One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik) (9 page)

“Kit Daily shoot off that antique .45 of his a lot?” The cowboy would probably look like those old Department of Defense training films from the 1950s.

“Back behind the warehouses.” Sean swung his hand in that direction. “Him and his buddies shoot off all kinds of things.”

“That doesn’t sound safe.” What better way to intimidate people than the sound of gunfire?

“This isn’t a safe place,” Sean warned while revealing his own burden.

A new presence behind Ben shifted the men’s attention. A boss would’ve had them dispersing to resume their work. Instead they puffed up and flexed, rugged and manly. Ben turned. Mary stood on the path to the yard between the administrative buildings. A spike of worry was removed from the side of his neck and he sighed a little relief at seeing her.

“Is she the one?” Sean’s question struck Ben with more impact than was intended. “Is she the one you were with before those truckers jumped you?”

Ben nodded as a slow grin spread. “It was worth it.” And he’d endure a hell of a lot more for her.

She stalled on the path, looking up to the porch of one of the buildings and talking to someone hidden there. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, highlighting the piercing awareness of her dark eyes. A heavy coat hid the curves of her ribs and hips, but her tight jeans revealed strong thighs. High boots covered her calves in shining black leather. Ben couldn’t hold back a grunt of appreciation while the memories of her moving against him through the forest rolled a wave of heat up his back, around his chest and down to his groin.

Other sounds of approval came from the men around him.

Sean muttered, “Nice.”

“Right?” Ben agreed.

“She looks put together, man. Good luck.” With a nod, Sean turned back to his work. The others took another eyeful of Mary, then tore themselves away. No one said anything crass or made any gestures toward her. If they had, Ben wouldn’t have been quiet. Metal rang against metal like an industrial church behind Ben as he approached her.

She remained in the midst of a conversation. He stepped up the path and saw Daily and Pulaski on the porch looking down to her.

“Yeah, I got your card from Len.” Daily hooked his thumbs on each side of his large belt buckle. “And he explained your whole angle, but as much as I’d love doing business with you...” He showed teeth with a leering smile. “I don’t think my train yard fits what you’re looking for.”

Daily spotted Ben and called louder to him with a skeptical laugh. “Any takers?”

Ben stopped near Mary. “A few. You’ve got a good crew out there.”

Daily waggled a finger and instructed, “But I can’t tell them that. It’ll go to their heads.”

How long did Ben have to play nice? He struggled to maintain a neutral face and not scowl at the smug son of a bitch standing three feet above him.

Mary jumped in. “I’m glad I had a chance to meet you, Chief Pulaski. I was curious about crime rates in Morris Flats.”

Pulaski stepped forward, but not as far as Daily, who gave no ground. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to scare off investors.”

“A little excitement last night,” Daily reminded Pulaski with a hint of disappointment.

The chief waved it off. “Just some kids out for a joy ride.”

Ben couldn’t hold back. “I heard the sirens.”

Daily smiled knowingly and shared a glance with Pulaski. “Now what were you doing up at that hour?”

Both men shifted sticky looks between Ben and Mary. The hotel guard must’ve reported back. The town had eyes. None of them could be trusted.

Ben kept his voice flat. “I never sleep well when I’m not in my own bed.”

Kit Daily barked a laugh. Pulaski’s mouth turned down in an almost outright expression of disgust. Mary acted shy and shot Ben a quick accusatory look before taking out her phone and pretending to deal with pressing business.

Daily took too long examining Mary’s body, top to bottom and back. Ben seethed and almost stepped between them before Daily asked, “Were you in the service, Miss Long?”

Where was this going? Their cover had been seamless. And Automatik operated in such shady territory that even retired military men with good contacts couldn’t shine a light on them. Were they exposed? Pulaski wasn’t twitching to reach for his gun. Yet.

“No.” She cocked her head. “Why do you ask?”

“Your physique.” He awarded himself another opportunity to take her in. “Thought you might’ve gone through basic.”

“I was an athlete in college. Swimmer.”

Daily sucked his teeth. “That’s it. The shoulders.” But his gaze was on her legs.

Pulaski added, “We know Ben was an athlete.”

“Yeah.” Ben deliberately slung his bag higher on his shoulder to show he was moving out. If he stayed around Daily and Pulaski any longer, he’d jeopardize the mission by teaching them a lesson in mindfulness. With his fists. “I was on the darts team.”

No laughs from either man.

Daily didn’t even address him as he walked toward the parking lot. “I’ve got your card, Miss Long. But don’t count on a call.”

She answered with continued politeness. “I appreciate any consideration.”

Ben was still in earshot for the dismissal from Daily. “Now, we’ve got business to attend to. Have a safe trip out of Morris Flats.”

