Her mind raced in fits and starts. It surprised her that after such a horrifying experience that she would still be attracted to such types. Yet here she sat, on a bus headed into uncertainty with a man that she didn’t even know. He was almost too good to be true. There was something about him; the way he carried himself, the way he spoke. Mav knew this was more than a tough guy. He’d walked into Chopper Town alone that night and had taken on seven of the roughest bikers around, and won. There was something more than tough about him. It was like he was made of steel.
As the bus rocked gently back and forth down a rural highway road, Mav tried to not let her mind wander too far. But that old tingle between her legs was something not to be controlled. She thought about what it would be like to stand with him, then slowly remove one piece of his clothing after the next. First, she’d start with the shirt. With him standing still, she’d run her hands slowly across his thick, v-shaped torso, drinking it all in. Then she’d drift around behind him and tug his shirt free from the thin waistline. He’d raise his arms and she’d slowly lift the shirt clear of his head, revealing striated muscles across his v-shaped back and lats. The shirt would drop to the floor; that sight alone was enough to make Mav squeeze her thighs together. She’d walk her hands around his torso and smooth, rippling chest. When she was again face to face, she’d lean in and kiss his neck, working her way down across his chest. His skin was delicious and Mav felt her own desire increase. He would look down at his own pelvis, still covered in tight jeans, signaling Mav to move down his torso. Mav wanted what was in those jeans and put her hands upon the hardening shape forming there. She unbuckled the thick leather belt, undid the metal button, and unzipped the fly...
“Damon, Texas,” came the driver’s voice over the speaker system. It startled Mav out of her fog. “Damon, Texas. Twenty minute stop. You are free to disembark.”
Mav recovered from the delectable daydream and realized that her face was flushed and heat was wafting out of her blouse. As the bus stopped, she rose and headed toward the Waffle House, but just before she got there, a man on a motorcycle pulled into her path. He was wearing a full helmet with a dark black cover over it, completely obscuring his face, a white sleeveless undershirt, and oh so many muscles. His bare arms were beautifully shaped; cut and lean. Several tattoos wove the wide spans of his lean, upper arms on either side, and long, wavy black hair jutted out from underneath his helmet. Mav knew it was him.
She boarded without hesitation, slipped her petite arms around his trim waist, and held on as the acceleration of the bike intensified. She pulled in tight against his v-shaped form and closed her eyes, allowing the daydream to continue. The vibration of the bike crept in between her legs and she drank in the smell of his hair.
A few minutes out of town and the bike pulled off onto a dirt path and accelerated about half a mile down the road and stopped at a small house where an RV was parked around back. The bike pulled behind the RV and the driver expertly parked the bike on the trailer mounted to the back of the RV. When the engine stopped, Mav wasn’t sure if she should be scared or excited.
“You’re safe,” he said through the face mask. “I’m so glad you came along.” They both disembarked from the bike and he pulled off his helmet. There Mav stood, face to face with the one man that was responsible for saving her life. He was even better looking than she had envisioned. The eyes were such a deep cobalt blue that she became lost in them. The jawline, strong and sharp, and the hair was dark and thick. She wanted to run her fingers through it but was not about to.
“Tell me your name,” Mav said in a meek voice as she let her eyes wander down his chest.
“Brock. Brock Paladin.”
“I don’t know how to thank you for saving my life that night. It was so horrible. I knew I was dead for sure. But then it all stopped, and when I looked back, you were stopping them, stopping them from hurting me any more.”
“I can’t abide by men like that, harming women. Come on, let’s get inside the RV, we don’t want to stay out in the open too long.”
As they hustled inside, Mav questioned, “Why do you think I’m in danger again?” She couldn’t help but watch his back side as he boarded the RV.
“This is my partner,” said Brock.
“I’m Will.”
Mav was a bit startled to see another man in the RV, but immediately recognized him from his visit to her desk at the bank. She decided that if Brock trusted him, she should too. And even if she didn’t, it was too late now. She was committed.
To her, Will looked like a much older version of Brock. The hair was long and gray. He too could easily fit in at a biker bar. His skin looked like toughened leather that had been drug over concrete, but even so, he was not a bad looking man.
As Will started the engine, Mav sat on a bench seat with cracks in the upholstery. “Where are we going?”
Will replied, “Headed up into the foothills, up the way a bit.”
“But why? What are we going to do there?”
“Like my compadre said, little lady. You are in danger. So, first thing’s first. We’re getting you the hell out of town, and when we get where we’re going, we’re going to teach you how to defend yourself.”
“Really?” Mav looked at the two but had a hard time peeling her eyes away from staring at Brock. “Do you really think I’m in danger? Lets start at the beginning. Why is it you think I’m in danger?”
“Not me, little lady,” said Will. “Him. He’s the one that’s dragged me into this little escapade.”
Will spoke again, this time with a certain resignation in his tone. “I’ve been following some of the Lincoln Killers gang, tailing them. On several occasions in the last week, they’ve been following you.”
“Following me?” Mav’s voice decried fear. “My God, after they raped and nearly killed me? What the hell else do they want? To finish the job? What did I ever do to them?”
