by David Archer
“Very well, actually. Remember that you spent almost all of five years locked away, right? Well, it turns out you were a pretty smart young drug dealer. According to financial records, you’d been investing money every month into a pretty healthy stock portfolio. That money sat there earning some very substantial returns the whole time you were locked up, and you cashed out shortly after you were released. Your investment had turned into almost a million dollars during that time, but you didn’t waste time spending a lot of it. In that package is all the paperwork showing that you bought that Charger from a custom car builder for just over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a week later. The cash in that package, about a hundred grand, is all you’ve got left after Uncle Sam and that car, so don’t spend it all in one place.”
Noah nodded, mentally inserting this new information into the matrix of his cover identity. “All right,” he said. “I’m supposed to be finding someplace for us to live. Should I use it to buy a house?”
Allison shrugged and waved a hand in the air. “That would definitely make it look like you’re serious about sticking around, so it’s not a bad idea. Up to you in the long run—you might just want to rent something, maybe pay a year up in advance. That would still look good but wouldn’t deplete your cash reserve.”
“I’ll see what’s available and go from there,” Noah said. “Anything else?”
“No, I think that’s it. Anything on your end?”
“Yes. I finally got a call from that particular individual we’ve been trying to identify. He wants me to make a detour, fly down to Odessa, Texas, and handle something for him. I figure I’ll drive to Kansas City and fly out of there tonight. With any luck, I can take care of whatever he wants and be back in KC within a day or two.”
Allison looked into his eyes for a long moment, then nodded. “Do it,” she said. “Unfortunately, we need him to think he’s got you under his control, so go ahead and do it. I’m authorizing any kills you have to perform in keeping his confidence. Just remember, you’re in deep cover. It won’t be Noah Wolf who’s doing the killing in Texas; it’ll be Rex Madison. You cannot afford to be arrested under that identity.”
“I won’t be,” he said. “Remember when we did the job in Missouri? I still have the Wyatt Wilson ID I used then. After the Andropov attack and everything we went through after that, I just never got around to turning it in. I’m going to use it for the flight and to rent a car in Odessa.”
Allison turned to a computer on her desk and tapped on the keyboard for a moment, and then a slow smile spread across her face. “That’s excellent,” she said. “That ID has some data encrypted in its magnetic strip. If you get arrested, it will instruct the police to contact the state department, and we’ll get you out in no time. It’s still fully valid, so you shouldn’t have any problems with it.” She turned and faced him again. “Noah, I want you to be as careful as you possibly can in both of these missions. If I could send anybody else to Arkansas, I would, but I think Molly is right. You’re probably the only agent we’ve got who could pull this off, especially if you have to stay there very long.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Noah said. “Unless there’s something else, I should get on the road.”
“Yes, you should. How is Sarah handling this?”
“She’s a little shaken up. We haven’t really spent much time apart since I found her in China, but Neil is going to stay with her until it’s time for them to come to Arkansas. I just want to get to Texas and get this task over with so I can get started on the real mission.”
“Then get moving. I’ll do my best to keep an eye on Sarah, as well.”
She looked down at some papers on her desk, and Noah knew that he had been dismissed. He stood and walked out of the office, nodded to the secretary, and then rode the elevator back down to the garage. A moment later, the big Dodge Charger turned out of the garage and headed toward the highway that would take him to the interstate.
From Kirtland to the Kansas City International Airport was a six-hour drive, and Noah arrived at just before 4:00 p.m. He left all of his Rex Madison documents in the glove box, locked up the car in long-term parking, and carried his bag into the airport terminal. Fifteen minutes later he had learned that there were no nonstop flights to Odessa, and the shortest flight would have him arriving at three o’clock the following morning.
Noah walked away from the desk and googled private charter flights from Kansas City airport and then began calling the charter companies that came up. It took him half an hour to find a flight, but it was a Cessna business jet that could have him there in less than two hours. Fortunately, Wyatt Wilson’s credit card was up to the task, and the little plane took off with Noah aboard a half hour later.
It was 7:30 by the time he made it to the car rental desk, and almost 8:00 by the time he had secured a new Cadillac. There was a Holiday Inn only a short distance from the airport, so Noah called ahead to reserve a room and then hit a fast-food drive-through to grab his dinner. By 8:45, he was in his room and dialing the number that had come in the last message.
There was no answer, but another number came to him in a text message. He tapped it with his thumb and the phone dialed it automatically.
“Are you in place?” The distorted voice sounded the same as it always did.
“I’m here,” Noah said. “Now what you want me to do?”
“You will receive a message shortly that will contain names, an address, and a couple of photographs. One of them will be a photo of a family. The other will be something you might find useful. The mother is in a position to be of value to me, but she does not believe that refusing me will have any repercussions. I want you to convince her otherwise. At this point, I do not want you to terminate anyone, but I want you to make it clear to her that the lives of her husband and children are within my grasp. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Noah growled. “Any particular way you want me to do that?”
