Noble Man

by William Miller

  The other team breached. The door blew off its hinges, and they poured into the room, weapons up, looking for targets.

  “First floor clear!” Noble yelled.

  The acrid stench of cordite hung in the air, mingling with the smell of human offal. Spent shell casings littered the concrete floor. Noble’s ears were ringing from the explosions. He spared a glance through the chain-link fence. Dirt-stained, terrified faces stared back. Most of them had their hands over their ears. Others had curled up in an effort to avoid stray bullets.

  Noble checked the dead suit. His blood and brains painted a grisly tapestry on the dusty floor. He clutched a gold money clip along with a laminated Identification Card in his lifeless hand. Instead of kissing the ground like he’d been told, the idiot died trying to show his I.D. or maybe he was trying to bribe them.

  Noble shook his head. “Moron.”

  Sutter’s team took control of the first floor, and Hassan went for the transport truck parked at the end of the block. Noble lead his team up the steps. Most of the rooms stood empty. Behind a door at the end of the hall, they found a girl huddled on a threadbare mattress. She looked about ten years old, with tangled blonde hair and dark circles around her eyes. A few crumpled candy bar wrappers winked in the dim light. Noble crossed the room, scooped her up, and moved back to the stairs with his team in tow.

  “Boss, you’d better take a look at this,” Sutter said as Noble reached the first floor. He knelt over the body of the buyer, examining the laminated I.D. card.

  “What’s up?” Noble asked.

  Horn and Hassan had loaded most of the girls onto the truck. A few needed to be carried. Sutter indicated the dead buyer with a thrust of his chin. “This guy is a ranking member of the Majlis al Shura.”

  “Not anymore,” Noble said. He had a sinking feeling in his gut, like he had just drawn the proverbial short straw. “Take his papers and get the rest of those girls on the truck.”

  Taking the I.D. would delay identification, but heads would roll. The Majlis al Shura acted like an Islamic Parliament, drafting legislation and passing laws. It didn’t surprise Noble to learn that a Qatar politician was involved in the slave trade, but it meant he had executed a standing member of government.

  He ignored the sinking feeling in his gut and carried the little girl outside to the waiting truck. He let his AK47 swing on its harness while he hoisted himself and the girl into the passenger seat. Hassan slid into the driver seat next to him. The rest of the team climbed in the back with their terrified passengers. Hassan shifted into drive with a grinding of gears. The big transport lurched forward, throwing Noble against the seat back.

  “This thing going to make it?” Noble asked.

  Hassan rocked his head to one side. “We’re about to find out.”

  The girls in the cargo bed huddled together in groups, watching the armed men with naked fear and trying to decide if their situation had gotten better or worse. The girl on Noble’s lap spoke in Russian. He turned in his seat and asked Lucas, “What’s she saying?”

  “She wants to see her mother,” Lucas translated.

  Noble looked down into a pair of hopeful eyes set in a dirt-stained face. It felt like someone driving a nail into his heart. “Tell her she’s safe now.”

  Lucas frowned. “We are door kickers, boss, not psychiatrists.”

  “Just tell her,” Noble said.

  Lucas smiled and spoke Russian. Noble didn’t know what he said, but it worked. The tension went out of her little body. She rested her head against Noble’s chest. He stroked her hair.

  It was a breach of protocol. Noble’s job was to eliminate bad guys and rescue hostages. He and his team were under strict orders not to make any claims to the victims. The girls came from all over the world. Even if the CIA returned them to their home countries, many were orphans and would never see their families again. They had been rescued from a short and bitter life as sex slaves only to become wards of the state.

  Hassan pulled the truck onto Salwa Highway, grinding gears the whole way. He drove straight through the heart of Qatar. Noble kept listening for the wail of police sirens. He checked the rearview mirrors every few minutes. A dark van with tinted windows followed them for several miles but finally turned off at the circle road.

