Midnight Fire

by Lisa Marie Rice

He finally broke eye contact, rotated his index finger in the air—let’s head out—and the six men left the hotel room.

  Summer sat with an exhausted sigh on the very comfortable burgundy sofa. She’d been uneasy with the men in the room. They sucked up all the oxygen. Well, Jack did, anyway. They hadn’t had a moment alone since waking up this morning in Portland, after he’d asked her to marry him.

  She hadn’t said yes. She hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes, either.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to marry Jack. It’s that she wanted to marry him too much. Her heart had taken a dangerous leap at his words, a leap of joy so intense it scared her. This was it for her. He was it for her, always had been, since she was twelve. It was why she’d never really fallen in love with anyone else, why she’d never even been tempted by any other man, except for an occasional night of sex, when she was feeling particularly lonely.

  Jack was it. Jack had always been it.

  He’d asked her to marry him and she wanted to with all her heart. But all of this was happening in the heat of danger, with emotions running high. He’d just been reunited with his sister, thoughts of family were on his mind, particularly after spending six months alone, on the run.

  Maybe he’d built some kind of fantasy in his head of forming one big happy family back in Portland, living close to his sister, recreating his happy childhood. Great. If it were like that, Summer was all in. Happy happy, forever.

  But Jack’s family had been unusual. Everyone said so. Almost a freak of nature. She’d never seen anything like it before or since. Summer’s own experience with families was darker, not happy at all. Being tied to someone you hated, like Aunt Vanessa had been tied to Hector. Life with her parents had been hell on earth. She never visited her memories, but they were almost all bad, shot through with the kindness of neighbors who felt sorry for the little girl with the terrible parents.

  But even without the horror stories of her own family, she’d seen enough to know that huge pain could follow a bad choice. Poor Zac had come from a terrible family background—a violent father, alcoholic mother—and he’d become almost asexual, terrified of relationships.

  Of course Jack was fundamentally kind and not an alcoholic. But Jack, for all his worldliness, for all that he’d gone through as an agent, a spy, was an idealist. She knew that to him, the nastiness of the world existed, but it was kept at bay by family.

  What happened if the family went sour?

  What happened if Summer found she couldn’t be open enough, loving enough, for Jack? Nothing in her background and nothing in her life had prepared her for being a loving wife or—God!—mother.

  Jack had taken it badly when she hadn’t said yes. He thought it was a reflection of him. It wasn’t. It was a reflection of her.

  This was getting her nowhere. She wasn’t being useful and furthermore, she was depressing herself. As always, the best tonic for any down thoughts was work. Work had always uplifted her.

  She didn’t have an answer for Jack. Not now, anyway. She was too troubled, too unsure of herself. Her life was in turmoil. How could she think of a lifetime commitment when she didn’t know where she’d be tomorrow?

  Work, she thought. The ultimate tonic.

  Felicity had copied all of Hector’s files and put them on a brand new laptop for her, while she continued working on the flash drives and the original laptop. When Summer asked her whether she was sure that everything of Hector’s was in the cloned computer, Felicity had merely looked at her.

  So. She essentially had Hector’s computer with her. She opened the laptop on a desk near a window looking out over the Financial District of San Francisco. She’d never been to San Francisco before and had only seen the streets as they drove in from the airport.

  Someday, when all this was over, when no one was trying to kill her, when she had her life back, she was coming back. It had always been a city she’d wanted to visit.

  Maybe she could come with Jack...

  Focus, Summer!

  Okay. She looked at the files on Hector’s laptop. Felicity had flagged the encrypted files so Summer concentrated on the non-encrypted files. No use in duplication of effort.

  The hard disk was full. It was going to be a task lasting several days, carefully going through everything. She called room service for coffee and a club sandwich and got to work.

  Hector’s computer files were compelling, though she had to force herself to look at some of the photos of Hector’s partners.

  It was a little like wading through mud, though. A walk around Hector’s mind was not pleasant. It was filled with vindictive bile, money obsession, soulless sex. She was about ready to give herself a break when a name caught her eye in a file in a folder dedicated to investments.

  Aurora.

  Could be anything, really. The name of an investment company, a new corporation, a hedge fund. A woman. But it could also be the chilling experiment run in 2007 on the safety of the electricity grid. Testing the grid, it had been proven it was vulnerable to hacks. Summer had done a series on the safety of infrastructure and had been appalled at what she’d found out. She’d interviewed twenty scientists and four experts from Homeland Security and had come away with the clear feeling that it was a disaster just waiting to happen.

  The Aurora file didn’t talk about cybersabotage. Rather, it was a series of investments, to the tune of almost a hundred million dollars. She wasn’t an expert, but looking at the files carefully, Hector was selling short stocks in power companies. Which would only make sense if he knew there were going to be major power outages which would make those stocks plummet.

  It was the Aurora scenario. Her heart thudded. And the date those stocks fell due was today. All the sell orders were dated today. At 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. In half an hour.

  Heart thudding, Summer called Jack’s cell and got no signal. She frowned and called again. And again. Crazily, she hadn’t taken anyone else’s cellphone number. She wasn’t supposed to have emergencies, she was safely in a suite at the Marriott.

