Three Minutes to Midnight

by A. J Tata

  “What do you need, Jimmy?” Maeve asked without turning around.

  “Ain’t Jimmy, woman.”

  Maeve jumped. The joystick slammed to the side, and the monitor showed the explosive had detonated.

  “What the hell?” Maeve screamed. “You scared me! Good thing that charge was where it needed to be.”

  “That’s my question. How much explosives you need to do that job? For each fracture?”

  “I thought you knew.”

  “Would I be asking you if I knew?”

  Maeve stood and stared at Gunther, who was still holding his shotgun. He could tell she was considering some options outside the purview of answering his question.

  “I’m stronger than you think, and I will kill you without batting an eyelash. If you weren’t the one helping us with this, I would have already splattered your brains on the television screens there.” Gunther pointed the shotgun at the HD monitors.

  “Each explosive charge contains two to five kilograms of MDX in shaped containers made with depleted uranium to create maximum fracture,” she said.

  “Is that too much, just enough, or not enough?”

  “It’s about right. Maybe a little strong, but about right,” she replied.

  Gunther had to give it to the woman. She was poised and strong. He liked that about her. Licked his lips, wishing his other parts worked.

  “Okay, now tell me why Ting and them would be saying we are using too much explosives.”

  He watched her think. She scratched her chin and flipped her hair behind her ears.

  “No reason that I can think of. All I can say is that this is what we used in Afghanistan. This is what Jim brought back with him. The DU is entirely illegal. Not that anything we’re doing is legal, but that part is especially bad. Mixing the new chemicals with the depleted uranium could be deadly to the water supply. Maybe that’s what they’re concerned about. They may have seen the shape charges and don’t want to poison the water.”

  “They don’t give a rat’s ass about our water. It’s something else. You think about it and let me know if you come up with anything. In the meantime, don’t stop working.” He flipped the switch, and the fifty-five-inch monitor showed Piper sleeping on her back, dressed in pajamas. She held a small blanket and sucked her thumb.

  Gunther watched Maeve gasp and clutch her heart.

  “Cry me a river, bitch. Now, get back to work.”

  He shut down the screen and exited.

  On his walk back to the lodge, he was thinking about why the Chinese would want to use fewer explosives than the Russian, who was the expert and was in charge of the drill site.

  Could the Chinese be saving the explosives for something else? he wondered.

  CHAPTER 22

  MAHEGAN WAS AWAKE AT 5:00 A.M. THE SUN HAD NOT YET CRESTED, and Grace continued to sleep in the same position on his chest. He watched her eyelids jump, her eyes moving beneath them, as she dreamed. Not wanting to interrupt whatever story her brain was telling her, he continued to lie there until he felt her move some time later.

  She opened her eyes briefly, muttered something, then closed them again. He wished she would wake up, as he needed to slip away. He did his best to slide the pillow under her head without changing the elevation. He had pillows under her leg and head as he gently rolled off the bed, and she continued to breathe in her steady rhythm. He dressed, left her a note, closed the door quietly behind him, and walked back to the shopping mall parking lot to retrieve the Crown Victoria.

  He drove to the Wallaby in Apex, where he saw the work line starting to form. Manuela was already there, but as usual, Papa Diablo was probably hiding or having breakfast. Mahegan parked the car in the shopping center parking lot and walked across the street to the Wallaby, where he found Manuela, the big Hispanic man from his fence job three days ago, by himself, pacing back and forth beneath a streetlamp that was competing with the slate gray of dawn.

  “Hola,” Mahegan said.

  “Hola—” Manuela stopped short when he saw Mahegan.

  “Come with me,” Mahegan said.

  He led Manuela behind the car wash associated with the gas station. There was a pool of oily water on the pavement where the cars drove through the dryer.

  “Bad people,” Mahegan said. Manuela stared at him, as if he didn’t understand, so Mahegan tried his limited Spanish. “Muy malas personas.”

  “Sí. Sí,” Manuela said, pointing at Mahegan.

  “No. Not me.” He paused and constructed the sentences in his mind. “Les hombres de petróleo y gas. Muy peligroso. Díselo a tus amigos.” Mahegan stuttered through his broken Spanish but thought he did okay.

