Noble Asset, page 3
Chapter Six
The CIA’s deputy director of operations greeted Noble with a nod. Smoke trailed from the glowing ember of a Chesterfield. Albert Dulles, known within the halls of Langley as the Wizard, looked like death in a slim black suit. His gray hair was swept straight back from a high forehead and his face was a road map of deep-set lines. A ragged scar doubled for a mouth. The only thing missing was a scythe.
The wolf dog stopped in his tracks, laid his ears flat and loosed a single warning bark.
Noble returned Wizard’s nod and then reached down to pat the dog’s flanks. He made a few shushing noises while he checked his surroundings. If Wizard was traveling with backup, they were well hidden.
“It’s okay,” Noble told the dog and the animal relaxed some.
Wizard plucked the cigarette from his mouth and shot smoke from both nostrils. His voice sounded like sandpaper on wood. “Good to see you getting back in shape.”
Noble nodded, palmed sweat from his face and said, “You could have waited inside.”
Wizard gave a snort. “And risk that mutt ripping my throat open?”
The beast sat back on his haunches and was watched Wizard intently. The look on its face was clear. He was ready and waiting. His eyes said, “Try anything funny and I’ll bite your legs off.”
“Probably a good idea,” Noble said and scratched behind the dog’s ears.
Wizard took a drag and blew smoke while he studied Noble. It felt a little like being under a microscope. Wizard had a way seeing through the outer defenses and into the core. Noble stood there, feeling slightly uneasy, waiting for Wizard to take stock. He hadn’t come all the way to Florida for small talk, and he wasn’t interested in Noble’s exercise routine; there was a mission brewing and Wizard wanted to know if Noble was up to the task. After a minute he said, “Got a job for you.”
“Let’s get in out of this heat.”
Wizard shrugged. His expression said hot or cold, it was all the same to him.
They ambled past the gatehouse and along the wharf to the Yeoman. The forty-foot wooden schooner rocked on a gentle swell. Hawser lines creaked and waves slapped against the hull. Noble let Wizard go first. The dog insisted. They followed the old man onto the deck. Noble unlocked the door and they ducked into the cool shade of the galley.
“Get you something to drink?” Noble asked.
Wizard’s scraggly gray brows walked up his forehead. “Bit early in the day.”
Noble reached into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water. “Or I could brew a pot of coffee.”
“No thanks.” Wizard shook his head.
Noble had never seen Wizard drink anything without a warning label on the bottle. The old spymaster ran on scotch and cigarettes. Noble twisted the cap off his bottle of water and drank half of it down in one long swallow. He poured the rest into the dog’s dish, but the dog wasn’t drinking. His attention was still locked on the slim old man in the dark suit.
Wizard’s eyes settled on a thick NIV Bible laying on the galley table. Noble had picked it up at the same time as the book on grieving. He didn’t even know why at the time. He had been on his way to the cash register, book in hand, when he spotted the stack of Bibles on a display and grabbed one. For years Noble had avoided any mention of God or religion. His mother was a devout Christian with a head full of Bible verses and it irked Noble to no end listening to her prattle on about Jesus and all those apostles: Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, George, and Ringo. All God’s children said Amen. But Sam had been a Christian and Noble had made a deal to go to church with her just before she died. Picking up the Bible felt right, like he was honoring Sam’s last wish. And after all, he told himself, what could it hurt?
He had started at the beginning in Genesis, but those stories made his head spin. He couldn’t keep up with all the names and places, so he skipped ahead to the New Testament. He figured the New Testament had all the important stuff anyway. Mostly the Bible sat there collecting dust. Seeing it made him feel close to Sam, and that was enough for Noble.
He cleared his throat, picked up a stack of bills, and dropped them on top the Bible. He didn’t want to discuss it with Wizard and he couldn’t explain it even if he wanted to, so he lied. “My mother left it here.”
Wizard nodded as if that made sense.
Noble took another bottle of water from the fridge, slid onto the bench at the galley table and motioned for Wizard to join him.
The old spymaster settled into the booth and produced a black-and-white photograph of a young Arab girl in a black burka. Her features were a little too wide for her face— her nose was a little too big and her mouth a little too wide. She wasn’t smiling, just staring into the camera with a neutral expression fixed on her face. Her eyes were older than the rest, like they had seen things young girls shouldn’t see.
“Her name is Fatemeh Madani,” Wizard said. “She’s fourteen years old, from a little village outside of Tehran called Javadabad.
“What’s the Company’s interest?” Noble asked while he held the photograph up to a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the cabin window. The CIA didn’t usually waste time or effort looking after the welfare of prepubescent girls. That was normally a job for Greenpeace.
“She’s been arrested for treason.”
Chapter Seven
“Treason?” Noble said, indicating the girl in the photo. There had to be some kind of mistake. Fourteen-year-old girls aren’t normally arrested for treason, even in totalitarian states like Iran. He tapped a finger against the black-and-white photo. “Her?”
Wizard nodded. “She’s a high-level CIA asset.”
Noble leaned back in the booth and the Naugahyde creaked. “Since when does the CIA recruit fourteen-year-old girls?”
