One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik) (3 page)

She lifted her glass in a small toast. “You can’t afford me.”

“Whoever you’re working for isn’t paying you enough.” He toasted her back and they both drank.

A couple of salespeople on the road, in a hotel and no responsibilities until the next day. If she hadn’t joined the Army. Or if she’d left after six years and gone into a day job rather than covert special forces. If she was just a woman flirting with a man. How far would the night go?

Ben took another slug of his drink and dropped his voice. “This is a whole hell of a lot better than the detail in the Mexican desert.”

“Good bourbon?”

“The bourbon is trash.” His gaze took in her face again. “I’m talking about the company.”

Was he still flirting with her saleswoman front, or was this warm attention for the combat sniper and undercover operator?

She maintained a cool exterior. “Good to know I’m a step up from a scorpion.”

He gave her a slow, deliberate wink. “And more deadly.”

“Damn right.” She couldn’t resist a carnivorous smile. “With me, you don’t even feel the sting.”

His honest laugh came from deep. The table became more intimate as he slid his hand closer to hers and dropped his voice. “You see my video?”

She shook her head. “I read the report.”

His finger drew a spiral on the tabletop. “We’re in the right spot.”

She nodded. “Something ain’t right under the asphalt.”

“Locals are hunched under a secret.” He glanced at the business travelers at the other table. “Instinct makes the strangers bunker until they can get out.”

“East side.” Their hands were only inches apart. “Train yard.” Hands that had fought to survive across the world. Being this close made her body hum with restraint. Touching him would just be part of the act. Hands like hers, like his, couldn’t feel pleasure anymore. Couldn’t give pleasure anymore.

“It’s a start.” He didn’t test the distance and leaned away. With a more public voice, he flirted brazenly, “I haven’t checked in yet. Otherwise I’d give you my room number.”

She took a last pull off her thin wine and smiled over the rim of the glass. “I’m sure I’ll see you at the free breakfast.”

He finished his drink and indicated to Will that he wanted another. His gaze moved up and down her as she stood. “I’ll save you a bagel.”

Was it for the benefit of their covers so the others in the bar could see? Or did she want to feel the heat rise as she put her hands on the arm of his chair and brought her mouth near his ear? “Don’t burn it,” she whispered.

He licked his lips and turned toward her. Close enough to kiss. The light in his eye promised a lot of pleasure. But it wouldn’t be real. She leaned away and left the bar without looking back. The mirror revealed that he watched her with growing intensity. Part of the act again? Will and the other patrons also tracked her departure, but with the more common male gazes that tried to consume her.

She passed through the lobby and waited for the elevator. The brass doors reflected any activity behind her. The space was safe for the moment. This assignment was going to be difficult. She and Ben had to pry at the seams of a very defensive environment in order to trace the gunrunning. That kind of armor was familiar. She used it to survive. Not just her body, but her mind, her soul and her heart. But something in the manufactured flirting with Ben had felt too real. He knew a truth of her few others did. She understood how to protect herself from bullets, but what was she supposed to do when her most hidden self stirred in his warm gaze?

* * *

Two terrible bourbon and sodas got Ben the name of the high school basketball coach, the times for the hotel shift changes, the closest place to do laundry, a drugstore and the fact that Police Chief Pulaski didn’t like people speeding on the frontage road parallel to the east-west train tracks. All he’d given up was too large a tip and more of his cover story.

His first night in town had turned a little better after the confrontation with the police. He sat in his hotel room armchair and used his phone to upload the latest information he’d learned to the Automatik database. The lights in the room were off, and the curtains to the wide window were open. When he’d checked in, he’d asked for the highest room, and they’d given the third floor. The fourth floor was probably completely empty for the off-season. Though in a small town like Morris Flats, he didn’t know what would constitute high season.

A crisp fall wind had chased the clouds. Stars glittered, and the few streetlights below mirrored them. Most of the twelve thousand or so residents were asleep. Giant pools of black erased the streets and buildings. His window faced north, toward farmland, swamps and a state park. If only they’d given him a room over the east side. That was the area that had intrigued Mary, and if anyone knew how to scout territory, it was her.

