Nike's Wings

by Valerie Douglas

  Just the idea made him shudder inside, his stomach muscles tighten at the memories.

  The eyes behind the yellow tinted sunglasses met his evenly as she held her hand out to him. Her hand in his was strong, limber and warm.

  “Hello, I’m Nike Tallent.”

  Her voice broke the spell of memory.

  He took a breath. “Ty Connor. It seems I should thank you for what you did in Qatar.”

  She looked at him, clearly taken aback.

  It was only for a second.

  There was a moment of stillness between them.

  Nike met his gaze. She wasn’t disingenuous enough to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Looking at him now, she remembered...

  Up close his eyes were still so very blue. Looking into them made her heart wrench. They’d been shockingly brilliant, too, amongst the blood, dirt and bruises in Qatar. A breath of emotion tried to leak through, but she wouldn’t allow it. She didn’t have to feel it, didn’t have to feel at all. Emotions were dangerous. She tucked it all away, resolutely closed them behind a mental door and shut that door firmly.

  Nike looked at him.

  He was a proud man, and with good reason, she knew. She would take nothing away from him.

  She remembered that day in the jungle, watching him go down with the bullet in his leg, still trying to reach her.

  “You owe me nothing,” she said, her voice uninflected, even. “I was just doing my job.”

  Ty met that level stare, heard the flatness in her voice. Nothing showed in her eyes, no shadows stirred there. Whatever she’d seen, she kept to herself.

  All right, he could live with that.

  “We need your help,” he said.

  She looked at him. “With what?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was cooler in New York, as spring hadn’t reached that city as quickly as it had D.C. It was a good thing Mitch had brought her gear, Nike thought. From the looks of things she would need it. They were on the ground in the command center set up by the NYPD not far away from the Chechen compound. Daylight faded fast amid the city towers.

  They had filled her in on the way.

  As with many immigrants of the past, the Irish, Italians, Chinese, Russians, the Chechen tended to flock together, seeking the familiar in an unknown place, looking for commonality in a strange land.

  Unfortunately, others who lived in those buildings didn’t share their beliefs or their struggle. Some were Somali; some were refugees from the tumult in other parts of the world, while some were American born.

  All were held hostage now, the entire area possessed and controlled by the desperate Chechen.

  For all of New York’s ban on guns, there were those in the surrounding states who had no such restrictions. It was still far too easy for many people to get their hands on weapons of all kinds, including automatic and semi-automatic weapons.

  Some of the Agency’s overseas intel indicated the Russian Mafia might very well be helping supply those weapons across the country, with the Russian government turning a blind eye to the AK-47s straying across their borders. It was standard procedure, a return almost to the old Cold War days of disturb and unsettle, with the President of Russia stirring the pot. Ty imagined they’d be amused to find the Americans as plagued by the Chechens as they’d been. Not that Ty didn’t sympathize with the Chechen cause or their desire for independence, but their methods toward that end were no better than those of Al-Qaeda and little different.

  Those others in the buildings, though, were not the terrorists. And the women, the children? They were innocents. They didn’t deserve to die for someone else’s cause.

  In the background she could hear the negotiator speaking to the leader of the Chechens, his voice calm as they dickered.

  “Can you do it?” Ty asked.

  Nike looked at the buildings, many of them old, built in the sixties and seventies with balconies and lot of decorative concrete work. Lots of handholds, but lots of guards, too. The easiest way in was from the roof from the look of things. There were two guards there, but they wasn’t that much of a problem for her. An armed force of men wouldn’t be able to do it, they’d be too visible and a helicopter would be unmistakable. That was probably the reason the two guards were there, more to warn of an aerial assault so those in the building could go into lockdown, or blow their explosives, than to provide actual defenses. All she would need was a second or two. The possibility of the explosives changed the equation only a little.

  Mark Foster stood with his hands casually tucked in his pockets as he leaned back against a table, Miri with her arms folded, a slight frown on her pretty face.

  She was quite aware of the eyes on her. It made her a little uncomfortable to be the center of so much attention. She was used to being in the shadows.

  Outside the tent were Mitch and his team, waiting, all armed and armored.

  Nike nodded in answer to Ty’s question and turned to Miri Cochran and Mark Foster. “Yes. One. How do you want this to go down?”

  “You can get us in?” Mark said, doubtfully.

  “If that’s what you want,” Nike said, eyeing him.

  In the few intervening hours they’d gotten information on most of the tenants. All but the men who’d run into the building. They were still trying to get IDs on them. Who those men were, they weren’t certain, but they were beginning to get an idea from their behavior. A new voice was now communicating with them. This one was much more aggressive than the original.

  The blueprints of the building were on the table.

  It was a pretty standard structure for its time, mostly square blocks of apartments around the central elevator core, emergency stairs on each end and by the elevators, with a basement equipment and storage area where the furnace and boiler were located.

  All of the buildings were relatively close together in relationship to each other.

