Noble Intentions: Season Three

Noble Intentions: Season Three

(Episodes 11 through 15)

L.T. Ryan

http://LTRyan.com

PUBLISHED BY:

L.T. Ryan

Copyright © 2013

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any
format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the
copyright owner and publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and
events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

Episode 11

Episode 12

Episode 13

Episode 14

Episode 15

Other Books by L.T. Ryan

Author's Note

Full Table of
Contents

Jack Noble Series in Order
The Recruit (Short Story - Free for newsletter subscribers)
Noble Beginnings
A Deadly Distance
Noble Intentions Season One
Noble Intentions Season Two
Noble Intentions Season Three
Never Go Home
Untitled (Clarissa Abbot) - Coming October, 2013
Noble Intentions Season Four - Coming December, 2013

Visit
http://ltryan.com/newsletter/
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For my friends, Sharon & Michelle

Jack Noble stood in the narrow
aisle of the British Airways 777. He coughed into his hand to clear his throat
of the taste of stale air. His joints ached, and his muscles were tight and
sore. First Class had been sold out so he had to settle for a seat in coach.
The perils of booking a flight at the last possible minute, he figured.

He reached up and grabbed a bag
from the overhead for an elderly woman. His shoulder popped as he lowered the
bag and handed it to her. She smiled and thanked him. He nodded, turned, joined
the crowd pushing toward the front of the plane. For the first time ever, he
didn’t mind the wait and the throng of people. It gave him time. It gave him
cover. He decided to go with the flow and remain a part of the crowd. It gave
him a sense of certainty at a time when he was unsure of what he'd find upon
reaching the gate.

So after he exited the plane and
entered the wider jetway, he found himself surrounded on all sides by other
travelers. He was shoulder to shoulder with the two people he’d shared the
flight with. Jack thought he remembered the guy introducing himself as Kyle. He
was British, bald and heavy, smelled as though he hadn’t had a shower in over
forty-eight hours. The woman, in contrast, was young and cute and smelled
pleasant. She had introduced herself as Hannah. She was from West Virginia,
returning to London where she attended college and worked as a nanny. She wore
too much makeup, as Jack believed most young women often did. The fact of it
was evidenced by the smear of eye liner that stretched from the corner of her
eye to her ear lobe. A casualty of the three hours she had spent curled up in
her seat, asleep, and getting too close to Jack. Evidenced by the smear of
eyeliner on his shoulder.

Good thing I’m not meeting a
woman.

He'd spent the last seven hours
squished between the man and the woman. What’s a few more minutes, he figured.
He only spoke to the guy long enough to know he didn’t care to ever see him
again. Not that he would. And the woman had been pleasant and cute enough that
he wouldn’t mind bumping into her again. Although he knew he wouldn’t.

Who ever runs into flight buddies a
second time?

The herd of passengers came to an
abrupt stop like hundreds of fallen leaves adrift in the water where the stream
bottlenecks. Ahead, people jostled for position as the group merged into a
single file line out of necessity. At two or three wide and shoulder to
shoulder, they couldn’t get through the jetway’s exit, or the entrance to the
gate, depending on one’s point of view. For Jack, the opening meant passage
into a terminal at Heathrow Airport. One that he'd walked through at least a
dozen times, using the same number of aliases.

Today, however, would be the first
time that Jack Noble officially walked through London's international airport.

One by one, people passed through
the narrow opening and the line got shorter. Jack breathed deeply, remained
calm and relaxed. The young woman had settled in line in front of him. She
crossed her arms and tapped her right heel into the floor several times.

“Relax,” Jack said. “We’ll be
through in a couple minutes.”

She turned her head, nodded,
smiled. The line pushed forward and she followed. So did Jack.

Finally, they escaped the jetway.
Jack was met by a burst of stale disinfected air pushed out from a blower
above. Moments later the smell gave way to a rush of foul odor as the older man
behind him reached out and placed his hand firmly on Jack's shoulder.

