Hammer came up behind Greg and quickly jerked a bag over his head then stuck two extended fingers hard into Greg’s soft side.
“You make a sound, and your guts are going to be all over the pavement,” he snarled, taking Greg by the arm and hauling him toward the idling Tahoe.
Stilts opened the rear door, and Hammer shoved Greg in and slammed it shut.
The moment Hammer was inside, Duck juiced the Tahoe, and it surged away. The entire grab had taken less than a minute.
“I didn’t do anything! What are you going to do to me! Where are we going? Who are you?” Greg called from the backseat, panic clear in his voice.
“Shut up!” Stilts slapped Greg on the back of the head. “You say another word, or touch that fucking bag on your head, and I’ll slit your goddamn throat!” He caught Hammer’s gaze and grinned as Hammer smiled back.
After a moment they could hear Greg sobbing, but nobody said anything. The kid was already broken. All they had to do now was tell him why this had happened to him.
“What are you going to do to me?” Greg asked.
“You want your fucking throat slit?” Stilts asked, playing his part to the hilt. “If I so much as hear you breathe…” He drew the edge of his fingernail slowly across Greg’s throat like a blade.
“I’m sorry! I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry!”
“Gut him,” Hammer said.
“No! Wait!” Greg wailed and began to sob harder.
Hammer looked at Duck and rolled his eyes.
“Goddammit! He’s pissed himself!” Stilts slid farther away from Greg.
“Shit,” Hammer muttered.
The leather seats were waterproof, but they were going to have to scrub the seat when they got back to the clubhouse. This was the first time that had happened. The next time they were going to have to remember to put a towel down.
“You shit in my car, I’m going to cut your nuts off with a spoon, you got that cupcake?” Hammer said, his tone sharp. This time he didn’t have to pretend to be angry.
Greg said nothing as he sat in his own piss, his head down and sobbing. Hammer didn’t feel sorry for the little prick one bit. They weren’t going to hurt him, but maybe the kid would learn that stalking and threatening to kill an ex-girlfriend was seriously uncool.
They weren’t making money on this deal, but the single mother with the lovely eighteen-year-old daughter had been desperate. She’d gone to the police, but without evidence to connect Greg to the threatening notes, there was little they could do. Greg was too smart to make any overt threats in person, but having the creepy little bastard always watching would be enough to freak any woman out.
That’s when, through a series of contacts, Pam Greer had reached out to the Immortal Souls. He’d met her, and agreed to take the job. A job like this typically paid a quick five Franklins. Pam didn’t have all the money but promised to raise it somehow if the Souls would just protect her daughter. He’d felt sorry for her and agreed to do the job for two hundred and fifty she did have, as long as she promised not to tell anyone that he’d cut her a deal. The two-fifty should, almost, cover their expenses.
Once the deal was made, the Souls had put the plan in motion. Using the information provided by Pam, they found Greg and spent a week eyeballing him so they could determine the best way to warn him off.
They would do messier jobs, up to and including killing, but Hammer decided how they handled each case. They weren’t hired thugs and killers. He guaranteed results, but they rarely had to do more than explain to their target how it would be detrimental to their health if they continued on their present course… like with Greg. It was a fine distinction, admittedly, but it allowed Hammer sleep at night.
The only person the Souls had killed was Randy Filken, and that fucker had gotten everything he deserved.
The brothers usually worked in rotation, so everyone was sharing the risk equally, but the entire club had wanted in on Randy. They had watched him for months, watching for patterns.
One evening, when his parents were out, the Souls had busted into his family home with weapons drawn, bagged him, and dragged his ass out. He had pled for his life as they forced him onto his knees, but it did no good, and Hammer had put his weapon to the back of Randy’s head and pulled the trigger.
Terri Gilrande, the woman Randy had brutalized and raped, may never fully recover, but that sick son-of-a-bitch would never hurt another person… and Hammer could live with that. The job had cost the Gilrandes fifty G’s, but they had paid it without flinching.
Duck turned the Tahoe into a failed mini-market gas station about three miles outside of Amberton. He left the vehicle running because this wouldn’t take long.
The three men rolled ski masks over their faces and stepped out of the SUV. Hammer opened Greg’s door and hauling him out while Duck stuck a magnetic covering over their license plate so Greg couldn’t give their plate number to the cops. They would stop and take the covering off the moment they were out of the sight of their victim.
The three men surrounded Greg, Duck, and Stilts each taking one of Greg’s arms before Hammer yanked the bag off Greg’s head. The kid blinked and squinted as his red and puffy eyes tried to adjust to the bright sunlight.
“Know why you’re here?” Hammer pitched his voice down to a sound as threatening as possible.
Greg shook his head. “What are you going do to me?”
“That depends on you. You know Pam and Michelle Greer?”
“No!”
