Seconds to Sunrise

by Nico Rosso

  “They wanted the most British name so I wouldn’t catch flack for being dark.” His turn to hiss sarcastically. “But somehow everyone knew I wasn’t a blue blood.”

  “Shocking.” Her look softened. “In the army?”

  “Some of the blokes thought I wasn’t tough because I wasn’t made of Sheffield steel.” He’d learned early how to defend himself and retaliate without drawing the brass’s attention. “Proved them wrong. All the way to the SAS.” And after that, she didn’t need to know.

  “Yvonne,” she declared.

  He stared at her too long before having to look back at the road. But she seemed so pleased. A new confidence leveled her shoulders and tipped her chin up. “Yvonne?”

  Her poise strengthened. “An artist’s name. The kind of woman who uses a long cigarette holder and has bookshelves in the kitchen and a bathtub in the dining room.”

  “I’m coming to your dinner parties.”

  “You have to bring bread and cheese.” She considered. “And a towel.”

  “I can manage that.” A simple dinner party held a lot of appeal. A different world. He’d heard about some of the Automatik operators meeting up and eating at Hayley and Art’s restaurant in San Diego, but he’d never joined up. The people who recruited him into the organization had assured him that none of his new teammates knew about his freelance years, but he always felt they’d find out and hold him off. So he kept himself away.

  “Beer or wine?” April asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.

  “Beer,” he answered. “But I don’t drink much anymore.”

  “Wine.” She settled in her seat and looked out at the endless desert. “But not often. Not when I’m alone.”

  If she wanted solitude, that was her choice. But if she didn’t, if four years a widow was too long, April deserved a partner. A lover. She’d helped heal hundreds, maybe thousands of lives with her website. Someone should be helping her.

  “Yeah, that can be rough business.” He’d drunk alone after jobs with Hathaway. Ashamed to show his face to the world, he’d hidden in his London flat and numbed the memories until the phone rang for the next gig. Automatik had changed that. But had he changed?

  April brought her attention to her phone. “About forty miles.”

  Though it was a chaos, the mission gave him clear directives to focus on. “We’ll secure our location first, then take care of food. Work for you?”

  “Sure.” Though she seemed uncertain.

  “Caffeine wearing off?”

  “I’m burning through every reserve in my body.” She held up her trembling hand. She made a fist and released it, somewhat stilling the motion. “I don’t know how you do this without digesting all your muscles.”

  “As a soldier, you learn how to rest while staying alert.” How much had her husband told her about the life? “Which parts of the mind and body you can shut down, and keep the others fired up. You get used to it, but you can’t sustain it forever.”

  She watched the scenery out the side window, hiding her face. “Mark always had to decompress when he came home for leave.”

  “It’s a big transition.”

  Her gaze came back around to him. “But for you, it’s everywhere?”

  Those two years of freelance with Hathaway, there wasn’t a night he hadn’t slept with a gun in his hand, whether or not he was on the clock. He was a bad man in a world of bad men. It was business. Other people’s lives. His own life. Commerce. “I was having a pretty good holiday in El Paso until you got jumped in the parking lot.”

  She darkened. “Now they’re dead, and we’re running.”

  He held up a finger to correct her. “We’re establishing a new base of operations from which to strike when we have the opportunity.”

  “Good spin,” she conceded.

  He clipped out like an old-fashioned officer, “Stay downwind. High morale. Keep the buggers in your sights.”

  Her laugh lightened the atmosphere. They drove out of the sun and under rain clouds that washed the desert dust from the car. Fat drops of water splashed like a brawl. For a few minutes, the world was closed off beyond the wall of weather. Just James and April in their small bubble of safety. High winds battered the car and sped the clouds on. Crisp sunlight broke back onto the landscape and glittered off the remnants of the rain on the hard earth.

  He could spin their circumstances all he wanted, but the reality was deadly. A new enemy stalked the field, willing to kill. He knew how that worked. Part of the money up front, the rest when the job was completed. If he and April and Automatik could find and dismantle the hackers, then there’d be no payment on completion for the hitters. The contract would be called off. It was a race to see who could find whom first.

  “You’re going over eighty.” April stared at the speedometer.

  He eased off the throttle. A cluster of buildings appeared in the flat distance. They were getting closer, but the tension that spread up his back wouldn’t be relieved until he and April were dug into a good, defensible position.

  She swiped through her phone and stared down the highway. “There’s a row of motels on a frontage road. Take the first exit.”

  “Roger that.” Closer to habitation meant that there might be police about, and he had to remind himself not to drive too fast to their destination.

  It seemed like they were on an endless scroll of desert landscape, but James was able to mark progress by the town ahead getting larger. No other cars exited with them, they weren’t being followed. April directed them to the second motel on the row, with better reviews and free Wi-Fi.

  The two-story affair was well kept but not luxurious. He parked and noted that he could watch the lot from the front office, and she agreed to wait in the car. A brisk wind rippled the insanely blue water of the small pool. Way too cold for anyone to take a dip. He checked in as Simon at the office and shared a knowing smile with Rohit, the desi man who ran the motel.