Putting on the little act with her in the bar had been a unique rush into an unknown minefield. They’d never spent any one-on-one time together, and he’d never broken past her poker face.

But to what end tonight, he didn’t know. Was it just for the challenge of getting a rise out of the stone-cold supersoldier? She didn’t seem too put out by the flirting. They were partners on this mission, so if she’d sent out any indication that he was going too far, he’d shut it down immediately. The mission took precedence. But a little spark in her eyes had revealed an electricity of her own. It wasn’t the “Bolt Action” Mary he’d come to know. Then again, he didn’t know much about her anyway. Former Army, but that was it. The rumor in Automatik was that she was Delta, but no confirmation. Maybe he should ask. Seemed like if she ever told him the truth, she’d have to kill him.

Ben laughed out loud, put down his phone and picked up the .40 automatic that was resting on the arm of his chair. Good thing he and Mary were on the same team. Otherwise, she’d scare the hell out of him.

He sighted down his pistol to one of the unlit areas in the town below. It was the bad guys of Morris Flats who should be afraid. This place had been hiding for too long. Someone out there turned a profit from death. Ben and Mary were the tip of the knife that would put an end to the gunrunning.

Lives would be saved. For some people, the fight would be over. But not him. He’d be on to the next operation.

He got up and carried his gun and phone to the bed. The king-size expanse was too large for just one person, but an op wasn’t the time for hookups. He slipped the pistol under a pillow. Mary the saleswoman seemed like she’d be fun on all that acreage of crisp white sheets. She was wise. And bit back.

But she wasn’t real. The actual Mary was a hunter killer. And it made him feel much safer, just knowing she was out there.

He changed into a tank top and gym shorts, got under the covers and propped himself up on a stack of pillows. Automatik used an app for communicating between team members in close proximity. It didn’t rely on phone systems or the internet, so the only thing their phones needed to keep in touch was battery power.

He fired up the app and sent a message to Mary:
Do
you
wear
a
ghillie
suit
for
pajamas
?

He’d gone through rudimentary sniper training in the SEALs but had never reached the transcendent level of Mary’s craft. He’d seen her checking over her rifle before a strike, and it was like a psychic communication between human and metal.

Her message came back: You must be in your wetsuit and swim fins. Then the words faded away, a failsafe in the app in case someone else got ahold of an Automatik operator’s phone.

I
can
only
sleep
if
I’m
soaked
in
seawater
and
covered
in
sand
, he replied, remembering the hours and hours he and his team had spent drilling in the surf.

Must
make
you
nervous
to
be
landlocked
,
sailor
. She didn’t let up. He imagined her voice would be low and smoky in the quiet room.

Must make you nervous not to be on the top floor.

She never did give him her room number. It wouldn’t have worked for the early stages of their open flirting, but he needed it for the operation. Before she responded to him, he asked for her room, and she sent the number back quickly.

Second floor. Same side as him, just a few rooms over. Now he could keep watch on her. He replied with his own room location.

Received
, was her only response.

Not that he expected her to drift up to his door wearing a flimsy robe over her well-shaped body. But he let the fantasy spin out for a second. White silk to contrast her dusky skin. Her black hair tumbling down to her broad shoulders. The silhouette of her narrow waist. Wicked glitter in her hazel eyes.

But that wasn’t “Bolt Action” Mary, so he closed the door on the image of her in the robe and found himself alone in the hotel room again. Whatever she was like when she was intimate was private, between her and whomever she trusted enough to share that self.

For her, he was her teammate. She was his. They had a job in this rotten little town. He sent her another message:
This
would
be
a
lot
easier
if
we
were
in
the
same
room
.

Was she asleep already? No. Her answer appeared on the screen:
There’s
nothing
easy
about
me
.

He hurried to explain,
Talking
about
mission
specifics
.
Ease
of
operations
. He wasn’t thinking with his crotch when he wished their false identities had been connected. They might be able to cover more ground apart, but coordinating information was a pain in his logistics.

Received
. Absolutely opaque.

She thought he was a dog. And maybe he was. But not on a mission. And not with her.

