Noble Intentions: Season Three (12 page)

“When should I use it?”

“When the job’s done.”

“What if things go bad?”

“Use it.”

“Will they send reinforcements?”

“No,” the guy paused a moment,
smiled. The red glow of his light cast devilish shadows across his face. “It’ll
just let them know they need a plan B and they have to collect your body.”

Jack turned again, headed toward
the corner of the room. He heard the guy stop at the door. Said, “Hey, Baldy.”

“Yeah?” the guy said, his shoulder
pressed against the door, hand on the knob, flashlight reflecting off the
floor.

“This turns out to be a setup, let
Mason know I’m coming for him first.”

The guy said nothing. He pushed
through the door and disappeared into the night.

Jack waited until he heard the door
close, then he walked every inch of the ground floor. He checked behind every
piece of left behind machinery, moved every weathered pallet. He shone his
light inside the boarded up office. He wasn’t looking for anything in
particular.

He returned to the ladder near the
warehouse office, located in a small corridor between the office and the outer
wall of the building. It led up to a thin catwalk consisting of wooden planks
placed over irregularly spaced metal cross beams. The planks were gray and
splintered. Every few steps he took, the wood bowed and creaked. He slung the
duffel bag across his chest and grabbed hold of the railing with his left hand.
It would buy him a few seconds in the event the wood below his feet gave way.
There was no right railing, so the sudden drop would be painful. Perhaps enough
to separate his left shoulder or bend his wrist until it snapped.

But it didn’t come to that. The old
wood held and Jack reached the metal enclosure. It was the only thing in the
place that looked like it had been constructed in the past twenty years. He
rapped on it with the barrel of his gun. The resulting sound indicated that the
enclosure was thick, solid. A good place to hide out, he figured. Only thing
was he didn’t like the idea of being confined inside after he fired.

One problem, though. The enclosure
was secured with a thick chain and padlock.

Jack pulled on the chain. It
threaded through two eye bolts. The padlock connected the ends of the chain
together. Very little slack. He could pull the enclosure door open, but only
about four inches. Nowhere near enough for him to squeeze through. He knew he
could attempt to shoot through the lock. But even with a suppressor, the sound
might be heard by anyone passing by. In an industrial area like this, people
worked all hours of the day and night. If one person heard the sound and called
the cops, the setup would be ruined.

He saw a gap between the enclosure
and the ceiling. He grabbed the ledge, pulled his head up until he could see
over the top. The roof of the enclosure looked like it had been cut from a
chain link fence, and below that were several crisscrossed thin steel beams.
There was no way inside. He could set up on top, on the fence, but that would
leave his head exposed when he took aim.

He dropped to the catwalk, shone
his light across the room and scanned the perimeter of the upper level of the
building. The catwalk extended another few feet to his left, then continued
down the left wall. On the opposite end of the room he saw a ledge that
extended out maybe eight feet. There were a few large barrels, and what looked
to be two canvas tarps. He figured he might be able to take cover there.

Jack grabbed his duffel bag, slung
it over his shoulder and started down the catwalk. He reached the middle of the
room, heard the door below being pulled open. The door cracked open, allowing a
sliver of light to penetrate inside. It started off thin by the door, expanded
to maybe three feet wide at its zenith. Jack pressed back against the wall. He
clicked off his flashlight, which he’d previously tucked against his stomach to
hide the beam. He heard voices, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. No
one entered. They hung around the entrance while talking. Then the door closed,
but not all the way. It remained open a crack. Still no one had entered.

Who was out there? A couple drunk
guys, lost? Some guy just off work, looking for a place to get high? A whore
turning a trick?

Jack kept his back to the wall and
sidestepped the rest of the way to the other end. The boards creaked and bowed
and bent. They felt like they were going to snap, but they never did. If someone
had come inside, they would have heard the racket, no doubt about that. Perhaps
they could hear it from outside the warehouse.

Jack reached the platform, took two
minutes to stand in the shadows and listen. When he felt sure no one was
outside, he went to work. He dragged the two barrels to the edge, separated
them by four feet. He draped one of the canvas tarps over the side of the
barrel to the left, pulled the tarp as far over as he could toward the outer
wall. He bunched the other tarp up in between the two barrels. That’s where he
planned to take cover. He hoped the stretched tarp would draw glances away from
his position.

