Noble Beginnings by L.T. Ryan Read Free Book Online

down on the runway furthest from the
terminal. I bounced in my seat a few times while the plane set down. The pilot
brought the jet to a near stop, and then guided us along the outside track,
toward a row of terminals. The plane stopped.
    Colwell stood,
passed by me and went in the cabin. A few minutes later he came back out and
motioned for us to stand.
    We did.
    He opened the
door and dropped the narrow set of stairs attached to the plane.
    I stepped
through first. A cold breeze stung my face and exposed arms. We weren’t
prepared for this weather. I hurried down the stairs. An idling truck waited
for us near the front of the plane.
    Bear came down
the stairs with Colwell right behind him.
    Colwell pointed
toward the truck. “That’s your escort to the international flight back to the
States.”
    I nodded and
waited for Colwell to join us. He didn’t.
    The passenger
door opened. A man stepped out. He looked to be mid-thirties and wore a dark
suit, red tie. He walked around the back of the truck, pulled down the gate and
then turned to us. “Get in.” He pointed to the bed of the truck.
    I looked at
Bear and rolled my eyes. He climbed up on the gate and took a seat on the wheel
well, and I followed.
    The man in the
suit nodded at Colwell, returned to the front of the truck and sat down in the
cab.
    Colwell gave me
a mock salute.
    I gave him a
middle finger salute.
    He smiled.
    “Friggin’
cold,” Bear said loudly over the rush of the wind and the truck’s engine.
    I didn’t have
to agree. My hot breath hit the chilled air and turned into a cloud of mist
that rose above my head.
    The truck
rolled slowly on the asphalt, close to the cluster of white and gray buildings.
Floodlights spaced every thirty feet lit the ground in an evenly spaced
bright-dark-bright pattern. Planes were parked to the left, on the other side
of a wide median filled with dead, brown grass. The truck slowed and turned
toward the planes where a strip of road cut through the landscaping. We slipped
out of range of the floodlights, and the sky turned dark again. I looked up,
waiting for my eyes to adjust. The truck stopped before they did.
    The suit
stepped out of the cab.
    “Get out,” he
said.
    We did.
    “Follow me,” he
said.
    We followed him
past two planes and stopped in front of a third. He held up his hand. “Wait
here.” He continued on a few more feet, pulled out a cell phone and made a
call. After a few moments, a door on the side of the plane just behind the
cockpit cracked open. Light flooded to the ground from the opening. A man
dropped a rope ladder.
    Our escort
walked to the ladder, stopped and turned to us. “Come on, we need to hurry.”
    I jogged to the
side of the plane and climbed up the ladder, ready to get out of the cold. The
man at the top grabbed me under my elbow and pulled me up. Bear followed and
our escort came up last.
    “Your lucky
day.” The suit pointed to the blue curtain, slightly pulled back. “First
class.”
    “You flying
with us?” I said.
    He nodded, put
his hand on my shoulder and pushed me toward the curtain.
    I stepped
through and walked to the front of the plane. “What’s your name?”
    “Where do you
think you’re going, Noble?”
    I turned, held
out my arms. “Taking a seat.”
    “Back here.” He
pointed at three seats in the middle of the aisle, last row in first class.
“You sit in the middle. I’m on that end,” he pointed across the row. “Big man
right here,” he patted his hand on the back of the end seat nearest us. “My
partner will stay right there, across the row from him.”
    “You know,” I
said, taking my seat, “I’m more dangerous than him.”
    “I don’t doubt
that one bit, Noble.”
    “What’s your
name?” I asked again.
    “McMurray,” he
said. “You can call him Otto.” He pointed at his older partner, who hadn’t said
a word the whole time.
    Otto looked up
from his newspaper and nodded. His deep-set dark eyes revealed nothing. He
brushed his