Noble Intentions: Season Three (31 page)

“Probably.”

“I’d say I’ve earned it so far
today.”

Jack filled his glass. Took a
drink. “Me too.” After a few more sips, he pulled out his cell phone and placed
a call to Mason. The phone rang half a dozen times and went to a generic voice
mail. He hung up without leaving a message.

“Who’s that?” Bear said.

“Name’s Mason Sutton.”

Bear nodded, said nothing.

“He tailed me a couple days ago.
Stopped me from doing something stupid. I hope he’s on my side, but I’m not
sure.”

“Why?”

“Just something about him. Kinda
like those feelings that you get. If it were just him and me, I don’t know that
I’d sleep with both eyes closed.”

Bear nodded. “I got your back now.
It’s all good.”

Sasha, Jon and Alex entered the
room. They sat at the table. Sasha dropped a stack of folders in front of her.

“Enjoying your drink?” Jon said.

Bear tipped his glass, said, “You
bet.”

“Why don’t you pass the bottle down
this way,” Alex said.

Jack rose and carried it down to
the other end of the table. Alex reached out and took a pull straight from the
bottle.

“I needed that,” he said after a
loud exhale.

“So what’s the news?” Jack said.

“Why do you think there’s news?”
Jon said.

“Because all three of you came in
here at the same time and she’s carrying folders. No one carries around folders
for fun. Gotta be something going on?”

Alex said, “Jon, why don’t you have
a drink and relax a bit?”

“Because the whole country is in
upheaval and we’ve basically got our pants down around our ankles with nothing
but our hands to support our balls.”

“Right,” Sasha said. “Well, my
balls are fine, so I’m going to move on now and talk about what we do know.”

Bear looked at Jack and grinned.
Sasha turned out to be like them. Hell, she had to be to have risen through the
ranks in a male dominated profession. Jack figured Dottie had been a lot like
the woman when she was younger.

Sasha stood, opened the folder and
began placing four by six inch pictures on the table. Jack moved to her side of
the table to get a better view.

“What are these?” he said.

“These are the men that we got
positive identification on from the restaurant’s security feed. They had
cameras in both the front and the back.”

Jack thought about the exterior of
the restaurant. He did not recall seeing the cameras. “They hid them well.”

She nodded, pulled out another
stack of photos. She laid them on the table, said, “And these men they caught
on camera the day you arrived. That Bentley is registered to Thornton Walloway,
now deceased.”

Jack pointed at one of the
pictures. “I recognize that guy. Name’s Owen. And that one there, Owen killed
him.”

“That explains that, then.”

“What?”

“Why we didn’t see that man in the
footage day of the bombing.”

“That guy looks familiar,” Jack
said. He pointed to the picture of a man in his early forties. The guy had
sandy blond hair, cut close, and striking blue eyes. He didn’t immediately
place him.

Sasha looked up at Jon.

Jack noticed the glance. “What?”

“His name is Joe Godfrey.”

“OK.” Jack paused. He recalled the
guy who dropped his Fiat in the woods. Thought back to his conversation with
Mason inside the guy’s house.

Joe’s gone and betrayed me.

“Mason’s partner,” Jack said.

Sasha nodded.

“Son of a bitch,” Jack said.

“This proves nothing,” Sasha said.
“We’ve got nothing that places Sutton at these events.”

“It explains how they knew where to
find me. Mason told his partner.”

“But you don’t know the intent.
Could have been partners sharing information, like they do.”

“It also proves that you’ve got a
problem inside MI5. It might even extend into your building.”

Sasha turned and walked over to the
bar. She opened a drawer, returned with a piece of chalk. She drew two circles
on the table. They overlapped in the middle.

“What’s this?” Alex said.

Sasha said nothing. She began
sorting through the pictures, placing each into one of the circles. The
pictures on the left were all middle-eastern looking men. On the right,
Caucasian. In the middle, the overlap, she placed four pictures.

“Yazan Abdul-Matin Hadad, Nazim Sab
Guirguis, Owen Flynn, and Joe Godfrey. Anyone want to take a guess what these
four men have in common?”

