Countdown to Zero Hour

by Nico Rosso

  He glanced to Hayley, who maintained the supplies while the men continued to gather their breakfasts. She didn’t betray her secrets and remained in control of the kitchen. But for how much longer? He’d put some of the pressure of the operation on her, a civilian.

  And he was balanced with just enough tension on the trigger to get the shot off before anyone else.

  Time wasn’t his. But he wanted more. Extra seconds and minutes and hours with Hayley. Before the explosions. Because after that, it was all unknown. His mother had lost his father in an instant. What would he or Hayley lose?

  * * *

  Without the protection of the night or the rain, Hayley had to hide her secrets on her own. Art was with her, always watchful, but he wasn’t in complete control of this world. She’d seen how he’d had to adapt to things changing all around them.

  The biggest change had happened last night. Was it just the delirium of the situation that made it okay to let him in? Was she just seeking safety? God, no. Art was not safe. Not with the way he stole her breath, heated her body. Not with the way he allowed her to see the man beneath the knives, inspiring her to reveal herself, too.

  Hayley laughed to herself, probably making the guards in the kitchen think she was crazy. Good, they’ll keep their distance.

  Art, though, approached. He plated his breakfast, stealing glances at her and not afraid to show her that light in his eyes. And the swagger in his hips. She tested her response. Her body warmed in the spots he’d touched. But she was able to keep cool, too, and not let everyone in the house know what had happened the night before.

  Luckily, Art didn’t get too brash. Rolan was with him, and the two of them were chatting in Russian. Garin had already finished his breakfast but stood to the side of the kitchen, sneering as he listened in. The stone-faced Vasily also gathered up the conversation.

  When Art and Rolan had moved to the end of the breakfast counter, Art waved her over.

  He explained, “There’s a delay with someone’s arrival, so the trip might be extended. How are you for food?”

  She did a quick tally of how much she’d gone through and what else was planned. “I could always use extra. We want everyone to be happy, right, and not just getting by?”

  Art translated to Rolan, who nodded sagely. The conversation continued in Russian without her. But it had something to do with her. The nearby guards were curious, glancing between her and Art. One man started to complain to a nearby guard, who tried to calm him, gesturing subtly toward Rolan. The upset guard left, but his darkness remained. Garin gathered the ill will like a dark coat over his shoulders.

  After a minute, Rolan patted Art’s shoulder with paternal approval, nodded at Hayley and left the kitchen.

  Art leaned toward the center of the island, and she moved to meet him there, creating a sliver of privacy. “We’re going into town,” he said. “I need to get supplies to fix the propane line.”

  “Thanks for getting me out of the house.” Any time away might relieve the pressing sense of suffocation. And it would be with Art, with the possibilities...

  “You’ll be working, too.” His finger found a drop of coffee on the island and drew it out into a long, curved knife. “Extra days means extra food. Do up as much of a new meal plan as you can. You’re going to market.” He wiped away the image of the knife with the side of his hand.

  Leaning back from the island, Art’s awareness swept back through the area, including Garin’s dark stare.

  Art brought his attention back to her. “In about an hour, if that works, Master Chef.”

  “Affirmative.”

  A small wink from Art was like striking a lighter in a room full of explosives. She savored the burn.

  He left the kitchen, and she immediately started taking stock of what ingredients she had remaining and what she needed to stretch the menu out a few extra days. Talk about her circulated through the guards. She understood what they were saying, even without the vocabulary. Tilted heads, knowing sneers.

  Fuck them. They judged out of jealousy. She had a job to do in the kitchen and outside of that, her life was her own.

  For now. Until the real danger started.

  She dove back into the meal planning, trying to ignore the bigger trouble that lay in the unknown territory ahead. Maybe going to town would be an opportunity for escape. Or at least to take an unguarded breath with Art.

  But until she was outside the walls of the compound, she remained on alert. She made her wish list for ingredients, knowing that local markets would yield only what they wanted to.

  A sudden sense of missing something slivered under her skin. Trouble shook through the house, though she couldn’t see anything from inside the kitchen. Something bad was happening. Footsteps hurried. She didn’t know where Art was.

  Leaving her arena was dangerous, but she ventured out, past the dining area and deeper into the living room.

  Before her were the backs of men. The guards all focused on a corner of the room that had been hidden from the kitchen.

  Hayley choked back a shout.

  Art had death in his eyes. He stood coiled, black knife in his hand, facing off with Garin. The other guard had a brutal chisel-looking blade in his grip. The two men had obviously hated each other since the fight in the kitchen, but what had set this off?

  They were next to a tall window, with nowhere to run. The other guards blocked any exits. Vasily watched, interest on his stony face, thirsty for blood. His hand rested on the handle of a knife in a sheath on his belt. Hayley knew that he wasn’t getting ready to step in and help Art.

  She had to.

  One step forward. She was ten feet from the first line of guards. Would she be able to get through them? And then what?

  Another step.

  Art’s intense eyes quickly flicked to her, then back at Garin. The brief glance told her everything. “Not another step. Stay away.”

