by Nico Rosso
Silence descended again like a cloud of smoke neither wanted to breathe. She reached out and turned the radio on. AM news mumbled out. She punched buttons until an old hip-hop song set a grooving pace.
The mood lightened slightly. He acquiesced, “Glad you know the stations out here.”
“I hope classic hip-hop works for you.” She patted the armrest to the beat.
“I can pop and lock.” The old neighborhood hadn’t crossed his mind in years.
She brightened and looked him up and down with slow assessment. “That’s the kind of detail I wanted.” The attention brought his own awareness to his body. Not as an operator who had to be ready for combat, but as a man riding in a car with a woman. He was tempted to show off a little, shake his shoulders to the music. Grind his hips. But that would’ve been way outside the operational parameters of the mission.
It took a breath to get the heat rising through him to recede again. What would she look like dancing? Free, not holding herself back with the thoughts that fired constantly behind her eyes.
Another song came on, this one from somewhere in the early 2000s, taking him straight back to the apartment block. “Bloody hell.”
She nodded to it. “Classic.”
“I can almost feel the lager can in my hand and the damp London night on the back of my neck.” Shouting and laughing with his mates. Trying to get the girls to stop and talk to them.
“Leesville, Louisiana. When my dad was at Fort Polk.”
“That when you were brawling on the school yard?”
She kept her body swinging to the music while making fists and bringing her guard up. “I got the point across, and they stopped bothering me.”
“Yeah.” He made his own fist. “We scrapped plenty with any of the neighborhood bastards who didn’t like a group of desis having a good time.”
“Bet they’d be scared to death now, knowing you’re SAS.” Her head bobbed to the beat.
“Former,” he corrected. “But yeah, that’d be a kick in their bollocks.”
“For all I know, those girls were on my website.” She grew more pensive.
“What you made with that site is amazing.” That gap that had been closing between them widened again. “You don’t know them and you’re helping them.”
The music continued, but she was still. “You did the same for me.”
He wanted to take her words in like medicine. But some wounds were too deep to reach. “You deserve it.”
This quiet was thicker. Her smallest movements pressed against the quiet and into him, as if they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. But that connection was impossible.
He spotted a shopping complex near an upcoming exit and swerved into the off-ramp lane. “Detour.”
She jerked around to look behind them. “Someone following us?”
Not now, but it was a possibility. “I need spare bloomers.” The ramp curved near the large stores, including a hunting and outdoor supply. “And bullets.”
The highway dumped them directly into the shopping center, and he drove to the store he wanted. It was a two-story affair faced with fake rough-hewn timbers. A mountain lodge in the middle of the desert.
April stared at him the whole way into the parking spot. “Bullets for what?”
He turned off the car and made a show of stretching. His jacket opened enough to reveal the handle of his pistol. She sucked a quick breath and leaned back. Her lips moved around words she didn’t say.
“I didn’t need it against those blokes in the parking lot.” He rearranged himself so the gun was hidden. “I might need it against whoever’s coming next. And the last thing I want to do is run out of bullets.” Sitting and thinking about their situation, or talking and talking about it, wasn’t going to change anything. So he got out of the car and waited for her to follow. She was quick to rebound and strode toward the store with barely a wrinkle of concern on her brow.
It was his turn to catch up to her. “For a civilian, you wear a good mask.”
She smiled at him brightly. “This is my going-out-in-public face. I learned it to keep people from asking me, ‘Are you doing alright?’”
“It’s fucking brilliant.”
“Thank you,” she chirped.
He lowered his voice to a private tone. “Your secret identity is safe with me.”
She lost the smile and looked at him with quiet gravity. “Thank you.”
They entered the store, he grabbed a basket and headed toward the smell of blued steel and gun oil. A few other shoppers milled about the space, but none of them looked up as they passed. The employees in matching camp shirts all seemed too absorbed in tasks to bother with someone who seemed to know where he was headed. On the way to the back wall of the store, he tossed a rain shell his size in the basket.
“Did you pack rain gear?” He hovered close to the women’s clothing.
“I didn’t think of it.”
“Grab one.”
After hers joined his in the basket, they moved on. He found a pair of functional cargo pants, T-shirt and socks. Still no suspicion in the store. No threats came in the doors. For the people around them, everything was normal. But his mission continued, including April, a brand-new field agent. She watched as he tossed a couple of packages of briefs in the basket. Her eyes skipped from the underpants to his hips, then to his face. She blushed.
He shrugged. “I like it snug.” And she liked simple, sporty panties with bright colors, from what he’d seen when she was packing. He had to start walking again to keep a rush of blood from getting to his head. Sharing intimate details had tricked his body into preparing for physical contact. That couldn’t happen with her. But that didn’t keep him from secretly wanting. Just a brush of her hip against his. The back of her hand against his knuckles.
