by Nico Rosso
The tweaker wanted a piece of the action, though. He hissed and rushed Ben.
And all the while, Ben knew the cops sat in the comfort of the diner and watched everything. Wouldn’t have taken much for them to saunter out and break up the fight with a casual, “Alright, fellas.” But he bet they’d incited the fight in the first place in order to get him out of town. The peace they preserved didn’t include Ben.
There were no weapons in the tweaker’s hands, so Ben pretended to be overwhelmed by the onslaught and backpedaled. Hard blows rained in from the tweaker, and Ben closed his guard. Quick punches landed on his shoulders and glanced across his forearms. The tweaker jumped from side to side, and Ben caught glimpses of knit cap trucker getting completely to his feet and the bald trucker collecting his breath.
Ben let one of the tweaker’s wide punches through his guard. Hard knuckles scraped Ben’s jaw. The flash of pain lit his fuse. He wanted to demolish these men. He wanted send this whole town the message that he’d level anyone who came across him.
But he had to do it right. As an operator with Automatik. And Mary’s partner in the field. Winning this fight didn’t have to look pretty. Total mission success would be the payoff.
Ben slapped another punch from the tweaker away and let his own fist fly into the man’s face. The man’s teeth rattled and he shuddered, dazed. Ben’s adrenaline masked the pain in his fist and he grabbed the tweaker’s collar and ran, making him stumble backward. Before the lean trucker collected his footing, Ben slammed him into the man in the knit cap.
The injured knee gave way, and the knit cap trucker fell sideways. Ben pushed the tweaker down with him, and the two men sprawled, tangled, on the asphalt.
Hard metal clicked. Ben angled away from the sound as a new awareness of danger pulsed hot through him. The fight escalated.
The bald trucker rose to his feet. One hand rubbed his chest where Ben had punched him. The other fist held a folding knife with a bright blade. It could kill. If the trucker knew how to use it. But it seemed like his intent was just to scare the fight out of Ben. The bald man rolled his shoulders and swung the blade out wide in sweeping slashes.
If Ben drew one of his own knives, the fight would be over quickly—with the bald trucker maimed or dead. But that would be the end of Ben’s mission. He kept his cool and his balance in the face of the trucker’s attempt at primal intimidation.
The resolve on the trucker’s scowling face seemed to waver as he came closer and Ben didn’t back off. Ben knew it took a lot to stab a man. Not many people were ready for that kind of violent intimacy. But he’d danced that dance and remembered the moves.
The blade arced through the air toward Ben’s ribs. He leaped to the side and chopped the edge of his hand down into the trucker’s wrist. The grip on the knife held, but the arm jolted away for a moment.
Ben curled two fingers tight and struck them into the bald trucker’s exposed throat. Not hard enough to kill. The man sputtered and gasped. Ben grabbed the side of his knife hand and twisted. The trucker’s arm bent at an awkward angle and he released the knife. The handle slid into Ben’s hand. He let the bald man fall face-first to the asphalt.
The expensive folding knife hummed, like it still wanted to taste blood. He could’ve used it to end the bald trucker on the ground, or to slash into the other two, who were finally getting to their feet.
Ben took a step back, the knife calm in his hand, even though his pulse was thundering. The knit cap trucker patted his jeans pocket over his own folding knife. The tweaker’s hand went to his back pocket.
Ben gave them no sign of surrender. “You ready for that, motherfuckers?”
The muscles in the knit cap trucker’s arm shook. He froze with indecision. The tweaker watched Ben’s knife, hypnotized.
Ben jabbed with his words. “You ready to bleed?”
The sons of bitches weren’t. Roughing someone up in a parking lot was easy until the threat came back at them. Their resolve drained, revealing watery fear in their eyes. But their scowling mouths remained ready to spit venom.
The knit cap trucker barked, “You’re not ready. You won’t be ready when the real pain comes. So get the fuck out of town or be sorry that you stayed.”
Ben remained silent. He didn’t retreat or lower the weapon. Their move.
The tweaker wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and checked the streak on the back of his hand. It was enough for him. He helped the coughing bald trucker to his feet and supported the woozy larger man.
The knit cap trucker still seemed to be on the edge of a decision. His hand remained over his knife. But his friends were out of the fight and wouldn’t be backing him up.
“I can’t help what’s going to happen to you.” The trucker shook his head, disgusted.
Ben thought about taunting the man back into the fight. Wouldn’t have taken much to get his anger back up and have that knife come out. Then Ben could finish things with him, show him how bad an idea it was to fuck with him in the first place. But the op took precedence, so he kept his head, and the knife at his hip.
The knit cap trucker took a step back and winced on his bad knee. The tweaker still bled. The bald man wheezed and held his arm close to his chest. The three of them left with a lot less confidence than they’d attacked Ben with. They walked back toward their trucks, glancing parting shots over their shoulders, as if to tell Ben it wasn’t over.
He knew it wasn’t. But whatever next escalation the cops had planned wouldn’t match the hellfire Ben and Mary and their team would bring down on this place as soon as they identified and mapped the gunrunning operation.