  But she couldn’t.

  Now she was only about five feet from the line of guards.

  Garin flinched a fake attack, then chuckled when Art recoiled, balanced and ready to strike back. They didn’t have much space for this dance. The next lunge with a knife would be deadly.

  Hayley was just behind the guards and tried to figure out the best way to press through them. Whatever she did would have to be as far away from Vasily as possible. He poised like he’d love the opportunity to unsheathe his knife.

  Garin hissed something in Russian. Art didn’t answer, but remained ready. Blood was about to be spilled.

  She had to act.

  A gunshot exploded behind her. She ducked on instinct, and the guards in front of her spun, drawing their own weapons. When they saw who’d fired, they immediately lowered their barrels to aim at the ground.

  Rolan stood in the living room. His face was calm, but the small black pistol in his hand represented his dangerous rage.

  Hayley’s heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t hear her speeding pulse because the ringing of the shot continued in her ears. Standing, she searched for Art. He remained ready, with his knife in hand, though the tension of the fight had been drained.

  Garin was a few paces back, nervous and glancing from Art to Rolan. A precise bullet hole marked the wall above the window where the two men had faced off.

  Rolan’s steady commands were lost on her, but the guards cleared out of the room in an instant. The acrid gunpowder smoke swirled. The boss still held the gun out when Dernov and Ilyin arrived.

  Art fixed her with his look again, adamant. When she hesitated, he nodded, trying to reassure her.

  Rolan didn’t spare her any attention as she backed out of the living room. But she stopped at the edge, watching and not willing to leave Art.

  Russian commands and conversations flew about the room. Art sheathe
d his knife, and Garin put his away. Rolan lowered his gun and holstered it so he could gesture with his hands to the other bosses. For a moment, Art and Garin were forgotten. They glared at each other, and she wondered if the fight was about to start over. Rolan’s next shot wouldn’t be a warning.

  Before things got messy, Rolan clipped short sentences to Art, pointing him toward the front of the house.

  “Da, da,” Art replied, striding that way. He caught her eye and motioned her in his direction with a quick tilt of the head.

  Garin watched, scowling like he had a mouthful of acid, as Art met up with Hayley and the two of them made their way to the front door.

  “What the fuck happened?” She wanted to put her hand on Art’s arm, but he radiated so much malice from the fight she thought he might explode.

  He growled, “Garin said things about you I didn’t agree with.”

  “Like what?” Though hot anger was already brewing in her and she didn’t know if she needed more fuel.

  “Things he should bleed for.” He slammed out the front door and continued toward the SUV that had brought her there, keys jingling in his hand.

  The sun washed him out for a moment. She adjusted, coming down the stairs, and saw him waiting by the side of the car.

  Care emerged in his eyes. “That shot was close. You handle it okay?”

  “Scared the hell out of me...but yeah.” A tremble in her hands reminded her. “Are you hurt? Cut?”

  “It’s all good.”

  Tension hummed through him while he stroked the side of her neck and pulled her toward him. They rested for a moment, forehead to forehead. She felt his breathing slow.

  He kissed her cheek and whispered, “The car might be bugged.”

  She answered with a slight nod.

  Their mouths met. The connection overrode the fear from the fight. But the danger remained, and she knew people were watching.

  Art clearly knew it, too. He glared at the house, stepped away from her and opened the back door of the SUV.

  “I have to ride there?” Her stomach dropped at the memory of the black isolation in the back of the SUV.

  “Safer that way.” He put out a hand and helped her in. “And it makes you look like a VIP.”

  “But you’re not my chauffeur.” The intense darkness of the interior already worked on her nerves.

  “Personal security.” He closed the door and moved around the car to the driver’s side. Climbing in, he continued, “With benefits.”

  The car started with a hum. Air-conditioning knocked the desert back a bit.

  Art turned in his seat to glance back at her. “It’s just for a minute.” The dark partition glass rose, taking Art away. Taking everything away.

  The SUV moved, and she was lost in disorientation. Backward, forward. Slow and fast. She was finally out of that house but didn’t feel free.

  After an unknown amount of time passed, the partition dropped. Art drove them down a dirt road that carved a line through the desert. The landscape was almost featureless, like any minute, they’d drop right off the earth.

  “You have your shopping list?” he asked as casually as if they’d just had brunch and were headed to weekend errands.

  “Wish list. Who knows what we’ll find?”

  “I just hope I can find La Bota. My map is a little crude.” He held up a piece of paper that had only a scribbled line connecting two circles.

  “You’ll just have to put all that Marine training to use.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  She sat as far forward as she could and leaned her arms on the back of the front divider. “What rank did you get to?”

  “Sergeant.” He patted his shoulder, where his insignia would be. “I wasn’t really political. Just a specialized grunt. Never thought about climbing the ladder into the brass.” He glanced back at her. “You have ranks in the kitchen, right?”

  “Yeah, gotta work your way up.”

  “What was your first gig?”