“We didn’t recruit her,” Wizard said. “She was a walk-in.”
A walk-in is Company parlance for an asset who seeks out the CIA, usually with the intent of passing classified information or defecting. Walk-ins are always tricky. They require thorough vetting. There’s always a chance, a very good chance, that a walk-in is a plant sent to feed false intel.
Noble said, “She prove her bona fides?”
“She’s the real McCoy,” Wizard said. “I vetted her myself.”
Noble whistled. It was rare for young girls to stand up against tyrannical regimes. Even more rare for Wizard to personally vet a source. Noble said, “Brave girl.”
“Brave and valuable,” Wizard said. “For the past two years, Fatemeh has been our top source of information on the Iranian regime.”
“What’s her angle?”
“She was a child bride,” Wizard explained. “Just twelve when her father married her off to General Shahin Abed Madani, a high-ranking cabinet member inside the Iranian regime. Madani is in charge of recruitment for Iran’s nuclear program. We were getting everything. Fatemeh was feeding us top level info on their nuclear capabilities along with the inside scoop on bitter rivalries within the regime. The intel she fed us was worth its weight in gold.”
“How’d it all go sideways?”
“Same way they always do,” Wizard said. “A lot of closely guarded secrets were finding their way into our hands and the Iranians figured they had a mole. It was only a matter of time before they figured out who. We kept playing the angle, hoping the Iranians would trace the leak back to the husband, Madani. If the regime took him out, they’d be doing us a favor, but the Iranians didn’t take the bait. Five days ago, Fatemeh was scheduled to pass a roll of microfilm to a cutout, but he never showed. Iranian intelligence rolled him up and he cracked under questioning. Fatemeh was arrested the next day.
“Can they prove anything?” Noble asked.
“It’s Iran,” Wizard said. “They don’t have to.”
The Iranian regime isn’t big on human rights; suspects are guilty until proven innocent and trials are mostly theater. The Mullahs running Iran believed in the socialist form of justice: show me the man and I’ll show you his crime. Suspicion alone is usually enough to convict. Courts often sentence people to death based on rumor, and sometimes even that isn’t required. Noble asked, “When’s the trial?”
“Yesterday,” Wizard said. “She’s been convicted and sentenced to death. One hundred lashes, followed by hanging.”
“The Iranians don’t believe in overkill do they?” Noble said.
Wizard shook his head. “She probably won’t survive the lashes.”
“Where is she being held?” Noble asked.
“Evin Prison.”
“That place is a fortress,” Noble commented, and it wasn’t hyperbole. Evin Prison was built into the side of a cliff and surrounded by twelve-inch concrete walls topped with razor wire. There was only one way in, and the guards were armed with automatic weapons. Noble said, “And you want to organize a rescue op?”
Wizard nodded.
“How long have we got?”
“Four days.”
“Impossible.” Noble tossed the picture on the galley table and shook his head. “Can’t be done.”
“We have to try,” Wizard said, but the words came out flat and devoid of emotion, like he had already given up on the girl.
Noble narrowed his eyes and studied the old spymaster. He said, “You don’t think it can be done either.”
Wizard hesitated a moment and then shook his head.
“Then why are we discussing this?”
“I’m a soldier, Jake, just like you.” Wizard lit one cigarette off the end of another, blew smoke and said, “I’ve got my marching orders. The president says to bring her out. We’re going to do everything we can to bring her out.”
“Even if that means dropping a team into the meat grinder?”
Wizard leaned back and shot smoke at the ceiling. “If you can’t pull it off, just say so. I’ll go back and tell Armstrong you declined the mission.”
Noble picked up the picture and propped his elbows on the galley table. He was all for saving assets—the CIA had a less than stellar record when it came to protecting the brave men and women who chose to pass sensitive intel to the United States—but this was more like suicide. Just getting inside the infamous prison would be hard enough; bringing someone out would be a miracle.
Wizard smoked his cigarette and gave Noble time to think. The boat rolled on gentle swells and the Florida sun warmed the galley with a drowsy sort of heat. The dog had finally accepted the presence of the stranger and popped on the floor of the cabin with his muzzle between his front paws, but his eyes never left Wizard even for a second. The old spymaster used a junk circular from the pile of unopened mail as a makeshift ashtray. He tapped a long gray rope onto an ad for barbeque grills and said, “If anyone has a chance of pulling this off, it’s you.”
“And if I refuse?”
Wizard looked out the window at green waves tipped with foam. “Clarke and Ortiz have already declined. If you say no, I’ll pay a visit to Hammond. If he won’t do it either”—Wizard hitched up boney shoulders—“I tell Armstrong the mission is a no-go.”
“Nice to know I was your first choice,” Noble said.
“No offense, Jake, but you haven’t exactly been a bastion of dependability these past few months.”
Noble admitted that with a shrug. “Any diplomatic options on the table?”
“None. We’re denying any knowledge of the girl or her actions. Tensions between us and Iran are already at a breaking point. The Iranians have been looking for an excuse to declare war on America. If they can prove we were using a fourteen-year-old girl to spy on them…” Wizard shook his head. “Besides, the press would have a field day.”
