One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik)

by Nico Rosso

  Chapter Twenty

  “Woman?” She was gratified to see Ben suitably concerned with her tone of voice; he tore his eyes from the road to glance at her expression. She raised her eyebrows and repeated, “Woman?”

  He had to return his gaze to the road in order to steer past a burning police car and abandoned tow truck. “You’re not my woman,” he explained. “I can’t own you. But you are the woman.” He pounded the side of his fist on the steering wheel and huffed with frustration. “How do I say it? You’re all woman.” The car bounced over a curb, and Ben muscled it back onto the street. “You’re everything.”

  When he looked at her again, a truth resonated in him. A calm amid the chaos around them. It was gone in a blink. He refocused on the road and gunned the engine. But she still felt his depth and the answering resonance in her own chest.

  Bullets flew across the street, and still she knew that all of life wasn’t just a lonely war.

  Ben jammed the car to one side, opening up a firing lane for her. She poked her assault rifle out the window and let loose a burst. Their attackers scattered.

  “Is that the cavalry?” Raker asked urgently over the com.

  “Incoming.” Ben straightened out the car.

  Sant broke in. “We’re pinned by a plumbing supply store. Shooters are in a ditch below a high wall.”

  “I know it.” Ben stomped more speed from the patrol car and explained to her, “Sant and Raker are south, Art and Harper middle and Tak and Marks are north into the train yard.”

  The push would back the gunrunners against the swamp and concentrate the fight. There was no more high ground for her to protect the team from afar. She tightened the straps on her vest. “It’s going to get big.”

  “Fuck, yeah.” Ben sat up straighter and scanned ahead. “Get ready to bail.” He drove with one hand and pulled his rifle across his lap with the other.

  She held her gear to her and gripped the door latch. Ben sped half a block up, screeched around a hard right then eased off the gas. The plumbing supply Sant mentioned was up on the right. Beyond it was a frontage road, then the long ditch she and Ben had used to move invisibly through town. All that good cover would make it difficult to uproot any shooters in there.

  “Now!” Ben released the wheel and dove out the side of car.

  She yanked the handle, threw the door open and leaped. Hard concrete slammed into her hip and shoulder. Pain shot across her upper back. The impact rolled her forward, and momentum tried to tear the rifle from her grip. She stopped her roll and got her bearings in time to see the car bounce over the curb on the far side of the frontage road and fly into the ditch.

  Ben ran behind the destruction, rifle barking as the security men broke cover to avoid the impact. She scrambled to her feet and joined him. The car angled down sharply and crashed, bending metal and breaking glass. A man stumbled through the weeds and tried to turn his submachine gun on her. She snapped off two rounds and sent him into the bottom of the ditch.

  Sant and Raker added to the fight. Bullets flew back and forth. She flattened to the ground and fired at the security men, who panicked and abandoned their calm and discipline. Ben maintained his cool. She didn’t take her eyes from the conflict to look at him, but the curt, confident bursts from his weapon told her everything she needed to know.

  And just like that, the battle was over. The last of the gunshots faded. The wrecked car idled. There was no more fight left in the one security man remaining. He walked out of the scrub with his hands high and a shaken look on his face. Sant stripped him of his remaining weapons and bound his wrists behind his back with a zip tie. Raker then secured the restraint to a stop sign pole.

  “Who the fuck are you guys?” The security man was more defiant when it was clear they weren’t going to kill him.

  No one from her team answered. They moved away from the man and collected back near the ditch. Mary informed Sant and Raker, “Over that wall you’re on the tracks, and about four hundred yards north are the warehouses.”

  Sant and Raker nodded their understanding.

  Ben looked over their gear. “Any more ordnance?”

  Raker tapped a pouch on his chest. “Couple of grenades.”

  “If you can spare them, take out some train tracks so they can’t move out.” Ben bumped his knuckles on Raker’s shoulder. “We’ll see you in the badness.”

  Sant extended his fist to her, and she knocked hers into it before they moved into the ditch, above where the fight had just happened. Raker and Sant hurried up the other side and disappeared over the wall. She and Ben continued north through the weedy cover.

  Behind them the tied-up security man shouted, “Who the fuck...?” but he ran out of breath. ATF, FBI, military police would all be sweeping up after Automatik did the heavy lifting and would collect this man and anyone else too wounded to run away from the fight.

  She whispered to Ben, “Glad we’re just making a mess and not cleaning it.”

  He suppressed a laugh. “Gonna take a lot of spin on this one.”

  Sant announced in her earpiece, “Three hundred yards from the warehouses. Security swarming the whole yard. No movement with the trucks, but the trains are still being loaded.”

  Ben asked into the mic, “Harp, what’s your twenty?”

  “One block from the entrance to the train yard,” he answered. “Got hung up with a little resistance while you were crashing the car.”

  She and Ben were losing their cover. The ditch started a gradual rise toward the parking area in front of the rail yard. As the weeds thinned her tension rose. Ben motioned to his left, toward the town buildings, and Mary gave him the thumbs-up.

  He told Harper, “We’re coming to you.”

