Noble Intentions: Season Three (18 page)

Dottie cleared her throat, wiped a
tear from her eyelid. “You’ve done well for yourself, Jack.”

“I turned into a monster, Dottie. I
did just about anything if the pay was high enough.”

“And it allowed you to retire
before the age of forty.”

“Retire.” Jack laughed. “And look
at me now. I’m in England to carry out a hit.”

“For an old friend, though.”

“Yeah. Part of the Jack Noble
Redemption Tour. Now featuring a daughter to make up lost time with.”

Dottie smiled. “Right. Well, then,
I suppose I should get my things ready and let you make your phone call.”

Jack waited until Dottie left the
kitchen. He pulled out his phone and searched for the fake name he associated
with the man he wanted to have meet Erin, Mia and Hannah in Brussels. It had
been a few years since he last spoke with the man. But the guy owed Jack a
favor and would have no choice but to say yes.

The man answered on the fourth
ring.

“Jacob, it’s Noble.”

“Well, well,” Jacob said. “Prodigal
son and all that. What do you want?”

“I’m cashing in that favor you owe
me.”

There was a short pause. Jack
figured the man stood up or angled his body to make the call private.

“When do you need me?” Jacob said.

“In about two hours,” Jack said.

“Impossible.”

“How’s that? You guys sit around
all day long doing nothing.”

“Except when we’re working, which
I’m doing right now.”

“Cleaning?”

“Escorting.”

“With your looks? Espionage has to
pay a lot more.”

Jacob laughed. “You’d be surprised,
my friend.”

“Look, Jacob, I’ve made more
enemies than friends in the past five or six years. The only other contact I
have over there is laid up in a hospital in a coma. I need you, buddy.”

Jacob sighed. He spoke, but his
words were indecipherable, as if he had covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
Definitely not alone. The man cleared his throat, then said, “OK, I’ll do it.
Where do you need me to go?”

“Brussels.”

“When do I need to be there?”

“Two hours from now.”

“It’s going to take me three.”

Jack knew he’d say this. “That
works. They’ll be arriving in four.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jacob said.

“Same to you. I’ll text you the
rest of the information before their train arrives.”

Spiers tucked his cell phone in his
pocket. He glanced up at Clarissa. “Change of plans, sweetheart. We’re not
staying in Paris.”

A twinge of panic surfaced.
Clarissa feared that her initial instinct had been correct. She had to be
removed. “I have to be there. What if Naseer has someone waiting for me at the
station? What if he sends someone to check up on me?”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. I wouldn’t have made
contact, wouldn’t be here if we thought he was going to have someone meet you
or check up on you. Naseer’s got some big damn problems on his plate. You’re
nothing but a piece of ass to him. He’s got no idea who you really are. Correct
me if I’m wrong.”

Clarissa nodded. Speirs’s logic
made sense. If Sinclair were there, he’d say the same thing to her.

She said, “Boss is OK with this
detour?”

Spiers shrugged. The gesture did
not comfort Clarissa. He said, “What Sinclair don’t know won’t hurt him. As
long as you tell him that we had a nice stay in Paris, we’ll be OK.”

“And if I don’t?”

Spiers smiled for a moment. Then
his face turned serious. She saw anger in his eyes. “I’ll tell him that you
were lying. I overheard a conversation that confirmed you’d been turned by
Naseer.” He made a gun out of his thumb and index finger, aimed it at her. “And
then I’ll let him know that I had to do what I do best.”

His words were met with rage.
Clarissa threw her right arm forward, grabbed his crotch and squeezed. Spiers
mistakenly tried to scoot away. His eyes widened. His mouth dropped open, but
only the hoarse sound of breath escaping emerged. A few passengers looked in
their direction.

“Don’t you ever threaten me again.
You got that? I didn’t scrape myself out of the gutter so that some dickhead
like you could try to scare me.”

She released his balls from her
grasp. He shifted to the edge of his seat. His knuckles turned white as he
clutched his knees. He took a deep, shaky breath in, held it, closed his eyes.

“Look at me,” she said.

