Jack Be Nimble: Tyro Book 2 Read online

  Jack Be Nimble: Tyro

  By Ben English

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living, dead, undead, or wandering the streets of San Francisco, would be pretty amazing, now, wouldn’t it?

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  Copyright © 2011 by Ben English

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover art modified, original photo property of United States Marine Corps. Pro-American locals observing an MV-22 Osprey land at Forward Operating Base Geronimo, Helmand Province, Afganistan, July 14, 2010.

  Visit the author’s website: www.BenEnglishAuthor.com

  The Jack Be Nimble Series

  Gargoyle

  Tyro

  The Crystal Falcon

  (Coming Fall 2011)

  This one’s for Steve and Barb English

  my parents

  The best people I know.

  Table of Contents

  Start

  Foreward

  Flight

  The Doctrine of Hot Pursuit

  The Joss House

  Snowstorm In A Sardine Tin

  First Order of the Day

  The High Lord of San Francisco

  Hardware/Wetware

  Spook

  Ex Cognito

  The Battle of Sarah Circle

  Stan & Ollie

  Café Cubano

  Recruitment

  The Further Adventures of Stan & Ollie

  Shell Game

  Beyond the Veil

  Mrs. Dumont Visits the Mercado Nocturno

  The Importance of a Good Meal

  A Little Less Lent, a Little More Mardi Gras

  Red Sky in the Morning

  Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall

  The More Complex the Mind

  Tyro

  Chase the Girl

  End Notes

  Foreward

  Scribbled quickly on a menu from the Jules Verne Restaurant

  Paris, France

  4 AM

  All right, listen close. We don’t have much time.

  My name is Alonzo Noel. I’m on the team. Hell, I am the team.

  Jack wouldn’t be nearly as nimble without me backing him up, ask anybody. I’ve known the guy since we were old enough to knock out each other’s baby teeth, which qualifies me to get you up to speed.

  I don’t really have time for this Foreward foolishness, and neither do you, but in case you didn’t read the first book in the series (really?), here’s what’s going on:

  Jack was in a bad, bad place after Toria died. Worst I’ve ever seen. She was the secret to his success—the reason why he never held back—and with her gone, it was like Jack became this immobile, thick, stony…statue. (Oh, Gargoyle. I get it now. Yes, very clever, Mr. smarty-pants writer). It took the kidnapping of his god-daughter to get Jack back up and in the game. I got the team together, and we found the kidnappers in London. General kickassery ensued.

  We lost a good man, and put another one of ours in the hospital, but the bad guys are on the run. Turns out the kidnapping was only part of a larger Evil Plan of Evil to overturn all the bits of civilization that we like best. Even as I write this, the bad guys have active teams all over the world, going two-by-two, assassinating important folks and scooping up technology. Got to be honest, we’re still trying to figure out what they’re up to. Still trying to catch up.

  They even sent a team to whack Mercedes Adams. Her parents were high-energy physicists, and left all their research to her. She’s got their brains and, well—let’s just say she’s the reason why bikinis were invented, you got me? I could tell you more, but really, that’s Jack’s story. You’ll read it soon enough. The guy remembers everything. He’s got one of those “frenetic memories.”

  This is taking too long. Explanations are always my downfall, whether dealing with stories or women. You know what? If you haven’t already, just go and read the first book, Jack Be Nimble: Gargoyle (here’s a tip: Amazon.com. You’re welcome.)

  And now, a word from our sponsor. What? No time for corporate sponsorship? I’m doing this for free? Whose idea was that?

  All caught up? Good. Here we go.

  Jack Be Nimble

  Book 2

  Tyro

  Ben English

  Ever impelled by invisible power,

  Destined to roam from East to West.

  Oft he remembers the faces of loved ones;

  Dreams of the day when he, too, was at rest.

  - Dr. Jose Rizal

  “The day when we shall know exactly what “electricity” is, will chronicle an event probably greater, more important than any other recorded in the history of the human race. The time will come when the comfort, the very existence, perhaps, of man will depend upon that wonderful agent. And you may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.

  - Nikola Tesla

  Flight

  35,000 feet above the Western Atlantic Ocean

  6 AM

  “We’ll be landing in forty minutes, Mr. Raines. Your change of clothes and other personal items are in the lavatory.”

  “That’s fine. Leave the shades drawn.” Across the cabin, Miklos slept. Raines needed him alert and ready to move quickly again in a few hours. There was still so much to accomplish.

  Miklos had fallen asleep before the plane left the runway outside London. Like most men born to the warrior life, he possessed the ability to sleep wherever and whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  Raines left him in the semidarkness and entered the bathroom. His clothes were stained and torn, and he left them on the floor. The facilities included a double-wide shower, and he made use of it, lathering himself to Mahler’s Ninth symphony.

