Noble Man

by William Miller

  Noble Man

  By

  William Miller

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Noble Man and all characters

  Copyright © 2015 by William Miller.

  Cover design by Marian Koster.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in printed or electronic form without express permission.

  Dedication and special thanks:

  This book is the result of a lot of hard work and effort. I could not have done it without the support of some amazing people. I would especially like to thank Marte Gruber who gave me lots of valuable feedback on the first draft, Marian Koster who provided Noble Man with an amazing cover, and my editor Jena Roach, who caught all my typos.

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  62

  63

  64

  65

  66

  67

  68

  69

  70

  Afterword

  1

  Jacob Noble’s plane landed in Doha shortly before sundown. His entry Visa listed him as a security analyst for a non-existent data solution firm headquartered in San Jose. If anyone bothered to call the phone number, they’d speak to a very pleasant secretary who would confirm Noble’s identity. With cybercrime on the rise, companies in the Middle East were snapping up security consultants in an effort to safeguard their systems from attack. Roughly a dozen tech nerds passed through customs every month. It made the perfect cover.

  A customs agent compared Noble to his photograph. He looked more like a surfer than a computer expert. He was lean and hard with tan skin and shaggy hair. He wore a rumpled sports coat, faded denims, and scuffed loafers. His t-shirt proclaimed, “Don’t Monkey with My Tail.” His wallet contained fake ID and credit cards to match his cover. Despite never having set foot in San Jose, he had a ticket stub to the movie theater on Roosevelt Boulevard. There was even a well-read note from a fictitious girlfriend folded up behind his driver’s license. The customs agent stamped Noble’s Visa and instructed him to enjoy his stay.

  He passed through the bustling international terminal, collected his baggage from the carousel, and made his way outside. Heat hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. It was early May and already hot enough to melt the tarmac. Beads of perspiration trickled down his forehead. A patch of sweat formed between his shoulders.

  From Hamad International Airport he took a cab to a four-star hotel on Al Awarsi Street. It was just expensive enough for a programmer from Silicon Valley. Noble deposited his fake luggage in the room and went back downstairs. He made a point of asking the concierge for directions to a trendy nightspot. Outside he took another cab into the heart of the city. This time he dropped the tourist act. He gave the driver directions in Farsi to the Qatar News Agency south of Al Waab Street.

  He tipped the driver and spent the next twenty minutes performing what was known, in tradecraft circles, as a surveillance detection route. He wandered the crowded neighborhood in the blistering heat, stopped at various street vendors, took turns at random, and doubled back to throw off pursuit. Barkers called to him. Livestock brayed and honked. The pungent aroma of Arabian spices attacked his nose. Satisfied that he had not been followed, Noble ducked into a travel agency on Abu Bakr.

  A squeaky ceiling fan stirred the oppressive heat. A few faded posters clung to the walls. Noble’s shoes stuck to the floor and made loud peeling noises with each step. Everything about the office was designed to ward off potential customers. A pudgy Arab with tired eyes slouched in a swivel chair reading the evening edition. He peered over the top of the paper as Noble entered. “Hello, my friend. Welcome to Qatar. Are you interested in a tour of our beautiful country?”

  “Actually, I’m here to meet a friend,” Noble said, using the prearranged code. “Goes by the name Finch.”

  The Arab folded his paper. One hand disappeared beneath the desk. With a smile he said, “The Englishman?”

  “American,” Noble said.

  His hand reappeared. “Take the stairs all the way to the top.”

  Noble nodded, pushed through a beaded curtain, and mounted a narrow staircase to the third floor. At the landing, he caught snatches of whispered conversations through a flimsy wood door. He knocked. There was a pause from inside and then, “Who is it?”

  “Muskrat,” Noble said.

  Supposedly a computer spit these operational codenames out at random. Muskrat was innocuous enough. He’d also been Starlight, Rosepetal, Babydoll, and Debutante. Noble was convinced some wit back at Langley was picking names that tickled his funny bone.

  The door opened to the end of the security chain. Jesus Torres’s grinning face filled the gap. He was a short Hispanic man with a neatly trimmed goatee and impeccable teeth. He glanced past Noble into the empty stairwell, then closed the door, removed the chain, and opened it again. “Welcome to the party, amigo.”

  Five men, equipment, and sleeping mats crowded the small room. In one corner, they had set up a makeshift listening post. Antennae bristled from the back of a clunky electronic tower powered by a cyclical battery. A black-and-white satellite photo of Doha covered a foldout table in the center of the room. The air stank of strong Arabian coffee and cigarettes.

  Noble locked and chained the door. “Bring me up to speed. How’s our cover?”

  “Intact,” Nathan Horn told him. He sat atop a plastic food crate in front of the communications equipment with a headphone pressed against his left ear. A toothpick protruded from the corner of his mouth. “Our assets on the ground haven’t picked up any chatter. There are rumors of a rebel uprising in Saudi Arabia. Nothing to worry about.”

