Breaking Cover

by J. D. Rhoades

  “I guess you’re going to tell my dad,” she said.

  “I guess I am.”

  “I’ll tell him you threatened to hit me.”

  “Go ahead. Girl, have you got any idea how damn stupid you’re bein’?”

  “You’re just picking on them because of the way they look,” she flared. “You’re just like—” She stopped, then slumped back into the seat, like a marionette with its strings cut.

  “Just like the kids at school who pick on you,” Buckthorn said. “Don’t look so surprised, Alison. I know what’s going on. But there’s a difference here. These are some very dangerous people you’re playing with.”

  “So you say. Besides, they’re so dangerous, why don’t you arrest them? Huh?” Her face brightened with malice. “You’re scared of them, is that it?”

  The words stung. Fact was, Buckthorn had been afraid. He didn’t like the feeling one bit.

  “No,” Buckthorn said. “They haven’t done anything here I can arrest them for. Not yet. And I aim to see that they don’t.”

  “They’re my friends,” Alison said. “You can’t keep me from seeing them.”

  Buckthorn tried not to grit his teeth. His warnings seemed only to increase the teenager’s attraction to the bikers. “I sure as hell can. If I have to handcuff you to the front porch.”

  “You can’t do that. I got rights.”

  No, Buckthorn thought, I really can’t do that. He wondered just what he could do to protect his town.

  PINE LAKE’S finest,” Clay sneered.

  “Hah,” Pete said. “Did you see the look in his eyes? He was scared shitless.”

  “He was just checking us out,” Johnny said. “Next time, he won’t come alone. We’ll worry about that when it happens. Speaking of checking things out, Clay, you find out anything?”

  “Yeah,” Clay said. “McCabe and those two kids are the only thing around here anybody’s talking about. He was living out here under the name of Sanders. Rentin’ a farm outside of town.”

  “You seen it yet?”

  “No. But word is he had the place wired up. Even had a damn minefield.”

  “Bullshit,” Pete said. “Where the hell’d he get mines?”

  Clay shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”

  “Stories get exaggerated,” Johnny said. “But we can figure McCabe or Sanders or whoever the fuck he is is packing some pretty serious firepower.”

  “Yeah. Well, so are we,” Clay said. “But McCabe’s gone. We got any idea where?”

  Johnny thought about his uncle Nathan’s inside source. He’d known for a long time that the source existed, somewhere inside the Feds, but the precise identity had been a secret Nathan guarded jealously.

  “Let me make a phone call,” Johnny said. “I might be able to get some leads.” No one moved. “A private phone call,” Johnny said.

  “Come on,” Clay said. “Let’s go get fucked up.” As they moved away, Johnny pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

  Nathan picked up on the first ring. “Johnny,” he said.

  “You hear anything?”

  “Matter of fact, I have. Looks like the FBI’s snooping around in the area for our friend Axel McCabe.”

  “They’re here?”

  “Yep. In force. And here’s the good part. My person on the inside’s done well for himself the past few years. He’s gotten a lot more inside, you might say.”

  “And?”

  “I know McCabe’s real name.” He paused.

  “Well?” Johnny said. “You want me to play Twenty fucking Questions?”

  “You might want to watch your tone with me, Johnny. Let’s not forget it was you that brought McCabe into the Brotherhood.”

  Johnny’s free hand gripped the wheelchair rail, white knuckled. “Sorry,” he said through gritted teeth. The bastard wanted to play games, Johnny didn’t have much choice but to take it, at least for now.

  “It’s okay,” Nathan said indulgently. “You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

  Johnny thought how sweet it would be to put a bullet in his uncle’s head right then. Later, he promised himself. Soon.

  “Yeah. Okay,” he said. “The name.”

  “Axel McCabe’s real name is Anthony Wolf. He was FBI. They’re really anxious to talk to him, too. Especially his wife.”

  “His wife?”

  “Yeah. She’s an agent, too.” Nathan chuckled. “I wonder what Mrs. Wolf would do if she found out what her hubby was up to while he was undercover?”