  The shower held a television screen, and he watched the coverage of the Illuminatus Tower fire until the newscasters began repeating themselves. Thanks to the insurance carried by Harrods he would make a windfall in the payout.

  Raines silenced the music and television. “Call Marduk,” he said, and the onboard computer complied.

  “Hello Alex,” said Marduk.

  “George,” replied Raines. “Do you have a new computer provisioned for me?”

  “The same model as the one in London.” The speaker had the barest accent, the intonations of someone who’d learned English as a child in a home where English was not the first language of the parents. A slight over-pronunciation here and there, a flatness to his vowels. “I’ll meet you on the runway with it.”

  “We’ll need to select a new Michael as well,” said Raines, of
fhand. He activated the pressurized steam jets in the shower, and leaned into them. By the time they landed he’d be nearly as good as new.

  Marduk was busy with something for a few moments. “I’ve gone ahead and had them reopen the file on Jack Flynn. We really should have seen him coming.”

  “That’s not your fault,” said Raines. “We both thought that once his wife was out of the picture he wouldn’t be an issue, given that she was his connection with the Royal Family.”

  “He’s not as diminished as our statistical models predicted. Worse, his group is aware of us.”

  “Flynn doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does,” replied Raines. “And who is he going to approach for intel? The Americans? They think I’m hosting an executive retreat this week.”

  “Do you think he’ll put enough of the plan together to go to Cuba?”

  Raines began toweling off. “He will. He has a history there, a network, and whatever else he is, Jack Flynn is a slave to history. At least we’ll know roughly where he and his team are. They move about so quickly it’s difficult to keep track of them.”

  Marduk agreed. “Nimble bastards. Are we going to take precautions, in case they find out Lopez is returning to Cuba and bringing the drug trade back with him?”

  “Let’s discuss that when I land. What would you think if we allowed Jack to discover Lopez on his own? Give it some thought.”

  Alex Raines shaved and called one of his servants to assist him in dressing. Marduk’s final question pleased him as it meant that Marduk was not underestimating Flynn. It was an important aspect of the plan.

  And a bit of resistance only served to sharpen his taste. Raines felt himself growing stronger.

  The Doctrine of Hot Pursuit

  Paris

  6AM

  Jack moved quickly through his apartment, gathering odds and ends into a duffel bag. The chances were high that his home was under surveillance by at least two governments, and he didn’t want to give them any more of a show than was necessary.

  Although the sun had yet to show itself, the approaching day seemed to pull every shadow away to the far west. The night reluctantly gave up its hold on Paris, and the streets below were long strands of deep blue gloom, stretched and straining towards the edge of the continent. Jack felt a similar pull toward the horizon. Raines and Miklos had fled in that direction, and Jack was already half a day behind them.

  The crystal falcon threw pinpoints of light at him as he passed the door to the library. As long as he stayed back far enough from the windows, a watcher on the roof of one of the surrounding buildings couldn’t see him.

  In the library, next to his copy of Stephen King’s On Writing, Jack kept a hollow book for whatever he considered the treasure of the moment. This week, it held his Navigo pass and half a carnet's worth of Metro tickets. He checked the date on the pass card and slid it into a back pocket. She'd made sure he developed the habit of preparing for a clean getaway. She loved the Metro, loved the characters they ran into under Paris.

  His wife was never short of ideas. In the hallway closet, next to the clean sheets and towels, she kept a bugout bag, a travel pack prepared with enough vitamins, underwear, and cash to last 5 days. Or enough to buy a washing machine and dryer outright, according to Toria. Longer than 5 days, and either we’re buying a house or we’re in a place that doesn’t require a lot of clothing. Somewhere with a beach, preferably attached to an ocean.

  Jack smiled. Toria hadn’t been a fan of doing her own laundry. He’d miss this place. Shame if he couldn’t come back here again, but Jack wasn’t naïve enough to think he didn’t paint a target on any of the civilians that lived in his building. None of them were insured for damage due to rocket-propelled grenade.

  The early dawn light lent a soft blue edge to the air in the apartment.

  Spare computer, pocketknife, the hard drive from the laptop Alonzo had broken the day before, and an unfinished paperback. Just a bit more space in the bag. Jack looked around at his photos and paintings, at the Celtic wood carvings. She’d bought them in Paris’ Chinatown, of all places. Jack pictured his wife. Sifted through the thousand memories they’d shared in the home, and realized, finally, that there might just be an ebb tide to despair.

