by John Moralee
*
They waited another two hours before Lee Bush drove up to his trailer in a black Dodge pick-up with a WHITE IS RIGHT sticker on the back window. He got out of the vehicle oblivious of the detectives watching him ten feet away. He was dressed in a cowboy hat, shirt and jeans, humming an old Madonna song that was on his car radio. He didn’t hear Cade and Gail creeping up on him with their guns drawn until Cade was right behind him.
“Police! Lee Bush, turn around slowly with your hands up!”
“What did I do?” he said.
Cade read his Miranda rights and told him.
*
Lee wasn’t a hardened criminal. Confronted with the gruesome pictures of the dead soldier - and the possibility of being charged as an accomplice to his murder - he became very cooperative. His lawyer struck a deal with them for his testimony that would keep him out of jail – providing he told them everything he knew.
“Look, I had nothing to do with killing that dude. I didn’t even know the dude was dead or his real name was really Davis what’s-his-name until you guys told me. I only knew him as my neighbour Ray.”
“Go on,” Cade urged.
“About three weeks ago, Ray moved in the trailer opposite mine. The guy seemed friendly, but he didn’t go out of his way to make friends, which told me he was probably just out of the joint, looking to keep a low profile. His tattoos told me he was a hard-ass. Anyway, one day I had a problem with my Dodge’s transmission. Luckily Ray offer to fix it for nothing. To thank him I invited him over to … smoke some weed. We got talking. Learned we had a lot in common. In prison up north he’d joined the Aryan Brotherhood, but he didn’t know nobody down here. He asked me if I knew anyone could give him some work. Didn’t have to be legal as long as it paid good. I thought of my cousin TP. I promised I’d put in a word next time I saw him. Anyway, one night my cousin showed up with some guys. We smoked some weed and I introduced them to Ray. They liked Ray because he was one of us. Ray talked with them about making some money and left with them. I never saw him again. My cousin called me a few days later mad as hell, telling me to keep my mouth shut about ever seeing him with Ray. He didn’t tell me what happened, but I guessed it was none of my business. I figured either Ray had ripped them off or they had killed him. Wasn’t nothing to do with me.”
“What were the names of the other men?”
“One was called Mace. He was kind of small, but he was definitely the boss man. I don’t remember the names of the other guys. They were huge and didn’t say much. I think they were Mace’s muscle.”
Cade had heard of Mace aka Tom Macy. He was the leader of the White Pride. He was wanted for the murders of three black teenagers.
“Where did they go when they left?”
“They said they were going to The Ranch. That place is kind of scary so I don’t like going. That’s why I didn’t go along with them.”
The Ranch was rumoured to be the HQ of the White Pride. The DEA had been trying to find it for years without any success. Cade leaned across the table, looking Lee in his eyes.
“Tell me about The Ranch, Lee.”
Lee shifted in his seat, squirming like a little boy wanted to use the bathroom. “Oh, man, you’re asking something now. The Ranch is a big old house where the White Pride keep their money and guns and the girls they use to work in their meth factories.”
“Girls?” Gail said.
“Yeah. The White Pride only use girls to make and package their stuff. They make sure the girls are hooked on the meth so they work real hard. They keep like a dozen at The Ranch and replaced them when they wear out. They’re basically slaves.”
Cade wondered if Jessica Ryker was one of them now, thanks to her boyfriend. “What else do you know about The Ranch?”
“It’s like guarded by a dozen men with AK-47s. It’s sort of a military compound hidden out in New Iberia in the middle of no where. One time I had to go there to pick up some dope, but the guys who took me put a burlap sack over my head so I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t dare tell them I could sort of see through the sack because I was afraid they’d shoot me. I saw where they took me. I don’t know its exact location on a map, but I could probably find it again if I retrace the route and see the roads. But if I do that, you guys better put me in Witness Protection because the White Pride’ll kill me for betraying them.”
