by Melinda Minx
“Don’t blow the bombs until I say!” I shout. “If you detonate the meth, this is all for nothing.”
I shake my head. That’s one thing I can count on the meth heads not to do: blow up the drugs.
Lenk’s voice crackles back on into my ear. The literal devil in my ear, and I’m having to take his advice. “A few minutes left. One old bus and two SUVs. I’m guessing the numbers are about even, couldn’t be more than twenty of them. The product is in the bus, so don’t hit it!”
“Got it,” I whisper.
I shout out to the whole squad. “Everyone take aim. I’ll blow the first bike bomb to catch them out, hit the rest when you have a good opening, but do not risk hitting the bus!”
I take steady aim onto the big white sheet of flash paper hanging out of the bike’s gas tank. Even if I miss the paper itself, the spark from the bullet will set it off. My aim is steady as a rock, though, and I won’t miss. I should be scared of what is about to happen: fifteen outlaws in a gunfight against at least a dozen cartel. I’m not afraid, though. I don’t fear death. My fear is saved for my family, and I have to win this fight if I’m going to save them.
The first SUV crests the hill. Although everyone is hidden in shrubs, I see them stir uneasily as the vehicle appears. I remain perfectly still, my sight locked on the bike bomb nearest the road. The smartest thing to do is hit the bomb right in the middle, which I’m guessing will be the bus. Since the bus is loaded with meth, however, I’ll have to hit the first SUV.
The bus climbs over the hill. It’s an old rusted yellow school bus, but the windows are tinted and up. As far as I’m concerned, there are twenty guys with machine guns packed in there--but the meth has to take up a good amount of space, so there might be fewer than that. Probably five or so guys in each SUV. The bosses.
The final SUV shows itself over the hill, and I tighten my grip and aim over the rifle’s sights.
Just before the first SUV reaches the bike bomb, I squeeze the trigger.
The gun kicks, but I see the flash paper ignite. A moment later--just as the SUV is directly next to the bike bomb--the kerosene explodes.
The explosion knocks the SUV onto its side, and then upside down. There’s a brief moment in which the sound of the SUV scraping across the asphalt is the only sound audible for miles.
I break the silence, shouting, “Meth is in the bus! Don’t hit it!”
And then gunfire erupts. First from the shrubs on either side of the road--from my crew--but soon I see muzzle flashes from the bus windows.
The first SUV is upside down and on fire, but I see a man crawling out of the door along the road. I shoot him, and he stops.
“Shit!” Aldus shouts. “They’re hunkering down in the bus!”
I see the second SUV punched full of bullet holes, and bodies and blood all over the ground, but the bus is still packed full of cartel, and the drugs they know we are here for.
Our element of surprise gave us a quick kill on both SUVs, but we can’t risk shooting the bus. Nothing is stopping the guys in the bus from shooting back out at us, though.
“We can just wait ‘em out,” Aldus says. “Once they run out of ammo, we go in.”
I shake my head. “We can’t wait. Their reinforcements will be here by then.”
Not to mention the feds, who may be on us even sooner.
The first bike bomb’s debris has transformed into a thick plume of black smoke. I realize the other bike bombs are spread around the road, and I shout the next order. Only a few men will be able to hear it, but it will work its way down the ranks.
“Blow all the bike bombs!”
I take aim at the next one and fire.
It explodes, and I see Aldus fire. Another explosion.
Soon explosions are rocking across the desert, and the bus becomes nearly invisible as thick smoke encircles the small section of road.
“Alright,” I say, partially to myself, partially to Aldus. “This next part is a bit suicidal, but stick with me, alright?”
Aldus swallows, and his Adam’s apple nearly breaks through his windpipe.
“Go!” I rush toward the bus. Everyone looks up at me like I’m an idiot--and I probably am--but this whole raid is idiotic, and I’m doing the only thing I can think of to make it work.
