Noble Intentions: Season Two (Episodes 6-10)

  Noble Intentions: Season Two

  (Episodes 6 through 10)

  L.T. Ryan

  http://LTRyan.com

  @LTRyanWrites

  PUBLISHED BY:

  L.T. Ryan

  Copyright © 2012

  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.

  Contents

  EPISODE 6

  EPISODE 7

  EPISODE 8

  EPISODE 9

  EPISODE 10

  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

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Nick J. Reider.

  Episode 6

  1

  Jack Noble reached out and grabbed the thin handle of the white mug on the edge of the table. He brought it to his lips and blew into the cup, sending a cloud of steam into his eyes and nose. The smell of strong coffee invaded his senses and alerted his body to the rush of caffeine that would soon come. He placed his lips to the cup and pulled a half mouthful of the hot liquid in, letting it cool under his tongue before swallowing. He watched the morning sun crest over the Libyan Sea in the Mediterranean. Orange, red, pink and purple colored the sky and sea, making it impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

  He knew that the cropping of white buildings behind him changed colors with every passing minute as if they were part of a laser light show. Some mornings he walked on the beach and watched the town during sunrise. Other mornings he sat on the small cafe’s patio and woke up with the sea.

  The small town of Palaiochora on the Greek island of Crete had turned out to be the perfect hiding spot for a man who was now a ghost. Small. Quiet. Quaint. Tourists came through daily. Some stayed overnight. Most didn’t. Only a few of them ever came into the cafe. The cafe with the apartment above it. The apartment that Jack lived in with Alik, the Russian.

  “Good morning, Jack.”

  Jack nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the sea and his coffee mug in front of his mouth.

  “Beautiful morning.” Alik’s Russian accent had started to take on a Greek quality over the past few weeks.

  “Just like every morning the last six months,” Jack said.

  Six months. The most peaceful six months of Jack’s adult life. After sixteen years of non-stop action, Jack’s now thirty-six year old body welcomed the respite. But the itch had returned. The calm and quiet of Palaiochora had started to wear on him. He missed the city. He missed the action and the thrill of his job. In addition to that, there was too much unfinished business. Professionally and personally.

  Jack held the mug to his face with both hands. He took a sip. When he exhaled, his breath turned to steam as it met the cool morning air. A breeze blew in from across the sea. The air bit at his face with the promise of a mild spring day. He set his mug down on the table. Pushed the sleeves of his blue sweater past his forearms. Grabbed a napkin and wiped droplets of coffee away from the hair on his upper lip. He rubbed his face, feeling the coarse hair that covered his cheeks and chin. His hair, uncut for six months, hung over his forehead, past his eyebrows. He used both hands to part it in the middle and brushed it back.

  “Have you heard from Frank?” asked Jack.

  Alik shook his head. “I’ll try him today.” He cut a piece of danish with a butter knife and stabbed it with a fork. “You are a ghost, Jack. They want to keep it that way. If it takes a year to get you off this island, then it takes a year.”

  Jack sighed. He arched his back and stretched his arms high in the air. A ghost, he thought. Frank did Jack a favor when he had Alik temporarily kill him while he was imprisoned in the Russian hell hole nicknamed Black Dolphin. Jack still had no idea how they pulled it off. Alik wouldn’t tell him and Jack hadn’t talked to Frank yet. Not one to dwell on such things, Jack had almost forgotten all about it.

  Jack pushed back in his chair, stood and walked to the green painted metal railing at the far end of the patio. The railing could use a fresh coat of paint. He leaned over and looked down into the blue sea. Then he turned around and leaned back against the long cold strip of metal. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette. There weren’t any there. Hadn’t been for three months. Old habits die hard, he figured.

  “I’m sure it will be soon,” Alik said.

  “You said that three months ago.”

  Alik shrugged. “What do you want me to say? Quit asking.”

  Jack waved him off and leaned his head back. Over the top of the cafe he could see a few of the houses built into the hillside. The sunrise color show was ending and the buildings were fading from orange to white.

  “What about me? He tell you what is going to happen to me yet?”

  “Jack,” Alik paused a second. “There isn’t anything that I can—”

  “Anything that you can divulge to me at this time. Yeah, I know.” Jack crossed the patio and leaned against the cool exterior wall of the building. His eyes shifted from Alik to the vast openness of the empty sea. “I wish you would quit this act and tell me. You said yourself, I’m a ghost. They wouldn’t care about that if they didn’t have plans for me. Well, let me tell you something, Alik. I have plans for me. I have some unfinished business that I need to attend to.”

  Jack stood there shaking his head for a minute before sitting down at the table, across from Alik.

  The Russian placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. “Jack, yes, you are correct. They have a plan for you. I’m not privy to all the information, though. I promise you that.”