*
Some hours later Cade could see scrub oak and pine on either side of the dirt road Lee was guiding him down. The woods looked thick and impenetrable. Gail was sitting in the front passenger seat, holding onto the dashboard as the car jolted from side to side. She would call in SWAT when they located The Ranch, but for now they were alone. In the back Lee was fidgeting and complaining about the handcuffs hurting his wrists. They had been looking for The Ranch for what felt like days, heading further and further out into the backwaters of New Iberia. Lee was becoming more hesitant about giving directions - until he saw a gas station with four red pumps. Upon seeing it, he jerked towards the side window and pressed his face against the glass. “There! I remember that! I passed it just before a turn-off with a blue sign.”
Two middle-aged mechanics with long beards and bald heads were sitting the the shade of the station, flies buzzing around them. Their heads turned to watch the car pass. Gauging by the lack of traffic, Cade wondering if his car was the only vehicle to drive past all day.
There was a blue sign about a half mile down the road. It led up a road to the left marked GIFFORD MILL.
“That’s it. Go that way.”
Gail radioed their current location.
Ten minutes later, Cade was driving down a narrow road through heavy woodland. They had passed the mill, which had been shut down a long, long time ago.
Cade sighed. “How far?”
“Just keep going. Should be another road on the right, I think.”
“You think?”
“I’ll … I’ll know it when I see it.” Lee didn’t sound confident.
Gail rolled her eyes. Cade understood how she felt. Were they on a wild goose chase? Did their passenger have any idea where The Ranch was?
Another road, narrower and rougher, appeared on the right. It cut through deep woods.
“Down that,” Lee urged.
Cade turned onto the road.
Lee leant forward. “Can I ask you a question, Detective?”
“What?” Cade said.
“Where do you think Witness Protection will send me?”
“I don’t know,” Cade said.
“I’d like to live somewhere hot, but not too not, like Arizona or Texas. That’d suck. I’d like Miami because it looks cool on CSI. I’ve never been to Vegas, either. That looks great on the other CSI. All the gambling machines and lap-dancing clubs. They send people there?”
“Yeah, wherever you want.”
“Really?”
Cade didn’t answer. He was distracted by the sight of a green flat-bed truck blocking the road ahead. The driver – a man in his forties wearing a John Deere cap and a denim jacket – was inspecting the engine. The road was too narrow to drive around the truck. Cade slowed down behind it, leaning out.
“What’s the problem?”
“You are, pig,” John Deere said, suddenly revealing a pump-action shotgun that had been hidden from view. “Move and you’re dead.”
Facing just one man, Cade might have tried something even if it meant getting shot, but the ambusher wasn’t alone. Another truck was zooming up behind them. Cade recognised the two bearded men in the cab from the gas station. They blocked off their escape route, jumping out with rifles. Cade saw Lee smirking.
“You set us up,” Cade said.
“Hey, I’m a patriot,” Lee said. “You didn’t really think I’d give up my own cousin, did you?”
“Back at the gas station, you warned them.”
Lee grinned. “They’re my uncle’s stepsons Kyle and Ken. They watch out for the police.”
The armed men
made Cade get out and lie down on the ground. Gail had to do the same on the other side. Then Kyle and Ken took their weapons for themselves. They also smashed their cell phones. Lee asked Kyle (or was it Ken?) to undo his handcuffs, but the man couldn’t find the key.
Lee – with his hands secured behind his back - walked around to where Cade was lying face down. He kicked him in the ribs. “Hey! The cuffs! Where are the keys for them?”
It gave Cade a little satisfaction telling him the truth. “They’re in my desk at the police station.”
“No! You’re lying!”
“No, I’m not, Lee. I’d never have the key on me with a prisoner with me – in case they’d try to make me take them off.”
Lee swore. “Someone get me out of these!” He begged the other men, but nobody had anything to cut through the metal.
The third man – John Deere – told Lee to shut up. He started talking on a cell phone.
“Okay, got it,” he said. “Orders are we’ve got to keep them alive – but make sure they’ve got nothing hidden on them.”
