“Where on the road?” Simon asked.
Apollo answered. “The Bone Wolves’ turf would be the midpoint between us and the Kings, give or take.”
Becker shook his head. “Irina doesn’t want it on any associate’s turf.”
Delaney turned back to Apollo. “That’s what I need you most on, son. We need to know who’s looking, since 9/11, and how hard they’re looking. Find a blind spot, somewhere in the southwest.”
Apollo laughed darkly. “What, on a mesa somewhere?”
The attempt at a joke didn’t go far.
“What is this she’s pulling us into, D?” Maverick asked the question without any bite in his tone, but his posture was coiled to strike, and his eyes shot blue fire.
Delaney glared right back. “She wants a meet with her associates. She wants to get the temperature of this new world we live in. I want to know the same thing. So we’ll meet, and we’ll do it somewhere off the grid.”
“Off the grid means anything goes,” Maverick pressed. “We need to know what we’re getting into. We need to set the terms. It’s not Irina Volkov putting her ass on the line.”
“We will get the intel we need, Mav. That’s what we need from Apollo.” Again, he gave Apollo his attention. “That a problem?”
“No, Prez. I’ll get on it as soon as we’re out of here.”
“Good. Let’s put this together as soon as we can. I want at least eight on the run, plus the prospect. We need his Spanish.”
“We do?” Maverick asked. “The Tezcat Kings are friends, and they’re the only ones who’d speak Spanish. You don’t say we need someone translating the Russians.”
Delaney sent an irritated squint down the table. “The Kings are new friends. I’d feel better knowing what they say. I want Terry there. He needs to get his feet wet. Me, Beck, and Rad are in. Volunteers?”
“I’m in,” Caleb said right away. Maverick’s head swiveled his way.
Delaney was surprised, too. “You sure, kid? The Bone Wolves are no friend to you.”
The Bone Wolves were an all-white exclusive club, and some of their members bore white pride ink. No, they were no friends of his. “I’m in, Prez.” He needed to get away, put his mind somewhere besides Cecily, and this weird meet sounded perfect. Plus, Terry was a brand-new prospect and still half terrified of most of the Bulls. Caleb remembered what that was like. A run like this would be doubly fucked for somebody learning the ropes, especially when he had something important to do. He’d have the kid’s back.
‘The kid.’ He was three years younger than Caleb. About Cecily’s age.
~oOo~
“It’s Cecily, leave a message.”
Caleb leaned on his handlebars and tried to keep his voice low while his brothers mounted up. “I’m leaving on this run, and I hate going without seeing you. I’ll be back in about three days. Can we please meet? Anywhere you want. Just give me five minutes, to explain. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I love you. Come on, iňloňka, pull in your claws.”
Engines around him roared to life, and Caleb put his phone away. It was the seventh or eighth message he’d left in the four days since his birthday. He hadn’t gone to Maverick’s house, or Ox’s, or her work, but he’d hoped she’d at least talk to him on the phone. No go.
Jesus. That fucking poem. Before he’d even known her that well, before he’d known how she felt about her poetry, he’d done a thing that hadn’t even felt all that wrong. A little nosy, maybe, but that was it. Not like he’d read her journal.
Except that he’d done exactly that. For Cecily, poetry was her journal. She wrote a lot and hardly ever tried to get them published. She’d shown him a total of four poems in their six months together, and he’d had the sense that she’d bared something deeply private to him each time.
Why hadn’t he just told her that he’d taken a poem he’d liked home and put it to music? Because he’d told a little, harmless lie at the beginning, that first morning after, and it had ballooned into a bigger and bigger secret the more he’d understood how personal her poems were. And then he’d shoved that dangerous paper away and let himself forget about it.
Fuck it. They were not blowing up over this. He had something, someone he wanted, and he wasn’t going down without a fight. Cecily needed to get over herself and fucking talk to him. He’d grab her and hold her down if he had to, but this bullshit was getting dealt with the minute he got back to Tulsa.
“Let’s ride, brothers!” Delaney called, and Caleb fell into line.
~oOo~
The patches on this run were Delaney, Becker, Rad, Maverick, Gunner, Slick, Wally, and Caleb. Their sole prospect, Terry, was on his first long-distance bike ride, and he’d been walking funny by lunch.
Maverick had shocked the table by volunteering, since he’d been so vocal about hating the idea of the meet, but Caleb thought he understood. Maverick wanted to know what the hell was going on and make his own judgments about it.
After riding all day, Caleb felt a lot better. The road wind had blown the crap out of his head, as it always did, and he knew how he’d handle Cecily when he got back. The same way he’d pushed her again and again toward something right—he’d just be an irresistible force. She could claw and spit and howl all she wanted, and when she wore herself out, he’d still be standing there. Yeah, he felt better. This thing was a snag, not a crisis.
Caleb kicked his stand down and dismounted. He stretched his lower back, felt some deep, satisfying pops, and let the stretch move all through him. Apollo had done a bang-up job finding a good location for this meet—still in Oklahoma, where the Bulls had friends at a long reach. In the panhandle, just north of the Rita Blanca National Grasslands. Just shy of 400 miles from home. A doable day’s ride.
