Noble Man

by William Miller

  Noble had his mission, and the clock was ticking. He gathered up the sealed package with his passport and papers along with the insulin kit, stood up, and started for the door.

  “Jake?”

  Noble stopped but didn’t turn around.

  “Sorry about the way things turned out.”

  “Me too,” Noble said and walked away.

  13

  Burke flagged down the waitress, ordered another strawberry daiquiri, and then used Jake’s phone to put in a call to the Deputy Director. He sat back and counted eight rings before a voice filled the line.

  “This is Clark S. Foster. To whom am I speaking?”

  It was the kind of nasal voice that assaulted the ears. Burke could picture Foster at his desk dressed in a bow tie, tweed coat, and coke-bottle glasses riding low on the end of a long nose.

  “It’s Burke.”

  The waitress returned with his drink. Burke thanked her with a smile.

  “Mr. Burke, I didn’t recognize the number.”

  “I’m calling from Noble’s cell,” Burke told him.

  “Highly unorthodox, Mr. Burke.”

  “My battery is dead,” Burke lied.

  Seeing an unknown number on his private line, Foster had run a trace. That’s why it took him so long to pick up. He could end the trace, but it would look suspicious to the listening intelligence officers. There was a long moment of silence and then Foster said, “I trust you have good news?”

  Burke took a moment to appreciate a leggy blonde on the arm of an older man. “Noble’s on board.”

  “I hope you are right about this.” Foster had switched into PR mode. “The director wants that girl home safe by any means necessary.”

  Burke rolled his eyes. Bureaucrats in the intelligence community were less than useless; they were liabilities. “If anyone can find her, it’s Jake.”

  “I trust your judgment,” Foster said, still performing for the recording. “I expect regular updates.”

  “Yes, sir.” Burke ended the call.

  He put the phone on the table and picked up his drink. Burke believed in the mission of the CIA—someone had to keep tabs on the bad guys—but he had no illusions about the people he worked for. They were politicians. The likelihood of bringing Bati home alive was slim and, after the snafu in Doha, Foster wasn’t about to send any of his own people, but he’d been ordered from on high.

  Foster was a bureaucrat, plain and simple. He had no field experience. A Harvard graduate, he had come up through SIGINT, got lucky on a few operations and rubbed all the right elbows. His appointment was purely political.

  While Foster was busy trying to insulate himself, Burke was looking for a way to bring Noble back onto the reservation. The kid was probably one of the best SOG agents Burke had ever recruited. It pained him to watch Jake get tossed out in the cold.

  When the director of the CIA ordered Foster to mount a rescue operation, Foster dragged his heels. He tried desperately to pass the buck. He knew the operation had a slim chance of success. The resulting failure would be a black mark on his otherwise unblemished service record. Burke saw the opportunity he had been waiting for and submitted Noble’s name. The kid could get the job done, but if it went sideways they’d both swing. A hard knot formed in Burke’s chest. He took a long sip of his strawberry daiquiri and tried not to think about all the things that could go wrong.

  14

  Frederick Krakouer arrived on the 10:45 flight to Manila, dressed in khakis and a polo. He was tired and slightly drunk on Dos Equis. He collected his duffle from the luggage carousel and made his way through the airport to the car rental, eager to pick up Bati’s trail and punish the people responsible. Saving the girl was the job; busting a few heads along the way was icing on the cake. But first he paid a visit to his Philippine girlfriend.

  Maria lived in six-floor walkup with paper-thin walls and loud neighbors. Krakouer met her five years ago during one of Ramos’s annual trips. She danced at a club called Sour Grapes. She was rail thin and double jointed with a flat bottom, but she was pretty enough in her own way. She had other boyfriends. Krakouer knew about them. It did not bother him. What he and Maria had was strictly business. She knew when he was in town, the others had to wait. He found a parking spot on the street, climbed six flights of stairs, and hammered on number 603.

  Maria opened the door, saw who it was, stepped out into the hall, and pulled the door closed. “I have company.”

  “Get rid of him,” Krakouer said.

  “Maybe we could go somewhere else? A hotel?” She grasped Krakouer’s hand and smiled. “I’ll take real good care of you, baby.”