Optics, Noble thought to himself. It always comes down to optics. The United States government had put a fourteen-year-old girl’s life in danger to collect secrets on a totalitarian regime. Now that the girl had become a PR nightmare, the CIA was ready to cut ties and walk away. It didn’t sit well with Noble. He’d been on the other end of that equation not so long ago.
“How long have I got to think about this?” Noble asked.
“I’m headed back to Langley on a private jet out of Albert Whitted”—Wizard checked his wristwatch—“in four hours. If you’re not on the plane, I’ll assume you aren’t interested.”
Chapter Eight
Thirty minutes later, Noble passed through the double doors of the Wyndham Arms in downtown Saint Pete and got a nose full of talcum powder mixed with Bengay. He flashed a tight smile at the heavyset nurse behind the receptionist’s counter and signed the name Walter Mondale into the guest book. Noble had gotten into the habit of scrawling fake signatures whenever he visited. He wanted to know if anybody was actually reading the log. Turns out they weren’t. Big surprise. Last week he’d signed Sigmund Freud, and the week before that he was Vladimir Lenin. No one ever asked any questions and it bothered Noble on a professional level. If there were ever a robbery or, worse, a murder, the police would use the information in the logbook to see who had come and gone around the time of the crime, and since the logbook was not carefully monitored, the information in it would be useless.
Noble would talk to management if he thought it would help, but figured he and Mom would be shown the door and politely asked to find another ALF and, unfortunately, Noble couldn’t afford anyplace better. Money wasn’t so tight now that he was back on the Company payroll, but he wasn’t exactly flush.
Noble made his way through a traffic jam of walkers and wheelchairs around the tables where the old folks played penny poker, and when he didn’t find mom there, he checked her room. She wasn’t napping either. In the end he found her on the shuffleboard courts out back of the facilities.
Harsh white sun beat down on a smooth green apron of concrete, but a long row of dugouts sheltered the players from the heat. It seemed to be men versus women, and someone had brought along a handheld radio. The speakers were pumping out an old Chuck Berry tune. Mary Elise Noble had a stick in hand and she gave her disc a heroic shove, sending the little saucer hurtling along the track. Noble knew next to nothing about shuffleboard, but Mom’s disc (Were they even called discs? Noble wondered) came to a stop in the ten spot and that seemed to excite her team. The other ladies gave a loud chorus of cheers and Noble watched Mom fist-bump her teammates while Chuck Berry advised Beethoven to roll over.
Noble made his way along the row of shelters, raised both arms up and said, “Goal!”
Mary Elise Noble’s face lit up with a smile.
“You don’t make goals in this game, wisenheimer.” She reached up and pinched his cheek. “Good to see you, kiddo.”
“How you feeling?”
“Better than you,” she said scraping her fingertips against his cheeks. “You need a shave. What girl wants to kiss all that stubble?”
“I see you’ve taken up shuffleboard.”
“She’s one of the best players on the team,” one of the ladies informed Noble.
“You aren’t going to take her away, are you?” another lady asked.
Mary Elise Noble introduced Jake to her friends. He would never remember all their names and suspected he had met several of them before. Thankfully they didn’t remember him either. He shook several hands, had his cheeks pinched some more, fielded several offers to meet single nieces, and then begged to borrow his own mother for a few minutes. This request was met with mixed reviews. The ladies seemed to be winning and this interruption meant losing their star player.
Mary Elise Noble threaded her arm through Jake’s and a few minutes later they were strolling along the rear of the Wyndham Arms in the shade of the building. A bank of air-conditioning units gave off a continuous rattling hum and mosquitos attacked Noble’s bare arms. He hadn’t had time to change out of his workout gear and probably smelled like dirty gym socks.
“How’s the Beast?” Mom asked. She had met the dog several weeks ago when Noble brought Mom home for lunch and she had nicknamed him the Beast. The dog, for his part, took an immediate liking to Mary Elise Noble, something that almost never happened. Maybe because she was Jake’s mother, or because she was old, but the dog seemed to accept her presence on the boat with perfect calm and Noble had decided the dog was either the world’s best judge of character or expertly trained by his former master. Either way, Eliška had picked one hell of a guard dog.
“He’s good,” Noble said. “I still haven’t picked a name.”
“He’ll always be the Beast to me, no matter what name you pick,” she said. “Is he getting enough exercise? A dog like that needs to be walked every day, you know.”
By asking about the dog, she was really asking after Jake. He’d gone through a rough patch after Sam’s death and was just now starting to piece his life back together. He nodded and said, “The dog is getting plenty of exercise. So am I for that matter.”
She nodded. “First Corinthians says our bodies are a temple. We need to care for them like a temple.”
Mary Elise Noble was full of Biblical wisdom that only made vague sense to Jake. He’d never thought of his body as a temple. Just lately it was starting to feel more like a busted-down car in bad need of an overhaul. He remembered days, not too long ago, when a five-mile run was a light warm-up. Now shin splints made five miles feel more like a marathon. And, try as he might, Noble could not push more than two fifty-five on a bench press. He said, “My temple may need a renovation soon. I’m starting to get aches and pains.”
