Noble Intentions: Season One

by L. T. Ryan

  Clarissa blushed and looked away.

  "Where should I put this?"

  Clarissa pointed at the table. "That should be fine." She walked over to the window hoping to avoid any further contact with the pretty attendant.

  "Do you two have plans tonight?" the woman asked.

  Clarissa shook her head. "Just staying in."

  "If you are up for a short walk you should see the Le pont Alexander III at night. Much better than in the day time."

  Clarissa straightened up.

  Why had the woman said that?

  "And maybe this time you won't have to leave so quickly," the woman said.

  Clarissa searched the windowsill for something, anything she could use. Finding no options readily available, she turned to face the woman.

  "Who are you?" Clarissa asked.

  "Nobody," she said.

  The woman lifted the lid off a silver tray and pulled out a gun with a suppressor attached to the end.

  "Oh, God. Please no," Clarissa said.

  The woman smiled at her. "It won't hurt for long."

  The shower cut off. The woman looked toward the bathroom and frowned. She backed up to the door, fired a single shot at Clarissa and left the room.

  Clarissa stumbled, nearly falling over. She caught and steadied herself on the back of a chair. She managed to get to the bed and fell backwards onto it. Crimson blood bloomed across the white shirt. Her right hand pressed tight against the wound.

  "Jack," she whispered.

  "What the hell was that?" Jack said.

  He turned off the water, grabbed a towel, got out of the shower, pressed his ear against the door. He heard his name being called faintly. He pushed the door open and saw Clarissa lying on the bed, bleeding.

  "Oh dear God," Jack said. "Clarissa, what happened?"

  The wounded woman opened her eyes and pointed toward the door.

  Jack ran to the open door and looked out in the hall. Two old ladies stood by the elevator.

  "Someone call a doctor," he yelled.

  He didn't wait for a response. He grabbed a towel from the closet and returned to Clarissa. He held the towel to her chest, keeping pressure on the wound. On the table next to the bed sat the room service tray. A white piece of paper had a simple message on it:

  FUCK YOU JACK

  -Charles

  "Bastard," Jack said.

  "What?" Clarissa whispered.

  "Don't speak, Clarissa. Just breathe."

  A deep voice from behind him said, "What's going on in here?"

  Jack turned and saw a man holding a medical bag. He was older, maybe in his mid-sixties, with grey hair and a grey goatee and moustache. He wore thick black rimmed glasses. His eyes widened when Jack moved to the side and the doctor got a view of a blood soaked towel covering Clarissa's chest.

  "Can you help her?" Jack asked.

  Behind the doctor stood his assistant. He turned to her. "Call an ambulance."

  Jack grabbed the old man. "Help her," he pleaded.

  The old man grabbed Jack by the shoulders and shook him. "Calm down and do what I say."

  Jack stared back at him. His breathing was rapid and shallow. He felt lightheaded. He felt the old man slap him across the face. Jack shook his head and stepped to the corner of the room. He grabbed a pair of khakis from his bag and put them on. He tucked his nine millimeter into the back of his waistband. He threw a blue button up shirt on over his still wet upper body.

  "Fix her," he said to the doctor.

  Jack ran out into the hall, to the stairwell, back to the other side of the floor. Guests lined the hall, everyone pointing at him or his hotel room. Frustrated, he fell to his knees and let out a yell.

  The elevator doors opened. He looked over his shoulder and saw the gurney being wheeled out by two paramedics.

  "Down here," Jack called to them.

  The medics followed him to the room and assisted the doctor.

  The next few minutes went by in a blur for Jack. The doctor, his assistant and the two medics all worked feverishly on Clarissa. They wheeled her out. One of the medics grabbed Jack.

  "Come with us," he said to Jack.

  "I'll be down in a second," Jack said.