  Krakouer gave her a hard stare. “Get rid of him or I will.”

  Before she could say anything else, a Filipino man in shorts and sandals opened the door. He looked Krakouer over and scowled. “Who is this guy, babe?”

  Maria drew her shoulders up and stared hard at the ground.

  “Get lost.” Krakouer jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

  The guy was six inches shorter and forty pounds lighter, but that didn’t stop him from wagging a finger under Krakouer’s nose. “Think you can do whatever you want with your American money? Mess with me, and I’ll kill you.”

  Krakouer grabbed his index finger and twisted. The knuckle separated with an audible pop. The guy opened his mouth to scream, but never got the chance. Krakouer hit him with an uppercut. His teeth clapped shut, his head rocked back, and his knees buckled.

  He sprawled out on the ground in a semi-conscious daze.

  Krakouer took a moment to study him like a farmer trying to decide what to do with a lame cow, then he proceeded to pummel him. Each punch fell with a meaty crack. Droplets of blood dotted the floor and the front of Krakouer’s blue polo. Maria stood with her back pressed against the wall, her face turned away, and her eyes squeezed shut. Her boyfriend was unconscious and bleeding when Krakouer dragged him out of the doorframe onto the landing. He shoved Maria inside the apartment and kicked the door shut.

  Maria summoned up her courage. “You didn’t have to-”

  Krakouer shut her up with a slap. “Take off your clothes and get in bed.”

  She did as she was told. He followed her into the bedroom. He wasn’t gentle. When it was over Maria lay on the far side of the bed with her face to the wall. Krakouer smoked a cigarette. He had been rough with her, but she deserved it. Women needed a firm hand. Krakouer learned that watching his father knock his mother around. The first time one of Krakouer’s girlfriends started to mouth off, he had cracked her a good one right across the face.

  He could still remember the sound and the way she looked afterward. He thought for sure she would walk out on him. Amazingly enough, she stuck around. She took several more beatings and eventually learned to behave. From that day on, Krakouer had never hesitated to discipline one of his women.

  He stabbed his cigarette out on the bedside table and dressed. He took a few bills from his wallet and dropped them next to the cigarette butt.

  The stairwell was empty except for blood splatters. A trail led down the steps. The guy must have crawled away while Krakouer was servicing Maria. Krakouer went downstairs and climbed into his rental.

  In the last decade, Internet cafes had sprung up all over metro Manila. Krakouer thought of them as nightclubs for nerds. The Infinity Cyber Café on Taft had three floors dedicated to everything from simple business needs to state of the art gaming.

  Krakouer made his way up to the second floor where teenagers stared at glowing screens, sipping Mountain Dew and chain-smoking cigarettes. It was like stepping into a dimly lit cave. He spotted a skinny kid with a pathetic attempt at a mustache, wearing a Seven Nation Army t-shirt, hunched over a computer terminal. His hacker name was Gage. What his real name was, Krakouer didn’t know.

  Krakouer took the empty computer terminal next to Gage, reached across and tapped a bunch of random keys. On screen, Gage’s army man made wild loop-the-loops. Before he could r
ecover, another player blew him up with a rocket launcher. Gage threw both hands into the air. “Dude! Seriously?”

  “I’m looking for the missionary chick,” Krakouer told him. “The one who got kidnapped. Know anything about that?”

  Gage had restarted his game and was busy mowing down bad guys with some kind of futuristic laser rifle. “Your boss usually pays me for information.”

  Krakouer grabbed Gage’s crotch and squeezed. The kid’s eyes tried to bug right out of his skull. He hunched over the keyboard and let out a pathetic moan. Everyone else in the room had headphones on. They were too focused on their games to notice Gage twisting in pain and whimpering.

  “Her boyfriend sold her out to Lady Shiva,” Gage spluttered. “He’s a lowlife gambler. Owes several large to bookies.”

  Krakouer let him go. “Keep talking.”

  “Shiva never got the girl. She disappeared. Shiva thinks Diego double-crossed her. Everyone in town is looking for him, including the cops. Find him, you’ll find her.”

