Noble Beginnings (11 page)

“Yeah, who the
hell is this?”

There was
another pause. I looked around the room, stopping at the two faces staring back
at me. Bear sat back in his chair, he looked relieved that he didn’t have to
hold his shoulder anymore. His clothes were covered in blood. His red cheeks
stood out against the rest of his pale face. He held the bottle of whiskey in
his hand, brought it up to his lips, took a pull and exhaled loudly.

Jessie forced a
smile while tapping with her fingers at the edge of the seat cushion. She
crossed, uncrossed, then re-crossed her legs.

“What kind of
game are you playing?” I said.

“This is what’s
going down, Jack.” He paused a few seconds, and then continued. “We got you for
the murder.”

“You know that
wasn’t me.”

“Yeah, well, we
got you for it. It’s all on you. Pinned on you, Jack.” Another pause filled
with the sound of the man taking a drink from a bottle. “You can’t escape us,
Jack. We’re everywhere. We know everyone you know. We’ll know every move you
make a second after you make it. Half the people you know are on our side and
the rest can be persuaded by us through one means or another.”

I looked
between Bear and Jessie, who now stood and paced along the far wall.

“We control
everything, Jack.”

“Maybe you and
I should meet,” I said. “Settle this like men. Frankly, I’m tired of the cloak
and dagger crap. Know what I mean?”

The man
laughed. “You think this is a joke? Listen up. You’re going down, Jack. And
anyone that helps you is dead. Got that? Even the nurse. Dead as a doornail,
Jack.”

The line went
dead and clicked to dial tone. I looked down at the phone, turned it off.
Placed it on the coffee table and walked toward the window. I pinched the
bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger and slid them down.

“What’s going
on, Jack?” Bear said.

“We need to
go.”

The sound of a
car racing down the street filled the room. Tires squealed. Car doors opened
then slammed shut. The voices of two men drifted in through the open windows.

“Get down.”

I cut the
lights and moved into the next room and took position against the wall next to
the double window. A lace curtain hung over the window panes. I peeled it back
and parted the blinds with my fingers. A dark sedan was parked at the end of
the driveway. Scanning the yard, I spotted two men, both dressed in dark suits.
They didn’t appear to be armed, but I wouldn’t trust the outward appearance.
Armed and dangerous would be the appropriate term. These guys had all the
markings of government spooks, Federal agents, maybe even assassins. They hung
out at the base of the driveway. One spoke on a radio or cell phone. He stood
at an angle and his head blocked the device he spoke into. His other arm waved
in circles as he spoke.

I clutched my
Beretta M9 tightly. The only thing that stood between me and them was a glass
window and I was prepared to break it and open fire if necessary. I went into
the woods with two full clips earlier. I’d emptied one and fired three shots
from the second. That meant I had twelve rounds at my disposal, which would be
more than enough to take care of these guys.

The man with on
the phone or radio shook his head and stuffed the device in his pocket. He said
something to his partner and they both turned to face the house. The window
next to me was open a crack, but I couldn’t hear what they said. The two men
started toward the house, walking slowly. Both pulled their weapons, holding
them low with both hands.

I needed a plan
and needed it to form fast. There were two men in front which meant that meant
there were probably two out back. There was no way these guys would come here
alone. Were they the men from earlier, the shooters in the woods? Had they really
managed to follow us to Charlottesville? I guess it was possible, but it didn’t
add up. The car looked similar, but it was dark now just like it was dark when
I rammed the shooters’ car while leaving the park.

The only
solution I came up with involved me barging out of the house, guns blazing. Not
the ideal choice. Getting into a shooting match with trained agents, killers or
not, was not high on my priority list. I crouched down and took a look through
the open part of the window. I set the barrel of my gun on the window sill. I
had a clear shot at them if they took the porch steps. The only barrier was the
screen. No glass to break.

The men were
close enough that I could make out certain words spoken in hushed tones. They
didn’t say much, but hearing “Noble” was enough. They knew exactly who I was.
They knew exactly where I was. Just like the man on the phone said. Could one
of them be the man on the phone? I doubted that. For one, someone that brazen
wouldn’t be in the field. So it had to be their boss, or their boss’s boss.

The faint sound
of a cell phone ring-tone filled the air. The men stopped and the agent pulled
his phone from his pocket. His voice rose. “What the hell do you mean?” He
stepped back during a long pause. “Yeah, OK. OK, we’re going.” He turned and
hurried to the car. His partner walked backward with him. He raised his gun and
kept it aimed at the house. He fumbled behind his back for the door handle of
the car and then slipped into the driver’s seat. The sedan roared to life, then
rolled away, stopping at the stop sign at the end of the street only a few
houses down. The car turned right and disappeared from view.

