One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik) (4 page)

Before leaving, Mary got a couple of lunch recommendations from the two employees. She thanked them and stepped back into the cold. At least the weather was honest. Any warmth in Eddie’s office was manufactured.

She got into the car and turned the engine on for the heater. The two employees still watched her as she sat in the idling car and texted on her phone. Just as any businessperson would.

But her text to Ben read:
I
don’t
trust
anyone
with
money
here
.

Hell
no
. His response came quickly, then faded out in the app.
Rotten
cream
at
the
top
.

Hell
yeah
. She went on to text him the lunch recommendations.

He acknowledged and told her his next destination.
Police
rec
league
now
.
Over
and
out
.

Menace hummed in Morris Flats like the overhead power lines. The more she and Ben searched for answers, the more deadly the current would run. The mayor now knew someone was looking around town. She’d reach out to the police. The same cops Ben had run against last night. And the same ones he was going to see just then. Everyone had to be counted as the enemy. Ben was her only safety. She was his only backup. And they both had to keep pressing into the danger.

* * *

Instinct twisted a knot in Ben’s stomach. This town wasn’t right. Mary’s text had reinforced what he’d already seen.

He almost wished she was backing him up with her .50 as he walked across the chilly parking lot of the police rec league gym. Right onto the home turf of the officers he’d already tangled with. Every natural urge told him to turn around and find another lead to follow, but if illegal guns were being moved in through town, these cops would know all about it. The building was money. New construction without a single crack in the stucco of the high, imposing walls. The cars outside were just as fresh. None of them were more than two years old, and there wasn’t a base model in sight.

The glass doors to the gym were clean. Ben approached them as he did any assault. Where were the blind spots? What was his quickest egress? The door was unlocked and he was grateful for the climate-controlled heat inside. Instead of an assault rifle, he held his soft briefcase full of sport bracelets, business cards and other swag. The mission was recon, not search and destroy. Yet.

A long hallway stretched to both sides of the entryway. Humid air came from the left. Locker rooms, showers, probably a whirlpool and a steam room. He walked to the right. Here the air was scented by the heavy rubber of a weight room. Another glass door revealed the pristine equipment, but no one was lifting at the moment. From the sound of the chirping squeaks down the hall, there was a basketball game in progress.

These doors, the last ones before the fire exit, only had small slits of glass. Glimpses of men, all of them white in shorts and T-shirts, flashed past. One was a decent dribbler. Another, an older guy with reddish hair, couldn’t shoot for shit, but set a nice illegal screen. No one called him on it. He must have rank.

Ben took a breath and waited for a missed shot to bounce out of bounds and away from the players. While one of them was chasing it down, Ben opened the doors.

All six men turned and looked at him. The least hostile of them was cautious, curious. But that was the end of the good news. The black-haired angry cop from last night was there, burning Ben with a hard look. His partner, the blond, and two others glanced at their duffels on the side of the gym. Their guns. So they were wary enough to bring the guns in, but not to lock the doors. The cops were feared in this town, and they had little to be afraid of.

The angry cop flexed his arms and broadened his chest. “This is a private gym.”

Ben smiled like a salesman. His warrior self lurked in the shadows. “I’m not looking to join. This is the police rec league, right?”

The blond cop drifted over to his duffel and stood ready next to it.

Angry cop took a step forward and muttered to the senior man, “That’s our 10-13.”

Ben maintained his smile but felt a jump in his legs, urging him to get the hell out of there. The cop had used the radio code for “civilians present and listening.” Last night’s activity hadn’t been forgotten and had made ripples into the department.

The oldest officer scowled. “You a reporter?”

That would’ve been the worst cover. An African-American reporter walking into a gym full of cops? Instant trouble. Sporting goods made everything nice and friendly.

“No, sir.” Ben took another step onto the floor and watched the cops tense a little more. “I’m Ben Louis from Circulatron Sports Equipment out of New Jersey.”

Angry cop and his partner didn’t relax. The others did. A little.