  He grabbed his cell phone and stuffed it into his pocket. Threw a few items into his bag, zipped it up and threw it over his shoulder. He took the stairs to the lobby and met the doctor, his assistant and the medics at the ambulance. One of the medics held the door open and gestured for Jack to get in. He jumped into the back of the ambulance, sat near Clarissa's head, held her hand in his and stroked her hair.

  15

  "Monsieur Blair," a woman's voice said.

  Jack looked up, saw the petite nurse with short brown hair motioning for him to come to the door.

  "Is she ok?" he asked.

  "Come with me," the nurse said.

  Jack followed the petite woman down the corridor.

  "Where are we going?" he asked.

  "The doctor wants to speak with you about your wife."

  He didn't bother to correct her.

  The nurse stopped in front of a room, opened the door and nodded for Jack to enter.

  The room was full of medical gadgets, which he presumed were intended to keep Clarissa alive. Machines whirred and beeped. The doctor smiled at him and offered Jack a seat. He shook his head at the doctor. Jack's eyes pleaded for good news from the grey haired man.

  "She's stable now," the doctor said.

  "Thank you," Jack said.

  "No thanks yet. We aren't out of the woods. We lost her once during surgery. Dead for five minutes. And almost lost her another two times. She's in a coma and might not wake from it."

  Jack bit his lip to keep from crying.

  "When will you know?" Jack asked.

  The doctor shrugged and pointed his clipboard upwards. "No telling. It's up to Him."

  Jack collapsed into the chair nearest Clarissa's head, took her hand between his and kissed it.

  "I'll leave you be," the doctor said.

  Jack didn't respond, nor did he watch the man leave the room.

  "I'm sorry, so sorry," he whispered in Clarissa's ear.

  She squeezed his hand. He sat up and watched as her eyes fluttered open.

  "Clarissa," he said.

  She smiled for a moment, then her grip weakened and her smile faded and her eyes shut again.

  "I'm sorry about your woman, Jack."

  He stood up and saw Pierre flanked by two men. They were standing in the room. With a deep breath, Jack steadied himself.

  "Christ, Pierre. Knock first."

  Pierre smiled. "These are my best guys. They will not leave her side until you return."

  Jack raised an eyebrow. "Return from where?"

  "Walk with me, Jack."

  "Cigarette?" Pierre asked.

  Jack nodded and took the lit cigarette from Pierre's hand. He drew the smoke into his lungs and held it in. Looked up at the starry sky and exhaled the smoke, watching it drift above their heads.

  "Southern France," said Pierre. "That's where I need you to go."

  "Why?"

  "We have a target that needs to be neutralized." He lowered his head slightly and raised his eyebrows. "My people cannot be involved."

  "Who is it?"

  "It’s on here.” Pierre handed him a USB thumb drive. “The rest will be provided by a contact in Nice."

  Jack grimaced.

  "Pay?" he asked.

  "Two hundred thousand US dollars."

  Jack shrugged.

  "Can I think about it?" he asked.

  "Sure," Pierre smiled. "I'll give you thirty seconds."

  Jack turned his back on Pierre and took another drag on the cigarette.

  "If it helps," said Pierre, "we believe that the old man's associate has fled to the target city."

  Jack tossed the cigarette into the parking lot. Tiny red embers exploded like fireworks as the cigarette landed on the asphalt. He looked up at the sky an
d clasped his hands behind his head. He'd find Charles no matter what, might as well make some money along the way.

  "Give me the contact info," Jack said.

  Pierre placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. "They will find you when you arrive in Nice. You are on the six thirty a.m. train."

  Jack turned his head slightly and looked at Pierre out of the corner of his eye. "So sure I'd accept?"

  "Yes. And why don't you call the old man and accept his job as well."

  Jack laughed. He planned to do that as soon as he was alone. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and dialed the old man's number.

  "Yes," the old man answered.

  "I'm in," Jack said.

  "Excellent, I will send a car at..."

  Jack hung up.

  "Bastard," he said.

