Noble Intentions: Season Two (Episodes 6-10)

by L. T. Ryan

  The masked man at the door started yelling.

  Bear looked up. Rage flooded his body. He stood and started toward the man at the door.

  The man aimed his gun at Bear and yelled even louder using words that Bear couldn’t decipher.

  Bear stopped.

  Outside the bank, a cop car pulled up and three more weren’t far behind. The man at the door turned. Bear knew that was his opportunity. He dropped a few inches and kicked one foot back. Ready to charge. But before he could take a step, he felt jarring blow to the head. He dropped to one knee. Another blow met his head with a thud. He fell forward.

  “Grab the girl,” a man said from behind him.

  Bear pushed up to his hands and knees. Reached for Mandy. Couldn’t get to her in time. One of the masked men scooped her up.

  “Bear,” she screamed.

  Bear forced himself to his feet and stumbled after her and the man carrying her over his shoulder. She reached for Bear. Screamed his name. Her small hand grabbed and clutched at the air.

  Bear took three steps.

  A masked man jumped in front of him and smashed the butt of his assault rifle into Bear’s forehead.

  Bear stepped back. Lost his balance. Regained it.

  The man hit him in the stomach.

  Bear bent over. Then he felt another blow to the back of his head. And then another.

  He collapsed to the ground.

  Shots rang out. Single shots from the police. Bursts of fire from the bank robbers. Grunts and groans of men being shot and dying filled the air after the firing ended.

  Bear lifted his head and saw Mandy’s blond hair blowing in the wind as she was pulled inside a waiting car. The door slammed shut and the car drove off. The edges of his vision darkened. He fought against the swelling in his brain. He clawed at the ground. He almost made it to his elbows. Then he went unconscious.

  12

  “Jack,” Jasmine shouted from behind him. “Watch out.”

  It took a moment for the four men at the table to realize what had just happened. Between the cards on the table and the music blaring in the background it was easy to see why they didn’t answer the door. They never heard Jack knocking. But it didn’t take them long to assess Jack as a threat as he stood there next to their unhinged door, aiming a gun at them.

  One of the men rose from his chair and pulled out his pistol.

  Jack fired off a round. The bullet hit one of the seated men with a thud. Jack didn’t see who. He was too busy diving to the right and out of the armed man’s line of fire. Jack crawled a few feet and pressed against the wall on the other side of the staircase. He checked through the open doorway and saw that Jasmine had moved out of sight.

  The sounds of the men shuffling on the other side of the house died down. Jack hoped that Jasmine secured the rear of the house. Maybe he should have waited to burst in. Maybe she should have given him a bit more information. He had no idea what they would find here or if someone was placed into danger by them knocking on the door.

  He looked around the room, making sure there were no mirrors or reflective surfaces he could be seen in. None. Just a couple antique couches facing each other. A closed door sealed the room off from the one behind it. He inched along the angled wall and peeked over the stairs. A mirror hung on the far wall. In it he could see the man with the pistol leaning against the wall on the other side of the stairs. He didn’t see any of the others.

  Jack moved across the room and opened and slammed the door dividing the two rooms.

  The man on the other side of the stairs shouted and began to move, just like Jack expected him to. Jack aimed and fired a single shot over the stairs. The bullet hit the man in the side of the head and a cloud of sweat and blood and gray matter exploded into the air and hung there as the man collapsed to the floor.

  Jack rounded the staircase and knelt over the man’s body. He checked his neck for a pulse, although judging by the hole in the back of his head, the man was dead. Jack grabbed the dead man’s pistol and tucked it in his coat pocket.

  “Jack,” Jasmine’s voice called from the back of the house.

  He walked slowly through the dining room toward the kitchen. A door swung open and a man armed with a shotgun jumped out.

  Jack fired and hit the man in the chest. The man fell to his knees and Jack fired another round into his forehead. The man’s body flinched backward and then fell forward. Jack stepped over the body, not bothering to check for a pulse, and looked into the open doorway. Stairs led down into a dimly lit cellar. It sounded like someone else was down there. Jack placed a foot on the first step.

  “Jack,” Jasmine called out. Her voice came from the same level of the house, not below.

  He closed the cellar door and continued through the kitchen. He held his pistol in the air, close to his face. He stepped through a doorway and into a laundry area. There, he saw Jasmine. She gestured toward the back of the room. He saw a brown haired man with a young woman in front of him. He had one hand wrapped around her waist and in his other hand he held a knife. He pressed the knife against the woman’s throat.

  “Just stop right there,” the man said with a Russian accent.

  “Or what?” Jack asked.

  The woman’s eyes widened and her eyebrows lifted into her forehead. She reached one hand up and grabbed the man’s arm, but didn’t exert any force.

  “I’ll cut her,” the man said.

  Jack laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That you think I care,” Jack said.

  “I’m not kidding, I’ll slice her neck.” He pulled the knife away and then pressed it into the woman’s neck. A thin line of blood formed below the blade.

  “Then do it,” Jack said.

  The man cocked his head and his eyes narrowed. His grip on the woman’s stomach loosened and the hand holding the knife dropped a few inches.