The blond officer stared at Ben, skeptical. “That’s your business? What does that have to do with us?”

Ben spun. “We’re looking for promotional opportunities and sponsorships across the country. Rec leagues, kids, first responders.”

The oldest cop smirked but still looked like he wanted to erase Ben from his town.

Ben continued. “I have samples in my bag.” He held it up and pointed at it but knew better than to dive into the interior with a bunch of wary cops around him.

“Let’s see.” Angry cop used his authority voice and waved Ben forward.

The cops converged around him as he opened the bag of swag. They relaxed further when they saw the contents. The angry cop hissed a laugh.

Ben pulled out one of the bracelets. “Made in the U.S.A. Rare earth magnets tuned in our New Jersey labs to increase circulation, range of motion. Reduce joint fatigue.” He’d practiced this all again and again in San Diego with Harper. “Try it.” He held it out to the gingery cop, knowing he had seniority. “Don’t worry, it’s not a bracelet. It’s a performance band.”

The cop plucked it from his fingers but didn’t put it on. Wrinkles spread from the corners of his eyes. But his gaze was still sharp. He was in his mid-fifties, fit. His curly hair had receded a bit.

Ben’s sales pitch could go on and on. “Rather than getting high-profile athletes to rep our stuff, we want real people. You see a guy on a court, making millions of dollars, drinking a certain sports drink or wearing a brand of shoes, you know he’s getting paid. You don’t trust him. But we trust the everyday guy.”

He didn’t trust any of these men. They peered greedily at the free items while being surrounded by their perfect gym and standing on their perfect hardwood basketball court.

The senior cop put the red bracelet on and waited with his head tilted back, defiant. “Is this a scam?”

Ben chuckled. “Give it a day or two. Seriously, it’s science.” It was bullshit. Each band contained a magnet on one side and a tiny tracking device on the other. He dug five black bracelets out of his bag and handed them out to the other police officers.

“You understand,” the oldest cop said, laying down the law, “that if we wear these we’re not endorsing your product and we’re not to appear in any of your promotional material.”

“Got it.” Ben found a business card and held it out to the senior man. “But you might change that tune once you give it a chance and start blowing past these younger guys on the way to the hoop.”

The cop took the card, holding it at a distance to read. “Ben Louis.”

Ben extended a hand, and the cop shook it.

“Chief Pulaski.”

“A pleasure, Chief.” Ben nodded to the others. “Fellas.”

The cops nodded back, even the blond one. Though the angry one still looked like he was ready to throw down, or at least bench-press a few stacks of plates in the weight room.

Ben edged toward the exit doors. “I’m going to be around town for a few days. You’ve got my card, so give a call with any questions about the performance band. Or I can stop by the station sometime.” Which was very low on his list of fun things to do. But it might be necessary for recon. “Alright, halftime’s over. I’ll let you get back to your game.”

A couple of the cops waved vaguely. They all put on the bracelets. Chief Pulaski rolled a crackling shoulder. The angry cop flexed his lats and clenched his jaw.

Ben was almost at the door. “Enjoy the increased performance, guys. Though I don’t know if it’ll do anything for your midrange jumper, Chief.”

Small laughs echoed through the gym. Even Pulaski smiled wryly at the dig. But his tolerance was thin, just like the angry cop. Any challenge against their power would have them reaching for their service pistol.

With a wave, Ben exited the court. The rest of the gym remained quiet as he walked up the hall and finally out into the fresh cold air. At least one of the cops must be watching him. Probably the angry one.

Still, he strode to his rental car and climbed in. How far away was Mary? He couldn’t linger in the parking lot with his phone. He maintained a calm front and drove off as if it was business as usual, but he wanted to stand on the accelerator until he found her.

They’d both known the town was dangerous when they inserted. Gunrunners made for bloody business. Solo operatives could recon more territory. But Morris Flats was a grenade without a pin. Could they stand and fight if they didn’t have each other’s backs?