“They were at the hotel Jack’s
first day in town and when the explosions went off,” Bear said.

Sasha nodded. “Gold star. And what
does this mean?”

“MI5, Thornton Walloway, and Naseer
Shehata were all working together,” Jack said. “And they all want the Prime Minister,
and me, dead.”

Naseer lay with his hand behind his
head. He liked how the firm mattress kept his back rigid. The swirling pattern
in the plaster on the ceiling mesmerized him. He let the air slowly expand and
contract in his lungs. His mind drifted and took him away to Tenerife. He
enjoyed vacationing there. It was a place where no one knew him, no one judged
him. He enjoyed the peace and tranquility and anonymity the island afforded
him.

And now he wondered if he’d ever
see that paradise again.

Plans had been executed. They’d
been in motion for months. Years, in fact, on some levels. There would be many
that would try to pin the events of the past day on him. They hadn’t seen
anything yet, though. While they wasted their time at that hotel and now
worrying about the Prime Minister, Naseer’s men were setting up for the event
of several lifetimes. A massive coordinated attack that would leave the
infrastructure of London in shambles.

His cell phone vibrated against his
thigh. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the phone, looked at the display.
No number was listed. He answered anyway.

“Who is this and why are you
calling me?”

There was a moment of silence. Then
a man said, “Naseer?”

“Who is this?”

“I can’t say.”

“Then I’m hanging up.”

“No. You need to shut up and listen
to me.”

“Who do you think you are to talk
to me—”

“I’m high up enough that I can have
you ended. You got that? So shut your mouth and listen to what I have to say.”

Naseer said nothing. He lifted up,
crossed his legs at the ankles.

“At this time you are aware of the
plans we have for the elimination project. You’ve pledged your support to us,
and in turn we’ve done the same for you. There’s a change of direction. Your
men need to carry out the elimination and it needs to go down in the next
forty-eight hours.”

“Why forty-eight hours?” Naseer
said.

“You know why.”

Naseer thought about it. The Prime
Minister was to host the President of the United States in three days. Security
would be extra tight. The window would be closed. The deal would be made. The
deal was bad news for all of them.

“This is suicide,” Naseer said.

The man said nothing.

“Don’t you see that? My men aren’t
prepared for this. Hell, they won’t even be able to get close enough to pull
something like this off.”

“Then I guess they need to figure
out a way to do it from afar.”

“This is bull. My men are not some
replaceable cog in a wheel. They have value to me.”

“As do mine to me. If one of my
guys goes down doing this, well that’s a story that is going to destroy the
foundation of Great Britain. I can’t let that happen. I also can’t let the
Prime Minister go through with what he is planning. Neither can you. When he
goes down, Snelling replaces him. You want her in the position, trust me
Naseer. She’ll do whatever we tell her.”

“Is she involved in this?”

“She knows nothing.”

“You said her name, why not your
own?”

The man said nothing.

“Right, well, I don’t think we can
make this work. I can give you maybe two guys, but only to assist. You need to
provide me with someone to help.”

“Then go ahead and hang up right
now and forget about any further assistance from me. Your men will be scooped
up and detained and tortured and then given over to the CIA and anyone else who
wants them. We’ll keep you though. You can count on that. You’ll spend the rest
of your days buried so deep down in the ground not even the tiniest sliver of
sunlight will find its way to your hairy dark ass.”

Naseer said nothing.

“So that’s your answer?”

“I need to think about it.”

“You don’t have much time.”

Naseer placed the phone on speaker
and dropped it between his legs. He grabbed the back of his head, pulled at his
hair.

Damn those bastards,
he
thought. He had more money than any of them. He could recruit a trained
mercenary for every agent they had. He had over a thousand men waiting for him
to call upon them. Men who would die for him if he asked them to. Who was this
man to tell Naseer that he had to sacrifice his men for someone else’s cause?
He didn’t need their help. He didn’t need anyone’s help. Thornton Walloway
found that out the hard way. He demanded too much and ended up with a bullet in
his brain. Now this man, whoever he was, would find it out too.

