by Domino Finn
Chapter 37
Diego de la Torre zipped up his leather jacket and pulled his riding gloves taut over his hands. The heat was becoming oppressive again. It had made the bikers lethargic. Relaxed. But something about being decked out in riding gear had reversed the effect. The extra layers and metal armor didn't slow him down; Diego was amped to move.
"Heads up," said Gaston, nodding towards the police station.
Diego's cone of vision through the full helmet was narrow. He liked to think it made him more focused. Sergeant Hitchens stepped into the sunlight with Kelan, Kayda, and the other man the Pistolas had called a fed. He wore the light blue collared shirt and tie that he had on before, but now had added a blue jacket with a logo for the—"
"FBI," scowled West. The other bikers paused as they straddled their bikes.
Diego allowed himself to be distracted by the new development, too. He wondered what the FBI was doing in town. He couldn't imagine any scenario that was good.
"Police escort," said West.
Gaston snickered. "We still ride that punk out. Warn him not to come back."
Diego shrugged and started his bike before the others. The engine hummed beneath him. "I got better things to do."
Gaston was annoyed with him. "Like what?"
"He's going after the Pistolas," said Curtis.
The president shook his head. "Hell no. The Yavapai are in-house. We need to deal with that threat first. Then we can look outside the state."
Diego was ready to shoot out of there but paused to state his case. "Not sure if you noticed, but the Pistolas are in Arizona too."
"Are you forgetting that Clint is in intensive care right now?"
"Are you forgetting that Omar is stashed in a freezer? We can't let these assholes come right to our clubhouse and kill one of our own."
Gaston growled as he watched Kelan escorted to a white sport utility vehicle. The Yavapai man had a thin smile as he flaunted his bodyguards.
"What was Sergio talking about?" asked Diego.
"What?"
"The leverage he wanted."
Gaston shook his head. "Don't worry about it."
Diego sneered. "Worry about club business, just don't worry about club business, right?"
Gaston shook his head instead of answering.
"What if it got Omar killed?"
The president winced as he considered it for the first time. "You still think those stupid bastards knew how to take him out?"
"No way," asserted West.
The Sons watched as the SUV loaded up. Hitchens broke off to his own squad car, shooting the MC a look of warning. "That bastard in that truck set all of this up. Kelan always thought he was smarter than everybody else. We need to stay on him. And we can't afford to split up." Gaston took on a more aggressive tone. "We won't. We move as a pack and deal with the threats one at a time."
Diego gritted his teeth and revved his engine. "I told you why I was staying, Gaston, and it's not for club business. Fuck the drug pipeline. I'm doing what needs to be done for Omar."
West Wind perked up at Diego's mention of staying. Diego hadn't told anybody about his choice yet. Maybe they knew now. It didn't matter. He couldn't concern himself with the politics of brotherhood anymore.
Gaston opened his mouth to respond, but Diego slapped the shaded visor over his face. With a twist of his hand, his Scrambler launched into the street. Diego picked his boot up off the asphalt and leaned forward, not even giving the Seventh Sons a glance back.
The biker didn't know exactly what had happened to Omar yet, but he knew the Pistolas were involved. That snide comment Sergio had made about there being one less Mexican in the club was all he needed to hear. That asshole was guilty. It didn't matter if he was surrounded by nine of his best men—Diego had been trained to hunt individuals within a pack.
Diego de la Torre raced towards the highway, settling in for the long trip to California.
Chapter 38
Maxim watched the bikers through the office window. The Seventh Sons were ready to roll out but Gaston held them up to make a call. The detective sighed and slipped his cell phone into his hand. There was a better than good chance that Maxim was the recipient of that call. On cue, his phone buzzed. Maxim answered and walked away from the glass.
"Where's Kelan being transferred?" demanded Gaston.
"He's not a prisoner. He's free to go."
"Go where?"
"He's on his way back to the reservation. That's where he'll stay if he's smart."
Gaston grumbled at the news. "You got that right. Why don't you call your men off?"
