The first deception, p.1
The First Deception, page 1
part #1 of Jack Noble Prequel Series
The First Deception
Jack Noble Prequel One
L.T. Ryan
Liquid Mind Media, LLC
Copyright © 2018 by L.T. Ryan and Liquid Mind Media, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book. This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Jack Noble™ and The Jack Noble Series™ are trademarks of L.T. Ryan and Liquid Mind Media, LLC.
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Contents
The Jack Noble Series
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Part II
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part III
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Part IV
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Also by L.T. Ryan
Preview of Noble Beginnings
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
About the Author
The Jack Noble Series
The Recruit (free)
The First Deception
Noble Beginnings
A Deadly Distance
Ripple Effect (Bear Logan)
Thin Line
Noble Intentions
When Dead in Greece
Noble Retribution
Noble Betrayal
Never Go Home
Beyond Betrayal (Clarissa Abbot)
Noble Judgment
Never Cry Mercy
Deadline
End Game
Receive a free copy of The Recruit by visiting http://ltryan.com/newsletter.
Part I
Chapter One
Jack Noble considered how he had come to be on his knees in the middle of nowhere with a hood over his head and a rifle muzzle jammed into his back.
Seven days ago he was eating dirt. The worn combat boot of a wiry, young Drill Instructor pressed against the back of his head until his nose was no longer capable of drawing a breath of air and his tongue doubled as a mud pie. He coughed up crud for the next thirty-six hours. At least there’d be someone to go after if he ended up with black lung.
Three days ago he was in a fight that almost went to the death with a large prick who went by the nickname Bear, a six-six mountain of a man-child. He supposed that was better than the guy’s given name of Riley Logan. The two had been at odds since day one.
Two hours ago they pulled Jack and Bear out of the covered bed of a pickup truck at a piss-covered rest stop somewhere between South Carolina and Virginia. Best guess, at least. No one had lent Noble a map, and the windows had been blackened out. He passed the time by counting the seconds. Wasn’t like he and Bear had all that much to talk about.
Jack spotted three men in a two-tone Bronco parked at the back of the rest stop lot. He didn’t like their stares, but he and Bear were with three Marine MPs. No reason to worry, right? He hadn’t anticipated there would be a handoff.
Six men jumped and restrained them while they took care of business at the urinals. By the time they were led out of the bathroom, the MPs were gone. The lingering smell of gas from the cranky V-8 was the only remaining clue they had been there.
Noble had spotted the Bronco right away. There must’ve been another vehicle out there he had missed that accounted for the additional three men. His old man would be pissed.
The blackout hoods went on and were cinched tight, but not before Jack caught a glimpse of the guy on his right. Too bad the guy wore a ski mask. A few body blows as they were tossed inside another vehicle were mixed in with directions not to move unless instructed. The gash over Jack’s left eye from the fight earlier in the week with Bear tore open. Warm blood flowed down the side of his nose and settled on his upper lip. He inhaled the sickly-sweet smell.
Now Jack knelt on a patch of gravel that dug into his knees. The air was thick here, saturated with the odor of dead leaves. Sweat covered his body. They made him cross his ankles so he couldn’t rise quickly. Heavy plastic zip ties, the kind you might use to keep ductwork from moving, burned like razor wire into the flesh above his wrists. The hood stunk like a Romanian belly dancer’s hairy armpit. Not that he knew firsthand. His old man had spent plenty of time in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Growing up, Jack’s room was often described by his father as smelling like the aforementioned armpit. As a kid, he often tried to figure out how his dad had come to gain this knowledge. Was one of his duties going around village to village, smelling armpits?
Bear was somewhere to Jack’s right. The big man choked on every breath, rough and ragged like he’d emerged from ten minutes under water. Had he caught a blow that broke that nose of his? Might be an improvement in the end. Bear hadn’t said much during the first leg of the ride with the MPs, only that he was glad they threw them in the back of a pickup with inner tubes to sit on because the bed liner was chewed up and jagged. And he might’ve mentioned he hated flying. It was the only thing that scared him. Except perhaps being dragged to the middle of nowhere and treated like a captured terrorist, judging by the anxiety attack the big man was in the midst of.
The hell were they doing here? They had been told they were selected for training for a new program. A joint effort, a clandestine group sponsored by the CIA. The Agency wanted young men they could mold into top operators. Guys who for whatever reason weren’t going to maximize their talents in their current positions.