"It's good to be home, isn't
it?" the guy who might be named Kyle said as he leaned in close to Jack’s
right ear.

Jack’s first instinct was to
deliver an elbow to the guy’s solar plexus. Instead, he shrugged free of the
man's grasp, turned his head to the right, nodded once without making eye
contact.

The man pushed forward, bumping
into Jack, and continued talking. What he said, Jack wasn’t sure. He had tuned
the man out while he scanned the terminal in both an effort to gather his
bearings and isolate any potential threats. It wasn’t hard to do. All he had to
do was spot the wave of people. The line coming toward him was maybe two or
three people wide. But the one flowing away was seven wide at its narrowest.
The way to the exit, he presumed. So he stepped into the walkway and joined
them. Assimilated into them.

Not always the easiest thing for
Jack to do.

When the opportunity presented
itself, Jack broke free from the group. He heard the man call to him from
behind and ignored him. He wanted to get as much distance between himself and
the guy. Jack knew there would be another logjam at customs. No matter how far
a leaf got ahead of the cluster, it would be knocked back into the group as
soon as the stream dammed up again.

Although he’d try to get through
with nothing to declare, he’d be stopped. He was always stopped. He couldn’t
recall a time when he wasn’t stopped. Even at the age of twelve, traveling with
his brother Sean and his parents, he’d been stopped.

Today was special because it would
be the first time in over a decade that he’d hand over a passport with the name
Jack Noble on it.

The thought already caused a
tightening in his stomach.

Had Frank Skinner stayed true to
his word? Would the SIS director clear Jack’s name from every database known to
man? At least those in the known free world?

A few weeks ago, Jack Noble was a
ghost. Presumed dead after a shortened stay at Black Dolphin, Russia’s
notorious maximum security prison. Jack had then been transported to Greece,
where he took cover on the island of Crete. It took six months for Ivanov’s men
to find him. When they did, Frank made the call to bring Jack back to the U.S.
It wasn’t all for Jack’s benefit, though. Frank needed a job done, and Jack
obliged. Did he really have a choice? It turned out to be worth it. He had his
freedom and a semi-clear conscience.

The slow moving line put him into a
kind of trance. He didn’t realize he’d reached the counter until the man spoke.

“Passport, sir.”

Jack didn’t need to look directly
at the man with the thin brown mustache to know that the guy was sizing him up.
They always did. Could he blame them? At six-foot-two and a touch over two
hundred pounds, Jack commanded attention. Police officers and customs agents
always watched him a little closer than other travelers. It wasn’t that he fit
a profile, per se. He had the look of a man who knows how to handle himself and
might have ulterior motives. Whether he did or not didn’t matter.

The customs agent whistled a basic
tune while he waited for his computer to return information. The guy’s partner
rifled through Jack’s carry on. Although Jack knew the agent wouldn’t find
anything, he felt nervous. What if he had mistakenly placed or left a false
passport in the bag?
Impossible
, he thought. He’d never used this bag,
and his false passports were scattered among a dozen safe deposit boxes in
eight different countries.

“What business do you have in
London, Mr. Noble?”

“Visiting my cousin,” Jack said.

The agent lifted an eyebrow,
beckoning Jack to continue.

Jack didn’t. He knew that a simple
answer was all he had to give. Saying anymore would open him up to further
questioning. If the guy needed more, he’d ask.

“Very well,” the agent said. He
handed Jack his passport while the other agent placed Jack’s bag in front of
him, opened. Both men looked toward the next person in line, seemingly
forgetting all about the man named Jack Noble.

Which was fine with him. He grabbed
his bag, pulled the zipper shut, slung it over his shoulder. He rejoined the
throng of people making their way toward the arrivals gate. Once again he found
himself in close proximity to Hannah and the guy who might be named Kyle. Jack
made the mistake of making eye contact with the guy. He turned away as the man
lifted his hand to wave to Jack.