  This was the biggest emergency she could think of.

  In twenty minutes, if she was right, the electricity grid would go down. Maybe forever. And the United States would be plunged right back to the Middle Ages in a couple of seconds.

  She grabbed her coat and rushed down the stairs and out the door and started running as fast as she could toward Brennan Street.

  * * *

  Jack tapped his ear. They had an excellent comms system, provided by ASI. Even the FBI guys had taken one look and ditched their FBI-issue set. Unfortunately, Jack had to wave away the thick locks of hair of his wig—a dark haired one, a big bushy prof’s do. He hated this one, too.

  They’d all been in place for hours. He and Joe took turns sitting in a nearby coffee shop, the two FBI guys, Hank and Mike, and Nick were in a van a block away. Jacko was where Jacko could do the most good. On high.

  “What are you seeing, Jacko?”

  Jacko had set up a sniper’s nest on the roof of a building several blocks away but with no tall buildings in between. He had a clear sight of their target with his Leupold Mark VI rifle scope that could see the balls on a fly. Knowing Jacko, he could probably shoot those balls off, too.

  “Jackshit, Jack,” Jacko answered in his deep bass. Then, unusually, a chuckle. Not too many chuckles from Jacko. “Nothing. Oh, they have stealth film over their windows. The kind I have. You can barely tell, but I have it at my place and I can tell.”

  Jack felt a slight shiver. The building was old and probably slated for demolition. But the door and window frames were new. And now the window panes had a very expensive film that let in light but did not let out light. Jacko had gone to the roof of two other buildings and reported that there was a very effective camouflage netting in the back alleyway. T
he kind of camouflage netting Jack had put in the alleyway of his safe house. The kind that fooled drones. You’d need a drone with a laser rangefinder to tell that they weren’t looking at the ground but at something eight feet high.

  The van had directed an IR gun at the building and seen four warm bodies on the first floor and four on the second floor. Eight heat signatures, eight men. But they were more or less staying put and no one had ventured outside.

  One good thing the FBI guys had confirmed—no radiation leakage. They’d all heaved a sigh of relief at that, because, well, a nuclear bomb was always a fun possibility.

  He and Joe had quietly made the rounds of the corner grocery stores in the area, but without knowing who or what they were looking for, without a photo of a possible perp, nothing was gained.

  Stalemate.

  Nothing was happening.

  Jack checked his watch. 4:40 p.m. There were quite enough eyes on this place. He’d like to take a break and walk the couple of blocks to the Marriot and see Summer. Surveillance could last all night. It could last forever, actually. He’d argued for a warrant to enter the premises but Nick and the Director were both in agreement that might spook whoever was in there.

  This was an open-ended op. He didn’t have to stay 24/7. He wanted to see Summer. Now. He wanted to make sure she was okay, see it with his own eyes.

  Also because...well, he’d proposed and she hadn’t accepted. That was burning a hole in his head. She had feelings for him, he knew she did. If there was one thing Jack understood, it was women. He was out of practice, sure, but women hadn’t changed in ten thousand years, there was no evidence they’d changed in the past couple of years. She cared for him. Secretly, he thought she loved him, but unfortunately he couldn’t put his hand to the fire on that. But he could make her love him. He was going to be the most devoted husband on the face of the planet.

  He’d grown up with his dad, who’d been the most loving husband possible. He had an excellent example.

  Summer, on the other hand, had had awful examples of husbands. Her own father who must have been a real prick, and high most of the time with it, and Hector. Who’d hated his wife. Wives.

  No wonder she was hesitant. That was it, wasn’t it?

  She couldn’t be rejecting him, could she?

  That thought drove him a little crazy.

  She obviously couldn’t see what he could see, because she had no experience of it in her world. But what he could see, so very clearly, was the two of them in that pretty town, Portland, surrounded by friends who would become like family, with Isabel close by. With every day that passed, he came closer and closer to the decision to accept ASI’s job offer. It was an amazingly cool company and he was ready for the private sector. He’d had enough government bullshit. ASI’s bosses were real clear on what they did and did not want and they stood by their employees, always. Hugh had been like that, but Hugh was gone. Even when he was no longer a fugitive, even when this mess was cleared up, he knew he’d never go back to the CIA. The CIA was probably going to disappear anyway.

  He and Summer could have a beautiful life together. A life of meaning. Their children would grow up in a loving family, surrounded by good friends.

  Summer could do whatever she wanted, and whatever she wanted to do, he’d support her. She could commute back and forth to DC if she wanted to continue Area 8. She could found another webzine. She could write books. He didn’t care as long as she spent some time with him and they could create a family.

  A family.

  The feeling of yearning that evoked nearly brought him to his knees.

  He had no business thinking these things while he was on an op. Which was why he had to ask for an hour off and go see Summer. Reassure himself she was okay, was safe. To see if she loved him.

  Because God knows, he loved her.

  He checked his watch again. 4:43. At five he’d leave for an hour, go see Summer. He missed her already. He could almost see her before his eyes, in that incredibly pretty and probably amazingly expensive forest green outfit that suited her coloring. He could see her...

  Fuck. He could see her!

