf. You can’t always do that without applying the most personal form of warfare.”

  Noah crunched around in the gravel for a few more seconds, again holding the phone away from his ear. When he put it back, he said, “Okay, let me get this straight. You want me to let you set it up so that E & E thinks we’re dead, and then I have to work for you. In return, I get to give my wife a chance at a normal life, maybe even to the point we could have kids. Now, here’s my question: what happens if, somewhere down the line, you get really pissed at me and decide to let my former employers know where I live?”

  “As long as you do the jobs I ask of you, there’s no risk of that. Mr. Wolf, this is simply a business proposition. It gets you what you want, and gets me an asset that I desperately need. If you need to think it over, I understand. I’ll be in touch again in a few…”

  Noah cut him off. “The only part I need to think about,” he said, “is how far I trust you. Remember that I’m out here in the cold, and if we do this, that means my wife will be out in the cold as well. I have absolutely nothing to convince me you won’t cut my throat sooner or later. Toss me a lifeline, here, would you?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds, but then: “What kind of lifeline are you looking for?” asked the distorted voice.

  “A meeting,” Noah said. “Face-to-face, you and me. You can take any security precautions you want, bring me in blindfolded, whatever. Before I can agree to this, though, before I can agree to put my wife’s life on the line, I want to look you in the eye. If I do, I’ll know just how far I can trust you.”

  The silence lasted longer this time, and Noah began to wonder if the line had gone dead. Suddenly, however, he heard the distorted voice again. “No one sees me face-to-face, Mr. Wolf. Even if I were inclined to do what you asked, I don’t have any
one who could blindfold you and bring you to me. The fact is that this is how I have remained in operation for more than five years. I understand your need to know if you can trust me, but you must understand that I do not trust you, or anyone else.”

  “You’re offering me the only hope I’ve ever got of having a family,” Noah said quickly. “I want to take you up on it, I really do, but I don’t want to put us at even greater risk than we already face. If you really want me as badly as you say you do, you find a way for us to meet. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “As I said, Mr. Wolf, I understand. I will be in touch.” The line went dead.

  Noah put the phone back into his pocket and went back inside the house.

  “Everything okay?” Kate asked as he stepped back into the kitchen.

  “It’s my wife,” he said, smiling. “She’s pretty impatient about getting out here. They’re getting all packed up and ready and will be on the way shortly.”

  “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her. She must be quite a woman if she can put up with you.”

  Noah grinned. “I’m pretty sure you won’t be the first person who ever told her that.”

  Kate glanced at the watch she wore on her wrist. “Holy smokes,” she said. “I know we had a late lunch, but it’s almost six o’clock. I need to get home and have some dinner and then get to bed. I have to get up awfully early in the morning to go to work, you know.”

  “Then let’s get out of here and I’ll buy you dinner,” Noah said. “You pick the place.”

  “Just run through one of the fast-food joints,” Kate said. “I don’t have time to go out. I’ve still got to get a shower and everything.”

  They got back into the car and headed out, and Noah made a stop at the burger place. They got their order at the drive-through, and Noah drove on to Kate’s house. “I need to gather up my things from here, anyway,” he said as they went inside.