Noble Intentions: Season Three (21 page)

The ride home was longer than the
short distance should have taken. Traffic in London had that effect on travel.
He had no choice, as did none of the seven million residents who worked normal
hours. Not that Mason’s job could be classified as such, but some days that’s
how it shook out. Despite the traffic, Mason enjoyed his ride home. It provided
the one time of day when he did not think about the job. At first he had to
force himself to keep his eyes and mind focused on nothing but the road and
cars in front of him. Now it came naturally. Nothing mattered. Not the job, not
national security. Not his past or his future.

An hour later, Mason pulled to the
curb in front of his house. He got out of his car and walked toward the front
door. He climbed the seven stairs, stopped on the landing. He reached for the
door. A warm breeze blew past, carrying with it the smells of the White Swan,
the local pub two blocks away. The smell of beer and the grill mixed together
caused his mouth to water. Home could wait. What he wanted was a drink.

So Mason turned around and walked
down the stairs and made a right at the sidewalk. Ten minutes later he sat at
the bar, a pint in his right hand.

Mason contemplated his recent
decisions. What had seemed like a good idea now backfired. The Jack Noble
situation had gotten out of hand. He should have reported the man’s presence as
soon as Jack landed in London instead of taking matters in his own hands.
Thornton was a pain and had to be dealt with. That had been a foregone
conclusion. Without Mason’s interference, Jack would have handled it. But Mason
needed Jack for more than just the hit, so he couldn’t allow him to carry out
the hit inside a store on a busy road. The result would have been a choice
between imprisonment or fleeing for Jack. The warehouse meeting had been a mistake,
though. He admitted that.

The problem now was that he’d gone
too deep. Making a confession at this point would end his career and ensure
that he spent the rest of his life in a cage. The Jack Noble situation had to
be handled. He had to end it.

The bartender dropped a plate in
front of Mason. The pork pie sent clouds of steam towards his face. His mouth
flooded at the aroma. He finished his beer, signaled for a second, and then
began eating his meal.

A slender female hand came to a
rest next to his beer. A white mark where a ring once wrapped the third finger.
The perfume that mixed with the smell of his food was a not too distant memory
to Mason. He turned and saw the one woman he had no desire to see at that time.

“Hello, Gloria.”

She smiled. “Mason, nice to see
you.”

“What are you doing so close to my
place?”

“I was thinking about coming by.
Saw you get out of your car and then come down here, so I followed you.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have.”

“Mason, I’m sorry for what
happened. How many times do I have to apologize?”

“Doesn’t matter. You can apologize
until I’m dead and withered away, it won’t change anything. I’m never taking
you back.”

“Can I at least buy you a drink?”

Mason shook his head. He stuffed an
overloaded forkful of pork pie into his mouth. He kept his lips parted as he
chewed. Gloria watched him in the mirror. Her lip curled upward and turned
away.

“I guess I should go, then,” she
said a few moments later.

“Yeah, you should.”

Gloria pushed away from the bar and
headed toward the door. He watched her in the mirror and then spun on his stool
in time to see her leave.

“Way to be strong, mate.” The
bartender set down a third pint and gave Mason a wink and a nod.

Thirty minutes later, Mason left
the bar and headed home, slightly buzzed after four pints of beer. The air had
cooled and the sky had darkened. The street lamps cast shaded pools of light
along the sidewalk. Shadows from tree branches looked like gnarled fingers on
the ground.

He reached his home, took the seven
steps to the landing. He cursed himself as he reached for the door. He now
regretted the fact that he had left it unlocked. What if Gloria had come back
to his house instead of her own?

Mason wasn’t entirely surprised
when he saw Gloria sitting at the dining room table. What did surprise him was
that Jack Noble sat right next to her.

Jack watched the man as he stepped
into the foyer. Mason’s eyes had been focused on the floor, so he flung the
door closed before realizing Jack was there. The guy’s expression changed from
annoyed to surprised to scared, though he quickly downshifted back to
surprised. Guys like Jack and Mason knew better than letting an opponent see
their fear.

