Thriller: Code Name: Camelot - An Action Thriller Novel (A Noah Wolf Novel, Thriller, Action, Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

ELEVEN

N
oah had gotten
into the habit of waking at five thirty in the morning, the usual time when the lights came on at the prison. His eyes opened, and he rolled over on the big bed, instantly remembering how his circumstances had changed. He sat up, and a moment later he climbed out of the bed and staggered toward the bathroom. A couple of minutes later, he came out and grabbed some clean clothes, then went back in to get a shower and shave.

Allison’s message had said that someone would pick him up at around eight, so he had plenty of time for breakfast. He slipped out the door, glancing over at Marco’s room to see that there were no lights on yet, and then walked to the restaurant alone. He had just gotten his coffee when he heard his name, and turned around.

Allison was walking toward him, and sat down in the chair opposite his. She smiled at him, and he returned it out of habit.

“I thought I’d just come and collect you myself this morning,” she said, “and I figured you’d be over here early for breakfast, so I decided to join you. I haven’t eaten here in a while, but I know how good it is so I thought it was well past time to pay a visit.”

Noah picked up his cup and saluted her with it. “Glad to have the company,” he said. “Anything I need to know about today, before we get started?”

A waitress hurried over and took Allison’s order, and Noah waited until she was gone before he looked expectantly at his boss.

“Nothing specific,” she said. “We’ll be going over some rules and regulations that are in place, and getting your new identity all set up. A lot of it’s already been done, but there are some simple things we need to go over.”

Noah nodded. “It occurs to me that I haven’t actually thanked you,” he said. “Your intervention has saved my life, and I do appreciate it.”

She grinned at him. “Well, considering the alternative, I’m sure you do,” she said. “The thing you gotta remember, though, is that you earned the opportunity. You demonstrated some incredible abilities, and those are abilities that we need in this organization. It simply made sense for me to do everything I could to recruit you.”

“Then here’s hoping I prove to be worth all your effort.”

Allison smiled. “There’s something special about you, Noah,” she said. “Doctor Parker says he wishes we could figure out a way to boil you down to your essence, so that we could just inject it into people. Luckily for you, he hasn’t found a way to do that, so we can’t produce dozens of you. You get to stay unique, and everyone who’s gotten to know you so far is convinced that your uniqueness is going to pay off for us in many ways.”

“Because I don’t have feelings?” Noah asked.

“That’s certainly part of it,” she said. “The significance of your lack of emotions is that you don’t suffer from guilt or remorse, so that you effectively have no conscience.”

“I know,” he replied. “That’s why I had to develop a sort of moral programming code, something to let me know when I was overstepping the bounds of propriety. It’s my own sense of right and wrong.”

Allison nodded. “Yes, and it seems to be an effective one, because you’ve gone this long without ending up in trouble. From what I’ve been able to determine through my own research and Doctor Parker’s, most people who suffer from conditions like yours can’t even function properly in society. I think your success in doing so probably goes back to the fact that you had an extremely intelligent friend who could help you understand what was happening to you when you were a child.”

“Molly,” Noah said. “If it hadn’t been for her, I probably would have lost my mind way back then, or at least found myself lost and confused among all you humans.”

Allison gave him a curious look. “You speak as if you don’t consider yourself to be one of us,” she said. “I’ve heard you say that before, that you don’t think of yourself as being a human at all. Is that really how you feel?”

“I suppose it is,” he said. “Humans have emotions, they have feelings, and a lot of their actions and decisions are guided by those feelings. Those are specific attributes of the human animal, and some other animals as well, but I don’t have them. That leaves me thinking that I’m a lot more like a robot than a person. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, “and that’s specifically why you’re so valuable to us. You have the ability to act without having to agonize over a decision. You can evaluate a situation and decide, almost instantly, based on that evaluation, the best action to take. This makes you the best possible candidate for one of our operatives, because you won’t ever second-guess yourself. That’s gotten more of our people killed than anything else.”

