Noble Sanction

by William Miller

  Noble popped the clasps on the cheap medical kit and lifted the lid. It wasn’t much more than bandages, tape, disinfectant, and pain killers, but it was better than nothing. He sorted the contents, selected an alcohol swab, and ripped it open.

  “This is going to sting,” he told her.

  Eliška gripped the edge of the table with bone-white knuckles when Noble touched the swab to the bruised and mangled globe. A scream caught in her throat. She clamped her jaw shut, cutting off the sound.

  “Just breathe,” Noble reminded her.

  He used the disinfectant swab and tried to keep his mind on the task at hand. It wasn’t easy. He worked quickly, first cleaning the numerous punctures and then tearing open a large bandage. Eliška had closed her eyes, making things easier on him. She was taking deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth. Sweat beaded on her forehead.

  Noble placed the square pad over the worst of the injuries and said, “Hold.”

  Eliška pinned the bandage in place without opening her eyes. Noble wrapped clean white gauze around her chest. He passed the gauze under her arms and over her shoulders until she was wearing a crude linen bra. It wasn’t much, but should be enough to prevent infection and keep the worst of the cuts from tearing open every time she moved.

  Eliška’s eyes fluttered opened. She looked down and nodded appreciation. Her hand found his. He was placing one last piece of tape. She trapped his fingers against her ribcage.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t mention it,” Noble said. He could feel her heart beating beneath her chest and noticed, for the first time, how close she was. A small fire kindled in his belly. His breath sounded loud in the confines of the cabin. He tried to take his hand back, but Eliška held tight. She leaned into him and her lips graced his cheek. The soft touch left a trail of fire on Noble’s skin. He felt that old familiar stirring in his gut and, before he could stop himself, he was returning her kisses.

  Their mouths melded together. She moved his hand down to her bare stomach. Noble felt porcelain skin beneath his fingertips. The fire in his gut blazed white-hot. He gathered her up in his arms, careful to avoid her inured chest, and Eliška tore at his clothes. He worked the button on her denims while she pulled his shirt over his head.

  Eliška saw the ragged claw marks and stopped. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. “Did you kill my dog?”

  Noble paused with one hand on her zipper. “He’s alive and well.”

  Eliška took his face in both hands and smothered him in kisses. Noble knew it was wrong. Eliška was a stone-cold killer. She had murdered P. Arthur Fellows and left him in a closet. She’d kill Noble given half the chance. But those facts dwindled to background noise. Right now, they were rocketing through the countryside on a collision course with Lucas Randall. They might not live through tomorrow. This moment, here and now, was all that mattered.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Otto Keiser was in his office watching the stock tickers. Half a dozen aides were gathered around the long conference table, monitoring the markets from their tablets while sipping cups of organic free-trade coffee. The smell permeated the air. It was the only thing keeping the group awake. The sky outside the floor-to-ceiling windows was velvet black. American markets were getting ready to close and the dollar was strong. Both the S&P and the DOW were up.

  “Short another five hundred million in US dollars,” Keiser ordered.

  The tension in the room was palpable. Several of his aides shifted in their seats. Yuri Popov cleared his throat.

  Keiser grumbled, “What is it, Yuri?”

  “Sir, with all due respect, the dollar is strong right now and the US economy isn’t showing any signs of a correction. Are we sure this is the right move?”

  Yuri was a good trader with a nose for unicorns, but Keiser didn’t like being questioned. He had built this fund from the ground up with his own money. He fought to keep his temper in check. “I know full well what the dollar looks like. I can see it right here in front of me. And I’m telling you to short another half billion.”

  Yuri keyed the trade into his tablet without another word. Over the course of the next hour they watched as the price of the dollar showed a slight tremor. Other investors were taking notice of Quantum’s position and reacting, but it wasn’t enough to start a correction. Not yet. That would come later.

  Keiser leaned back in his wheelchair, propped his elbows up and laced his fingers together. He had already arranged for an exposé on the 2.1 trillion in counterfeit currency. When the time was right, one of Keiser’s secretaries would leak the story to a trusted source in the newsroom at CNN, and the price of the dollar would plummet.

  Not long now, Keiser told himself.

  In a few days, America would be brought to her knees. The juggernaut of the West would finally crumble. For decades now, America had forced its morals on the other nations of the world through the violence of capitalism. The free market economy was a system of oppression, a weapon the rich used to exploit the working class for profit. To Keiser, America represented slavery, racism, and bigotry—a country of wealth built on the backs of the working man.

  But that will all change, thought Keiser. When the dollar collapsed and the economy crumbled, America would descend into utter chaos. There would be rioting and looting in the streets. Stoke the fires of rebellion so that the world can be reshaped, Keiser told himself. It was a Fabian principle. The idea was to implement democratic Socialism gradually through the slow and careful manipulation of world economies. Fabians understood that people had to be brought slowly and, more importantly, voluntarily to the freedom of Socialism. It could not be forced on a society. First the capitalist systems of oppression had to break down. Only then could the machines of social reform take over. For that to happen, is was necessary to break the American economy.

