Chapter Twenty-Two
The only way out of Sam’s apartment was the front door, unless Noble wanted to leap from a second-floor window onto concrete. He could probably make the jump without breaking an ankle, but not without being seen. Instead, he crossed into the kitchen and picked up a frying pan from the stove. If he could get out of here without starting a firefight, all the better. He didn’t want the French police to have a description of him or his vehicle.
He heard two pairs of boots on the stairs, one heavy, the other pair lighter. Overpowering one man is tricky. Overpowering two at the same time would require lightning reflexes. Noble would need to get in so close that they couldn’t use their weapons without fear of hitting each other. It would take precision timing and, if he screwed up, he wouldn’t live long enough to regret his mistake. He stepped behind the kitchen door and waited.
Through paper thin walls, he heard a pair of hard cases reach the top of the steps and pause outside the front door. A man whispered in French. “You check the bedroom.”
“Oui.”
Adrenaline flooded Noble’s limbs like the current through a high-tension wire. He could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears and his breath sounded like a hurricane. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, he reminded himself.
As the first man started across the apartment for Sam’s bedroom, the second man turned toward the kitchen with a handgun leading the way. Noble stepped around the doorframe and smashed the skillet down on the weapon. The pistol hit the hardwood floor and bounced under the sofa. The man reeled back with a bark of pain. Noble followed up with a backhand swing. Cast iron impacted the man’s forehead with a resounding bong. He stumbled back a step and cradled his head in both hands.
The second man turned at the sound of the scuffle, saw Noble and brought his weapon up to fire. Noble swung the frying pan and managed to bat the gun aside. The skillet hit with enough force to torque the killer sideway and knock him off balance, buying Noble fractions of a second.
The first man was quickly recovering from the blow to the forehead. Noble hit him again. This time he brought the skillet straight down on the man’s crown. The thug staggered. His eyes rolled up and his knees buckled.
Noble pivoted in time to swat the gun a second time. The hard case winced in pain as the skillet smashed his knuckles again. He retreated across the apartment, trying to get enough space to use the weapon but Noble closed the gap. He jabbed with the frying pan like a fencer, catching the man a blow to the teeth. Blood burst from split lips. The man staggered and spit chips of broken teeth out on the floor.
That was all the opening Noble needed. He drove a kick into the thug’s kneecap. His heel connected with a meaty crunch and the man’s leg bent the wrong way. The hard case gave a tortured gasp. Noble hit him in the face with the frying pan, driving him back against the wall and buckling the plaster. Before he could recover, Noble got his free hand around the gun and levered enough pressure on the slide to force it out of battery.
The killer spit French curses from bloody lips. Sweat sprang out on his forehead and the veins in his neck pulsed. He wasn’t dying without a fight. He grabbed a fistful of Noble’s hair and twisted.
Where the head goes, the body will follow and Noble felt his head twisting inexorably to the left. He dropped the frying pan, grabbed the titanium fountain pen from his pocket and rammed it through the big man’s temple. The pen punched through skin and bone with a wet crunch. All the strength drained from the killer’s arms and legs. His knees gave out and he slid to the floor. Blood ran down over his jacket and red bubbles formed around his nostrils.
The fight had taken less than two minutes but Noble felt like he’d just gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. He palmed sweat from his forehead and stuffed the dead man’s gun into the pocket of his coat.
The first man gave a weak moan and put a hand to his forehead. Blood ran from a deep gash above his right eye and his face pinched in pain. By the time he opened his eyes, Noble was standing over him with a fileting knife.
“One wrong move and I stab this into your throat.”
The thug managed to croak out, “I need an ambulance.”
“You’ve probably got a fractured skull and some internal bleeding,” Noble said. “I’d say you’ve got ten, maybe fifteen minutes before your brain swells up. That doesn’t give us much time. I’ll make you deal. You tell me everything I want to know, and I’ll call an ambulance for you.”
The man worked his face into a snarl and told Noble where he could get off.
Noble pressed the point of the knife against the man’s throat.
“Alright!”
“Who do you work for?” Noble asked.
“Le Milieu.”
“Was it your boys who just tried to run me off the A1?”
“Oui.”
“Who put out the hit on me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re disappointing me,” Noble said and leaned on the knife. A spot of blood welled up around the tip.
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” he said.
“Who calls the shots?” Noble asked.
“Mateen,” the mercenary grumbled. “He runs Le Milieu. Gives all the orders.”
Noble held the knife in one hand, took out his cellphone with the other and brought up the picture of Mr. Neckbrace. “That him?”
“Oui.”
“What happened to him?”
“Someone shot him with a rubber bullet,” the mercenary said. “Broke his jaw.”
“Bet that hurt,” Noble commented. “Where do I find Mateen?”
The mercenary shook his head, just a small side to side movement so he didn’t risk cutting his own throat. “I don’t know where to find him. When he wants a face-to-face, he calls me. I don’t even know if Mateen is his real name.”
Noble pocketed his phone. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
The mercenary shook his head.
