Noble Beginnings
Noble Beginnings
A Jack Noble Novel
L.T. Ryan
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PUBLISHED BY:
L.T. Ryan
Copyright © 2012
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any
format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the
copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and
events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Quick Links
An Excerpt from A Deadly Distance (Jack Noble #2)
Jack Noble Series in Order
Noble
Beginnings
A
Deadly Distance
Noble
Intentions Season One
Noble
Intentions Season Two
Noble
Intentions Season Three
Never Go Home (Jack Noble)
Beyond Betrayal (Clarissa Abbot Thriller)
Noble Intentions Season Four - Coming January, 2014
Baghdad,
Iraq. March, 2002
I leaned back
against a weathered stone wall. Muffled voices slipped through the cracked
door. The night air felt cool against my sweat-covered forehead. A light breeze
carried with it the smell of raw sewage. Orange tinted smoke from a distant
fire rose high into the sky. Wisps of smoke streaked across the full moon ahead
of the mass of artificial cloud cover, threatening to block the moonlight I
used to keep watch over the sleepy street while the CIA special operations team
did their job inside the house. The smart team leaders kept me involved. The
dumb ones left me outside to guard the entrance.
Eight years on
the job. Best gig I ever had. Then Bin Laden attacked the U.S. Forty-eight
hours later everything had changed. Most teams were deployed to Afghanistan.
Bear and I were sent to Iraq. We’d spent six months raiding houses just like
this one inside and on the outskirts of Baghdad. And just like tonight, we were
kept outside the house.
The only connection
we had with the Marine Corps was the ten Marines over here with us. We only saw
them a couple times a week. I had no idea where the rest of our Marine brethren
were, and I didn’t care. They didn’t consider us Marines any more than we
considered them brethren.
“Jack?” Bear
said.
Bear had been
my partner and best friend since our last day of recruit training. A recruit
training experience cut four weeks short.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m tired of
this.”
I turned my
head, keeping my M16 aimed forward. Bear stared out into the distance. The
faint orange glow of the fire cloud reflected off the sheen of sweat across his
face.
“They just keep
us posted outside,” he said. “Ain’t never treated us like this.”
I shrugged. He
was right. But there was nothing we could do about it. Bear and I were on loan
to the CIA and had to do whatever we were told. Before 9/11, we were part of
the team. But the CIA agents we normally worked with stayed behind in the U.S.
and Europe. The teams over here weren’t used to having two Marines with them
and they weren’t receptive to the idea.
“What do you
suggest we do?” I said. “Quit?”
Bear shook his
head and straightened his six foot six body. He shifted his M16 in his hands
and walked toward the end of the house. Beyond his large frame I spotted a
group of men. Figured that was why Bear went on high alert.
There were six
of them huddled together. They spoke in whispers and appeared to look in our
direction. Another three men walked toward the group. From this distance they
didn’t appear to be armed, but they had the cover of night on their side. Best
to assume they were prepared to wreak havoc on our position.
“What do you
make of that?” I asked.
Bear looked
back at me with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw.
“Trouble.”
Trouble
lingered everywhere in this damn city. No one trusted us here. Every time I
turned a corner I worried someone would be standing there waiting to take me
out. The only person I could trust in Iraq was Bear. The CIA spec ops teams
we’d been attached to looked down on us. They all seemed to be waiting for the
right moment to drop us. Hell, for all I knew, they were inside that house
negotiating our arrest.
Bear cleared
his throat and then pointed toward the group. The nine men fanned out and began
approaching our position. The sound of their voices rose from a murmur to light
chatter. I made out distinct sounds. Despite being in Iraq for the past six
months, I had a weak grasp on the language.
“What are they
saying?” I asked.
Bear held up
his hand, fingers outstretched. He cocked his head like he was looking up at
the moon. His body crouched into a defensive position. The barrel of the M16
rose to waist level. He reached out with his left hand to support the heavy
gun. I did the same. We both preferred the M16A3 because of its fully automatic
firing capabilities in addition to single shot and semi-automatic options. The
A3 was a much better option for security teams than the Marine standard issue
A4. We could drop the entire group of men in under five seconds if we chose to do
so.
“Talk to me,
Bear,” I said.
