Nike's Wings

by Valerie Douglas

  Nike picked up one of the automatics, checked its action, sighted down the barrel.

  “Everyone here has to make marksman,” Ty said.

  Nike glanced back over her shoulder at him, lifted her eyebrow and gave him a dry look he couldn’t mistake. Behind the glasses, her eyes glinted.

  He’d seen her shoot.

  She had a point, Ty chuckled. Making Marksman wasn’t an issue. A woman of few words, indeed.

  “Come on, let’s get you settled,” he said, escorting her out.

  He glanced into Communications one more time just as Delia looked up. Seeing them pass she shook her head, clear indication that the time wasn’t right. Too much was going on.

  Ty dipped his head in acknowledgment as she spoke into the microphone of her headset.

  Two items awaited Nike on her desktop, delivered by Buck while they did the tour on Ty’s instructions. Her official ID as an agent of the NIO and her government issued sidearm.

  Idly, Nike reached out to touch them with only her fingertips.

  In all her time with the CIA she’d never had sanctioned ID, nothing that showed she’d ever been a part of the Agency. As the old TV show had said, the Agency could and would disavow any knowledge of her actions, or even her existence. She’d never truly belonged. Invisible. Now she would and did belong to something.

  Nike took a breath. She knew if she took them, she was truly committed to this. She let the breath out and then slipped the ID over her head, let it dangle from its chain.

  She looked at Ty.

  “All right, you’re official now,” he said, confirming her thought.

  Her mouth twitched a little.

  Folding his arms, Ty leaned a hip against her desk as he looked at her.

  “As I said, one of the things we’re trying to avoid here is the information gap between the agents in the field and the analysts, trying to integrate the experience gap between the two to decrease the likelihood someone will miss something crucial. So, each agent is assigned an area of particular concern. You’ll get the same information Anita and her people get. In our down time your job is to be another pair of eyes on that data, one that’s been in the field and looks at that information in a different way.

  According to your file, you’ve spent time in Mexico, Central and South America, so you know the ground and speak Spanish fluently.”

  Along with a dozen other languages.

  She remembered a trip to Mexico. Another rescue. That one hadn’t gone so well. A small tide of grief washed through her. They’d already been dead and not pleasantly. Decapitated, one of the Cartel’s favorite methods of execution. All she could do for them then was to make sure they would be identified, so their families would at least know what had become of them.

  “Normally that would be Buck’s area, with his heritage and experience, but there’s a risk of a kind of blindness there as well and I need his experience in other areas, so it’s yours by default.”

  She watched him, heard the things he didn’t say.

  “The drug cartels, Mexican, Colombian, South American,” he continued, “are becoming an increasing problem along our southern border. Fears are the violence will spill over the border into the US. In many ways, it already has. There have been a number of home invasions with drug backgrounds in Arizona and Utah. Kidnappings are up all along the border from California to Texas, a few major cities. We’re their major source of revenue from drug sales and source of guns, however much some might dispute that. The head of one of the drug cartels made the Forbes millionaires list. They’re being fed cocaine and other drugs by the Colombians, the remains of the Shining Path, along with every other drug importer around the world. We need to know what’s going on, what they might be planning, so we can be prepared. Think you can handle it?”

  “I think so,” she said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  “That’s all I can ask,” he said. “If you need anything ask me or Buck if I’m not available. There’s food in the comm center. It’s manned around the clock as long as someone is out in the field, so there’s coffee available there also day and night.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  With a touch to her shoulder, he left her.

  Nike turned her head only a little to watch him go from the corner of her eye, all too aware of him, then she sat down at the computer. Hers. It was such a strange sensation.

  She looked around. A place to be, to belong. It wasn’t all about shooting the bad guys, but also about finding them and saving people. She could live with that.

  With a sigh of satisfaction, she settled down to work.

  It didn’t take long to realize there was simply too much data, she was only duplicating the work of Anita and her people.

  Sitting back, Nike frowned slightly and rubbed her face.

  First, she needed a norm, a baseline to start from so she could get a feel for the information, for the ebb and flow of the data, finding the pattern or the lack of patterns. For that she needed a chart so she could see it not just try to visualize it.

  As she waited for the computer to compile the data she needed to create her chart, she listened to the original recordings of cellular, satellite, and telephone calls rather than reading the transcripts. The soft sound of the Spanish in her ears took her back in memory, but she listened intently, comparing it to the translations, the transcripts, listened for subtle differences in emphasis, meaning. Every listener had their own biases, even her.

  She needed to get a sense of the data, of the sound of the voices, their timbre and tone. It was all so subjective, but it wasn’t that unlike studying a specific subject or individual target.

  It took a while to organize.

  Without thinking, she searched for a light to illuminate her work area, but didn’t stop working. She wasn’t ready to do that. If she was going to do this properly the information had to be organized so it made sense to her. She didn’t notice how quiet the building had become until she sat up to stretch and realized it was dark outside as well.

  Only one other light was on and that was at Ty’s workspace.