Maxim almost laughed out loud. "Because they're not my men, first of all. These are the marshal's orders. And besides, I'd give the same command."
The voice on the line did not sound pleased. "You forget about our unspoken deal?"
"It's unspoken because it never happened, Gaston."
"Keep telling yourself that. We both know who you are."
Maxim spun around in anger. "Who I am? What's that supposed to mean? Who am I, Gaston?"
The president was taken aback by the detective's anger and didn't respond.
Maxim wiped his brow and slumped into his desk chair. He scanned the empty office to make sure he could talk in private and sighed. "Listen, the only privilege I confer on the Sons is my legal responsibility to deflect any attention to lycanthropy."
"That's the CDC's job."
"And the CDC isn't in Flagstaff anymore." Maxim thought about Nithya Rao, the former CDC liaison with the marshal's office. She was the one who first told Maxim about the werewolves. She'd been in charge of Sycamore. She'd also been a primary player in the Paradise Killings.
With Nithya's disappearance and the lack of a replacement thus far, Maxim now carried the torch. "This is what Sanctuary is for you, Gaston. A place to hide, a place to blend in. It's not my fault if you choose to jump out of the shadows."
The president scoffed. "In case you didn't notice, Kelan came after us. I've got one man dead and another close call."
"And I'm working on it," insisted the detective. "But harassing a police escort is gonna give you a whole lot more trouble than you want."
Gaston shouted obscenities. The detective heard the Harleys revving in the background. Maxim knew that no matter what he said, the Seventh Sons would follow Kelan. Making sure they didn't cross the line was his main concern.
"Leave them alone Gaston. It's not just Hitchens in there."
There was a moment of silence while Gaston debated. "What's the FBI involved for?"
"I don't know. Hate crime bullshit. But I think he wants to take you down."
"For what?"
"For breaking the law, asshole. Trust me. You don't want to be anywhere near that kind of heat."
"He doesn't have anything on us."
"Then keep it that way." Maxim ended the call without waiting for an answer.
The bikers were hardheaded. When it came down to taking advice from a cop or doing something stupid, stupid always won. Sure enough, he heard the engines of the motorcycles speed away like dogs on the chase.
The detective's frustration nearly boiled over then and there. He had multiple homicides with multiple suspects, a renegade group of bikers who had their own idea of justice, and an FBI agent with a stick up his ass. In three days his town had been flipped on its head.
And Gaston Delacroix had the gall to say he knew who Maxim was.
As the rumble of Harleys faded out, Maxim took several deep breaths. Honestly, he didn't care to babysit the bikers anymore. Even Diego, who he considered a good friend, was an outlaw now. Maxim wasn't responsible for them. He was only responsible for the law. He would only try to save the men as far as they deserved.
Suddenly, he found the marshal's office eerily quiet. Gutierrez was out on patrol. Hitchens was following Garcia to the reservation. Maxim didn't know where the marshal was but his office door was shut. Main Street was empty. The detective was alone with his thoughts and he wasn
't sure if he liked it. The peace that he so desperately wanted felt out of place.
"Time to think," said Maxim aloud to the spacious room.
Then it hit him. Garcia was shoving him to the side. He didn't want him on the reservation. He didn't want him anywhere near the case. But the FBI agent had just tied himself up for the day. While Garcia busied himself coordinating with the tribal police, Maxim had time alone to investigate.
Imagine that. Time to actually do his job.
He started with the freshest questions in his head. Maxim woke his computer and pulled up the National Crime Information Center. The NCIC database was managed by the FBI. That thought made Maxim smirk. It had an entire file of gang listings. It would be a lot more useful than Raymond Garcia.
Hector Cruz was the man Gaston had mixed it up with. His rap sheet was impressive, both in length and breadth. In his forty-six years, Cruz had managed to serve twenty-one of them in various institutions. Juvie and small-time jail stints early on, but his crimes became more serious. His importance obviously rose as well because he stopped doing small-time jobs. Bigger and better things led to bigger and better busts, and even the best lawyers couldn't keep him out of prison.