  April pulled their kit from the car as he returned, then the two of them proceeded to the second-floor room. It smelled of industrial cleaner and aging particleboard furniture. James closed them in, locked the door and wedged a chair under the handle. He closed the curtains after noting the window’s view of the exterior catwalk, parking lot below, town streets and highway beyond them. A good vantage for covering approaches.

  “There’s another window in the bathroom.” April stood on the other side of the queen-sized bed that nearly took up the entire room. She switched places with him when he walked to the bathroom, both of them brushing against each other at the foot of the bed.

  He tried to ignore the close contact, but his body soaked in the brush of her shoulder against his chest. It should just be business. She was holding up her end as partner and assessing their location. The touch made his breath hitch. She trusted him.

  But she wouldn’t if she knew him.

  The bathroom window was high in the shower/tub surround. He had to stand on the edge of the tub to see anything other than sky and power lines. The limited view revealed the second floor of the next motel in the row.

  “Anything?” April set her laptop up on the small table by the front door.

  “If someone’s going to stake us out, it would be from there.” He stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door. “We keep this shut and maintain light discipline so they can’t clock us.”

  “Okay.” Her hands hovered over the keys on her computer. “I’m going to grab their Wi-Fi, but I’m in clean mode. Anonymous.” She looked at him, waiting.

  He gave her a thumbs-up. “You know what you’re doing.”

  She typed like a distant machine gun. “No personal information anywhere in this partition. I can’t be traced or touched.”

  “Stealth.” Could she find and erase any mentions of his past? “Perfect for
surfing porn.” He said it before thinking and wished he could suck all the air out of the room so she never heard it.

  Her typing stopped. She didn’t move and didn’t look at him.

  He’d crossed a very personal bridge and felt it crumbing beneath him. More talk didn’t help. “Not that there’s a problem with that, right? We’re all...” His voice dried as he wondered what particular erotic content got her off. He kicked himself. It was damn rude to pry like that.

  She nervously cleared her throat, and he laughed, embarrassed. Neither made eye contact. He busied himself with rearranging his clothes and kit. She returned to typing on her computer.

  Once he had nothing left to do, he broke the awkward silence. “Lunch from the vending machine?”

  “Sounds fine.” She looked everywhere but at him.

  Aces. He left the room and walked down the catwalk, wondering what kind of porn she now imagined was his particular kink. He shouldn’t be embarrassed. It was natural. And it wasn’t like he had a steady fling set up with anyone. The time between brief hookups was long, and he took care of himself when he could. Did she?

  There he went again, thinking into territory he didn’t belong. Another man, with a cleaner record, belonged in that intimate space. If she wanted one. He’d known too many people who’d lost someone to the recent conflicts. Some of them never sought out another.

  He collected candy bars, trail mix and other snacks from the vending machines, along with enough drinks for the rest of the day and into the night. Rohit watched from his lobby office, a small smile on his face. James acknowledged him with a smirk of his own and a tip of the head. But when he returned to the room, it wasn’t for a liaison.

  “The CPA firm is back online.” April worked her computer. James distributed the food across the available space on the table. She drank water and munched on thin pretzels. “I got in as an admin to see if I can root around their emails for something.”

  “How’d you manage that?” He took off his jacket and stretched his arms and back.

  She watched for a moment before her gaze locked on the computer again. “I phished an email to Gwen, telling her to reset her password. When she did, I copied it.”

  “Bloody hell, Yvonne. I’m glad you’re on my side.” He adjusted his shoulder holster to let his skin breathe.

  “Just don’t cross me.” She smiled. The wicked gleam in her eye sent a charge through him. It was the freest he’d seen her. That glimpse of quick inhibition revealed so much more life beneath her usual reserve.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” But he was tempted to tease out more of that sharp spark he’d just witnessed. Not today. Not ever. He ate trail mix and paced the small floor plan of the room while memorizing the layout. After two laps, he did it with his eyes closed. “I’m sorry the accommodations aren’t as posh as yesterday.” They still hadn’t discussed the issue of the bed.

  She typed, focused on the screen. “I always knew Simon was a little sleazy.” Her demeanor changed at the computer. Confidence high. And more free with that smile.

  He took a seat on the edge of the bed near her to watch her hands on the keyboard and the flow of information he didn’t understand on the screen. “You’re in the groove.”

  She nodded and used the trackpad to select a body of text. “This is what saved me.” Fleet fingers manipulated the content. “I already knew some web design from community college classes. I’d taken them while Mark was deployed and I was thinking about stepping up from my admin job at an orthopedics office. When Mark...” She trailed off, and her activity on the computer stopped. A stab of pain lanced through James’s chest. She hurt and she didn’t deserve to. Would human contact from him help, or was that solace for someone else to give?

  He reached forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. She exhaled, long and slow. His body calmed, too, with the connection. She turned and looked at him with a thank-you in her sad eyes. His hand fell from her.