Unless it was your first time in the saddle for more than an hour. By the time the club was parked at the Tex-A-Hom-A Motor Lodge, poor Terry could barely stand.
“Jesus hell, Cay,” he muttered as Caleb grabbed his arm and held him steady. “I can’t feel my fucking legs. It’s all bees buzzing.”
“It’ll come back. The bees’ll keep you moving until things work like they’re supposed to. Take a piss first thing. Trust me. Sometimes my wiring gets crossed on a long ride, and if I put it off at all, it’s a couple miserable hours before my dick remembers how to do it.”
“You do this all the time?”
He shrugged. “Long run like this? Every month or two. Sometimes twice in a month. I like it. Once your body knows how it is, the road’s the best place to be. Especially wide open like out here.” He gestured around the flatlands that surrounded them. “The brain works better out here.”
“Not the body,” Terry groused. “Shit!”
“Come on, prospect!” Becker shouted, grinning. He and the rest of the Bulls were ambling toward the restaurant next door. “Get your ass in gear, ya pussy! Don’t coddle him, Cay!”
Caleb slapped the prospect on the back, and got a groan in response. He laughed. “You have to toughen up, Terry. Those guys smell weakness, and they will turn you inside out trying to toughen you up.”
~oOo~
Alexei Sokolov had wanted to meet with the Bulls before the sit-down with the rest of the crews. Apollo had offered Sokolov an array of options, from which he had chosen a disused private campground near the Grasslands. Right after a quick breakfast, the Bulls rode out.
In the time that Caleb had been a full patch, club business had been mellow. The Russians were always expanding their reach, and that meant a lot of work, but there hadn’t been big trouble since the war with the Street Hounds, back in ’98, when he’d been a new prospect. That had been a baptism by fire, no doubt, but since then, the peace with the Hounds had held, their outlaw work had gone as planned, and any troubles had been internal and resolved with minimal strife. Eight Ball’s prison sentence was the worst thing that had happened, clubwise, since the war. Whatever Madame Volkov was cooking in the Central American drug trade, she’d been cooking it quietly, patient
ly, with diplomacy and subterfuge.
But Caleb’s hackles were up, driving over a rutted gravel road through a spindly forest choked in undergrowth. The subterfuge seemed awfully thick for a meet among allies—all these clubs worked for (Delaney insisted the Bulls worked with) the Russians. Why the secrecy? From the Feds, yes. But from the rest of the crews?
Something big was up, and he wasn’t the only one who felt it. All the Bulls had been quiet this morning.
Alexei was already waiting at the meet site, in a big black Ford Excursion. He had four Russians with him. In Caleb’s limited experience, that was more backup than Alexei usually travelled with. His impression was confirmed by the older Bulls, who looked warily around, their hands hovering close to their sidearms.
“Easy, fellas, easy,” Delaney said, eyeing Rad, whose hand was in his kutte, on the butt of his Glock. “Everybody take a breath.”
“You know what this is, Prez?” Becker asked.
Caleb’s hackles went up more. Becker didn’t know? Rad didn’t know? They were second and third in command.
“I said go easy,” Delaney repeated, but didn’t answer Becker’s question.
Alexei came up alone, leaving his guards lined up near the Excursion, and greeted the Bulls warmly, as friends. “Thank you all for meeting here, so early. Is unusual, I know.”
“Yeah, it is. What’s going on?” Maverick asked as he shook Alexei’s hand.
“This is why we meet. To give you some information to help later, when we sit all together.”
Rad turned to Delaney, and Caleb took a step back. Something was really, really wrong, because Rad was pissed. At Delaney. Rad was almost always lockstep with the president. Nobody had his back like his SAA. He’d taken at least one bullet for him.
“I can’t cover you if I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on, D.”
Delaney patted his arm. “It’s alright, Rad. Trust me.”
Rad squinted. “You know I do.”
“Then let’s hear what Alexei has to say.”
Alexei nodded his thanks. “I think is known to you that interests of our business expand. We diversify, and work for some time to put foundations in place.”
Maverick interrupted. “You’re moving deeper down south, getting more control of the drug trade.”
Alexei didn’t look thrilled at the interruption, but he inclined his head. “Correct.”
“What happened last month—that’s got to be a complication.”
Alexei wasn’t any happier at Becker’s interjection. “Yes. But now we accelerate our plans, to establish ourselves before your government changes laws in response to these attacks.”
“And for us that means what?” Gunner asked.
“There will be time which is right to explain in more detail. That time is not this time. For now, I tell you only that we make an important move today, and I ask you to be prepared.”
“For what?”
Alexei turned to Maverick, who was obviously bouncing on the Volkov lieutenant’s last nerve. He took off his wire-frame glasses, plucked the square from his suit pocket, and wiped the lenses. “At the meeting, Fyodor and Yuri will take weapons. They will take guns from your holsters. But they will leave you a weapon, one you have concealed well. They will not leave anyone else armed. This will give you an advantage, should you need it.”