  Johnny’s mind was racing. “Maybe I should ask her.”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Now wait a minute, Johnny. You do not go fucking around with an FBI agent. That is heat we do not need.”

  “Don’t worry,” Johnny said. “I won’t do anything stupid.” “Okay. See that you don’t. I know you want this bastard, but let me—”

  Johnny cut him off. “I will. No problem.” He shut the phone.

  You don’t get it, he thought. Yeah, Uncle Nathan. I want your job. I want the Brotherhood. But more than anything else, I want the bastard who took my legs. I want to hear him scream when I cripple him. I want to hear him beg for his life, then I want to hear him beg for death. And I’ll tear the Brotherhood down for that. I’ll tear down the whole fucking world for that.

  NATHAN hung up the phone. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the wall. Johnny was beginning to worry him. Johnny had been his heir apparent for years before he went inside. Clay was too crazy to trust with anything but the most brutal kind of wet work, while Johnny had been the cool one. Now, his legs gone, his mind solely focused on revenge, Johnny was getting as crazy as Clay, while retaining his intelligence. That made him dangerous. Nathan Trent wondered if Johnny was thinking of taking a run at him. He hoped not. He liked his nephew. He would hate to have to kill him.

  YOU KNOW, cuz,” clay said, “I had a thought.”

  “Be nice to it,” Johnny said. “It’s in a lonely place.”

  “Fuck you,” Clay said without anger. He took a long pull off the blunt in his hand and passed it to Johnny. After he held it for a moment, he blew out a long stream of smoke and went on. “No, seriously. Some of the guys have been checking this burg out. Man, it’s like . . . I don’t know.” Johnny waited for the thought to percolate through all the smoke in Clay’s brain. The campfire cracked and hissed in the silence. Somewhere in the darkness, somebody laughed drunkenly.

  “Nobody runs this place, man,” Clay finally said. “It’s all smalltime dealers. It looks like most of the product they make themselves. There’s no . . . no . . .”

  “Organization,” Florida Bob piped up from the other side of Johnny. Johnny passed him the blunt.

  “Organization, right,” Clay nodded. “It’s not run . . . ah . . .” He trailed off, looking into the campfire with half-closed eyes.

  “Efficiently,” Johnny offered.

  “Right. Right. Not efficient.”

  “Duplication of effort. No maximization of profit.”

  Clay squinted at him. “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” Johnny said. “You think we should maybe set ourselves up here?”

  “Could be,” Clay said. “Lot of green to be made with the right guy running it.”

  And that won’t be you, cuz, Johnny thought. Not in a million years. But it’s something to consider. Florida Bob might . . .

  There was motion just outside the circle of firelight. Pete stepped forward, his arm around a girl. “Hey, fellas,” he said, his teeth bared in something that might have been mistaken for a smile. “Look who’s back.”

  Alison smiled shyly. “Hey,” she said.

  “WE’VE BEEN over this and over this,” Gaby said. “There’s nothing more I can tell you.”

  “And she’s already told you a lot more than she has to, Agent Steadman,” the station’s lawyer put in. “Plus, it’s late. If you don’t have anything else to ask, you need to let Miss Torrijos go.”

  The FBI agent took off his glasses and rubbed his e
yes. “Tell me again about the storage facility. The one where he was keeping the cash and weapons. Were there any road signs, any indication where—”

  “Pat,” the blond female agent sitting next to him broke in. “She’s right. She’s been over this before. She doesn’t know any more than she’s told us.”

  Gaby couldn’t stop the rush of gratitude she felt, even though she knew that the agents were probably just playing the ancient “good cop, bad cop” routine. There was a reason it was a cliché. Even when you knew you were being played, it was effective.

  Steadman sighed. He got up and stretched. He stared off into space for a moment, then looked at Gaby. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Gaby looked at the large mirror hanging on the wall of the interview room before looking back at the female agent. “He’s going to ask permission to let me go, isn’t he?”

  The female agent, a slender blonde, looked startled for a second; then her face returned to the same impassive mask she had worn throughout the interview. “You need to let us ask the questions, Miss Torrijos.”

