Noble Beginnings Read Online Free PDF

here in support of your teams. I
answer to Colonel Abbot and General Keller.”
    “You answer to
your team—”
    “Jim,” Bill
said, cutting his partner off. He smiled at me. “Then what happened?”
    “He told one
man to stay behind and then led me and my partner outside at gunpoint.”
    Bill looked
down, scribbled something on a pad of paper, and then resumed his neutral
stance.
    “Go on.”
    I shrugged.
“Then—” I paused and turned my hands up. “Then we fought.”
    “And the
outcome?” Bill asked.
    I opened my
mouth to answer, but a loud knock at the door interrupted. The balance that had
been restored in the room was about to be offset.
    Jim pushed back
in his chair, stood and walked to the door, then cracked it open an inch or
two. He nodded a few times and then pulled the door open all the way. A third
man entered the room. He was taller than the other two and looked like he
weighed as much as both of them combined. Sweat beaded up on his waxed bald
head. He stood at the end of the table, between them and me, looking down
across his wide nose in my direction.
    “Jack,” Bill
said. “This is Nathan.”
    I looked up and
nodded. Nathan grumbled.
    “You just keep
answering questions like you have been and Nathan here will stay nice and
quiet.”
    “And if I
don’t?”
    Nathan laughed.
Jim joined him.
    Bill frowned.
“Let’s not go down that route.”
    The set up was
familiar. I recalled studying it, role playing it during my initial training. I
knew they didn’t have anything on me. They knew it, too. This was all a show.
The only question I had was how far they would go with the charade.
    “I’m going to
get right to it, Jack,” Bill said. “When did you return and kill the family?”
    Kill the
family?
    “I’m afraid,” I
said, “I don’t know what hell you’re talking about. We didn’t kill anyone.”
    My mind raced
through the events of the night. Could he be talking about the guy we ran over?
That dumbass put himself in our way while we were escaping an escalating
situation.
    Bill looked up
at Nathan and shook his head. “Not yet.” He lowered his gaze and looked at me
again. “Gallo says you told him to get out. He did. Says he watched the house
and that you and your partner didn’t leave.”
    “How’d we get
back here then?”
    “You know what
I mean, Noble.” Bill’s lips thinned and he crossed his arms over his chest.
“You didn’t leave before he left.”
    “Yeah, well,
his team had an interest in hurting us and the family.” I licked my lips and
leaned forward. “If you are looking for the person or people who killed that
family, you should investigate them.”
    “We did,” Jim
said. “They said before they left they heard gunshots from inside the house.”
    I sat back.
This wasn’t good. Not by a mile. Their word against ours and out here our word
didn’t mean squat. It didn’t matter what I said in here, they wouldn’t believe
my story.
    “I want my CO
on the phone. Get me Colonel Abbot.”
    Bill shook his
head. “It’s not going to work like that, Jack.” He looked up at Nathan and
nodded. “We’re ready for your confession.”
    The big man
slipped past my peripheral vision. The thuds of his feet hitting the ground
continued until he was behind me. If there was any doubt as to where he stood,
it voided the moment he put his large hands on my shoulders. His hands slid
down around my biceps, then threaded between my arms and my body, forming a
knot behind my back. In an instant he jerked me out of the chair to my feet.
    Jim moved to
the spot where Nathan had been standing and pushed the table out of the way.
    Bill stood in
front of me, eye to eye. “Why’d you do it, Jack? Why’d you kill that family?”
    I shook my
head.
    “I didn’t kill
anyone. You got this backwards.”
    “Then why is a
family dead?” Jim said, pushing Bill to the side. “You go into a house, last
known person inside. And now a man, woman, and two innocent children are