  An hour passed and they sat in silence. Jack drank two more cups of coffee and had a breakfast of eggs and fried kalitsounia, a sweet cheese pastry. The locals filed in and out of the cafe, grabbing the coffee and pastries they required to start their morning. A few of the old timers took regular seats on the patio, nodding at Jack as they passed. He thought he could get used to the life here. Not now. But someday. Someday when he had someone to share it with.

  “What was that?” Alik asked.

  Jack shrugged.

  “Listen.”

  Jack leaned forward. Closed his eyes. He blocked out the chatter of the locals and honed in on a single voice. A voice that stood out from the rest. Similar to Alik’s, but with a harsher tone. The voice rose and fell as it interrogated outside the cafe. And then inside.

  “Russians.”

  Alik’s eyes widened and he nodded in agreement.

  From inside the cafe a voice called out in English, “Jack Noble. Present yourself now.”

  2

  “Tell them to leave.” Jack pointed at the locals seated at tables on the patio.

  Alik spoke in Greek and then repeated in English, “Get off the patio. Through the cafe. Leave now, your lives are in danger.”

  Six older men looked around in confusion.

  “Now,” Alik shouted.

  The men stood and staggered back through the door into the cafe.
Coffee and coats and smokes in hand.

  The patio offered Jack and Alik little in the way of cover or protection. Walled on three sides and open to the sea on the fourth with only the green metal railing separating the men from the water below. And with the air temperature at fifty degrees, the water would be too cold to offer a suitable means of escape. Besides, it was too shallow.

  Jack scanned the tables. He grabbed two serrated edged knives and flipped them in his hands so that the blades pressed against his forearms. He nodded to Alik and flattened himself against the wall, a few feet from the door. Alik moved to the far end of the patio so that he would be the first man the Russian would see. Only just then Jack heard a second Russian voice. Possibly even a third. His eyes widened and he tried to get Alik’s attention, but the man appeared to have already seen what Jack had heard.

  Alik reached behind his back. Was he armed today? Both of the men had reached a point where they felt there weren’t any real threats in the small town. Hell, on the entire island, for that matter. The chance of something happening seemed less than slim-to-none. Who would look for Jack, a man believed to be dead, at the southernmost point of Crete?

  A voice called through the door. His voice sounded close, perhaps just past the threshold. Jack held the knives tight. One back against his left forearm ready to defend. The other pointing out ready to strike and attack. He thought about swinging his body around and launching himself through the door, attacking the first person he saw. He quickly shook the thought from his head. He felt rusty. No action for six months had dulled his responses and reflexes, and his senses were now overwhelmed. He closed his eyes and let the cool air rush in through his mouth. Lungs expanded and oxygen flooded his bloodstream. His mind calmed as he tensed and relaxed his muscles.

  The first man stepped through the doorway. He focused on Alik and started toward him with his arms slightly extended.

  Alik spoke in Russian. Jack didn’t know what he said, but it obviously caught the other man’s attention because he didn’t even seem to notice Jack.

  The second man stepped through. Jack wasted no time. He turned and brought his right arm across his body with the blade of the knife extended. The man reacted and took a defensive position. He must have seen Jack in his peripheral vision. Unfortunately for the man, his reaction left the soft spot of his neck exposed. Jack adjusted his aim in a fraction of a second and plunged the knife deep into the man’s neck. The sharp point combined with the force of Jack’s blow allowed the knife to penetrate through the tangle of skin and muscle and blood vessels and finally into his spinal column. The blade severed the thread that linked the man’s brain to his body. He dropped to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  The first man through the door spun on his heels and reached inside his coat. The jacket fell open, revealing a pistol, most likely the Russian Army issued Makarov PMM. Jack couldn’t be sure as he only saw the weapon for a split second. The moment the man’s hand hit the handle of the gun, Jack leapt into the air. He swung his left arm in an arc. The dull side of the blade of the knife pressed against the side of his forearm. The serrated edge faced out. Jack timed the swing of his arm so that the knife sliced across the man’s throat. The cut wasn’t clean, but it did the job.

  The Russian dropped his gun and brought both hands to his neck. It muffled, but didn’t stop, the arterial spray. He backed into the center wall and slowly slid down it and into a seated position. Two thin lines of blood left an extended outline of his neck on the wall.

  Jack allowed his momentum to carry him through his jump. He hit the ground and rolled on his back and then over onto his hands and knees. He got to his feet and rose to a standing position. He faced the open doorway between the cafe and the patio.

  A third man yelled from inside the cafe. Jack scanned the room and saw the man aiming a gun in his direction. Jack quickly moved out of the man’s sights. An explosion ripped through the air. A flash of light that lasted barely a second brightened the opening between the cafe and the patio. The bullet hit with a thud.

  Alik groaned loudly and fell back into the wall. He shuffled his feet and fell to his left, trying to stay low and out of range of another shot.