  They reached Dhow Harbor unmolested. A rusted trawler bobbed on the wine dark waters of the bay. Hassan parked next to the dock. The engine died with a tired cough. The truck’s tail pipe farted out a black cloud.

  “I think you killed it,” Noble remarked.

  Hassan flashed him a hand sign.

  Lucas dropped the back gate, and the girls were herded from the truck onto the boat. Sutter climbed into the wheelhouse and revved the engine. The screw bit into the water. The trawler ferried the girls and their rescuers out to sea where a company ship, under the guise of a research vessel, waited to carry them all to Hawaii. In less than seven hours, they’d be in international waters under escort by the United States Navy. Everything had gone according to plan—everything except for the one idiot who got himself killed refusing to cooperate.

  Noble couldn’t shake the feeling that he had turned a corner, that he had made a mistake in a business where mistakes could be deadly. He replayed the action in his head over and over and told himself he had done the right thing.

  Four Years Later

  Weekends were always busy at the shelter. Friday nights were the worst. That’s when young prostitutes in the Philippines, staring down the barrel of another grueling weekend, slipped their handlers. Twenty or thirty would find their way, by word of mouth, to the shelter on Makati Boulevard in the heart of metro Manila. By the following weekend, two-thirds of the new girls would return to a life of prostitution. Others would overdose and still more would choose suicide. It was a small remnant that managed to clean up and carve out a life for themselves.

  This Sunday evening they had seven new girls, all of them strung out, in need of food and fighting the urge for a fix. Three were in such a bad state of withdraw that they had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. A fourth was on suicide watch after trying to cut her wrists with a plastic knife during dinner.

  Besides the new arrivals, the hot-water heater was on the fritz, two of the regular volunteers were sick, the kitchen was out of rice again, someone had stolen the DVD player from the rec room, there had been two fist fights, the deadbolt on the backdoor was busted, and the electric bill was a week overdue.

  At the center of the storm was Bati Malaya Ramos. She hustled from one emergency to the next in a futile attempt to bring order from chaos. It was a losing battle, but one that she fought every day, seven days a week.

  She had the back door open and was trying to remove the broken deadbolt with a Philips head. Her tongue was stuck firmly in the corner of her mouth as she worked. A new deadbolt lay on the cheap linoleum still inside the plastic. Bati’s short, dark hair was windblown. She was wearing the same khaki shorts and white blouse from yesterday.

  “I just got off the phone with a repair man,” Nawa told her. “He said he can’t come until Tuesday.”

  Bati wrestled with a stubborn screw. “Did you tell him we are a charity organization? There are two dozen girls here who won’t be able to shower until it is fixed.”

  “He didn’t seem to care.”

  “Try another. See if you can get someone here by tomorrow at the latest.” Bati broke the final screw loose and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “And the new girl who tried to cut her wrist says she wants to leave.”

  “We can’t hold her against her will,” Bati said.

  “Oh, and did you know the kitchen is out of rice?”

  “I’m going to the grocery after I change this lock.”

  Nawa hurried off to call more repairmen.

  Bati stripped the broken deadbolt off the door and then pried open the new packaging. The sharp plastic sliced her fingertip. She winced and sucked the blood.

  Samantha Gunn stuck h
er head around the doorframe. She and Bati had started the shelter together. Hard to believe it had been nearly two years. At the moment, she looked as stressed as Bati felt. “Did you know the kitchen is out of rice?” Sam asked.

  “I’m going to the grocery as soon as I get this lock changed.”

  “Any word on the water heater?”

  “Not until Tuesday.”

  “What if we need a new one?” Sam asked. “We don’t have the money. We are stretched to the breaking point.”

  “If that’s the case, we’ll figure something out,” Bati told her.

  Sam raked both hands through her straight, black hair. “I’ll see about a coin laundry for getting clothes washed.”

  “Take the money from petty cash,” Bati told her.

  “I’ve got a jar full of coins at the apartment,” Sam said. “I’ll use that.”

