Noble Intentions: Season Four (32 page)

ALL KAT SAW was darkness. Whether it was night, or she was in a dark room was irrelevant. The hood covering her head was thick and dark. Her breath,
stale and bitter, deflected off the fabric and washed over her. It was hot under the hood. So much so the sweat dripped down her forehead and pooled in her
brow before slipping down her eyelids. When she blinked, the salty fluid found its way and bit and stung at her eyes. She tried to reach up and wipe it
away, but her hands were bound behind her back.

For the first time since coming to, she heard a knocking nearby. On a door? Perhaps. But it sounded more like hard soles on a wooden floor. She scraped at
the ground with the tips of her bare toes. It was rough, hard. A needle punctured her right big toe. A splinter, she figured.

The knocking approached. The vibrations through the floor grew stronger, deeper. Step by step, someone approached. Someone heavy judging by their
footsteps.

Kat struggled to draw in breath. In part because of the hood over her face. And also because of the approaching stranger. Her captor. The man, she assumed,
who would do what he wanted with her.

Which was what?

Until this point, no one had approached her. She'd lost all sense of time. Dozing in and out of sleep, it could have been hours or days that she'd been
here. The only thing that indicated it hadn't been too long was that her hunger pains weren't too great.

The footsteps stopped. Ragged breathing originated from above her head. She felt the person's body heat against her skin. Had they undressed her? Left her
tied up and blindfolded while in the nude? Tears, real ones, not sweat induced, formed and trickled down her face.

"Well, well," the man said. "I see you're awake now."

She said nothing and forced her body to go still. Too late, though. Her shuddering had already given her state away.

The guy yanked violently at her head, jerking it up and back and side to side. He stopped to loosen the hood, then lifted it off.

She couldn't tell whether the light in the room was bright or dim, only that it hurt like hell. Fighting against the pain in her eyes, she forced them to
remain open in order to get a look at her captor.

The guy was tall, thick with muscle and a bit of a stomach. He wasn't particularly tan or pale. His hair was short, and a couple days' worth of stubble
covered his chin and cheeks and jawline.

He reached down and removed the gag covering her mouth. "Tell me who you are." His accent was American.

Her throat was parched to the point where she couldn't do much other than grunt. "Water. Please."

He glanced down at her. Remained motionless for a few seconds. Finally, he turned, left the room and returned with a plastic bottle. "Lean your head back."

Kat did as instructed and opened her mouth. The guy tilted the bottle over until it was completely upside down. Water rushed out, faster than Kat could
drink it. She downed what she could, while the rest of the liquid poured across her face and ran down her neck and bare chest.

The guy seemed unfazed by her breasts.

"Who are you?" he asked.

She recalled Pierre's instructions to her. Don't give up anything without getting something in return.

"Nobody," Kat said.

"You know what happens to nobodies?"

She said nothing.

"They wind up dead and dismembered."

She still said nothing.

"You insist on being nobody?"

She shook her head.

"Then who are you?"

"Kat."

"That's a good start. Kat who?"

"Kat Lyon."

"How long have you been working with Pierre Allard?"

"I've never worked with him."

"Remember what I said about nobodies? Same thing goes for liars."

"I'm telling you the truth. I've never worked with him. I'm a waitress. Pierre is my lover."

"What do you know of his operations?"

"Nothing. I never knew what he was involved with until he was shot. And since then, he had a long recovery in the hospital, then we left Paris. He wanted
to be away from it all."

"He hasn't been."

"Yes," she said. "He has. He's been in the hospital or with me for months now. He hasn't been involved in anything."

The guy stared at her without speaking.

"Who are you?" she said. "What do you want with Pierre?"

"I'll be back after we figure out what to do with you."

He dropped the hood and the gag on the floor beside her, then exited the room. Kat watched the heavy door fall shut. Heard the lock click over. And then
she cried.

Johannesburg, South Africa.

