Noble Intentions: Season Two (Episodes 6-10) (18 page)

“You got a good enough look at him?”

“Yeah, I saw him. Haven’t seen him since, though.”

Bear said nothing. He felt and understood the man’s pain. They’d both been wronged by the same man and Bear decided that he would do whatever it took to avenge Larsen’s daughter and rescue Mandy.

“Our guy’s working tomorrow night. Some event, a gala, Boris is having. I think it’s our best chance.”

“You think we can just walk in there? Surely someone will notice you. Someone will remember me from the bank.”

“The event isn’t at his place. It’s in town.”

13

Jack and Jasmine brought Kenneth back to the hotel with them. A gun in the middle of his back was enough to keep him compliant. They handcuffed him to a chair. They had to wait for Frank to get a team to Atlanta to take over the interrogation. That would free Jack and Jasmine to pursue Chernov. The problem was that Frank couldn’t get anyone down till early the next morning. That meant another night of less than adequate amounts of sleep.

They took turns watching over the man. Two hours on, two off. Kenneth didn’t seem to mind being watched or the fact that he was handcuffed to an uncomfortable hotel room chair. He fell asleep shortly after ten p.m. and was still asleep at five a.m. when there was a knock at the door.

Jack stood and grabbed his pistol off the bureau. He crossed the room. He checked through the peephole and saw two men dressed in dark suits. He realized that he should have woken Jasmine and have her answer the door since she would recognize anyone that Frank sent.

Jack unlocked the door and opened it. He held his gun behind his back.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You Jack Noble?” one of the men asked.

Jack nodded. Two more people knew that he was alive.

“I’m Fegan, this is Reed.”

Fegan stood close to six feet tall and had dark well-groomed hair. He had an athletic build. Looked the part of a government agent. Reed, on the other hand, was shorter than average and about fifty pounds overweight. His thinning hair was wild and unbrushed and his face was covered in stubble. He held a cardboard tray with four cups of what Jack assumed was coffee.

“Come on in, guys,” Jack said.

He turned to lead them and saw that Jasmine had got up and was sitting in the chair he had occupied moments ago. He was a bit taken aback that he hadn’t noticed her moving in the background. Would he ever regain his edge?

“Morning Jasmine,” Fegan said.

She smiled and nodded.

Reed placed the cardboard tray on the table. “Help yourselves.” Then he looked at Kenneth and added, “Not you.” Reed laughed at his joke. No one else did.

Jack grabbed two cups. Handed one to Jasmine and kept the other for himself.

“So what’ll you do with him?” Jack asked.

“We’ve got a place to take him nearby,” Fegan said. “We’ll start with the info he gave you and then we’ll dig in. I see us becoming great friends over the course of the day. Ain’t that right?”

Jack watched as Fegan smiled at Kenneth. It was a cold smile that held a hint of evil. He recognized it and imagined he had held a smile like that a time or two himself.

Jasmine said, “Make sure you give us updates throughout the day. Anything he tells you, I want to know. He knows more than he let on, I’m sure of that.” She stared at Kenneth for a moment. “I don’t need much, guys. So no matter how trivial you think it is, you tell us.”

Fegan shifted his eyes from Kenneth to Jasmine. “You got it. Go ahead and uncuff him from the chair.”

Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He unlocked the handcuffs and removed them from Kenneth’s wrists. The man instinctively began to rub his wrists to stimulate feeling and blood flow. Reed pushed in front of Jack and placed a new set of handcuffs on the man.

“Come on, pretty boy,” Reed said as he grabbed Kenneth’s elbow and pulled him up from the chair.

Kenneth straightened his legs and arched his back. He looked at Jack and gave him a wink and a smile. “Nice working with you, Noble.”

Christ, three more people.

* * *

Jack and Jasmine remained in the room. They were waiting for Fegan to get back to them. Jack took it as an opportunity to catch up on his sleep.

He woke and looked toward the window. A thin beam of sunlight squeezed through a sliver of an opening between the heavy drapes and hit him in the eyes. He flinched and covered his face and sat up. Jasmine spoke on the phone, out of sight.