Noah looked at her. “You’re right about that,” he said. “I don’t need to think something through over and over, I just need to know the circumstances that I’m dealing with. That lets me make a decision, and I can live with any decision I’ve made.”

Allison paused as the waitress brought their plates, then picked up her glass of orange juice and took a drink before continuing. “You know, I read your file. There are some interesting things in it.”

Noah nodded, and grinned. “I’m sure there are,” he said, “especially for someone reading it from your perspective. I’m going to guess that you’re referring to the incident that happened outside Kandahar, am I right?”

Allison cocked her head to the right, and smiled. “When you were ordered to guard the road and make sure no one drove up it, you didn’t hesitate to open fire on a carload of civilians who tried to force their way around you. When your men tried to file reports accusing you of murder in that case, you just stood on the fact that you were following the orders you were given. However, in the matter with Lieutenant Gibson, when you could have used the same defense to look the other way, you chose to stand up for what you believed was right. What was the difference?”

“The difference was simple, to me,” he said. “When my unit was assigned to guard the Kandahar Road, we were specifically given orders to prevent any vehicular traffic passing a certain point. If that meant that we had to open fire, then we were in fact ordered to do so, even if it meant firing on local civilians. In the other situation, we were supposed to be on patrol looking for possible terrorist encampments. Our orders did not include engaging or killing any civilians, under any circumstances, and certainly did not include clearly criminal actions like rape. By engaging in the activities that I reported, Lieutenant Gibson not only committed rape and murder, but he also violated the spirit of the orders he had been given. His actions could not be condoned, and required me to make a full report.”

“I’m curious, Noah,” Allison said. “You stand pretty firmly on orders, and what they mean. What if Lieutenant Gibson had simply ordered you to participate? Would you have obeyed?”

Noah shook his head. “No, Ma’am, I would not have. You see, to me, orders from a superior help me to establish what I need to be doing. However, I’m still fully aware that the people giving those orders are humans, and humans are often guided more by emotion than I am. If I’m given an order that clearly violates a superseding order or the prevailing moral code, then I am going to resort to my own understanding of right versus wrong. That’s what happened in this case; the situation was so far outside what I perceived as right that I was forced to take action.”

Allison smiled at him, and reached across to pat his hand. “And that’s what I’m talking about,” she said. “You just explained the very reason why we need you. Noah, we’ve lost several teams over the past few years, simply because the team leader hesitated. That’s one thing I will never have to worry about, with you, because hesitation is not your weakness. When the time comes to take the shot, I know that you’ll take it.”

Noah didn’t reply, but simply began eating his breakfast. On that morning, he had opted for a waffle with bacon on the side, and it was every bit as good as he’d expected it to be.

Allison dug into her own breakfast, and the two of them ate in silence. Noah finished first, and waited, sipping on a second cup of coffee until she was done.

“Oh, that was good,” Allison said. “I think I could almost sit here and order another plate, but duty calls. Shall we go?”

Noah followed her out the door, stopping at the register to pay his tab, and then walked with her to her car. He got into the passenger side as she slid behind the wheel, and a moment later they were on the way to Kirtland.

The administrative office turned out to be on the top floor of one of the big office buildings in town, putting them more than ten stories above the street level. The elevator was smooth and fast, and required a special key. It opened directly into the administrative office complex, and Allison led the way to her office.

A secretary looked up and smiled as they walked past, and Allison told her to hold any calls or messages until further notice. She went directly to her desk, pointing at the chair in front of it for Noah, then picked up a large envelope and handed it to him before she went around to take her own chair.

“Go ahead and open it up,” she said, and he did so. Several items slid out of it into his hand. “You’ll find a cell phone, a Colorado driver’s license, a birth certificate, a Social Security card, a passport and a few different credit cards, all of them in the name of Noah Wolf. I got the idea for your new last name from that comment you made the other day, about feeling like a wolf in man’s clothing, hope you don’t mind. Oh, and you’re a year older, now, with a different birthday. Instead of being born in Illinois, you were originally born in California, but your parents moved to Iowa when you were only a year old. You grew up there, living in a small town, and you were taught at home. Your mother didn’t trust public schools, and your father left decisions about your education to her. Your parents died when you were twenty, in an auto accident. You have no siblings, no other living relatives.”