He crawled under the musty tarp,
laid his M40 to his right, his MP7 to his left, kept his hand around his M9.

And Jack waited. A minute stretched
to ten. Ten stretched to thirty. Passersby blocked the sliver of light produced
by a street lamp that spilled across the warehouse floor. The smell of
cigarette smoke wafted in. He felt a slight crave for nicotine, pushed it
aside. The rhythm and cadence of the voices were similar, but the tone always
sounded different. Never the same people. Were they people on their way to or
from work? Or was a large group of people hanging out in front of the building?

Still, no one entered.

Two hours had passed and faint
traces of light, warm and bright, not artificial and contrived, filtered in
through painted over windows and cracks in the exterior, ceiling and the
slightly open door. A single window ten feet up hadn’t been covered by paint or
boards, just a bit of grime. Through it Jack saw the crest of the shimmering
sun, like liquid silver behind thick clouds. Its rays dulled by the gray sky.
He watched for a moment, breathed deeply, relaxed.

And then, someone entered.

Clarissa walked toward the
platform, surrounded by at least two hundred other travelers. She checked the
time on the large clock that hung at the north end of St. Pancras International
station. Seven-fifty a.m. She looked up, mesmerized by the intricate latticed
steel beams. Though stuck in the middle of a mob of people, she felt happily
alone. No one here knew her. No one had any idea of her past. They knew none of
what she did for a living. She was simply Clarissa, an American tourist
traveling from London to Paris.

Alone.

A fact that had not gone unnoticed
by some male travelers, and possibly a few females.

She ignored them, though. Kept her
eyes focused ahead.

The crowd thinned slightly as
people veered to the left or right to get their tickets or a paper or grab a
cup of coffee or a Danish.

Clarissa carried on, forward. So
did a portion of the crowd. Together, they made their way to the platform and
stopped in waves. She found herself about a quarter of a way from the front of
the line. She stood motionless for a few moments. Forced air blew warmed
recycled air down. She checked her watch. Seven-fifty-eight.

She heard a low hum in the
distance, possibly the train. Maybe the sounds of people talking.

The hum grew louder. She leaned
forward, looked up and down the track. The train appeared, yellow and white. It
pulled into the station, brakes squealing sharply. A blast of hot air blew past
her, lifted her hair into the air. She inhaled deeply. It reminded her of the
subway in New York.

The train came to rest. Air brakes
settled, steel and fiberglass popped and groaned. It sounded like an old man
flopping into his worn out recliner.

Doors slid open, stale air eased
out. Clarissa stood at the front of her line and was the first to enter the
cabin. She assessed the seating area and made her way to the end, took a seat
that placed her in the corner, allowing her views of everyone inside as well as
anyone who entered from the doors on either end.

Fifteen minutes later, they were in
motion. She leaned back, tried to relax. Not an easy thing to do.

Twenty minutes after that, they
approached the tunnel. She recalled watching a show that detailed the
construction of the tube that ran beneath the English Channel. The Channel
Tunnel. Some referred to it as the Chunnel. From what she remembered, it’d take
thirty minutes or so to pass through.

Five minutes after the train
entered the Channel Tunnel, she spotted the man as he stepped through the far
door. He locked eyes with her, walked toward her. He had dark hair, shoulder
length. Long stubble lined his jaw, framed his chin and his mouth. A quick
smile formed on his lips. He stopped three feet in front of Clarissa, looked to
her left, then right, then sat down next to her.

“Clarissa,” he said.

She said nothing.

He leaned in closer, staring at her
the entire time.

“What do you want?” she said.

He smiled, shrugged. “Nothing
really.”

“Then move along, sport.”

“Don’t be like that, Clarissa.”

“How do you know me?”

“I just do, Clarissa.”

“Don’t use that name here.”

“Why not?”

“Who do you work for?”

“You know the people.”

“CIA?”

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Are you with Naseer?”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Why should I?”

She reached into her pocket,
wrapped her hand around the .22 caliber pistol she had placed in there. She
lifted her hand, gestured toward him. “Who are you?”

His smile retreated. “You
wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

His eyes narrowed. She figured he
was sizing her up.

“Name’s Spiers. I’m in a group
similar to yours. Mainland Europe, mostly. Some North Africa. You could say the
job I do is more like what your Randy does.”

