Noble Man

by William Miller

  “Hang a left at this intersection,” he told her.

  She put on the indicator. “And the exit,” she said, more to herself than Noble. Her mind was putting together the pieces. “You knew exactly where we’d come out. Like you had it all planned.” She turned to him. “Are you some kind of…”

  “Spy?” he offered.

  She nodded. “For America?”

  He inclined his head. “Bati’s father is a Filipino diplomat to the United States.”

  “I know,” Samantha said. “Starting the shelter was Bati’s idea. Her father gave us the startup capital on the condition that she used a fake last name. He said he had enemies in the Philippines.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. Take another left up here.”

  “Is that why Lady Shiva kidnapped Bati?” Samantha said. “To use against Ramos?”

  “That was my first thought,” Noble admitted. “But something doesn’t add up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Diego said Oscar contacted him, and I believe it.” Noble considered the implications as he spoke. “Bati’s cover was already blown. Someone else knew who she was.”

  Samantha’s hands tightened on the wheel. Her knuckles turned white. “Who do you suspect?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Noble admitted. “There’s something else; the thug with the cauliflower ear, Oscar, is Lady Shiva’s muscle. If Shiva already had Bati, why would her men be staking out Diego’s apartment? It doesn’t make any sense. Unless something went wrong. Someone got Bati first. Shiva thinks Diego double-crossed her.”

  Samantha took a hand off the wheel and pushed hair out of her eyes. “You’re right,” she said. “But if Lady Shiva doesn’t have Bati, why are we trying to get to her?”

  “She’s the only lead I’ve got.”

  They rode in silence the rest of the way into San Juan. Samantha parked two blocks down from a brightly lit building with a neon sign that read “CLUB 10” in blue. More clubs lined the bustling boulevard with names like Envy, eXclusive, and Locale QC. The whole block pulsed with competing base lines. Well-dressed Filipinos thronged the sidewalks along with western businessmen in expensive suits looking for underage prostitutes and cheap blow.

  Samantha turned off the engine. “What’s our next move?”

  “This is where you exit stage left,” he told her.

  “I can help you, Jake,” she said. “I’ve lived in Manila for two years. I know my way around. I know the language.”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “You never would have found Diego without my help.”

  He turned in the seat to face her. “You think this is a game? You think we’re in a movie? Before this is over, people are going to get hurt, probably even killed. One of those people might be me.”

  She set her jaw and spoke through clenched teeth. “I know that, Jake.”

  “My job is to find Bati,” he said. “I can’t do that if I’m trying to protect you.”

  Her face crumpled. Tears spilled down her cheeks. “It’s my fault.”

  “What?”

  Her voice cracked. “It’s my fault Bati got kidnapped.” She dropped her chin to her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I’m listening,” Noble said.

  “I slipped up,” Samantha said between sobs. “I mentioned her father to one of the volunteers at the shelter a month ago. It just sort of came up in the course of the conversation. When I realized Bati had been kidnapped…” She hitched up her shoulders and let them drop. “It’s my fault, Jake.”

  Noble was still trying to decide what to say when she twisted in her seat and threw her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder. The move caught him off guard. He sat there, unsure what to do.

  Small lapses in security spread like cancer. Plenty of good agents have been killed because of a simple slip of the tongue. He could have told her it wasn’t her fault and that everything would be all right. Samantha had messed up and gotten her best friend kidnapped, probably killed. That couldn’t be an easy thing to live with. He didn’t bother to lie. He put an arm around her and let her cry.

  Tears soaked through the shoulder of his suit jacket. When she had finally gotten it all out, Noble said, “I’m going to get her back. That’s my job.”

  Samantha sniffed, nodded, and wiped away the tears.

  “You want to help?” Noble asked.

  Another nod.

  “Let me see your phone.”

  She dug in her pocket and handed over an iPhone. Noble dialed the number to the burner Matt had given him. It vibrated twice in his pocket. “Stay put and watch the front of Club 10. As soon as you see Oscar, or anyone else that feels suspicious, you text me right away. Understood?”