Garcia had called him the Mechanic. As far as Maxim could tell, it was because he liked to get his hands dirty. He had run with a street gang in Mexico while a US fugitive. Eventually, he landed with the Pistolas. No matter where he was, though, he was always involved in the bad stuff. Drug trafficking, aggravated battery, armed robbery, sexual assault. He was a suspect in two murders: one was pled down to manslaughter, the other case didn't have enough evidence to get through the District Attorney's office. Ironically, his longest stretch in prison was spent for the drug charges because of mandatory minimum sentencing. Luckily for him, California prisons were overcrowded. Drug offenders were regularly released early. Since Cruz's most recent violence occurred in Mexico, he'd been set free after serving six years in Lompoc.
Sergio Lima was the next name Maxim ran. As opposed to Cruz, there wasn't a whole lot on the kid. He was only nineteen years old and wasn't on anyone's radar until he was voted in as club president. Known associations with the Pistolas and various Mexicali factions. Nothing big. No Mexican Mafia. No known family ties that would have explained that. It just happened. That was a red flag for the detective. Something wasn't right with Lima. The most likely explanation was that he was a lot more connected than he appeared.
Maxim looked up the number for the New Mexico State Police and gave them a call. He recited his name and badge number and asked to speak to the patrol sergeant. He waited a minute before being connected.
"Cortez."
"Hi, this is Detective Maxim Dwyer of the Sanctuary Marshal's Office."
"That's what I was told. How can I help you?"
"I'm calling regarding the bust your department made two nights ago. Do you recall your guys detaining an Arizona motorcycle club, the Seventh Sons?"
Cortez sighed and seemed slightly put off, but Maxim couldn't be sure over the phone. "I led the takedown. The suspects were observed in the proximity of a drug shipment, but we didn't find any contraband on them. They were questioned and released."
"Overnight?" asked Maxim.
"Yes, well, it was a little busy that night. They all had personal firearms and we wanted to run everything before we cut them loose. What's this about?"
"I was mainly interested in why the motorcycle club was detained in the first place."
"I told you. They were in close proximity—"
"I know that, Cortez. I'm asking how was two nights ago any different from any other visit the Sons make to your state?"
More silence. Then, "Look, don't give me a hard time on this. You know how these guys are."
Maxim wasn't sure what the patrol sergeant meant. He thought he was talking about the Sons. Did Cortez have some sort of relationship with them? Maxim decided to go with a generic answer that wouldn't give his ignorance away. "They're always pissing somebody off."
"You're telling me," answered Cortez. "Look, this kind of thing normally wouldn't have happened. It came through from above. I don't know how things work in Sanctuary, but we've got so much brass up here we could start our own horn section. It's like the tubas have no idea what the trombones are doing."
The man had abandoned caution and launched into a series of complaints. It sounded like the Seventh Sons were regular visitors to New Mexico and the state police usually let them slide. "So someone up top—"
"It was a new mandate. I just do what I'm told. Tell Gaston his problem's not with us."
Maxim almost snapped at him. From what he could tell, the sergeant thought Maxim was on the take, bought out by the club as Cortez himself probably had been. Was Sanctuary's reputation that bad? No wonder Garcia had an axe to grind.
Instead of outing the patrol sergeant, Maxim decided it was best to keep the information in his back pocket. He thanked the officer after another minute of friendly commiseration and hung up.
So Diego was right. The Seventh Sons hadn't been arrested randomly. It wasn't a tip that had come in. Somebody with connections had convinced the department to switch allegiances, at least for that one delivery. If Sergio was connected to the Mexican Mafia, and that's who the Sons were undoubtedly working with, then that shined a new light on the events of the last three days.
Maxim leaned back in his chair and ran the facts through his head. This was a lot bigger than Sanctuary and even Arizona. The potential players on this board were from California and New Mexico, Texas and old Mexico. Shit, it was even federal.