Jack stood up and walked over to the narrow hallway between the main portion of the room and the front door. Jasmine stood in the bathroom with her cell phone to her ear. She smiled at Jack and held a finger in the air.

“OK, Frank. Sounds good. I think we got what we need. Enough to make a move, that’s for sure.”

She covered the mouthpiece and spoke to Jack. “He cracked. Fast. Gave up everything. We got enough to go in. Fegan and—” She uncovered the mouthpiece and spoke to Frank. “Yeah, that sounds good. We’ll wait for them and then plan our next move.” She hung up the phone.

“What gives?” Jack said.

“Turns out our boy Kenneth was way more involved that we thought.”

“How so?”

“He’s Chernov’s second in command. This is deep, Jack. Real deep.”

“How deep?”

“We don’t have a name yet, but Chernov reports to someone else here in the U.S. They have something in the works. From what Kenneth told our guys, they are planning a series of attacks and Chernov is responsible for coordinating everything on the East coast.”

“How much is everything?”

“From Boston to Miami.”

“We think this guy is credible?”

“Frank’s working on that. With the info Ken gave, Frank can do some checking with friends and see if there’s any intelligence to corroborate what Ken’s telling us.”

Jack walked back into the room. He pulled the drapes back and took a seat at the table. The sunlight felt warm on his skin, though he doubted it was as warm outside.

Jasmine grabbed the seat against the wall and dragged it over to the table. She sat down and said, “What’s on your mind, Jack?”

“It’s too easy.”

“How so?”

“It’s barely four hours and this guy gives everything up?”

She shrugged. “It’s not the first time, Jack. Reed and Fegan are good at what they do.” Jasmine’s phone rang and she answered it. “Reed, yeah, we’re ready to roll.” She stood and started toward the door.

Jack got up, grabbed his gun and his jacket. He followed Jasmine through the door and into the hall. She had a ten foot lead on him and he struggled to keep up with the conversation she was having. They reached the car and he got in on the driver’s side. Started the engine and waited for Jasmine to join him.

She pulled the door open and finished her conversation and then stepped in.

“Where to?” Jack asked.

Jasmine pulled up directions on the GPS. “We’re going to the interrogation house. It’s about fifteen miles from here. Shouldn’t change our overall distance from Chernov by much.”

Jack pulled the car out of the parking lot and followed the directions on the GPS. Jasmine caught him up on the conversation she just had with Fegan.

“They got it all, Jack. The power structure, locations of other cells, even some of the targets they are planning on hitting.”

“Why would he do that?”

“They made a few deals with him.”

“They wouldn’t make the kind of deals that would return that kind of information so soon.”

Jasmine said nothing.

“So did he give you the information?”

“No, they have it written down there. We’ll review it when we get there. Then we’ll get a chance with Ken and you can judge for yourself if he’s leading us on. Maybe he is feeling guilty over what he’s done now that things are getting close to being real.”

“That’s another thing. How does this guy go from being on the outside looking in, to being second in command, or whatever he claims to be?”

“I’m guessing he was feeding us a line, Jack.”

Jack gave it some thought while the GPS instructed him to turn left and then right. Kenneth had lied to someone at some point in the last twenty-four hours. Who though? Had he lied at the house or had he lied to Fegan and Reed?

The GPS told them to turn right one more time and then said that their destination would be on the left. Jack counted ahead and picked out the house. Noticed the open front door.

“Did you text them and tell them we’re close?” Jack asked.

“No,” Jasmine said. “You want me to?”

Jack shook his head. Slowed the car down as they passed the house. He was not able to see much through the open doorway.

“What’s going on?” Jasmine said.

“Not sure.” Jack made a U-turn at the end of the street and drove by the house again. He stopped the car a few houses down and parked next to the curb.

They got out and crossed the lawn. They made their way to the house, staying close to the front of the neighboring houses to shield themselves from view. It was quiet outside. The neighborhood seemed empty. Typical for a weekday in a suburban area.

They reached the house and approached the open doorway. Jack went inside first and Jasmine followed.

“Fegan? Reed?” she called out.