  "The old man or Charles?"

  "Both of them. All of them." He pulled his gun from his waistband and aimed it at an orange street lamp. "Every last one of them is going to die."

  Episode 3

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  1

  Act. React.

  Jack Noble considered himself a man of action. Put him in the worst possible situation and force him to make a decision. He'd act, deliberately.

  Reacting was saved for moments of ultimate duress, moments where he didn’t have time to contemplate his next action. Times when primal instincts take over and lives are saved.

  Gun pointed to his head? Act.

  Knife swinging at his head? React.

  A death threat on his family? Act.

  A kid hanging from the edge of the roof by one hand, about to fall? React.

  That's how Jack's mind worked. It's not hard to understand, then, why he was so troubled by the situation he found himself in. He reacted to Clarissa's comatose body and accepted two jobs.

  Jobs he wanted nothing to do with.

  First assignment, the job in Southern France for Pierre. Good pay, bad setup. The job would keep him in Europe longer. Not an idea he was particularly fond of. Pierre provided him with no physical details, only a thumb drive. Jack wasn't the most high-tech of guys. He knew what to do with a thumb drive, but he had no device with which to use it. He planned on buying a laptop computer after he departed the train in Nice.

  More time wasted, more opportunity for his face to be captured on camera.

  There was also the possibility that this job could be a setup. Jack could link Pierre to the death of Foster if Jack were pinched by the local cops. Hell, Jack could blame the whole thing on Pierre and say he was there to save Foster's life from the French government, and it wouldn't matter. They’d do nothing to Pierre.

  Jack had a bad taste in his mouth over this.

  Second assignment, find and kill Charles for the old man. There was a problem with this job. Charles had the loyalty of half the men in the old man's organization. If Charles got wind that Jack had orders to terminate him, Charles would have over one hundred men at his disposal to fight back. Maybe the old man was setting Jack up? Christ, Jack hadn't even thought it through. His initial response was a simple no. The old man and Charles were like family to each other and getting involved in a family dispute was always a bad idea. But standing outside the hospital where Clarissa lay lifeless, he dialed the old man's number without giving it second thought.

  Jack hadn’t acted deliberately.

  He’d reacted.

  He pulled at his hair with both hands as he went over it time and again in his head. He needed a distraction. The monotonous scenery visible through the train window bored him. Beautiful, yes. Boring, doubly so.

  Two people sat across from him. A couple, perhaps. Both had wedding rings on, but different designs. She wore white gold or platinum. He wore yellow gold. Both had newspapers. The man read his. The woman didn't.

  He caught the woman's eye.

  "Can I borrow your paper?" Jack asked the woman in French.

  She smiled, nodded and handed the paper across to him.

  "Thanks," Jack said.

  He flipped through the pages of the paper. He spoke French well enough to get by. Sure, he sounded like an American, but some people appreciated that he'd tried. However, when it came to reading French, his skills were shaky at best.

  There wasn't much of interest to him in the paper. He skipped the section on French politics. Soccer bored him to tears. And then he saw it. A blurred image from the concrete patio of Sensationnel. A photo of him leaving the scene. Below the large photo was a close up of the face, his face. A blurry photo, but it looked enough like him that it could cause a problem. Could he tell because he knew, or did it really look that much like him?

  He looked across at the woman who now sat with her arms and legs crossed, head cocked sideways, resting on the wall, eyes closed. He shifted his gaze to the man. The man still held the newspaper in front of him. If he turned the page he would see Jack's picture.

  He had two choices. Kill the man or leave and hope the guy didn't remember his face. Killing on a moving train didn't appeal to Jack. Who knows how many people he'd have to take out to keep it quiet? Jack and the man had not spoken a word to each other. Chances were he’d never remember what Jack looked like

  Best bet was to leave.

  Jack slid the compartment door open and stepped out into the hallway. He walked toward the front of the train until he found an unoccupied compartment where he stayed until the train arrived in Nice.