  Jack didn’t wait for the man to regain his composure. He squeezed the trigger of the pistol in his outstretched hand. The bullet hit the man in the forehead. The knife fell to the ground and the man fell back against the washing machine. Jasmine rushed forward and wrenched the lady from his grip. The man slid down the front of the washing machine, leaving behind a smeared trail of blood.

  “You were going to let him kill me,” the woman said frantically.

  Jack shook his head. “I was never going to let him kill you.”

  “You told him to do it.”

  “Yeah, and he didn’t know what to think and loosened his grip and he dropped the knife an inch. It gave me a clear shot and I didn’t have to worry about him recoiling and cutting your neck open.”

  The woman stood there with her mouth open. Her eyes teared over as the gravity of the situation collapsed down on her. She threw her arms around Jack’s neck and pulled herself close. Soft sobs escaped her parted lips.

  Jack stood rigid at first, his arms out to the side. Finally, he stroked her hair and patted her back.

  “Hey, calm down. You’re OK. This can’t be the first time you’ve been in danger if you’re hanging around with men like this.”

  She said nothing. The sobs stopped, but she held tight.

  “Jasmine, get her hidden. There’s a fourth man. I think he’s in the cellar. We need to detain him. We need to question him.”

  Jasmine grabbed the woman and led her to the back door. She came back and said, “OK, Jack. Let’s get him out of there.”

  They walked back into the kitchen and Jasmine pulled the door open while Jack covered the opening.

  “Come on up,” Jack said into the opening. “Don’t make me come down there. Come up with your hands up.”

  The man in the cellar didn’t respond. Shuffling sounds floated up the stairs.

  “If I have to come down there, I’ll shoot you. I know you heard the gunshots up here. All of those shots killed your partners. They are all dead. Do you want to join them?”

  The man in the cellar started talking in a foreign l
anguage. Jack didn’t understand what he said. He looked back at Jasmine.

  She nodded.

  “He’s cursing in Russian.”

  Jack shrugged.

  “Last chance,” he said and then he turned to Jasmine and spoke loud enough that the man in the cellar could still hear him. “Cover me. You see him, you shoot.”

  Jack took two steps down the stairs.

  “I’m coming up. I’m coming up,” the man said. “I’m unarmed.”

  Two hands appeared from behind the wall and the rest of the man followed.

  “Take your shirt off and drop your pants,” Jack said.

  The man did and appeared to be unarmed.

  Jack stepped out of the cellar stairway and motioned the man up. He had Jasmine cover him and then he went to the bottom of the stairs and grabbed the man’s things. He also cleared the cellar and reported to Jasmine that it was empty. He climbed the stairs and threw the man’s clothes at him.

  “Get dressed.”

  “Jack,” Jasmine said. “We need to get out of here. Let’s get him to the car. You sit in back with him. We’ll interrogate him somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “Hell, I don’t care. The woods. A fast food bathroom. Anywhere but here.”

  Jack looked around.

  “They’re all dead. What’s the rush?”

  “The intel,” she said. “The report was that there were five men.”

  The man smiled and nodded.

  Jack swung his free hand and punched the man in the jaw. Then he grabbed him and dragged him out of the house. They crossed the street, made two left turns and got in the car. Jasmine drove and Jack sat in the back seat with the Russian man.

  Igor started banging against the trunk and kicking the back seat as soon as the car started moving.

  13

  Bear woke up to the sound of voices above him. The voices weren’t directed at him, but he knew they were talking about him. He opened his eyes and scanned the compact room. A yellow tinted fluorescent light illuminated the space. A man and woman sat on opposite sides of him. They were dressed in dark blue pants and wore white button up shirts. They wore light blue latex gloves. ID cards were pinned to their shirt pockets. The room shook and bounced and a siren wailed. A red light reflected off a surface outside and strobed across the ceiling. He tried to sit up but couldn’t move. He found himself strapped down.

  “What’s going on?” he asked in a cracked voice.

  “Just relax, Mr. Logan.” The woman wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm just above the elbow.

  Bear processed the situation and searched his memory for clues as to how he ended up here. He was in an ambulance. His head hurt like hell. He suffered head trauma. It might be severe. He was strapped down because they feared a spinal injury. A cold sweat broke out over his arms and chest and forehead. He wiggled his toes and clenched his hands into a fist. Everything worked. He exhaled. Relieved. He thought back to the moment he sustained the injury. He had been hovering over Mr. Jones dead body. A blow to the head. And then… Mandy. Fear flooded every cell in his body and his muscles tightened.

  “Where’s Mandy?”

  They paramedics didn’t respond.

  “Where’s my little girl?” His voice rose to a yell.

  The woman’s eyes shot up from the blood pressure readout and locked onto her partner. The man opposite her cleared his throat.

  “Sir, we didn’t find a little girl with you.”

  Bear shook his head. He had to get out. He fought against his restraints. Thrashed side to side. The thin strips of fabric that restrained him were no match for his size and strength. Not to mention his focus and determination. His right arm broke free. The medics tried to hold him down. He threw the man off of him and into the side of the ambulance.

  “Sir,” the woman said. “Calm down.”

  She frantically worked the cap off of a sterile needle and plunged it into a vial of liquid.