Everyone wanted them gone.

He walked slowly to his rental SUV.

Mary’s quick steps caught up to him. “Hey there.” A flirty twinkle glimmered in her eyes. “Didn’t expect to see you down here. Are you looking to poach my real estate deal?”

“You don’t have to worry about that, Miss Long.” He aped Daily’s drawl on her name. “I’m not cut out to run down contracts and handshakes with those guys.”

“I don’t blame you.” Her sharp edge revealed itself for a split second as she glanced at the admin building. Both men were back inside.

Ben opened the rear hatch to the SUV and placed his bag inside. Mary stood at his hip, her thigh on his. It was for show. They were being watched. He still savored the heat.

“I got a recommendation on a good place for dinner.” He kept his hand on the top of the open trunk lid so his arm blocked the admin building’s view of them.

“Isn’t that what got you beat up last time?”

“
They
got beat up.” He flexed his chest and biceps. “And this restaurant is in the next town and comes from a reputable source.”

“After last night...” She inspected the building and the police car parked out front. “We need to let them relax a little.”

“Too tight for the warehouse,” he murmured in agreement, bringing his face closer to hers. Her scent of roses surrounded him and transported him to a much cleaner and safer place.

“Tomorrow night.” Her husky voice turned the roses to black velvet. She looked up at him. Lips parted. “Didn’t look like they were ready to move the goods before then. We’ll crack them open.”

“And tonight.” He leaned down to kiss her. She didn’t move away. It was light, quick. The connection he’d discovered from the last kiss was there, waiting just below the surface. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

Hunger for more bore through him.

Chapter Nine

She waited in plain view in front of the hotel and tried not to look uncomfortable. It was much easier to operate with an extra twenty pounds of gear strapped to her chest and back. Instead she wore her coat over a glowing champagne cardigan and a simple black top. The sun had set. She should be in the shadows.

At least she had her .38 in her purse and a slim automatic knife tucked into her boot.

A few business travelers hurried through the cold into or out of the hotel. They shared polite smiles with Mary. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except that she hadn’t been on a date in years.

Headlights swung through the parking lot, and Ben arrived in front of her in his SUV. Who was he picking up? Mary Long? Her cover blurred when she was with him. Their second kiss at the train yard had been so comfortable and familiar. And it had jolted her senses into overdrive. She’d felt the beginning of his stubble rasp on her face. Her speeding pulse had pushed awareness into her breasts and between her legs.

Seeing his smiling eyes through the open passenger window, that same awareness spread in lush waves across her body. She lit up under his attention. No one had looked at her with that kind of real appreciation. No one knew her better than him. And now she ached to learn more of Ben. She’d been scared back from the connection and retreated, but that had only left her feeling hollow.

“Ready?” He reached for the inside passenger door latch.

She hadn’t moved.

The door swung open, and she stepped into the SUV. The clean, warm scent of his soap surrounded her. He wore a dark button-down shirt under his coat and nice jeans. Ben held his hand out. She stared at the simple gesture for a moment, then placed her hand in his. Any chill from outside was chased by the touch. He kissed her knuckles, something no one had ever done. A flush spread across her chest and up her neck.

“Thanks for coming out.” He returned himself to the driving position. She secured herself in the passenger seat. They moved out, closed up in the car and private.

“Thanks for getting me out.” The mark of his lips on her hand remained hot. “Ben Louis has moves.”

“Tonight, Ben Louis is in his room alone watching sports and working on his fantasy team.” He took his eyes from the road to glance her way with a small, personal smile.

Traces of fear rose. It was a real date, without cover stories. Could she be herself as well? “Mary Long has home renovation shows on while she does her Kegel exercises.”

Ben laughed with a pronounced shiver. “Tight.”

He steered them west, heading out of town. A few cars collected around restaurants, bars and taverns, but the neighborhoods were quiet. When they’d been driving out to their recon in the state park, each had been locked and loaded. Tonight Ben sat back and drove with one hand.

His attention was split between the road and her. “So when was the last time you were picked up by a car that wasn’t moving?”

“If you really knew how to treat a girl right—” she turned her mouth with disappointment, “—you’d have dusted me off with a Pave Low.”

He let out a whistle. “Those pilots are crazy.”

“They get us in and out.”

“Pitch black, hundred miles an hour and ten feet over the ground.”

She remembered the rush, speeding into the inky void, knowing her skills would get her through. But there wasn’t anything she could train for that could prepare her for the unknown she headed toward tonight with Ben.

“Where are we going?” The question seemed too vast. She clarified, “For dinner.”

“Dansville. Under fifty clicks away. I hear the place even has candles.”