Seeing the knife might’ve piqued the cops’ interest, but they still didn’t come out into the parking lot. Maybe once blood had been spilled. Local blood. Ben didn’t expect any special treatment.
The heat of the fight diminished, leaving cold aches in his knuckles and on his jaw. He’d made it all look clumsy enough. He was fine with them thinking he was a badass, as long as they didn’t identify him as a trained operator.
His former attackers were all the way back at their trucks when he returned to his car. He thought about tossing the knife in a sewer drain along a nearby curb, but knew the cops were watching and would probably arrest him for littering. He folded the knife away and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Now they might arrest him for theft.
But he got into his car and started the engine without incident. The heater took a moment to kick in. He rubbed the ache out of his fingers and knuckles. Pulling his phone to alert Mary about the fight would look too suspicious. Either he’d appear to be snitching or bragging on social media. So he threw the rental into gear and headed out, knowing the truckers and the cops tracked every move.
He’d find another parking lot on the other side of town where he could let Mary know what went down. The crooked police tried to send a message. They got one in return.
Mary was out there alone. The bold, exposed kiss still shocked through him, even after the adrenaline of the throwdown in the parking lot. She’d shaken his understanding of her depths. But it hadn’t changed the fact that he’d never known a more squared-away operator than her. Still, bad things happened to good soldiers.
Someone in this town just got closer to pulling the trigger, and he had to let her know.
* * *
Mary arrived at the train yard with the open, optimistic smile of a salesperson. She exited her car and scanned the area, pretending to be excited by the possibilities. Inside, she was furious. Radio silence from Ben. She knew he could take on three local bullies in a street fight. But what if things had escalated? Had the cops come out of the comfort of their diner to get involved? If anyone pulled a gun, the whole complexion of the action would change. Hell, the entire operation in Morris Flats would change.
Her boots crunched on the oily grav
el at the edge of the parking area. There was little transition between the city street and the hard industrial environment of the yard. She’d been hoping for an administrative building with clean carpeting and business offices, but only a collection of single-level cinderblock structures with metal doors and metal roofs stood before her.
The cars in the lot were a mix of very expensive and completely rusted out. To track down the gunrunners, she needed to talk to whoever drove the perfectly detailed crew cab pickup truck.
But this was a very private space. None of the building doors had any signs on them, not even a bathroom. Someone either belonged here or they didn’t. She definitely didn’t and would have to be very careful as she probed into the secrets.
Instead of heading to the first building, she moved around it, farther onto the grimy gravel and closer to where the train tracks cut the earth and the signal towers grew. It all looked like normal business, much of it unchanged for probably a hundred years. Metal clanged and white, black and Latino workers shouted instructions over huge idling engines. On the other side of the iron-and-steel forest were the warehouses.
A direct route wouldn’t work. She’d only get thrown out, and they’d be watching for her from then on. She readied herself and strode toward the closest low building.
Her phone buzzed the distinct pattern of the Automatik communication app. She immediately stopped to pull it from her coat pocket. A cold wind knifed over the flats around the train yard, bringing the smell of diesel and wrapping her in worry. Relief and heat rushed through her limbs when she read Ben’s message.
They tried. They bled. Be careful out there. Town’s all tripwires.
The words faded. The release from her concerns about his immediate safety lifted. He’d made it through the fight. But they were both still in danger.
She wrote back, Glad you’re still operational. At the yard. Rendezvous soon.
Looking forward to it. Over.
Was he talking strictly about the mission? The kiss that had started for show continued to shake her. Did she want more? Could he give more? Over and out.
Back to her intelligence gathering. Though debriefing Ben later might take on a very non-military bearing.
Beat-up blinds in a window of the closest building shifted. She was already being watched. But they’d only see the real estate developer, a bit out of her element but ready to make deals. She walked along the steel porch in front of the building and opened the front door without knocking.
Stale cigarettes and stale coffee had soaked into the mottled beige carpeting long ago. Three men worked in this long, open space, with more doors along the back wall. One tall and wide man stood. His chair swiveled, revealing where it had scraped bare the wood paneling on the wall.
He squinted, refocusing from his computer screen, and held up a hand as if in warning. They didn’t appreciate new business. But he paused before speaking, almost mesmerized. He smelled the air and his hand lowered slightly.
Perfume didn’t have to be expensive to be effective. The fresh smell of clean roses transformed the musty offices. The pistol in her purse wasn’t her only weapon.
“Hi, I’m Mary Long with Strathmore Development. I was told to talk to Kit Daily out here.”
The large man’s face fell slightly with disappointment. The other two men sagged in their seats, surrounded by a technological timeline from the ‘80s to present day. No one had bothered to clean out the fax machines, dot matrix printers and carbon paper as these offices had progressed. Their current computers were top of the line, though, and jarringly sleek among the old tan tube monitors piled on the ground.
“Kit’s not here.” The standing man’s accent had a slight rural twang. He rasped, too, like he yelled a lot. She guessed he wasn’t a shouting stock trader by the lines of grease that had worn into his fingers. He was a foreman.
She pulled a card and extended it toward the man. “Any idea where I could find him?”
He took the card, scanned it, squinting harder. “Not right now.”