Hammer pulled his balisong and whipped it around in a simple but complicated looking manner to open it. Opening the knife like that wasn’t necessary, but if you had never worked with a butterfly knife, it was as intimidating as hell. He held the deadly looking blade just off Greg’s neck.
“Lying to me isn’t a good idea,” he growled. “Do you know—”
“Yes!”
Hammer kept the knife close. “You’re not going to go near them again. You’re not going to speak to them or send them any more of your stupid little pussyfied notes. If you meet them walking on the same side of the street, you are going to cross the road. Do I make myself clear?”
Greg nodded frantically.
“You don’t fucking exist to them. If they so much as see you, they’re going to tell me, and you won’t like what happens next. You see these two guys? They’re not nearly as forgiving as I am. Next time, they pay you a visit. You understand?”
Greg again nodded frantically. “What are you going to do to me?”
Hammer let him sweat a moment. “You going to leave the Greer’s alone?”
“Yes! I swear! I’ll never talk to Michelle again! I promise, swear to God!”
“Drop your phone,” Hammer ordered.
Greg dug into his pocket and dropped his phone at his feet. Hammer stomped on the phone several times until it was smashed.
“Sorry about the phone,” he said, his tone giving the lie to his words. “Start walking. Town is three miles that way,” Hammer added with a jerk of his head.
“You’re going to let me go?”
“This time. Next time you won’t be so lucky.”
Duck and Stilts released him, but Greg stood, frozen to the spot.
“Run!” Hammer shouted, lunging at him. Greg stumbled back then turned and bolted.
Stilts chucked as Greg pounded away. “Jesus, look at him go. That kid should be in the Olympics.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here before someone shows up,” Duck said as they turned toward the Tahoe.
The pulled off their ski masks as they turned the truck onto the road, traveling in the opposite direction from Greg. They drove for a couple of miles then pulled to the side of the road, so Stilts could hop out and remove the cover over the plate.
They looped around so they wouldn’t pass Greg, and pulled into the first self-serve car wash they found.
With the three of them working on the Tahoe, they peeled the muddy, rust colored, paint off
to reveal the pristine white factory paint underneath. The peelable paint Guy had discovered had been a godsend. They could spray their Tahoe to change its color, then with thirty or forty minutes effort, return it to its original color by just peeling the new paint off.
“What the fuck is this color?” Duck asked as he slowly peeled the paint off the hood.
“A mixture of whatever Guy had left over. I think its red, silver and black. It’s awful, isn’t it?” Stilts replied.
“Yeah, but this job didn’t pay like normal, so I told him to use what he had leftover,” Hammer said as he slowly stripped the paint off the passenger side door. “I thought he’d paint the body one color and the top another, or something, not mix it all together, so it’s the color of bloody shit.”
Duck chuckled as he wadded the plasticized paint into a ball and tossed it aside to dispose of later, then began working on the front fender. “I don’t care what it looks like. This shit is just amazing because we can hide in plain sight.”
They continued to work on the vehicle, each man working on a panel until all the paint was removed. As Stilts and Duck worked on the last two panels, Hammer bought some leather cleaner from the vending machine and gave the seat Greg soiled a good scrubbing to prevent any staining and to help remove the smell of urine.
Tasks finished, they gathered up the balls of paint and tossed them into the back, then made their way back to the park.
They parked the Tahoe in the same place before they made their way back to the party, appearing from the woods a minute or two apart and blending in with the rest of the Souls.
The entire operation, from start to finish, had taken less than two hours.
“How’d it go?” Knife asked as he handed Hammer a burger.
Hammer grimaced. “We scared him so bad he pissed himself.” As Knife began to laugh, Hammer continued. “Unfortunately he was still in the truck at the time. I cleaned it up, but the whole fucking thing smells like an outhouse.”
“Did you kill him for that?” Knife wheezed, holding onto his sides. The SUV belonged to the club, so it affected them all, but Knife couldn’t stop laughing.
Hammer was fussy about brothers keeping their rides, the Tahoe, and the clubhouse clean, so Greg was lucky if Hammer hadn’t made him clean it up with his tongue.
“No, but I told him if he shit in it, I would cut his nuts off with a spoon,” Hammer said as he bit into the burger, making Knife laugh that much harder.
Chapter Nine
The shooter lay perfectly still under his car, peering through the scope as Corporal Grimes and his friends milled about in the picnic shelter. With the faintest of movements, the shooter adjusted his aim, watching a target a moment before moving on to the next. He would get only one shot. The range was at the extreme limit for the Browning, around 1,200 yards, but he was good.
No, he was very good.
He’d been waiting for a chance to make his statement, and this setup was flawless—a target rich environment with a broad, flat, clear firing lane. He’d been following the Souls for weeks, learning their patterns and movements. This was outside their regular routine, but that’s what made it so perfect. They were down there, almost three-quarters of a mile away, totally unaware that death was waiting to choose one of them.