I leaned back
against the wall and closed my eyes and listened. Silence filled the house.
Silence crept through the open window from outside. Had they turned the corner
and cut the engine? Were they now on foot returning to the house? Did they
leave the neighborhood?

I took a deep
breath and returned to the den.

“Can you see
the side street from upstairs?”

“What?” Jessie
said.

“The side
street.” I pointed toward the other room. “The main road, whatever. Can you see
it from anywhere in here?”

She shook her
head and said, “No.”

“We have to get
out of here. Jess, is your car in the garage?”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask me
why.” My voice rose. I took a deep breath and regained control. “Is it or isn’t
it?”

She bit her lip
and looked to the side.

“Yeah, it’s in
there.”

“OK, grab the
keys. We need to go.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t
matter,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Bear got up and
walked toward the kitchen.

“Garage is that
way.” She pointed to a hall on the other side of the den. “Do I need to bring
anything?”

“Yeah.” I
turned to walk away then paused. “But there’s no time. Any minute now they are
going to start shooting.”

“What?” She
grabbed her purse and pulled out her keys, blowing by me and Bear on her way to
the garage.

I could be
right. Most likely I was wrong. But I had no intentions of waiting around to
find out.

I took one last
look through the front window, and then, satisfied the spooks weren’t out
there, went to the garage. I stepped through the open doorway. Bear and Jessie
were already inside her white Chevy Tahoe. Bear sat in the passenger seat and
Jessie behind the wheel.

“I’m driving,”
I said, standing in between her and the door, preventing her from shutting it.

“This is my
car, Jack,” she said. “I’m driving.”

“Get in back,
Jess.”

She screamed
and slammed her hands down on the steering wheel. The loud horn blared and
echoed throughout the garage.

I shook my head
and stared at her. “If they are just around the corner, they likely heard
that.”

“Sorry,” she
said and then she threw her hands in the air. “Fine. You drive.” She turned in
the seat and brought her legs up. Slipped between the two front seats and sat
down in the middle row.

“You could have
used the door.”

“And risk
touching you? No thanks.” She turned away and stared out the window at a wall
covered with rakes and gardening tools.

Bear laughed
and shook his head.

“You think
that’s funny?” I said. “We got God knows who chasing us, ready to kill us, and
you laugh at her jokes.”

I turned the
key in the ignition. The Tahoe’s V-8 engine roared into life, flooding my ears
as it reverberated through the garage.

Jessie cleared
her throat and leaned forward, pointing toward the console on the ceiling of
the Tahoe. “The garage door opener is right—”

I ignored her
and threw the car into reverse and smashed through the garage door.

“What hell,
Jack? My garage!”

I gunned the
car down the driveway, slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel, sending us
screeching backward into the street. I shifted into drive and raced to the stop
sign, coming to a quick halt. I looked left and saw nothing, and then I looked
right. I saw the spooks a few blocks away, parked behind Abbot’s Audi. At that
moment I realized it was the car. They had been tracking us with the car
somehow.

I looked over
at Bear. He stared out the window at the dark sedan parked behind the Audi. His
head bobbed up and down.

“The car,” he
muttered, reaching the same conclusion as me.

They must not
have heard the Tahoe smash through the garage door, because they didn’t move or
turn to look in our direction. I tapped the gas and turned left and drove down
the street with the lights off until I reached the main road.

*
* *

“Why did you
destroy my garage door?” Jessie asked.

I looked up
into the rearview mirror, taking my eyes off of I-64 for a moment. It was the
first thing any of us had said in thirty minutes. Her stare caught me off
guard. I started to speak then closed my mouth and said nothing.

“Jack,” she
said.

“Surprise,”
Bear said. “He did it for the surprise factor.”

“Yeah, well, it
worked,” she said. “I sure as hell was surprised. Just like he’s going to be
when I mail the bill to him.”

Bear laughed
and shook his head. “Not you, Jess. If those feds had been outside your house,
the crash would have surprised them. That moment of distraction would have been
the difference between us living and dying.” He rolled his window down a crack.
Wind rushed through the car, the cold air stinging upon impact. “Yeah, we’re in
this big car, but those guys are trained. One of us would have been hit.”

I looked up at
the mirror again. A look of knowing washed across Jessie’s face. Her eyes
teared up. I could tell that the full gravity of the situation had finally hit
her and it likely crushed against her chest.

“That was
them,” she said. “Parked on the side of the street.” She looked into the
mirror.

I nodded.
“Sorry, Jess. We’re going to get you someplace safe.”