Guys like Jack and Bear.
Had it all been a lie?
The two had pissed plenty of people off on Parris Island. Mostly each other. Was that enough to warrant a six-hour drive for an execution?
Sure felt like that was the road they were traveling.
Noble counted the steps as they moved around him, listening for changes in cadence and location of the boots crunching on the loose rocks. One man moved. That was it. The guy circled them, stopping every few steps. No one said a word. Birds, crickets, cicadas. Mostly cicadas. And a goat or two. The woods? A farm, maybe?
“Bigger they are,” a man said, “the harder they fall.”
Jack tensed his core, glutes and shoulders, leaning a bit forward to help brace for impact. Someone was about to make a point. At a solid six-two, Noble was bigger than most men. This was how you attacked him.
The sound of a heavy object, likely a rifle’s buttstock, slamming into Bear’s gut was followed by a swear-laden tirade from someone hovering over them.
Bear grunted and let out a strained breath. He tried to speak, maybe to levy a threat or two, but the words wouldn’t come out.
“You’d be wise to fall over, boy.” The voice was gravely, and he spoke with a Chicago staccato rhythm.
“Go to hell,” Bear said between coughs.
There was a pause for laughter, which died down within five seconds. It went quiet except for a baby goat whining for food. The next blow had the intended effect. It had a much louder crack. Solid on solid. Bear’s torso slammed down next to Jack, shaking the ground and sending rocks skidding. For twenty seconds all Jack heard was the big man choking, his body writhing in the gravel as he fought to refill his lungs. Jack knew the horrible feeling all too well. When Bear managed to suck in a solid breath, it sounded like the dead returning to life.
“Get him up and take him over there.” Chicago had entrenched himself as the leader of the group. The guy paced a tight circle around Noble.
When would the blow come?
The men to his right strained as they lifted Bear. He offered them no help judging by the sound of his dragging feet.
“So you’re the pretty boy, right?” The guy’s hot breath penetrated through the hood, hitting Noble’s sweaty face. Smelled worse than the cloth surrounding his head. “Ain’t you got nothing to say?”
Noble took a deep breath, perhaps his final for a while, and remained quiet.
“See that, men.” Knees popped like mini-shotguns being fired as the guy rose. “Pretty boy here has nothing to say to me.”
“Trust me, hoss,” another guy said. “Saw him at the urinal playing patty cakes with the big one. He’s far from pretty.”
The guy in front of Jack took two slow and deliberate steps, heel to toe, crunching the ground underfoot. Something snapped. A clasp, perhaps. He slid something out of a sheath or holster.
And then Noble heard the sound he’d been dreading.
The guy racked his pistol’s slide several times, clearing it. He slammed a magazine into the grip, gave it a solid pull on the slide, chambering a round.
“They say you’re not pretty.” Chicago chuckled. “You believe that? Got something to say about it?”
Noble steadied his breath and slowly pushed his wrists outward. The heavy zip ties didn’t give a millimeter.
“Don’t try it, pretty boy.”
“It ain’t pretty, hoss. You got that part all wrong.”
“Is that right?”
Noble honed in on the guy’s location as the man shifted his stance.
“He’s All-American. Foosball or some crap like that.”
The man knelt down again and spoke near to Jack’s face. “An All-American football player? Quarterback, probably. Right? Goddamn prima donnas, all of them. Think you’re better than anyone else ‘cause you can throw an inflated pigskin. The hell are you doing in my woods? Who the hell thought you’d amount to anything in my woods?”
Noble wondered the same. The decision to forgo his opportunities and join the Marines instead was starting to feel like the wrong call. He’d done it in part out of a sense of duty to his country. It’d been instilled into him from a young age, watching his father serve selflessly. He’d also grown up with the side of his father no one else saw. The relentless pursuit for perfection. Countless punishments for failing to live up to expectations. It created an incessant drive within him. But it came at a price, and he knew it.
There was nothing the old man wanted more than to see the younger Noble lead a professional football team. Misplaced spite can be strong when you’re young enough to know everything. Instead of following his father’s dream blueprint, Jack enlisted to piss him off.
