Torres felt a sharp sting and knew he’d been hit. It felt like someone had snapped him with a wet towel. A bullet had drilled through the tool chest and into his left side. He looked down and saw a deep red stain spreading above his left hipbone. Seeing somehow made the pain worse. The sting became a pulsing stab.
He cursed, grabbed the Berretta and stumbled down from the step stool. He limped across the floor, trailing blood to the back wall.
The heavies reached the hangar doors. One of them thrust the barrel of his AK-47 through the window and fired blind. Bullets hissed and snapped. One ricocheted off the fuel tank without rupturing the skin.
Torres sat down with his back to the wall.
The hangar door rolled open enough to admit a man. Torres sighted on the opening and pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped open the man’s neck and he sank to his knees, bottlenecking the entryway. It bought Torres a few precious seconds.
He pressed a hand against his side and winced. The hole in his gut would kill him, but not right away. It would take hours to bleed out. Santiago would spend that time questioning him. Torres would resist at first, but when the pain got bad enough, he would talk. Falling for an asset was bad enough. Giving up information was an unpardonable sin.
He rested the back of his head against the wall. “Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”
Torres put the Berretta to his temple and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Four
JAKE NOBLE WAS ON HIS BELLY in the dirt, at the base of a towering pine tree. The drooping evergreen branches provided good cover. He was dressed in black with a dark watch cap on his head. The luminous hands on his TAG Heuer pointed to 4:47 a.m. The stars were dimming as the first hint of dawn tinged the eastern horizon. The whole world feels still and quiet in the hours just before dawn. Nature seems to hold its breath in anticipation of a new day. Man’s circadian rhythm is at its lowest. That’s when Special Forces Operators like to launch surprise attacks. The enemy is tired and thinking longingly of their beds.
The mansion was two stories of river stone and blonde timber with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over rolling green foothills. It had several chimneys and a back deck with more square footage than Noble’s first apartment. Decorative lamps illuminated the porch and a propane grill. A little girl’s tricycle was parked next to the leg of a swing set. Several miles to the south, the lights of Colorado Springs winked in the dark landscape.
A heavyset man leaned against the deck railing. The bulge of a handgun was visible under his gray windbreaker. He shook a cigarette from a pack of Lucky’s, flicked his lighter, and filled his lungs. It was his third cigarette tonight. He craned his head back and exhaled. It was almost daybreak and he was fighting to stay awake.
Noble sympathized. He had caught himself dozing several times through the night. He couldn’t get too comfortable though; a root was digging into his ribcage and an insect had spent the last two hours chomping on his right butt cheek. Every couple of minutes he felt a sharp pinprick that sent a jolt to his sleepy brain. He was far enough from the house that he could have killed the insect without attracting any attention but his training stopped him. He let the little bugger feast and used the pain to keep himself awake.
On the porch, the guard’s radio emitted a brief hiss of static and then a voice filled the silence. “Element Two, this is Control. Status?”
Noble took a deep breath, filling his lungs with thin mountain air and holding it for a count of ten, forcing oxygen back into his brain. He rolled his shoulders and made fists with his toes, preparing his body for action.
The heavyset guard plucked the radio off his belt. “Nothing to report. Over.”
“Roger that.”
Element Two finished his cigarette and stubbed out the butt on the sole of his shoe, and flicked the filter into the woods where his employer wouldn’t see it. He ambled to the south side of the house. Like every building along the Rocky Mountain Range, the house was built on an incline with the south side of the basement exposed. A gravel drive led up to a pair of garage doors, inside of which was the owner’s Jaguar XF.
Element Two paused long enough to be sure the door was closed, threw a cursory glance along the gravel drive toward the main road and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, started back to his perch.
Noble chose that moment to trigger a garage door opener tuned to the same frequency as the one clipped to the sun visor inside the Jaguar. The electric motor came to life with a soft whirring. The garage doors swung open. A shaft of yellow light spilled across the gravel drive.
The guard wheeled around and tugged the radio off his belt. He mashed the transmit button. “Control, this is Element Two. The garage door just opened. Do you copy?”
“I copy. Check it out. I’m coming around to back you up. Over.”
Element Two reached under his coat and produced a Glock pistol. Moving slowly, careful not to lose his footing in the dark, he crept down the incline to the driveway and approached the open doors with his gun leading the way.
Element One came around from the front at a slow jog, breathing heavy from the effort. He outweighed his partner by a good fifty pounds. His large hands made his pistol look tiny. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “What’s up?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Don’t know.” Element Two shrugged. “Opened up all on its own.”
Noble scrambled out from under the low-hanging branches, mounted the steps to the deck and moved in a crouch to the back door of the house. Around the corner, he could hear the guards discussing the possibility of a malfunction. He took a set of lock picking tools from the pocket of his cargo pants. Working quickly, he slipped the tension tool into the lock, selected a pick and manipulated the tumblers into place. The whole operation took less than thirty seconds. The lock disengaged with soft click. The door popped open. Noble stepped into a dark kitchen.