"WE'VE GOT HIM," Sasha said. "They locked onto his cell phone. He's about forty miles outside of town. Went from traveling around sixty miles per hour
to a crawl. Car troubles, maybe. He's gone off the highway, though."

"We're sure about this?" Mason said. "We can trust this intelligence?"

"Stop with the constant pissing match. My analysts are every bit as good as yours. If they say they've locked in on Taylor, then they have."

"And you think we'll find Noble's girl, then."

"I don't know, Mason. But I think we'll at least get a few answers."

Mason turned his attention to his phone. "So if he's about forty miles, then we've got approximately twenty more to go. Guess it was luck we went this
way."

"Wasn't luck. We took the intelligence my people provided and ran with it." She glanced over and saw him grinning, obviously enjoying egging her on. "Real
funny."

"Just trying to ease the tension."

"Let's get this guy and figure out what the hell is going on, and then we can worry about easing tension."

They continued on another fifteen minutes, reaching a point halfway between two exits, where a vehicle had been abandoned on the side of the motorway.
Sasha eased onto the shoulder then backed up to within a few feet of the vehicle. They both exited onto the shoulder.

"Where would he go from here?" she asked.

Mason looked behind them. "Last exit was maybe five miles ago, right?"

She nodded.

Mason said, "Would he have taken his chances going backward? Or pressed on until the next?"

"How far away is that?"

He checked with his phone. "Another five miles, but maybe he didn't know that. Maybe he'd been watching the exits and realizing that each one was a little
further than the last. Thinking back to two exits ago, there was maybe four or five miles between. So he says to himself, at the distance he's gone since
the last exit, it should only be another mile, two max to reach the next."

Sasha nodded her agreement with Mason's assessment.

"Let's drive on for a bit," she said. "Perhaps we'll catch up with him."

They returned to the car. Sasha slipped back onto the motorway. Not a mile further, they encountered another car on the side of the road, abandoned.

"Coincidence?" she said.

"Don't believe in them," Mason said.

"Well, let's check it out anyway." She pulled over, came to a stop behind the vehicle.

"Rental plates," Mason said.

"What were the last?" she asked.

"Local. I remember them." He exited and walked forward.

"We should get my team to run them."

He nodded.

Sasha got out and walked to the midpoint of the overpass. Leaned over the steel guardrail. Glanced down expecting to see a creek or railroad tracks.
Instead she saw faded blacktop.

"Mason," she called out.

He looked back at her.

"Down there." She headed toward him. "There's a road. My gut's telling me he's down there somewhere."

Mason stepped over the guardrail and studied the terrain. Pointing, he said, "Look there. Those tall stalks of grass, all broken, aiming toward the road. A
line straight down." He knelt down and inspected one of the breaks. "It's fresh, Sasha. This happened recently."

"We have to find a connecting road," she said.

He joined her a moment later, phone in hand, map pulled up. They both returned to their seats in the car.

He said, "I don't see anything that connects."

"There has to be," she said. "Somewhere. Keep looking. That can't just be a random road that leads to nowhere, can it?"

"Explains why there's no exit here. Maybe we should start walking."

"He's got a mile, at least, on us."

"And he could get another mile, or shelter, or veer off into the woods in the time it takes us to realize we made a mistake and get back here by car."

Sasha pulled out her cell and called her office. "We think we've found where he exited. Where is he now?"

"We lost the signal."

"Can you get mine?"

"One moment."

The seconds passed. The car rocked side to side every time a vehicle passed in the nearest lane. The sound of the idling engine and fan blowing
intermingled with their breathing. Finally, her analyst came back on.

"You are in the location we last saw him. From there, he headed east."

They both turned their heads to the left. The road wasn't visible from across the motorway, but the path cut between the trees was.

"I can't find any way back here," Mason said, holding up his phone.

"I need for you to find me a route to reach this road," she said to her analyst. "Can you do that? I don't care if it is an old logging road or a trail cut
by elephants."