“Fancy.” For the first time in a very long time, she was self-conscious about being underdressed.

“If you can shoot an eraser off a pencil from half a mile away, you get fancy.”

Her mind spun off into setting up for a shot like that. “I’ll need a spotter.”

A serious edge crept into his voice. “You’ve got one.”

She wanted to fall into that kind of sure confidence but couldn’t match him yet and still felt like she was stumbling awkwardly on what should be normal human interaction. “What’s the name of this place?”

He hesitated. “El Pantano.”

“You’re taking me to The Swamp?” She was suddenly way overdressed. “I should’ve brought a bigger gun.”

He put up a hand to slow her down. “I have it on good authority from Oscar, the high school security guard, that this is a nice place we’re going to.”

“Sounds like a setup.”

“Those are all in Morris Flats.” He hooked a thumb behind them. “Won’t take much to get Kit and Pulaski and his men to draw.”

“They’ll get their chance.” The best Automatik operations didn’t spend a single bullet. But none of the bad guys here were going to roll over without a fight. “They’ll get hammered down.”

Ben put out his fist, and she bumped it.

They sped into the fringe of town, where the old agribusiness buildings loomed like crippled giants on the planes. She recounted to Ben her field trip with Donna and Eddie Limert, where they tried to distract her away from anything near the train yard.

“But you came back anyway.” Fewer streetlights meant she couldn’t read his face in the glow of the dashboard.

“I don’t think we should operate alone anymore.” Now she was the one being opaque. To Ben and herself. While it sounded like tactical planning, she was testing how it felt to extend herself and let him know her needs.

“Agreed.” His eyes remained on the road ahead of them.

The two-lane highway appeared to stretch all the way to the sharp horizon. Night surrounded them, pierced by stars and distant yellow lights in the planes.

“Delta.” A long breath moved through her and released a weight she hadn’t known was there.

He didn’t look at her with surprise or victory. Ben didn’t grin with success where everyone else had failed. His eyes reflected a new depth she couldn’t see the bottom of. He took his own breath. “You’re fucking amazing. You’re fucking fearless.”

She couldn’t look at herself that way. “They chose me.”

“For telling me,” he clarified. “They didn’t make you anything you weren’t already.”

That truth sank in. “The good and the bad.”

He shrugged it off. “We’ve all got it.”

“Some of us have more bad.” The storm of violence in her youth had turned to a steady rain she’d been living under for a long time.

“Whatever we’ve done—” the energy in his voice started to lift her up, “—it’s nowhere near as bad as Kit Daily and Chief Pulaski. The mayor.” His jaw set. “Making money, making people die.”

His fist tightened on the steering wheel. Her own hand was clenched. They both wanted mission success.

Ben didn’t let them sink into the dire thoughts. “We’re in the game for the right reasons. That’s why we’re with Automatik. Special Forces done right. We’re not just taking orders, but making them, too.”

The process of discharging from the Army after years in the field had left her hollow. Automatik had changed that. If people were hurting, she’d be there. “Putting pressure on the bleeding.”

He reached out and glanced his knuckles on her thigh. “Healing our own.”

She nodded and tapped the side of her fist on his shoulder. Small contact rang with significance. She wasn’t alone.

“How’d they find you?” He brightened. “You were sitting in a twig shack on the side of a mountain in Nepal with birds on your shoulders, and Loftis or Gold showed up to get you back into the fight.”

She chuckled and sat back, stretching her legs with the thought of that kind of solitude. “You find me a twig shack, and I’ll meditate the hell out of it.”

“I’ll build you one.” It sounded like more of a promise than a joke. But he couldn’t be serious, could he? Not when she’d never allowed herself to plan past the current op.

“I got into Automatik a few weeks before I was out of Delta.” Three years ago. “I thought my C.O. was angling me toward a contractor gig, and I was ready to say no. But then he laid it out, and it sounded a hell of a lot better than bodyguarding dignitaries or riding around in an armored SUV with a hit squad.”

“You get to ride in an SUV with me.” His eyes smiled.

It didn’t take much for his warm presence to wrap around her like silk. “And they found you working as a bouncer in a strip club, living in an apartment with no kitchen, but two king-sized beds.”

“Hey.” Was he actually angry? “I had a kitchen.”

“Nothing in the fridge but a bottle of mustard and a bottle of vodka.”

“Vodka? I’m not fancy.” He sat up, sharpening his attention as they approached the edge of the next town. “Me and my man, Harper, had retired from the Teams and I was back in San Diego, consulting for a security firm and prepping some brothers of color in the Navy who wanted to be SEALs. Gold showed up when we were at a sports bar and lured us into the shadows.”

“And now you get to ride in an SUV with me.”