  She sniffed and gave a thumbs up. “Got it.”

  Noble got out and crossed the street. First he had given Samantha his name, which was bad enough, now he was letting her tag along on a rescue operation. Living alone on his boat all those months must have driven him insane. It was the only explanation.

  Samantha had handled herself exceptionally well for a civilian, but she had yet to be in any real danger. Noble had an idea she would do all right if push came to shove, in fact, he suspected she had the makings of a decent field agent, but his interest in her was far from professional. She had an Ivy League education and intelligence—the two rarely went hand in hand. She also had a gorgeous face and a runner’s body. Not to mention courage. Not many people would take the law into their own hands. Most folks went home, had a good cry, and hoped the authorities could sort it all out in the end. Samantha was ready to take on the most notorious underworld criminal in Manila to save a friend.

  None of that explained his decision to allow an untrained civilian to participate in a covert op. She had done her part and found Diego. Now she was a liability. Noble entered Club 10 determined to set up the meeting with Oscar and then cut Samantha loose. It was the smart thing to do.

  He could feel the baseline in his bones. The music threatened to shake his teeth right out of his skull. Strobe lights flashed in time to the music, attacking his retinas. He paused in the entrance long enough to allow his eyes time to adjust.

  A troupe of young girls, dressed in dark blue bikinis, police hats, and plastic nightsticks, danced on a raised platform to the pounding rhythm. Most of them probably came from small villages. Poor farmers would sell their daughters to “recruiters” who promised a decent job at a hotel. Once in the city, alone and penniless, the girls were forced into prostitution. The recruiters weren’t picky either. Noble had seen girls as young as four and five working the nightclubs.

  Sex trafficking had become a major source of revenue for metro Manila. Every year tourists poured into the country on “sex vacations.” Most of the offenders came from the Middle East or other Asian countries, but a good number of westerners made their way here in search of underage prostitutes. The Philippine government publically condemned prostitution and human trafficking—both were technically illegal—but off the record, the government turned a blind eye. Prostitution kept tourist dollars pouring into the country. Occasionally the police would raid a club and make a few arrests to keep human rights activists happy, but it did nothing to stem the flow of women trafficked into the city.

  Most of the crowd in Club 10 was Filipino, but several white businessmen prowled the floor. A knot of western college kids had a VIP table in one corner, blowing through mommy and daddy’s money, completely oblivious to the fact that they were supporting modern slavery.

  Noble made his way to the bar, caught the attention of a bartender, and ordered a Cerveza Negra. He paid and pretended to drink. Crowded clubs are security nightmares; it is impossible to keep track of so many people all at once, you have to shout to be heard and there are multiple exits.

  When the song ended, the girls came off the stage to mingle with the crowd.

  One spotted Noble. She was fifteen or sixteen and still had baby fat. “Hello, handsome man.” She flashed h
im a smile that never touched her eyes. “Maybe you buy me a drink, yes?”

  “Maybe next time,” Noble told her.

  She made a pouty face and walked away.

  The lapse in music provided Noble the opening he needed. He signaled the bartender. “I need to speak with the owner.”

  The barman wrinkled his brow. “He’s busy.”

  “I want to buy some merchandise,” Noble said. “A friend of a friend said the owner of Club 10 could put me in touch with Oscar. You know the one I’m talking about? Boxer with a cauliflower ear. Works for Lady Shiva.”

  He was throwing out bits of true information in hopes that the bartender would add to what little he already knew. It was an intelligence-gathering technique called fishing.

  The barman didn’t bite. “Who should I tell him is asking?”

  “Mr. White,” Noble said.

  He considered that for a moment, then told Noble to wait. Noble sipped his beer and watched the barman disappear through a door marked private.

