Dark Streets, Cold Suburbs

by Aimee Hix

  He sighed and started ripping down sections of tape, cutting them, and sticking the ends on the dash. “How much tape do you need?”

  My phone blipped with a link.

  Meet you there.

  I cranked the engine. “Gordon got us a location.”

  My phone alerted again.

  “Check that for me, would you?” I asked, yanking my seatbelt on and latching it.

  “It says Seth just texted him that he’s in an agency vehicle on his way home from Dulles.”

  Shit. This was not how I wanted to reunite with him. But there was no one I’d rather have on my team than Seth.

  I pulled out of the parking lot. “Okay, have Gordon explain and divert him to the location. Seth will have all his gear with him. Another set of hands is better for us.”

  I drove as calmly as possible toward the destination Gordon had sent. I made sure my speed was only ten miles over the speed limit. Cops were out on patrol and shift change was hours away. They were going to be bored and looking for speeders. Plus, the energy drinks were kicking in and flooding me with an antsy desire to move.

  I cranked on the radio, my pre-workout mix began playing. It was only a few bars into a pumped-up remix of my favorite song when the music cut and the phone was ringing. Adam clicked accept.

  “Sunshine, how do you keep ending up in these situations?”

  Shit shit shit!

  “Just lucky I guess.”

  “You sure you didn’t break a mirror or something? Walk under a ladder? Black cat?”

  “Listen, are you going to have time to back me up in between cracking jokes, Ace?”

  “I got the location and I’m headed there now.” His voice had lost all the humor and acquired a deadly edge.

  “Excellent. ETA?”

  “Ten minutes. Maybe five. I’m rocketing down the parkway, lights and sirens. I’ll need to kick those off soon though. You?”

  “I’m playing it safe at nine over so maybe five minutes for me too.”

  “Gordon’s going to beat us both there. He’ll do recon and set the op. It was good you called him.”

  “It’s Ben.” My voice broke a little. I shoved down my fear. My system needed an outlet before it turned on me.

  “I know, Sunshine.”

  I saw the turn off for the neighborhood I had to crisscross before getting to the location—a self-storage business. At this time of night, it was unlikely anyone would be showing up. It backed to a wooded area and I assumed we had a final destination on the other side somewhere.

  “When we get Ben free, I’m tasking Adam with his safety,” I said.

  “Wait a minute—”

  “It’s the most logical decision, man,” Seth interrupted.

  “But I—”

  “You’ve had medical training, you’re big enough to carry him if he’s unconscious, and you can fight anyone off if you can’t get to the rendezvous,” Seth continued.

  “Willa?”

  “It’s my plan, Adam. With Seth available now I’ve got a three-man insurgent team. You’re the only one with medical training. I can’t have you in the fray.”

  “Remember when I said you were scary?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “You’re very scary. You put this one to shame.”

  “Dude!” Seth said.

  I pulled up to the self-storage and turned off my headlights as I turned right into the parking lot. I drove to the back of the lot where I knew Gordon would have set a secondary location. The brake lights of a nondescript black sedan flashed twice. I pulled in next to it.

  I turned off the interior lights and got out, easing the door shut, the click of the latch the only sound I heard. I walked around the back of the truck and unlocked the tailgate, raising it. Gordon was at my side, no warning, his arms laden with the gear he’d picked up at the apartment.

  “Pennington,” he said quietly with a head nod.

  Adam had come around to join us. “Gordon, this is Adam Carson. Adam, meet Gordo.”

  Gordon rolled his eyes at me under the sulfur lights in the parking lot and slung the bulletproof vests at me. I handed them off to Adam. I took the torso holster and shoved it into my hoodie pocket.

  I felt the vibration of a vehicle and turned to watch a muscular black SUV, headlights off, glide up to us. It was supposed to be nondescript but anything trying that hard to go unnoticed in this area might as well have a neon sign blinking out LIVE. ARMED. COPS. Since I was expecting my own personal live armed federal cop, I was beyond happy that he’d arrived. We were one step closer to getting the show on the road. I was more than ready to let a little violence out.

  Seth swung the truck around and backed into the spot next to Gordon’s ATF-issued car. We all climbed in, shutting the doors to just latched.

  The men all nodded at one another in that bro chin tip that they all thought was tough but really made them look like they possessed a group nervous tic. I wondered if they would do it with the bad guys too. Some kind of unspoken man alliance worldwide; good, bad, indifferent, you did the chin tip, like dogs sniffing each other’s butts.

  “Sunshine.”

  “Anderson.”

  I got a regular nod. It was amazing how much nuance a man could put into a simple up and down motion of his head. As a primary form of communication, it really was impressively complex. I did know him better than anyone on the planet though so maybe I was picking up what others would miss.

  “Can you two make eyes at one another later? I’d like to get home sometime before dawn,” Gordon said.

  “Gordo, you’re embarrassingly off-base. The only eyes I’m making at him right now are communicating that he’d better not turn his back to me tonight or I might cut him.”

  “I missed you too,” Seth said.

  Another eye roll from Gordon showed how much I had rubbed off on him during our interactions over the previous three months.

