Noble Intentions: Season Two (Episodes 6-10) (12 page)

She looked over her shoulder. Located the bathroom. Made her way in and washed up. She couldn’t do much about her clothes, but at least she was able to make her face a little more presentable.

People continued to stare after she exited the bathroom. She didn’t care. She stepped in front of the glass doors and waited for them to open. The cold night air stung her face and arms like thousands of tiny pin pricks. She had no coat. It had been lost during the crash. She crossed her arms and hugged herself tight.

Where to go? She scanned the parking lot for a taxi or a shuttle. Saw neither.

The question lingered. Where to go? More importantly, what to do? The thought she’d had after the crash crept up again. She could be free. She could disappear. No one would ever know. She hadn’t given her name to anyone except the little girl. For all anyone knew, Clarissa Abbot had died in the plane crash.

Maybe she could find Bear and Mandy. Start a new life. With her training and new skills she could go into business with Bear.

She felt torn. A decision about what to do once she’d disappeared didn’t have to be made at that moment. But she did have to make a decision on whether or not to leave. She had a job to do for Sinclair. Should she reach out to him? Or should she let him, and the rest of the world, believe that she was dead. What about her remains? Her belongings? She traveled light, and had no checked-in baggage. Only carry-on. And she had it all with her. There would be no body, no computer, no clothes. And no phone.

She looked down at her hand and the buzzing cell phone. She turned the phone over in her palm to see who was calling her. Sinclair. She didn’t answer.

Clarissa stuffed the phone into her pocket. She looked across the parking lot at a sea of empty cars and vans and SUVs. She stepped off the curb and began crossing the road. Her first steps toward freedom. A freedom that was a city bus stop and Greyhound station away.

She heard the sound of a car. A car that traveled far too fast for a hospital parking lot. Clarissa turned her head to the left and saw a pair of headlights racing toward her. Close. Too close. She leapt out of the way, landing on a narrow strip of soft grass.

Brakes squealed. A door opened and closed. Footsteps approached.

She rolled over on her back and propped herself up on her elbows. Recognition filled her mind at the sight of the approaching man. He was on the team. Clarissa knew little of him, though. They had never worked together. She had asked Sinclair about him one time and he told her that Randy was there to clean up the messes they made.

One of his arms dangled further than the other. A weapon. A gun. And it was equipped with a canister at the end. She knew the canister was a suppressor.

“Randy,” she said. “Don’t shoot.”

Randy said, “Get up.”

She took her time getting to her feet, making sure to keep him in her line of sight. She was unarmed. Had to be to get on the plane.

“What’s with the gun?”

Randy raised his arm and looked sideways at the weapon. “In case you decide not to come.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t come?”

“You didn’t answer Sinclair’s call.”

Clarissa said nothing. She squeezed her cell phone. So many split second decisions had to be made to get off the plane alive. The thought of leaving her phone behind had never crossed her mind. Of course, the phone. They kept track of all of them via their cell phones.

“I mean, we thought it was odd that your phone traveled thirty miles from the site of the crash, all the way to this hospital, and you never bothered to call. Then when your phone rings, you just look at it and stuff it in your pants.” His eyes traveled down her body and stopped on her midsection.

Clarissa asked, “What are you doing in Omaha? Why were you here to begin with?”

“I wasn’t. I was in Des Moines, Iowa.”

Clarissa narrowed her eyes and recalled any and all knowledge she had of Des Moines and Iowa, which turned out to be not much at all.

“That’s where you were going to end up,” he said.

Randy was there to clean up the messes they made.

“I—I, but…”

He smiled and took a step forward. He reached up and brushed strands of blowing hair behind her ear.

Her body wanted to convulse at his touch. She fought the urge.

“Don’t worry, Clarissa,” he said. “As long as you are on board, I’m not going to do anything to you. Unless the boss instructs me otherwise.”

“Then what were you doing in Des Moines if that’s where I was going?”

Randy was there to clean up the messes they made.

“I’ve been taking care of something in Minneapolis related to what you’re getting into. Sinclair asked me to come down and brief you. After that I was gonna bail.”

She watched his dark eyes as they darted left to right. His heavy brow and face appeared relaxed.