See
you
in
the
early
. He signed off.

Sleep
with
one
eye
open
. Her message faded out and he shut the app off.

He would, and he knew she would, too. Nothing was safe.

Chapter Three

The mattress at the hotel was more comfortable than many of the places she’d stayed around the world, but it didn’t make for a better night’s sleep. The room had felt just as dangerous as the other bombed-out apartment buildings and mountain shacks, and she’d skimmed along, dreamless, as usual, until a small noise or a change in the air currents brought her fully awake.

The .38 had been close at hand. When she was up for good before the dawn, the firearm was on the floor during her pushups and burpees, then accompanied her into the bathroom for her shower. Toweled off and dressed, she stood at the window and watched the sky brighten.

Sunlight carved the town into relief below her. An east-west wind bent chimney smoke and steam to a hard angle. The breeze would be trouble for any shot over five hundred yards, but she didn’t have anything with her that would reach that far out. She hoped her recon assignment wouldn’t need that kind of ordnance. Instead, her weapons were a stack of fake business cards, logo pens, stylish but sensible boots and an expensive cardigan she’d bought at an outlet store.

Any business was hours away. She mapped the town from above and overlaid onto it what she’d already learned. Beyond the western border of her view were the high school and old warehouse and factory buildings. To the east, where the low sun seemed to light the earth on fire, was the train yard. The dangerous territory. She knew the gunrunners would kill to defend their business.

She and Ben were just the first wave. Once they found hard evidence and identified the combatants, they’d construct a solid plan and bring in the rest of the strike team to take the bad guys down. Two operators against a town, even as experienced as they were, would make for a bad vacation.

Ben’s extracurricular attention still lingered below her skin, in her chest. A warmth, as if from a good dream she couldn’t remember. All part of the act, but it still had an effect, making her feel like an operator and a woman. He was damn slick at putting on the moves. If the communication app didn’t erase the conversation as it happened, she’d be tempted to look back at last night’s exchange to figure out what specifically he’d done to make her keep thinking about the unique intimacy that had resonated since they’d sat down at the bar table.

Was he still sleeping, one floor above her? Not with this much light in the sky. Not with an operation this important. He was right. It would’ve been easier to coordinate their action if they were staying in the same room. But after the real charge from the fake flirting, she was glad to have her own space.

Once the hour seemed more sensible, she packed her pistol in her purse and headed down to the complimentary breakfast. No sign of Ben. She sat alone at the tall tables in the modest hotel lobby with her toast, yogurt and coffee.

The woman behind the front desk would glance over to Mary every couple of minutes, but it was just good business. Mary knew how to recognize the signs of wary animosity. Narrow eyes, sideways glances. Even outright staring. The hotel worker was merely checking on a customer. Because she didn’t know what Mary was really there for. If the truth was revealed, the locals would show their true alignment. Until then, Mary considered them all combatants who weren’t to be trusted.

“Don’t tell me you took the last peach yogurt.” Ben dug through the ice-filled tub of yogurt containers. He wore a coat, simple button-down shirt and stylish jeans. Casual, approachable but with enough style to show he meant business. “Here we go.” Victorious, he retrieved one and held it up. “Goddamn mango.” He placed it on a table near hers and continued assembling his breakfast.

“You’re not going to keep looking?” she asked.

“Too cold.” He blew into the side of his fist and rubbed his hands together. “You didn’t drink all the coffee, too, did you?” There it was again, that easy thread of communication. No challenge, no commitment. Just a couple of people finding out what worked.

“I’m sure there’s mud on the bottom for you.” Actually, the coffee wasn’t half bad. The hotel knew what was important to business travelers.

Ben flashed her a knowing smile. “I’m used to it.”

She knew what he’d been through. On the last Automatik operation, he’d been stuck in the desert as an information relay. Sun and rain had beaten down on him, and he was still up and running when it came to the final assault. She’d only caught glimpses of his action through her rifle scope, but the man was a crisp practitioner of the art of war.

The lobby was too public to discuss any of that action. In this space, they were still strangers.