  “Anyone have a more detailed plan than the one I’ve heard from Willa?” Adam asked.

  “I’m sure I can recap that,” Gordon said. “Make sure my brother doesn’t get killed.”

  “Hey, I told Adam not to get killed either,” I said.

  “That’s true,” both Seth and Adam said in unison.

  I cut in before Gordon could roll his eyes again. “Look, I’m not an urban warfare specialist, which is why I called you. I don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with here except an angry possible ’roid head who’s got some kind of connection to what I’m reasonably sure is an underground fighting ring. Whether he’s looking for steroids or money or his grandma’s china, I don’t care. He wants it, he’s pissed, he’s already killed one teen boy over it, and he says he’s got Ben.”

  Gordon nodded. “I’ll go recon the location the system showed for Ben’s phone and we’ll regroup in ten minutes.”

  “I’m still waiting on a text back from this guy. I don’t know what he’s waiting on. I’m thinking he didn’t plan this out well so he’s making it up as he goes.”

  “Are you sure he even has Ben?” Seth asked.

  “There’s no other way he’d have the cell number I’m using. It’s a burner and only family has it. The photo was pretty convinc—”

  A wave of horror washed over me, cutting through the single-minded focus I’d been indulging. I had completely forgotten my parents. Someone had kidnapped their son and I hadn’t even let them enter my mind. I’d gone to a damn big box store to load up on supplies to take on the guy who was threatening the life of their little boy and calling them hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “Willa? Sunshine?”

  “I hadn’t even thought about Mom and Dad.” I covered my mouth.

  “Now is not the time to lose focus. Look at me,” Gordon said.

  What if something ended up happening to Ben and I ha
d to tell them? Then what? They would be blindsided.

  “Pennington! Look at me, right now, dammit.” I’d never heard Gordon yell before, the already deep timbre of voice boomed inside the enclosed compartment of the SUV, echoing off the glass. I dragged my gaze to his face, shocked.

  “I need you to dig back down inside yourself and get me the bad­ass who faced down a neo-Nazi last year. You remember her?”

  “She’s scary as hell,” Adam said, chiming in, “and Ben’s counting on her.”

  I nodded, slowly, letting an image of Ben’s face, scared and uncertain, fill my head.

  After searching my face for a second, Gordon slipped out the door of the truck and into the trees ringing the lot.

  “Let’s gear up, Will,” Adam said.

  I took the holster out of my pocket and then pulled the hoodie over my head. My compression tank was too snug to be pulled back down over the holster and allow me access to it so I tugged it off and wrapped the holster around my torso in reverse giving me access from the back. The top overlapped my sports bra just enough to be uncomfortable and I rolled my head back and forth on my neck, working out the muscles.

  I slipped out of the SUV and headed back to my truck to arm up. I needed to be sure when I wrapped my hands with the tape that I left myself the freedom to pull a trigger. I realized the holster wasn’t going to work backward with the hoodie unless I made some adjustments. I laid it on the tailgate, adjusting it so the sides were together, arms flopped out of the way, and stabbed down into the fabric. I dragged the knife toward me cutting two vertical slits that would be hidden by my arms. I opened the door and pushed the driver’s seat out of the way so I could access the gun safe.

  “Will?”

  I pulled my head out of the truck. “Yeah?”

  “I want you in a vest,” Seth said.

  Adam needed to keep his mouth shut. “I can’t. I can’t be in a vest and fight and be armed.”

  “Gordon will be able to set up a perch. You don’t need the gun.”

  I cracked my jaw, a move I’d allowed to become a habit. I’d always been a clencher but a hairline fracture intensified the tension at the worst times.

  “I would say this to another agent, even Tim, if it was them. This isn’t me babying you.”

  We both knew he was wrong. “It’s dark. We don’t know where they’re keeping Ben. If Adam gets trapped trying to get him out then Gordon will need to focus on cover fire for them.”

  Seth sighed and nodded. His phone must have alerted because he flinched slightly then pulled it out of his pocket. He crouched down by the back wheel and pulled up the screen, effectively using the truck to block any light from being visible from anywhere in the tree line.

  I resumed unlocking the safe. Then I loaded the magazine and chambered a round. I struggled a bit getting the gun into the holster, unused to wearing it and unfamiliar with the reverse position. I finally got the gun settled in and then leaned back in to pull a few strips of tape off the dash.

  I had wrapped my left-hand knuckles with a layer of tape when Seth took over. “Flex and fist, please.”

  We worked quietly, him taping and me working my fist until we were both satisfied with the makeshift gloves.

  “You need to get changed,” I said. He was used to gearing up in odd places thanks to his years in the Army and then with the ATF. I watched him walk back to his truck and get a gear bag out. It hadn’t occurred to me that I should worry about anyone wondering what the hell we were doing. Four grown adults skulking around in a self-storage parking lot in the dark on a week day, slipping into a wooded area and then changing clothes. I really hoped that if there were any security cameras, we provided some much-needed entertainment.

  Seth’s tactical gear was sleek and professional compared to my thrown together look. That was to my advantage. Seth and Gordon had their all black, ninja-like appearance to blend into the shadows as proper backup. I needed to look like what I was—a very pissed off, very underdressed sister.

