Noble Intentions: Season Four (34 page)

Jack released his right hand from the pole. Let it slip about halfway down in his left. He drew it up and struck out with it. Followed the blow with a
right hook. Both connected with the side of the guy's head. He staggered backward. His pistol hit the floor and slid toward the darkened corner of the
bathroom. Jack lost it in the shadows.

The guy collided with the wall, remained upright, his arms limp, head hanging down. Jack lunged toward him to deliver the final blow, but the guy managed
to burst forward. He landed a shot on Jack's chin that stopped his momentum and snapped his head back and to the left. He dropped to one knee and tried to
engage the man by wrapping his arms around the guy.

It did no good.

The guy struck again, this time sending Jack onto his back. Light glinted dully off a urinal above his head. Then the room brightened as Brett flipped the
switch.

"Pretty good idea," he said.

Jack managed to get his left elbow underneath him and propped himself up a few inches. He watched the guy walk to the corner, bend over and pick up his
pistol. The man inspected it, then turned it toward Jack.

"Brett?" Jack said. "Brett Taylor?"

The guy nodded once as he wiped the blood off his upper lip with his wrist.

"What the hell is this? What are you doing here?"

"What do you think, Jack?"

Jack knew. He was trying to buy a few minutes. Enough time to recover some strength and make a final move. But he knew against a guy like Brett that would
be pointless. He had to resort to a tactic he wasn't fond of, but might save his life.

"Why?" Jack said.

"Not that it matters to me, but you did some bad shit in your time. Because of that, you've been marked for termination."

"Who else?"

Brett shrugged, said nothing.

"At least give me that, man."

"A shit load of people. That's who." He took a few steps forward, cautious to remain out of Jack's reach, but close enough to not miss. "You wanna see it
coming?"

"You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do."

"No. You have the same choices available as I had six years ago."

Brett said nothing. He steadied his pistol with his left hand.

"Brett…"

"What?"

Jack closed his eyes. There was nothing he could say that could stop the guy. Brett had been trained to detach himself from the event, much as Jack had. In
fact, all those years ago, it hadn't been Brett who convinced him to abandon the job. Not initially at least.

"How's Reese?" Jack said.

Brett froze in place. He said nothing. Made no expression. Didn't move. And he didn't shoot.

Reese McSweeney was Brett's sister. The only family he had. She had been a New York City homicide detective. Until she became mixed up with Jack. It was
her plea to hear Brett out that led Jack to call off the hit.

"Have you talked to her recently?" Jack said.

Brett shook his head. "They put her in witness protection."

"I gave you a chance because of her. You remember that, right?"

Brett nodded.

"She would want you to do the same for me. At least talk this through with me. If we can't come up with a solution, then pull the trigger."

Brett said nothing. He remained frozen.

And Jack realized that the pounding he heard wasn't inside his head when it resulted in a door crashing in.

SASHA FOLLOWED MASON down the dim hallway. She saw an old man cowering at the end of it. He covered his head and peeked from under his arm, then looked
away.

"Gun down," Mason screamed. "Drop the gun! Get on the damn floor!"

Sasha followed him into the bathroom. The man standing in the middle of the room didn't move. He pointed toward the corner. She followed his aim and saw
Jack sprawled out, propped on his elbow. He looked at her, smiled, diverted his gaze back to the gunman.

"Drop it," Mason said.

"My name is Brett Taylor. I'm a United States federal agent. I have an executive order to kill this man."

"I don't care," Mason said. "We ain't in the flipping United States."

Jack said, "Brett, you know this doesn't come from the top."

"That's right," Brett said. "Because they don't know about the things you and I and those like us do. But they have people paid to make these kinds of
decisions. And they decided you had to die."

Mason said, "You won't make it out of here. I promise you that."