He opened his eyes, angled his head
toward her.

“I’m not scared of you, Spiers. You
better think twice before you give me an ultimatum. You’ve got a fifty percent
chance, at best, if you try to take me out.”

He took a few more breaths, eased
back into the seat.

“Level with me,” she said. “Why
aren’t we going to Paris?”

Spiers said, “I owe someone a
favor. I can’t turn them down, not after what they did for me. Three innocents
are in trouble. He’s not in a position to watch over them so we’re going to
protect them for a couple days. We’ll pick them up in Brussels and take them
outside the city for a bit. I got a place we can stay where no one will bother
us. No one has to know about this, Clarissa.”

Clarissa shook her head. “I don’t
like it.”

“Two women, one little girl.
There’s some serious trouble for them if they are found.”

The words pulled at her emotional
fabric. She’d faced her own share of trouble. She’d needed people to protect
her in the past. If they hadn’t, well, who knows how she would have ended up.

Clarissa said, “If things get out
of hand, we call it in and you take the blame.”

“We won’t be doing that. If things
get out of hand, we’ll take care of it.”

Despite her earlier threats, Spiers
had the upper hand. If he got the drop on her, he’d make her disappear and no
one would ever find the body. There’d be no body to find. Then Spiers could
feed Sinclair any made up story he wanted. She didn’t show up, she made
trouble, he caught her on the phone with Naseer. It didn’t matter. In her line
of work, everyone suspected everybody else of being a turncoat. While it rarely
happened, it didn’t hurt to be vigilant.

So she decided to go along with his
plan. If he’d deceived her, she’d take care of him before he had a chance to
get at her.

“So we’re in agreement?” Spiers
said.

Clarissa nodded. Then she closed
her eyes and leaned back.

Thirty minutes passed. They said
nothing. The gentle rocking of the train had lulled Clarissa into a false sense
of calm. Beyond the train tracks, a storm raged. And no matter which way she
went, she’d be right on the edge of the eye wall.

Her thoughts turned to Jack. She
feared that Naseer had made the connection between Clarissa and Jack. She’d
find out when they exited the train. Jack had to have something to do with
this, though. Coincidences were for believers of fairy tales as far as she was
concerned.

Thinking about Jack left her
stomach in knots. A physical pain so intense she became nauseous. For that
reason, she thought less and less about him each day. But it was just like Jack
to force himself back into her life after she’d made the decision to leave him
behind for a second time. They weren’t compatible. At least, that’s what she
told herself to get through the pain of shattering her own dream.

Spiers began whistling something
slow and depressing. Although she recognized it, the name of the tune escaped
her.

“Who are you doing the favor for?”
she said.

“An old friend,” he said.

“One of the three women we’re
meeting?”

He shook his head in response.

“Where are they coming from?”

He hiked his shoulders a couple
inches in the air, looked away.

“Why are you not telling me?”

“Because I don’t have to.” He
glanced back at her. “And because I don’t want to.”

“Whatever.” She had at least three
hours to get it out of him.

They arrived in Paris about an hour
later. An hour filled with silence. Spiers exited first, checked for anyone
suspicious. With so many faces coming and going, it was difficult to tell the
wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad. Profiling helped, but had its weak
points too. He looked back and nodded at Clarissa. She rose, walked toward the
exit. At the edge of the platform the air smelled of exhaust and trash. Spiers
started walking and she followed. They wove their way through the thick crowd.
Clarissa scanned every face they passed. Took note of those who stood still, leaned
against the walls, appeared to be looking for someone.

They reached the ticketing window.
A long line left them like sitting ducks for close to fifteen minutes.

They reached the counter and Spiers
purchased two tickets for the next train to Brussels.

Clarissa kept her back to the
counter and studied the crowd while Spiers completed the transaction. Two men
caught her eye. They were dark skinned and dressed well. Their jackets bulged
by their left hips, a telltale sign they were armed. They spoke to one another,
but she could tell that their conversation was pointless. A cover. They didn’t
look at each other, like two people would do when talking. Their eyes shifted
left and right, never resting, always scanning. They divided the area in half.
The man on the left took his side, while his partner watched the other side of
the room.