  Victoria was gone, but not really. It could have been fatigue, but a strange giddiness washed over Jack, and he found himself wondering if she waited for him somewhere, paused just a moment on the other side of the Big Whatever, lingering while he caught up to her. In their marriage, the pursuit had never really ended, and he wondered if it was in her nature to wait for him at the end of the endless road.

  Well. Greta and Franz would take care of watering the plants in his absence.

  Just a bit more space in the travel bag, about the size of a fist. He looked around one last time at his home, saw the sharp, bright points of green brilliance growing on everything about him, and followed the refracted light back down to the coffee table. On impulse, he plucked up the crystal bird, and went downstairs.

  The Joss House

  The Chatelet des Halles station was the largest Metro station in Paris, the largest underground transportation hub in the world. Jack entered at the peak of rush hour, borne along in the midst of an impatient rabble of securities analysts, payroll clerks and other businessmen more fascinated by the national interest rate than freak fires and collapsing skyscrapers in London.

  Everyone moved everywhere, with great purpose, under a perplexing array of blue sortie signs and orange correspondances signs. From Chatelet des Halles, trains headed in a dozen directions—not only the regular Metro trains, but the Reseau Express Regional rapid commuter trains as well, connecting Paris with its teeming suburbs. The station was a forty thousand square meter maze, an excellent place to get lost or go mad from the noise. A train thundered and squealed into place, and the sea of people started to flow again. A suited man on the shoeshine station near the platform suddenly swore and bolted up, dropping coins in the direction of the dark-haired man at his feet, and made for the train. Jack helped the shoeshine, an elderly Asian gentleman, collect the scattered money and sat down himself in the seat on the raised platform. He’d worn his good shoes, the ones from Milan. They hadn’t seen a good shine in ages.

  The old man began to work on his shoes, and Jack kept half an eye on him as he scanned the mass of commuters. His head was just high enough to appreciate the size of the crowd, high enough to see everyone. Just high enough to watch the whole show.

  A nurse exiting a train stumbled on the platform, shifting her bags. Those nearest her offered a steadying hand, and she thanked them, punctuating that with a sharp rebuke for the man behind her, who’d obviously been a little too friendly with his aid. As she turned toward him a small, grey purse slid out from beneath her packages and into the hand of another departing passenger.

  Jack watched the package switch hands again and get carried back into the train, then out again by a youngish-looking man, who passed it deftly to a brown-suited working class-type, who nearly walked out of Jack’s line of sight before relaying it to a bearded, turbaned Sikh. He moved slowly, calmly down the concourse, and Jack almost missed it when a speeding student—who couldn’t have been older than fifteen—raced past, along with several other youngsters late for school. The young girl’s backpack was open, and as she dashed into the train a grey-wrapped bundle slid out. The train doors shut, and a transport worker who stooped to pick up the package was just a second too late.

  The brush-pass was one of the foundation skills of spycraft, kissing cousin to sleight-of-hand. A practiced eye would have a hard enough time watching the package on its weave and weft through the crowd, but it was all a pattern. Jack spotted the pattern through the flow of the crowd, and picked the moment when the pattern would change. He watched it with interest, but the old, simple sense of joy he’d always found in such things was absent.

  The Chinese man working on his shoes kept his back to the multitude, blithe. Just part of the overall
pattern.

  Another man took a seat on the raised shoeshine stand, an educated laborer, by the look of him. Large hands, thick shoulders, and clothes that had been expensive a few seasons ago. He waited for his shoeshine, indifferent to the crowd and noise.

  As soon as the train pulled away, Jack turned to him and said, pleasantly, “Perhaps a recipe for fish?”

  A blank stare, so Jack tried again, this time in English, “Maybe a note from your proctologist? Excusing you from mime practice?”

  This time the man looked away, a little impatient.

  Jack switched to Farsi. “Instructions on how to assemble that pesky accordion?”

  The Farsi had probably been a waste. Jack smiled lightly and added, in Mandarin, “I hear that in the old days, this was a favorite spot of the KGB. I need to talk to your boss. I will speak to the master of the Joss House.”

  That made the new man start. He glanced toward his feet, an action which he immediately regretted, and the wizened, old shoeshine man stood fully, fixing him with a quiet glare. The newcomer handed over the small grey packet, which vanished the instant it touched the old man’s palm. Abashed, the young man rose and stepped down, melting into the crowd.

  Jack admired the new shine as the old man turned off his service light and sat down in the recently vacated chair. He picked up a Mandarin newspaper and flipped through it casually for nearly a minute before lighting a cigarette.

  It really was a good shoeshine.

  “You are still a terrific pain in the ass,” the old man said, eyes still on the paper.

  “No one does brush passes much anymore,” Jack replied. “It's all high-bit emails and encrypted instant messaging.”