“Safe? How do
you know they’re not following you now? How—” she pressed her hands into her
face and rubbed to the side. “How did they know about me? That was them. The
call. Right? How did they know you were at my house?”

“The same
reason they knew the car was there.” I pulled over on the road’s shoulder and
stopped the car. Got out and opened her door. “Look at me, Jess. We think…they
had a way to track the car. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“No, no it
doesn’t make sense. They might know the car, but they called for you. Called
for you on my phone.” By this time she was half out of the car and slamming her
fists into my chest.

“There are
files on me,” I said. “You know what I do and who I am. Well, they do too. They
have to know. It’s their job to know. When they saw where the car went all they
had to do was cross check that against anyone in my file and they found you.
That’s all. It’ll stop there. I promise.”

She looked at
me with tears in her eyes and shook her head. Her arms lifted over her
shoulders and then fell onto me, wrapping around my neck and squeezing tight. A
mixture of her tears and hot breath washed over the side of my face. A knot
formed in my stomach. I fought back feelings that I hadn’t allowed myself to
feel in a long time.

I held her
tight, running a hand through her hair until she stopped shaking. I let go,
turned and got back in the car. The back door slammed and I checked the
rear-view mirror to make sure she had gotten back in. She had.

“I’m calling
Abbot.” I pulled out my cell phone, dialed the number and put the Tahoe in gear.
The empty road behind me was a green light to jump back on the interstate. I
pressed the gas and got the speed up to sixty. Abbot answered as I merged back
into the travel lanes.

“Hello?”

“It’s Jack.”

He said nothing
at first. I heard the sound of his fingers or an object banging on a hard
surface. I pictured him sitting in his home office, behind his dark cherry wood
antique desk. “What happened up there, Jack? You didn’t kill Delaney, did you?”

“What do you
think?” I didn’t kill him, but I couldn’t help thinking that, in some way, I
was responsible for his death. If I’d have just kept my damn mouth shut in
Baghdad, none of this would be happening. I looked up into the rear-view mirror
and caught Jessie’s eye. She smiled, and I looked away.

“I don’t think
you did, but, well, that’s what’s being reported on—”

“I know,” I
interrupted. “I saw the report. It’s BS, Abbot. We were ambushed. Delaney was
hit in the back of the head. Bear took a slug to the shoulder. I tracked them
down through the woods, but they had a car parked at the edge. They took off,
and then returned to wait for us outside the parking lot. Managed to get by and
fled on the interstate.” I paused, thought about whether or not I should tell
him about Jessie. I didn’t. “The report came on TV. Then someone called for me,
not on my number, and next thing I know these two spooks showed up outside at—”
I avoided mentioning any names. “Outside the place we stopped to patch Bear
up.”

There was a
pause on the other end. I assumed he was filtering the brief conversation,
trying to decide what to believe, who to believe, me or the news. I turned my
head and looked at Bear, then shifted my eyes to the rear-view mirror to check
on Jess. She sat just out of view, resting against the door. I returned my attention
to the road. The stretch of interstate heading east toward Richmond, Virginia
was empty.

“OK, Jack,”
Abbot said. “Come to North Carolina. I need you close.”

“I’m not
returning to Lejeune. If you think that then you can kiss my—”

“Don’t come to
the base, Jack, for Christ’s sake. You think I’m an idiot?” He paused. Was he
looking for an answer? Before I could respond, he continued. “Pick a place, but
don’t tell me where. Some place close enough to Jacksonville that you can be
there in a few hours, but far enough away you won’t be spotted accidentally.”
It sounded like he shifted the phone in his hands and changed ears, the phone
rubbing against his face with a sound like static as he did so. “Definitely
stay far enough away that you won’t be made for a Marine.”

“You’ve seen my
hair, Abbot. Nobody is going to mistake me for a Marine.” I laughed.

He didn’t.
“This is no time for jokes, son. You two are in serious trouble.”

I said nothing.
My eyes focused as far out as they could, settling someplace between the road,
the mountains and the black darkness of the night sky.

“Some place
quiet, Jack. I’m serious.” He cleared his throat. “And don’t go making a
commotion when you get there. Call me in the morning, Jack. First thing.”

The line went
dead. I dropped the phone in the center console. He wanted us to go someplace
quiet. Plenty of places in North Carolina fit that description. He had a point.
I’d want to be close enough that I could return to base if necessary. And
definitely far enough away that nobody would recognize my face. He didn’t say
what I knew he was thinking. Stay out of trouble. Whatever you do, stay out of
trouble. Don’t give the police, or anyone else for that matter, a reason to
pick us up. That would be a death sentence wrapped up like a Christmas present
under the tree. And the sticker affixed to the wrapping paper would read Jack
Noble.