“Do you have an answer?” the man
said.

“Yeah. Go to hell.”

“Very well, then. I’ll meet you
there.”

Gloria brought the chef’s knife
down onto the cutting board, blade first. It sliced through the wheat bread and
meat. She took the two triangles and put them on a plate, brought it to Mason.
He thanked her, returned to the documents that had been faxed to him earlier
that morning.

“I want to leave,” she said.

“Well, you can’t,” he said.

“Dammit, I’m tired of being here
with you.”

He smiled, looked over his shoulder
at her. “You’re loving this and you know it.”

“Go to hell. You know I can’t stand
you.”

“At least not for longer than an
hour or two.” He winked.

“I only enjoy ten of those minutes,
if I’m lucky. The rest is cuddle time so you don’t come crawling after me.”

Mason laughed. He set down the
papers and picked up the sandwich, took a bite. The time he’d spent stuck with
Gloria hadn’t been that bad. They’d talked more than they had since they split
up. Hell, more than they had during the last few years of their marriage. He
remembered the things he loved most about her. The way her hair smelled. How
her soft snores eased him to sleep. The distinct way the right side of her
mouth curled right before she smiled.

“What?” she said.

“What?” he said.

“Why are you staring and grinning
at me?”

He shrugged.

“No, it ain’t happening. Not tonight.
Not under these circumstances.”

He dropped the sandwich and rose,
walked toward her. She backed up, never taking her eyes off of his. She ran
into the counter. He approached, placed his hands on her waist, kissed her
neck, her mouth. His right hand glided up her side, then back down, past her
hips, under her buttocks, down to mid-thigh. He lifted her leg. They pushed
into one another. Fast, hot breath intermingled.

“You sure about that?” he said.

“About what?”

“Not tonight.”

“Yes. It’s still daytime. You’ll be
too tired for tonight.”

They kissed. Off went his shirt.
Hers followed. Their hands re-explored one another’s bodies.

Mason’s phone rang. A series of
notes played in a fashion that most would find appealing. Not Mason though. The
ringtone was dedicated to his boss.

“Dammit,” he said, pulling away
from Gloria.

“What? Don’t go. I’m sure it can
wait.”

“It’s Mills, Gloria. He won’t wait.
I don’t answer, he’ll send someone here.”

She placed her palms on the counter
behind her and hoisted herself up.

Mason admired her tight abdomen as
he backed up toward the couch. He turned, found his phone, answered.

“Yeah, boss?”

“We’ve found him,” Cameron Mills
said.

“Who?” Mason feared that a team had
picked up Noble.

“That son of a bitch, Naseer.
That’s who.”

“Where?”

“All that’s coming to you. You’re
leading a raid tonight. We’re going to take him down.”

“How many men?”

“Small team.”

“Joe?”

“No one’s heard from him. Was
hoping you had.”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll reach out, see if I can find
him.”

“OK, sir. Anything else?”

Mills had nothing else for him, so
Mason hung up and dropped the phone on the sofa. Gloria came toward him, but he
held out his hands and moved her aside. He rushed upstairs to his office. He
made sure the fax was on and the line clear. Then he pulled out a second cell
phone from his pocket. He placed a call. Jack Noble answered on the fourth
ring.

“We’ve got him.”

“Who?”

“Naseer.”

“In custody?”

“No, we know where he is though.
I’m leading a raid tonight. I want you there.”

“Hold on a minute.”

It sounded like Jack’s phone was
set down on a table, then covered with the man’s palm. All Mason could hear
were muffled voices. A minute later, Jack got on the line.

“OK, I’m in, but only if I can
bring a couple people.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.”

“Where are we going?”

“Waiting to find out.”

“Gloria still with you?”

“Yeah. You said not to let her
leave. I haven’t yet.”

“Hold on.” Jack came back on the
line a moment later. “Come to Number 10. Bring Gloria with you.”

“Are you with the Prime Minister?”

“Something like that.”

“How did that happen?”

“I’ll explain later. Get moving. We
need you here two seconds ago.”