  “Straight out of the book,” Gaby said with a tired smile. “But I am going to ask one more question. Sorry, it’s kind of what I do.” The woman stared at her for a moment; then Gaby saw the barest hint of a smile. “Go ahead, then.”

  “Are you Tony’s wife?”

  The smile vanished. The woman stood up abruptly. “How do you—”

  “He talked about you,” Gaby said.

  The mask had splintered. The woman—Kendra, Gaby now knew—had a look of pure need on her face, almost desperation. Normally it was the sort of moment a reporter lived for, the “gotcha” moment, but now Gaby felt like she’d ripped away the agent’s clothing. “How... what did he .. .” She stopped, obviously struggling to get hold of herself, to piece the shattered armor back together.

  “He’s still in love with you,” Gaby said. “I could tell. It was in his face whenever he said the words ‘my wife.’ ”

  The woman’s face twisted. For a moment Gaby thought she was going to slap her. Then she said, “He’s got a damned funny way . . .” She bit the words off and then, as if by magic, the mask was there again.

  “He doesn’t know who to—” Gaby began, but the woman had moved to the door and was gone before she could get the words out. Gaby sat in silence for a moment, staring at the door, before the lawyer spoke up.

  “Want to tell me what that was all about?”

  “Not really,” Gaby said.

  THE CELL phone’s ringtone brought Nathan up out of sleep. He rolled over and snatched the phone up to look at the screen. It was one of his contacts in the local police, a junior detective named Enloe. He snapped the phone open. “This better be good to wake me up,” he snapped.

  “Mr. Trent,” Enloe said, “you need to come down to the club.”

  “Why?” Nathan snapped. “What the fuck—”

  “Somebody just bombed it.”

  “What the fuck do you mean—”

  “The fire department’s there now. I don’t know that they’ll be able to save anything.”

  By the time Nathan got there, the building was almost completely consumed. There were still some spots blazing, but most of what was left was charred piles of soaked rubble. Fire trucks were parked haphazardly in the gravel parking lot, lights flashing in mad cacophony.

  The fire chief stepped up to him as he exited his vehicle. “Sorry, Mr. Trent,” he said in a voice that told Nathan he was anything but. “Doesn’t look like you’ll be openin’ for business tomorrow night.” The man was practically smirking at him. Nathan glanced at the man’s lapel and saw the cross pin there. So that explained it. He fought back the urge to punch the sanctimonious fuck in the mouth. “What happened?” he said in a strangled voice.

  The fire chief put on a face of such exaggerated thoughtfulness that Nathan knew the man was still laughing at him. You better be right with God, you cocksucker, Nathan thought, because you may be going to meet him real soon now.

  “Well, now, we won’t know for sure till the investigators are all done,” he said, “but from the way the fire spread, it looks like there were at least three places where it started, at roughly the same time. That means it had to have been deliberately set. And from the damage at those points, I’d say some kind of explosive device was used.” The chief looked at Nathan shrewdly. “Your insurance all paid up?”

  “I don’t have any,” Nathan said, “so you can drop the idea I did this.”

  “Huh.” The chief was openly grinning now. “Well, I guess you must’ve made somebody mad, then.”

  A yellow-coated firefighter trotted up to the chief and whispered something in his ear. The grin vanished. He looked at Nathan. “We got another call,” he said. “The address 479 Greenhill Road mean anything to you?”

  The Brotherhood’s clubhouse, Nathan thought. He felt sick. “What about it?”

  “It’s on fire, too.” The fire chief shook his head. “You and your boys must’ve made someone really mad.”

  THANKS FOR coming, Tim,” Jeff Slocum said.

  “No problem.” Buckthorn took off his hat as he came inside. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s Alison. She snuck out after we went to bed last night. This morning, she come in and . . . well, look for yourself.”

  Buckthorn walked into the living room. Alison was seated on the couch, a blanket around her hunched shoulders. Her eyes were vacant, staring at the morning show on the TV. As Buckthorn got closer, he could see scratches on her face and what looked like small bruises on her neck. He sat down next to her. He realized that what he was seeing was bite marks. “Alison?” he said. She didn’t answer. He reached out to touch her shoulder. She flinched away with a panicked whine. She looked at him, her eyes wide with fear; then the dullness came over them again. “Alison?” Buckthorn said again.