He sat with his food and ate eagerly. Between bites, he asked, “Do they give you the good contacts, or do you have to hunt them down?”

She bussed her plates to a bin and turned back to him. “I have to hunt.”

He nodded with a sudden gravity in his eyes. “Same.”

“Good luck out there.” She meant it. Things could turn quickly in this town.

“You, too.” He stepped away from his food and extended his hand. “I’m Ben.”

She took his hand. “It
is
cold.”

“Not always.” The smile was an intimate secret. Her breath caught in her throat.

They still held each other.

She found her voice. “Mary.”

Was this the first time they’d touched? He’d helped her onto the helicopter during the last op. And after the assault on the house full of domestic terrorists in Michigan, she’d given him a hand up a broken basement stairway. But this moment, skin on skin, sank in. It felt too real. She wasn’t susceptible to completely fake flirting. A piece of Ben must not have been lying, and part of her stirred with the attention from a man who might understand her.

She broke the contact and took a step toward the hotel’s front doors. “See you around.”

He tilted his head back in acknowledgment. “Count on it.”

Back to business. Her manufactured persona slid completely into place as she exited the hotel. But beneath it, the connection with Ben lingered. Like a pocketful of bullets that were still warm from his hands. She trusted him with his assignment, even if she didn’t trust him while flirting. He wouldn’t fuck up the operation. She never did.

An internet search had revealed the one major real estate business in town. She’d memorized the directions across the simple streets and navigated her rental car there. The sky remained bright and clean. Cold. It would get colder. The bottom edges of the buildings were splashed with mud from the summer rains. Once the snow came, all the right angles in the town would be erased by the white drifts.

Morris Flats rolled past her windows, a place in stasis. No new construction. Faded “For Rent” signs in business windows. Cars being eaten from the ground up by the street salt. But occasionally she’d see a brand-new American pickup truck or SUV. Money choked in most areas and flowed strong in others.

Edward Limert’s real estate company took up a corner lot. The 1950s building had windows facing both streets of the intersection, as if surveying the territory. Just like she was doing. She pulled up out front. Two of the employees perked up from their desks and tracked her. Other desks remained empty.

She stayed in the cold air as briefly as possible between the car and the offices. Worse weather had battered her skin and dug into her bones, but these people needed to see a real estate developer slightly out of her element, not a sniper who waited three days in a snow bank to fire a single bullet.

The two employees, a man and a woman, were standing by the time she stepped through the door.

The man rushed to speak first, “How can we help you?”

Her business cards were at the ready. “I’m Mary Long, from Strathmore Development.” She gave the cards to the man and the woman. “Is Edward Limert available?”

“Yes.” A new voice dominated the offices, making the employees wince a little. Edward had been watching from the barely cracked open door of his back office. The blinds to his interior windows were drawn and rattled as he swung his door open and strode out.

The employees sat, faces neutral. This wasn’t a genial workplace. These two were putting in their time before escaping. She tried to shoot them a sympathetic look, but they were both pretending to be occupied by their computers.

Edward continued forward, his hand outstretched like the prow of a ship. He was in his mid-forties, soft and well fed. Expensive slacks and a cheap belt. Wedding ring and a class ring. Sandy-blond hair in a pronounced sweep over his forehead. “What can Eddie do for you?” He flashed a tooth-whitened grin and smelled of this morning’s coffee.

She shook his hand. “Mary Long of Strathmore Development. We’re looking to enrich select territories around the Midwest, and I’m checking out Morris Flats to see if it’s a good candidate.” Lying came so easily.

Eddie waved her toward the back. “Well, come into the office and we’ll take a look.” His hand dipped into his pocket and jingled his keys in a habitual move. The man cried for attention.

He left the blinds closed and shut the door behind her. The office was undisturbed by business. Baseball memorabilia lined a shelf. The wide desk held a quiet computer, a blotter and Eddie’s phone. The most valuable asset of the space lined the wall behind the desk.

A map of the town. She immediately located the hotel and where she was. East and West stretched out to the sides, where the houses thinned and larger buildings dominated. Then nothing. Swamps and prairie.