  23

  Samantha sat clutching her phone, watching the front entrance of Club 10. The busy sidewalk would make it difficult to pick out Oscar. She had seen him only once, briefly. She bullied her exhausted brain into remembering the hurried glimpse of his face. At the time, her only concern had been escaping before he could break the glass and drag her out of the car. It was only a few hours ago, but it felt like days. It was like trying to remember the name of a person she met at a party and then never saw again. His face kept slipping away. She knew he had a cauliflower ear, but from this distance, small details were hard to make out.

  She reached for the cup of coffee in the center console and tried to take a sip. It was empty. She returned the cup and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. How long had she been awake? How long had Bati been gone? She felt around on the floorboard. Her fingers located her purse under the passenger’s seat. Inside she had two of Bati’s EpiPens and a spiral bound notebook. Samantha flipped through the battered pages. Bati had been abducted at 8:22pm on Sunday. She checked her watch. It was now 9:37pm on Wednesday. She made a note. Bati had been missing over seventy-two hours. Three days.

  Not missing, Sam reminded herself, kidnapped. And it was her fault. She had slipped up, and Bati paid the price. Sam tried not to think about all the terrible things that might be happening to her friend right now. A single word went through her thoughts like a scratched record.

  Rape.

  Images flooded her mind’s eye. If she let them, the pictures would consume her, drive her mad. She would be a sobbing wreck in a corner somewhere, no use to anybody. She fought to keep the images at bay and stay focused on what she was doing here and now.

  The kidnappers probably wanted money. That’s what Sam told herself. Bati’s dad was a diplomat. He was rich. The kidnappers wouldn’t hurt her. Samantha hoped.

  Her thoughts turned to Jake. What did she really know about him? He claimed to be working for America, but she had only his word to go on, and he wasn’t exactly chatty. But Samantha wanted to believe him. Mostly because she didn’t want to believe she was alone, fighting a losing battle. Jake was clever and resourceful. He might lack subtlety, but he made up for it with brutal efficiency. His looks didn’t hurt either. How could she even think about Jake like that while her best friend was missing? Sam ran a hand through her hair.

  Her thoughts circled around in an endless loop. She forced her attention back to the front of Club 10, spotted a westerner, and did a double take.

  He had a face like a steam shovel. A scar ran across the bridge of his nose. And he was looking right at her. Sam had seen him before. He was some kind of bodyguard for Mr. Ramos. She had only met Mr. Ramos face-to-face on a handful of occasions, and the bodyguard had always been hanging around in the background.

  He turned and disappeared into the crowd.

  Questions crowded Sam’s brain.

  What was he doing in Manila? Was he searching for Bati? Had he recognized her? If so, why was he walking away? Maybe he hadn’t been looking at her after all. Or maybe he hadn’t recognized her. To him, Samantha would be another Asian face in a sea of Asian faces.

  Before she could answer any of those questions, someone slumped against the driver’s side window. Samantha’s heart tried to crawl out through her throat. She bit back a startled cry. Her first thought went to panhandler. They were all over Manila. She started to tell him she had no money, but it wasn’t a beggar.

  It was the boxer with the cauliflower ear. He had a small semiautomatic pistol in his hand. The barrel was pressed against the glass. He kept the gun close to his belt to shield it from people passing by, but the muzzle was pointed at Samantha’s chest. He bent down to peer at her through the glass. “Open the door.”

  24

  The next dance number was the same girls in the same bikinis, but they had switched their police hats for sailor caps. The crowd didn’t seem to mind. Noble sipped his drink and kept his eyes off the skin. The beer turned room temperature while he waited for the owner. It was taking too long. Noble flashed back to that first, all-important, lesson of counter intelligence; when there is doubt, there is no doubt. He chewed the inside of one cheek.

  His instincts told him to abort, but he had no other leads. Walking away meant giving Bati up for dead and loosing seventy-five-thousand dollars. And his mother needed that money. To find the girl, he would have to keep teasing at this thread and see where it went. Against his better judgment, Noble signaled for another beer and continued to wait.