  Close together that was, if you weren’t wearing ten or fifteen extra pounds of gear, none of it terribly flexible.

  Nike glanced at Ty.

  Meeting that enigmatic gaze, Ty said, “It’s your show.”

  She went still. Then she nodded. Once.

  Looking at Mark Foster and Miri Cochran, she said, “Who’s your explosives expert?”

  Miri glanced at her people as one of her team detached himself from the bunch.

  “Steve,” she called, and gestured. “Nike Tallent, Steve Buchanan.”

  Tall, African-American, Buchanan was broad and muscled in the chest and lean in the hips like a running back. He had close-cropped hair beneath the helmet and greenish eyes. Nike liked his steady gaze.

  Nike turned and said, “Brad? Come here. If either of you were going to blow the place, where would you place the charges to do the most damage?”

  “These people aren’t likely to be experts,” Mark commented.

  Nike looked at him. “It might not matter. Remember the first World Trade Center bombing? There were people killed and injured, but not as many as there might have been since it didn’t work as intended. That time the buildings didn’t fall. If they don’t know what they’re doing, people might get hurt and killed, but not as many, if at all. If we do this right. If they do know and we’re not prepared, a lot of people will get hurt and killed. Some of them will most likely be us. We need to prepare for the worst case scenario and scale down from there.”

  He nodded, remembering the men who’d gone up into the Towers. That was a weight he didn’t want to carry.

  Both of the explosives men leaned over the blueprint, studying it and pointing out the most obvious locations to place bombs to bring the structure down.

  Nike studied the diagram, entryways and exits, and lines of sight.

  “All right,” she said, quietly, and tapped the map. “I’ll get in, open this door for entry.”

  A glance upward at Mark and Miri, with a confirming look to Ty.

  They all nodded.

  “Radi
o silence, the only voice mine. I’ll tell you when entry is clear and proceed to the nearest location for a possible bomb. If there’s nothing there, my team follows me through the building. The only one who speaks is me. I’ll tell you what halls are clear. Your people get the women and children out through the secured exit as soon as that floor is cleared, keeping them out of the line of sight of the upper floors. We’ll try to save as many as we can, just in case.”

  She gestured over her shoulder at the negotiator. “Do we know who he’s talking to and where he’s likely to be located?”

  Mark said, “All we have is a name, Ali. We think he might be more than he claims. Maybe a pro, maybe one of the terrorists the Russians didn’t get. He’s using a single use cell phone so we can’t track him to the apartment that way. From scans of the building, we think he’s here. He’s experienced enough to stay away from the windows. The snipers haven’t spotted him.”

  He tapped the blueprint. At the top of the building, in a corner apartment.

  “All right,” she said, “then he’s my target.”

  Once they were in and past the cordon of watching guards, they could take out the individual guards on the floors throughout the building, quickly and silently. It might work as long as silence was maintained.

  “Try to have your negotiator keep him on the phone as long as possible,” Nike said.

  She looked at the others.

  Frowning, thoughtful, she said, “Is there anything I missed?”

  “If he’s a pro,” Ty said, “he’ll be expecting us to make a move. Let’s make him believe we’re preparing for just that. Have the other buildings been evacuated?”

  Mark shook his head and started to smile. “No, not yet. It’ll give us cover, too, to move those inside the building out. We can blend them in.”

  “Alan,” Miri said, over her radio. “Have the Delta team get in position on the northeast side of the building. Tell them to look as if they’re trying to keep out of sight. That’ll make him think we’re planning to move under the cover of the evacuation.”

  “Good thought,” Ty said.

  Jotting notes down, Mark slid them in front of Harvey, their negotiator. The man scanned it quickly, nodded his understanding.

  Nike secured her radio headset, weapons and plastic cuffs into the Velcro sealed pockets of her pants and then slid on the thin flexible shoes she wore when she free-ran. The leather of the pants would protect her legs from concrete scrapes and the light padding in the soles of the shoes would cushion her feet against impact.

  “Everyone be waiting at, near or outside that door,” Nike said. “Ten minutes, no less.”

  Miri suited up at the same time Nike did, giving Mark a quick look and then signaled to her squad to move out.

  There were too many people. It made Nike nervous and slightly uncomfortable.

  “Give me ten to find my position. I’ll let you know when I move.”

  It was the ideal time to do it, the light bright enough for her to see, but the shadows growing. The brilliant sunset sky would be blinding. They wouldn’t be expecting an attack in daylight, either, although it would be dark soon. She didn’t have much time.

  Nike moved back through the crowd, trotting past the cops and ICE team as she circled until she came to the back side of one of the buildings and found the stairway.

  The run up would warm up her legs, get her blood pumping. Already adrenaline poured through her in anticipation. Her heart rate sped up as she raced up the stairs, burst out onto the flat gravel and tar roof. She didn’t slow.

  Even as she raced for the edge she spotted the men on the opposite roof. They watched, scanning the ground, the surrounding buildings…. That was a mistake. She had guns in each hand. Here she dared use them. Once inside…?

