by Kari Nichols
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE SECTOR
Copyright © 2011 by Kari Nichols
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: Pending
ISBN: 978-0-9879321-0-5
Cover Art and Title Page by Laura Kinder
This book is dedicated to Faye Nichols.
For reading the book every time I wanted to make “a small change”.
Thanks Mum!
I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this book:
Candice Teo – thanks for always telling me that my work is too wordy. “Make it terser!” I can’t wait to see your book up on Amazon or on a bookstore shelf!
Laura Kinder – my writer’s group partner! Thank you for your work on the cover and the title page and for your assistance in editing this book.
Michelle Donnelly – thank you for your assistance with the cover art brainstorming and for all of the helpful articles you’ve sent me regarding self-publishing. I do read them, honest!
Concetta Solinas – thanks for your assistance in editing this book. It’s always great to have a fresh take on the work.
Faye Nichols – thanks for always reading everything I write, no matter how many times I change it, rearrange it, and just completely mess with it.
Dean Nichols – I know you said you read it … I’m still waiting to hear what you think! Jeez, bro! J
Kenny Chu – thanks for allowing me to kill you in this book. It may not always be death-by-bacon, but if I can work it in, there will always be a Kenny Chu in my books, for better or worse. J
Any mistakes that still exist in this book are my fault. I take full responsibility for them. If you’d care to point them out to me, I’m happy to hear from you. Comments can be made on my blog at: blogmybook.wordpress.com
Thanks for reading! J
Chapter 1
Hillman could hear the soldiers closing in on his position. He had already wasted too much energy thrashing through the jungle. Now, he would make them come to him. He allowed his muscles to rest, his heart to stop hammering inside his chest. He lay beneath the scrub of an enormous tree, his body stretched out full. His feet pressed against the trunk of the tree, giving him purchase. The jungle wasn’t very large. It wasn’t even a true jungle; more of an overgrown forest. He’d already found the edge of it and looked down on the eighty foot drop to the ocean below. The waves crashed up against the rocks making the chances of surviving a cliff dive next to impossible.
Still, he’d considered it. If he could survive the dive, they’d have a damn difficult time finding him in the water. He’d posted the second best swim time at his most recent fitness evaluation, beating out guys who were ten years his junior. He could remain submerged for three minutes and forty-five seconds. He knew that if he cut that by fifteen seconds then he could come up for air with barely a ripple in the water’s surface. With nothing but his lips breaking through to open air, his captors would have little to watch for.
Long and lean, Hillman had feet like flippers. Underwater, away from the heavy pull of the surface waves, he could gain one hundred yards or more with each breath. A calculated guess of the distance put the nearest island at a five mile swim. A piece of cake. First he had to even the odds a little.
Hillman scanned the area in front of him. He could hear someone creeping closer. A twig snapped; a palm frond whapped back into place. His pursuer made too much noise. Hillman ignored him. He blocked out the sounds and focused on the area to either side of his enemy. The noisy one had moved closer. In danger of being stepped on, Hillman tensed, ready to attack.
A movement out of the corner of his eye jerked his attention to the right. A second soldier had moved up next to his companion. They didn’t sense him. The noisy one obliterated all but the loudest forest sounds. Hillman waited until they were a foot away from stepping on him.
The noisy one walked with his gun held in front of him, a two-handed grip on the stock, one finger resting on the trigger. Hillman leapt up, his right hand forcing the gun away. He slammed his left fist into his enemy’s testicles. Bent over double from the pain, the noisy one started to gag. Hillman used the man’s body as protection from the second gunman, who had started firing. Hillman jabbed upward with his left hand to catch the noisy one in the throat. Spinning the dying man around, Hillman gripped the man’s trigger finger and forced it down. Bullets chewed up the second man’s chest.
With both men down, Hillman relieved them of their weapons and extra ammunition. He stole a radio, a hunting knife and the second man’s boots. His feet were too used to being shod. Running through the jungle with them bared to the elements had already ripped a few chunks out of them. He dragged both bodies into the shadows of the jungle. A trained eye could detect the disturbance, but Hillman wasn’t worried about that. He returned to the safety of the dense undergrowth and made his way toward the edge of the island.
He couldn’t determine what their game was. He’d been pulled from his cell and dumped into the jungle. Then they’d started shooting at him. He had run for close to an hour before he’d managed to break away from their chase. Then he’d hidden. Now, with his stolen radio, he could judge where they were. His instincts were screaming at him. Stalk, kill. But he’d made a promise to his team.
One of them had to get off this fucking island, alive. The fourth to be pulled from their cell, Hillman vowed to survive. The other three soldiers had never returned. Help had not arrived. No one knew where they were.
He could hear the other pursuers searching, calling out over the radio. They were concentrating on the east side of the jungle. Hillman forced himself to turn toward the west.
He fingered the scar at the back of his neck, unaware that he’d recently adopted the habit. His locator beacon had just been upgraded. Smaller than a book of matches, the doctor had inserted it under the skin at the base of Hillman’s neck. When activated, it would send a signal to the nearest orbiting satellite. That signal would bounce back to HQ with his exact GPS coordinates. Each soldier had one. They’d all gone in for their upgrade a month before they’d been deployed on this last mission.
