Noble Man

by William Miller

  He took the steps two at a time and almost lost Krakouer on the surface. The streets were a confusing web work of overpasses and underpasses, interrupted by frequent construction. From the sky, it must have looked like a tangled bowl of spaghetti. Noble scanned the sidewalks but saw heads of straight black hair everywhere he looked.

  A raised pedestrian walkway passed over Connaught Road. On a hunch, Noble bounded up the steps to the overpass and spotted Krakouer halfway across. Krakouer turned at the same time, saw Noble, and broke into a jog.

  Noble shouldered his way between a couple walking hand in hand. He sprinted the length of the overpass. Instead of depositing them back on the street, the walkway made a right hand turn and entered the second level of the Citic Tower. Noble rounded the corner and bounded down the steps into a parking garage. He caught sight of his target turning east on Lung Wei Road.

  Krakouer ran several blocks and turned left at the entrance to the Hong Kong convention center. The oblong white shell juts out over Victoria Harbor like a gigantic dinosaur egg ready to hatch. It’s one of those futuristic buildings for which the city is so well known. It gets a few seconds of screen time in any movie set in Hong Kong. Noble was fairly certain action star Jackie Chan had been thrown off the roof once, or maybe he threw a bad guy off the roof instead. Noble couldn’t quite remember. Either way, the building was famous.

  A large sign outside the convention center announced the Hong Kong Manga-Con. Noble pushed through the double doors thirty seconds behind Krakouer. It was like stepping into a twelve-year-old boy’s fantasy. He was surrounded by Storm Troopers, X-men, one incredibly well-built Princess Leia and two dozen Mr. Spocks. Booths and endless aisles of folding tables commanded the ground floor. Comic books, movies, and memorabilia decorated every surface. Eager fans appraised overpriced collectibles with all the enthusiasm of a fat man at a buffet table. The whole place smelled like dry ice and pulsed to the sounds of a movie score, interrupted by shouts and laughter.

  Noble’s lips pulled back from clenched teeth. Krakouer was either very lucky, or he had chosen the convention center in advance. It would be next to impossible to spot him in all this mess. His height no longer gave him away. There were seven-foot Darth Vaders and acrobats on stilts.

  Noble strolled along a row of tables laden with everything from fiberglass light sabers that glowed to sonic screwdrivers and wall posters signed by famous people. He walked slow enough to be just another comic book geek looking for that rare back issue to complete his collection. While a vendor was busy haggling with a customer, Noble swiped a blue baseball cap emblazoned with a police box. He adjusted the Velcro strap and stuffed the hat on his head to better blend with the crowd.

  His nerve endings hummed like high-tension wires. His head was on a swivel. He kept his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary, which was everything around here, but he zeroed in on anyone moving too fast, or anyone not moving at all.

  A gray alien with a laser rifle leapt into his path. The plastic laser gun emitted an electronic warble and a red light blinked. Noble’s reflexes took over. His hand was halfway to his own gun before he realized it was a kid in a mask with a fake rifle.

  He snatched the laser rifle from the alien’s hand and threw it down. The weapon hit the carpeted floor with a crack of breaking plastic. The alien threw his hands in the air. “What’s your problem, gwai lo?” His voice sounded muffled through the rubber mask.

  “Piss off, kid.” Noble shoved the alien out of his way and kept moving. He took the escalator to the second floor of the convention center, passing a fairly convincing Malcom Reynolds from Firefly.

  A balcony overlooked the ground floor. Noble stopped long enough to scan the crowd below. There was no shortage of foreigners. Several were bald, but they were either too short or too chubby to be Krakouer. He turned his attention to the second floor where a large metal contraption looked like it might be a portal to another dimension. A section of floor had been roped off, and a heavy curtain hung behind the portal. The smell of dry ice was much stronger up here. Noble milled through the crowd near the stage. He figured Krakouer had given him the slip, but he would hang around another minute or two to be certain.

