Val shrugged and stood up. “Are you in or not? We have to leave now.”
“Nikki, don’t trust her,” said Jane. “We have to bring her in. Mrs. Merrivel will want to know where she’s been. Once we question her, we can put together a plan to go get your father.”
“There isn’t time,” said Val. “And can you really be sure they would allow you to go? Helping your dad doesn’t fall within mission parameters.”
Nikki tucked the envelope in her pocket. Her jeans were covered in smoke and dirt. She couldn’t even guess what her hair looked like. She knew her body was about to hit a wall—too much adrenaline, not enough food, not enough water, not enough time. There never seemed to be enough time. Everything she loved and wanted to cling to seemed to leave her behind. Everyone was always pushing her into something new. She didn’t want something new. She wanted everything to be like it was. She could feel a rising tide of panic that seemed to sweep away feeling from her limbs and close her vision down to a tunnel.
She looked at Jane. Stuck behind a computer, when she wanted to do field work.
She looked at Jenny. Never going to be in command with Nikki around.
She looked at Ellen. Ellen, who’d buried her adventurous side in mommyhood until she found Carrie Mae. Ellen smiled at her and tilted her head ever so slightly toward Val.
She couldn’t look at Z’ev. If she looked at Z’ev, she’d know whether or not he still loved her, and the idea that the answer might be no was more than she could stand. She tucked her gun away in its holster, trying to hide the way her hands were shaking and pulled out the Impala keys.
“Fine. Let’s go,” said Nikki.
Val snatched the keys out of her hand. “I’ll be driving,” she said. “It is my car after all.”
September I
Final Report
Los Angeles • Monday
“What are we going to do?” asked Jenny.
Mrs. Merrivel picked a microscopic piece of lint off her skirt.
“Well, I guess we’ll have to bump Jane up to field agent and request a new technology liaison.”
“What are we going to do about Nikki?”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do about Nikki.”
“But she just left. With Valerie Robinson! We can’t do nothing.”
“Jenny,” Mrs. M appeared to be picking her words carefully. “Your team garnered a great deal of political goodwill by dealing with Valerie Robinson, but the unfortunate Canadian incident with Ellen may have used up the last of it. Right now, Darla has made some very smart moves, one of which was putting your team on administrative leave. The current perception is that Darla is a hard-ass and that she is appropriately dealing with matters. If word gets out that not only is Valerie alive, but that Nikki has left with her, how well do you think that is going to go over? Darla will be forced to send teams to retrieve them. And if the three of you were to go and assist Nikki… I’m rather certain that you would also be added to the shoot-to-kill list.”
Jenny gaped. “But, Val said it was about Nikki’s father. It didn’t sound like they were doing anything bad.”
“Ah, yes, helping Nikki’s father, the known smuggler? And we believe Val Robinson, the traitor, do we?”
“Oh, crap,” said Jenny, sinking down in her chair.
“Quite. No, the best thing we can do is nothing. The four of you are on leave currently and I think we can drag that out for a bit longer. Hopefully, Nikki will be back in a few weeks.”
“And what if she isn’t?”
“Then we’ll come up with an alternative plan,” said Mrs. M with a shrug.
“And what about Z’ev? He left right after Nikki. He wouldn’t even talk to us.”
“Well, thank goodness Jane kept her head and put a tracking device in his luggage. We know he simply returned here to LA.”
“Yes, but he could be telling people about us right now. What should we do about him?”
“I’ve already taken care of it. I invited him here to the house for dinner. John is going to talk to him.”
“Is that going to work?”
“It better. Nikki will probably be upset if I have to take measures regarding her boyfriend.”
“If he is her boyfriend. She left at kind of sensitive moment regarding their relationship.”
Mrs. M shrugged again.
“How can you take this so calmly?” said Jenny, jumping out of her chair and pacing the length of the office. “This is a serious problem!”
“Yes, it really, really is,” said Mrs. Merrivel. “But it’s not like I wasn’t aware that this was a possibility. Admittedly, Val turning up again was a bit of a surprise. But Nikki’s relationship with Z’ev was always leading in this direction.”
“I just can’t believe we’re going to leave Nikki out there by herself.”
“She’s not by herself,” said Mrs. Merrivel. “She has Val.”
“I’m not sure which is worse,” said Jenny. “Being alone, or being with Val.”
“We’ll have to wait and find out,” said Mrs. M.
“Yeah,” said Jenny, “if she survives.”
Coming in 2016
South Africa I
Approach Vector
Nikki looked out of the plane window at the distant ground. From the air, what had been a post-sunset world was now a twilight sphere of advancing shadows as the sun retreated beyond the curve of the earth. Below, the farm fields of South Africa unrolled like a patchwork quilt sewn by a half-rate seamstress. Somehow she hadn’t pictured Africa having this much green.
“This is a terrible plan,” said Nikki.
“I know,” said Val, leaning over to look out the window with her.
“You say that now!” Nikki snapped around to look at Val.
Val popped a piece of nicotine gum in her mouth and grinned. “I said it when you came up with the plan.”
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” said Nikki.
“Hey, I just asked you to help rescue your father. I didn’t say you had to jump out of plane without a parachute,” said Val. “That was your idea.”
“Coming up on the drop point,” yelled the co-pilot coming into the cabin, and yanking open the exterior door. Nikki shuffled to the door, her wingsuit dragging behind her. The co-pilot checked his watch and held up three fingers, counting down. Val pulled her goggles down on her face.
“Yeah, but—“ Whatever Nikki had been about to say was deliberately cut off as Val pushed past her and dove out of the plane.