Captured two months earlier, help should have arrived within a day or two, three at the most. After the first week, they’d begun to question the upgrades. After two weeks with no sign of help, they knew something had gone wrong with the new locators. Just as they’d come to terms with the idea of no rescue, the Russians removed the first soldier from their cell. Two weeks after the first soldier, they’d come for the second; then the third. Now, they had taken Hillman.
Their captors spoke very little when they entered the cell. They chose the soldier they wanted, released him and then dragged him out. Always, there were four guards with guns aimed at the remaining men. Chained to the wall, they could do nothing to resist. Their bonds were loosened during meal times. Never removed, the chains were lengthened so they could move their cuffed hands from their plate to their mouth. If they attempted to cause trouble, they got blasted with the taser.
When the first man hadn’t returned to the cell and the Russians had taken the second man, the remaining prisoners had discussed the need for someone to get off the island. With no idea what numbers the enemy force employed, they had agreed that a one-man assault would be a suicide mission. Their team leader, Major John Alan ‘Warp’ Douglass, had ordered them to do whatever it took to escape. The order had a lot of gray areas that were open for interpretation. No one knew where the soldiers were being taken.
Hillman squinted as the harsh sunlight burned his eyes. They were being held in a subterranean room blaste
d out of the bedrock. Hillman hadn’t seen sunlight in two months. Dropped into the jungle, the Russians had started shooting at him.
He edged his way further west, the crashing waves getting louder. His enemies hadn’t found the bodies, yet. They’d abandoned their search of the east side of the jungle and were heading west. Crawling through the undergrowth, Hillman battled disappointment over his slow progress. If he stood up and ran, he could make better time. Hillman crushed the idea before it could gain in appeal. Standing, he would be a much larger target. The dense brush reached three feet in height. Hillman topped out at a few inches over six feet tall.
The road lay ten feet ahead of him. Eight feet wide and cleared of all foliage, it stretched forty feet to his right before it curved out of sight. To the left, it ran ten feet before it angled in toward the island. Beyond the road, another section of jungle spread outward. Less dense than the main part of the island, the jungle hugging the edge of the island extended out some thirty feet before it gave way to the cliffs. Hillman could see all the way through it.
If he could cross that road to get to it, he could make those cliffs.
No chatter whispered over his radio. The silence had started five minutes ago. They must have suspected that he’d copped a radio. Spinning through the channels, he couldn’t find any other chatter. Radio silence would keep their positions unknown. It also forced them to work alone. A team limited by visual distance in order to read hand signals would be ineffective at clearing such a large area. A lone man could wait for the line to pass by and then make his way in the opposite direction.
The jungle ran level with the road. Hillman crawled around the edge, looking for the narrowest place to cross. He placed his feet against the back of a tree and crouched in a sprinter’s stance. Hunched down, he remained partially covered by the brush.
And he waited.
He filtered out all sounds and then gradually allowed them to seep back in. Bird calls twittered above him. The waves crashed in the distance. Insects buzzed around him. Their drone increased in regularity and volume. Hillman focused on the insects. He realized he could hear them underneath the sound of the drone.
As he watched, a Jeep poked its nose around the corner to his right. The driver kept to an even 5km while the other three occupants searched the darkness of the jungle. Hillman perched too close to the edge. They’d spot him going that slowly. Easing down from his crouch, he laid out flat and melted back into the jungle.
The Jeep coasted past. It continued toward the bend in the road and disappeared. Hillman started to move toward the road again when a second Jeep came into view from the right. Watching it pass, he counted the seconds from its disappearance until the next Jeep’s arrival. He got as far as ‘one-thousand-and-five’ before he spotted the next Jeep in the line.
The road extended eight feet across at its widest point. He stood over six feet tall, with a thirty-six inch inseam. Three full strides would carry him across the open expanse and into the brush on the other side. A sprinter took a few quick, shorter steps to get up to speed. Hillman needed to be at speed during those brief few seconds of exposure. Angling over to another, better spot, he wedged his feet against a tree and gathered into his crouch.
The Jeep rounded the corner on his right. He tracked it as it crept along the road. As it neared his position, he held his breath to minimize all movement. The Jeep rolled past and he took a deep, even breath. He kept his eyes on the Jeep as it continued down the road. The instant it rounded the corner, Hillman burst upward. Two short steps brought him to speed. Three long strides and he crossed over the road. He dove into the brush on the opposite side and turned to face the road once more. Already the next Jeep had rounded the bend and started to work its way down the road.
Hillman waited for it to pass. If they’d spotted him they’d have done one of two things. They would have sped up and chased him into the bushes or they would lull him into a false sense of security and then chase him into the bushes once they were closer to him. He resumed normal breathing once the Jeep had continued past him. Easing down into the depths of the brush, he began to pick his way around the trees.
