Free One Minute to Midnight (Black Ops: Automatik) by Nico Rosso

Len answered grudgingly and ran a hand through his black, greasy hair.
    “See, this is the perfect kind of thing for our clients.” She continued walking, stepping over tracks and winding around a set of empty cargo cars. “The brick is like an instant yes for them.”
    “Ma’am, please don’t go that way.” Len skipped to keep up.
    “It’s Mary, Len. You’ve got my card and my number.” She ducked under a thick chain meant to separate areas of the yard. “So when you realize what kind of goldmine you guys are sitting on, you’ll call me.”
    “A lot of this is in use.” He made it to her side and matched her pace.
    “Mixed use,” she corrected him. “Businesses on the bottom, loft studio apartments on top.”
    He made it around her and stood to block her path, about a hundred yards from the warehouses. She suppressed her anger at being corralled. The foreman was clearly annoyed, but did manage to not overtly threaten her. “I can almost guarantee Kit won’t be interested in this.”
    “Industrial chic.” She leaned to peer around him at the three-story structures. A few high windows were broken out, but the loading doors below were well maintained, and new lighting had been recently secured to the bricks. She picked up a heavy shard of rusted metal, about the size of a thick marking pen, with threads cut into one end. “You probably have old, unused machinery and equipment lying around here that you could sell for thousands of dollars to the interior designers.” She tapped the metal on her palm, reassured by the improvised iron weapon. “A goldmine, I tell you.”
    Len spread his arms out, a living roadblock. His coat opened to give her a better view of the .40 pistol in a tactical nylon harness. He had two spare mags on the other side of the rig. If trouble came Len’s way, he was very ready. She was, too. It would be faster to take his gun than reach for hers, if it came down to it. Len was almost out of patience. “This is a working train yard, ma’am. It’s not safe for you out here, and we’re not looking to convert anything into trendy loft condominiums.” He swung one of his thick arms back toward the parking area. “Now please...” His eyes hardened. A five o’clock shadow framed the serious line of his mouth.
    This was his limit. She wanted to test him. Ever since she’d had to leave Ben in the parking lot she’d been itching for payback. But it would have to come down the road, when the strike was planned and ready. Though her fist remained tight around the iron shard.
    A chill wind shouldered past the warehouses and brought very specific smells to Mary. She knew Ben would recognize them as well. Gun oil. Packing grease. Military-grade transportation materials. Every airfield and base she’d been on had that smell in at least one building. That was usually where she’d slept, close to the ordnance so she’d be ready. It had been a few years since she’d been so surrounded by it, but it was hard to scrape the thoughts of her different Delta deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan from her mind.
    Though she yearned to charge past Len and investigate the warehouses, Mary turned and started walking back with the same pace she’d probed into the yard. “Now, the fact that it’s working could actually be a selling point. I wouldn’t be surprised if those Chicago hipsters would want to move down here just so they could live next to all this heavy industry.”
    Len scattered gravel with his large feet as he kept up. “They’d hate it here.”
    She fished another card from her purse. “They like hating things.” The iron shard remained in her other hand. She didn’t think she’d let it go until she was completely extricated from Morris Flats.
    Of course Len knew which car to herd her toward. A small town kept track of strangers. A small town with a secret would kill those strangers if they found things they weren’t supposed to.
    She handed him the card. “Now you have two.