“What are your orders?” Noble wanted to know.
“Find out what you know and then kill you,” the mercenary said. His face had turned an alarming shade of blue and his pupils were different sizes. “Please, I need an ambulance.”
Noble patted him down, found a phone in his pocket and said, “First you’re going to call the driver downstairs. Tell him you got me, but you need help carrying me to the car. Convince him to come up. Get cute and I slit your throat.”
The mercenary took the phone and dialed. In French he said, “Henri, we got him, but he’s a fighter. Give us a hand getting him downstairs.”
When he was done, Noble took the phone back, punched in three digits and put the phone on speaker, then laid it on the mercenary’s chest. A French operator came on the line. “112, what is your emergency?”
While the mercenary spoke to the emergency operator, Noble put his back to the wall next to the open door and waited. He heard a car door open and feet on the stairs. Henri climbed the steps and saw his partner stretched out on the floor. He cursed.
As Henri stepped through the door, Noble stuck a foot out. It was a schoolyard trick, but it worked. The mercenary let out a yelp and crashed to the ground. Noble was on him before he could recover. He grabbed a fistful of Henri’s hair and cracked his head against the hardwood floor three times. There was a crunch and blood drizzled from Henri’s nose.
Noble wedged his knee into Henri’s neck, keeping him pinned and did a quick pat-down. He found a 9mm CZ in Henri’s waistband. Noble whistled and stuffed the gun in his belt. Le Milieu must pay well if their foot soldiers could afford hardware like that.
Henri recovered from the clobbering and moved straight to begging. It was easy to see why they had left him in the car. Noble pressed his knee down hard and said, “Shut up.”
Henri’s pleas cut off and he laid there breathing heavy, with his shaking hands out to either side.
Noble said, “If I see you come out this door in the next sixty seconds, I start shooting. Got that?”
Henri started to nod, realized it was too painful with Noble’s knee against his neck, and grunted instead.
Noble went downstairs and found the Mercedes boxed in by the SUV. There was no time to move the SUV and come back for the Mercedes with emergency services on their way so Noble would have to make the room he needed. He climbed into the Mercedes, threw it in reverse, and eased back onto the bumper of the car in back. The vehicles met with a light tap. Noble put his foot down on the gas and the big V8 growled, pushing a four-door sedan backwards into a sport coupe. Bumpers buckled. Bleating sirens split the air. Headlamps flashed. Noble managed to accordion four vehicles before the engine redlined and the tires spun on the blacktop. He shifted into drive, shot forward and then reversed again, using the gap he had just created.
He reversed all the way to the end of the block and then spun the wheel. The big Mercedes swung around with a shriek of rubber in the middle of the intersection and Noble shifted into drive. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a black van barreling down on him. The vehicles met in a scream of twisting metal and shattering glass. Noble hadn’t bothered with his seatbelt. The airbag saved him from smashing his face on the dash, but the impact threw him violently around. His skull bounced off something hard and the lights went out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jaqueline Armstrong had a phone to her ear. Her fourteen-year-old daughter was on the other end, raising hell, the way only a fourteen-year-old can. Armstrong leaned forward in her chair, one elbow propped on the edge of a mahogany desk, pressing her aching feet against a massager.
Her office on the top floor at Langley came with its own private bathroom. A pair of leather sofas flanked a low table. The CIA emblem was emblazoned on deep-piled carpet. Track lighting illuminated a shelf full of thick leather-bound volumes, legal codes, and operations manuals. A small machine in the corner pulled in the smell of tobacco and filled the office with a steady electric hum.
“It’s not fair,” Nicki was saying. “Why do I have to stay with you when you’re going to be working all weekend? At least Daddy is going to be around.”
That one stung. Jaqueline’s lips formed a strict line. She was in no danger of winning Mother of the Year, but she was making an effort. It didn’t help that her ex used the job against her in their never-ending battle for possession of Nicki’s affections.
“I agree,” Jaqueline said, “It’s not fair, and I’m sorry, but something really important came up.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Hang tight for a few more hours,” Jaqueline told her. “I’ll see if I can get out of here and then we can spend some time together.”
“Whatever. I’ll just sit here all night waiting. Like always. There’s nothing to eat by the way.”
Jaqueline winced. She had meant to stop through the supermarket last night but she forgot. “There’s some cash in my dresser drawer. Why don’t you order in some Chinese for us? You still like moo goo gai pan?”
“Gross. I’m a vegan. I’ve been a vegan, like, forever!”
“When did this happen?”
“I went vegan two years ago,” Nicki said. “You’d know if you were ever around.”
Jaqueline closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “Order whatever you like and when I get home we can go see that new musical. The one with Ryan Gosling.”
“That’s been out of theaters for months. I’ve seen it twice on Blu-ray. At Dad’s house.”
It was like arguing with a brick wall. Jaqueline leaned back in her office chair and swallowed a tight knot in her throat. “If you really want to go to your father’s place for the weekend, then you can call him and tell him to pick you up.”
“I’ll take the tube.”