Noah studied the documents in his hand, and then looked up at Allison. “Doesn’t sound all that different,” he said.

“It actually doesn’t take a lot of difference,” she replied. “We’re not out to make you an entirely different person, just slightly different, so that no one would mistake you for someone that they used to know. Oh, and incidentally, you have an appointment with our cosmetic surgeon next Monday, eight AM. Nothing too serious, a little work on your nose and cheekbones, and as you can see, the photos on those documents already reflect those changes. Amazing what computers can do these days, isn’t it? Oh, and incidentally, that cell phone is very special and very expensive, so don’t lose it! It doesn’t have to use a cell tower; it’s capable of going direct to satellite. You could be on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and you could still make a call on that phone.”

“Cool,” Noah said, and then he grinned. “I saw the difference in the photos, and I was going to ask about it,” he said, then held up a key ring. “Okay, scanning through these things, my address is on a rural route out of Kirtland?”

“Yes,” she said. “We usually put our assassins into something relatively private, while others get apartments or houses in town. Yours is a refurbished farmhouse on sixty acres, just off Temple Lake Road.” She stood and walked over to a map that hung on the wall, motioning him to approach. She pointed at a spot on the map, and said, “This is where we are now. If you follow this street out to where it meets Temple Lake Road, then turn right, you’ll be headed in the right direction. Your house is actually on County Road 640, right here. Turn right onto the gravel, and it’s about half a mile down the road on the left. I’m a little bit on the jealous side, because you actually have about eight hundred feet of lakeshore, with your own dock and a boat and everything.” She went back to her desk and sat, and Noah reclaimed his chair as well. “The house has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a nice kitchen and living room, and a two-car attached garage. You’ve also got some other buildings, including a barn, a couple of workshops and a mobile home that’s actually pretty nice. Doctor Parker chose this place for you, based on some of your history. I gather you like living out in the country?”

Noah put on a light smile, and nodded. “My last foster home,” he said, “I lived with this older couple who raised goats and had this massive garden. I was with them for four years, right up until the old man died, and then their kids decided to put their mother in a nursing home. Since I was already almost 17, they just stuck me in a group home for the rest of my time, but I actually missed living on the farm.”

Allison grinned. “Well, you can raise goats if you want to, but I’d suggest you hire yourself a farmhand. You can probably get someone cheap, if you throw in that mobile home as part of the pay package. As you can see from some of the other documents there, you are a security consultant who works with many different companies around the world to establish physical and digital security for their business operations. As such, you’re occasionally called out on a moment’s notice and may be gone for weeks at a time. Of course, it also explains how you can afford such a nice place.”

“I think I’ll leave farming to the farmers. Fishing, however, I do enjoy.”

“Well, you can do plenty of it from your back yard,” Allison said, “since it overlooks the lake. I’m told our lake has the best fishing in the whole state, but I haven’t had time to go and try it, yet. Let me know if it’s really that good, and I’ll come out sometime and give it a try.” She looked down at her desk. “Okay, now let’s move on to other matters. By the way, you’ll note that there are a number of keys on the key ring. You’re going to need a car, and because you’re a young, single, successful guy, Doctor Parker said we needed something expensive and powerful, so he chose a ‘72 Corvette. The car has been rebuilt from the frame up, and is extremely powerful. He says you can handle it, so don’t prove him wrong and kill yourself in it, okay? You also have a pickup truck, but from what I understand, it’s an older Ford that just sort of came with the house.”

Noah shook his head. “That old couple I lived with? They had this old Ford truck, it was like a 1969, I think, and it looked like crap, but it would outrun everything around there. They used to let me drive it to school and around town, and I always felt like that truck and I were a lot alike. Neither of us was what we seemed to be, but we were both ready for whatever the world threw at us.”