  It was strange to think back, like trying to unlearn everything she’d fought for. “High school. I was a busboy and dishwasher at a semi-fancy Italian place.”

  “Earning your stripes.” He patted his shoulder again.

  “Learned a pretty good marinara there. Built on it since then.”

  “You cook more than Russian?” His eyes were surprised in the rearview mirror.

  “All kinds.” But right now, all the flavors she could think of were bitter. “The place I was supposed to open was going to have a few influences. It was a menu for traveling.”

  His gaze grew sincere. “You’ll open that place.” And determined. “And I’m going to eat the first motherfucking chimichanga that comes out of that kitchen.”

  Her laugh bounced along the rough road. “I wasn’t planning on chimichangas.”

  “Well, you are now.” He scowled tough for a second, then broke into a smile.

  “I suppose I owe you that much.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.” His face was unreadable and distant.

  She reached over the back of the seat and put her hand on his arm. “Not your decision to make.”

  His fingers laced with hers. “Then just let me know when that chimichanga’s ready.”

  She wanted to say, “Soon,” or, “Anytime,” or, “I’ll always have a table for you,” but none of that was certain. She couldn’t will it to be.

  The road became choppier, and Art released her hand to steer over deep ruts. She stayed close, not wanting to recede into the darkness at the back of the SUV. The tires rumbled, and small rocks chattered along the bottom of the car.

  Exhaustion pressed into her shoulders and burned her eyes. The farther they got from the house, the more pressure was released. She’d been revving high for too long and felt how tired she was once she spun down.

  Art’s voice came from a great distance, snapping her to waking. “Yeah, shut it down for a bit. I’ll get us there.”

  Sleep sounded like the sweetest dessert, but it wasn’t how she needed it. Gathering what energy was left in her muscles, she pulled herself over the divider and into the passenger seat next to Art. It would’ve been better if she could’ve leaned along him. She put her hand on his thigh and leaned back to let the fatigue take her.

  The desert drifted in and out of darkness. The car thundered all around her and from hundreds of miles away. Art was always there. And when she woke, he smiled at her.

  “Power nap.”

  “How long was I out?” She groaned and stretched.

  “A few miles.” He pointed down the road. “La Bota’s out there.”

  The dirt road carved toward low buildings collected into a town a bit closer than the horizon.

  “Have you been there?” The atmosphere of human life hung lower over the buildings, but she couldn’t get a sense of the mood of the place.

  “Not yet.” Small bits of ready tension collected around Art. “But it’s got something for everyone if Garin left there with a smile on his face.”

  That smug son of a bitch continued to needle her. “I wish he’d gotten mugged there.”

  “If he keeps pushing, he’s going to get dead.” His fist was tight on the steering wheel.

  “Can it...? Will it...?” She’d seen the deadly intent of the men with the knives outside the club. The smell of gunpowder remained in her clothes. “It’s inevitable.”

  He remained focused ahead. “The trigger’s already been pulled.”

  Their silence blasted into the desert when Art rolled down the windows. Hot, dry air scoured her. She removed her chef’s coat and tossed it in the back of the SUV, leaving her in a T-shirt. Art kept his jacket on. She’d seen all the weapons it hid.

  Another dirt road intersected theirs. It brought
power lines that then marched beside them on the way into town. A flatbed truck passed them going the opposite direction. Thicker dust rose around the road as other cars moved about the edges of town.

  Various warehouses or small factories sucked trucks in and spit them back out, increasing traffic. Hayley saw faces. Men and women living lives completely apart from the pressure she’d been under.

  The noise built. More intersections. More cars. The road was now asphalt.

  “This is Mexico, right?” she asked. It was unsettling to be in a foreign country without a passport or any legal safety net. To the outside world, she was riding with the Russian mob, and didn’t cross borders like normal people.

  Art nodded, staying alert while he drove them into the thick of the town.

  She could’ve guessed the answer anyway. All the shop signs were in Spanish. It was a medium-sized place, a few thousand people. Satellite dishes bloomed on the sides of buildings. Small construction crews kicked up clouds of plaster. A school struggled to contain the boisterous children in its yard.

  Art took them farther into the center of town. They passed a couple of carts lined with produce, and she turned in her seat to try to see what they offered. When she brought her view back around to the front of the car, they were in the town square.

  A church and three government buildings held down the corners of the square. Inside was a small park with fountains and benches. And the market, with tables and carts full of produce. Hayley could already smell the onions and the moist bitterness of the greens.

  Skirting the edge of the activity, Art took them onto a side street and parked the SUV.

  “I spotted a hardware store just off the square.” He shut down the car and gave her a questioning look, asking if she was ready.

  “Let’s go.”

  Free from the oppressive pressure in the house, she felt alive again. And to be out, under the sun with Art in a new town, discovering the local produce, felt like a fantasy.

  Reality cut in when she felt Art’s caution in the street. He was next to her, moving with purpose and scanning the surroundings. She tried to learn his awareness. Rooftops and sunken doorways were noted. She tracked the flow of traffic and found herself easily moving through it.