The bearded brother ordered Cade and Gail to strip off all of their clothes, including underwear and shoes. When they were completely naked, the men tossed their clothes into the woods. One leered at Gail’s naked body.
“She’s a hot one,” he said. “Mace’ll want a piece of her.”
“I want a piece of her now,” his brother said.
Luckily the third man was in charge. “No time for fun, boys. Tie them up and get them in my truck ASAP.”
The two brothers duct-taped Cade’s hands behind his back, wrapping the tape round and round, then they taped his ankles together. They finished with a strip over his mouth that barely allowed him to breathe. The two brothers lifted him up like a sack of potatoes and tossed him violently onto the cold metal bed of the green truck while John Deere kept his gun on Gail. Once the men had deposited Cade in the truck, they went back to tape up Gail. Meanwhile – after wriggling like a worm into a better position - Cade could see John Deere walking over to Lee.
“You. Mr Macy wants to know what you’re doing bringing the cops out here.”
“Got no choice, man. Only way out. They found that guy Ray’s body, but they didn’t believe he was killed by the G-Street Posse. They figured out it was us. They also know his real name wasn’t even Ray. It was Davis Lando. He was like some kind of Special Forces dude.”
John Deere relayed the information on his phone. Then: “What else do you know about this Davis Lando?”
“Nothing, man. That’s just what the cops told me.”
“You mentioned The Ranch?”
There was fear in Lee’s eyes. “Yeah - but I didn’t tell them where it is.”
“Mr Macy wants to thank you,” John Deere said.
Lee looked relieved.
It was then John Deere pulled a handgun from his jacket and shot him in the face. Lee staggered backwards with his one remaining eye rolling back into his head as blood and brains splattered the road. He stayed on his feet for a couple of seconds, not believing he was dead, but then he crumpled. John Deere turned to look at Ken and Kyle. They had just dumped Gail in the truck beside Cade.
“You guys put him in their vehicle and get rid of it somewhere it won’t be found. Then come back to The Ranch after making sure nobody’s tailing you.”
“Got it,” Ken or Kyle said. The death of Lee had not seemed to have bothered them at all.
John Deere covered Cade and Gail with a tarpaulin, telling them to not to move or make a noise once he started driving or he’d make sure they paid for it. It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.
It was dark under the tarpaulin, but Cade could see Gail’s face close to his own. She looked scared. He was scared, too – but he was also angry to have been tricked. He wished he could apologise for getting them into this situation. He should have been more vigilant. He should not have trusted Lee. Now they were probably going to be killed because he had screwed up.
Their only chance of survival was to escape, but how could they do that? The men had done an excellent job of securing his hands and feet. Maybe he could cut the tape if he found something sharp – but in the darkness under the tarpaulin he could not see or feel anything that would do the job. Gail was struggling, too, but she shook her head, tears of frustration streaming down her face. Cade considered rolling himself off the back of the truck, but that would gain him nothing but broken bones. He couldn’t even get the duct-tape off his mouth.
They were soon on another road, miles away. He could hear the crunching of gravel. They drove over a metal bridge. More gravel.
Cade strained to undo his bonds. He could feel the tape on his wrists stretching a little - but there were so many layers it was not going to free him soon.
He pulled and pulled …
Unfortunately, after another twenty minutes, the truck stopped before he was successful.
John Deere pulled off the tarpaulin, revealing their destination - a dilapidated antebellum house surrounded by deep woods and swampland.
“Welcome to The Ranch,” he said.
*
Cade sat up and looked around. He could see a couple of armed men with AK-47s guarding the road leading up to The Ranch and four more with dogs and rifles walking the perimeter fence. Lee had not been lying about it looking like a military compound.
Cade turned his attention on the house. Someone was looking out of an upper window. A girl. The window had bars. All of the upper windows had bars. The downstairs ones did, too. Were they to keep people out or keep them locked in?