  Manuela took a step back. Mahegan knew he had put these men in danger, but if he had not been there, Petrov probably would have killed them.

  “There is talk,” the man said in basic English, clearly not wanting to have to listen to Mahegan try his Spanish again. “That day we went. The day before us, a two-man crew never came back.”

  “I remember.”

  “What you say may be true. I tell my friends. We not go with those men.”

  “Take this,” Mahegan said, handing a burner cell phone to Manuela.

  Mahegan saw Papa Diablo walking quickly across the lot about fifty yards away. That meant one thing: a promising truck had arrived.

  “Mierda,” Manuela said. “Mierda, mierda, mierda!”

  Papa Diablo was already in the back of the same truck in which they had ridden three mornings ago. Petrov was standing outside, looking for someone, most likely him and Manuela. A tall Asian man stepped out of the passenger side of the truck. When they didn’t choose any other workers, Mahegan knew that they had come for all three of them. They were loose ends.

  Manuela walked toward the truck, which drew the attention of both Petrov and the Asian man. Mahegan watched as Manuela removed his jacket. He was preparing for a fight. While the Asian man appeared more bookish than ruffian, Petrov would make up for him. Mahegan had caught Petrov completely off guard before, and this would not happen again.

  Mahegan was taken aback as his military mind ratcheted into gear. Two of America’s most threatening enemies, China and Russia, in the same truck?

  Petrov came around the back end of the pickup, lowered its tail, and gave Manuela a welcoming grimace. “Yes, yes. You did such good work the other day.”

  Manuela walked up to Petrov and got in two good jabs before Petrov figured out what was happening. Once he did, though, he was the Olympic boxer, leading with his left foot and left hand. He got inside on Manuela and landed three good jabs to the face and drew blood. Manuela, no slacker, scored a few body blows that made Petrov cough. It was the straight right that stunned Manuela long enough for Petrov to get in close and hammer him three times across the face with roundhouse hooks, driven by the pivot of Petrov’s right foot and the whirling of his shoulders into perfect strike position.

  Manuela was down and then in the back of the truck with Papa Diablo, who had not moved, because, as Mahegan saw, the Asian man was holding a pistol out of sight of the lineup of men, but clearly visible to him and Diablo.

  “You. White but not white. Your turn,” Petrov said.

  Mahegan strode the twenty yards between them with long strides, then veered away at the last second and landed a solid right cross on the Asian man. Mahegan threw the punch from his hip, extending his fist outward, rotating it as it arced through the air, twisting it just as it struck the spot between the nose and forehead, then snapping it back, ready for the second punch. The pistol bobbed in the man’s long fingers until Mahegan grabbed his wrist, threw an elbow into the man’s gut, and squeezed his hand until the weapon clanked to the ground. He palmed the man’s head like a basketball and slammed his forehead into the truck, then turned to find Petrov closing on him.

  Having the presence of mind to kick the pistol under the truck, he blocked Petrov’s right cross and drove his left fist into the left pectoral, which he had cut with the po
sthole digger. Mahegan pivoted this time off his left foot, turning his hips to provide extra momentum, and twisted the fist into the injury. Petrov stepped back, stumbled a bit, and Mahegan saw a cloud cross over his eyes. Either he was in intense pain from Mahegan’s punch or the man had moved to another place mentally. Mahegan guessed both.

  The Russian took up a fighter’s pose, while Mahegan enticed him away from the truck. He watched as Diablo and Manuela scampered out the back and hurried behind the drive-through car wash with the rest of the day laborers, who were watching the fight go down. Out of his periphery, he saw that the Asian man was still down and that no one had gone for the pistol. Petrov probably had a weapon, but he could see the man was focused on mano a mano.

  He watched Petrov’s rhythm. The man rocked back and forth, obviously falling into a pattern he had developed as a boxer. His technique was too good to be anything but professional. He looked uncomfortable moving farther than a few feet toward Mahegan, as if he expected to stay in a square boxing ring. So Mahegan continued to draw him away from the truck, out of his comfort zone, out of the ring. Petrov looked confused, perhaps wondering why Mahegan would not stay in the zone and fight him. Petrov stumbled and lost his bounce but quickly regained his step. One, two. Left, right. One, two. Left, right. Mahegan watched and waited. He stopped, and Petrov kept coming forward, but his steps were out of sync. Mahegan had deliberately stopped when Petrov’s right foot was forward, where he had less power.