  Noble rotated the satellite picture to face him. The target building was circled in green. The primary extraction route was marked in red. Blue marked the secondary route. “Walk me through it,” he said.

  Hassan Ahmad, the team’s only Arab, plucked a clove cigarette from his mouth. He blew smoke at the ceiling where it formed a lazy blue halo around a naked bulb. “We drive to the target house. There’s a pair of SUVs waiting downstairs. The trucks are stolen so leave the keys in the ignition when you are done.

  “Myself, Horn, and Sutter go in the front door. Noble, Torres, and Randall go in through the back. The layout inside is relatively simple. First floor is one large room with a corner office
and a toilet. The top floor is a little more complicated. Four bedrooms and a bath. Be sure you clear them.”

  “Opposition?” Noble asked.

  “Light,” Hassan said. “Just the seller and his two hired guns. The goods are held inside a wire cage on the first floor. Once the hostiles are down, Torres drives the getaway truck to the front door. Two minutes to neutralize the bad guys and three to load the cargo. We’re in and out in five minutes.”

  Noble turned his attention to Torres. “How’s our extract?”

  Jesus gave him a thumbs up. “The truck is parked a block away, and the boat is sitting at the dock, gassed up and waiting on passengers.”

  Paul Sutter, a former member of the United States Navy’s top-secret Developmental Group, looked like a long haul trucker with receding hair and soft eyes. He asked, “How long from the target building to the dock?”

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes depending on traffic,” Torres said.

  Lucas Randall whistled through his teeth. “Lot of time to be out in the open.” He was a veteran of Iraq, Afghanistan, and a score of top-secret operations around the globe. If there were too many moving parts in an op, Lucas would be the first to point it out.

  Noble agreed but shrugged. “Not much we can do about that.” He had spent the last six months fine-tuning this op, planning every detail. He had invested too much to walk away now. He checked his watch. It was 2120. “We move at 2200 hours. We hit the house at 2215. Anyone have objections? Now is the time.”

  No one spoke.

  “Let’s go kill some bad guys,” Noble said. He held out a fist. Torres bumped it.

  2

  For the next fifteen minutes, the cramped hotel room was a flurry of activity. The team cleaned and inspected weapons, wrapped electrical tape around grenade pins, and tested their ear mics. Noble checked the action on a Kalashnikov rifle. He worked the charging handle several times to be sure the bolt was free of snags and then pulled the trigger on an empty chamber. Satisfied, he fed a magazine into the weapon and gave it a slap to be sure it seated properly. He shed his sports coat, slipped into a tactical harness, and then collected five extra mags and a flashbang grenade.

  Hassan had bought the gear through back channels after arriving in Qatar a week earlier. It was all local and would trace back to illegal arms dealers in the United Arab Emirates. The vehicles had been boosted from a local construction company. Only the communications equipment in the corner was American. As soon as they left, the local asset manning the desk downstairs would dispose of it and scrub the room.

  By 2135 the six men were armed and ready. They had checked and rechecked their gear. Now all they could do was wait. They cracked jokes to ease the tension. The minute hand on Noble’s Tag Heuer moved with agonizing slowness. Lucas chain-smoked. Torres did free-weight squats to keep his blood up. Horn managed a digital farm on his cell phone. At 2200 the group rose without a word; they moved in silence down the stairs and out the back door to the waiting SUVs.

  They drove through crowded markets and narrow alleys. Qatar is a combination of the old and new. Modern high-rises loom over shanty towns. Polished BMWs and beaters held together with duct tape throng the major arteries. The locals use their horns incessantly.

  Torres was behind the wheel of the rear SUV. Dust caked the front windshield. He triggered the wipers, cutting a path through layers of grit. Noble rode in the passenger seat with his AK47 between his knees, sorting through contingencies. A host of things could go sideways. As the team leader, it was his job to prepare for eventualities. Black ops into friendly countries require surgical precision and absolute deniability. Officially, Qatar was neutral on the world stage. Noble and his team were breaking dozens of international laws and, if caught, the United States government would disavow them.

  The target house was a two-story sandstone structure in a quiet neighborhood. It had faded blue shutters and stout metal doors that screamed “Go Away.”

  Torres split off from the lead SUV and turned down a narrow dirt lane that ran behind the building. The alley was littered with trash and lit by the spill from a few barred windows. The light from the headlamps fell on a half-starved mongrel nosing through the trash. The dog tucked his tail and ran as the SUV entered the alley. Torres parked and cut the engine. Noble released his seat belt. Lucas, slouched in the backseat, used the butt of a cigarette to light another. The noxious cloud filled the SUV. Noble cranked down the passenger side window for a breath of dry desert air. The heat, even at ten o’clock, was oppressive.

  Torres looked in the rearview mirror. “How do you not have cancer?”

  “Gotta die of something,” Lucas said.