Outside, the security team was still puzzling over the garage doors. Their voices were just a murmur from inside the house. The kitchen had a slate floor and stainless steel appliances. A collection of expensive cookware hung from a rack. Noble helped himself to an apple from a bowl of fruit on the counter.
An alarm pad mounted on the wall was flashing the word BREECH. The numeric keypad glowed green, awaiting the code that would prevent a silent alarm from going out. Home security systems are based on fairly simple technology; when a door or window is opened, the system starts a sixty second countdown. If the countdown reaches zero, an alert is sent to the monitoring company who will then call the homeowner and the local police.
There are two ways to stop the alert from going out. The first is to enter the code into the keypad. The other is to disable the main box, preventing the system from communicating with the monitoring company.
Counting in his head—he had fifty-seven seconds left—Noble moved through the darkened first floor to a coat closet near the front entryway. Forty-eight seconds. Pushing aside the winter coats, he found a small metal box affixed to the back wall. A simple lock, like the kind found on executive desks, secured the box. Noble clutched the apple in his teeth and went to work with his lock picks. Thirty-two seconds. He felt the tumblers click into place and turned the latch. The box swung open. Twenty-six seconds. Noble spent a few precious seconds studying the wiring, selected the one that sent signals back and forth to the monitoring company, and yanked it.
Eighteen seconds to spare.
Noble grinned.
With the alarm disabled, he climbed the stairs to the second floor. The landing was completely unguarded. All the security was outside. A balcony looked out over the downstairs living room where leather sofas flanked a massive stone fireplace. Noble stopped at a door decorated in crayon drawings of colorful ponies with stick legs, balloon bodies, and smiley faces.
He peeked inside. A little girl, six or seven, was sprawled on the bed in carto
on pajamas. Her mouth was open and her limbs were flung out in the kind of deep slumber achieved only by the innocent.
Noble closed the door gently and proceeded down the hall to the master bedroom. He had to be more careful here. Even the smallest noise can pull an adult from sleep and the man inside had more cause than most to be worried, hence the security.
Noble laid his hand on the knob and slowly twisted until he felt the latch disengage. Then he waited and listened. Nothing. The door swung in on silent hinges.
He stepped into a spacious bedroom with deep white carpet. On his right was a private bath with a nightlight in case someone needed the toilet in the middle of the night. There was a makeup table and a mirror along with a chest of drawers, probably an antique.
The owner and his wife slept in a California king with silk sheets. A floral print comforter lay crumpled on the floor. The man had one arm draped over his wife’s shoulders, snoring softly. The wife slept a little more fitfully. Her blonde hair was a tangled haystack. Her legs twitched under the sheets. Spaghetti straps hinted at a silk nightgown.
Noble lifted the chair from the vanity table, placed it beside the bed and straddle it with his arms propped on the back. He took a noisy bite from the apple. The wife came awake with a small shriek like chalk on a blackboard. The man sat up with fear and surprise etched on his face.
Noble reached over and flicked on the bedside lamp. “Bang,” he said around a mouthful of apple. “You’re dead.”
Shawn Hennessey reached for his glasses. He had a pudgy face, large expressive eyes, and hair that had gone gray early. He was the type of guy that wore sweater vests and corduroy pants.
His wife was ten years younger and took better care of herself. It showed. She recovered from the shock of waking up with a stranger in her bedroom, uttered an angry oath and pulled the sheets up around her shoulders.
“Mr. Noble,” Shawn said. One pudgy hand went to his chest. “You scared me. How did you get in here?”
Noble swallowed. “You paid me to assess your security.”
“And?” Shawn asked.
“It sucks.”
Chapter Five
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Noble was perched on a stool at one end of the battleship-sized kitchen island. A pot of coffee was percolating, filling the room with the rich aroma. Shawn Hennessey and his wife were dressed in bathrobes. The security team had been briefed on their failure and sent back to their posts. Element Two had given Noble the look of death on his way out.
Mrs. Hennessey handed Noble a mug emblazoned with The Hennessey Bulletin—the Spin Stops Here!
He accepted it with thanks.
She had taken the time to comb her hair and put on makeup. “Cream or sugar?”
He shook his head. “Black is fine.”
Shawn Hennessey cleaned his glasses on his bathrobe. His gray hair was mashed flat in places. “What’s your assessment, Mr. Noble?”
“These Black Diamond security guys are one step above mall cop.” Noble pulled off the watch cap, folded it, and stuffed it in a pocket of his cargo pants before raking a hand through his hair. “And disabling your alarm system was child’s play.”
Mrs. Hennessey reached over and gripped her husband’s forearm while Noble spoke. He explained how he had distracted the guards, picked the lock, and disabled the alarm pad.
“What about the garage door?” she asked. “How did you manage that?”
Noble took the garage door opener out of his pocket. He slid it across the kitchen island. She picked it up, turned it over in her hands, and then pressed the button. They heard the garage door motor whir to life. She pressed it again and the doors started back the other way.
“Those openers use fairly simple technology,” Noble explained. “A twenty-dollar scanner from Radio Shack gave me the right signal. After that, it was just a matter of buying a garage door opener and tuning it to the same frequency.”