  Keiser had been striving to reach that goal for decades. All the money and power he had built had been accumulated in pursuit of a singular purpose: destroy America and finally end the free market. He would use their own system against them. When America had collapsed under its own weight, the new order could begin.

  The closing bell signaled the end of the trading day. Keiser dismissed his staff with a few curt words of encouragement and an admonition to be back at two o’clock sharp for opening bell. They collected their tablets and filed out of the room, headed home for a few hours of sleep before it all began again. Keiser pushed away from the long conference table and wheeled himself to the windows for a look at the glittering lights of Bern.

  Not long now.

  Soon, everything would change. Soon, America would be just a memory, a failed experiment. And once that lumbering behemoth of bigotry and oppression was finally out of the way, the Fabian Society would lead the world into a better tomorrow.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The morning sun was just a warm yellow rumor bleeding into the dark horizon when Armstrong’s secretary handed her a folder stuffed full of urgent cables. She carried the stack, along with her second cup of coffee, to her office where she leaned back in her executive leather chair and paged through the documents. Most of it was boilerplate stuff. With the situation in Prague finally under control, Armstrong was able to turn her attention to other matters. Tensions between Iran and America were mounting. The radical factions running Iran had fired on American merchant ships. The president was rattling his saber. Half the nitwits in the mainstream media voiced the opinion that the president should back down, give concessions, and defuse the situation. They didn’t understand a move like that would only embolden the Iranian regime. Armstrong had a team full of experts on the Middle East who assured her the only thing they respected was force.

  She kicked off her flats as she read through the reports and shrugged out of her pinstriped jacket. Nothing in the folder came as any surprise until she got to the end. Out of curiosity, she had asked Farnham to keep an eye on the financial news. The very last pa
ge was a reprinted article from Investopedia.com titled, “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England Sets His Sights on the US Dollar—and Investors Are Starting to Panic.”

  It was like a lead weight dropping into her belly and pinning her to the seat. Armstrong scanned the article, and all the puzzle pieces—the counterfeits, the assassin, the United Front—started falling into place. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Yesterday’s edition of Investor’s Business Daily was still laying on the coffee table, the headline facing up. Armstrong put two and two together. A counterfeiting ring capable of producing untraceable bills and a billionaire shorting the dollar. The idea sent a shiver tip-toeing up her back. If she was right …

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about the fallout. She pulled her jacket back on, took the reprinted article along with the Investor’s Business Daily, and hurried down the hall to the operation room.

  Both analysts turned at the sound of the door. Witwicky’s hair was a frizzy mess and Cook had dark bags under his eyes.

  “Has Noble arrived in Berlin?” Armstrong asked.

  “We’re waiting to hear from him,” Witwicky spoke through a yawn.

  Armstrong dropped the IBD onto their cluttered workstation. “An investment banker named Otto Keiser is short-selling US dollars.”

  “Never heard of him,” Witwicky said.

  Cook reached for the paper and scanned the headline. “Maybe he’s just betting on the wrong pony. Investors make bad decisions all the time.”

  Armstrong paced back and forth. “That’s a hundred billion dollar bet against the market.”

  “He’ll lose his shirt if he’s wrong,” Witwicky remarked.

  “Men like Keiser don’t make billions backing the wrong horse,” Armstrong said. “In fact, they don’t make a move without rock-solid information.”

  Cook looked up at her. “What are you thinking, boss?”

  Armstrong stopped her pacing. “The economy is booming. The dollar isn’t showing any signs of a correction. Short-selling the dollar doesn’t make any sense.”

  Witwicky was nodding along as Armstrong spoke. She said, “Unless you have reason to believe the dollar will take a hit.”

  Armstrong nodded.

  “You think he’s involved?” Witwicky asked.

  “I think at the very least he’s got insider information,” Armstrong said.

  “What do you want us to do?” Cook asked.

  “Dig into Otto Keiser’s background,” Armstrong told them. “Find out everything you can about him. I specifically want to know if he’s got ties to the United Front.”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Noble lay huddled next to Eliška in the tiny bed, feeling the rhythm of the train as it clanked along the tracks. He was on his back, staring up at the overhead bunk. One hand was stuffed under the flimsy pillow. The other arm was trapped beneath Eliška. She was draped along his side, her back to the wall, her fingertips lightly tracing the lines of his chest. Noble enjoyed the press of her body against him and her touch. It had been a long time. So long in fact, that Noble had nearly forgotten what it was like. It was good, but now that it was over, a nagging sense of shame crept up and took hold.

  Noble couldn’t place it at first. He had no hang-ups about sex. He certainly wasn’t a prude. He liked sex and would do it more often, but his lifestyle didn’t exactly jibe with long-term relationships. Special Forces operators had an incredibly high divorce rate. The CIA wasn’t much better. But that wasn’t what was bothering Noble. He wasn’t in love with Eliška. He certainly didn’t have any intention of marrying her. She was a killer for hire and he was the guy sent to stop her. Fate had thrown them together. Neither harbored any illusions about love or fidelity. They were just two lonely people hurtling toward a deadly confrontation. Both of them knew it might be their last night on Earth. There were no guarantees. They might die tomorrow, and wanted to feel another human’s touch before checking out. It was as simple as that. So it was a moment before Noble realized what was bothering him. It wasn’t the cheap, desperate act of two lonely people on a train facing uncertain odds.