Mason dropped his bag and reached
for his handgun.

“Don’t move, Mason,” Jack said. He
aimed his Beretta at Mason’s stomach.

“No,” Gloria said. She jumped up
from her seat.

“Sit down, Gloria,” Jack said. “I
got a feeling that he doesn’t much care if I shoot you, but I know you don’t
want me to kill him. So sit your butt in that chair and shut up.”

Gloria lowered herself into her
seat. The wood groaned in response. She placed her hands flat on the table. Her
eyes remained locked on her ex-husband.

“Mason,” Jack said. “I want you to
lift your hands in the air.”

Mason did as told.

Jack said, “Now with your left hand
I want you to show me where your gun is.”

Mason hiked up his jacket.

“Good, now with your thumb and
little finger I want you to take it out of the holster, set it on the ground in
front of the stairs and step away. Keep your front to me the whole time or I’ll
sever your spine with a bullet.”

Mason pulled the pistol from its
holster as instructed. The weapon looked awkward in the unusual grip. He
shuffled toward the stairs, placed the gun on the first step.

“On the ground,” Jack said.

It didn’t seem like much, but the
step was approximately eight inches off the ground. That’s eight inches less
Mason would have had to stoop to retrieve his pistol.

Mason grimaced, grabbed the handle
by his thumb and little finger and then placed it on the ground. He
straightened and shuffled a foot forward, both hands in the air.

Jack said, “Now come have a seat at
the table.”

“You’ve any idea what you’re doing,
Noble?”

Jack glared at Mason. The guy had
used his name so that Gloria heard it. That could cause problems later.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,”
Jack said.

“I’m not necessary here,” Gloria
said. “Mason, tell him I shouldn’t be here.”

“Any ideas on how to get her to
shut up?” Jack said.

“Good luck with that, mate,” Mason
said.

Gloria leaned back in her chair,
fired a look at Mason. Jack knew that no words had to be spoken. He’d been on
the receiving end of a stare like that a time or two.

“So, what happened, Mason?” Jack
said.

Mason shook his head, shrugged,
said nothing.

“Don’t play stupid with me.”

“What do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you set me up.
Why did I go into a warehouse to finish a job, only to be in a situation where
I should have died?”

Mason straightened up in his chair,
said nothing. The guy’s eyes switched focus from Jack to the pistol in Jack’s
hand.

“I could have taken him out the day
before, but you stopped me. Why? What do you care about what happens to me? You
wanted him dead. Should it matter where or how?”

“I thought…”

Jack waited a moment, then said,
“You thought?”

Mason shook his head, tight and
terse.

“So then I’m brought to a
warehouse,” Jack continued. “Told where to set up and where to shoot from. It’s
the place I would have chosen myself. Only thing is, it’s locked and I can’t
get in there. A couple hours later, there’s a guy standing on the catwalk, a
few feet from that same spot I was supposed to be. If I didn’t know any better,
I’d think that guy had been told that someone would be up there, and the moment
he spotted the guy, he should shoot. Fortunately, I was nowhere near that spot.
But I was exposed. I still don’t know how I wasn’t spotted. It’s as if they
knew I was in there and decided not to bother with me.”

Mason said nothing.

“And in the end, Walloway’s own guy
did him.”

“Really?” Mason said.

Jack nodded.

“Who’s Walloway?” Gloria said.

“Not now, Gloria,” Mason said.

The woman rolled her eyes, crossed
her arms and leaned back again. Jack imagined she had a few hostile words lined
up for Mason if she ever got the chance to be alone with him again.

“What then, mate?” Mason said.

“Two guys came in with Thornton.
One guy killed Thornton. The second guy didn’t seem to care, but he balked on
something regarding the money. The guy that shot Thornton shot the second guy
too. Naseer seemed like he knew it was coming. Like they had it all arranged.”

Mason nodded.

Jack said, “And I think you knew
that all along.”

“No, you got it all wrong, mate.”

“You wanted me to be there. I was
the backup plan. And depending on how things went, they might have taken care
of me along with Walloway. You didn’t care about that. Probably figured after
what I’d witnessed, I’d run. Right?”