  Bear worked the restraints, undoing each one in succession down his body.

  The man crawled to the front and opened an access door between the cab and the back.

  “Stop the ambulance and get on the radio. We need the cops.”

  Bear reached over his head and grabbed the man by his leg. Pulled him close. Then he felt a pinch in his shoulder. He looked over at the woman. She leaned over his arm. In her mouth was the plastic cap from the sterile needle. She held the needle in her hand. She plunged it to the hilt into Bear’s arm.

  The panic and rage and fear dissipated. He felt calm. He felt like he was floating. The world slowed down a beat and he sank into the gurney.

  The ambulance stopped moving. Stopped shaking. The back doors opened and a police officer stepped in. The man turned blurry as he crossed into the artificial light.

  “He’s just in shock,” the woman told the officer.

  Bear felt the woman wrap her hand around his forearm. She squeezed his arm reassuringly. He looked over at her and back at the cop. The officer’s face was now clear.

  The male paramedic climbed through the access door to sit in the cab with the driver. The cop took his spot in the back.

  “There won’t be any more trouble, will there?” the cop said to Bear.

  Bear shook his head. He tried to speak but his lips wouldn’t move. In the end he grunted a few times. Closed his eyes. He felt the ambulance shift into gear and begin moving again. He wanted to fight, to get up and break through the back door and find Mandy. But he couldn’t.

  * * *

  Bear had been alone in the hospital room for fifteen minutes. The sedative the female paramedic gave him was wearing off. He contemplated getting up and leaving, but wanted to speak with the cops first. He had to find out about Mandy. Maybe they had her and were bringing her in to see him.

  A hand poked through the open doorway and knocked against the door. A man stepped forward. He wore khaki pants and a blue sport coat. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and he had no tie on. He appeared to be mid-forties and had gray hair mixed in with a full head of brown.

  “Mr. Logan?”

  Bear nodded and sat up.

  “I’m Detective Larsen. Hope I’m not disturbing you. We needed to get a statement from you.”

  “Where’s Mandy?”

  The detective cocked his head to the side.

  “My little girl. Where is she?”

  Larsen took three steps forward and stopped at the end of the bed.

  “Mr. Logan—”

  “Call me Bear.”

  “OK. Bear, there was a young girl, blond hair, that was abducted.”

  Bear’s mind raced. He thought back. He remembered. They carried her out. Put her in the car. Her hair blew in the wind. He closed his eyes and heard her screams once again.

  “I know this is tough, Mr., uh, Bear. We are doing everything we can and are in contact with the FBI.”

  Bear swung a large leg over the side of the bed and hopped off.

  “It won’t be enough, Detective.”

  Larsen threw his hands in the air and backed up toward the doorway.

  “You can’t do that, sir. They are evaluating you for a concussion. You need to stay in the hospital tonight.”

  The edges of Bear’s vision darkened and he felt his body sway. He gritted his teeth and fought the feelings back.

  “No way I’m staying here when they have her.”

  “Bear, you got no choice.”

  Bear searched the room for his clothes. Didn’t find them. He turned to Larsen and pointed at him.

  “You listen to me. You have no idea who I am or what I am capable of. If you want to help me, fine. But if not, stay out of my way.”

  Larsen said nothing. He stood in the doorway with his hands in front of him. He shook his head slowly.

  “You got kids?” Bear asked.

  Larsen nodded.

  “Then you know what I’m going through.”

  Larsen continued to nod.

  “
Tell me everything that you know,” Bear demanded.

  Larsen pulled the sleeve of his sport coat back and checked his watch. He cleared his throat and took three steps toward Bear, stopping just a few feet away. He lowered his voice and said, “I’m off shift in an hour. I’ll get you checked out of here and we’ll go someplace to talk.”

  “Why? Why not now?”

  Larsen motioned for Bear to keep it down. “Because the man behind this has half the department in his back pocket, if you know what I mean.”

  Bear nodded. “OK. One hour. Bring me some clothes.”

  “What size?”

  “Extra frickin large.”

  14

  Five minutes outside the city, Jasmine turned onto a dirt road and continued until they were out of sight from the highway. She threw the car in park, got out and opened the trunk. Jack looked through the back window after the trunk slammed shut. Jasmine ordered Igor to go sit against a tree, then she motioned for Jack to get out.

  “Don’t move.” Jack pulled his pistol from its holster and aimed it at the man in the backseat. He backed out of the car and looked up at Jasmine. “What now?”

  “Get him out and bring him back here.”

  Jack leaned forward and nodded at the Russian.

  “You heard the lady.”

  The man slid across the bench seat and exited through the open door. Jack grabbed him by the elbow and led him behind the car.

  “Go stand against that tree.” Jasmine motioned toward a dogwood in bloom.

  Jack followed the Russian to the tree and then held him there at gunpoint. He glanced over his shoulder to check on Jasmine and Igor.

  She placed nylon restraints around Igor’s wrists and a black cloth bag over his head.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Igor sat and leaned back against the base of a pine tree.

  “We’ll be back for you in a minute.” Jasmine walked toward Jack and stopped about fifteen feet away. “Jack, come here.”