  It was Sam.

  Sam—like Noble’s mother—had been a born-again, bible-quoting Christian. A true believer. Let all God’s children say amen, Noble thought with a heavy dose of irony. Hell, when Noble first met Sam, she had been running a shelter for abused women. She didn’t believe in sex before marriage and had made that fact perfectly—painfully—clear to Noble during their first encounter. What would she think of him sleeping with a murderer?

  It was like a barbed arrow straight to Noble’s heart.

  What if she could see him right now? What if there really was an afterlife? Noble swallowed hard. Was Sam up there right now looking down on him? Did she know? Noble felt hot with shame and self-loathing. He felt certain that Sam, wherever she was, knew. He felt that he had defiled her memory for a moment of pleasure. The idea left a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Eliška propped her head up on a fist and whispered, “What is her name?”

  The question jerked Noble from his reverie. He craned his neck up for a look at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were thinking about a woman just now.” There was no accusation in her tone, just curiosity.

  He put his head back down on the pillow. “How did you know?”

  “A woman always knows.” A knowing smile played on her lips. “What is her name?”

  “Sam,” Noble admitted.

  Eliška’s fingers stopped. She placed her hand flat on his chest and pushed herself up to look him in the eye. “This is a man’s name.”

  “Short for Samantha,” Noble told her.

  Eliška relaxed and her fingers went back to exploring his body. “She is your wife?”

  “No,” Noble said.

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “It’s complicated,” Noble said.

  “You will tell her about us?” Eliška asked.

  “I can’t.” Noble swallowed a knot in his throat. It took him a moment to say the words out loud, as if speaking it made it true. He licked his lips and croaked out, “She’s dead.”

  “I am very sorry for your loss,” Eliška said and sounded like she meant it.

  Up until now, Noble figured she was motivated entirely by greed and vengeance. It was strange to think of an assassin feeling remorse. He felt the armor around his heart shift. Hairline fractures formed in his defenses. Noble knew it was a mistake. She was a killer. It was a mistake to get too close, to let her under his skin.

  “She was very lucky woman,” Eliška said.

  Noble shifted on the bunk, putting some space between them, and gave her a hard look.

  Eliška read his expression and hurried to explain. “She was loved by a very good man before she died. Yes, she was very lucky, I think. I will never know this type of love. I have never been loved by a man.”

  “Your father loved you,” Noble said.

  “Yes, my father loved me,” she said and laid her head on his chest. “Only, he is dead now.”

  Noble didn’t have any response to that. Piotr Cermákova had lived a hard life and met a bitter end. Nothing Noble or Eliška did now could bring him back. They could only avenge him. Noble felt a drop of wet on his skin and realized Eliška was silently weeping. Tears spilled down her cheeks onto his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and let her cry.

  “We’ll get ‘em,” he whispered. “We’ll make ‘em pay.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “We found a connection between Keiser and the United Front,” Ezra said. He pushed a thumb and forefinger into his eyes in an effort to stay awake. He didn’t remember what sleep felt like. He was operating inside a thick fog. He had to check all his numbers twice. His thoughts came slow and trudging, like petulant children reluctantly settling down to their homework. All he wanted to do was curl up on the sofa and drift off, but he forced himself to stay awake. Red Bull helped. He said, “It’s nothing we can prove in a court
of law, but it’s there all the same.”

  Armstrong crossed her arms and nodded for him to continue. “Impress me.”

  Ezra waved a hand at his computer screen. “After leaving the CIA, Lucas Randall took a job working for Global Security Solutions. Global Security is owned by a parent company called First Initiative Holdings.”

  “Let me guess,” said Armstrong. “Owned by Apollo Fund?”

  “Close,” said Gwen. “Owned by a legal entity which is owned by Apollo Fund.”

  Armstrong nodded understanding. “Suspicious but not necessarily criminal. He might be doing it for tax purposes.”

  “That’s the way Keiser runs all his businesses,” Gwen said. “He controls literally hundreds of corporations, but he doesn’t technically “own” any of them,” She put the word in air quotes. “He’s just the primary shareholder of the parent companies.”

  “So you’re telling me Lucas Randall worked for Otto Keiser?” Armstrong asked.

  “That part’s not in question,” Ezra said. “Randall definitely worked for Keiser. He spent six months at Global Security Solutions before he was tapped to run Keiser’s personal security detail. Only, he was no longer going by the name Lucas Randall. He disappears from Global Security’s payroll and reappears under the alias Luke Ralston.”

  “You’re kidding?” Armstrong uncrossed her arms.

  Ezra shook his head.

  “How did you find that out?” she wanted to know.

  “Found a picture of Keiser attending a fundraiser for candidate Helen Rhodes in 2016.” Ezra drew her attention to a picture on the screen. “That’s Keiser in the wheelchair, and standing right behind him …”

  “Lucas Randall,” Armstrong finished for him. She leaned over his shoulder to scan the photo and Ezra caught a glimpse down her blouse.