  Looking up at his reflection in the windows, she realized he was virtually behind her and that the glass acted as a mirror, although she couldn’t see details. From where she sat she could see him, his fair head bent in concentration.

  She realized it had grown quiet and that something was missing…the sound of Delia’s voice murmuring in the background.

  Reluctantly, she got up, stretched to work out the kinks in her shoulders and went in search of the promised coffee.

  For the first time, Delia was free and Nike got a look at the other woman as she walked into the communications room.

  Tall, a little gangly, wide in the hips, but with a friendly, open face, Delia Morris had been born to be a mother.

  Delia looked at her and smiled. She peeked out at the newest recruit while she’d had time.

  With half an ear, she listened to the broadcast transmission coming through her headset, monitoring the various Delta team members, alert for unusual tension or concern. As yet Michael Parminter, leader of Delta team, was simply trying to coordinate the assistance.

  The predicted tornados had arrived with widespread damage. The people on the ground hadn’t yet started going house to house searching for survivors, but they would soon. That was the heartbreaking part for everyone.

  Smiling, Delia rolled her neck to ease the tension in her neck, back and shoulders and said, “You must be Nike. I’m Delia. If you’re getting coffee would you pour me some with a little cream, a little sugar? You’re here awfully late.”

  With a small shrug, Nike said, “First day. I need to get caught up.”

  “Good for you. How’d you get along with the dragon lady?” Delia gave a significant glance upward.

  Nike smiled ruefully and said softly. “Dragon lady seems remarkably…apt.”

  “Don’t let her bother you,” Delia said. “In this case it’s definitely not you, it’s h
er. Just ignore her. She just doesn’t seem to realize she can’t have all of them to herself, but she wants to.”

  Delia wasn’t certain which had been more insulting, the fact that Anita didn’t consider her competition or that she cared so little about Delia’s feelings she let it show. Delia had a pretty good idea why the NSA had been so willing to let go of a top-notch analyst and it was probably because Anita was a first-class bitch.

  Nike Tallent smiled a little and shrugged, poured a cup of coffee for herself and one for Delia, before handing her the cup.

  Delia took a sip of her coffee. “You make good coffee. Thanks.”

  Walking back to his work area, Ty was thoughtful as he picked up Nike’s personnel file, considering her as he stopped at Buck’s desk.

  He couldn’t deny he had a strong reaction to her and it wasn’t just because she was beautiful - which she was - or attractive in a way that was both openly sexy and sexual yet still oddly innocent, as if some vital part of her was still untouched. She was both open and mysterious at the same time.

  It was the mystery that bothered him.

  They couldn’t afford it.

  Not with the secrecy in the Agency these last years. Not with the atmosphere in Washington these days, with everyone waiting for someone to trip up, make a mistake. It was dangerous.

  There was also Nike herself. No human being should be so self-contained, especially when it seemed so contrary to their nature.

  If it hadn’t been for her obvious skill - and the fact he’d already offered her the job - he wouldn’t have brought her on until he’d had more information, certainly not on the basis of that file no matter how good she was.

  Buck’s eyes followed Ty’s to where Nike Tallent stood in the comm area talking with Delia.

  “What’s up?” Buck asked.

  “Did you see this?” Ty said, dropping the file on Buck’s desk. He’d asked for more information. That was what he’d gotten. “It’s not a file, it’s a resume.”

  Buck nodded, and agreed. “I saw it.”

  The Agency and those within it could be secretive, Ty knew. It was what they did, what they were all about, so it came as second nature to them, but that file was excessive even for them.

  Everyone involved in the upper levels of the NIO had high security clearances. Both Byron and Ty had the highest. To hold back information on a single operative, said operative having already retired, was…curious. And disturbing.

  Ty didn’t like it.

  What was it about Nike Tallent that the Agency felt needed to be hidden from their own?

  “Find out what they’re hiding.”

  He could have asked Nike herself, but he wasn’t certain what she’d tell him. Checks and balances.

  Ty had connections within the Agency himself, but didn’t want to go in the front door, he wanted to go in the back.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was still more dark than light out when Nike arrived at headquarters. Her muscles still jumped from the nightmare that awakened her. She’d been too unsettled to sleep again, too wired, fragments of the dream chasing her up into consciousness like the figures that haunted it. Clean fresh air would blow some of the fear sweat away.

  So she’d come out here to run and work off the tension.

  Running through the early dawn with the dew settling over her like a damp chill cloak, Nike kept her mind turned off, moving easily to let her muscles warm up first. She raced through the trees, leaped or vaulted boulders, dove and rolled, used both Parkour and free-running skills until she felt limber enough and then turned back to headquarters. The glasses she habitually wore penetrated and gave depth to the thin early morning fog.

  She ran past the training facilities, the spare structures used to simulate a variety of scenarios. The guest barracks and the helicopter hanger were ghostly against the pale misty light. Already the sky had brightened considerably from the darkness when she’d arrived. The sun would be up soon.