  “Do you have to take us with you?” Noble asked.

  Torres laughed.

  The tension inside the vehicle mounted as the minutes ticked past. Noble focused on his breathing, keeping his heart rate regular so when it came time to pull the trigger his hands would be steady. At 2210 Sutter keyed his mic. His voice came over the net in whisper. “Boss, we got a problem. Looks like the buyer’s here early. A car just pulled up, followed by a van.”

  The first tickle of fear started at the base of Noble’s skull. He opened his mic. “Talk to me.”

  “Three men are getting out of the car. Looks like the drivers are staying with the vehicles. Be advised; the party crashers are wearing Uzis on shoulder rigs.”

  Noble chewed the inside of one cheek. Operations had a habit of going bad at the last minute. A buyer showing up a day ahead of schedule might mean nothing or it might mean the entire operation was blown. Counter intelligence work was a wilderness of mirrors. There were layers within layers.

  The Green Berets had taught Noble to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Failure was not an option. All that changed when he joined the CIA’s Special Operations Group. The Company teaches their agents that when there is doubt, there is no doubt. Keeping your cover intact is mission one. Sometimes it’s best to walk away.

  Sutter came over the mic and asked, “How do you want to play it, boss?”

  Noble weighed his options. He could abort. Doing nothing meant watching twenty-three women loaded up and carted off to be sold as slaves. They would be used, abused, and then discarded like trash. It meant standing aside and allowing innocent people to suffer. That option didn’t sit well with Noble. He looked across at Torres.

  “They’ll disappear into the market,” Torres said. “We won’t get a second shot at this.”

  “We are changing the op,” Noble spoke into the mic. “My team will breach and secure the first floor. Sutter, as soon as you hear us pop the back door, your team will take out the drivers and then come through the front. I’ll lead my team up stairs to secure the second floor while you load the goods on the truck. Any questions?”

  “Roger that,” Sutter replied. “Let’s rock and roll.”

  3

  Noble climbed out. Torres and Lucas followed. They left the doors open. The muffled thump of a slamming car door would draw unnecessary attention. The keys were in the ignition. With any luck, a thief would happen by and take the vehicle for a ride, helping to muddy the trail.

  Noble moved along the alley in a half-crouch with Torres close behind. Lucas brought up the rear. They stacked up at the back door of the target building. Noble gave a hand signal. Lucas hurried forward, letting his rifle hang at the end of its sling, and went to work affixing adhesive blasting strips to the door frame. He was one of the best operators in the business. In a few short seconds, he had placed the strips, set a charge, and retaken his place at the end of the line. He counted down from five on his fingers.

  A deafening whomp blew the door and most of the frame into the room, killing one man instantly. His mangled body went tumbling across the floor like a broken marionette.

  Noble was moving before the metal door hit the ground. He ducked through the shattered frame into a swirling cloud of dust. The explosion had destroyed most of the overhead lighting. One neon bulb managed to survive. It fl
ickered and buzzed. On Noble’s left, a door opened onto a stairwell. On his right, a chain-link fence sectioned off half the room. Five men hunched up their shoulders like turtles trying to retreat inside their shells. Four were armed. Noble ignored a gunman directly in front of him and moved to his right, into the far corner.

  Ignoring a thug with an automatic weapon goes against natural instincts, but taking down a room full of bad guys is a delicate ballet. It requires precision movements. If Noble paused long enough to kill the tango in front of him, he would foul up Torres immediately behind and that would roadblock Lucas. All three of them would bottleneck in the open doorframe. Instead they fanned out into opposite corners of the room, forcing the enemy to divide their attention.

  The closest gunman shook off the shock of the blast, tracked Noble, and pressed the trigger. The Uzi spit a stream of bullets. Lead impacted the wall over Noble’s shoulder with hard cracks.

  Lucas came through the door last and silenced the Uzi with a short burst from his AK47. Bullets stitched the guy’s chest and drove him backward. He died shooting holes in the ceiling.

  Noble trained his weapon on an Arab in a five-thousand-dollar suit with impeccable hair and a gold wristwatch. He shouted orders in Farsi, “Get down on the floor! Get down on the floor, now!”

  Torres and Lucas caught the remaining tangos in a cross fire. Their twin AK47’s cut down the bad guys before they had a chance to mount a counterattack. The fight was over before it began, but the Arab in the suit wasn’t cooperating. Noble kept ordering him onto the ground. Instead of hitting the deck, the man reached a hand into his suit jacket.

  Time slowed. A thousand possibilities raced across the surface of Noble’s mind. The man could have a gun, a grenade, or a detonator. The simple press of a button could kill Noble, his team, and the hostages. To wait was to invite death. Noble couldn’t afford to find out what the Arab had under his jacket.

  He squeezed the trigger. His AK47 kicked. The muzzle flashed. The shot ripped the back of the man’s head off. His knees buckled. He landed flat on his back.