  Jack rushed toward the door. He was greeted by the sight of pandemonium inside the cafe. That told him that the third Russian would not be able to get a clean shot at him or Alik. But it also meant that he could possibly kill an innocent bystander with another shot. Jack blew through the open doorway.

  Two older men had the Russian by his arms. A third older man had his thick arms wrapped around the Russian’s neck. The Russian pushed back and tried to crush the older man on his back against the glass display case. They had not managed to get his gun from him, though, and he struggled to aim it in Jack’s direction.

  Jack continued toward the group of men and slammed his right fist in the Russian’s jaw. The man went slack in the arms of the Greek men and his gun fell to the floor. Jack scooped the gun off the ground. Tucked it in his waistband. He grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and started pulling him toward the patio.

  “That’ll be enough,” he said. “Thank you, gents.”

  Jack dragged the Russian onto the patio. He dropped him on the ground and then turned and slammed the door shut.

  Alik had propped himself up against the wall. Blood poured from a bullet hole in his chest.

  “Christ,” Jack said. “Alik, you with me?”

  Alik nodded slowly. He tried to speak.

  “Save your strength.”

  Jack turned to the Russian. Kicked him in the stomach. The man rolled over and opened his eyes.

  “Who sent you?” Jack said.

  “Screw you,” the Russian said in English.

  Jack kicked him again.

  “Who? Tell me or so help me I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  The man spit.

  Jack knew this was a wasted effort. He needed to attend to Alik before he bled out. He knelt down and placed the barrel of the gun to the man’s forehead.

  “Last chance.”

  The man said nothing.

  Jack cursed at the man. Pulled the trigger twice. The bullets ripped through the Russian’s skull, tearing his brain apart.

  Jack got up and went to the door. He opened it and yelled into the cafe.

  “I need help out here.”

  The three older Greek men responded and came out to the patio. Two went to work on Alik. The third turned to Jack.

  “We are all experienced medics,” he said in English. “From the war.”

  Jack didn’t ask which war. “Is he going to be OK?”

  “We need to take him somewhere.”

  “Hospital won’t be safe. There could be more of them.” Jack gestured toward the three slain men on the patio.

  “I know a place.” The older man turned to his two friends and waved at Jack. “Come. Help. Get him to the truck.”

  * * *

  They drove through town and into the country. Fast and steady. Paved roads gave way to packed dirt. The truck slowed down. They turned onto a gravel driveway that jutted out between two lines of trees. A small stone house sat at the end of the driveway.

  Jack turned to the man in the back of the truck sitting opposite him. Alik lay between them.

  “Where are we?”

  “My mother’s house.”

  “She a doctor?”

  “No.” He paused a moment and looked toward the house. “I am, though.”

  The truck stopped near the house. The two Greek men in the cab got out and rushed to the rear of the vehicle. The four of them lifted Alik from the bed of the truck and carried him to the house. An old white haired lady with a slightly hunched back stood by the door, holding it open. They brought Alik inside and into the kitchen. Placed him on a long wooden table that looked to be over a hundred years old. The table was covered in white sheets. Several stainless steel medical tools were laid out neatly at one end.

  The man who had declared himself a doctor g
rabbed a pair of scissors and cut Alik’s shirt down the middle. He pried the blood-soaked garment from Alik’s chest. The doctor wiped away blood from the site of the wound and inspected the damage.

  “I think he’s going to be OK. He’s severely injured, but will heal.”

  Jack nodded and took a few steps back. He wanted to get out of the way. The doctor knew what he was doing and the men appeared to have worked with him before. Jack, on the other hand, was useless in this situation.

  Jack said, “His pocket. The phone.”

  The doctor nodded to one of the other men who reached into Alik’s pocket and pulled out a cell phone. The man tossed it to Jack.

  Jack snatched the phone mid-air and turned to the front door. He passed the white haired lady and stepped through the open doorway. He worked the phone. Pressed a button and scanned through a list until he found Frank’s number. He highlighted the number and pressed send.

  Frank answered midway through the third ring. “Hello?” His voice was soft and deep. He had been sleeping. Jack looked at his watch and calculated it was two in the morning on the east coast of the U.S.

  “What did you do?”

  “Huh? Who is this?” Frank’s voice trailed off. Jack figured he was looking at his caller ID.

  “Alik, huh? Jack, is that you?”

  “What did you do, Frank?”

  “Jack, what are you talking about?”

  “God dammit, don’t screw with me. I’ll end you if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  “I’ve been working to get you moved. I have it all set up for—”

  “How did they know?”

  “—two weeks from now. There’s gonna be a guy…wait. How did who know what?”

  Jack said nothing. He held the phone to his ear. He exhaled fast and heavy.

  “Jack, what happened?”

  “We were ambushed. This morning. At the cafe where we’ve been staying.”

  “Who?”

  “Russians.”

  The line went silent and for a moment Jack thought Frank had hung up.