Nikki rolled her eyes and checked her watch, marking the time. “Drama queen,” she muttered. She pulled down her goggles and glanced at the co-pilot who gave her a thumbs up. Still shaking her head, Nikki stepped from the plane.
For a moment there was the delicious sensation of pure speed, unhampered by anything so mundane as a vehicle. Freedom, for Nikki, was going fast. All too soon, her watch flashed and with reluctance, Nikki widened her arms and spread her legs so that the fabric webbing between them could catch the air like sails. Val was below her already angling her body for the decent. Nikki squinted in the dim light trying to match her approach.
Nikki was buffeted by a gust of wind and found herself slipping off target. Battling back, Nikki corrected course, and blinked back tears from the cold air that blew in around the edge of her goggles. It was true; there were easier ways to get into the farm where her father was being held. But all of them would leave a footprint of some kind. Abandoned vehicles, changes of clothes, traces of hacking. Nikki wanted to drop in, collect Philippe Lanier from whatever hellhole he had been confined and disappear into the night. After that—Well, Nikki couldn’t think about after that. Because after that meant thinking about what to do about Val and her… aliveness. Not to mention what to do about her job, the one she had unexpectedly quit, or her boyfriend, CIA Agent Z’ev Coralles, who she had left sitting in her grandmother’s living room with no explanation. The “after that” list on this mission was extensive and
scary. Nikki avoided the thought and concentrated on not falling out of the sky like a rock.
The lights of the farmhouse, if you could call a sixteen bedroom mansion, with on-call chef, and a rooftop infinity swimming pool, a farmhouse, were ahead of them, forming a distinctive pattern in the darkness. The house, possibly in a nod to the Dutch owners, or possibly because even architects sometimes take drugs, was three stories, built in two long strips like a V. At the point of the V was a windmill. Their goal was the right wing of the house, which had a long narrow pool on the roof.
Nikki had chosen this approach for the simple fact that it was the only entrance to the house that wasn’t under video surveillance. The owner of the farm, a thirty-year-old, dark-haired Dutchman named Maaravi Meise, had more security on his flower farm than a drug cartel. Nikki assumed this was because, even though there were flowers in the fields, Meise was not actually in the flower business. At best, he was also in the flower business. Nikki chose not to investigate – she didn’t actually care. She just wanted to get her dad and get the hell out of the country.
However, her chosen entry method, wingsuits, were meant to be deployed in conjunction with parachutes. But parachutes were unwieldy and too easy to spot from the ground. Instead, Nikki had chosen to use an alternative method to soften their landing—the pool. Nikki watched as Val angled her body up, slowing her descent even further. Too much angle and she’d become vertical and gravity would take over. Not enough angle and she’d hit the rooftop at fifty miles an hour and bounce off the water with leg breaking intensity like a skipped stone.
Nikki swung onto her approach vector. From the air things were always so much clearer. The roof was lined with lights focused on the grounds below and ambient light and altitude illuminated the roof clearly. But once she touched down, she knew there would be a period of darkness as her eyes adjusted to being behind the lights. That was the moment of danger. She and Val had debated bringing night-vision goggles. Nikki had been reluctant to pack a giant, clunky, standard issue army pair, which was all they could afford on the black-market, and Val seemed to think night-vision was for sissies. Either way it had seemed sort of silly when it was only going to be for this one moment. But now, as the moment approached, Nikki wondered if maybe they had made the wrong decision. But then, all of her decisions since leaving her teammates, family, and boyfriend seemed worthy of being questioned.
Val disappeared into the darkness beyond the row of roof lights. Nikki checked her watch. If she had timed the jump properly she should be thirty seconds behind Val. Time enough for Val to make the landing and get clear. Nikki angled, spreading her arms and legs, slowing down as much as possible. The roof still seemed to be approaching far too quickly.
Slow. Slow. Slow. Nikki lifted her chin, and clenched her tongue carefully inside her teeth, hoping for a graceful bellyflop that would glide her into the shallow end of the pool. There was a heart stopping moment of impact and the rush of water. She was going to make it. Son of—it’s a pool noodle! Ducky! Ducky! It’s a ducky. Nikki took the long piece of wet foam and bobbing rubber duck to the face, before feeling them bump over her hair and down her back.
She felt her momentum lessen and she reached for the zippers on her suit. Arriving safely only to drown in the pool would be the definition of a failed plan. She floundered briefly and then found her feet. There was a dim light near the stairs. She sloshed over to them and hauled herself out – stripping out of her suit as she went. Her eyes, not yet adjusted, saw only indistinct blobs of white deck furniture. No alarms seemed to have been triggered. No running feet. Also, no Val.
“Val?” she whispered. There was an annoyed grunt from ahead of her. “Val?”
“Over here,” said Val, her voice filled with resignation. “I’m stuck.”
“Stuck how?” Nikki inched forward. Hampered by the dragging fabric of her suit.
“I’m not entirely sure,” said Val. “I think it’s a hammock.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bethany Maines , a native of Tacoma WA, is the author of the Carrie Mae Mystery series and An Unseen Current. When she’s not traveling to exotic lands, or kicking some serious butt with her fourth degree black belt in karate, she can be found chasing after her daughter, or glued to the computer working on her next novel.
OTHER WORKS BY BETHANY MAINES
BULLETPROOF MASCARA: A CARRIE MAE MYSTERY from Atria
COMPACT WITH THE DEVIL: A CARRIE MAE MYSTERY from Atria
SUPPORTING THE GIRLS: A CARRIE MAE MINI-MYSTERY
POWER OF ATTORNEY: A CARRIE MAE MINI-MYSTERY
Tales from the City of Destiny
An Unseen Current
Find out more at:
BethanyMaines.com
High-Caliber Concealer Page 29