  “I’ll put a kettle on.” Harper kept talking as she and Ben climbed out of the ditch and sped across the street to the buildings. “And Jackson, you should know that your com is always live. It’s dangerous, man. You had me getting all choked up during your dashboard confessional back there.”

  Ben paused at a corner, put his hand over the mic on his earbuds and whispered to her. “I meant every word.”

  She might’ve blushed, and also covered her mic. “You’d better.” Eyes open, she kissed him. He returned it and breathed her in during the all-too-brief touch.

  They parted, and Ben released his mic. “Don’t be afraid of your emotions, Harp. They get toxic if you bottle them up.”

  “He’s right,” Art growled.

  Mary checked over the street before breaking from the shadows and hurrying toward the area where Harper and Art should’ve been. Ben ran sideways with her, covering their exit. Shots popped off toward them, and Ben returned fire until they were safe behind another brick building.

  “Glad to see that Delta operator kept you in one piece.” Harper gave them a wave from one building north. Art crouched next to him, rifle pointed up the street.

  Ben feigned surprise at her and spoke broadly into the mic, “Delta? You told me you’d learned how to shoot in the Girl Scouts.”

  “No,” she corrected him. “I told you I shoot like a girl. That’s why I always hit my target.”

  “Damn straight.” He winked at her and licked his lips.

  And here, in the middle of a battle, she blushed. Heat across her chest, up her neck and into her face. All the places she wanted him to kiss her. She took a long, calming breath and tried not to think of the places she wanted to kiss him back.

  Luckily Harper interrupted, “What’s the action, Jackson?”

  “We just took fire from someone on the south edge of the parking lot.” Ben peeked around the edge of the building. “It’s got to be crawling with security forces.”

  She plotted the approaches from their current placement and suggested, “We can press, two teams, top and bottom, pinch in to
ward the middle.”

  Harper came in first. “I like it.”

  “Agreed,” Art announced.

  “I’m in,” Ben said. He reloaded and brought his rifle to his shoulder.

  She gave him a spank on the ass and slapped a fresh magazine in her own weapon. Her watch showed it was ten minutes until midnight. “Move out.”

  Art and Harper stalked forward and swung north. Ben led the way. She trailed close, hugging the wall at their backs. Parked cars provided too much good cover for the security men on the other side of the street. Yellow lights on the buildings carved the area into bright arcs and opaque shadows. For now, she and Ben were hidden.

  He stopped and leaned in to her. “They’re itchy. I’m going to send one.”

  “Do it.”

  Ben fired a single bullet, and it was answered by a spray from three gunners. Their wild shots picked apart the bricks in front of her. She tracked the flashes for the man on the right and took him out. Ben did the same with the man on the left. They both concentrated on where the middle shooter had been, but he’d found cover by the time they shot and the rounds dug through the metal of a nearby car.

  Harper and Art engaged their enemy with a flurry of shots. More men scrambled through the dark, their shapes too fleeting to make targets. The windows of the administration buildings were unlit, but she saw the metal blinds shifting as people inside watched and waited.

  One quick silhouette was familiar across the front porch of the buildings. Len the foreman ran with a shotgun in his hands. She fired at him, but he was already gone. Her muzzle flash drew attention and bullets from more men behind the cars. She and Ben returned bullets while moving farther forward and to their right. As Harper and Art shifted higher, the four of them would be able to squeeze the security men in the parking lot.

  Len’s shotgun boomed toward Art and Harper’s area. Other shots followed. She and Ben hurried their pace, carving a path with bullets that scattered the men to cover.

  Harper spat through the com, “Ah fuck, I’m hit.”

  Cold urgency rushed through her. Ben fought harder forward, taking out two men and pinning a third behind a barrage.

  Art’s voice maintained the calm of a seasoned soldier. “Leg shot. He’s good. Pulling him back.”

  Ben growled, “Pushing up.” He pressed on, uprooting the hidden man and dropping him. She kept up, letting her training and experience take over. Action led to reaction, with no thought in between. Their sector was quickly cleared, but the men on the north end of the parking lot remained and fired toward Art and Harper.

  If those men swarmed, then it could be the end for her friends and teammates.

  “Len!” she shouted.

  The foreman shifted from the formation and looked up, confused. She shot him through the hip and chest. His shotgun clattered against the concrete, and he fell into another shooter.

  Ben followed up, firing at the other man and taking his attention from Art and Harper. Bullets streaked toward her and Ben, and they took cover behind the cars. A hand grenade went off near the security men, and one screamed. Art must’ve found a good hiding place and was able to finally counter the attack.

  She and Ben took advantage of the distraction and rushed the flank. The security men had no plan for a two-pronged assault and were overwhelmed. Only one was smart enough to surrender. She zip-tied him to a steel fence post before retreating from the lot to find Art and Harper.

  The two men were behind a low wall that surrounded a patio. Harper held compression on his thigh while Art kept watch, weapon ready.

  Ben slid to his friend’s side and removed a medic pouch from the man’s vest. “Shit, Harp, this is just going to give you a sexy limp for a few weeks.” He unpacked supplies and quickly dressed the wound. She set up next to Art and scanned for more enemies.

  Harper smiled through the pain. “You know I got a thing for physical therapists.”