Chapter Four

The waitress at the truck stop diner pursed her smile for almost everyone in the medium-size restaurant. As if she didn’t want to laugh, but the customers had broken through her game face and reached her heart of gold. Except Mary. All she got were the businesslike questions of “coffee?” and “what’reyahavin’?”

Alone in the last booth against a wall of windows, Mary was able to survey the restaurant and the parking lot outside. Truckers came and went, mostly eating at the counter opposite the booths. The scene must’ve played out thousands of times since the place had been built in the postwar boom of the ‘50s. The country was in the process of being connected by highways, perfect for taking goods coast to coast.

Like illegal guns.

Three of the truckers wore concealed handguns. Barely concealed. They didn’t even try to reduce the printing through their down jackets and softshells. Were the firearms for security against someone trying to steal their rig and contents? Or for enforcement and intimidation?

The men were genial enough with the waitress, and the diner was free from overt menace. Still, the tension of Morris Flats hummed in the walls and tables. Bad business bled just under the surface.

Mary pretended to look over paperwork and sipped iced tea while tracking which truckers went to which rigs. Of the men with handguns, two of the three towed empty flatbeds. They’d either just delivered or were waiting for goods to move. But their stately pace climbing into their rigs or the time they took to smoke their cigarettes told her they weren’t on the clock.

The attention of the diner shifted at once to the front door. Ben entered. His easy smile remained in place against the people overtly glaring at the stranger. When he caught her eye, he nodded and his smile warmed. The waitress and the patrons watched as he strode to Mary’s booth. A buzz rushed through her blood with his attention, a remnant of the fake flirting from last night. But it had grown stronger.

The locals seemed to sort strangers as a threat or not. No one really bothered with her. Ben, though, wasn’t trusted. She could see why. He was potent, very capable. And he didn’t shrink or apologize his way into the space. Not that he was a brash bully. He was just being...himself.

“Working lunch, or do you mind company?” He stood a respectful distance at the edge of her booth, his hand on the strap of his soft briefcase.

She took a moment to openly assess him. Her gaze scanned across his broad shoulders, up his neck. He was put together. Adding what she’d seen of his physicality during Automatik strikes made him that much more potent. A sexual charge ran up the backs of her legs. He was a secret that only she knew. Her scan reached his face. He met her look and didn’t back down. Did he see that her thoughts had strayed far from the mission? A keen edge of desire seemed to glint in his eyes.

Regaining a semblance of calm, she collected the papers spread across the table. “As long as you’re not selling something or trying to buy something from me.”

“Truce.” He eased into the seat opposite her. “Though I did notice you didn’t take the performance band last night.”

“I’m juggling enough things and don’t need to be beta testing your prototypes.” There was enough space between them and the rest of the diner to speak freely, but not as the waitress approached.

“Prototypes?” He did a good job of looking offended. “We’re fully ready to field—”

She held up her palm to cut him off. “The amount of miles I put on across the country, I’d have seen them.”

“Minutes away from market,” he conceded.

The waitress reached them, and Ben scanned the menu quickly and placed his order.

Once the waitress left, Mary asked him, “Are you heavy?”

“I wasn’t for the police rec league, but I am now.” He was trained well enough to know not to shift his weight against wherever he wore his pistol. “You?”

“Detective special in my purse.” Which was open at her side if she needed quick access.

“Five shots?” He glanced about the diner, then out into the parking lot. “Got a feeling there are more than five bad guys around here.”

“Sometimes it only takes one bullet.” Though their mission wasn’t as clear and simple as a combat op.

He leaned forward. “Said the sniper with one hundred percent accuracy.” His voice lowered and slid across the linoleum table. “Where’d you learn how to shoot like that? Delta?”

Ever since she’d been recruited into Automatik after retiring from Special Forces, her teammates had tried to pry out who she’d operated for. Only the top people at Automatik knew. The rest could run out of breath guessing. What would Ben do with the information? He was already closer to knowing her than almost any other man she knew, creating a swirling, frightening thrill that tantalized her.