“Nothing. You did nothing to them. You did nothing to deserve what happened to you. But now, with four of their members dead and three more that will have permanent limps, they are probably after two things.”
Mav clutched her purse, it was like a security blanket.
Brock continued, “They are likely seeking revenge for the deaths of their brothers. In some pathetically sick way, they are of the mindset that they should be able to rape and murder a woman, and if anything happens to them in the process, they consider it an offense.”
Mav’s jaw dropped.
“I know, I know. Will and I have been in a lot of real shitholes in the world. We’ve been in bad places with bad people. And, we’ve seen this mentality before. Pure barbarians.”
The hatred Mav felt soaked into her skin. “Those bastards.” She began to cry, but quickly choked back the sadness.
Brock stood, then knelt down beside her, placing one hand on her knee. “Let it turn,” he said. There was vinegar in his voice. “Let it turn. Let the sadness and fear turn into anger.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of that inside me already.”
“Good, because you’re going to need it. Anger can get you through. Anger can clarify the mission, and anger can keep you warm at night.”
Mav cleared her throat but let a single tear make it’s way down her smooth cheek. “You said they wanted two things. What’s the second?”
“Most likely, it’s as simple as them wanting you out of the way ahead of the felony trial that is to take place in a couple of months. The three still in custody are on trial for rape and attempted murder. If the Lincoln Killers take you out of the picture, the star witness is gone.”
“But they’ve got all the video surveillance tape. Even if I was dead, or couldn’t testify, they’d still get convicted.”
“Probably, sure,” said Will. “But keep in mind we’re not talking about normal-thinking adults here. We’re talking about animals, and animals understand only one thing, violence.”
“Yeah? Well I’d like to make them understand viol
ence, alright.”
Will looked over his shoulder from his seat behind the wheel. “Now that’s more like it. Kick ass. Hand them all up to the almighty. Let him sort it out. That’s what I always say.”
The three laughed, including Mav who wiped the one tear away.
“I don’t know how to thank you for what you are doing.”
Brock held up both hands towards her, “There’s no need to thank us. It’s something that just has to be done. Someone needed to step in that night, and someone needed to step in now. It just happens to be me, that’s all.”
Will piped up, “Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?”
“Oh, sorry. Us, it had to be us. Almost forgot about grandpa over there.”
Mav giggled at the banter of the two friends.
“You guys have known each other a long time, I can see.”
“I’ll let the gray-haired historian over there talk about that.”
Will said, “How much do you want her to know?”
“Tell her everything. She might as well know everything. She has to know who we are, otherwise, she’ll never trust us.” Brock looked down at his black leather boots, studying the laces. “Mavery, I’m going to warn you. You might not like what you hear. I’ve done some pretty awful shit in my life.” Then he looked her straight in the eye. “But I swear to you, I’ve never hurt a woman, and I never will.”
“I believe you,” whispered Mav. “But, it’s Mav. You can call me Mav.”
Brock grinned. “Okay, Mavery.”
When Will started to speak, Mav wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Perhaps they had been outlaws or something, but it could be worse. Never in her wildest imagination did she anticipate the words as they rolled out, and she took them all in.
“Miss Healy,” started Will.
“Mav, it’s okay, really, you can call me Mav.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mav wasn’t used to being treated with such respect.
“The first thing you should know about us is that Brock and I have worked together for years.” Will cleared his throat and prepared himself. “You should know right off the bat, it’s like he said, we’ve done some pretty awful shit together. We used to work for the government. They got to both of us when we were young and stupid. Being much older than Brock, I was there first, of course. And when he arrived at the Farm, he was greener than a blade of grass on a spring day. I was Brock’s mentor.”
“Mentor for what? What farm?”
“The CIA, Miss Healy. We were CIA. The Farm is what they call CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.”
“Okay.” Mav wasn’t sure where to go with the statement. “What did you do for the CIA?”
“Black ops.” Will didn’t avert his eyes from the winding dirt road as the RV pummeled forward. “We were covert operatives. We’d be called in for, for special situations.”
“What kind of special situations?”
“The kind where the United States government perceives a threat.”
“And what did you do when you got there?”
“We were assassins, Miss Healy. We killed people for a living. We killed people for God and country.”
The silence was thick.
“But it gets worse,” continued Will. “We became disillusioned with the CIA after a while. We didn’t believe in what we were doing anymore. So, we left. We went out on our own. We became contractors, hired to do the same type of jobs. We were hired by many foreign governments to do their dirty work. We no longer even had the justification of the U.S. government behind our missions. We killed people for money, Miss Healy.”
Mav was speechless, but finally got her voice to return.
“And do you still kill people for money?”
“No ma’am. We got out of the business a long time ago, and haven’t looked back.”
“And what do you do for a living now?”
“Ma’am, we made so much money killing folks, we don’t do any work any more. Business was good, and we’ll never have to work ever again.”
Not a word was uttered for over five minutes as Mav thought about all she had heard. The RV pushed up a trail of dust behind it and continued rattling across the dirt road as it started into the hill country.