  “Got an address?”

  Gage tabbed out of his video game, brought up an Internet browser, and jabbed at the keys. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His hands shook as he worked. “He’s got an apartment on K-1.” He gave Krakouer the apartment number.

  “If you find out anything new, call me right away. Understood?”

  Gage cupped his crotch in both hands and nodded. “Yeah, Okay. Fine.”

  Krakouer gave him a pat on the back hard enough to knock the kid face first into the keyboard and then he got up and walked out.

  15

  The yellow zip-tie bit into Bati’s flesh. Dried blood crusted both wrists. Her long black hair hung in damp tangles. She lay curled up in the hold of an empty cargo ship. Dirt and grime had turned her pink panties gray. The cold metal floor gave her goose bumps. Thick rust layered the walls, and the corners were shrouded in darkness. Her only light came from a weak bulb fixed to the bulkhead.

  She didn’t know how long she had been in the ship. The kidnappers had dragged her, kicking and struggling, onto the freighter, shoved her into the hold, and slammed the hatch. The bolt had shot home with all the finality of a judge’s gavel. After that, Bati had sat with her back to the wall and listened to the steady churning of the engines and the rush of water.

  She spent the first few hours sobbing through the shorts stuffed into her mouth. Unreasoning panic and terror gripped her. The fear of what these men might do next drove out rational thought. She knocked her head against the metal floor in an effort to get rid of the awful images in her mind. Eventually the panic subsided. The fear lost some of its urgency. Then she turned to prayer. First she prayed for rescue. Then she began to question. Why would God let this happen to her?

  She got no answers.

  The engines had stopped some time ago. A foghorn bellowed in the distance. Bati sat up enough to check the inside of her naked thighs for the red streaks that would mean her system was turning septic. Her skin was still a healthy tan, but that wouldn’t last. She laid her head back down.

  So far the kidnappers hadn’t fed her. It was a blessing in disguise. Food would spike her blood sugar, and she had no insulin to counteract. She had a syringe in her purse but didn’t know if the kidnappers had kept it or left it in the van. Sooner or later her blood sugar would start to climb, and she would need that insulin shot.

  She heard muffled voices outside the hold. She sat up, put her back to the wall, and pressed her knees together. Her heart galloped inside her chest. The locks released with an echoing clang, and the door groaned open on tired hinges.

  The kidnappers high-stepped through the hatchway. They had removed the pantyhose, and Bati got a look at their faces. The short, stocky one had found a proper bandage for his missing forefinger. He had lost a lot of blood, and it showed on his face. He glared at Bati. The other man looked all business. He had a pistol tucked in the waistband of his black trousers. “Help me get her in the car.”

  Bati tried desperately to communicate through the gag. If she could only explain about diabetes maybe they would understand and let her have the insulin. But neither man paid her wordless moans any attention. They grabbed her by the arms and hauled her out of the hold. Cruel fingers dug into her flesh.

  The shipping freighter had moored inside a massive dock house. Early morning sunlight streamed in through holes in the walls. A few small windows were covered over with old newspaper. A dark sedan waited at the end of the pier with the trunk open. Bati lashed out with her feet, growling through the shorts jammed in her mouth. It did no good. The two men picked her up and forced her inside the trunk. The lid came down with a thump, shutting out the light.

  16

  Noble exited the international terminal at Ninoy Aquino Airport wearing a gray suit over a white button down with a carry-on bag slung over one shoulder. He paused on the sidewalk long enough to take in his surroundings. A passenger jet roared overhead. Taxis jockeyed for position. Horns bleated. The smell of industrial smog and waste mingled together into a pungent sweet aroma. A hint of ocean breeze hid beneath the stench like a lover’s perfume. His heart beat a little harder. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the thrill of an operation until now.

  It was just after two in the afternoon. The sun beat down, and the hunt was on. Bati had been missing for sixty-six hours. Time was running out. Noble had to work fast. His first order of business was to arm himself. He used the burner cell provided by Burke to place a call to an old friend in Manila Branch who owed him a favor.

  A gravelly voice filled the line. “Hola.”