  Mahegan’s wingspan was over seven feet wide. He had learned in fighting to create his own internal safe zone, which was a little over three feet. Anything inside three feet and Mahegan could tap, tap, tap it all day long with a powerful jab or a right cross. Those were his two basic punches. Having wrestled in high school, he could also fight close, but he avoided that now. He had learned the hard way that weapons could appear from the most unlikely places.

  Petrov stumbled into that three-foot zone, and Mahegan scored a firm left jab on the boxer’s forehead. He kept coming inside that zone, though, like a Joe Frazier or a Mike Tyson with no reach, and started going for Mahegan’s body. Petrov landed some good blows into his rib cage with a strong right uppercut. Mahegan violated his rule and slipped into wrestling mode when Petrov kept pummeling. He dropped down into a fireman’s carry takedown and lifted the man onto his shoulders, absorbing some body blows in the kidneys from Petrov’s weaker left hand. But still, it counted.

  Mahegan strode forward with Petrov’s active weight on his back, like he was carrying a live bear, and flipped him into the bed of the pickup truck with a loud thunk. Petrov was up quickly, and they both stared at each other when they heard sirens blaring, as if the round had ended and each fighter had to go to his respective corner. Soon Mahegan could see blue lights flashing from about a half mile away. Petrov leapt out of the pickup bed, pulled the Asian man into the cab, climbed behind the wheel, and sped away in the opposite direction.

  Mahegan walked across the street, watching as the police cars fishtailed into the parking lot of the gas station. As he looked over his shoulder, Papa Diablo and Manuela waved and nodded, an unspoken thank-you for most likely saving their lives. The two informal leaders of the group disappeared in the parking lot, like ghosts. Mahegan figured most of the day laborers were illegal and wanted nothing to do with the police. As he walked to his car, he thought again about the plight of these men, who got in vehicles with people they didn’t know, went to locations they were unfamiliar with, and worked for an undetermined wage.

  There had to be a better way. But he had done his duty, righting a wrong or, if not that, at least protecting those men, who were so desperate that they would have gladly gone back on the job. He also knew that he had removed all doubt that he was the nemesis to Gunther and Throckmorton and their EB-5 commandos.

  The battle lines were now clearly drawn.

  CHAPTER 23

  HE DROVE TO WITHIN A MILE OF HIS APARTMENT, WALKED THROUGH the woods along a firebreak, grabbed his secure smartphone from the safe, and used his Zebra app to send a message to Savage. He pocketed his phone, relocked his safe, backed his Cherokee out of the barn, and drove back to the mall where he had parked Griffyn’s car. He walked the remaining mile to the hotel.

  As he rounded the bend, he saw a yellow Lamborghini in the Holiday Inn parking lot. Mahegan girded his mind for the worst possible scenario. In the past three days he had killed and fought more people than he had on some of his worst days in combat. His missions were usually designed so that he had to move quickly in and out. This mission, however, resembled his last, involving the American Taliban, in which he fought and killed suicide bombers trained in America and ready for action on U.S. soil.

  Here he was, fighting to save the life of an Army officer and her daughter . . . and to avenge his mother’s murder.

  As he was walking into the hallway of the Holiday Inn from the side entrance, Mahegan heard loud noises coming from his room. Shouts, mostly, and female voices. Leading with his pistol, Mahegan opened the door to the room to find Grace, three other women, and Ted the Shred seated in chairs or on the beds. The Shred had his hands tied behind his back as an attractive blond-haired woman yelled at him. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail that fell midway down her back. She wore a black Under Armour outfit that made her look a bit like a ninja with no mask, Mahegan thought.

  “You’re part of this, Ted, you asshole, and . . . ,” she said, looking at Grace, then at Mahegan, who focused his pistol on her.

  “Who the hell is this?” Mahegan asked.

  “Elaine, this is Hawthorne,” Grace said. Then to Mahegan, “You can put down the frigging pistol, Hawthorne.”