"MASON, SHUT THE hell up," Jack said. Every second that passed was equivalent to a bomb's timer counting down. Brett would reach zero and squeeze the
trigger. The part of him that had been programmed to do his job without thinking was at odds with his rational side. Jack saw it. He saw it because he'd
been there before. Mason had been MI5 his whole life. An agent, but never a killer.

Sasha said, "He murdered Erin, Jack."

Jack felt the world close in on him. He and Erin went back years. They'd nearly married. He still loved her, and felt the feeling was reciprocated,
although both knew it would never work. For the sake of their daughter, they left the relationship at friendship. He tried to ask about Mia, but his throat
couldn't form the words.

Brett blinked and took a step back. His pistol wavered. "I didn't, Jack. I was there, scouting them. I planned to use them to bring you out. But innocent
women and children, that's not my game."

"We found the American girl," Sasha said. "Hannah said you went to the beach in search of them. We saw footage of you on the island."

"And I found Erin," Brett said. "I found her on the beach. She was already dead. Shot in the head."

"Mia?" Jack asked.

"She wasn't there."

"If not you, then who did this?" Jack asked. "Who are you working with?"

Brett lowered his pistol. Mason glanced at Jack as if to ask permission to take the guy down. Jack shook his head.

"I'm solo," Brett said. "That's the only way I work."

"You have to tell us everything you know," Jack said, rising to his feet. "Everything."

Washington, D.C.

BECK ARRIVED EARLY that morning. He chided Clarissa the moment she opened her door.

"You could have returned my call last night," he said.

"You could have returned mine earlier than you did," she said. "Instead, you stayed out late drinking with your buddies when we have a big day today."

He waved her off as he entered. "It's not like that at all."

"Then what's it like?"

"I had a couple drinks, then went back to the office to make sure we've got everything covered."

Her defensive posture eased. "And do we?"

"I thought we did, but now that you've been tailed and attacked, I'm not so sure that I like it." He pulled something from his backpack. "Have a look at
this."

"What is it?"

"Security footage of your attack."

She took the disc and inserted it into the DVD player. It started with her approaching. What she hadn't noticed the night before was that the car had
driven past around the same time she came into view, albeit as a small shadowy figure at the other end of the road.

She watched the attack play out.

"You could have sustained a concussion," Beck said. "Why didn't you go to the hospital?"

"Because they would have involved the police."

"And?"

"I don't like the police."

Beck shook his head. "What have I gotten myself into with you?"

"I ask myself the same thing almost every night."

They shared a smile, easing the tension.

She watched the video a few more times, slowing it frame-by-frame the first time the car passed.

"There," she said. "New York plates."

"If only we could make out the tag number."

She zoomed the image, but it only distorted the tag further. They both noticed something else, however.

"See that?" Beck said.

She nodded. "Fraternal Order of Police sticker."

"That son of a bitch, Harris."

"My guess too." She turned toward him. "But we don't have any evidence to support that. It could have been someone else there, listening in to our
conversation with him, who has contact with Charles."

Beck wrapped his hands around the back of his head, leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "I suppose you're right. We'll have to turn the screws on
Harris next time we see him. In the meantime, I don't think you should stay here."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm tired of running. Plus, the guy got his ass kicked. No way he's coming back here."

"Clarissa…"

"Beck…"

He said nothing.

"Come on," she said, wanting to put the incident behind her, for now. "We've got a con to con."

Queens, New York.

CHARLES HATED ALMOST everything about the Queens compound. The flooring was out of date. It stunk from too many men being in the place twenty four hours
a day. And when Feng had run the organization, he'd forced Charles to spend all his time there.

But there was one place that gave Charles reason to smile.

The dungeon.

At least, that's what he called it. The Old Man had referred to it as his special guest house. The place where his most despised friends, associates and
enemies ended up, often to never see sunlight again.

Charles excelled in the dungeon. A guy his size was intimidating to most people. Shackle them to the floor and he almost never had to break a sweat to get
information.

Most of the time.