Clarissa leaned to her right and
nudged Spiers in the side.

“What?”

She whispered, “Two guys, blue
suits, dark skin. They’re looking for something.”

Spiers turned slowly and leaned
back against the ticketing counter. He worked like a pro. His eyes passed over
the two men and didn’t stop for even a beat. He turned back around and said,
“French government agents. Definitely looking for someone. Hopefully it’s not
you.”

Clarissa threaded her arm through
Spiers’s.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
“Just trying to make it look natural.”

Spiers reached out, grabbed their
tickets. He turned toward her. “Get on the other side of me. I’ll keep you
close to the wall, out of sight. But I think they would have already made a
move if you were their target.”

“Unless they want to see where I’m
going,” she said.

“Only one way to find out.”

They walked away from the ticketing
counter. After a few minutes, they came to an intersection.

“Turn left there,” Spiers told her.

Despite her instincts telling her
not to, Clarissa glanced over her shoulder. She saw the two men at the same
counter they had used. Clarissa knew then that the men were government agents.
They had to have used their credentials to get to the counter, because the line
stretched back at least twenty people long.

One of the men turned his head in
her direction. Their eyes locked. She nearly stumbled when Spiers turned left,
pulling her with him. She whipped her head around, regained her balance at the
last possible moment.

“They’re at the ticket counter,”
she said. “One looked right at us, at me. He made eye contact.”

Spiers picked up his pace. Clarissa
almost had to jog to keep up. He glanced at her. “If they’re going to do
something, it’ll be now. You got it?”

“We should split up,” she said.

“No. I can’t let you out of my
sights yet.”

Clarissa tried to pull away, but
his grip on her tightened. Should she make a scene? That would draw attention
for sure. But it might draw the attention of the wrong people. For now, the two
of them had to work together.

Her instinct was to run, get a car,
get out of town.

“What should we do?” she said.

“Only thing we can do. Get on the
train.” He pointed ahead. The train nestled up next to the platform like a
fiberglass and steel serpent stretched out on the ground. “They won’t do
anything inside there.”

“They could arrest us.”

Spiers looked at her, then over his
shoulder. “These aren’t the kind of agents that arrest people, Clarissa. Now
come on, we best get on that train.”

She couldn’t ignore the feeling
eating away at her. “This is a bad idea, Spiers.”

He ignored her. His hand clamped
down around her wrist and jerked her forward. Heads turned and eyes focused on
them. A few people whispered to one another. A big guy in a baseball cap and
t-shirt with cut-off sleeves started toward them. Clarissa spotted the tattoo
on his upper left arm. A shield with a sword through the middle of it. A snake
wrapped around the sword. Growing up with a father who commanded Special Forces
soldiers, she’d seen plenty of similar tattoos.

Spiers stopped, angled his body
toward the guy, shook his head. The big guy froze for a moment, then stepped
back.

They weaved through the crowd.
Spiers made effective use of his shoulder when people refused to move out of
the way. Clarissa kept pace with Spiers and he eased up on her wrist. They
reached the train. The first three cars were full.

“Let’s go to the back,” Spiers
said.

Clarissa wasn’t sure where they’d
be safest, if they could be safe at all. At least in the last car the men would
be forced to face them head on. If one approached from the back, he had no
tactical fall back option other than suicide.

The crowd thinned the further away
from the front they got. They quickened their pace to a jog. Spiers had let go
of her wrist by this point. Clarissa was all-in and he must have been able to
tell. They reached the final car. Clarissa boarded first. Speirs followed right
behind her. Too close behind. He placed his hand on her behind. She looked back
at him, fire in her eyes.

He threw his hands up in the air
and said, “Sorry! Just trying to get us on board.”

She continued up the steps, stopped
and turned. Spiers hadn’t climbed up yet. He stood half in, half out, like
pictures she’d seen of trains in India, so crowded that some people rode
hundreds of miles clinging to the handlebars at the edge of the cars. Spiers
stared over his right shoulder.