  “It’s me,” Noble said. “I’m in town for a few days. I’m going to need a good pair of walking shoes.”

  “When?”

  “Meet me at the Arch in thirty minutes,” Noble said.

  There was a pause and then a heavy sigh. “You could have called ahead.”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment trip,” Noble told him. “Can you make it?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Noble slipped the phone in his pocket and ignored the green airport taxis for a white city taxi, which had just dropped off a woman and her young son. Noble slipped into the back seat. The cracked leather upholstery groaned under his weight. The interior of the cab smelled like boiled cabbage. The driver, a rail thin Filipino with a mop of unruly hair, took Noble for a tourist and tried to overcharge. It was standard practice for a white face coming out of the international terminal.

  Noble told the driver to run the meter and gave directions in Tagalog.

  “You speak Filipino?” the driver asked pointlessly.

  “A little,” Noble lied.

  The driver worked his way through the congested airport traffic and merged onto Carlos P. Garcia Avenue headed toward Marikina in the northeast. “Where did you learn Tagalog,” he wanted to know.

  “Business school.”

  “You speak it well.”

  The driver kept up a running dialog the whole way. He asked a string of questions that Noble answered with vague generalities, laying down the cover story worked up by the alibi shop. His name was Todd Michaels. He worked for an import business and had been in Manila many times over the last ten years. No family, but he had an on-again, off-again girlfriend in Quezon. He slouched in the seat and tried to look tired from a thirty-two-hour flight. It didn’t take much acting.

  The highway looped past the American cemetery. A massive circular sward of green with row upon row of headstones memorialized the men who fought and died here in World War II. The stone crosses glowed white under the harsh midday sun.

  Thirty minutes later, the driver dropped Noble off in front of the Marikina Arch. It wasn’t much to look at, just a Spanish-style wall with a clock set in the face, but at night, when it was lit up, it took on a romantic appearance. There was a fountain in front in the middle of the square, but it wasn’t flowing. Try as he might, Noble had never figured out the fountain’s schedule. It seemed to come on at random and never at the same
time each day.

  Manny was already there, sitting on the low wall of the fountain, snacking on a cup of sweet taho. He had dripped chocolate syrup down his shirt. He was a middle-aged man with a potbelly and a pockmarked face. A brown paper sack sat beside him on the wall.

  Noble joined him, taking a seat on the fountain with the paper sack between them. A crowd milled around the arch. From the nearby park, Noble heard the peculiar crack of tennis balls shuttled back and forth across the court and the energetic grunts of the players.

  “Welcome back, my friend,” Manny said through a mouthful of taho.

  “How have you been?” Noble asked.

  He shrugged. “I’ve got a bad case of the gout. The ex-wife takes everything I make in alimony, and I’m forced to sell black market merchandise to former Company men just to pay the rent. Take my advice, don’t get married.”

  “Hadn’t planned on it.”

  “How long will you be in town?”

  “A few days,” Noble told him.

  “Does it have anything to do with the missing girl?”

  “I’m just taking in the sights,” Noble said.

  “You know the head of Manila branch is breathing fire,” Manny said and chuckled. “He thinks our office should have been assigned to the girl. He knows the company is bringing somebody in to find her, but he doesn’t know who.”

  “Are you going to blow the whistle?”

  “And admit that I’m in contact with a blacklisted agent? I have enough troubles.” Manny thrust the cup of taho under Noble’s nose. “Do you want any of this?”

  Noble waved him off. He nodded to the sack. “My shoes?”

  Manny inclined his head. “Need anything else?”

  “If I do I’ll call,” Noble told him. He handed Manny a wad of pesos and took the sack. “So long, old friend.”

  “Happy hunting.”

  A shoebox filled the sack.

  Noble clamped it under one arm, hailed a cab, and gave the driver an address. Bati’s boyfriend had an apartment on K-1. Diego hadn’t gone to the police after his girlfriend was snatched, and he hadn’t been home either. Hardly the actions of an innocent man. He might as well have signed a confession. The local authorities wanted him for questioning in connection with the kidnapping. Noble decided to start with Diego’s apartment in the hopes that he would find something the police had missed.