Nike's Wings Read online

  Nike’s Wings

  By

  Valerie Douglas

  Published by the author as a member of the

  Alexandria Publishing Group

  Nike’s Wings Copyright © 2010 Valerie Douglas

  Cover art by V. J. Douglas

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from author.

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  License Notes

  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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Discover other titles by Valerie Douglas

  Fantasy

  The Coming Storm

  A Convocation of Kings

  Not Magic Enough

  Setting Boundaries

  Heart of the Gods

  Servant of the Gods

  Romance

  Dirty Politics

  Directors Cut

  Irish Fling

  Two Up

  Dedication

  To Trey, my cat, for keeping me company for 21 faithful years and who died during the writing of this novel,

  for my father – who also died while I was writing this – for teaching me to always do my best and to finish what I started,

  to Christopher who listened while I hashed out the plot

  to Andy and Marco who read it first and told me it was good…

  and to Mary Ann, who helped make it better

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty One

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty One

  Chapter Forty Two

  Chapter Forty Three

  About the author

  Chapter One

  October 2001 Somewhere in Central/South America

  The big custom-built Hummers bumped their way through the jungle along the rutted road to the oil fields. It was hardly Callie’s first trip out there, but it was the first in such prestigious company. Her father’s boss and some man from the State Department, of all things, traveled with them. It didn’t look as if she’d need the book she had in her backpack, or get the chance to read it.

  Oddly enough, it was turning out to be something of an occasion. Originally, they hadn’t planned to bring her along on this trip, but she’d just turned eighteen and was due to fly back home to the states in just a few weeks. In less than a month she’d start her first year at Princeton University with a major in International Studies. As it happened, Princeton was where both her father’s boss, Tony Gallegos, and the man from the State Department, Phillip Reeves, had attended college. Once her father mentioned it, both men insisted on bringing her along so they could fill her in and trade stories of their time there.

  There were several vehicles in the expedition into the jungle where the oilrigs were located, a truck with some of the oil field workers, cars with guards both ahead and behind, another truck carrying supplies, and their own Hummer.

  Except for the presence of Mr. Reeves, it was a fairly routine trip. Tensions over the oil were rising among some of the more radical groups in the area so he’d come to try to negotiate with them to see if he could smooth the waters a bit.

  First, though, he wanted to visit the oil fields. A lot of people were pretty pissed about it and some of them would be even more so if they knew about this trip. Some of them thought that statement said too much about his priorities, that like in Iraq the oil fields were more important to the U.S. than the negotiations. People thought Reeves only really cared about the oil.

  Callie had even heard some of that kind of talk on the streets among the people she hung out with there, her parkour and free-running friends.

  Listening to him on the way out, she couldn’t really argue the point. It was all he talked about, the importance of the oil fields. That was, when he wasn’t talking about Princeton and the bars she had to visit in the towns near the campus once she was there.

  So far, though, the trip had gone pretty quietly with the two men swapping tales of their days at college. Callie caught an amused and resigned look from her father when he thought the other two men weren’t watching. He gave her a wink and she smothered a grin.

  She glanced out the windows at the thick undergrowth that ran so close beside the windows here along the road where the sun could reach and then up at the trees that towered high above them. Branches clattered and scraped against the glass. The sky was cloudy and dark above them, the sunlight of the morning vanishing as the rainy season clouds rolled in. To those who didn’t know the rain forest it was surprisingly cool, the clammy air thick and heavy with moisture. Some folks thought the humidity at home was bad, but they’d never been in the jungle in the rainy season.

  Both Mr. Gallegos and Mr. Reeves were reminiscing again over their days at college. Callie restrained a sigh, listening with only half an ear. A part of her longed for the book in her backpack. It was a long, usually boring trip, broken only by the appearance of an animal or bird erupting out of the brush, but now she couldn’t even read or she’d look rude.

  The sudden chatter of automatic weapon fire shattered the boredom, the quiet.

  Instantly the day became a green and scarlet nightmare as blood sprayed, screams and cries rang out and men fell amid the shouting and confusion.