“Follow me!” I shout. “Under the bus!” I’m literally throwing myself and my crew under the bus.
Bullets are whizzing past me. The cartel can’t actually see through the smoke, so they’re firing blind. There’s a decent chance I could still get hit. Someone will probably get hit. I just hope it’s not me.
By the time I near the smoke, only about five guys had the balls to run with me.
We circle around the smoke, toward the road. We enter the road right at the back of the bus, and I dive underneath it. I army crawl across the hot asphalt toward the front of the bus. When I reach the front, I look back and see five bikers covered in dirt and sand and soot, crawling on the ground.
“They didn’t see us?” someone whispers.
“Shut up, dude, they’ll hear you!” someone else whispers louder.
They were watching the sides, not the back. We slipped in and under, and now when the smoke clears, they won’t know any better. We’re right under them and they have no idea.
I see one of the meth heads pull his knife out. He points up at the underside of the bus, and makes a stabbing motion.
I shake my head.
Nothing would completely give us away like a knife slowly hacking through the floor.
“Wait,” I whisper.
And so we wait. From the ground I can see the smoke still thick, but after a few minutes it starts to thin out enough for the cartel to see the rest of our guys hidden among the shrubs.
The gunfire resumes.
“There’s only six or seven guys in that bus!” Lenk’s voice cuts in. “Maybe six.”
“How the fuck do you know?” I hiss.
“I got a guy counting the muzzle flashes.”
“Alright,” I whisper. “Here’s the plan…”
I give Aldus the easiest role. Knocking on the front door.
Me and three other guys crawl toward the back of the bus. Back door team.
The remaining two are window team.
I wait, eyes on Aldus, and finally he gives me the thumbs up. I ready my gun and get ready to stand. I’m crouching down behind the bus with the other two members of the backdoor team.
Aldus slams his gun into the front side door of the bus--shattering the window--then dives back beneath the bus.
We hear the gunfire in the bus stop.
“Go!” I shout.
My team pops up, and Rolf slams the butt of his gun into the big back window, shattering it open.
We see seven cartel guys with their backs to us, all pointing their guns at the front door.
We open fire, just as the window team sticks their guns in from the side and lets loose a storm of bullets.
Cartel members drop and blood splatters everywhere. We pull out our knives and board the bus from the back.
We find nothing but corpses, until we see a guy on the ground in a pool of blood, whimpering.
Rolf grips his knife. “Want me to kill him?”
“No,” I say. “Start getting the meth the fuck out of here. Drive fast!”
There are crates beneath all of the seats, and when my crew starts pulling it out, it’s clearly packed with meth. “No fucking sampling!” I shout.
I stand above the one living cartel member. “You speak English?”
“I can’t move my arms, man! Just fucking shoot me! I’m done for!”
Bullet must have hit his spine. “If that’s what you want, you’ve got friends coming who will do that for you. It’s not my job.”
“Fuck, man, you just smoked dozens of us, what’s one more?”
“I need you to get a message to the rest of the cartel.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“My name’s L
enk,” I say. “And I just smoked dozens of your guys. My message is: Lenk did this, Lenk jacked your shit, and Lenk and the Fallen Phoenix MC controls all the meth north of the border, so fuck off back to Mexico!”
“Fuck you, man,” he says. “We ain’t afraid of you, we’ll come for you! The cartel ain’t afraid of you gringo ass pieces of shit!”
Good. Come for Lenk. That’s exactly what I was counting on.
Again I have to ride in the wrong direction. This time to Salt Lake City, even further from Jo and Logan. Fuck, it feels wrong. But Lenk was true to his word and had over twenty bikers guarding Jo and Logan at his place. I need to even up those odds.
Part of what Lenk wants me to do in Salt Lake is recruit retired Fallen Phoenix guys to help get the ball rolling.
First on the list is Mack.
“What do you want?” Mack asks, glaring at me from his door.
