Chapter One

Georgina "Georgie" Chevalier is caught in the middle of the fray of the war just starting in Brazil. She is one of the first people kidnapped and taken to the jungle for unknown and possibly nefarious reasons.

   Manaus, Brazil

  Paradise Hotel

   The shooting started around one in the morning.

   Georgina Chevalier woke up to the screams and the shots on the street below her hotel room. She'd come here for a lovely vacation. She'd been dealing with the stresses of the several UN meetings she'd been dealing with in Rio de Janeiro and had decided to give herself a break. At the sounds of the horrified screams she knew that everything that the UN had tried to prevent, was happening anyway. But then she wasn't in Rio de Janeiro, she was about two-thousand miles away in Manaus, Brazil.

   Not knowing what was going to happen if she just stayed here in her pajamas Georgie got out of bed and quickly changed into jeans and a t-shirt. She pulled on socks and a pair of comfortable shoes. Not too far in the future she would be grateful for these small actions. Knowing that it was dangerous outside Georgie took pulled out the .357 magnum from her suitcase, checked the magazine, and stepped out of the hotel room.

   In the lobby of the hotel Georgie discovered utter chaos. The hotel manager was running around frantic, trying to soothe his guests, but his efforts were in vain. A blond woman from America was cowering in the corner crying, an older man from Canada was yelling on his cell phone telling someone to find a way to get him out of this place. When the manager spotted her he cried out and ran over to her. "Madame!" He said with a poor French accent.

   "It's alright," Georgie said to him in English,"I know English, although my Portugese is lacking."

   "You work for the UN?" The manager said, Georgie couldn't remember his name.

   "Yes, I do." She replied to the much smaller man. It was odd that they both had to speak to each other in a language foreign to both of them. But seeing as it was the only language that they both knew well enought to communicate it would have to do.
   "You call them and ask them to help us?" The manager said frantically.

   "They already know about it." She said confidently, "I have no doubt that they know about it. They will come and try to help." As much as they can help. Although I'm not sure how much that will be. Georgie thought to herself, in the past the UN officers hadn't been much help in instances like these. Rowanda was one instance in history.

   "Good." The small Brazillian said and quickly turned away to try to help a young couple obviously on their honeymoon.

   Once the manager was gone Georgie moved to the curtain covered windows. Sometime during the initial fear someone had thought to pull the curtains. There was still shooting right outside the hotel and it could move into the building, soon. She pulled a corner of one of the curtains away slightly and glanced outside. She counted four bodies lying in the street right in front of the hotel. And to think that these people are only doing this because they don't like the president of Brazil! Georgie thought desperately trying to think of how the UN was going to solve this now that actual fighting had broken out.

   As Georgie was pulling away from the window, the front entrance to the hotel was shattered by bullets. The guests that had remained in the lobby began screaming and some even began to cry. Four men crashed in all at once and began shooting at random. Another man came in more calmly a gun similar to the ones that the four other men toted was held comfortably in his hand. In his other hand he held a square piece of paper that resembled a photograph. He shouted something to the men in Portugese and they stopped shooting. He began to look around the hotel lobby as if he was searching for someone. A malicious smile curled on his lips when his eyes rested on hers.

   A chill ran down her spine. Her gut instict was telling her to bring up her gun and shoot the man that was standing in front of her, she brought her hand up, only to find it was shaking terribly. The man's smile only grew wider and that chill came again. He shouted something to one of the other men and a gun was placed against the blond American woman's head. The blond turned white as she realized that she could die in the very next instant. "Madam Chevalier," The man she was pointing the gun at said, "Put the gun down or this innocent woman will die." Seeing the frightened face of the American she dropped her gun. "Very good." He spoke almost flawless French, making her wonder where he was from if he could speak Portugese and French so well.

   Once the gun was on the floor the man advanced toward her and grasped her arm roughly. He shouted some more at the men and then pushed Georgie out the door of the hotel and out into the wild streets where more bodies were beginning to litter the road. She thought she would vomit when she was forced to walk over one body. The man holding her was cruel, but he wanted her alive, she sensed that much. The question that presented itself was why. Why would this man want her and why did he have her picture. She had noticed it when he had grabbed her. It was her UN identification card and wondered how he had gotten that particular picture. The possibilities made her stomach curl.

   The man transferred her to another man with a blue bandanna wrapped around his forehead. He spoke to Blue Bandanna and then handed Georgie rather roughly to him. Blue Bandanna led her to a van on the other side of the street and forced her into the back. He forced her to sit on the floor and then threw a hood over her head. She cried out in surprised but fell silent when a strong fist connected with her face. Just stay quiet and don't draw attention to yourself, Georgie thought praying that these men didn't mean her much harm.

* * * * *

   Georgie had no idea how long they drove for, but for the second half of the ride, it had become fairly rough and bumpy. She came to the conclusion that even if she hadn't had a hood over her head, she still wouldn't have been able to find her way back to civilization. Each bump they hit threatened to knock her teeth loose and toss her on her side. As she reached out to catch herself the first time she was knocked off balance she came in contact with a warm body. Shocked she tried to jerk away but was held firmly by whomever it was. Throughout the rest of the trip she was held tightly and did not fall over again.

   Eventually the van stopped and the person holding her hauled her up with them. She was shoved roughly to the ground once she exited the vehicle. She opted to stay there until someone told her to get up. Two men began arguing in Portugese next to her and she stayed quiet unable to discern a word they were saying. She didn't know a single word of Portugese and was beginning to wish that it was one of the many languages she spoke. After five minutes of arguing the men came to a conclusion. One of them picked her up bodily and slung her over his shoulder.