Mav rose from the bench seat and put one hand on Brock’s shoulder and one on Will’s. The men looked at her. “Teach me.”
“Ma’am?”
“Teach me. Teach me what you know. Teach me how to defend myself. But, I want more than that. I want you to teach me how to kill people.”
“Mavery,” said Brock, “teaching you how to defend yourself is part of our plan, but teaching you how to kill people? I mean, you don’t know what you’re asking. Killing is...killing another human being can rip your soul. You don’t want...”
“Stop right there,” she said as she dug her nails into his broad shoulder. “My soul was ripped to pieces in that god damn bar. Now, it’s my turn. Killing them will stitch my soul back together for me.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Background on the Gang
It was nightfall as they pulled up to a dusky old cabin, high in the foothills, and pulled the RV around back. The last glow of the setting sun was off in the western horizon. “This is where Brock and I come to get away from it all. Completely isolated. Completely off the grid. No internet, no electric connection or other utilities. No one even knows the building is up here, including the IRS.”
“Yeah,” laughed Brock. “No taxes. It’s a beautiful thing.” It was the first time Mav had seen him smile.
Once inside, Will lit a lantern and the wavy glow cast an orange-yellow hue across the interior of the rustic cabin. Mav could see the spartan dwelling was hand-built right down to the rough cut wood floors.
“Did you guys build this yourselves? My dad used to build. He would take me out to the job site when I was little. These walls are hand-lathed plaster, aren’t they?” The men didn’t answer.
After Will placed a heavy cardboard box on the table and lit another lantern, Brock said, “Are those the dossiers?” The table was the only one in the cabin. It was a heavy, circular table, hand hewn from oak with table legs made from thick, straight branches.
“Yeah,” said Will, “they are. I’ve been pouring over them.”
“What dossiers?” interrupted Mav.
“These are the files on each member of the Lincoln Killers gang.” Will turned to look at Brock. “Those that are still alive, that is. All of these guys have rap sheets as long as my Johnson. Oh, sorry ma’am.”
“You don’t have to call me ma’am.”
Brock stepped up, “But it’s this file that bothers me.”
“What is it,” said Mav, stealing a glance into Brock’s eyes.
Brock exhaled, then glanced at Will.
“Tell her,” said Will.
“Mavery, this intel is the kind of data we’d gather before Will and I would go on an op together. We’d make damn sure we knew what we were getting into first. This is intel on the overall Lincoln Killers gang, not just individual members.”
“Compadre, Jesus man. Spit it out. She’s been through hell, and survived it. She’s tougher than you think.”
“This gang isn’t just some group of street thugs. They’re part of a national organization. What you ran into that night was just the locals. The greater organization stretches into most everywhere in the country.”
“Okay? But how does that matter. It’s these locals that raped me.”
Brock put both hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. For a moment, she thought she might melt. “Mavery, what we’re saying is that even if we got rid of all the locals, that wouldn’t be enough. These guys swear a blood oath. In fact, they have to kill a rival gang member or cop just as part of their initiation. That’s why the cops or Feds can never get any undercovers inside their organization. It means this is never going to be over for you. They’ll hunt you down. They’ll spend all the time they need to hunt you down.”
>
Mav went weak in the knees and Brock helped her onto the old leather couch. “I know, it’s a lot to take in,” he said. Mav was so entranced with Brock’s steely looks that she almost allowed herself to be distracted from the threat of death.
“My whole life,” she said. “My whole life changed that night. Those god damn bastards.” Mav shuddered. “And it’s never going to go back to the way it was, is it? I’m going to have to run, forever.”
“I’d lay down my life to keep you safe.” Brock meant what he said. “I knew that night I could be killed.”
“Then why did you do it? Why did you risk everything to save me? You didn’t even know me.”
“Maybe some other time,” was Brock’s only answer. He was obviously uncomfortable revealing too much about his innermost thoughts. He was an onion that Mav would have to peel one layer at a time. “But, even if I’m not around some day, we’re going to train you how to take care of yourself.”
“Look at me. No, the two of you just take a good look.” Mav stood up and took direct notice of how Brock’s eyes ran down her sleek form. “I weigh 118 pounds wet. I don’t know anything about self defense, and you’re going to train me?”
“When we’re done with you, these shoulders and arms are going to be lean muscle. You’re going to know how to shoot multiple weapons. You’ll know how to break them down and repair them if necessary. You’ll know how to set explosives, set up perimeter defense systems to alert you to any incoming threats. You’ll know how to handle a knife, to survive in the wilderness for days, how to live off the grid.”
“You’re going to teach me to kill people, aren’t you.”
“Not people,” Brock continued, “but thugs. Raping murdering animals. The first lesson starts right now, and that is that you have to learn to think of them as animals. They’re not human and don’t deserve your pity.”
Mav thought back to her one unknown, personal variable—she still had no idea how far she would go if driven hard enough. Can I kill someone? The thought would not leave her brain. And then other thoughts coursed their way across her frontal cortex. What about my old life? What about my apartment? What about my friends? And then she remembered Kiki, her coworker, her best friend.
The Sins of Lincoln Page 5