  “Thanks, Sam.” Bati held the new deadbolt up to the old hole and found a match. At least something was going her way. “Oh, Sam? The girl who tried to cut her wrists is talking about leaving. See if you can get her to stay.”

  “Will do,” Sam said. She started to leave and stopped. “By the way, the jerk is here.”

  Bati opened her mouth to respond, but Sam fled before she could say a word. They had been around that particular block a dozen times and agreed to disagree. She shook her head and returned her attention to the door. She threaded the new screws into the deadbolt and tightened them. She tested the lock. The bolt shot into place.

  Diego appeared in the back hall with his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his cargo shorts. His flip-flops made a rhythmic clack on the cheap linoleum. “We were supposed to meet for dinner half an hour ago,” he said by way of greeting.

  Bati looked at her watch and groaned. “I’m really sorry, babe. I’ve just been swamped. You know how weekends are around here.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here and get some food.”

  “Give me a few minutes, okay? I need to take care of a few things.”

  Diego rolled his eyes. “You are always busy.”

  “Don’t be that way,” Bati said.

  “The world isn’t going to stop if you eat,” he said. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”

  Bati held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. Let me clean up here and get my purse.” She grabbed the empty plastic that the deadbolt had come in, along with the broken lock and the screwdriver. She piled it all onto a cluttered supply shelf and then went to her office for her purse. She couldn’t eat without her insulin syringe.

  Diego followed her, making long-suffering sighs the whole way. Bati ignored his attitude. He could be such a child when he didn’t get his way. But then, most men were like that. Diego could also be really sweet when he wanted to be. That was the side Sam never saw.

  Bati took her purse from a locked drawer in her desk and pecked Diego on his stubbly cheek. He had been trying, unsuccessfully, to grow a beard for weeks. “Where are we going for dinner?”

  “It’s a new place,” he told her. “Friend of mine told me about it.”

  They left by the back door. Bati didn’t like the girls to see her with a man. So many of them had developed a deep mistrust of men after being used like puppets. Who could blame them?

  Bati threaded her arm through Diego’s as they turned the corner onto Tayuman Street. “So what’s the name of this new place?”

  “Uh… I forget. It’s not far.”

  Bati’s brow knit. She didn’t remember any new restaurants opening in the neighborhood. She started to ask more questions but never got the chance. A rusted old heap of a van jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. “Look out!” Bati screamed,

  Diego leapt clear.

  The front bumper missed Bati by inches. Breaks squealed, and the tires locked, leaving skid marks. A primer gray door rolled open. Two men with guns and pantyhose over their heads leapt out. Bati’s knees turned to rubber. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  “Leave her alone!” Diego launched himself at one of the attackers and got hit in the nose with the butt of a pistol. Bati heard the bone break with a wet crunch. Diego’s head snapped backward, and his feet shot out from under him. He landed flat on his back, clutching a broken nose and moaning.

  The scream that she had been working on finally made its way up from her lungs and echoed along Tayuman Street. People stopped and turned. One of the masked men grabbed Bati around the waist. He tossed her into the back of the van. She landed with a bone-jarring thud on the metal floor. The two attackers jumped in behind her and rolled the door shut with a bang. The driver stomped the gas.

  5

  Sam Gunn was trying to talk a sobbing hooker out of running back to her pimp. Detoxing at the shelter would be hard, maybe one of the hardest things the girl had ever done, but going back would be worse. The girl had curled up in a corner of the ratty sofa in the rec room. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Several of the other women who had been living at the shelter for a while offered encouragement.

  “If you go back now, you’ll take a beating,” Sam told her.

  She palmed a rope of snot away from one nostril. “He’ll find me. I know he’ll find me.”

  “You’ll be safe here,” Sam said. She wanted it to be true. The shelter was supposed to be a safe place. But Manila was the Wild West, at least compared to America. More than once, a pimp or club owner had shown up looking for a girl. Jealous boyfriends and angry fathers were also a regular occurrence. They had to call the police once or twice a month, and local law enforcement took their time responding. No one cared much. Prostitutes are third-class citizens in the Philippines.