Mason leaned over the table.

“Both hands where I can see them.”
Jack lifted his pistol.

Mason leaned back, showed his
hands. “I had no idea, Jack.”

“And then, we had the bombings this
morning.”

“Mason, you didn’t,” Gloria said.

“Shut up, Gloria,” Mason said.

“You knew where I made my hotel
reservations,” Jack said. “You’re probably the only person that did. You tipped
Walloway off that first day. He sent a crew, but the hotel had no record of me.
But that could’ve changed. Maybe I checked in later. So you had them go back
and blow the place up. You’re responsible for a hundred deaths. And for what?
The chance that you might have killed me?”

“What?” Mason appeared shocked.

Jack stood, shoved the table toward
Mason, kicked his chair against the wall.

“Well guess what, Mason?” He took
aim at the man’s forehead. “You got to me. At least twice you tried to have me
killed. There’ll be no third chance.”

Gloria covered her face. The sounds
of her sobs slipped through her fingers. Mason leaned back in his chair, held
his arms out to the side, elbows bent, fingers pointed to the ceiling.

Mason said, “Jack, you gotta
believe me, mate. I had nothing to do with all that. I was acting on
intelligence that I’d received. We had no idea the warehouse was going to be a
bunk spot and definitely no idea that things would go down the way they did.
Think about what you said. Don’t you think if I wanted you dead, they would
have done it there? If I was working with them, I wouldn’t have sent them in
without telling them about you being there. I have no idea why the hatch to the
roof was locked. You should have had access and been able to make the shot from
that window up there.”

“What hatch and window? Who else
knew I was there?”

Mason furrowed his brow, squinted.
“What do you mean what hatch? My partner was the only other person that knew
you were there. He’s the guy that took you there.”

“Muscles, bald-headed, doesn’t talk
much.”

“What? No, my partner is the guy
that dropped the Fiat off in the woods. He’s the antithesis of what you just
described. Lord knows he doesn’t shut up when we’re out.”

At that moment, Jack believed Mason
had told him the truth.

“When’s the last time you talked to
your partner?” Jack said.

“Last night,” Mason said.

“Before or after he picked me up?”

“What?”

“Before or after, Mason?”

“Before.”

“And you haven’t talked to him
since?”

“Right.”

“Is it normal that you wouldn’t
hear from him all day?”

“Yeah, he was going fishing today.
I wouldn’t—” Mason’s hands fell to his side. He closed his eyes, shook his
head. “Son of a bitch. He betrayed me. He’s the only other person that knew
about you, Jack. When you showed up on the radar, we didn’t report it. I knew
what was going on, why you were here. Walloway’s been untouchable for so damn
long. Money buys anything, you know. I saw your arrival as a sign we could
finally take care of him.”

Jack nodded, said nothing. He
pieced the puzzle together along with Mason.

“I can’t believe this,” Mason said.
“Joe’s gone and bloody stabbed me in the back.”

“It looks that way,” Jack said.
“But we don’t know that for sure. Maybe they got to him. Maybe they were trying
to get to you, too. They just found him first.”

A minute of silence passed, then
Mason said, “I’ve got to tell Mills.”

“Who?”

“My boss.”

“No,” Jack said.

“Why not?”

“I know that someone in MI5 or MI6
is involved. Whether they got the information from Joe or you through spying, I
don’t know. We have to figure out who it was without tipping our hand. Hell, it
could be more than one person. We have to keep this close to the vest, for now.
Too risky to bring anyone else in on it.”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,”
Gloria said.

Jack looked at her, then back at
Mason. “Sorry about this,
mate
, but you’re stuck with her for a while.”

Mason said nothing.

“Here’s how this will work,” Jack
said. “I’ve got parcels on the move. International fare. Once I get
verification that they’re safe, we make our first move.”

“What will that be?”

“I need you to find out where
Naseer is right now.”

“How?”

“You’re the spy. Figure it out.”

“OK. Then what?”

“I’ll let you know when I do.”