He took three
slow steps back, blocking my view of part of the street. He yelled something in
Arabic.
The group
stopped their advance. One man stepped forward. His tall, gangly body stood out
from the short stocky men in the group. He lifted his arms, a handgun clutched
in his right hand. I tensed and tapped my finger against the M16’s trigger. The
harsh sounds of words spoken in Arabic filled the air. They echoed through the
street. Then silence penetrated.
Bear turned to look
at me, then smiled, then looked back at the men. He shouted in Arabic again and
lifted his M16 to his shoulder.
The tall Iraqi
raised his arms once again. He had put his gun away. He turned his back to us,
said something to the group of men and started walking away. The mob held their
positions for a moment. The tall man pushed past them. He spoke in an
authoritative tone, his voice rising to a yell. They turned and followed him. A
few looked back over their shoulders in our direction.
I exhaled
loudly. Cool, calm and collected when others would panic. Now, however, I felt
my hands trembling slightly. A deep breath reset me to normal. It was a typical
sequence of events.
“Christ, Bear.
What the hell was that about?”
He chuckled. “I
think they’re on our side, Jack.”
“What makes you
think that?” I used my sleeve to wipe a layer of cold sweat from my brow.
His smile
widened. “They didn’t shoot.”
“What did you
say to them… ah, forget it. You’re a crazy SOB. You know that, right?”
He shrugged,
ignoring me and scanning darkened windows.
I leaned back
against wall, joined him. “You think this is what Keller had in mind when he
shipped us off to the CIA?”
I had kept in
touch with General Keller since he took us out of recruit training and placed
us into the CIA sponsored program some eight years ago. I knew this was not
what he had in mind.
Bear said,
“Beats what we’d be doing otherwise.”
I threw my head
back and nodded over my shoulder toward the door. “You sure about that?”
Bear shrugged.
His big head shook slightly. He wiped his face and then looked at me.
“I’m not sure
of much anymore, Jack. This is what I know. They ship us somewhere. We do our
job. Pretty simple.”
I nodded. It
was pretty simple. Eight years now and we knew the routine. We do our job. Only
here, our job had been castrated down to nothing but a security detail while
they did the work that would get the glory. Hopefully they’d get it soon and
ship us back to the U.S.
We stood in
silence. I stared at the orange glow of the cloud that covered half the sky.
“Noble. Logan.”
The voice
ripped through the air like a mortar arcing over our heads. The door whipped
open. Bealle stood in the doorway.
“We need you
two inside.”
I turned to
face Eddie Bealle, fourth man on the totem pole of the four man CIA spec ops
team. “We’re ready to go, Bealle.”
*
* *
We followed
Bealle through the narrow doorway and down an even narrower hallway. The smell
of burned bread filled the house. I looked over my shoulder and saw Bear
shuffling sideways behind me, his broad shoulders too wide to fit square
between the thin plaster walls. We turned a corner to another stretch of hall
that opened up to a dimly lit room.
“What’s the
deal here, Bealle?” I asked.
Bealle said
nothing. He just kept walking. His rank on the team was too low to justify
acting like a prick. I had wanted the opportunity to beat it out of him for
weeks now. He stepped through the opening, walked across the room and rejoined
his team.
I followed,
stopped and stepped to the right. Bear stepped to the left.
Scott Martinez
looked over and nodded. He said something in Arabic to the Iraqi man sitting on
the floor. The man’s arms and legs were bound with the thick plastic ties we
carried. Martinez rose from his crouching position and walked toward me. He ran
a hand through his sweat soaked short brown hair and wiped blood spatter off
his cheek. He stopped a few feet in front of me. Like most spec op guys, he was
a good four inches shorter than me and a head shorter than Bear. There were
exceptions. My eyes drifted across the room and locked on Aaron Kiser. He stood
six foot two and could look me directly in the eye.
I scanned the
room, my eyes inching along the yellow stained walls and ceiling. Paintings and
family photos hung crooked in obvious spots. The furniture had been pushed to
the far end of the room. The captive family huddled together at the other end.