That last thought reminded Maxim of the familiarity the Pistolas had with Agent Garcia. With everything that was going on, Maxim had forgotten to ask him about their association. The Mechanic, Hector Cruz, had personally known him. Sergio Lima knew of him, but they hadn't met yet. That meant that Agent Garcia's history with them went back a ways.
Maxim figured, if he was going to do some digging, he had to explore all avenues equally.
He scrolled through his phone and found the next number. It was his sole connection in the Bureau, and calling Lawrence Hendricks a connection was a very tenuous stretch. He was an intelligence analyst—but most of the time that was a fancy way of saying copy clerk. The man was only twenty-seven, just three years out of grad school, and was already jaded with his career. Maxim always thought his combination of debt and lack of job satisfaction might come in handy one day.
Unfortunately, the number was disconnected.
Maxim sighed and went back to his computer. He would do this the old-fashioned way. He picked up his desk phone and dialed the number to the Flagstaff resident agency. A woman answered and the detective identified himself and asked to speak to Lawrence Hendricks.
"I'm sorry, he's back at headquarters."
"DC?"
"No, Phoenix."
Of course, he thought. Hendricks was assigned to the Phoenix Division. They had satellite offices throughout the state, and he only moved to Flagstaff while he was studying a rabies outbreak. Now that there was nothing there—no terrorism involved—he'd resumed his usual coffee-fetching duties further south.
"I see," said Maxim, partially dejected. He decided to attempt his line of questioning anyway. "Raymond Garcia is working out of your office now, isn't he?"
"That's right, Detective."
"Well, he's currently conducting interviews at the Yavapai-Prescott reservation and I didn't want to bother him, but something's come up in relation to his possible undercover work."
"Yes?"
"Would you mind confirming for me if he's worked with the Pistolas before? They're a Mexi gang out of Southern California that has been encroaching into Coconino and Yavapai counties."
Dead silence for a time. "Detective," she finally said, "I'd be happy to instruct you on the proper procedures for information requests, but it might just be easier for you to ask Agent Garcia directly." The suggestion was made snidely so as not to disguise the sa
rcasm.
"No, no. That's okay. I'll just wait and ask him, I suppose."
Maxim hung up the phone and shook his head. Pressing them for any kind of information was dumb. He didn't get anything, and there was a good chance they'd give Garcia a heads-up.
Next Maxim dialed the Phoenix headquarters and asked to be directed. After a couple of strikeouts he was surprised when the man answered so quickly.
"Lawrence Hendricks."
"What's up Law?"
"Um, who's this?"
"Detective Dwyer, over in Sanctuary."
"Oh, Maxim. You didn't find another lake full of rabies, did you?"
"Tanks are more like watering holes than lakes. But no, it's nothing like that. I was just on with the Flagstaff office about an Agent Raymond Garcia. You know him?"
"Not really. I haven't been in Flagstaff for months. What's he do?"
Maxim was immediately deflated. "He's out of Civil Rights."
"That skinned body at the high school?"
"That's the one. Things are pretty crazy up here. Anyway, Agent Garcia is tied up at the reservation and something came up. He told me he'd done some undercover work before and I was wondering which gangs, you know? Do you have a moment?"
"You mean in between computer solitaire and manning telephone calls for these pompous assholes? Sure. Let me look it up."
Maxim waited silently. He figured any small talk would just distract Hendricks from the request. If the man was already helping him out, there was no need to butter the bread any further.
Asking the analyst for a favor was weird. They had met after a rabies outbreak the prior year. Hendricks mostly focused on bio-terrorism. As such, his personal expertise was not especially useful to Maxim. Still, he had clearance that the detective didn't.
"Okay, yeah," he said, coming back to the line. "It looks like it's been a while since he's done undercover work. He did a lot of vice stuff, you know—posing as a fence, money deals. Anything particular you're looking for?"
"Has he been undercover with a biker club in California? They go by the Pistolas."