  Glass shattered in the car ahead of them, every window exploding as bullets stitched along the side of it from the cover of the underbrush. The bodies of those within juddere
d with the impact of the bullets as blood flew like rain. Some of the guards bailed out of the vehicles in a desperate attempt to return fire and save themselves. Bullets savaged them. Their bodies jerked and twisted as more blood flew. It was so sudden, so shocking Callie couldn’t even draw breath enough to scream. Others tried to run and were cut down anyway.

  The noise was incredible, the sheer volume of the sound stupefying, overwhelming.

  Callie tried to twist in her seat to see the guards that rode in the car behind them. One of them, Jeremy, had been teaching her self-defense. He’d been with the Navy Seals and she’d liked him. Had a crush on him. No one had been expecting any trouble.

  Even as she turned, her father unfastened her seatbelt and dragged her off the car seat onto the floor.

  She had a brief glimpse of the chaos erupting behind them before her father’s weight crushed her to the floor of the car. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around her head. She didn’t even know she was screaming as the car bumped and jerked, the driver trying desperately to get around the lead cars until bullets smashed through the windshield.

  Hot wetness splashed the side of her face as the car filled with the coppery aroma of blood.

  The car jolted to a halt, shouting men firing their weapons into the air pulled the doors open and roughly dragged everyone out, pushing and shoving as the gunfire continued. She smelled burning fuel and scorched metal.

  Callie’s father fought to keep them away from her, fought to hold onto her, shouting at them, but the men tore her away. More shots were fired as she was dragged off into the jungle.

  When she looked around, all she saw was the men who’d taken them, Mr. Reeves and Mr. Gallegos.

  She didn’t see her father.

  The rough, dirty, smelly men dragged and shoved her ahead of them, barking at her in Spanish. She nodded numbly, staggering between them along the nearly invisible trail.

  She glanced back just once before the jungle closed around them.

  Bloody bodies were scattered around the vehicles and the road. No one moved. One of the trucks exploded and she flinched. Thick black smoke billowed. It rose above the trees. She couldn’t see any sign of her father, of Jeremy…then even the trucks disappeared behind the dense foliage.

  Somehow she knew her father was gone…dead…but somehow she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. She had no time for tears or grieving, only surviving. If her father had died trying to save her, the least she could do was stay alive.

  She was so scared…so scared…but Jeremy’s words as he had been teaching her echoed in her head. “Most people die because they stop thinking, Callie,” he’d advised. “Don’t stop thinking.”

  Unconsciously she nodded in response to his remembered words. She wondered if he’d had time to think before he died.

  She’d only been taking the lessons from him because he was cute…and he seemed to think she was, too. Now he was dead back there like the others. Because if he wasn’t dead, they would still be shooting and her father would be calling for her. But he wasn’t.

  Her throat was tight.

  Maybe Jeremy’s words, his training, would save her even if they hadn’t saved him. Tears streamed down her face. That was his legacy to her. That and her life.

  Another set of words moved through her mind, words from an old science fiction book she’d read. She thought of deserts, not jungles, and of enduring. Of surviving.

  Something about fear.

  Her mind worried at the puzzle of those words, trying to remember them right.

  The men tied her wrists together, pushed and shoved her along, shouted epithets in Spanish.

  Knowledge, too, was a dangerous thing. It was a valuable thing. She would keep her knowledge of Spanish to herself. Everything was an edge. She would survive. Somehow, she would survive this.

  The blades of the helo spun as they ran, pulling on their gear. Tom Porter - agent with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the agency responsible for protecting Embassy personnel - glanced at the two C.I.A. field agents as they did.

  He knew Ty Connor, if only by reputation. Ty had been with the Agency for nearly ten years now, mostly in the field. In that time he’d become something of a legend for his cool competence. His partner, Buck Parker, was a relative unknown. A field agent for about six years and Connor’s partner for the last four. By all accounts, the two men worked well together.

  It was a risk pulling them out of their undercover operation for this mission, but given the circumstances, it was warranted. They knew the ground and the people involved better than anyone else.

  “Here’s what we have so far,” Tom shouted over the sound of the helo. “A radio call came in reporting the convoy was under fire and that it included U.S. Envoy Reeves. We had a man with him. Then communication broke off.”

  They scrambled into the helo along with the security team from the BDS.