Something that sounded like a laugh came through the phone. “I’m sure you can come up with something,” it said. “Just make sure it’s effective. Once you feel certain you have accomplished this for me, you can proceed to your mission in Arkansas.”
If I were normal, Noah thought, a chill would have just gone down my spine. “You know about that, do you?”
The rumbling sound that Noah took for laughter came again. “Of course I do. I have people high enough in your organization, in every organization, to make sure I know just about everything I need to know.”
The line went dead, and Noah simply looked at the phone for a moment before putting it down on the nightstand beside the bed. The mole knew about his mission, and Noah let that knowledge circulate through his mind.
This fact told Noah several things. First, it told him that the mole’s statement that he had someone high in the organization was almost certainly true. It also told him, however, that that person was not privy to the current plan that involved letting the mole use Noah. If that information had been divulged, the mole would never have alluded to having a high-placed source, and Noah’s fake family would probably be dead.
His phone signaled an incoming text message, and he looked at it quickly. The first photograph showed a man and woman in their thirties, standing behind two girls and a boy who looked to be in their early teens. The second photo showed the man, but the woman he was obviously enjoying was not his wife. He closed the message and held his phone for a moment.
He considered trying to place a call to Allison to relay the information about the high-placed source but decided against using his own phone for it. Instead, he finished the last of his french fries and carefully crumpled the shirt that was in the top of his bag. He used his phone to take a snapshot of the open bag and then left the room and made his way out to the rental car.
As far as he could tell, he was not being followed. He drove around for half an hour until he spotted a Walmart, then parked and went inside. The nice thing about Walmart was that you c
ould always find a cheap, throwaway cell phone, no matter what time it might be. He bought two of them and the corresponding activation cards and took them back to his room.
It only took a few minutes to activate them, and then he used one of them to call Sarah. She answered on the first ring, and Noah could tell that she had been crying.
“Hello?” The sniffle in her voice was obvious.
“It’s me,” Noah said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m better now,” Sarah said. “I thought you weren’t supposed to call in until you got to Arkansas?”
“Well, it became necessary, so I figured I’d take the opportunity to call you, first. I need to get a message to the Dragon Lady, but I don’t want it coming through anyone connected directly to me. Do you still have Elaine’s number?”
“Elaine? Yeah, why?”
“I need to get a message to her father,” Noah said. “That’s the safest way I can think of.”
“What is it? I’ll call her as soon as we get off the phone.”
“No, I don’t want to take a chance that her phone records might be vulnerable. I’ll use a throwaway to call her, and I think I can disguise my voice enough she won’t know it’s me. That way, if anyone finds out she relayed the message to her father, it won’t lead back to you.”
Sarah hesitated, but when she spoke again, he could hear a smile in her voice. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.” She gave him the number and then asked how he was doing.
“I’m okay,” he said. “You sound like you’ve been crying.”
“Yeah, well, comes with being a girl. I miss you. I know it’s only supposed to be a week before I see you again, but right now it sounds like forever.”
“It won’t be that bad,” Noah said. “Try to keep yourself busy. Is Neil there?”
“Yeah, he’s out in the living room. You caught me just after I got out of the shower. I figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity to do my weeping where no one could see me.”
“Go back out and spend time with him. He’s supposed to be your little brother, now, so get used to treating him like one. From what I’ve seen, older sisters always pick on their little brothers. That shouldn’t be too hard, will it?”
She chuckled at him. “Oh, I’m already pretty good at it. We played rummy a little while ago, and I beat him five games straight. You should have heard him—he was whining like a big baby.”
“Then go play some more. I like it when you laugh.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. “That’s the first time you’ve ever said anything like that to me. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, I promise you. I’m just learning to deal with the fact that you reach parts of me I thought were dead.”
From the sound of her voice, the smile must have gotten a lot wider. “That’s so sweet,” she said. “I love you, Noah.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Noah felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward, and the sensation was so unfamiliar that he turned and looked at himself in the mirror on the dresser. He stared at his reflection for a moment and then said, “I love you, too.”
Sarah giggled. “I love hearing you say that,” she said, “even if…”
“I love you, Sarah,” Noah said, cutting her off. “And in case you can’t hear it, you actually just made me smile. A real smile—I mean, it actually caught me off guard.”
“Noah,” she said, and all of the mirth seemed to be gone from her voice. “As much as I’ve always wanted that to happen, now would not be a good time for you to suddenly get your emotions back. This mission—we need your Vulcan brain, babe. This is no time to go soft.”
“Relax,” Noah said. “I’m not feeling anything else, just something akin to pleasure when you said you love me. I’ve been like this so long, I don’t think I can ever come completely out of it.”
Sarah sighed. “Okay, but don’t scare me like that. I worry enough about you as it is.”
“I guess that comes with being married, or maybe with loving someone. I’m not sure I know how to worry, but I know that I think about you a lot when we’re not together, wonder how you are, that sort of thing. Anyway, I need to call Elaine and get rid of these burner phones. You stick with Neil, and I’ll see both of you in a week.”