Shawn Hennessey exchanged an anxious glance with his wife. Rich people think money can buy safety. They had installed an alarm system and hired a security team. They had done everything they were supposed to do and they still weren’t safe in their own home. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear, but they had hired Noble to assess their security and he wasn’t going to sugarcoat it.
He said, “Yesterday when you were on the back porch grilling…” Hennessey nodded. “I was twenty yards away,” Noble told them. “Watching you the whole time.”
Mrs. Hennessey sucked air through her teeth. One hand closed the top of her bathrobe in a subconscious gesture. Shawn’s lips pressed together. They were smart people. They could read between the lines. If Noble had a gun and had wanted to kill them, they’d be dead.
He cradled his coffee cup in both hands. “If someone wants to kill you bad enough, Mr. Hennessey, they’ll find a way.”
Mrs. Hennessey looked at her husband and then at Noble. “We’ve been getting letters and phone calls. They sound serious.”
Noble nodded. “You can’t go on cable television every night, say the things you say, and not expect to make enemies.”
Hennessey put his mug down. “Our government is hopelessly corrupt and our nation is headed for disaster. I have a duty to warn people.”
“I’m not saying I disagree. I’m saying people are going to resent you for it.” Noble sipped.
Shawn asked, “What do you suggest?”
“Buy a gun. Learn to use it,” Noble told him. “You might also think about hiring a bodyguard. A real bodyguard. Someone with combat experience.”
“Someone like you,” Hennessey pointed out.
Noble grinned but shook his head. “With all due respect, I’m not interested in babysitting a T.V. personality, Mr. Hennessey.”
Hennessey thrust his chin at the window where they could see Element Two on the deck smoking a cigarette. “I’m paying them good money. They are supposed to be the best in the business. You breezed past them like a ghost walking through walls. You’re just the sort of man I want protecting my family.”
“I know some guys,” Noble told him. “Guys that are every bit as good as me. I’ll get you their contact information. No promises.”
Shawn nodded in understanding but his expression said otherwise. “I wish you would reconsider. You obviously know your stuff and you don’t cater to me because I’m on television. I like that.”
Noble scratched an eyebrow. “My situation is complicated.”
Mrs. Hennessey whispered something in her husband’s ear. It sounded like pay the man. Shawn excused himself. His wife picked up her mug and examined Noble over the rim. She said, “What do you think the chances are someone will make an attempt on my husband’s life?”
Noble thought about how to answer that. He decided on the truth. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.”
From her expression, he could tell she was thinking the same. She drew her shoulders up like she was fighting off a chill. “Thank you for being honest.”
He nodded. “Must be hard.”
“Most days are alright,” she said. “Some days are unbearable. Sometimes I wish we could run away. Go someplace where no one could find us.”
“I know the feeling.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Shawn would never stop. It’s not in his nature.”
“Part of what makes him so successful,” said Noble.
“He definitely doesn’t back down,” she said. “What about you?”
“I’ve been doing this so long I don’t know any other way.”
“Are you married?”
“No ma’am.”
“Call me Paige,” she said.
“Jake,” he said.
“I find it hard to believe a guy like you hasn’t found a girl to settle down with.”
“I thought I had.”
She raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“And I guess it didn’t work out.” Noble worked a smile onto his face to disguise the hurt.
“Sorry to hear that,”
Paige said.
Shawn reappeared with a check. “I hope it doesn’t bounce,” he said with a smile.
“Me too.” Noble narrowed his eyes. “I know where you live.”
Shawn laughed and stuck his hand out.
Noble shook it.
Chapter Six
NOBLE CAUGHT A UNITED FLIGHT from Denver to Tampa International. He landed at two-thirty in the afternoon, exited the terminal with his carry-on slung over one shoulder and rode the elevator to the long-term parking garage. A 1970 Buick GSX was slotted between a pair of modern sedans. Noble checked the garage to be sure he was alone, then placed his carry-on on the ground, dropped to his hands and knees, and checked the undercarriage.
He had spent the past four days in Colorado Springs—plenty of time to rig an explosive or tracking device. The likelihood someone would attach a bomb to his starter was slim—he had been out of the game five years now—but he had made enemies, most recently in the Philippines and Hong Kong where he had busted up a pair of human trafficking rings. Since a healthy dose of paranoia is vital in the espionage business, Noble scanned the bottom of the car. “Suspect everyone” had been one of Matthew Burke’s favorite sayings.
While Noble checked the undercarriage, the elevator arrived with a ding. A young couple, walking arm in arm, strolled through the doors. They stopped when they spotted Noble on his hands and knees.
He stood up and gave them an awkward smile. “Dropped my keys.”
They climbed into an electric car and drove off without comment.
Noble dug the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the door and tossed his carry-on into the passenger seat. He settled behind the steering wheel. It took three tries to start the old Buick. Finally, a throaty rumble filled the parking garage. Noble shifted into reverse. Tires squawked on the smooth surface and he left the airport, headed west on I-275 to Saint Petersburg. The mercury hovered close to one hundred degrees. Even with the air conditioner on full blast, sweat beaded on his forehead.
Noble Vengeance (Jake Noble Series Book 2) Page 2