  Sam heard the shriek of tires and a scream from Tayuman Street. The sound of that scream left a chill in her heart. The small hairs at the back of her neck stood on end. She left the sobbing woman in the company of the resident girls and stepped outside.

  There was a commotion at the end of the block. People were on their cells and pointing. Sam hurried along the sidewalk to the corner. There was no sign of a traffic accident or anything out of the ordinary. She stopped a few people passing by and asked if they had heard a scream. No one seemed quite sure what had happened. Some said a van had jumped the curb. Others said a man got beat up. But there was no van and no man that Sam could see. She walked back to the shelter, but she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach, like something terrible had happened.

  The hustle of running the shelter drove the incident from her mind. There were groceries to buy, laundry to be done, and suicidal girls to babysit. It wasn’t until she woke up the next morning and found Bati’s bed unslept in that Sam began to panic.

  6

  Fear coursed through Bati’s veins as the van swerved through traffic, dodging jeepneys, panel trucks, and Toyotas. She didn’t know she was screaming until one of the kidnappers belted her across the face. The scream died, cut like knife through string. Her cheek burned.

  “Keep your mouth shut and maybe you won’t get hurt,” he said.

  Bati held up both hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. Don’t hurt me.”

  The driver used his horn and ran a red. Tires shrieked on asphalt. Bati heard the telltale crunch of bumpers coming together. The truck rocked on its springs as the driver swung a corner. The engine labored.

  The kidnappers forced Bati onto her stomach and wrenched her hands behind her back. They looped a yellow zip-tie around her wrists. The heavy gauge plastic bit into her skin. She winced. Then they rolled her onto her back. One of the men had an oily shop rag. The other peeled a length of gray duct tape. One man pinned her shoulders to the floor while his partner tried to stuff the smelly rag in her mouth.

  Blind, unreasoning panic gripped her. As the kidnapper forced the rag into her mouth, Bati chomped down on his finger. Her teeth bit through the bone with a crunch. Warm blood burst over her lips.

  He reeled backward. Blood shot from the stump of his finger in bright, crimson arcs. “She bit my fi
nger off!” he screamed. “She bit my finger off!”

  In the confusion, the other man relaxed his grip on her shoulders. She spit out the oily rag along with the severed digit and lunged for the backdoor of the van. She didn’t go two steps before the kidnapper caught her. He slammed her back down. Her chin impacted the floor. Lights exploded in her vision.

  She knew she had to fight, to escape, but the information wasn’t getting to her legs. The kidnapper pressed her face against the floor of the van, and with his other hand, he worked the button on her shorts. He hauled them down over her legs. Then he wadded and stuffed them in her mouth before slapping a piece of duct tape over her lips.

  Bati lay there with her shorts in her mouth, her pink cotton panties showing, and tears spilling down her cheeks. Terror was a weight pinning her to the floor of the speeding van.

  The man with the missing finger finally stopped screaming. His eyes focused on Bati. His lips peeled back from clenched teeth. “Little slut!” He lifted his foot to stomp her head.

  Bati curled up in a desperate attempt to shield herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for his boot to come down.

  His partner pinned him against the wall of the van.

  “She’s a ten-thousand-dollar payday,” he said. “You want to kick her to death?”

  He struggled to break free. “She bit my finger off!”

  Over his shoulder, the driver said, “Buy a prosthetic with your share of the money.”

  He struggled for another moment, but reason finally won out. They wrapped the severed stump in the oily rag and then used the duct tape to keep the makeshift bandage in place. The van had stopped. Bati heard a fog horn’s mournful cry and knew they must be near the water.

  The uninjured kidnapper glanced out the front windshield. “What are we doing at the docks?”

  “Change of plans.” The driver produced a pistol and shot the uninjured kidnapper through the head. Blood splattered Bati’s face and chest. She screamed into the gag.