As he strode to the back of the store, he made sure there was always space between them. She’d already been thrown into a new and dangerous world this day. The last thing he wanted to do was involve her in his futile search for a little humanity.
The sight of rifles and shotguns displayed on wooden racks brought him back to his familiar world. The glass case of the gun counter held pistols of all varieties and their accessories. The man behind it all was a little older than the other employees and walked over toward James and April with casual authority. His nametag read “Greg.”
“What can I help you with?” He spread his hands out on the top of the counter like a conjurer. Several soft pads, emblazoned with gun maker logos, protected the glass and stood ready to exhibit the weapons.
James aped Raker’s twang, something he’d learned to do while the two of them were out drinking. “Don’t tempt me with a new .44 magnum revolver. Today I just need two boxes of 9mm rounds.”
Momentary surprise flashed over April’s face, but she suppressed it quickly. She busied herself by looking at the handguns, occasionally peeking at James. Was she looking for the model he wore?
Greg clicked his tongue with friendly disappointment. “Too bad about that .44. I could sell you a package: revolver and lever action, both chambered for it.”
James groaned like he’d been punched in the gut and made a broad glance to April. “The lady’d give me hell.”
“Gotta keep them happy.” Greg nodded, then leaned closer. “Come back when it’s your birthday.”
James tapped the counter with the side of his fist. “Will do.”
Greg walked to a long cabinet along the wall. “Match grade, silver tip, what’re you looking for?”
He wanted the best but couldn’t arouse too much suspicion. “Well, we’re taking her to the range today, gonna teach her some basics, so how about one box of steel case, 115 grain.” Not ideal for tactical purposes, but would work as a backup. “And a box of the +P for me.” Those would be first into his
magazines as he reloaded.
Greg returned with the boxes. “Best to keep her away from the +P.”
April joined them. “I’m a little nervous to shoot.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Greg reassured her. “This fella will take care of you.”
James gave her a comforting pat on her back. “You know I will.” The touch was necessary for the act. The touch was a mistake. She leaned into it slightly, accepting the support he offered. He wouldn’t allow himself to take anything from her. As much as he wanted to feel the quiet solace. She didn’t know him, not all of him, and if she did, she wouldn’t stand this close.
He wrapped up his transaction with Greg, exchanged the necessary pleasantries and returned to the general shopping of the store. He and April didn’t talk as they went upstairs to the camping supplies, where he found metal cups and multi-purpose flatware in case they had to cobble a meal together on the fly.
Checkout at the front counter only took a minute. He maintained the put-on drawl for continuity. April stayed at his side with a distance conveying familiarity. If Greg had seen them, the cover story would be intact. James maintained an outward calm while acutely aware of how close April was at all times. She bumped into him on the way out of the store. Heat flashed up his spine and across his shoulders. He busied himself with an assessment of the parking lot for threats and egress as his body sorted itself again. They weren’t in any danger. Still, the heat didn’t completely disappear.
They got back into the car and found the highway north again. Her demeanor returned to the thoughtful and aware woman he’d gotten to know. “You don’t have to teach me to shoot,” she declared.
“I was just setting the stage for Greg.”
“Learned from my dad.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I went to the range with Mark.”
“Have you ever shot at a moving target?” The last thing he wanted was for this op to fall apart so far that she needed to handle a gun to defend herself.
“Like a man?” She leveled her gaze on him.
“Yes,” he answered, just as even. “Like a man.”
She shook her head in response. “Is that what Automatik does? Shoot at men?”
“Only when we have to.” He didn’t count kills anymore. The SAS had as a point of duty and service. In Automatik, killing was never something done lightly. And in his years between the two, when he’d lived on the margins with Hathaway, tallying kills had been financial. “When people are hurting others and won’t stop, we step in.”
“Sounds vague enough to give you free rein.” She wasn’t letting him off the hook.
“We have internal checks and balances.” And every member of Automatik had a voice if there were any concerns. “You won’t see us in the news, but we’re no friends to the Russian mob, drug cookers, gunrunners...”
“Hackers,” she conceded.
“Exactly.”
Her hand flexed, gripping the armrest between them. “I don’t want you to teach me how to shoot at a man.”
“I don’t want you or I to shoot at anyone.” Best-case scenario: she located the hackers, he gave them a hard look and they handed over their servers to her.
That seemed to satisfy her, and she settled back in her seat. The road north stretched for miles and miles, their destination way beyond the horizon. Static crackled through the hip-hop as the signal weakened, then April surfed the stations for anything decent to listen to. They drove for over an hour until the need for lunch forced them off the highway and into a drive-through.
She squinted at the menu out the window and took a moment before deciding on a burger combo she told him. He committed her preference to memory, adding it to her file in case he needed to know some time later in the operation. But it was also another personal detail. Something learned. Just like she learned he opted for the chicken sandwich meal.
Once back on the road, she dove into her burger and explained between bites, “I got my run in this morning. It’s a hungry day.”