  “I’m fine,” the girl said in a barely audible voice.

  “Alison, did you go back out there?” She shook her head. Buckthorn turned to Jeff. “Is she hurt, you know, ah . . . anywhere else?”

  Jeff looked helpless. “I don’t know. She won’t let me or her mama touch her.”

  Buckthorn turned to Alison again. “Tell me the truth, girl,” he said in his best stern-cop voice. “Did you go back to where those men were?”

  She didn’t answer at first, but her eyes widened with fear. Her lower lip trembled as if she were about to cry. “No,” she whispered.

  “I think you’re lying to me, Alison. I think I’ll go back out there and talk to—”

  She rounded on him, her eyes suddenly wide and panicked. “No,” she said frantically. “Please don’t tell them I said anything. Please.”

  “I have to—”

  “No!” she was shrieking now, nearly hysterical. “You can’t. You CAN’T!”

  “Did they threaten you? Tell me!”

  “Please! Please! No!”

  “Answer me!” Buckthorn shouted back. “What did they do? ”

  “Tim!” Jeff was hanging on to Buckthorn’s arm. Alison collapsed on the couch, sobbing piteously. “For God’s sake, Tim,” Jeff whispered. “She’s not a criminal. It’s like you’re interrogating her.”

  Buckthorn pulled away, his face red with frustration. “She needs to get to a hospital,” he said. “They need to do tests.”

  “No,” Alison spoke up from the couch. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

  Buckthorn turned to Jeff. “If she won’t make a complaint,” he said stiffly, “there’s nothing I can do. But you need to talk her into going to the hospital.”

  Jeff looked at him, his eyes almost as panicked as his daughter’s. “Like you said. If she says she’s okay . . .”

  Buckthorn growled deep in his throat and walked to the door. He turned back. “You let them get away with this,” he said, “they’ll do it again. Maybe even to you.”

  “You can’t stop them,” Alison whispered.

  Buckthorn put on his hat and l
eft. He was shaken by the naked fear he had seen in the girl’s eyes. He knew what had happened, and he had a pretty good idea of what she, and most likely her family, had been threatened with to make her keep quiet. He needed to get his people together. And he needed to talk to the FBI again. It hurt his pride to admit it, but he was going to need some backup.

  ALL RIGHT,” Nathan said. “I want answers, and I want them right fucking now.”

  The bikers gathered in front of the burned out ruins of the warehouse that had been the Brotherhood’s headquarters for the past ten years looked at each other nervously. No one wanted to be the first to speak to Nathan when he was in this state. He was pacing up and down, his jaw working furiously, his hands clenching and unclenching. It was the closest to being out of control that most of them had ever seen him.

  “I talked to an old buddy of mine who’s vice prez of the Bandidos,” one of the bikers, a Hispanic who went by the nickname of Chop, offered. “He swears on his mama’s grave they didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Nathan turned on him. “You believe him?” Chop thought a minute, then nodded. “Yeah.” “What about the Angels?” someone spoke up.

  That caused a brief, uncomfortable silence. If the Hells Angels, the biggest, best-organized, and most vicious of the nation’s motorcycle clubs, had turned their hands against them, the Brotherhood was in deep shit.

  Nathan shook his head. “No,” he said. “I talked to the president of the nearest chapter. They’ve got no beef with us.” He looked around at the circle of blank faces. “Who, goddammit!?” he shouted. “Who the fuck would do this!?”

  “Hell,” Tiny spoke up, “who could do this?” He gestured at the smoking wreckage with one huge hand. “I mean, look at this shit, homes. This didn’t happen ’cause someone left the oven on. Somebody blew us the fuck up.”

  The phone on Nathan’s belt rang. He snatched it up and looked at the number on the caller ID. Stoney. He snapped the phone open. “What’d you find out?”

  “More than you might think,” a familiar voice said.