  An announcer in tails and a top hat tapped a microphone to be sure it was working, then his voice boomed through the convention center. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention! Gather round, gather round. I present to you, the one, the only, Phoenix Sunset!”

  The lights dimmed. A burst of sickly sweet smelling fog spilled across the floor, and a spotlight centered on the metal portal. A fire dancer appeared through the swirling mists. She was small with curly black hair cut short, bright eyes, and the kind of smile that steals hearts. She wore shorts and a halter-top emblazoned with tongues of fire.

  Flaming globes at the end of chains leapt and twirled as she swayed across the floor. The fire formed hypnotizing patterns in the air. She was good, both beautiful and talented. Under different circumstances, Noble would have enjoyed watching her perform. But he had a job to do. He was about to turn and extricate himself from the crowd when he felt a gun barrel pushed into the small of his back.

  46

  Sam had dozens of questions, but Noble was already a half block away. She watched him stick his head into the passenger’s side window of a red-and-white taxi for a moment then he turned left onto Nathan Road. He was gone, and Sam was on her own. She ran a hand through her long black hair and blew out her cheeks.

  No one would ever accuse Jacob Noble of being indecisive. He saw what needed to be done and did it. He was not the type of guy who sat around discussing his feelings. He certainly wasn’t like any of the guys she had dated in college. He acted with masculine efficiency. It wasn’t very twenty-first century. He had no interest in a exploring either his feminine side or his inner child, and he would certainly not be cuddling on the couch to watch Dancing with the Stars. He might not know the salad fork from the dinner fork, but he probably knew how to flush a carburetor and fix a leaky faucet.

  Sam rolled up the windows, locked the doors, and slouched down in the seat. The safety of America had spoiled her. At Yale, she and her classmates used to go on at length about the growing violence in American cities. Never mind the fact that they lived in the shelter of their parent’s money. None of them had been to the Middle East or South America. When they did travel, it was to soak up the sun in Cozumel or hit the slopes in Switzerland. All the same, they acted like South Beach was South Africa. It didn’t help that university professors seemed to invite the comparison.

  Sam got her first wakeup call one summer when she joined Bati on a humanitarian mission to Myanmar. They were part of a group trekking food and medicine twenty miles by boat to a remote village that had been decimated by the ongoing civil war. Sam witnessed firsthand former child soldiers missing arms and legs. She had met a woman who had her breasts cut off by rampaging soldiers and seen people who had stepped on landmines.

  The humanitarian mission was cut short when hostilities erupted between the current regime and a separatist group. Sam escaped to India along with the rest of the volunteers. They found out later that the entire village had been massacred. The local warlord claimed all the food and medicine they had laboriously hauled through the muck and mire as his own.

  When she got back to Connecticut, she spent the first few days in shock. Then the grief set in, and she could not stop crying. After that, listening to her friends complain about the violence in American cities made her want to vomit. She lost her cool with a few of them. They shunned her when she refused to indulge in the narrative.

  Sam sipped her coffee, unwrapped another milk candy, and waited. Her fear for Bati mixed together with images of mutilated Burmese children and turned into something palpable. It hardened and grew like a cancerous cell feeding on the terrible images in her mind. Whenever she managed to silence those fears, her feelings for Jake came rushing back in to fill the void.

  She turned the events of last n
ight over in her head but couldn’t make sense of it. One minute he was trying to get her out of her towel and the next he didn’t seem to care at all. He took a shower, lay down next to her, and went to sleep. Like nothing had happened. He didn’t even try to make a move. She practically threw herself at him. Had she misread the whole thing? Had she made a complete fool of herself? She laid awake the whole night torn between her desire to feel his strong hands on her body and her determination to keep her promise. She kept wondering why he hadn’t at least tried to make love to her.

  She chased these thoughts around inside her brain until she felt she would go mad. She brought out her cell phone twice, determined to call him and find out once and for all what was going on between them, but never worked up the courage to press send. She had the phone in hand a third time when she heard a motorcycle roar to life.