Instead, she gave up a part of her past few had ever been privileged with. “Balboa13.” Maybe his interrogation techniques were so low-key she couldn’t have trained for them.

Or maybe he was genuinely interested in learning about her. He didn’t laugh. Gravity sank into his gaze as he considered her. “Street gang?”

“Lebanese girls in the San Fernando Valley.” She never got caught, though, so there was no record tying her to them.

He leaned his elbows on the table, closer to her. A knowing look in his eyes. “Sounds like trouble.” Did just a sliver of her past reveal so much?

“We were.” She was hard then and remained hard now.

Ben angled away as their food arrived on heavy plates. But he didn’t begin eating once the waitress left. He raised his lemonade glass to Mary in a toast. “Glad you made it out to sit across from me and share a patty melt.”

She clinked it with her iced tea. “Almost didn’t when the cheap 9mm submachine guns hit the streets.”

He drank and got into his food. “Yeah, they’re still writing that story.”

The blandness of her chicken sandwich felt like an aggressive act from the kitchen, trying to get her out of town. “We’re in it.”

He chewed and nodded thoughtfully. “My mom would’ve whupped me if I’d got caught up on the street, but I lost friends in gangs.”

All the lies remained. Mary Long. Real Estate. Her reality: Black ops. A pistol in her purse and a map of every exit in a room as soon as she entered it. The cover was intact, so she was able to test her humanity and peel back the armor a bit and share a quiet truth with someone who might understand. With Ben.

“I lost my brother.” She’d faced that pain years ago, yet a pang of the agony, confusion and fury still jolted through her heart.

Ben sighed a long breath. He placed a hand on the table and reached it a quarter of the way toward her. “I’m sorry.”

The warm comfort that had started by sharing pieces of her past with him rose higher. Up her chest and across her shoulders. As if he were touching her there, releasing the ever-present tension in her muscles. What if she stretched her fingers to him? What would that connection become?

She knocked her knuckles on the tabletop to acknowledge his gesture. “Balboa13 got their revenge. And I joined the Army right out of high school, before the heat came down.”

Revealing it was the Army was a clue to her Delta past, but Ben didn’t jump on it.

But a little grin did brighten his face. “And you’re still bringing the pain.”

“To the right people.” She glanced about the diner, keeping track of the incoming truckers and outgoing lunch breakers.

His gaze turned out the window and into the parking lot, where a local police car was parking. Two officers, both white men, got out. They both had dark hair and dark sunglasses.

“They the ones from last night?” she asked.

“No.” Ben muttered so only she could hear, “Money and attitude. They’re protecting and serving whatever’s paying for their cars and new gym, and I don’t think it’s the taxpayers.”

The whole infrastructure of the town seemed rotten. “The mayor’s got to be in on it.” She shared her intel quietly. The cops walked across the parking lot toward the diner doors. “Her husband wasn’t scared. He’s fed by it. And he has a pistol in his desk. Tried to talk me off a former Marine, Kit Daily, and his train yard.”

The smile remained on Ben’s face, but his eyes hardened. “Then that’s where we’ve got to go.”

The police officers entered the diner and were greeted by the waitress. Ben relaxed his posture further by leaning back in the booth so his legs stretched out beneath the table. His shin slid against hers. She knew the drill and didn’t move away. The contact served a tactical purpose. If he flinched with action, she’d feel it and know when to move. Or if she needed to signal what was happening behind him, she could do it with a small press of her legs to his. But she wanted it to be more. A connection. The comfort of one person knowing another. If it wasn’t for the potential danger in the diner, this touch could reinforce what they’d shared of their pasts.

To what end? Ben was an expert flirt. Was this just reflex for him?

The lies of the operation and their fake personas had to tighten up with the arrival of the police. But Mary still probed, “Your mom still around?”

A bigger smile lightened him. “Yes, and proud of me and more proud of herself for raising a boy right. Your folks?”

She shook her head. His smile wavered before she explained, “We never had a lot of money for good food or good care. I was...away.” In Iraq, protecting a convoy corridor, and couldn’t get home while they were both sick.