  The train arrived at the Gare de Nice Ville, Nice's main train station, around noon. The journey had taken six hours. He spent the last two alone. He half expected to step off the train and find a welcoming party of French police waiting for him. In the end there were no cops, no government officials. Nobody waited for him.

  He stepped off the train and onto the platform. He looked up through the high arched windows on the ceiling. Sunlight filtered in. The air was warm. He looked back at the train as it moved ahead another hundred feet or so. Between the rails was a median. Palm trees sat at either end, welcoming new arrivals, saying goodbye to those who were on their way to some destination not as nice or hip as the famous French city.

  Jack exited through the front of the train station. The taxi line was empty. No taxis, either. He stood at the curb, looked right, then left. His instincts told him to go left, so he turned to the right and began walking. He didn't trust himself today.

  A few blocks away he saw a sign in a window indicating he could purchase a cell phone and SIM card inside. He could just use his current phone and get a new SIM card, but the technophobe in Jack wouldn't allow that. He walked into the store and nodded at the old French man behind the counter. The old French man nodded back. He was bald on top. A thick mustache adorned his upper lip. He wore a brown shirt that made Jack think the man was going bowling. Wide collar, button up, two inch wide white stripes on either side of the buttons. Perhaps this was his store. Perhaps it wasn't. Jack didn't care.

  He pointed at a cell phone on the wall. The old French man nodded again. He turned, pulled the phone down, opened a drawer and reached in and retrieved a tiny piece of plastic. He held the phone and tiny piece of plastic up in the air for Jack to inspect. Jack looked at it for a second. Nodded his approval. The old French man inserted the card into the phone, connected it to his computer and punched at his keyboard with two short stubby fingers. Five minutes passed. Jack didn't move. The old French man barely moved. He handed the phone to Jack.

  "Thirty-nine," he said in English.

  Jack smiled. The man figured him for an American even though he hadn't said a single word. He reached into his wallet and pulled out forty euros. Handed the money to the man with his right hand, grabbed the phone with his left. He nodded at the ol
d French man and left the store.

  Thirty-nine.

  The only words spoken during the entire eight minutes he was in the store.

  He walked a few more blocks and stopped in front of an electronics store. A brand new laptop was on display in the window. Jack walked in and a sales associate came up to him. He wore a red vest over a light pink polo shirt. He had blue jeans on, the cuffs rolled too high. Black socks showed under the high cuffs, and blue sneakers finished off his outfit. He was probably close to Jack's age judging by the light dusting of silver hair on his temples.

  "How can I help you, sir?" the sales associate said in English with a heavy French accent.

  I really need to get a change of clothes.

  "I need a laptop," Jack said.

  The sales associate's eyes lit up. "Great, I have several choices. Follow me."

  Jack followed him.

  "Over here we have our most popular model. It's --"

  Jack tuned him out. Nothing the man said would make sense, so there was no point listening to him. He looked at the price tag. Nine hundred ninety nine euros. Over twelve hundred dollars US.

  "Next," Jack said.

  The sales associate frowned and stepped to the right one pace.

  Eight hundred ninety nine euros. Jack frowned. The sales associate did not say a word. He held up a hand, turned, and motioned with his finger for Jack to follow. He did.

  "Here we are, sir," the sales associate said. "Perfect for a man like you."

  Jack smirked. Four hundred ninety nine euros. "I'll take it."

  "Excellent," the sales associate said. "And let me tell you about our warranty program--"

  Jack held up his right hand.

  "No warranty. I understand, sir." He led Jack to the counter.

  Jack pulled out a credit card with the name Sherman Harrod. He pulled out an ID card with the same name then handed them both to the sales associate.

  The sales associate smiled, ran the card and placed a receipt for Jack to sign. The associate stuck the receipt under the money tray in the drawer, then he placed the box the laptop was packaged in into a bag labeled with the store's name.