Jack stopped to listen. There was a slight whirring sound in the background. Nothing else. He took the hall and Jasmine went toward the kitchen.

“Jack,” she yelled from the kitchen.

He backed out of the hall and crossed the living room. Stepped into the kitchen. Jasmine stood at the front of an island, next to the refrigerator. At her feet was a pool of crimson liquid. Jack walked around the island to the opposite end. He looked down at the floor. There, piled one on top of the other, were the bodies of Fegan and Reed, the heavier Reed on top of Fegan.

Jack knelt down by their heads. Both men had been shot at close range with a small caliber weapon. Two entrance wounds on each of them. Front of the head for Reed. Back of the head for Fegan. No exit wounds.

He looked up at Jasmine, who already had her cell phone out and was dialing.

“Wait,” Jack said.

“What?”

“Just wait.”

He looked around the kitchen. He hadn’t paid attention to the whirring sound until now. He saw that the microwave mounted over the stove top was on and counting down. He stood up and looked inside. A single gray square with pins and wires sticking out of it turned in a circle on the microwave’s tray. He looked at the timer. It read twenty-seven seconds.

“Jasmine,” he said in as calm a tone as he could muster. “We have to get out of here right now.”

She turned her head and gave him a puzzled look.

“Now. Run.”

They made it through the door and crossed the neighbor’s lawn before the explosive detonated with a thunderous roar. He lunged to the side and brought Jasmine to the ground with him in between two houses. They scooted back to the wall to protect themselves from the debris that fell around them.

 “What just happened?” she said.

“What just happened? We were set up. That’s what just happened.”

He stood and looked around the corner. Debris had stopped falling. He helped Jasmine from the ground and led her to the car.

“Get in. We need to get out of here now.”

He glanced around the neighborhood. Several people now stood outside their homes. Most of them held phones to the side of their heads. A few looked in his direction. He distinctly saw one person with a video camera pointed at them. Jack spun around and got inside the car. He started the engine and sped off.

Jasmine stared out the window with a blank expression on her face.

Jack thought to console her. Changed his mind. “You should call Frank.”

14

“Where are you going?” the guard at the front door asked.

Clarissa said, “Just into town to get a few things.”

“Has this been cleared with Boris?”

“I’m not a prisoner here. I can come and go as I please.”

The guard didn’t move.

“Yes, he knows I am going out. Now get out of my way.”

The guard stood his ground for a moment and then stepped aside. Clarissa pushed past him and found the car that matched the keys Boris had given her. She pressed the lock button on the key fob a few times and saw the taillights of a black Lexus coupe light up.

She slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Then she fumbled with the GPS. It required a lot of panning and zooming in for her to see individual street names. She couldn’t enter the address Mandy had given her. It would be saved in the settings and that would alert Boris that she had been up to something. There was no doubt in her mind that he would check behind her. It was in his nature.

She finally found the street and panned back out. Close to Bear’s house was a shopping center. She configured the GPS to navigate to the shopping center and then drove off.

Twenty minutes later she pulled into the shopping center parking lot. She parked toward the back of the lot, in front of a discount clothing store. She took a moment to get her bearings while looking at the GPS. A mental map formed in her head. She got out of the car and started walking.

A quaint little town, but not as quiet as she expected. Plenty of kids playing outside. It hit her that it must be Spring Break.

She didn’t think there was any way she could live in a place like this. Not enough going on for her taste. Plus, it was just too nice, if there actually was such a thing.

She made one last turn and passed in front of four houses. Stopped at the fifth. Without drawing attention to herself, she scouted the street. Empty. A good sign. No cars waiting. No people watching. She crossed the concrete walkway and then up the stairs and then across the porch. Knocked on the plain front door.

She felt slight vibrations under her feet as someone crossed a room toward the door. Someone large. The door cracked open. Though the figure was little more than a shadow, it had the indistinguishable shape of the man she had come to see.

“Hi, Bear.”

“Jesus, you gotta be kidding me.” He flung the door open and wrapped his thick arms around Clarissa, lifting her off the ground and squeezing her so hard she couldn’t breathe while in his grasp. He pulled her inside and set her down. Closed the door.