  Ben secured the bandage. “We’ll make sure he’s real good-looking. How about a surfer this time?”

  “Done that.” Harper winced and shifted so he could man his weapon. “Find me a guy working his way through med school. Maybe with glasses.”

  If Art was surprised by the talk, he didn’t make a sound. It was more than she’d ever learned about Harper’s private life. But she hadn’t spent much heart-to-heart time with her Automatik team. Socializing over a few beers only got so far beneath the surface. Opening up with Ben had started to connect her more to all of them. She knew she didn’t have to keep them at a distance anymore and craved the time to share more than just passing stories.

  Ben gave his friend a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be on the lookout. You good?”

  “Prime-time.” Harper slapped a fresh mag in his weapon and threw the bolt.

  Art shifted at the wall to give Harper space. “We’ll cover your six from here.” Their setup at the corner of the patio wall gave them a broad view of the entrance to the rail yard.

  She was able to see past the admin buildings to the loading area. High work lights revealed forklifts shuttling pallets from the warehouses to the freight cars. Train engines idled, ready to drag their deadly cargo across the country. Kit Daily and Chief Pulaski stalked through the activity, shouting orders to the scrambling men. A security detail of at least fifteen shooters made a perimeter around the whole operation.

  “Nearly midnight.” She showed her watch to Ben. “They’ll be gone by then.”

  “Let’s rock.” He patted her ass and vaulted over the wall.

  They reached the parking lot and edged toward the gap in the buildings that marked the entrance to the yard. Far to her right, a hand grenade exploded with the sound of shattered metal, followed by bursts of automatic gunfire.

  “Some tracks are jacked,” Raker barked on the com, “but we’re pinned.”

  Tak radioed, “Inbound from the north, but will hit resistance in a second.”

  Ben rolled his shoulders. She steadied her breath. They arrived at the end of the building and readied their weapons. Twenty yards out, heavy machinery made good cover. Twenty yards beyond that were the armed security men and the heart of the gunrunning operation. The shooting and shouting continued to her right.

  She looked at Ben for final confirmation.

  He blinked slow, ready, and announced, “We’re punching them in the gut.”

  They both fired at the security guards and sprinted into the rail yard.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The initial bursts took out one security man and scattered the rest for cover. Ben and Mary reached a thick, battered tractor. It absorbed the rounds sent back at them. His friend’s blood smeared his hands. He couldn’t allow another drop to be spilled. Not tonight. Not by any of the guns Kit Daily and Pulaski were trying to push.

  The two honchos continued yelling at their men to keep loading the train cars. Smoke billowed from the corner of the sabotaged warehouse, but the work continued through the doors and over the ramp.

  Ben glanced around the corner of the tractor. Pulaski strutted behind the line of security men, fury on his face. Officer Green lurked at his side, flexed tight as usual, cranked on the violence. He gripped an assault rifle tight enough to squeeze the sap out of it.

  More shots came after Ben ducked back behind cover. Mary switched places with him and sighted down the barrel of her weapon, barely peeking out.

  “I have a shot.” Her ability to go from quick action to absolute stillness was amazing. “Let’s chip at the right edge. Give Sant and Raker a break.”

  Sant chimed in, “Sounds brilliant to us.”

  Ben crouched above Mary and aimed out where she indicated. Just at the base of a loading crane, a fragment of a man’s leg was visible. Mary fired and, with a nearly impossible shot, clipped the man. He stumbled forward, right into her
second shot. Another shooter behind the crane popped out to retaliate, and Ben dropped him.

  Some of the fire that had been directed toward Sant and Raker swung around to Ben and Mary. He sent a spray at these men, just to keep them honest, then returned to safety behind the tractor.

  Clipped bursts chattered from Sant and Raker’s position, silencing two of the security men’s guns.

  “Obliged,” Raker huffed, on the run.

  The right edge of the security perimeter collapsed. Mary tapped Ben, then darted from the tractor to a steel shack at the base of a switching tower. There was only room for one person there. He hated seeing her alone, farther into enemy territory, but it wasn’t because he doubted her abilities. She motioned toward her next destination, an unloaded flatbed rail car. Ben indicated he’d cover her move and set up at the corner of the tractor.

  She ran, and he swung around in time to see a security man aiming at her. Ben eliminated the man and sprinted out to join her at the wide steel wheels.

  “No! No!” Kit Daily shouted like a twelve-year-old four-star general amid the crackling gunfire. “You’re paid for a reason, and that’s to load these trains.” One of the massive diesel engines revved higher.

  Activity popped at the north side of the yard, followed by the com announcement from Marks, “Tak and Marks are on the scene.”

  Sant sassed with his full British accent, “Green Berets put lead in your boots?”

  Tak’s comments were interrupted by sporadic gunfire. “We’ll have you back to your bangers and mash in a minute, Sant.”

  “Fuck that,” Sant scoffed. “Chicken tikka.”

  Ben interrupted, “I’m going to have whatever Hayley’s cooking.”

  Art grunted approval. “You got that right.”

  “Shoot first, dinner later.” Mary grounded them all. Then she put her hand over her mic and burned him with a look. “And I’m going to need you alone for a few hours.”