  All of them were grim; some were pissed.

  “He gave us the slip, told us the visit was strictly social, not that he was going to take a trip out to the oil fields,” Porter said, as he settled the headset in place.

  They had vetoed it from the beginning as too dangerous. It was too hard to protect him out there. It was their job, but that only worked if the subject cooperated. Reeves was a wild card, a Brooks Brothers cowboy, and had been from the get go.

  “We’ll meet the locals on site. The government is sending army units to meet us,” he continued as they strapped in, communication easier over the headsets. He signaled to the pilot to take her up. “According to the radio communications, the attack happened at ten hundred local time as they were on track to visit the oil fields.”

  Ty Connor’s eyes grew grim, furious.

  “Damn it, I told him it was a bad idea, that going out to the oil fields would send the wrong message to the locals,” Ty said. “Someone was bound to react to it.”

  By all appearances, it seemed they had.

  “So did we,” Porter said, bitterly.

  A new administration and so a new team at the Embassy. Why was it no surprise this administration wanted to make nice with the oil companies? And as usual, old or new, they didn’t talk to or listen to the people on the ground, the people with experience, who knew what the history was here, who knew what was going on.

  Reeves, though, had been worse than usual. He’d already had his mind set on making his mark here, whatever the cost, and he’d already had his own ideas on how to handle things. No amount of explanation would change his mind.

  “This new administration comes in guns blazing, knowing nothing. Damn cowboys.”

  Attitude and policy were set from the top down and it was clear how this administration intended to run things. Six months in, and they were already running roughshod.

  “More than a year of work getting in close, getting people down here to trust us and Reeves puts all of it at risk for a fucking field trip.”

  “Preaching to the choir, buddy,” Ty’s partner, Buck, said tightly as Tom gave them both a significant look, sharing their disgust.

  Ty looked at Buck.

  After months of work, they’d been getting close, too, to one of the major rebel groups down here. Months of damn hard, dangerous and delicate work setting Ty and Buck up as arms dealers, gunrunners, building a reputation with the locals. Now it was all in jeopardy.

  His expression grim, Tom said, “It gets even better, here’s who else was in the convoy beside the guards from the oil company…”

  It was clear from his expression they weren’t going to like it.

  He passed them the pictures one at a time. “Reeves you know. Anthony Gallegos, VP for the oil company. Definitely a company man.”

  Gallegos was about as expected, a bit of a fat cat. Hispanic, but comfortable with it, probably from Texas or California.

  “The field manager, Jim Martin…”

  The picture of Martin was clearly from his company ID. He was an average guy in a pale blue button-down shirt, t
he collar open, no tie. He was the man on the ground, the one who did the real work of managing.

  Porter paused before he passed on the last file, open to the photo.

  Both Ty and Buck looked at him as Ty took it. The man’s face had gone grim, set and sick. His eyes were haunted.

  Ty look at it. One look at that picture and Ty felt just as sick as Porter. It was like a punch in the gut.

  He glanced through it quickly as Porter talked.

  “Callie Martin,” Porter said. “Eighteen years old. Just. She was supposed to leave for the States in a few days. According to her records, she’s really bright, top of her class, accepted at Princeton. Her birthday was just a few weeks ago. This was a last trip with her dad out to the fields before she went home.”

  It was a standard high school graduation picture of a pretty girl with sun-lightened hair. She looked over her shoulder with a million-megawatt smile. That was what did it for him, that smile. It was warm, bright, and happy, more natural, more open than most high school pictures. It was real, not posed. Her eyes were truly beautiful, perfectly shaped, as green as new grass, bright and intelligent.

  A girl like that here, in this place. What they would do to someone like her?

  Ty saw the same expression mirrored in Buck’s eyes.

  A convoy of trucks filled with local army troops waited as the helo touched down.

  Clearly the commander had only been waiting for Ty, Buck and Tom. As soon as they were down the first trucks were off, rumbling, rolling and pitching through the jungle.

  Even as the helo lifted off again the commander of the local army squad hurried over to introduce himself, filling them in as they ran to catch one of the trucks. Ty shook his hand as the man explained. It was all standard procedure.

  As they rode, the trucks bumped and jostled those within them.