   When she was finally put down it was on a musty smelling cot. A door slammed shut not too far away and Georgie felt it was safe to pull of the hood. It felt wonderful to breath in semi-fresh air. The muggy humid air of Brazil made breathing with the hood on painful. She felt like she was breathing water the whole time it was on.

   The room she was in had a small window about six feet off the ground that was no bigger then her hand and it had no glass in it. A shame, because she would have used the glass as a weapon, if it would have done her any good. The door was locked from the outside and was made of heavy wood. Her only chance of escape would be if she managed to catch someone off guard when they came in. But even those chances were slim.

   Knowing that escape was a long time coming, Georgie resigned herself to the cot and wondered how long she would be here before she either escaped, was killed, or was liberated.

* * * * *

   Washington DC

   Pentagon Conference Room

   3:40 AM

   Grayson Montgomery sat in the conference room with two dozen other people. Among those people were UN representatives, the Ambassador to France, and special operatives from a special group in the government called ALPHA. They had all been called in at this unholy hour for an emergancy meeting at the Pentagon. No one knew anything yet and they where all tense and anxious for someone to come who knew something of why they were called to the meeting.

   After ten minutes of waiting, the director of ALPHA, Jonathan Bushman, his face set grimly, came in. He wasted no time in getting started. "As you are all aware the UN has been trying to soothe the people of Brazil. They are sour about their president. While we thought that if we had the problem solved in Rio de Janiero then it would be alright everywhere else. Unfortunately, just this morning in Manaus, Brazil, about two thousand miles away, all hell broke loose.

   "About a hundred and fifty radicals surged through the city killing people and leaving them in the streets. They even went into buildings and killed people at random. They went into the Paridise Hotel and attacked the guests cowering in the lobby. Then they held a gun to an American woman and threatened one of our UN officials that has been working in Rio de Janiero for the past few weeks. She was taking a vacation after the long weeks and ended up getting this." Bushman paused long enough to push a button that turned on the television screen behind him. A picture of a woman with long black hair, startling blue eyes, high cheek bones, and very large, very white teeth. She wasn't just beautiful, she was gorgeous.

   Bushman continued to explain, "This is Georina Chevalier, the French UN officer that was kidnapped. According to witnesses four men came into the hotel and shot at random killing two people. Then a fifth man came in and told them to stop. This man had a picture, or at least a piece of paper that looked like a picture. Once he saw Chevalier he took steps to secure her. We do not know where she is as of yet, we are waiting for contact from an opperative undercover in Manaus. He has been involved in the planning of the kidnapping of an important officer but he didn't know which one. His job was to take her to someplace safe. We are waiting to hear from him and get the location." Bushman stopped and then looked at everyone in the conference room. "Any questions?"

   Gray spoke up first, "How important is this woman?" He asked, knowing that she had to be believed to be fairly good leverage to be kidnapped by radicals. "And why did they kidnap a French woman?"

   "Chevalier is an influencial member in the UN. She speaks for France occasionally and does most of their dealings right along side France's president. France has provided more support to the Brazillian president more than any other country. That would explain their reasoning." Bushman said looking Gray directly in the eye.

   "If she does all these dealings with the French president then why didn't she have protection?" Gray asked.

   "She manages to elude her security rather efficiently and frequently. No one knew she was in Manaus until we recieved word from the frantic hotel manager begging someone from the UN to come save them. That's another thing we're worried about. The French President says that she will try to escape and may hurt herself in the process. We cannot have that, this woman has to be returned safely to France quickly." Bushman said his voice quiet, but urgent. "That is where you ALPHA opperatives come in. Gray, you're leading the team, we have plane tickets to Brazil for you, we will contact you when we have the information on Chevalier and her location. We aren't expecting to hear from him for another few hours but we want you to be as close as possible."

* * * * *

   In the middle of the Amazon...

   Georgie jerked awake when she was slapped across the face. She put her hand to her cheek and looked up into the eyes of Blue Bandanna. "Eat." He said in English, obviously knowing no French. He held out a piece of bread and a small glass of water. She saw that he had a large gun and that the door was firmly shut. Gratefully she ate the bread and downed the water. Blue Bandanna took the plastic glass from her and began to turn away.

   "Wait!" She said desperately. Blue Bandana turned around and narrowed his eyes at her. "Why was I kidnapped?" She asked, needing answers.

   "You are UN worker. Ransom." Was all Blue Bandana said and then he left Georgie in the room by herself.

   "What were expecting?" She asked herself, "This is what you get for being who you are!" But she didn't regret her chosen career. She'd been able to make something of herself, it was much better then the poor sad life she'd lived as a child growing up. Though is seemed like she was regressing into another version of her childhood.

   At these horrible thoughts she began to formulate a plan for escape.

Author's Note

Please remember that this is purely fictional. Please feel free to tear this apart, I really want to know how to make this better. This is the first draft of this so have fun ripping it up!

Reviews

[Rose Kavanagh]

This isn't normally something I would read, but I'm actually liking it. The beginning was a tad slow, but near the middle it started to get very interesting. There were a couple of minor spelling mistakes / grammar errors, for example:

1) "What were expecting?" ~ I think you meant "What were *you* expecting?"
2) "This is Georina Chevalier" ~ Should be "Georgina Chevalier"

Just little things like that - but this is just a first draft, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. I don't know if it's the aspiring director coming out in me or what, but I could easily see this becoming a movie. It's one of those things that I think would need to be visually represented on screen for people to get the full effect.

Anyway, great job! :)