  Headquarters was usually mostly empty at this hour and that made it easier. Work hours were flexible here, no one was on a set schedule although almost everyone adhered to something close to nine to five when they weren’t in the field or training. Only communications was likely to be manned at this hour if there was an operation going on somewhere, but as far as she knew everyone was back for a change. Even so she was grateful not to be locked into a schedule.

  The glass building was like a beacon in the pale early morning light, a glow on the still mostly dark horizon that loomed larger as she ran.

  Her keycard let her into the building. Motion sensors picked up her presence and turned the lights on for her as she moved through the building and up the stairs to the gym.

  “What are you doing here so early?” a soft, deep familiar voice asked quietly.

  Nike looked over the railing to see Ty looking up. Her heart clenched a little. Although they interacted every day it never lessened the attraction she felt, she always had the same reaction to him. If anything that attraction seemed to grow stronger the more she got to know him.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “What about you?”

  “The same,” he said.

  He was dressed for a run, the sleeves of his loose sweatshirt cut off to reveal his strong arms. She also caught glimpses of his lean muscled body through the armholes. Her heart jumped a little. She wished suddenly and intensely that she hadn’t completed her run already.

  Ty had been surprised to find Niki’s car in the parking lot, certainly to find he wasn’t the only one up and restless at this hour. Most of the time he was the only one here at this hour.

  When he hadn’t found her in the building, though, he’d gone to his office to see if he could spot her, standing still long enough for the motion sensors to shut the lights off again. He’d found her, an ephemeral form that moved through the trees and thin patches of fog like a deer, her thin white t-shirt a flag in the pale light.

  His breath caught, watching her.

  She didn’t jog or trot, she ran, lightly, gracefully, clearing a downed tree like a hurdler, but not as stiffly, the movement smooth, easy.

  It had been beautiful and strangely soothing to watch after a night spent wrestling with his demons. For a few moments, all he did was watch, wrestling with another demon entirely.

  What had chased her out of sleep to have her up, awake and running at this hour? he wondered.

  He didn’t ask though.

  “I’ll have coffee waiting when you get back,” Nike said.

  “Now there’s a woman after my own heart,” he said with a smile.

  With the pale golden light of the pre-dawn light behind and above her gilding her skin, her mahogany hair loose over her shoulders, she looked even more like some kind of woods nymph, lovely and lithe.

  “Are you settling in all right?” he asked, wanting to stretch the moment out a little longer.

  He fought the urge to walk up the stairs, to reach out, brush that rich mahogany hair back from her face and over her shoulder…

  It had been a few weeks since she’d joined the unit and there had been a few calls, including a hostage situation in Atlanta to which Alpha had responded in support of the team there. In the end they hadn’t been needed. It had been a long night, though, waiting to find out if she, Mitch and the team would go in.

  The others would be arriving soon.

  She nodded. “I think I’m starting to find my rhythm.”

  “Good,” he said, pushing through the outer door. “I’ll be back.”

  “Coffee will be waiting,” she repeated.

  The cool morning air felt good on Ty’s hot skin as he stretched, looking back up into the building, the glass sides giving him a good view of her in the gym.

  That didn’t help. Ty found he was too aware of her on so many levels, mental, emotional, physical. That awareness only grew stronger.

  Buck hadn’t been able to dig out a single piece of solid information about her that they didn’t already
know.

  There had been rumors of a secret division within the Agency, answerable only to the previous Vice President, but there were always rumors. It bothered him that in the last few years there seemed to be more truth to those rumors than he was comfortable with. Especially considering what was being whispered.

  Still, it wasn’t enough to bring to Byron. Not when Byron’s most likely reaction would be to let Nike go. Somehow, Ty sensed that would be a disaster for her. It was also clear she’d taken big steps to separate herself, to break away from her past.

  He watched as she stepped into the dojo, the mirrored walls of little use at this hour, the light within setting the building aglow. She moved like a dancer, stretching first through yoga sun salutes to warm up, each move graceful and flowing. Her movements flowed into what was clearly her own personal kata, a mix of martial arts, aikido, grav maga, Capoeira, her motions slow and precise, still graceful, still beautiful.

  Quite naturally, his body responded to her as a beautiful woman, but he knew it was more than that. She fascinated and intrigued him, a beautiful mystery he couldn’t solve. Not yet.

  He still had a few more strings to tug.

  Deliberately, he made himself move away, but much of his tension had already dissolved. The run still felt good, but it would have been better with company.

  With her muscles relaxed and limber, Nike walked down to communications to get the coffee going before she moved on to the gym. She made her rounds around the machines as some of the others arrived.

  Mitch and Brad settled companionably to each side of her on the machines to work out as Tony came over to check her form, log her morning run and arrange for her to give some Parkour training to their visiting ‘firemen’ - one literally an ex-fireman - from the Los Angeles branch.

  To her surprise Brad was her best student, for all his muscle. An ex-college gymnast he’d seen it as a challenge.

  “Morning Nike,” Jerry said, as he joined them. “Don’t look now, but if those eyes were lasers you’d have holes in you by now.”