“Lenk sent me--”
“Lenk!” Mack says, spitting off to the side. “That’s what I think of Lenk.”
“Well,” I say, “hear me out first, alright?”
“I don’t wanna hear shit from Lenk.”
“You’d be a consultant,” I say. “Just giving me some information about how the police here operate, and--”
“I came out to Mormon country to get away from all that shit, man,” Mack says. “I fucking hate Lenk, and I don’t want nothing to do with all the meth bullshit he’s gotten the MC into. We used to be about riding free...sure we always skirted the law, but now it’s just some fucking gang. So fuck off, I’m not helping.”
He goes to shut the door, but I shove it back open and step inside.
“Man, I’m going to--”
“Wait,” I say. “Listen. How many former Fallen Phoenix you know around here that feel the same way about Lenk?”
“A few,” he says. “Why?”
“Because Lenk has my old lady and son held hostage, and I need to get them back. You down?”
19
Joanna
Two weeks. My son and I have been held hostage for two weeks. It’s been almost as long since I heard Stone’s voice.
Lenk has been in good spirits. Stone has apparently done everything that Lenk wanted him to, and it’s making Lenk rich. There’s always at least a dozen guys patrolling around outside. My only real hope is that Lenk will really let us go when he’s done getting what he wants out of Stone.
The only other bright side is that Lenk has truly kept his hands off me and Logan. He’s given us a room that we are locked away in with a TV and some toys for Logan, and he rarely even visits. He must still be afraid of what Stone would do to him if he touched us.
Logan cried a lot at first about wanting to go home, but he’s been quiet lately. Too quiet. He doesn’t even talk, just nods and shakes his head.
In the first week, I kept thinking of ways to escape, but the plans always stopped short of breaking through the locked door, which I couldn’t even manage to do.
Stone is my only real hope.
I fall asleep throughout the day. There’s not enough to do, and I never see the sun. I wake up from one of my naps hearing muffled voices through the door.
“Mom,” Logan says, pointing at the door.
“Don’t fucking leave this door!” a voice says. “Boss’s orders! You both got it?”
“Got it.”
I hear nervousness in all the voices. This might be good. Anything going wrong for Lenk and his men is good news.
And then I hear gunfire.
I put Logan on my lap and cover his ears. “Just some loud noise, baby, don’t worry.”
Fuck. There’s a gunfight outside, and two men just outside my door.
I put Logan on the bed and show him how I want him to hold his ears. “Stay like this, okay?”
I knock on the door. “What’s going on?”
“Get away from the door,” a voice barks.
“Tell me what the fuck is happening and I will.”
Silence.
I start to kick the door.
“Let’s just go, man!” one of the voices says.
“You think we can get past them?” the other asks.
“If they make it all the way to this door,” he says, “then what the fuck are the two of us going to do anyway?”
“Yea,” the other voice agrees.
“Wait!” I shout. “At least let me out!”
I hear some keys jangling. “No! If Lenk sees her moving around he’ll know we’re gone!”
“Good point.” The voice shouts loud for me to hear, “Sorry, lady! You’re probably better off in there anyway!”
And then they are gone.
Logan is staring up at me. The sound of gunfire is erupting everywhere, the door doing little to dampen it. Logan is crying.
“We’re going to play a fun game,” I say. “I’m going to play ‘Break the door down’ and then we’re going to play hide and seek together. Sound fun?”
Logan cries louder. What kid doesn’t like to watch his scared-shitless mom play “Break the door down?”
I start to kick the door as hard as I can, over and over. I’d tried picking the lock before with bobby pins, but now that I’m completely unguarded, I can go for brute force.
I look around the room and see the lamp. I lift the heavy base off the ground, and tear off the lamp shade. I unplug it and hoist the lamp like a battering ram. With a running start, I slam the blunt base into the door. I alternate kicking and ramming the door, and after several minutes I’m panting, but the wood is beginning to splinter.