He recalled an evening with Clarissa. The woman refused to cooperate. Tough lady, he conceded, but not tough enough. If it hadn't been for the contractor
interfering, Charles would have buried Clarissa in the ground that night.

Maybe some other time.

He descended the stairwell. The guard at the entrance nodded his greeting.

"She move?" Charles asked of Essie.

The guard said, "No. Still lying on the floor, same as when you brought her in."

Charles nodded and instructed the man to open the main door. There were three locks that secured it. The first was a ten digit code entered on a number
pad. Then a badge that had to be swiped. Only ten people had one that worked. Finally, a biometric lock had to be disengaged. It worked off thumbprints.
This was something new. Ten people had access. There used to be fifteen. Two of those five thumbs had been reclaimed and burned by Charles. Two others
belonged to Milano and Endrizzi. The final thumb belonged to Paolo.

Charles walked down the hallway, glancing into empty cells as he passed. He ignored the one long term resident of the dungeon. A hold over from Feng's
regime. The guy was to remain on one meal a day until he died. Eventually, Charles would have the guy killed and disposed of. But he couldn't do so until
the final Feng loyalists had turned or were gone.

He stopped in front of Esmeralda's cell. She lay on the floor, eyes open, fixated on the ceiling. He knocked against the glass. She didn't move. Her eyes
remained motionless. Only her breasts heaved up and down with each slow breath.

Charles opened the door and stepped into the room.

"Hope you are enjoying your accommodations," he said.

She did not respond.

"It's temporary. You see, you're only bait until your big brother shows up. He screwed me over. Maybe he told you about it. If so, then you'll realize that
the reason you are here is all his fault. He screwed you over too, I guess. Dumbass should have never went to your house. Now, I think we'd have found you
regardless, but at least then you could blame me, and not him."

She continued to stare at the ceiling without saying a word.

"The hell happened to you back there? Left you all catatonic and shit?" He walked to the middle of the room and stopped. Stared down at the woman. "Makes
me wonder if Paolo is even going to come for you. Shit, I might've done him a favor."

He turned and walked back to the door. Looking back, he said, "Don't matter, though. Soon enough you won't be anybody's problem."

Queens, New York.

PAOLO STOPPED A mile away from the compound. Any closer, and he'd come across the first spotter. He felt a little uneasy. Given the circumstances, it
was possible Charles added a few others on some of the major arteries leading in. They'd be looking for him.

In general, Paolo knew what to look for. There had been a time when it had been his job to recruit and place the spotters. They were mostly kids, aged ten
to sixteen. Feng never put anyone younger than seventeen out in the field to do real work. Charles allowed the rule to stick.

It didn't matter if there were none out today. Getting into the compound was practically impossible. It was heavily guarded. Within two blocks, spotters
gave way to armed guards. Some were in fixed positions, while others patrolled. They were certainly issued orders to kill Paolo on sight.

If he managed to get past the external guards, gaining access to the main house would be next to impossible. Every door had a sentinel present. It took
codes and cards to get the door opened. Then the eye test. Every single man in there knew Paolo. The number of them between him and Charles was
insurmountable. He would never be lucky enough to hit every shot and avoid every bullet that came his way.

So what then? Flee the city? Leave Essie to suffer in Charles's dungeon? He could never face his family again. They'd spit on him.

There was the tunnel. And the question of whether it really existed.

He'd heard tales of a tunnel that ran from the house and after a mile or so merged with a sewer drain that dumped out into an empty field. If it existed,
it most likely connected with the lowest level of the house. As far as he knew, that was the dungeon. As one of the few with access, he'd spent some time
down there.

In all that time, he'd never come across a tunnel entrance. So it was hidden well if it really existed.

Who would know?

He racked his brain. Thought of every man who worked in the place, past and present. There were only a handful that ever went down to the cells. Of the
ones remaining at the compound, none would ever help him. They were loyal to Charles. That's how they kept their access.