Randy took a step back. Tucked his gun away. Said, “So what’s it going to be, kid?”

Clarissa looked around. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. At least, nowhere Randy wouldn’t find her. And if she ran, and he found her, then he would have a mess to clean up. It seemed that her tough decision had been made for her.

She said, “Let’s go to Iowa.”

4

The rising sun silhouetted the King and Queen buildings. The two buildings, along with several others, dotted Atlanta’s perimeter. They had traveled on I-85 through the night and were now on I-285, skirting along the outer edges of the gateway to the South.

Jack turned his attention forward and weaved the car through the thickening traffic. Poor saps, he thought. Dressed up and driving to a job they hate. Most of them probably on the road this early so they could skip out one of Atlanta’s least-popular attractions, the traffic.

A mile later red brake lights lit the highway like a festival dragon, winding and rising along the asphalt.

“Christ,” Jack muttered.

“One of the worst traffic cities in the country,” Jasmine said. “People here spend, on average, over a full week sitting in traffic each year.”

Jack nodded. Said nothing.

“It should ease up soon. Then we’ll get on I-75 and it’ll be smooth sailing heading north.”

“You should get a job with a radio station. Traffic girl. It’d suit you.”

“You think?”

“TV voice, radio face.” He looked over and smiled.

Jasmine rolled her eyes and turned toward the passenger window. She said, “Why don’t you talk much?”

“Thought I was talking.”

“You know what I mean.”

Jack cleared his throat. “Got nothing to say.”

“With everything you’ve been through, you have nothing to say?”

Jack shrugged. He inched the car forward and then pressed the brakes again, slowing the car to a stop. Then he said, “What do you want to know?”

“The answer to the question I asked you yesterday. What have you been doing since you left the agency?”

“Not going to tell you.”

Jasmine shifted in her seat and turned to face him. “Why not?”

“Too much to tell. Too much I shouldn’t tell.”

Jasmine waved him off and shifted in her seat again.

He wasn’t trying to piss her off. He didn’t know the woman and a lot things he had done over the years weren’t exactly legal. Why give her information she could use against him?

“Why don’t you tell me why you joined the SIS?” Jack said.

“Where to begin?” she said. “Well, blew out my knee in college. Ruined my chances to compete in the Olympics. Went to law school. Finished fourth in my class. Had no desire to become a lawyer. Applied to the FBI and the CIA. Tested for the latter. Got a phone call from Frank inviting me to interview for a special position. Pretty standard.”

Jack nodded. Noticed a sign for I-75 north and started maneuvering the car across six lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“Why don’t you tell me why you joined the SIS?” she asked.

“I guess I can tell you that.” Jack’s eyes darted from his rear view mirror to the passenger side mirror. He crossed one lane at a time. He pulled into the exit lane and continued, “I was a Marine. Actually, I was loaned out to the CIA. Did a lot of domestic stuff. Worked in Europe, South America. Was in North Korea once, but no one knows about that.”

Jasmine nodded. “OK. Then what?”

“9/11 is what. Everything changed.”

“That’s why I went to law school. I never wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to hunt terrorists.”

Jack glanced over at her and noticed her fists were clenched tight. She stared beyond the dash, the traffic, and the mess of intertwined highway crossings ahead.

“Yeah, well, it changed things for a lot of people.” He looked at her again and saw her nodding, slowly. “So, my group went from domestic and friendlies to Iraq.”

“In 2003?”

“2001.”

“What?” She no longer stared ahead. Her head spun and she stared at Jack, her mouth hanging open an inch.

“Eighty or ninety percent of the teams went to Afghanistan. Not us, though.”

“What were you looking for in Iraq?”

“Beats me. Everything changed. We were on the outside. Provided security for the agency guys.”

“What do you mean?”

Jack shook his head. “Long story. Anyways, there was a big mess. People started dying. Someone tried to frame me. It went,” he paused a beat while thinking over how much he should tell her. “It went pretty high up the government food chain.”

“The President?”

“No, not quite that high, and I won’t say who or what or when, either.”

She nodded. Didn’t say anything.