  Seth hauled out a laptop that looked like it could crush mine with its DVD drive. “Cell please?”

  I handed it to him and he attached it to the laptop with a cable that had enough attachments to make a Swiss Army knife weep with jealousy. “Don’t get pissy with me if my cell phone takes over your shiny new laptop and uses it to hack North Korea. You know how Ben likes to play and we’ve already set a precedent.” I was, of course, referring to me waltzing into an ATF op last fall using my cell phone and an app my baby brother had texted me.

  “I highly doubt he’s trojaned a burner cell.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “I didn’t say I doubted he was capable, just questioning his motives for giving you a cell with that kind of capability. He knows your ability to get yourself into trouble.”

  Offensive. Semi-true but offensive. I didn’t always just stumble over volatile situations … I mean, sometimes I rushed headlong into them. After stumbling over them.

  I shoved down another twinge of guilt for bantering while my brother was being held by some unknown quantity, but the reality was snark was how I coped. I was doing the best possible thing I could for my brother. I’d gathered a team of highly trained and extremely talented covert operatives. It was almost surreal. Had I seen something like this in a movie, I’d have called bullshit and changed channels but you fall in love with a legit James Bond–type and there are perks.

  I heard my cellphone beep and looked over at Seth. He flipped the laptop so I could see the screen. It was a text from Jan, complete with the incoming number, the phone details including owner, registered address, and a blinking red dot on a map for location. A bunch of other data started scrawling down the screen and I could see all the ping locations and what looked like a device history of texts and calls. Ben was going to be so jealous when I told him about the government’s latest technotoy.

  “How do I respond?”

  “Update her.” He stood holding the laptop, scrunching down slightly so I could comfortably type. One stop shopping. Snazzy.

  I replied to her that I had surveillance set up and gave her the location. While I waited for her reply even more information scrolled in including that she was law enforcement and a warning that cross-jurisdictional lines could be breached. As quickly as that warning popped up it was sucked down into the tray notifications with another popup replacing it that read Warrant Achieved.

  My eyes widened. Seth gave me a curt nod. “Need to know, Sunshine.”

  The fact that there was “need to know” in an unofficial operation about my brother headed by me meant there was a lot more going on behind ATF scenes with my brother. Any other time I would have browbeaten Seth to tell me what the hell was going on but as long as everyone I loved, and tolerated in Gordon’s case, came out of this alive I didn’t care if Ben was actually secretly the head of the damn ATF.

  He flipped the laptop back around and awkwardly typed with one hand. It still looked incredibly badass. He has that effect on me.

  “There. Now Jan will get all the information we get when this idiot contacts you again.”

  “Does it work retroactively? I mean, can we just find the text from him and let it pull all that crap up like it just did.”

  He looked at me, squinting, obviously considering the possibilities my question raised. “I mean, maybe. That wasn’t in the parameters of the program requirements. I don’t even know if that kind of thing is technically possible. Or legal.”

  “Look, we both know Ben designed something in that system if not the whole thing despite your ‘need to know’ distraction. If it’s possible, he did it, requirements or not. He’d code it once rather than go back and do it again. He’s forever whining about how tacked-on code is so sloppy.”

  Movement in the tree line caught my eye and I watched with my peripheral vision as Gordon skulked out of the shadows. My
senses were honing in. That was good. I didn’t need anyone taken down with friendly fire. It made company picnics so tense when you had to ask the guy you shot accidentally to hand you the potato salad. And I knew if there was an incident then it was going to be me. Although if I hadn’t shot him there while he was being annoying, I could probably hold off while he was saving Ben.

  “I said ‘need to know’ because it’s need to know, so keep your lips zipped, smartass.” He grinned at me. It really was a shame we worked together best when someone’s life was in danger.

  Gordon had made it to the front of the truck when I turned and looked at him square. He froze like a cockroach and glared at me. I assumed it was a glare. It was pretty dark where he was standing and I couldn’t actually see his face but it pissed him off when I overcame his Man of Stealth routine.

  Another text bleeped in.

  “I guess we don’t need to see if the program can find those details in an old contact.”

  Hello, asshole.

  Seth and Gordon looked over the details on the screen doing their wordless communication gig I’d seen in full force last fall and I adjusted the torso holster to make it easier to reach without having to dislocate my damn arm.

  Gordon wandered back over to his car to get Adam.

  “Do you want to know what the text said?” Seth asked.

  “Nope. Don’t need to know. I just want to know where this jackhole is so I can go stomp an extra hole or two into his face.”

  Seth nodded. “I know, love. Ben’s going to be fine.”

  “He’d better be or I’m going to do more that kick the shit out of this guy.”

  Gordon handed out the earbuds and began laying out the strategy. He used phrases like incursion points, fall back locations, sight lines and then gave us the code words for when Adam got Ben to safety or if one of us got into trouble. I listened with half an ear to everything realizing the form was for the boys. All three of them knew that whatever plan I was involved in had to be fluid because I was going to spend the majority of my mental energy on honing and directing my rage.