“Where the fuck is he?” Godin demanded. His Bluetooth plugged into his ear, he paced his office like a caged lion. Sergei Godin, a Russian billionaire, now lived in exile after some shady business deals over a couple of Akula-class submarines. The money he’d offered would have been enough to line the pockets of the president and his cabinet ministers for many years, but they had made the mistake of trusting Godin. Delivery of the submarines were made with a twenty percent deposit due, with the remaining funds to be transferred to the accounts that each man specified.
Those accounts never received the expected money and, after two warnings, the president had rolled up the welcome mat to Godin. He could not step foot anywhere on Russian soil without the risk of being arrested. Instead, Godin spent his days on his island in the South China Seas. A small island in the Con Dao region, it registered as little more than a speck on any world map. His guards patrolled the twelve square miles around the clock and any boats showing too much interest in her shores were given one warning before Godin released his attack boats.
His Ferragamo loafers slapped against the hardwood flooring. He had small feet for such a tall man. He wore shoes that were two sizes too big, in an attempt to mask their size. His trousers brushed the tops of his shoes, to help conceal the ill-fitting footwear. He didn’t believe it made him vain. No one ever contradicted this belief.
This test had turned into a colossal waste of time, just as the previous tests had. Freed from his cell, Godin’s soldiers had chased the prisoner through the jungle. Colin ‘Finn’ Finnegan – his lead engineer – would then attempt to access the self-destruct mechanism within each soldier’s locator. Months ago, Godin had believed Finn when he’d said it would be a cakewalk to determine the codes. Now, he had to suppress the urge to shoot the fucker. Not only was it not a cakewalk, it was beginning to get damn expensive. Soon it would be cheaper to pay the guy who had designed the fucking locator his half-a-billion dollar extortion fee just to get the rest of the tech.
“We don’t know where the soldier is, sir,” Pleski admitted. He was glad that he’d made his report over the phone. Godin in a rage could mean the end of whoever was standing too close. Pleski was his right-hand man, but that position wouldn’t spare him from the brunt of Godin’s temper. They’d released the soldier over five hours earlier and twice they’d almost run him into the ground, but he’d managed to escape both times. Now he’d disappeared and they’d had no sign of him for well over two hours.
Godin stalked around his study as he listened to Pleski breathing at the other end of the line. His men had captured the entire Sector team with a few losses on his side. He’d sent thirty men to collect the sixteen soldiers and it had cost him eight lives. He wasn’t pleased with those odds. Godin had taken his displeasure out on his team leader by shooting him in the head. His newly promoted team leader had seen to the containment of the prisoners.
There were twelve prisoners left, not including this soldier, Hillman. Giving Finn a two week window to conduct his tests, Godin had enough subjects to continue for another twenty-four weeks. He bloody well hoped it wouldn’t take that long. A half-a-billion dollars wasn’t out of line for what Godin had asked for. Jonathan McMaster had shouldered a lot of responsibility, after all. He’d won the contract to manufacture The Sector’s new locators fairly. Once he’d earned the contract, Godin had contacted him. He had offered the man whatever he’d asked for, up front, with no intention of paying up. Godin had underestimated McMaster’s business acumen.
McMaster had done a little checking and had learned of Godin’s ploy with the submarines. Deciding Godin could play the same game twice, McMaster had omitted some fundamental information from his final delivery. McMaster had created the locators to exact specifications. Everything that Godin had asked for had been delivered. What he had withheld, however, was the proce
dure for accessing the chip’s self-destruct feature.
Godin focused on the immediate problem once again. This missing soldier needed to be rounded up. He left his study and crossed the long hallway to his tech center. Opening the door, he poked his head in and stared at Finn. “Deactivate the jammer and locate the soldier. Send his coordinates to Pleski.” The one thing that Finn had managed to do right was create a blind for the locator’s GPS beacon. Instead of bouncing up to the nearest satellite and sending the information to The Sector’s headquarters, it sent the information to Godin’s tech team. Godin would give Finn one more chance to get him those codes before he’d consider handing over the cash to McMaster.
Hillman’s lungs were beginning to burn. The salt water wasn’t doing any wonders for his eyes, either. After his crawl through the jungle, he’d descended the eighty foot cliff. The skin on his fingertips was raw and bleeding. Tossing aside his borrowed boots as well as the gun, Hillman had shoved the knife through a belt loop and dived into the water.
Once he’d swum down deep enough to escape the pull of the waves, he’d made decent time. He’d been forced to surface after every three minutes. The energy expended trying to dive down to calmer water used up more of his reserves than he’d anticipated. He didn’t know how long he’d been swimming, but assumed it was close to an hour. If his calculations were correct, he would be close to a mile out from the island. He didn’t waste energy looking behind him. The island he was heading toward was always directly in front of him and that was the only goal he needed.
His next trip to the surface brought with it an ominous sound. He’d been worried about the bloody fingertips attracting sharks, but so far he’d been lucky there. Now, behind him, he could hear a boat approaching. Taking his breath and diving back down, Hillman stopped swimming and waited to see where the boat was headed.