Randy is there to clean up the
messes they made.

Clarissa gripped the handle of her
pistol tighter, threaded her index finger between the trigger and trigger
guard.

“I got a call last night about a
potential problem. They sent me your name, picture, general information. Told
me to get to London and get on this train. So I did.”

“What are your orders?”

“Aside from meeting you here and
escorting you to Paris, I don’t know.”

“What do they want with me there?”

“Like I said, I don’t know.”

She shifted in her seat,
straightened her aim.

He glanced between her face and her
gun, then back again. “Don’t worry. If I was here to take you out, they would
have told me right away so I could make the necessary preparations.”

She glanced around the train. Saw nothing
but blank stares and nowhere to run.

“You’ll only make it harder on
yourself if you run.”

The look on his face told her he
meant the words he spoke. She leaned back in her seat, settled in for the rest
of the ride. She knew there was no getting rid of him. They emerged from the
tunnel, and Clarissa shifted her focus from Spiers to the scenery outside the
train.

His cell phone rang. Both of them
stared at it. He answered it and held it up to his head. The only words he
spoke were
yeah
and
no
. He stared at her for the duration of the
call.

He hung up, lowered his gaze to the
floor. He brought his right hand to his forehead and rubbed his eyes. He shook
his head back and forth.

“What is it?” Clarissa asked.

“Bad news.”

“What kind?”

“The worst kind.”

“Involving me?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

He looked up, still shaking his
head. “I have to keep you in Paris with me for a week.”

The door creaked open, rusted pins
on rusted hinges. Four men, Middle Eastern, walked into the warehouse in single
file formation. Jack recognized none of them. They huddled together in the
middle of the room, smoking and talking in hushed tones. They spoke in a
foreign tongue, one that was not familiar to Jack.

Minutes later, another Middle
Eastern man walked in. He had a commanding presence. The men in the room fell
silent, separated a bit from one another. All turned toward the new guy. He
spoke, but again, foreign words that were meaningless to Jack.

One of the guys headed toward the
opposite end of the room. He slipped around the side of the office, climbed up
the ladder.

Jack reached for his MP7, pulled it
forward a few inches. He had thirty rounds in the magazine and the weapon was
set to three shot semi-automatic bursts. He’d aim for the man he presumed to be
the leader. Maybe one of the other guys would step up, take a bullet. Jack
doubted that, but either way, first shot would take someone out. How would the
men react? His gaze shifted from man to man. They had the look of battle
hardened warriors. Perhaps not conventional warfare. But what was that, really?
It changed over time, and if nations wanted to survive, they adapted.

Jack wondered how fast another man
would react after that first shot? How quickly would they figure out where the
shot had come from? How many more men could he take out during that time? One?
Two? All four of them?

The man at the south end of the
room who had climbed the ladder now stepped onto the catwalk that crossed over
the office, headed for the metal enclosure.

Why? Did Mason rat him out? It seemed
odd that the first thing they did was head for the box. Not the office. The
inconspicuous metal cage in the corner.

Jack waited for the guy’s next
move. If he stopped at the cage, then he was just being cautious. If he
continued down the catwalk, then Jack would presume they had inside info and
knew he’d been planted there. And if that was the case, then all bets were off.
He’d start with the leader and work his way out from there.

But he didn’t see where the guy
would go next because the guy never made it to the cage. He hunched down in the
middle of the catwalk, directly across from Jack. And he did so because the
front door opened and three more guys entered. The first two were carbon
copies, short, stout, white. Most likely ex-special forces. The third guy was
fit, but older. And Jack recognized him.

Thornton Walloway, welcome to
the show.

The first group of men formed a
line, with the leader in second position from Jack’s point of view. The guy
held out his hand. Thornton stepped forward and shook it. Across from Jack, the
man on the catwalk stayed low.

No one looked up. Not Thornton and
his men, because presumably they wanted to keep their eyes on the other guys.
And the other guys didn’t want to give the Brits a reason to look up, so they
kept their eyes fixed and level.

The stand-off benefited Jack. But
the guy across the room didn’t. Now Jack had to monitor the floor and the six
men there, and he had to keep an eye on the guy laying low on the catwalk. What
was his purpose? Was he going to investigate the metal cage? Or was he going to
take position in it? Was he up there to provide extra security? Or to take out
the other group of men?