The gunfire peaked a few minutes ago, and it’s dying down now.
I kick the weak spot in the door, and light from outside spills into the hole. I kick and ram the lamp into the outer edges of the hole, making the hole bigger. I could send Logan through now, but the door is locked even from the outside, and I don’t have a key.
“Jo!” A voice shouts.
I fall to my knees and look through the hole. I see Stone, and there are three old men with guns behind him, scanning left and right.
“Stone!” I shout, voice nearly hysterical. “In here!”
“Back up!” he orders.
I obey.
His boot hits the door, and the hole splinters open. He kicks it again and again, blowing the hole apart until I can fit through.
I grab Logan off the bed and help him through the opening.
“Ready to vroom vroom out of here?” Stone asks.
Logan just grabs Stone’s ankle and clings to it with both hands.
I crawl through behind him, and as soon as I’m on my feet, I fall into Stone, wrap my arms around him, and kiss him.
He kisses me fiercely and without abandon, nearly pushing me against the broken door.
“Stone, man, we gotta get going,” one of the old men says.
I dig my nails into his back, not wanting to let go, but finally he forces himself away. “Time for that, and everything else, later.”
I nod. “You four took out Lenk and all his men on your own?”
One of the old men laughs.
“No,” Stone says. “The cartel is here for revenge. We’re the rescue squad. We snuck in during the confusion of the fight, and now we have to sneak you out.”
Stone lifts Logan up into his arms, and he keeps his other hand on his gun.
“Mack, Ives,” Stone says. “You two move behind them, me and Chrome in front.”
The old men nod.
Chrome leads us forward, and when we reach the kitchen we see bodies on the floor. Stone adjusts Logan so he’s facing into his chest, unable to see anything.
Stone gives a hand signal, and we all follow out toward the garage.
In the garage, there’s a car with a blood-splattered window and an open door.
Stone looks inside, then up at me. “It’s Lenk. He’s gone. Rigg’s finally got justice…”
I can’t say I feel anything at all. Maybe I feel relief.
“We’re free now,” Ston
e says. “It’s over.”
“It ain’t over if the cartel is still here,” Mack says. “Let’s not celebrate until we’re long gone!”
Chrome brings us around Lenk’s car toward the side door. There’s a glass panel on it, and he peers into it.
“Looks clear,” he says. “Our bikes are parked against the side wall.”
“We could just hide out here,” Mack says, “and hope the cartel doesn’t stick around.”
God, no, we have to leave this horrible place.
“No,” Stone says. “If they decide to come poking around, there’s no way to convince them we’re not with Lenk.”
Stone hands Logan to me. “Me and the guys will make sure the path is clear, wait here.”
I nod.
I hold Logan and try to comfort him as the men run outside.
“Shit!” Chrome’s voice shouts.
I hear gunfire from just outside. The gunfire stops, and Stone jumps in. “We cleared a path! Come on!”
He grabs Logan and I run behind him.
Stone gets on his bike and holds Logan in front of him. I jump up and grab hold of Stone, afraid that if I let go I’ll never see him again, that I’ll be trapped in this awful place for the rest of my life.
The engine rumbles, and then it roars as we take off.
I hear gunfire behind us, but soon we’re winding down Lenk’s long driveway, and a minute later we’re on the real road, the nightmare behind us.
Stone brings me home.
I plug in my phone, ready to call my parents, to tell them I’m still alive.
“Wait,” Stone says.
“I’m calling my parents.”
“As soon as you make that call, you’ve gotta talk to the police.”
Shit. Everything’s not really over, is it?
“What...what do I do?” I ask.
“If you don’t want me in your life anymore,” Stone says, “then I’m going to run. I’ll get far away from you, and--”
“I want you in my life,” I say, grabbing his arm.
“Then I’m going to talk to the police. Ramirez says she’d cut me off, but if I tell them everything that happened--cooperate--then maybe I can get off easy.”