John Deere grabbed Gail’s legs and hauled her out of the truck. She fell on the hard ground, making John Deere laugh like it was the funniest thing he’d even seen. Cade wanted to kill him, but he was powerless to do anything. He watched in frustration as John Deere lifted Gail over his shoulder and carried her towards the house. John Deere passed another much smaller man coming out of the doorway. He tipped his head as a matter of respect.
“Take her upstairs,” the smaller man commanded.
“Yes, Mr Macy, sir.”
Cade was struck by Tom Macy’s diminutive size. Mace looked so small compared to the other man it was almost comical, like he was a child bossing around an adult. He had to be about 5’4 in his boots. Physically the leader of the White Pride looked like the runt of the litter, but Cade knew he had the leadership qualities of another small but dangerous man - Adolf Hitler. Macy had two handguns tucked into his belt - both with the letters WP on their pearl-handles. He kept his hands close to them.
Macy was flanked by a pair of bull-headed thugs aged about seventeen and twenty. They looked like they spent every waking moment shooting up steroids and pumping iron. Neither man looked capable of reading, but they had enough tattooed neo-Nazi slogans to form a book of hate. They remained by his side as Macy began barking orders to the other men – telling them to run a thorough check on the perimeter. Then Macy walked over to Cade, studying him with the eyes of a shark, cold and dead, saying, “You know who I am?”
Cade nodded.
“Then you know what I’ll do to you if you don’t tell me what I want to know?”
Cade nodded again.
Macy smiled. He told one of the thugs to get in the back of the truck with Cade, then Macy and the other one went around to the cab. The thug jumped in behind the wheel and started the engine.
“Where’re going, boss?”
“The box,” Macy said.
The truck drove another three-hundred yards, passing a collection of outhouses and storage sheds. Cade could smell chemicals in the air. They were making meth in some of the outhouses, wisely keeping the combustibles some distance from the main house. Cade noticed a dozen vehicles, including two large delivery trucks. Several men were busy unloading crates. The men didn’t even react at the sight of a naked man tied up in the back of the truck – like it was every day occurrence.
The truck stopped outside a small green shed made of metal. Cade was t
aken inside. The thugs dropped him on the hard stone floor, while their boss turned on a light. Cade saw there was nothing in the room except an iron ring bolted into the middle of the floor. There was a chain attached to a pair of leg irons. The thugs secured his feet in the leg irons before cutting off the duct-tape and pulling the strip off his mouth.
“LEAVE US!” Macy told the thugs.
They left.
“It’s not often I get a cop for a guest,” Macy said, holding Cade’s shield up to the light – then throwing it at Cade’s head. It struck him on the forehead – stinging him but not drawing blood - before skittering across the floor. Macy stepped forward until he was standing over him – not looking so small now. “Detective, I usually keep people here who need to be taught a lesson. A couple of days chained to the floor sets them straight. But I don’t have time for that with you. You see I have a problem. About three weeks ago, Lee Bush introduced me to a man calling himself Ray. Ray wanted to join the White Pride. But I’m a cautious man. You can’t just join my organisation without first getting checked out. I found out Ray wasn’t genuine, which made me very, very unhappy. I wanted to know who he was and why he was so interested in me and the White Pride. But he wouldn’t talk – not even when I tortured him.”
So that was why they tortured Davis, Cade thought. Macy had not known that Davis had been sent to rescue Jessica or that Davis had been interested in befriending Clinton Bush, not him. Macy had assumed that the reason had been connected to the White Pride, not personal reasons. Davis had endured torture because he must have known that to talk would endanger the life of Jessica. He had selflessly died to save her.
“Now thanks to that idiot Lee, I know Ray’s name was really Davis Lando. I just looked him up on the internet. Found out this Davis Lando used to be Special Forces. So – Detective Lambert – you can either answer my questions with the truth – or I will make you tell me the truth later – after I have raped your partner. DO YOU WANT ME TO DO THAT?”