  She was supposed to be safe and warm back in the hotel.

  What the fuck was she—

  “Yo,” Jacko growled. “Girlfriend at your two o’clock.”

  4:45.

  She was running, not caring that people were looking at her. Summer reached him, panting.

  “Whoa.” Jack caught her. “What are you doing out of the hotel? I thought I told you—”

  “Jack,” she gasped. “I know what they’re going to do!” She stared up at him wild-eyed, trembling. “They’re going to wreck the electricity grid! Trash it! No power for years! The Aurora scenario! Scheduled for five! In a quarter of an hour!”

  “Fuck!” Jack tapped his earbud. “You guys hearing this?” He turned to Summer. “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Your cell isn’t working! I tried but I couldn’t get through!”

  He checked, and goddamned if it wasn’t dead. “You guys—your cells working?”

  “Negative.” Joe.

  “Negative with us.” Nick, from the van.

  “Mine does,” Jacko said. He was the farthest away.

  Terror prickled up his spine. This was exactly what happened just before the Massacre. Everyone’s cells went dead. The ASI system worked on a separate radio frequency.

  “Nick!” he shouted, but he didn’t have to because Nick, Hank and Mike were already out of the van. “We have a quarter of an hour,” he said.

  They were around the corner from the building and Nick started hauling out gear.

  “Summer, get away!” Jack was sweating. Not from the op but from having Summer anywhere near here.

  “Summer, can you shoot?” Nick turned to her.

  “Yes,” she replied calmly. “A little.”

  He handed her a Glock 19. “It’s got a full magazine. Get back to the hotel but keep that with you.”

  She nodded and took it. “You guys have got to hurry. You’ve only got a quarter of an hour.”

  Jack nodded. “The hell with a warrant. We have to go in fast, weapons hot.”

  Summer turned a pale, frightened face to him. “Do you have your vest on?”

  “I do.” He checked his weapon, looked at the gear Nick had. Joe had arrived and was sorting through the explosives for breaching the door. Hank and Mike were holding flashbangs. Jack bent to kiss her quickly. “Get out of here, Summer.”

  “Go,” she said and they took off at a run.

  Jack had never trained with any of the men but they worked together smoothly, as a team. They were all equipped with MP5s, besides the rest of the gear. In a minute, Joe had placed carefully calibrated amounts of C-4 around the front door and detonated it from around the corner. As the door exploded, Hank and Mike held a box with cylinders inserted in it. A flashbang launcher, Jack knew, though he’d never seen one. They launched two into the front window, raced to the side, launched two more, then stood back and launched two more into the second story window.

  Nick, Joe and Jack waited for the flashbangs to go off, grenades emitting enough light to blind for several minutes and enough noise to deafen a person.

  “Go go go!” Nick screamed and they ran into the building, weapons up.

  Three Chinese men with the build of soldiers lay on the ground, stunned, unable even to reach the weapons on a table. “I got this,” Joe yelled. “Get the computer!”

  Jack and Nick rushed up the stairs and into a room that was the control room. Monitors everywhere, thick cables covering the floor. Four thin men, different from the soldiers downstairs, were groaning on the ground. One sat up, holding his head, watching them wide-eyed. Stunned, but coming to his senses.

  Hank and Mike came up and started
restraining them. The one sitting up shot to his knees, then feet, reaching out—

  “Jack!” Jacko screamed. “Out back! One’s escaping! And oh God, Summer’s there! Get out there!”

  Jack had never moved so fast in his life. He tore down the stairs, made his way to the back of the building, crashed through the door into an alleyway covered with netting.

  And there she was! Summer. What the fuck was she doing? She had the gun he’d given her, pointed at the ground. She looked up, then back down to the ground, a determined frown on her face. She was looking at a piece of iron pipe. She pulled the trigger and shot it, shot it again and again.

  “Jack!” Jacko yelled again. “Your six!”

  And everything went into slow motion. Summer, a determined look on her face, shooting at the pipe, not looking up. The pipe severing. A man at the other end of the alley, raising a gun aimed straight at her head, Jack flying, tackling Summer and taking her to the ground just as he felt a blow to his arm, followed by hot pain.

  But there’d been two shots...

  He lay on Summer, frantically touching her, only one arm wasn’t working. At the end of the alley, a man lay on the ground, face up, unmoving.

  “Summer!” Jack shouted, only it didn’t come out as a shout, it came out a cough. His voice was weak. Something red soaked the asphalt. She was bleeding!

  No, he was bleeding.

  “Oh God, Jack!” Summer was kneeling over him, stuffing a scarf against his wound. Jesus, it hurt. Heads appeared above him. Nick, Hank, Mike. But he only saw Summer, crying.

  “You took a bullet for me,” she whispered.

  Jack nodded. Then tried to talk. “Yes.”

  “Yes,” Summer said, though her tears. “Yes, I will!”

  Had he hit his head? “Yes you will?”

  “Yes.” She leaned down and kissed him. It hurt. “I’ll marry you.”

  Epilogue

  Portland

  A month later

  “To Summer and Jack!” Isabel raised her glass and everyone else did, too. The entire crew of ASI and of Suzanne Huntington’s company drank to them.