  Ten more minutes slouched past before a potbellied man in a garishly colored silk shirt, gold chains, and flip-flops emerged from the back room. He had seen too many old episodes of Miami Vice and probably thought big-time drug dealers actually dressed that way. His lips turned up in a peevish little smile. “You are American?” he asked, yelling to be heard over the music.

  “That’s right,” Noble yelled back. “My employer is setting up a club in Malaysia and needs some girls. A friend said you were the guy to talk to. He said you could put me in touch with sellers. We’re only interested in top-of-the-line merchandise. Cute and young. My employer is willing to pay top dollar.”

  The owner smiled that peevish smile again. “I think I can help you. Follow me.”

  Noble tossed a few pesos on the beer-stained bar top and followed him through the door marked private. They stepped into a crowded storage space. A desk had been wedged between shelves stocked with booze, bar snacks, and replacement bulbs. Oscar was there. So was Samantha. The boxer leaned against the desk and had a semiautomatic pistol pressed into Samantha’s side.

  The club owner swung the door shut, cutting off Noble’s retreat.

  Samantha stood with her fists clenched and her shoulders hunched. Tears rimmed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jake. He snuck up on me.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” he told her. “Happens to the best of us.”

  He kept his face expressionless, but fear flooded his veins like ice water. He sorted through his options. The music was loud enough to cover the sound of a gunshot. Oscar could murder them both without raising an alarm. Noble could stand there and die or draw his weapon and risk hitting Samantha. Either way it was a losing proposition. At best he could take Oscar with him. Noble made up his mind to do just that.

  But instead of gunning them down on the spot, Oscar thrust his chin at an emergency exit. Their chances of survival in a dark alley improved only slightly, but they weren’t dead yet. Noble planned to keep it that way as long as possible. He showed his empty palms and moved to the door.

  Oscar followed. He kept Samantha between them and pressed the pistol into her ribcage. Samantha walked hunched over with her face pinched like the barrel burned her skin.

  Noble stopped at the door. There was a sign that said: WARNING. EMERGENCY DOOR. ALARM WILL SOUND.

  “Go on,” Oscar ordered.

  Noble pushed open the door.

  The alarm did not sound.

  The club own
er let out a girlish giggle. “Good-bye, American. Enjoy Manila.”

  25

  A black Bentley Mulsanne glided along the gravel drive, the quarter-million-dollar suspension handled the rock quarry’s uneven terrain effortlessly. A pair of dusty gray Mercedes-Benz G class SUVs followed. The Bentley’s Xenon headlamps illuminated the dilapidated crushing facility and the kidnappers standing in the open door. They shielded their eyes against the light.

  The Bentley stopped. The SUVs pulled up along either side. Five men in tactical vests, armed with assault rifles, piled out of the SUVs and fanned out to recon the area. They communicated to each other by way of state-of-the-art, closed-circuit radios—the same system used by the United States Presidential Secret Service.

  The driver of the Bentley got out and opened the back door. Eric Tsang emerged wearing a tailored suit from Saville Row and handmade deerskin loafers. He had a Bluetooth in one ear. “Daddy loves you too. Don’t stay up too late, Okay?”

  “Hai.”

  “Put mommy on the phone, ching,” Eric said.

  He heard his seven-year-old daughter drop the handset on the glass coffee table with a bang and then her little feet hammered the polished hardwood floors. Her voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a well as she hollered for her mother. “Mai mai!”

  It was amazing how much noise such a tiny person could make.

  Eric stood in the open door of the Bentley while his security team finished their sweep. His brother Tiger waited on the other side of the car, bored and rolling his eyes. He was a decade younger with spikey hair, baggy pants, and a pair of clunky headphones around his neck. Half the time they were not even connected to a music player, but the headphones were a mainstay, part of his façade, like the tiger tattoo on his forearm. He gave Eric an impatient look and then motioned to the crumbling building and the waiting kidnappers.

  Eric ignored him.

  A moment later, Eric’s wife picked up the phone. He heard her take a long drag from a cigarette and exhale. “What?” she asked.