Jack’s gut feeling was that the guy
hadn’t gone up there for Jack. It was for security purposes.

With the man across the way, Jack
knew that pulling off the hit with his M40 rifle was no longer an option. He
had to slide back to get into position. Not a problem if all the men were on
the ground floor. The ledge of the overhang blocked most of his movements. But
the guy across from him had a perfect view.

So Jack moved slowly, and he pulled
his MP7 closer and retrieved his Beretta M9 pistol. The former inches to his
left. The latter remained held tight in his hand.

Then the leader of the Middle
Eastern guys began talking loud enough for Jack to hear.

“Did you secure the materials?”

“Not yet,” Thornton said.

“Why not?”

“It’s not like I’m walking into a
drugstore and picking up some cough syrup, Naseer.”

Jack went to work on the name
Naseer. He had no recollection of it, though.

“This is radioactive material,”
Thornton continued. “It takes some time.”

Naseer placed his hands on his
hips, straightened his back, rotated his head left then right. “I chose to work
with you because you said you could make things happen.”

“And I have. You needed muscle, I
got it for you. You needed ins with politicians, MI5, I got them on the hook
for you.”

MI5? Mason?

“But you failed to deliver what I
need for an RDD.”

RDD?
Jack replayed the word
over a couple times. He knew it. Radioactive dispersal device. A dirty bomb.
The guys were terrorists, and Thornton was right there in the middle of it.

“It’s coming,” Thornton said. “I
just need another few weeks.”

“I’m running out of time,” Naseer
said. “I have other sources, you know. They are outside the country, so a new
set of problems presents itself. But with the contacts you’ve given me, I can
get it here in under two weeks. You know what that means, right? You’ll no
longer be required.”

“Then I’ll deliver in a week.”

No one spoke for a minute. Jack
noticed the man across the way lift his torso, resting on his elbows. He
wondered if the guy had taken notice of him, or if Naseer’s silence was a cue
for something. He pulled a scope from his pocket and aimed it at the guy. Saw
him looking down. Saw his hands empty.

Saw a chance to put his rifle into
a better position. The way this job was shaking out, shooting his way out would
be Jack’s only option.

So he reached behind, pulled the
gun forward, scooted his body further into the canvas tarp. His left hand
cradled the M40’s barrel. His right index finger rested on the trigger,
squeezed out the eighth-of-an-inch of slack. Naseer would be first, then
Thornton.

Screw Mason. He’d kill them all.

Jack heard for himself that MI5 was
in Thornton’s pocket, and they now supported Naseer. Maybe not the entire
group, but someone inside it.

Thornton must have heard of the
plot to end his life. He contacted Mason, who followed Jack. The guy said he
wanted Thornton taken out, yet he intervened when Jack was about to pull off
the hit in the middle of the city. The guy sent Jack on a suicide mission. Why
had Mason cared if Jack got caught or not? He didn’t. And he sure as hell
didn’t care about putting Jack into a no-win situation in the warehouse.

Jack had expected three guys, hoped
for two, planned for four. There were seven in the warehouse, not including
himself.

Bad odds for anyone.

He had expected to be able to shoot
from the safety provided by the metal cage.

It had been locked.

Did Mason know? Had he scouted the place
ahead of time? Had Mason and Thornton picked it for that very reason?

But that didn’t explain the man on
the catwalk above the office. He had a purpose. What, though?

“A week is not good enough,” Naseer
said. “You’ve got four days.”

Thornton turned, huddled with his
two men. After a minute, he turned, said, “Piss off, Naseer. You’ll get it in a
week.”

Naseer took a deep breath, exhaled
loudly. He nodded twice, exaggerated movements. Thornton smiled, pleased with
his small victory. The guy was a billionaire and not used to being told no, or
that his option wasn’t the best.

Then, it hit Jack. He knew the name
Naseer. Had read a write up about him a few years ago. Naseer was a
billionaire, too. Old money from what he recalled. A powerful man. He had the resources
to buy anyone with a price tag. Getting materials into the country should not
have been a problem for the guy. What did he want with Thornton?

Naseer smiled.

Thornton smiled.

The men behind Thornton smiled.