“So, this whole mess, never really got resolved back then. Cleaned it up later, though.”

“When you were in the SIS?”

“No. That’s beside the point. How and why did I join the SIS? OK.” Jack paused and checked over his left shoulder before merging onto I-75 northbound. “I got my discharge and had three months leave banked. I got paid for those three months while doing nothing. I had planned to travel. Ended up stopping in Key West a week after my journey started. Didn’t leave. Not for three months. I was waiting, well, yeah, waiting on something. Someone. Frank showed up instead. Made me a job offer. Two weeks later I was in D.C., learning the ways of the SIS.”

“I’ve read some of your case files,” Jasmine said.

Jack looked across at her and lifted an eyebrow above the frame of his sunglasses.

“The kids,” Jasmine said.

“What about them?”

“The thing with the kids. I… I don’t know. That was something else, is all. How you and Frank took the abductors down, and then, well, you know.”

Jack nodded. He dropped one hand onto his thigh and the other hand shifted to the top of the steering wheel.

“Yeah, I know. I still think about that.”

“Did you ever find him?”

Jack glanced between her and the road a few times. “You don’t know?”

Jasmine shook her head in reply.

“If it’s not in the files,” Jack said, “then I can’t tell you.”

“Jack,” she said.

“Another time. Let’s get through this and then we’ll see.”

They drove the next ten miles in silence. Took an exit that put them on I-575. Passed through Woodstock and got off the highway in Canton.

“Not a lot of options for a place to stay here,” Jack said.

“No, there aren’t. Maybe we should head back toward Atlanta?”

Jack pointed toward a Hilton. “That should do.”

He pulled the car into the parking lot and found a place to park.

“I’m going to get us a couple rooms,” Jasmine said.

Jack nodded and stretched. He waited until Jasmine was inside the hotel lobby and then he took a walk on the sidewalk, between the hotel parking lot and the road.

Cars backed up at a stop light. Jack turned away from them and cut across the parking lot. He still wasn’t too keen on being seen. Any car in any town could be driven by a member of law enforcement. Someone who might have at one time or another seen Jack’s face. Of course, no photo of him ever taken resembled the way he looked now. He relaxed a bit. Slowed his pace. He was met at the door by Jasmine.

“Got us two rooms, but check-in time isn’t for another seven hours.”

Jack looked at his watch. Seven-thirty a.m. He looked past the parking lot and spotted a Waffle House. If Atlanta was the gateway to the South, Waffle House was the staple restaurant.

He said, “Let’s figure it out over breakfast.”

They left the car in the parking lot and crossed the street on foot. The yellow roofed square building welcomed them with the smell of coffee and hash browns and pancakes.

“Pick a seat. Be right with you.” The waitress had brown curly hair that was mostly tucked under a red ball cap sporting a blue “A” for the Atlanta Braves. She looked a few years on the wrong side of fifty, and a few pounds on the wrong side of thin. Jack and Jasmine found a seat and the waitress spoke to them from the other side of the counter. “What’ll you have?”

“Coffee, two eggs, and three pancakes,” Jack said.

The waitress nodded and looked at Jasmine. “What about you sweetheart?”

“Oh, I’ll have the same,” Jasmine said.

“How do you want those eggs?” the waitress said.

“Surprise me,” Jack said.

“Scrambled,” Jasmine said.

The waitress dropped off their coffee and went back to the grill to help the cook.

“Want to do a drive by of the house?” Jasmine asked.

“You know where it is?”

“Yeah, pretty sure we do. Got a call from Frank while I was in the lobby. He’s sending details by email.” She pulled her phone out and tapped at the screen. “Yeah, there it is. We aren’t that far away. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“We got the time. Makes sense. Maybe we’ll luck out and find our guy walking his dog.”

Jasmine laughed. “You know it won’t be that easy.”

“He send you any details on the guy?”

She twisted her lips to the side and shook her head. “So far only the house. They’re still working on the rest.”

The waitress handed them their plates from the other side of the counter. They quickly ate without talking. Jack paid the bill and grabbed two coffees to go. He left the restaurant and met Jasmine in the car. She had taken the driver’s seat. Jack didn’t protest.