“Okay,” Sarah said, “but do me one favor. Would you—would you say it again?”
“I love you, Sarah,” Noah said. “I’ll see you soon.”
He ended the call and immediately took the sim card and battery out of the phone. He used his Swiss Army knife to break the sim card and then flushed it down the toilet before turning on the other phone and dialing the number Sarah had given him.
“Hello?” Elaine’s voice sounded sleepy and cautious.
“Urgent, urgent,” Noah said, affecting a European accent and raising his voice an octave. “Message for your father. Someone high in organization feeding information about missions to mole. Urgent, urgent.”
“What?” Elaine sputtered, but Noah ended the call and immediately dismantled the phone. The broken sim card followed its fellow down the toilet, and the rest of the parts went into the pocket of Noah’s leather jacket.
Noah went to the bathroom and took a quick shower, then climbed into bed. Two minutes later he was asleep.
Noah was awake before the late-autumn sun managed to light up the morning. He dressed quickly and left the hotel, dropping the remains of the throwaway phones into a trash can near the parking lot. He used the GPS on his own phone to get directions to the address from the text message he’d received the night before and pointed the Cadillac toward it.
The text message said that the target family was Jim and Caroline Dickinson and their children, Rachel, Amber, and Jimmy. It took him only twenty minutes to get to their neighborhood, still well before 7:00 a.m.
He cruised past the house, a nice-looking ranch-style in an open subdivision, and parked in the driveway of a house with a For Sale sign in front of it that sat only four doors down. He could see the front of the target’s house clearly, but it was nearly an hour later when the garage door opened and a car backed out into the street. He used the zoom function of his phone’s camera to ascertain that the car had only one occupant: the woman from the photograph. She turned the car in his direction and cruised past a moment later.
Noah watched for a few minutes more, and then a school bus stopped in front of the house beside the one he was watching. All three of the children came out at once, as did other children from several other houses on the block, and Noah sat there and took their pictures as they climbed onto the bus and rode away. Once the bus was out of sight, he started the Cadillac and backed out, then drove back to the target’s house and pulled into the driveway there. He parked close to the garage door and in the middle of the driveway so that a car inside could not get past his own.
He stepped out of the Cadillac, walked up to the front door, and rang the doorbell. A moment later the door opened, and Jim Dickinson smiled out at him.
“Can I help you?”
“Actually, you can,” Noah said, and then he reached out and took Dickinson by his throat, closing his hand tightly as the fellow tried to jump backward. Noah followed, kicking the door shut behind himself, and shoved Dickinson into a chair.
Dickinson sat there in shock, staring up at the big blond man who had seemingly attacked him for no reason. “What the…”
“Mr. Dickinson,” Noah said, “I represent someone who is seeking to do business with your wife. Apparently, she has been resistant to the idea, and it’s my job to remove that resistance.” He held out his phone, showing the pictures he had just taken of the Dickinson children. “My employer wants your wife to understand that refusing to do business with him could be detrimental to the health and well-being of your family. Now, I’m sure you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to your children, would you?”
Dickinson managed to close his mouth, then swallowed hard. “No, no,” he said quietly. “But I…”
“Frankly,” Noah went on, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to them, either. That’s why I decided to have this private little chat with you. You need to make it clear to your wife that she needs to cooperate with my employer. You need to make it clear to her that if she does not, something very bad will almost certainly happen to one of those lovely children you just sent off to school. In order to make sure she gets the message, I’ve got to leave you with something that will be convincing.”
Noah called up the second photo from the text message on his phone and held it in front of Dickinson’s face. The man stared at it for several seconds, his eyes wide, and then he looked up at Noah again.
“I—that isn’t…”
“I don’t care who it is, and I don’t care to hear whatever ridiculous explanation you’re trying to come up with. None of that matters to me, but I showed you that photograph so that you would know that my employer can find out anything he wants to know. I need you to understand that if he can arrange to capture a photo of you in such a compromising position, then he can undoubtedly track you down no matter where you might try to go. This is to convince you that running away is not an option. Do you understand that?”
Dickinson nodded, not trusting his voice to speak.
“Now the point of this little exercise,” Noah went on, “is to give you proper motivation. However, I also need to give some to your wife. Since we both agree we don’t want anything bad to happen to your children, that means something bad has to happen to you.”
With the speed of a striking snake, Noah reached down and took hold of Dickinson’s right ear and then yanked back so hard that the ear was torn half off the man’s head. Dickinson screamed and clapped his own hand over the injured ear, but his eyes never left Noah’s face.
“Be absolutely certain you tell your wife exactly how you came to be injured, and then explain to her that this is nothing compared to what will happen to one of your children if she does not cooperate. And don’t bother trying to notify the police or give them my description, because it probably won’t be me the next time. It will be someone you’ve never seen, someone you’ll never expect. Someone you won’t see coming.” He cocked his head and looked Dickinson in the eye. “I’m going to leave now,” he said. “Do not move from that chair until you’re certain I’m gone. If I see your face at the window or the door, I will put a bullet through your head.”