“Best decision I ever made.” His honesty carried farther into her than any slick line. More of her armor fell away and her skin woke up. Her sweater was sleek on her arms, and she wanted to contrast that with Ben’s calloused hands. Then to feel those hands tugging her shirt up and searching up her back and over her chest.

She shook herself back to earth. Ben glanced a question at her.

“Hungry,” she explained. “You?”

“Hell yeah.” His voice was low, and scratched in the way she wanted his touch to.

Dansville transformed from a constellation of streetlights in the distance to an old-fashioned agricultural town filled with small homes and low, brick businesses. Morris Flats thrived on the commerce of the train tracks and the highway. The bright future of the ‘50s. Dansville had been around a lot longer than that and huddled close against the elements as the buildings weathered the years.

Stoplights slowed traffic. The highway became Main Street. Market, a couple of taverns and a hardware store. Worn lettering painted on the sides of buildings marked the evolution of the businesses. Many hadn’t changed.

“El Pantano.” Ben pointed up and to the left. A lighted sign spelled out the name over an orange door flanked by warmly lit windows.

“Looks good so far.” She saw several occupied tables as they passed.

“It’s either this or the Iron Plow.” The run-down tavern with half-lit neon beer signs lurked at the end of the block. Ben hung a U-turn and parked close to El Pantano. He was out of the SUV quickly, standing at her door once she’d opened it and extending a hand for her.

She didn’t move. “I’m not fragile.”

He kept his hand out. “I handle all my explosives with care.”

“You’re a smooth motherfucker.” She placed her hand in his. He curled his fingers around her. Maybe she did need help getting out of the car. Her balance suddenly shifted. The touch rushed her blood. She collected herself and stepped down, holding him as strongly as he held her.

He closed the door; their hands remained together. They walked to the restaurant against a cold wind cutting across the plains and through town with the scent of mineral-rich soil. Cantina music strummed them into the warm room that glowed with bright colors and low, golden light.

She marveled, “There are candles.”

Ben held up two fingers to the hostess as she approached. They exchanged the requisite pleasantries and were led to a relatively secluded, thick pine table against a wall and next to a large wooden hutch filled with hand-painted pottery. Their momentum stalled awkwardly when it was time to sit. Each of them angled toward the seat facing the front door. Ben backed off and took the opposite position. They both hung their coats on the backs of the chairs and sat.

Once the hostess was gone, he spoke over his open menu. “I’ll cover the kitchen.”

She had a good view of the front door and windows. “Carrying?”

“Ankle,” he answered casually. “You?”

“Purse.”

Each of them looked over the menu as the light conversation continued. He asked, “For knife work, you stick or slash?”

“Slash.” The food smelled amazing as it traveled from the kitchen to the other tables. All the plates were vibrantly colored, like the large abstract paintings on the walls. Everything in the place seemed handmade, giving the sense of being a guest in a long-standing family home. “Picked up some Indonesian techniques, some Filipino.”

“Fancy.” He drew the word out with a high-toned accent.

“Like dancing.” The footwork had been easy to pick up during training.

“You dance?” He folded his menu and gazed across the table at her. The candle burnished an outline around the strong features of his jaw and mouth. Another kiss was necessary. But to feel that mouth on her neck, her breast, seemed impossible. And that was why she had to have it.

“I do.” In her condo, alone, while she had music on cooking or when she needed to stretch out after hand loading rifle rounds. “With a knife in my hand.”

“We can tango.” Smoky seduction rasped his voice and caressed over her skin and into her. She wasn’t thinking about knife fights. The awareness in her breasts and up the insides of her thighs came from the image of her dancing with Ben. Naked. Muscle balancing muscle. Each strong enough to move the other.

The waitress came over before Mary overheated and they placed their order. No booze for either. Even out of the immediate danger of Morris Flats, they had to remain sharp.

Ben looked the place over once the waitress had departed. “This is nice. Next time I’m at the high school, I’ll thank Oscar.”

“The school looked pretty beat-up.” Anything shining and new in that town belonged to the gunrunners.

“Like a limb without blood.”

Their mood lifted with the arrival of chips and salsa and their drinks. Two lemonades in thick glasses for the ghost operators.

Ben held his up. “To candlelight.”

“And the shadows who surround it.” She clinked him and drank.

Two men came into the restaurant but were greeted as regulars and didn’t resonate as an immediate threat.

Ben ate chips and salsa with appreciative sounds. “We’ve got to get back to Hayley and Art’s place. She can cook.”

More than the quality of the food, which was excellent, Mary had been touched by Hayley remembering the kind of cuisine she’d requested. She hadn’t eaten like that since being at home with her family. “Hayley’s tough. She can do anything.”