“You mean when you were running away from me?” His food was bland, but at least it was hot.
“That was just a sprint.” Her laugh was brief. The impact of all that had happened remained. “Got my three miles in before that.”
“I know.” As soon as he said it, the mood steered further into murky territory.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “You were trailing me.”
He nodded.
She took a breath, sipped her cola and pulled them both out of the gloom. “At least we set our circadian rhythms. Sunlight gets to the pineal, aligns us to the day.”
“They didn’t cover that when I studied field medicine, so I’ll take your word for it.”
“Smart man.” She gave him a small thumbs-up.
“Smart woman.” He saluted her with proper regimental form.
They resumed their lunches and sped north. The mileage toward Albuquerque marked on the passing signs became more realistic. James itched to get out of the car and pump blood through the mission. He knew this stop was just a link in the chain, but he needed some idea as to how this was all going to play out with April as his partner.
She wrapped up the remains of their lunch and stowed it in the backseat before pulling out her phone. “Don’t worry,” she said when she saw him watching her screen. “I’m not contacting anyone, even my anonymous online friends.”
“Some of them might not be your friends.”
The color drained from her face. She muttered, “Sons of bitches.”
“We’ll stop them.” This mission was at the core of why he’d joined Automatik. “They won’t be able to touch anyone else’s lives.”
“I’ll break their fingers before they can.” She typed on her phone, shaking her head and growling under her breath.
“Let me do all the breaking.” He held out his hand to reveal the scars on his knuckles. “You’re there to fix things.”
She looked up from her phone and studied his hand. Her gaze moved to his face and deepened, as if she’d learned another piece of him. “I’m trying.”
“You’re here,” he reassured her. “That’s more than most people would do.”
She returned to her phone without acknowledging what he’d said. “The IP hit I got gave me an Albuquerque address. I mapped it. We’re going to a CPA office.”
He scoffed. “In that case, I’ll let you do all the fighting.”
She continued, absorbed, “Second floor of a two-level building with other offices and catwalks outside.”
He constructed the building in his mind and began a list of tactical necessities. “Stairways?”
“I see two. And an elevator.”
“No elevators if we can help it.”
“Parking lot behind the building.”
“Ingress, egress?”
She kept up well. “It’s all in a line. In one side and out the other.”
“We’ll put the car by the exit if we can.” What kind of opposition might they meet on this recon? “If we’re lucky enough to locate the hackers at this stop, we’ll collect what intel we can and I’ll call in the strike team.”
She poked at her phone, rotating the overhead view of the location. “How long will that take?”
“One or two days. I plan the assault, we hit it, you get the computers.”
“An office like this probably has internal servers. The hackers might be side drilling so they can piggyback unnoticed on them.” She continued to spin and move the map. “Hard-wired from next door? From downstairs?”
“They can do that?” Half of what she was saying went over his head, but he held on the general ideas.
“If they snuck an Ethernet cable in.” She tilted her head side to side, considering. “Maybe?”
“You give me somethin
g real to follow, I’ll track it to the bitter end.” He shifted in his seat in an effort to bring life back to the numb areas on his ass. “As soon as this infernal car ride is over.”
She laughed and lightened the air in the car. “Not for road trips?”
“I’ll leap out of an airplane. Swim under a submarine.” He rubbed his thigh for blood flow. “Trek through the desert. But don’t make me sit for long.”
“A man of action.” Another quick and easy laugh helped his circulation move faster.
“You’ve seen me.” And he damned himself for shading the mood again with his violence.
She receded, but not completely. “That’s why I run. Can’t just sit in front of the computer all day. If the weather’s right, I’ll do yoga in the backyard.”
“Yoga?” He acted like he didn’t know.
“You know, stretching and...” She trailed off and looked at him sheepishly. “Ah, sorry.”
“I invented yoga, luv.” He laughed to let her off the hook. “Just wish I got a royalty.”
Her nervous giggle let out some tension. “Did you... Did you immigrate to England?”
He poked his thumb into his chest. “Born in London. The parents came from Mumbai.”
“My mother was from Seoul. She met my dad when he was stationed...” Again, her words dispersed into the road noise. She looked at him with piercing eyes. “You knew that.”
For someone who spent her time at a computer, she deciphered faces well. He didn’t want to lie. “I read a file on you.”
Her mouth turned down. “So Automatik is full of good guys, but they keep files on normal civilians.”
It grated him to backpedal. “We don’t keep files, we amassed it when we knew you were in trouble.”
“I feel so much safer.” Her sarcasm cut like a knife.
The sun swung down toward the western horizon, stretching shadows across the highway. The orange-and-yellow desert stones burned hotter, but he could feel that the air outside was cold. The atmosphere inside the car chilled as well. He and April didn’t talk as she dialed through the radio stations, finally settling on classic rock. Neither of them drummed to the beat or hummed the melodies.