"It might not be pretty, but I'm sure I can."

"Call me back." She shifted into drive and pulled onto the motorway once again, headed south for the next exit.

"We're gonna lose him," Mason said.

"No we won't." She pushed the speedometer well past the speed limit. "My guys will find a way."

Central France.

BEAR WAITED NEAR the entrance while Pierre dealt with the receptionist. The guy applied no pressure. Asked the same questions over and over. The woman
grew flustered, face turned red, hands started shaking. She was lying. Bear knew it. Pierre probably did. But he did nothing about it.

The glass doors rattled as they slid apart. A woman entered with her young son. She directed him to take a seat while she took a spot in line behind
Pierre. The first one to do so.

Bear glanced back, wondering when the next patient would appear.

Pierre asked the woman about Kat and Mandy again. She pursed her lips together, tightly, and said nothing.

"Enough." Bear charged the counter and slammed into Pierre's side, knocking the Frenchman a foot to the side. The woman behind him protested, but one
glance back silenced her.

The woman pushed back in her chair to create a bit of distance. Not that it mattered. She wouldn't get away if that was Bear's intention.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. Opened it. Pulled out a photo of Mandy taken during their time in Iowa. He extended his arm, placing
the picture inches from the old woman's face.

"I'm only gonna ask you this one time," he said. "After that, I'll start breaking things. Have you seen this girl?"

The woman said nothing.

Bear grabbed the top corner of her monitor and flung it to the side. The screen cracked with a hundred simultaneous thuds.

"Next time it'll be you."

She glanced toward the door. Any hope that remained on her face vanished. But Bear knew his time was limited. She'd done something to alert the
authorities. Or she presumed someone else had, and now she held out hope for their arrival.

"Have you seen her?"

Pierre placed a picture of Kat on the counter. Bear grabbed it with his free hand and extended it.

He said, "And her?"

The woman started crying. She shook her head, then nodded.

"Which is it?" Bear said.

"I… I've seen the girl, but not the woman."

"Where is she?" Bear stepped back and looked at the three hallways branching off the waiting room.

"She's not here."

He snapped forward, and yelled, "Bullshit. Which room is she in?"

The woman was crying too hard to answer.

Bear almost hopped the counter, but it wouldn't have done any good. He'd smashed the monitor. Behind the woman were offices, one of which was occupied by a
man watching the scene unfold in the waiting room. Bear pointed at the guy.

"Take us in there and pull it up."

The woman rose and stepped out from behind the receptionist desk. She waved the two men toward her, to the office. The guy inside shook his head as she
opened the door. He tried to speak, but couldn't manage to put a word together.

"Get up," she said. "I need to show him that the girl left."

The guy rose and stepped back. By the time the woman, Bear and Pierre were all behind his desk, the guy was crammed into the corner. He breathed quickly
and loudly through his nose. Bear expected the guy to pass out any minute.

"Here." The woman pointed toward the screen. Bear leaned forward and read the minimal information.

"Jane Doe. Auto accident. Checked out." He glanced back at Pierre. "That's it? That's all you have? And what does 'Jane Doe' mean?"

The woman looked to the guy for permission. He nodded. She said, "It means she had no idea who she was, and she had no identification on her."

Bear heard her, but didn't allow himself to process the information yet. "Where is she now?"

The woman waited a moment before speaking. "We can't divulge that information."

"You better divulge it or your boss here is going to end up with his head through that wall."

Pierre grabbed Bear and tugged him to the side. "Listen."

Everyone went silent. Just the man breathing and the whirr of his computer's fan.

And sirens.

"Could be the ambulance," Bear said.

Pierre shook his head. "Not in France. It's the police."

The office guy choked back a sob.

"Bastard," Bear said, pushing Pierre toward the door, where he stopped and looked back at the pair in the corner of the room. "I'm gonna find you, lady.
You hear me? And when I do, you better have the information I'm looking for."