Not in the era of cell phones and instant messages? She let it go, maintaining her genial smile. “Maybe you can help me...” Her voice rose at the end, prompting him.
“Len.” This man had no butter for public relations. “And I don’t know when Kit’s coming back today.”
“Let’s forget about Kit for a second.” Len and the other two men seemed shocked. Evidently, Kit wasn’t the kind of man to be forgotten or passed over. “You’ve got to tell me about these beautiful brick buildings...” She left the offices out the front door, hoping Len would follow.
He did, seeming a bit put out to be on his feet that long and back in the cold. He trailed after her on the steel porch and adjusted his canvas coat, revealing a glimpse of an automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. A jolt of adrenaline sharpened her. She remembered what Ben had said about this town being all tripwires. The cops had already prompted the truckers to make a play for him. What would it take for her to bring out Len’s aggressive side? She made sure never to completely turn her back on him.
“These...are these warehouses?” She reached the end of the building, stepped down into the gravel and pointed at the large structures on the other side of the tracks and waiting train cars.
“They are,” Len answered grudgingly and ran a hand through his black, greasy hair.
“See, this is the perfect kind of thing for our clients.” She continued walking, stepping over tracks and winding around a set of empty cargo cars. “The brick is like an instant yes for them.”
“Ma’am, please don’t go that way.” Len skipped to keep up.
“It’s Mary, Len. You’ve got my card and my number.” She ducked under a thick chain meant to separate areas of the yard. “So when you realize what kind of goldmine you guys are sitting on, you’ll call me.”
“A lot of this is in use.” He made it to her side and matched her pace.
“Mixed use,” she corrected him. “Businesses on the bottom, loft studio apartments on top.”
He made it around her and stood to block her path, about a hundred yards from the warehouses. She suppressed her anger at being corralled. The foreman was clearly annoyed, but did manage to not overtly threaten her. “I can almost guarantee Kit won’t be interested in this.”
“Industrial chic.” She leaned to peer around him at the three-story structures. A few high windows were broken out, but the loading doors below were well maintained, and new lighting had been recently secured to the bricks. She picked up a heavy shard of rusted metal, about the size of a thick marking pen, with threads cut into one end. “You probably have old, unused machinery and equipment lying around here that you could sell for thousands of dollars to the interior designers.” She tapped the metal on her palm, reassured by the improvised iron weapon. “A goldmine, I tell you.”
Len spread his arms out, a living roadblock. His coat opened to give her a better view of the .40 pistol in a tactical nylon harness. He had two spare mags on the other side of the rig. If trouble came Len’s way, he was very ready. She was, too. It would be faster to take his gun than reach for hers, if it came down to it. Len was almost out of patience. “This is a working train yard, ma’am. It’s not safe for you out here, and we’re not looking to convert anything into trendy loft condominiums.” He swung one of his thick arms back toward the parking area. “Now please...” His eyes hardened. A five o’clock shadow framed the serious line of his mouth.
This was his limit. She wanted to test him. Ever since she’d had to leave Ben in the parking lot she’d been itching for payback. But it would have to come down the road, when the strike was planned and ready. Though her fist remained tight around the iron shard.
A chill wind shouldered past the warehouses and brought very specific smells to Mary. She knew Ben would recognize them as well. Gun oil. Packing grease. Military-g
rade transportation materials. Every airfield and base she’d been on had that smell in at least one building. That was usually where she’d slept, close to the ordnance so she’d be ready. It had been a few years since she’d been so surrounded by it, but it was hard to scrape the thoughts of her different Delta deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan from her mind.
Though she yearned to charge past Len and investigate the warehouses, Mary turned and started walking back with the same pace she’d probed into the yard. “Now, the fact that it’s working could actually be a selling point. I wouldn’t be surprised if those Chicago hipsters would want to move down here just so they could live next to all this heavy industry.”
Len scattered gravel with his large feet as he kept up. “They’d hate it here.”
She fished another card from her purse. “They like hating things.” The iron shard remained in her other hand. She didn’t think she’d let it go until she was completely extricated from Morris Flats.
Of course Len knew which car to herd her toward. A small town kept track of strangers. A small town with a secret would kill those strangers if they found things they weren’t supposed to.
She handed him the card. “Now you have two. One for you, one for Kit. I’d love to talk to him when he’s available. And you...” Her keys jingled loudly, indicating she wasn’t planning on staying too long. “Think about what we talked about. Keep an eye out for any equipment or carts you could liquidate. Good money in that.”
He glanced at his custom truck. Len already made good money. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.” He still stood to block her view of the warehouses. “And we’ll call if anything comes up.”
“Excellent.” She opened the car door and slid in. “Thanks, Len.” She tossed her purse and iron fragment on the passenger seat and started the car. Len closed her door and stood by until she put it in gear and drove off.
She’d played it right and should’ve only left him with a business card in his hand, the annoyance of a city girl talking at him and the fading scent of roses. He wouldn’t know about her ability to field strip and reassemble his automatic blindfolded. Or how her readiness alert for the operation ticked up two levels. The guns were there, making her awareness buzz. She and Ben were one step closer. One step into a minefield.