  This was the most dangerous moment, when they might see her and start shooting. She planted her foot on the ledge and leaped into space, already tucking her chin for the roll.

  Ty took Mitch aside. “I’d like to go in with you,” Ty said, quietly. “You’re the primary. I want to watch you in operation.”

  Mitch eyed him. “How long since you last saw some action?”

  “Last year. Too long, I know, but I won’t hold you up. Just leave me behind if you must.”

  Mitch looked at him.

  Ty was the boss, but he was also in good physical shape. Mitch had seen him work out in the gym. He ran the training course every morning and did the range just like they did. He had good reflexes, age and experience. Mitch wasn’t stupid enough to sneeze at that, they could use him.

  “Fall in behind Brad, Mitch said. He looked at his boss. “Our only job is to keep them off Niki. You’ll get it once you see it.”

  “Understood,” Ty said and chambered a round.

  Movement above them caught their eyes. Standing on the ground, they watched – their hearts in their throats – as Nike leaped high above them from one building to the other.

  Two men were waiting for her on that roof, Ty knew, both heat signatures had shown up clearly.

  ~~~~~

  Motion caught one man’s attention, but it was already too late. The other was under cover. A sniper could have taken the first man out, but not the second. Then an assault team would have to have gotten across between the buildings to get the other. Nike needed none of that, she just flew.

  Startled by her sudden appearance out of the growing darkness, the first man spun to bring his weapon to bear, but she rolled on her shoulders and came up firing. He fell even as the other man turned, leading with his gun, but she already had him targeted. The small sharp cracks of her low caliber weapons blew away on the steady breeze.

  There was no one but her to hear.

  Both guards had radios, but neither had time to do more than grunt. It was only a matter of time before one of them would be expected to check in, though. The clock started for her at that moment. She had to move quickly.

  She slipped on her radio headset, set the safeties on her weapons and slid them back into her pockets.

  “Roof is clear. Heading down.”

  Nike eased open the door to the stair, slipped inside.

  Someone was below her, but she couldn’t see him. Not that it mattered.

  Like a gymnast preparing for a routine, she leaped lightly for the iron handrail at the top of the stairs, grasped it as she kicked up into a handstand, then turned on her hands. She let her feet drop over into the space between the stairs. Swinging around, both of her feet slammed into the chest of the man below, driving him back into the wall. His head smacked against the concrete with the sound of a ripe pumpkin. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard that sound, but it always made her stomach churn.

  Carefully checking his pulse, she secured him on his side, just in case.

  She fought the temptation to take down the ringleader at the opposite corner of the building, but if the building was rigged to blow or something went wrong, she’d take a lot of people with her.

  Instead she vaulted over the next set of stairs, landed lightly.

  There was no one there.

  Not wasting any time, she raced on nearly silent feet, going down as quickly as she could, listening for any sounds of alarm, for presences below her.

  There would be someone or several someones on the bottom floor, of that she was certain. Beyond the doorway was the entrance to the basement and the first location of a bomb, if there was one.

  Cautiously, she slowed as she drew nearer to the first floor, listening hard.

  Two, making idle small talk.

  She couldn’t afford to make mistakes, not with people waiting outside, the women and children in the building. While she’d already given up on the idea of children for herself - she knew what she’d become – but she loved them. During the rare times when she came in contact with them, she couldn’t resist smiling at them, wiggling her fingers at them to make them laugh.

  Their simple happiness reminded her of what it had been to be that way, to be abl
e to feel that. Their joy reminded her of the reasons why she chose to do this. They deserved the chance to grow up happy and free, with their families. No one would do to them what had been done to her. No one had the right to take that from them.

  Here she couldn’t use her guns; there was too much risk the sound would draw attention.

  Instead, she came around the corner of the stairs fast, leaped to wall-walk off one wall as she looked for her quarry. She pushed off the wall to catch the last rail with her hands she swung around to slam her feet into the chest of one guard, driving him back hard against the outer door. The force of the impact and the spring of her knees drove her back over the railing. Like the gymnast she’d been in high school she swapped hands to slam her feet into the face of the other. He staggered back hard against the wall, sliding down it to clasp his hands to his bleeding nose and mouth.

  It happened so quickly neither man had had much time to think, much less speak.

  In an instant she was on her knees beside the stunned guard with the bloody nose, ripping away the headset he wore as she quickly grabbed one hand - just as he dazedly registered her presence – and looped the plastic handcuff around one wrist. She flipped him onto his belly as she grabbed the other hand to secure him.

  The other man was getting his bearings, shaking his head like a bull to clear it.

  Nike leaped out of the way as he charged at her, ran part way up the wall to flip into a somersault, turned to plant both hands in his back and gave him a hard assist. His head slammed into the wall.

  Quickly she secured him as well, before slipping her holsters through the belt loops of her leather pants and settling her guns into their holsters. She hadn’t wanted the temptation of the guns sooner. One shot and it would have been all over.

  Now though?