His car was parked in the back corner of the recreation center parking lot; a parking lot that overlooked the entirety of Gravely Park. There were enough cars to provide plenty of cover so that his Honda Accord didn’t stand out, but not so many that he was likely to be discovered. Lying under his ghillie net, he was just another part of the shadows. He’d picked this spot because there was a gentle depression in the pavement that channeled water into a storm drain that gave him just enough room to squeeze under the car.
He kept his eye on the scope, adjusting his aim again, the sight picture sliding over to rest on a brunette with big breasts talking in a group of other women. His cock throbbed with excitement, imagining her chest exploding in a geyser of blood as the 150-grain full metal jacket bullet ripped her apart. At this range, the high-powered rifle round would lose much of its knock-down power and would impact with no more energy than a handgun round. But a handgun could be just as deadly with proper shot placement.
The crosshairs moved again, coming to a stop on Corporal Grimes. The shooter watched as Grimes ate a burger, telling some story that made everyone laugh. His finger tightened on the trigger. Two pounds. Only two pounds of pull to end his life. The crosshairs slid again, coming to rest on the chest of a man standing beside Grimes holding his own burger.
The shooter exhaled slowly and held his breath as he became still as death.
###
The first sound Hammer heard was the heavy thud as the bullet impacted Stilt’s chest before erupting out of his back in a spray of blood, bone, and meat, followed by the hissing snap of a supersonic bullet.
He’d served only one tour in Iraq, but in combat you learned quick or you died.
“Down!” he shouted, grabbing the nearest two people, one in each hand, and hauling them down as his instincts took over and he threw himself onto the concrete. They were taking sniper fire and any target the shooter could see he could kill.
“Get down!” he roared again as several women stood in stunned amazement. They weren’t moving fast enough.
He leaped to his feet and scrambled to the nearest woman, staying behind the tables until he reached her and dragged her down.
“Stay down. We’re taking fire!” he snarled before he popped his head up for a quick look around. Everyone was down now, he ducked his head again before he lost it.
Hammer scrambled to Knife as he crouched beside Stilts. “What the fuck?” Knife snarled as Hammer arrived.
“Hold on, brother,” Duck murmured as he tried to stop the bleeding, pressing his hand against Stilts’ chest.
“We’ve got a man shot!” Mike shouted into his phone. “Gravely Park at…” He paused. “What the fuck is the number of this place?” he cried as he looked for some identifying marker.
The men glanced around as they frantically looked for some identifying number.
“Three,” Goose called out.
“At picnic shelter three!” Mike paused again as he listened. “No! No one, but I know a fucking gunshot when I see and hear one!”
Hammer tried to help Duck. “Hang on brother,” Hammer said, ripping off his Souls jacket and pressing it against the wound to try to slow the bleeding. It was hopeless, a puddle of blood was already leaking out from under Stilts, but he had to try. “Stay with me, okay?”
Stilts looked at him and nodded, but said nothing. He was beginning to gurgle as his lungs filled with blood.
“Tell them to haul ass!” Hammer roared at Mike, then looked back at Stilts. “You’re going to be okay, you hear me? You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me, Stilts. Medical is on the way, so you stay with me!”
Stilts nodded again. “Hurts,” he murmured.
“That’s good. It’s good it hurts,” Hammer said, softer. “That tells you you’re still alive.”
Stilts began to nod again, but then a look of peace came over his eyes, and he stilled.
“Stilts! Stilts, goddamn you. Fight! You fight, you bastard!” Hammer tried to call his friend back from the edge. He released his two-handed press of his coat and searched for a pulse. He found it, but it was far too fast and shallow as Stilts’ heart pumped his life out onto the ground.
“Hang on buddy,” Hammer said, his voice thick as he pressed harder on his brother’s chest. “Just hang on a few more minutes. You can do that. You can hang on just a couple more minutes. Come on buddy. Hang in there. You can do it.”
The rest of the Souls had crawled over, staying low behind the tables, gathered around Stilts from all sides. Duck’s old lady was holding Stilts’ hand as tears streamed down her face, trying to give him comfort in his final moments.
Hammer was the only active member to have served in the armed forces, and they
could hear the pain in his voice as he talked to Stilts, encouraging him to hang on for a while longer. No one knew what had happened to Hammer, he wouldn’t talk about it, but they knew he’d seen more than his share of death.
Hammer checked for a pulse again, desperate for the faintest sign. His hands were red with Stilts’ blood. He rocked back and sat on his heels, his head hanging low in defeat as some of the women sniffled.
“He’s gone,” he said, but it was barely a whisper.
###
The shooter watched through the scope as the men and women disappeared behind the tables. He could see slivers of movement as they scrambled, but nothing he could paint a target on. He saw Grimes’ head pop up, but before he could acquire the mark, it disappeared again. They were down and wouldn’t be coming back up. They knew what had happened.
SECRET BABY AT THE ALTAR Page 57