The man stared blankly at the floor between his bound feet. His wife sat behind
him, her black hair frizzed and disheveled. Blood trickled from the corner of her
mouth. Her hands rested in her lap, bound at the wrists. Hiding behind her were
two small children, one boy and one girl. Their scared faces peeked over her
shoulder. Their eyes were dark with fear and darted between the men holding
their family captive.
I hated this
part of the job. If we had something on the man, fine. He likely did something
to bring us here. But why keep the family held up like this? It seemed to be
the MO over here lately, at least when working with Martinez. And I had no
choice but to go with it.
“Your job
here,” Martinez said, as if he had read my mind, “is to provide support. No
different than any other day. I give an order, you follow. Understand?”
I shifted my
eyes to his and said nothing.
Bear coughed
and crossed his arms across his chest.
Martinez
dropped his head and shook it. A grin formed on his lips, but his eyes
narrowed. We’d butted heads more than once, and I figured he had become as sick
of me as I was of him.
“I’m so tired
of you two Jarheads.”
I looked over
at Bear and mouthed the phrase “Jarheads” at him. He laughed.
The bound man
on the floor looked up. His glassed over eyes made contact with mine. I felt my
smile fade and my lips thinned. The man’s eyes burned with hatred and
desperation. He took a deep breath, and then looked down at the floor.
“Follow,
Noble.” Martinez turned and held up his hand while gesturing toward me. He
walked across the room and stopped in front of the Iraqi man and then kicked
him in the stomach.
The man fell
forward into Martinez’s legs. His face contorted into a pained expression while
he struggled to fill his lungs with air.
“Get this
bastard off of me,” Martinez said.
Kiser stepped
forward, grabbed the Iraqi by the back of his head and dragged him to the
middle of the room.
Martinez moved
to the middle and crouched down. He looked the Iraqi man in the eyes.
“I want you to
see this. See what your failure to give us any information has led to.”
Martinez stood
and walked over to the man’s wife. He reached under her arm and yanked her to
her feet. She gasped, and her children cried out. They grabbed at her with
their tiny hands. Bealle and Richard Gallo led the woman by her elbows to the
wall across from me. Martinez followed. He stood in front of the woman, leaned
in and whispered in her ear.
Her eyes
scanned the room and met mine. A tear rolled down her thin face. Her mouth
opened slightly. Her lips quivered. She bit her bottom lip and then mouthed the
word “please” to me. Martinez brought a hand to her cheek, and she started
crying.
Martinez moved
to his right and looked over his shoulder at the man on the floor.
“Isn’t your
wife worth it?” His face lit up as he said it, and his eyes grew wide and the
corners of his mouth turned upwards in a sadistic grin. I noticed his
respirations increased fivefold. The spec ops leader appeared to find the
exchange exhilarating.
The Iraqi man
said nothing. He held his head high and his shoulders back. He stood defiant on
his knees.
Martinez
brushed the woman’s hair back behind her ears and leaned in toward her again
and whispered something to her. She let out a loud sob and then took a deep
breath to compose herself. She looked toward her children and said something in
Arabic, and then she turned to Martinez and spit in his face.
He stepped back
and used the back of his hand to wipe his face. Then he struck her with the
same hand. Her head jerked back and hit the wall with a thud. Her body slumped
to the floor. Martinez reached out with one hand and grabbed her by the neck
and with his other hand he pulled his pistol from its holster, pressing the
black gun barrel against the side of her head. His hand slid up from her neck
and squeezed her cheeks in. The pressure of his hands against the sides of her
face jarred her mouth open. He jammed the barrel of the gun in her mouth.
“Is this what
you want?” He paused a moment. “Huh? Want your kids to see your brains blown
all over this wall?”
I felt rage
build. This was wrong in every sense of the word. I took a step forward. Bear’s
large hand came down on my shoulder and held me back.
“Get the kids
out of the room, Martinez,” I said.
Martinez
straightened up and cocked his head. His arms dropped to his side, and then he
turned to face me. He stared at me for a few seconds and lifted a finger in my
direction. The woman slid down the wall and crawled on the floor to her kids.
“Noble,” he
said. “I told you that you follow my orders. Not the other way around. You got
it?”
“Let,” I took a
step forward, “the kids,” another step, “leave the room.” I kept moving forward
until we met chest to chest and eyes to chin.