Two solid thuds to the top of his head sent Jack hunkering down, chin tucked to his chest to keep his face out of the way. A wave of heat overtook him and he began to wonder if he had lost consciousness and hadn’t realized it yet. Pain radiated from the top of his head, down his cheeks, neck, and shoulders. He saw bright flashes of colors, despite the black hood. Not a good sign. Chicago had nailed him in just the right spot.
A hand squeezed his shoulder while keeping him upright. Chicago grunted as he knelt down next to Noble. He pictured the guy battleworn and up there in age.
“There’s a Winchester 308 aimed at your head. You so much as uncross your legs and the man holding it has been instructed to unload on you. And before you think we’re scared of someone hearing the sound of gunfire, we’re in the middle of West Virginia on over a thousand acres. There’s no one out here.”
Noble suppressed the rage rising like bile in his throat. He was restrained to the point of being unable to defend himself. What was he going to do, headbutt the guy? Then what? He’d been taught to think situations through rather than acting on first instinct. He often failed to do so, but right now he couldn’t get past what to do after taking the next breath.
The world went quiet over the next several minutes. Even the cicadas silenced their shrill song. He cocked his head like a dog. Was anyone out there? A slight gust of wind disturbing dead leaves on the forest floor sounded like footsteps all around him. Crickets started up and immediately went silent. Why? It reached the point where every sound required fifteen seconds of analysis.
He resisted the urge to speak. Even a simple “who’s out there?” would prove him weak.
His exposed arms burned amid the rising heat. The hell was it? There wasn’t a crackling fire nearby. Had they doused him with some kind of chemical agent and he hadn’t realized it? His arms had been drenched with perspiration for hours now. He might not have felt them putting something on him.
The minutes passed, slow at first, then faster and faster as his thoughts turned into a jumbled mess until he finally zoned out. A meditative state, he supposed. Not something he’d ever strived for.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he stirred at the sound of men approaching. The burning sensation had gone. How long ago? He hadn’t even noticed. The men walked around him in pairs, one to each side, four in all. No one said a thing.
Neither did Jack.
Despite the warning, he had uncrossed his legs during his timeout. Even stretched them out to the side. What he hadn’t done was taken a seat. He’d kept one knee in the gravel the entire time. His back ached and his hips and shoulders were stiff. But if he had to get up and full-on sprint for half a mile, he could get it done.
“How’s the pretty boy feeling this morning?” Chicago chuckled to himself.
Jack felt the comment had grown stale.
“Ain’t a pretty boy, hoss. How many times I gotta tell you that?”
There was laughter all around him.
Noble hoped they’d take the hood off before killing him. He had to see if the second voice matched the cartoon caricature of a hog-faced man missing three top teeth that played in his mind every time the guy spoke.
“That’s right,” Chicago said. “The All-American. Guess we better watch out, lest he tackle us to the ground.”
The hood tugged Jack’s face downward. The bottom fell open. Light bled through and he noticed the drawstring dangling on two sides, cut in half. A moment later someone yanked the hood off his head. Four intense flashlight beams welcomed him back to the world. They felt like knives penetrating his skull. He clenched his eyelids shut and turned his head. His flinching reaggravated the pain in his knees, which had gone numb hours ago.
A stocky man walked past, stood in front of him. His thick frame blocked the lights. Jack blinked the guy into focus. The sky behind him was pale blue with a hint of orange. The woods were alive with birdsong. The foul odor he’d smelled all night had been replaced with wood smoke.
The man knelt down, looked Jack in the eye. He was probably in his fifties. Grey flecks in his thick stubble. His hairline had receded a few inches and was solid white on the sides, salt and pepper on top. His eyes were dark as coal. His jowls sagged a bit, but not enough to hide the muscles as the guy clenched his teeth.
“Welcome to hell, All-American.” A half-smile spread on Chicago’s face. There was no joy or welcome in his eyes. “You survived night one. At least sixty-nine more to go and maybe we’ll make a spy out of you.” He lifted a Bowie knife, presumably the one that had cut the hood’s strap.
Jack focused on the sharp blade. It was well taken care of. The insane man behind it split into two blurry images fighting for the same space until Jack made eye contact again. The guy looked beyond Noble and nodded. One of the other men yanked Jack’s wrists up, nearly wrenching his shoulders out of socket. He was forced forward, face-first in the gravel. He’d have preferred the dirt.