  Her voice started rough. “I couldn’t work anymore.” She stared at the computer, but her hands still didn’t move. “My family was there for me. Friends. But there was only so much they could do.” She took another breath. “I had to dig myself out.” Her fingers hit the keyboard again. “So I dove in. I studied more code. I found online private support groups for widows, but nothing really focused on what I needed, so I made my website. When I added the funding aspect, I got into encryption to protect it. Books, classes, I used resources available to learn.” She struck a couple of keys and sat back to gaze at the laptop screen. “The site grew into what it is.”

  “And what saved you helped a lot of other people.” He’d seen war and death, up close and in his hands. Countless soldiers and combatants. He’d trained and fought and survived. And he was in awe of her strength.

  “Until the hack.” Emotion roughened her voice again.

  “We’ll stop them.” If only those bastards were on the other side of a door he could kick down. “We’ll get all of this back for you.”

  “Maybe in Phoenix.” She pointed at her screen.

  “Arizona?” A vague map popped into his head. He followed her finger to a street address written among lines and lines of computer code.

  “I picked up this IP address from an email to the CPA firm.” She grinned. “I think they’d phished her just like I had. That’s how they got in.” Her fingers flew over the computer. A new browser tab appeared with a bird’s-eye view of a city map. A red marker indicated the address.

  His hope for a quick strike solution sank. “A high school.”

  “They’ll definitely have the kinds of servers necessary for the hack.” She zoomed closer to the image of the buildings, and he immediately started to plot the best angles for attack and which exits would need to be blocked to bottleneck a fleeing enemy.

  “Or it could be another mirror.” Assaulting a high school, even if the bad guys were somewhere inside, was out of the question.

  “Could be.” Her enthusiasm waned. “But it’s a lead.”

  “Absolutely. We’ll track it to the bitter end.” He had to ask but didn’t want to entertain the idea. “Could we be dealing with high school students?”

  “I guess.” She closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands, as if doing deep calculations. “They’d have to be pretty sophisticated, but if someone’s had a computer in their hands their whole life, it could happen.”

  “But is a kid sophisticated enough to know how to hire a hitter?” Whoever had made that call had gone too far. And would pay.

  She looked up at him, the fear again in her eyes. People were dead.

  He tapped her computer to focus her on what she could control. “Can you phish your way into this server?”

  She switched back to the tab full of code. “I can try, but I feel like it’s a more savvy environment.” Pieces of text were highlighted as she typed, and a new window with an email appeared.

  He returned to sit on the edge of the bed. “Even if you can’t get in, we’ll go there.” He pulled out his phone and brought up the Automatik communication app. “Tomorrow. We can’t string ourselves out, knowing the hunters are in the field.”

  Her pace slowed again.

  He tried to bring her back. “I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before.” From both sides of the gun. “You’re going to be okay,” he vowed.

  Her gaze locked on his. She’d steadied herself. “Thank you.”

  He almost replied, “Just doing my job,” but it didn’t feel like a job anymore. “You deserve better than all this.”

  “But life doesn’t work like that.” It wasn’t self-pity. The woman had lived through so much.

  “I already told you I invented yoga. Karma was my idea, too.” He smiled and got a small one back from her. “It’s going to be good things for you. And bad things for them.”

 
“You’re the expert.” She returned to her work on the computer. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “Do that.” He entered all the new details for Automatik, including the Phoenix address to be tracked down. A confirmation came quickly, along with any updated intel from their end.

  She hit a key and sat back from the computer, finished. “It’s away. We’ll see if the assistant dean of students takes the bait.”

  He completed his communication with Automatik and tossed his phone on the bed. “Still no information on the hitters.”

  “How does that work?” She turned her chair away from the table and faced him. The curtains glowed behind her, dropping her face to shadows. “How do you hire a contract killer?”

  “You used to do it through an intermediary, or pay phones or face to face. Internet made things much easier.” The door had been opened to his past. He didn’t know far he’d descend. “A lot of the communication happens in chat rooms. It looks like everyone’s talking about television cartoon shows, or the latest coupon deals, but there are hookups connecting. Deals being made.”

  He couldn’t see her expression. His was in full light. Did she see into him, his memories? The rush he’d gotten when a new job came in. Planning all the angles. Traveling light and fast. Feeding off the danger, even better when no one else knew what was happening around them. Hathaway distributing the cash.

  “But they couldn’t put all the details out there. Even in a private chat, someone could find it.” She was processing what he told her and attacking the angles.

  “Disposable email addresses,” he explained. “Burner phones.” He’d dropped cell phones into the Seine, the Danube, the Thames. Part of him had sunk with them and would remain cold under the water forever.

  “It’s that easy,” she mused.

  “It’s too easy.” Strung-out junkies were easy to find and hire for an intimidation gig. But whoever had killed those men were professional enough to erase their trail. He stood and retrieved his water from the table. It felt better to have his face away from the light.