  Tiger had his helmet on. He twisted the throttle a few times. The motor responded with an energetic growl. He heeled the kickstand up, let out the clutch, and laid down on the fuel tank. The Ducati shot between a pair of parked scooters onto the street and sped to the corner where he turned onto Nathan Road.

  Sam started the car, threw it in gear, and went after him. Jake’s coffee slid off the dash, landing in the floorboard. Sam winced. “Good thing I opted for the extra insurance.”

  She turned onto Nathan Road and spotted the red Ducati zig-zagging between cars. Tiger drove like he had something to prove. He was already two blocks away and quickly increasing his lead. Jake had told her to hang back, but Sam had no choice. She had to speed up and stay close or lose Tiger in traffic. She put her foot down, swerved around a double decker bus, and closed the gap. Twice she had to use the left shoulder to speed past a line of stopped cars. Soon they were on Container Port Road headed to Stonecutters Island.

  Sam gripped the wheel hard with excitement. The island was mostly commercial shipping and the perfect place to stash a kidnap victim. She slowed down, allowing Tiger to pull ahead. At this time of night, most of the workers had already gone home. It was going to make tailing him without being spotted incredibly difficult. A flat paneled truck passed them going the other way. Sam let the distance between them grow. Tiger took the turn off. Sam slowed down even more, and by the time she made the turn, he was gone from sight.

  She coasted through the silent stacks of long metal shipping containers, breaking at each intersection to look for the red Ducati. The boxes seemed to go on forever. She wound her way through the maze with a cold fear hatching in her stomach. Panic filled her. “No. No,” she said and banged the steering wheel with a fist.

  She started to pray. If Bati died because she had let Tiger get away, Sam would live with that pain the rest of her life. She’d almost given up hope when she spotted a sleek red motorbike parked near a freighter.

  The ship was docked on the north east side of the island and would be visible from Kowloon. Sam sat there several minutes trying to decide what to do. She couldn’t idle between lanes of shipping containers. She had watched enough spy flicks to know she had to find a place where she could watch the boat without being seen.

  She turned around and took Container Port Road back to the mainland and then looked for a place to park where she could wait and watch. It took a few minutes cruising the industrial neighborhoods near the shore, but she finally found a nice spot where she could see the freighter from across the harbor. She could make out the front wheel of Tiger’s motorcycle beyond the bow of the ship. She’d know if he left, but by the time she got back to the island he would be long gone. Still, she felt this was a safer vantage point. She dialed Jake and put the phone to her ear.

  47

  Noble’s heart ping-ponged off the wall of his chest. All the muscles in his back tensed. The muzzle pressing against his kidney felt small—a .22 or .380 ACP—but at this range it would still kill. The bullet would blow a hole through something vital.

  Krakouer slung an arm around Noble’s shoulders and pulled him in close. The barrel pushed deeper into his back. He winced.

  Krakouer wore a shark’s grin. He thrust his chin at the fire dancer. “That is one fine piece of meat. I’d like an hour alone with her.”

  “You work for Ramos?”

  “Aren’t you clever,” Krakouer said. “Figure that out all on your own?”

  “I had help,” Noble told him.

  “Shiva screwed up. She was supposed to kill you.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her. I can be a real handful.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll clean up her mess,” Krakouer said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Krakouer pulled.

  Noble held his ground and turned his attention to the fire dancer. “No thanks. Like you said, she’s easy on the eyes.”

  She had worked her way to the edge of the dance floor. She was so close he could feel the heat from the whirling brands of fire. Her eyes rested on him for a moment, moved away, and then came back, as if she had realized something was wrong. Noble stared hard, trying to communicate with his eyes. If Krakouer pulled the trigger, the bullet would go through him and hit her. Noble tried to warn her.

  “Think I won’t snuff you right here?” Krakouer asked.

  “Go ahead,” Noble said. He was playing a dangerous game. Krakouer was a killer. Noble never doubted that. If he let himself be marched outside, Krakouer would take him to a dark alley and put a bullet in his head the same way a carpenter drives a nail. No remorse. And zero chance of survival. If Krakouer plugged him in public, paramedics would be on the scene in minutes. He would have a better chance at living. Not much better, but better.