  “Who let him in on this?” Elaine demanded, turning her attention away from Ted and to Grace, who was now standing between the two double beds. “This is our deal, Grace. We are taking these assholes down.”

  Mahegan didn’t know Elaine, but she certainly had an edge.

  “This guy has, like, saved my frigging life ten times in the past couple of days,” Grace said.

  “I don’t care if he’s the pope. We said this was classified. No leaks.” Elaine’s thin neck showed sinewy tendons as she emphasized her point.

  “This is actually my room,” Mahegan interrupted. “I’m going to give you a couple of minutes to explain what’s going on here, and then I’m going to decide whether or not you can stay.”

  Elaine looked at Grace and then at the two other women, who wore similar clothes to Elaine’s. Black jumpsuits. They were the Don’t Frack the Triangle, DFT2, Chapel Hill watch team Grace had mentioned, Mahegan guessed. Besides Elaine, there was a short, stocky woman with a close haircut, looking almost like a man. The other was striking and lean, and she looked at Mahegan with curious eyes, as if trying to place him.

  “Like Pink says, ‘Just when it can’t get worse, I’ve had a shit day. . . . Blow me,’ ” Elaine said.

  “I think that last phrase is actually from Pink’s ‘Blow me one last kiss,’ ” Grace snapped. Then to Mahegan, “Elaine thinks everything you need to know in life can be explained by Pink songs. Study those and we’re all good.”

  Elaine was watching the dynamic between Grace and Mahegan.

  “We’re all lesbians, so don’t get any ideas,” Elaine barked.

  Mahegan looked at Grace, who shrugged. Elaine saw the interaction and turned to Grace.

  “You slut. You slept with him? Fuckin’ perfect.”

  “Let’s focus here, Elaine,” Grace said. “We’ve got Ted here, and Hawthorne can be helpful to the cause. Pink can’t help us.”

  “Why is Ted here?” Mahegan asked. “And who are these people?” Mahegan waved a hand across the room. “And why are they here?”

  “This is Brandy,” Grace said, pointing at the stocky, dark-haired woman sitting on the bed, holding a big industrial flashlight. “And this is Theresa. They’ve been a couple for a few months.”

  “As we used to be,” Elaine said to Grace.

  “Oh, g
et over it, Elaine. That was two years ago,” Grace said.

  “It’s been written in the scars on our hearts!” Elaine pointed her finger at her chest as she quoted another Pink song, Mahegan guessed. He had heard of Pink, mostly from the female soldiers talking about listening to her music. She had a large following among the troops in Afghanistan, but he wasn’t certain that he would be able to identify a Pink song on the radio.

  They didn’t look like a couple, but what did Mahegan know? Theresa was lithe and athletic, and she had the silky brunette hair and high cheekbones of a runway model. Brandy was the opposite. Grace and Elaine, he could picture. Or maybe it was easier to picture those two together than it was Brandy and Theresa. He shrugged.

  “Okay. Not my business. These are your watchers?” he said.

  “Grace!”

  “Lighten up, Elaine. He knows more than us about this, and we’ve been watching these guys for three months build that rig at night,” Grace said. She walked over to Mahegan, who was still standing by the door, which was closed.

  The room had the confused air of a school classroom with no teacher, Mahegan thought. Ted was the dunce in the corner, primitively bound and gagged. The four girls were the students, who were fighting, not knowing what to do. Somehow they had reached an impasse in their decision-making process.

  “What about your man there?” Mahegan nodded, trying to move the conversation along.

  “I bought a disposable cell at the grocery store next door while you were gone, and called Elaine,” Grace said. “Turns out, the Shred was stalking her, trying to find me. Mickey Mantle here slugged him with that flashlight when he stepped in the room. I found some rope in your duffel bag. Sorry.” Grace cast her eyes downward.

  “In the Army we called this a goat rope,” Mahegan said.

  “About right,” Elaine agreed. “Did my time. Navy.” He saw her size him up with an obvious vertical scan, as if he were a bar code, then turn toward Grace. “If you’re going back to the dark side, Grace, this one will do. Better than that dickhead.” She nodded at Ted the Shred.