“Jack,” the guy called out.

Jack did his best to avoid the man,
weaving his way through the crowd to get further ahead. Kyle’s girth would
prevent him from doing the same with any kind of efficiency.

Jack reached the arrivals gate,
scanned the faces in the crowd who were waiting around for loved ones or
business associates or for the person they were hired to pick up.

No one waited for Jack, which was
what he expected. He was in England to work with professionals. Placing
themselves in the airport would link them with Jack if someone dug deep enough.

And when you bring a man in to
assassinate someone, you don’t want to be linked with that man.

Jack continued to weave his way
through the crowd, reached a point where the herd had thinned enough that he
could walk without needing to turn his torso to the side in order to squeeze past
someone. Finally, he found himself standing outside. He used his hand to shield
his eyes from the sun while he searched for the taxi line. He found it and
found Hannah standing nearby, frustrated and upset. She had her purse opened
and was digging through it, shaking her head. Jack figured she’d lost her keys
or her wallet.

Kyle was standing next to her, car
keys in hand, thin smile on his face. How had he managed to beat Jack outside?
Regular traveler, Jack assumed. The guy knew the ins and outs of the Heathrow
like he knew his own house.

Jack approached Hannah and said,
“Everything OK?”

Kyle said, “It’s fine, Mr. Noble.
She just —”

“I asked her,” Jack said.

Hannah avoided his stare. Her anger
was obvious. Her ears and cheeks were bright red, eyes narrowed, nostrils
flared. “I lost my wallet. All my money, my credit card, even my damn library
card, it was all in there. I need to be home in, like, thirty minutes. How am I
supposed to get there now?”

Kyle twirled his keys around his
index finger and whistled, like Hannah was a dog. “I told you I can give you a
ride.”

She looked up at Jack. The tension
in her face lifted, her eyes pleaded with him for help. Jack hadn’t liked the
guy from the moment the man flopped into the seat next to Jack. He sensed during
the flight that Hannah didn’t care much for him either. But the look on her
face signaled something other than dislike, and Jack wondered if she was scared
of the man.

“Where are you going?” Jack asked.

“Kensington,” Hannah replied.

“Me too. You can tag along with
me.”

“Nonsense,” Kyle said. “I’ll give
both of you a ride. I have a car parked right over—”

“Shut up, Kyle,” Jack said. “I’m
sick of your blabbering. You’ve got five seconds to get out of my face.”

“What? Why? I…?” Kyle’s face
reddened with embarrassment and he turned around and began walking. Every few
steps he’d look back at Jack, hurt.

Jack figured he should feel sorry,
but he didn’t. Just because he was semi-retired didn’t mean he had to go soft
and start treating everyone nicely.

“Ready to get that cab?” Jack said.

“Oh, you were serious?” Hannah
said.

Jack looked sideways at the young
woman.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought you
were just being nice. You know, getting rid of him for me.”

“I was. But the offer still stands.
No point in you being stranded here.”

She chewed on her bottom lip while
the gaze of her brown eyes traveled up and down Jack’s frame.

“I’m harmless,” he said.

“For some reason I don’t believe
that. But, I don’t think you’ll try anything with me with a cab driver
present.”

Jack laughed. He liked the girl’s
confidence. He said, “Tell you what, Hannah. Why don’t I just give you money
for a cab?”

She hiked her shoulders in the air
an inch and pushed her bottom lip out. “That’d work, I suppose.”

He escorted her to an awaiting cab,
opened the rear passenger door, waited for Hannah to slip inside. Then he
reached into his pocket for his wallet. He turned his head to the left as he
did so, taking in a view of the long line of taxis and people standing in line,
shoulder to shoulder. Amid the wall of faces, one man stood out. He was tall,
wore a dark suit, stayed a few yards away from the crowd. His eyes were locked
on Jack’s. A moment passed and the two men faced off, separated by fifty feet.