“No,” Jaqueline said. “Nicki, listen to me; I don’t want you on the subway at this time of night.”
The line was already dead. Jaqueline hung up. She loved the kid dearly, she would die for her, but sometimes she wanted to pick her up and shake her. That would make a great news article, Jaqueline thought. She could see the headline in her mind’s eye: CIA Director Arrested on Child Abuse Charges.
She hung up the landline and picked up the pre-paid burner, dialed and listened to it ring a dozen times before going to voicemail. On her computer screen was a mugshot of Mateen Slevic culled from French law enforcement. The boys in IMINT had gone over Noble’s freeway pic, run facial analysis and come up with a match. That was almost three hours ago. Since then, Armstrong had been trying to raise Noble on the cell with no luck. She was about to dial again when the intercom buzzed.
Her secretary, a legacy named Ginny Farnham who had worked for Clark Foster, came on the line. “Mr. Hwang here to see you.”
Armstrong pushed the button. “Send him in.”
Duc filled the doorframe. His beard stuck out like a wiry black brush. “You wanted to see me?”
“Close the door,” Armstrong said.
Duc let the door swing shut, put his back to it and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I’ve lost contact with Noble,” she said.
Duc frowned. “Dead?”
“Too early to say,” Armstrong said. “There was a greeting party waiting for him at the airport. Noble suspects the pilots. The Cessna will be touching down in an hour. I want you there to meet it. One of those pilots talked. I want to know which one and who they’ve been talking too.”
Duc nodded and put a hand on the door knob. “What about Noble?”
“Not much we can do for him until we know more,” Armstrong said. She was hoping and praying he wasn’t dead. As Director of the CIA it was only a matter of time before she made a decision that sent some pour soul to his death, but she didn’t want it to be a private contractor on an undisclosed mission and she didn’t want it to be now. Since Noble was a contractor, if he died, Congress would never have to know about it—Armstrong could sweep the whole thing under the rug and pretend it had never happened—but she would know, and she’d have to live with it. She told Duc, “Go have a talk with those pilots. If they so much as muttered in their sleep I want to know who was sleeping next to them.”
“Understood,” Duc said and let himself out.
Armstrong dialed again and got voicemail. She put the phone down with a sigh and shook her head.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam kept pinching her ears to stay awake. She needed sleep. Fatigue crowded her brain and gummed up her thoughts. She had been nursing a cup of coffee for the last hundred miles. It was cold now, but the caffeine still helped. Duval was stretched across the back seat, sleeping fitfully. Every few minutes, he grunted and flinched from unseen attackers plaguing his nightmares.
The sky had turned from a dull gray to a flat black. Icy rain came down in sporadic drizzles. The tires made a long droning song on the blacktop and the sound would hypnotize Sam if she let it.
She checked her rearview, stole a glance at the fugitive tossing in his sleep, and returned her attention to the road. The long stretch of wet asphalt continued spooling out behind her. She resisted the urge to check the sky. There could be a drone up there right now, a silent ghost gliding along overhead, watching every move she made.
Don’t think like that, Sam told herself. That kind of thinking would only make her paranoid. Endlessly sifting through all the what-ifs would drive her mad. She needed to stay focused on the next move, but her mind kept wandering and she would find herself thinking about the future. She had started imagining the word in all caps, bolded, in twenty-two-point font. THE FUTURE. What future? Her lips pressed together and a tight knot formed in her chest.
She could probably get Duval to Montenegro. Then what? Her plan to snatch him had gone completely off the wire. They had seen her face and there was no going back now. She thought about putting in a call to the new DCI. Maybe Armstrong would listen, the voice of reason tried to say. Maybe she was in on it, another voice insisted.
Call Jake. The idea came to her like an anno
uncer’s voice breaking through static on the radio. It was so strong, so sudden, that she had her phone out and was about to power it on. Jake would know what to do. She would call him up and… say what? Hi Jake. I blew it. I went off the reservation. Now I’m wanted for treason. Any chance you want to run away with me to some forgotten corner of the globe and live like fugitives?
Tears welled up in her eyes and her throat clamped shut. She held back a pathetic little sob.
“What are you doing?” Duval was sitting up and his eyes were wide. He leaned forward between the seats like he would snatch the phone from her grasp.
Sam realized her thumb was still hovering over the power button and she dropped the cell in the cup holder. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Getting tired I guess.”
Duval climbed into the passenger seat and gave her a good hard look. The concern was clear on his face. “Need me to drive?”
“No.” Sam wiped tears from her eyes. She tried to do it covertly, make it look like she was rubbing sleep from her eyes, but that never works. She said, “I’m good. Just a little punchy.”
They rode in silence for several miles before Duval said, “You gave up your whole life for me. Why?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Sam told him. “They were never supposed to see my face.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Duval said. “Why did you rescue me? You could have let them have me and gone on with your life. What does it matter to you?”
Sam raked a hand through her raven locks. “I joined the CIA because I wanted to make the world a better place.”
“Not everybody in your organization feels the same, I’m afraid.”
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