Again, Rad wheeled on Delaney. “What the fuck is goin’ on? D, what’ve you got us walkin’ into?”
Alexei answered. “Knowing so little, this is meant to protect you. For your president, I make concession to tell anything. Is better you not know more.”
“It is, Rad,” Delaney agreed. “Trust me. You’re safer not knowing. If you know, you could telegraph something to the others. This is me protecting the club.”
“That’s my goddamn job. I can’t do my job like this.”
“This was mistake, Delaney,” Alexei said. He tucked his handkerchief away and put his glasses back on. “As I knew it would be.”
“No, it was not.” Delaney turned and faced all the Bulls. “Trust me, brothers. Just trust me. We’re not at risk. I want you armed just in case their plan doesn’t go off right, and that’s why we’re here. I want you to know as much as you can. It’s just a precaution. I need you all to stop asking questions and just trust me.”
“And if we refuse? If we walk away from this shit right now?”
“I’m sorry,” Alexei answered Maverick. “This is not possible.”
Maverick’s laugh was jagged rocks. “You son of a bitch.” Caleb couldn’t tell whether he was talking to Delaney or Alexei until he took three stalking steps toward Alexei, his hands knotted into fists. Four very large AKs, held by four very large Russians, came up and clicked into readiness.
“Mav!” Delaney barked. “Stand down.”
“Fuck you, D,” Maverick snarled, but he stood down.
“I understand your concern, Maverick.” Alexei had taken on a firm but conciliatory tone. “But this plan is too far to be changed. You will meet, it will go as should go. Because you have been forewarned, you will be ready should there be trouble. This concession I did not wish to make, for this reason. Too much knowledge is sometimes dangerous. I do not wish you to give others impression that there is something more going on.”
“So get right with this, brothers,” Delaney added. “Take a beat, screw your head on right, and trust me. I think I’ve earned that.”
He had. Delaney was the Brazen Bulls. He always served the club first. Right? That was true, right?
Caleb looked around at his brothers, all of whom were nodding, some reluctantly, but all in agreement. Even Maverick couldn’t deny that Delaney had earned their trust.
Standing back a few paces, the prospect had watched all that unfold with wide eyes. Caleb turned to him now. “You okay, Terry?”
He nodded. “Y-yeah. It’s just—it’s deeper than I thought. What the club’s into. This is some international espionage shit.”
Caleb laughed. “Easy, prospect. Usually, we just move cargo and that’s all. But keep sharp. This one’s high stakes.”
Terry nodded, staring at Alexei. His Adam’s apple bounced as he swallowed.
~oOo~
For the meeting, Apollo had identified a long-abandoned garage, so old the rusty pumps were still crank style, ten miles off the interstate, on the outskirts of what had once, long ago, been a tiny prairie town. All that was left of it now were a few weather-cooked, fallen-down buildings and some dusty weeds. Even a tumbleweed or two.
The land was flat for miles, and they could see and hear anyone coming from any direction. If a plane flew overhead, they might be seen, but there was a long lean-to off the side of the garage, what might have served at one time as vehicle storage for the garage. It was mostly intact and big enough to accommodate all the bikes from the MCs at the meet.
Caleb couldn’t conceive of what the Russians had planned. There were only five of them, and the MCs had each brought at least six members, including their top officers. Even with the Russians keeping their weapons, the numbers were so far off they couldn’t think of starting violence, right?
But if not, why did they leave the Bulls their extra pieces?
And they did—two big Russians patted down all the patches, the Bulls, the Bone Wolves, and the Tezcat Kings, and it looked to Caleb like they got every piece the others could have concealed, while his little Sig was still hooked at the small of his back. His S&W 9mm was in Russian hands.
A rough-board table had been set up in the middle of the dim, dusty garage; like probably everyone else, the Russians had scoped the place out ahead of time, and they’d taken the time to make the space welcoming of the meet. Everyone sat around it, with Alexei at the center of one side, and his Russian guard standing behind him. Delaney sat at one side of Alexei, and Devil Hauser, the Bone Wolves president, sat at his other. Caleb had the impression of a leather-and-ink version of The Last Supper.
“Thank you all for meeting in this dus
ty place,” Alexei said to open the meeting. “In times like these, we must make even more caution, I think you will agree.”
Devil nodded. “It’s a risk bein’ out here, too. But I take it you’ve got somethin’ planned to deal with the way things are now.”
“We do, yes. We have decided it is time to make our move.”
Caleb saw nothing that could have been construed as a signal. Alexei barely moved, and his guard stood there like armed statues. But within seconds of his statement, one of the old overhead doors flew up, and more than a dozen armed men stormed into the garage. Bearing assault rifles, and covered in ink, head to toe. At first, Caleb was too shocked to make sense of what he was seeing—men with ink all over their faces.
Stand (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 7) Page 25
