One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik) Read Online Free PDF Page A

out there.” She meant it. Things could turn quickly in this town.
    “You, too.” He stepped away from his food and extended his hand. “I’m Ben.”
    She took his hand. “It is cold.”
    “Not always.” The smile was an intimate secret. Her breath caught in her throat.
    They still held each other.
    She found her voice. “Mary.”
    Was this the first time they’d touched? He’d helped her onto the helicopter during the last op. And after the assault on the house full of domestic terrorists in Michigan, she’d given him a hand up a broken basement stairway. But this moment, skin on skin, sank in. It felt too real. She wasn’t susceptible to completely fake flirting. A piece of Ben must not have been lying, and part of her stirred with the attention from a man who might understand her.
    She broke the contact and took a step toward the hotel’s front doors. “See you around.”
    He tilted his head back in acknowledgment. “Count on it.”
    Back to business. Her manufactured persona slid completely into place as she exited the hotel. But beneath it, the connection with Ben lingered. Like a pocketful of bullets that were still warm from his hands. She trusted him with his assignment, even if she didn’t trust him while flirting. He wouldn’t fuck up the operation. She never did.
    An internet search had revealed the one major real estate business in town. She’d memorized the directions across the simple streets and navigated her rental car there. The sky remained bright and clean. Cold. It would get colder. The bottom edges of the buildings were splashed with mud from the summer rains. Once the snow came, all the right angles in the town would be erased by the white drifts.
    Morris Flats rolled past her windows, a place in stasis. No new construction. Faded “For Rent” signs in business windows. Cars being eaten from the ground up by the street salt. But occasionally she’d see a brand-new American pickup truck or SUV. Money choked in most areas and flowed strong in others.
    Edward Limert’s real estate company took up a corner lot. The 1950s building had windows facing both streets of the intersection, as if surveying the territory. Just like she was doing. She pulled up out front. Two of the employees perked up from their desks and tracked her. Other desks remained empty.
    She stayed in the cold air as briefly as possible between the car and the offices. Worse weather had battered her skin and dug into her bones, but these people needed to see a real estate developer slightly out of her element, not a sniper who waited three days in a snow bank to fire a single bullet.
    The two employees, a man and a woman, were standing by the time she stepped through the door.
    The man rushed to speak first, “How can we help you?”
    Her business cards were at the ready. “I’m Mary Long, from Strathmore Development.” She gave the cards to the man and the woman. “Is Edward Limert available?”
    “Yes.” A new voice dominated the offices, making the employees wince a little. Edward had been watching from the barely cracked open door of his back office. The blinds to his interior windows were drawn and rattled as he swung his door open and strode out.
    The employees sat, faces neutral. This wasn’t a genial workplace. These two were putting in their time before escaping. She tried to shoot them a sympathetic look, but they were both pretending to be occupied by their computers.
    Edward continued forward, his hand outstretched like the prow of a ship. He was in his mid-forties, soft and well fed. Expensive slacks and a cheap belt. Wedding ring and a class ring. Sandy-blond hair in a pronounced sweep over his forehead. “What can Eddie do for you?” He flashed a tooth-whitened grin and smelled of this morning’s coffee.
    She shook his hand. “Mary Long of Strathmore Development. We’re looking to enrich select territories around the Midwest, and I’m checking out Morris Flats to see if it’s a good