  “This is going to happen,” Krakouer said. “You decide where. Do you want some innocent person to get hurt? Or do you want to be a man and walk outside?”

  While he spoke, Noble was staring furiously at the dancer in the vain hope that she would recognize the unspoken warning in his eyes.

  She spun the chains like a pair of flaming wagon wheels. The captivated crowd watched in silence as she drew a deep breath in through her nose, held it, and spit fire. A fireball streaked at the audience.

  The crowd gasped and drew back in unison. Noble felt the heat on his face. It nearly singed his eyebrows off. He used the distraction to drive his head backwards into Krakouer’s face. It was a sloppy attack but managed to mash Krakouer’s lips and knock out a tooth. Noble spun on the balls of his feet and chopped at Krakouer’s wrist. A .22 Walther hit the floor and got lost in a forest of legs. Noble followed up with a kick aimed at Krakouer’s knee. The side of his foot impacted below the kneecap and scrapped down Krakouer’s shin. His face twisted in pain.

  Noble had the upper hand and pressed his advantage. He grabbed hold of Krakouer’s collar with both hands and twisted, cutting off his air supply.

  Krakouer kneed Noble in the crotch.

  Pain exploded in his stomach and marched in waves that spread out to the rest of his body. He let go of Krakouer’s collar. His knees tried to buckle. He staggered backward, fighting hard to stay on his feet.

  The people closest to the fight recognized what was happening first. Heads turned. Within seconds, most of the crowd on the balcony was watching the fight. They stood on their toes and craned their necks to see.

  Krakouer searched the floor for his weapon. Noble wasn’t going to let him get his hands on the gun. Innocent civilians would get hurt. He pulled his pistol and ordered Krakouer to put his hands up.

  The crowd screamed.

  Krakouer sprinted for the edge of the balcony and leaped the railing. He fell twenty feet and crashed through a folding table. Comic books and knickknacks scattered all over the floor. Krakouer rolled, scrambled to his feet, and ran for the exit.

  48

  Cradling his aching groin, Noble hobbled to the railing. He caught a glimpse of Krakouer before he disappeared under the balcony. He would be long gone by the time Noble made it down the stairs. The table that Krakouer had used to break his fall was buckled in the middle. Noble wasn’t going to t
ry the same stunt. Krakouer was lucky he hadn’t broken both his knees.

  Noble leaned on the railing and sucked air through clenched teeth. The sick feeling in his gut was starting to evaporate. He was going to kill Krakouer the next time they met, and he had a feeling that would be sooner rather than later.

  He retrieved Krakouer’s fallen weapon from the floor. The crowd pushed back to let him through. The dancer had extinguished her fire and stood watching him like everyone else. Noble thanked her with a silent nod, which she returned. He stuffed the .22 Walther in his jacket pocket and limped down the stairs. He heard sirens in the distance as he exited the convention center. The loud whoops almost covered the vibration of his phone in his pocket.

  Noble dug the phone out, pressed it to his ear, and covered the other ear with his free hand. His voice was raw from the shot to his groin. “What’s up?”

  “Jake?”

  “The one and only.”

  “Do I hear police sirens in the background?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are they for you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is this a bad time?”

  “How are things on your end?” he asked.

  “I think I found Bati,” Sam told him. “I followed Tiger to a boat on Stonecutters Island. There’s a guard on the deck.”

  While she spoke, Noble hustled to catch the Wan Chai ferry docked less than a hundred yards from the convention center. A flood of passengers crowded the boarding ramp. Noble pushed his way on as a half-dozen police cars shot past. He waited until he could hear again and then asked, “Did anyone see you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m parked on the other side of the channel in the shadow of a building.”

  The sun had slipped below the horizon, and the last rays of light turned the wispy clouds orange and purple. The horn bellowed, loud and low. The ferry pulled away from the dock with sluggish determination, churning the water in its wake to white foam.