“Damn...” His leg stayed against her. The rough memory faded faster than usual. She wasn’t used to sharing it.

“Old news.” She shifted gears quickly as the cops took the booth next to theirs, at Ben’s back. “But you’re not really interested in a video call, so I can show you how I organize my kitchen cabinets.”

“It tells a lot about a person.” He pulled out his cell. “Take my phone, call your number with it, then we’ll be looped in.”

The cops refrained from conversation, obviously listening.

She let some sass whip out. “I’ll take your number, and I’ll call you if I’m desperate to know what’s in your drawers—kitchen drawers.”

He laughed and so did the cops. Ben turned as if he just realized they were behind him and nodded at the men. They tipped their heads back at him and pointed to the sport bracelets they wore.

One cop kept chuckling. “Chief stayed late to shoot extra jumpers at the end of the game.”

“Did he hit?” Ben split his attention between the cops and taking out his business card and writing a number on the back.

The other cop scoffed. “One out of ten.”

Ben clicked his tongue proudly. “Then the sport band’s helping.” He turned back to her and slid the card across the table. “Personal cell on the back.”

The waitress came by and left the check before going to the police officers’ table for their order.

Mary collected Ben’s card and the check.

He put his hand out to stop her. “Take the card, leave the check. I got this.”

She waved him off. “It’s expensed. You were a business lunch.”

“Bang.” He recoiled as if hit. “That hurt.”

“You liked it.” She collected her bag and stood.

“I did.” His gaze slid up her slowly, from her shoes along her legs and chest to her face. She soaked in the attention, allowing it past small gaps in her defenses. Bright awareness danced on her skin. He continued to taste her with his eyes. “You got my number. Use it.”

She stared back at him. A new gravity took him. Had she gotten past his defenses as well? “We’ll see how cold it gets down here in southern Illinois.”

He turned the swagger back on. “I heard it gets
real
cold.”

“So do I.”

His smile turned wicked and ravenous as she burned him with her ice. God, if this flirtation was real, they’d either run away screaming or tear the sheets off a bed together. She gave him a wink as small solace for the injury, then walked down the row of booths toward the cash register.

As she departed, she heard the cops release a bubble of laughter.

The first one elaborated under his breath, “He puts one up at the buzzer for the win and...brick.”

She was too far away to hear the specifics of Ben’s defense, but the confident tone of his words was clear. The conversation between him and the police officers continued while she paid the bill. Because of the presence of the cops, the rest of the diner patrons curled more into themselves, just going about business.

The chill air shocked her first breath outside. No heat in the bright sun. But the unusual comfort from the connection with Ben remained. It had started before they’d had to turn up their flirting to keep the cover story going. So what was his angle? Build her trust, get her into bed? But it felt too real, especially when they weren’t saying a word.

Footsteps hurried toward her across the parking lot. She’d reached her car and saw in the reflection of the windows that it was Ben striding closer. Her hand eased off the handle of her pistol in her purse.

“I didn’t get a chance to thank you for lunch.” He was a little louder than he needed to be. They both knew they were being watched. He didn’t crowd her space but spoke quieter as he neared. “Or apologize for sounding like a dog. I’m not a dog. I just...” Was this part of the act? He searched for words, staring out at a weedy on-ramp for a four-lane highway. “I’m just figuring out how to talk to you.”

She shifted her body from defensive to open and leaned against her car door. “And I’m figuring out if you’re worth talking to.”

All things their salespeople personas who’d just met would say. Also true for the black ops soldiers who’d run assaults together, drank beers together but had never shared any details from their past like they had in the diner.

“Fair enough.” He nodded and took a step closer. She remained where she stood, but wanted to move forward to test how real the connection was.

No one could hear them this far in the parking lot. She maintained her cool smile for appearances and asked, “How did it happen that our covers started flirting so hard?”

He was within a couple of feet of her. Close enough to see the lines in the corners of his eyes as he grinned. Her legs nearly walked her to him on their own. “It happened naturally.”