“Please sit.” Eddie gestured toward the visitor chair. She complied as he took his own seat. “Now, what kind of developing do you do?”

“Mixed use, mostly. Businesses on the bottom and residential up top. It really maximizes available lots.”

He scanned her face, neck and shoulders as she spoke. Assessing and undressing. Her skin crawled at the thought of him exposing it. His hands remained on the desk, but she could see one twitching a little. He wanted to jingle his keys. “I can imagine something like that here.” He turned in his chair to look at the large map. “Construction would make jobs, and the new shops would get people excited.”

Railroad tracks cut long scars across the eastern portion of the map. Every direction could be fed from that hub. Perfect for the gunrunners.

“You’re talking more like a politician.” She smiled at him when his gaze returned to her. “Usually real estate people go for the dollars and cents first.”

He twisted his mouth, smug. “Guilty.” A glance at the wall directed her toward a photo portrait of him and a woman. “That’s the wife talking. Donna’s the mayor of Morris Flats.”

So this woman would know about the gunrunning. Eddie would as well. They may even be part of it. His monogrammed dress shirt indicated he was the kind of person who’d fight to maintain his power and status. And sell guns to the others around the country with the same agenda.

“So she’ll have a good idea of the personality of the town.” Though she wanted to put her thumb in the base of his throat until he told her all the details of the gunrunning operation, Mary maintained her businesslike interest. “Is Morris Flats open to new development?”

Eddie tilted his head back and forth in a broad show of considering her question. “Depends on the area and what we’re putting in. Some people are pretty well knee-deep in their own concrete, if you know what I mean.”

She ignored his obvious metaphor. “Do you have a smaller map of town, like that one?”

He glanced behind him, then sprang into action at his desk. Business must not have been flowing into his office often, considering how many drawers he had to open in his search. Mary sharpened, alert, when a heavy object clad in leather clunked in a drawer. Eddie had a holstered gun in the desk.

Adrenaline flashed through her limbs as he reached in the drawer. She could make it over the desk in a flash and close the drawer on his hand if she had to. But he was too loose, oblivious to what he’d just revealed to her to be an immediate threat. He pulled out a map on standard paper and held it out to her.

She took the map with her left hand, her right ready to reach into her purse for her pistol. “What about the east side?” She pointed at the map and maintained her cool while the muscles in her arms tensed. “The industrial look is very popular right now, and converted old train yard buildings along with new construction could do quite well.”

Eddie closed the drawer and leaned closer to her. “East?” He clicked his tongue and scratched at his earlobe. “West is better.”

“Too bad.” She drew her energy in, sending the message that Eddie was losing a sale.

He shrugged and tried to maintain his smile. “Remember I said some people were damn set in their ways? That’s Kit Daily, and the train yard is Kit’s business. Family business for a long time, if you know what I mean.” Eddie seemed desperate for someone to know what he meant. His wife, the mayor, probably didn’t take him too seriously. Mary didn’t blame her.

“Well, that’s good to know.” Mary stood, digging her claws into the name Kit Daily and wanting to tear him open to see what his involvement was. “Let me look around town a bit, see the possibilities while you’re thinking about what it is Strathmore Development does.” She handed him her card. “We’ll meet back up and see what we can do.”

He trapped her card against his palm with the fingers of his opposite hand. “Glad to have you looking into Morris Flats.” If he knew the real reason she was there, he wouldn’t be smiling. He might be reaching for that pistol she’d heard. Even this soft man had hard bullets close at hand. “But leave Kit and his train yard alone. It’s not the place for you. The guy’s a former Marine, a real hard-ass without a lot of marshmallows in his cocoa, if you know what I mean.”

“Sounds like a dead end for me.” Kit and his train tracks were exactly where she wanted to be. She itched to pursue the new lead but knew this stage of the mission had to be a careful recon. The people were not to be trusted, and charging into their territory would set off too many alarms.

“Good thinking.” Eddie came around his desk and opened the door for her. “Stick with Eddie, I’ll show you around.” The door closed again after she was midway through the main offices. The lights on the business phones remained unlit. He must be calling his wife on his cell.