Hawk

The guys gave me directions on where to meet them, but even so I had to use the GPS trackers I have on all of them to find their exact location.

“What’s going on?” I ask Ice once I join him in the dirt behind a bunch of huge rocks that I’m sure snakes like to sunbathe on during the day. I don’t like the desert. I don’t like all the creatures that make it their home. But we also make it our home, because it’s vast and empty, and you can do things here that no one ever finds out you did.

“There’s about twenty of them down there and more are arriving soon,” he says and points at the basin we’re looking at. There’s a concrete building in the center of it with ten soft-back trucks parked around it, in addition to the SUVs they rode to the meeting in. Most of the headlights of these vehicles are on, so the basin is lit up like a movie set. By “soon” he means the winding snake of headlights approaching the basin from the north. It’s a good thing I came in on a different road, or I’d have run straight into that snake.

“All Russians?” I ask, even though I should know this. I should know about this place too. If I hadn’t been spending all my time with Yanna and only really working on her problem with the Russians, I would know about this.

“I saw a couple that looked very Mexican to me,” Ink says. “All that was missing from their outfits were sombreros and guitars. But what do I know?”

He’s not actually saying that I should be the one to know this, but that’s what I hear anyway. I was the one advocating setting up this trap for the Russians by not giving them all the weapons they wanted at once, then sprung it by convincing Cross it was the best plan. But after all that, I didn’t keep an eye on it.

The snake of headlights materializes into five more trucks and two pickups. The trucks aren’t empty either. The guys that exit the cab and the pickups start unloading them while the rumbling of the engines still echoes. Boxes and crates, all heavy by the looks of it. I wish I had binoculars to see exactly what is in the crates, but I don’t need them to know they’re full of weapons. Yuri comes out of the building and I can see his arrogant smile all the way from here, no need for binoculars.

“Seems like they went to the Vagos after all,” Ice observes. “How did we miss that?”

We missed it because I didn’t keep an eye on them the way I should. I should’ve foreseen this, and I should’ve prevented it before they got a warehouse full of weapons without our knowledge.

“You stay here, I’m gonna go wake Cross,” I say, since this news has to come from me. The apology has to come too, and quickly. I just hope he accepts it.

Ice nods and I leave.

So much for getting back to Yanna sometime tonight. Or tomorrow. Hell, this could take a couple of days to sort out, and in the meantime anything could happen. But I can trust the guys to keep her safe. As for me, I have to go face the music now.

* * *

The two hour ride to Sanctuary didn’t exactly clear my head, but the silence only broken by the rumbling of my bike, the night air and natural, empty wildness did give me some ideas.

I may have spent most of my free time with Yanna, that is true, but I did watch the Russians too. They couldn’t have acquired a desert bunker and make a multi-truck weapons deal with the Mexicans without us noticing it, so they must’ve done all that before we started looking at them closely. That’s the only explanation, and I should’ve seen that one coming too, it’s true, but as good as I am, things sometimes slip through.

I didn’t wake Cross as soon as I reached Sanctuary. Instead I spent all night on my computer, trying to figure out what’s what and where I might have missed something. Yanna posted a new video last night after I left her, but I didn’t watch it. It’s a little self-imposed punishment for neglecting my main job for so long.

Dawn’s breaking outside, but I still haven’t found anything to suggest the Russians are doing business with the Vagos, or any other Mexican gang picking up the breadcrumbs we leave behind in this area when it comes to arms deals. Which makes no sense, since they’re never that good at covering their tracks. It could be the cartels supplying the weapons directly from Mexico, but that kinda thing would leave a trail for sure.

At seven AM I finally start to hear sounds of life upstairs, and now I have to go find Cross and admit I may have messed up this job, and left more than just a couple of breadcrumbs for our competition to pick up after us. I wish I had more than just an apology to give him.

Cross is in his office and by the looks of the dark bags under his eyes, he’s been there for awhile.

“What’s going on, Hawk?” he asks as I enter, and while I did practice this conversation in my head all night, I still don’t know where to start.

“I wish I had better news for you,” I say anyway and it’s the complete truth. “But the Russians bought at least fifteen truckloads of weapons from what looks like the Mexicans, and I don’t know when or how I missed that. I’m sorry, I dropped the ball on this one.”

Cross does a double take and it’s the most shocked I’ve ever seen him get, but his face returns to the unreadable hardness that’s usually there a split second later. I sit in the chair across from his desk while I wait for him to speak.

“What I don’t get, if this is the case, is why Yuri called me last night asking when he can expect the rest of the delivery,” he says. “If they went elsewhere for the guns, I mean.”

I shrug. “That does sound strange. From what I saw last night, I’d say he has more than enough guns by now. I doubt he needs what he was trying to buy from us.”

Cross leans back and laces his fingers behind his head, leaning into his palms. “What are we looking at here? Are they gunning for us? Did they make a pact with the Vagos to take over our operation? Maybe the deal they tried to make with us was just a ruse. It’s starting to look at lot like that and those Mexican motherfuckers have been after the Vipers’ network long before we took it over.”

This is why I’d follow Cross to my death. Instead of getting pissed at me for not figuring all this out before it happened, he’s calm and respectful. He’s a guy who expects the best and he knows how to get it. I didn’t give him my best on this job, but I plan to from here on out.

“It could be,” I say and lean back in my chair too. “The Vagos still conduct most of their business low-tech style, as in no computers, just face to face and untraceable phone calls. Frankly, I think that’s the only reason I missed this shit. What we’d need is an informant from their ranks. I tried, but I never got very far in turning any of them. These cholos, they stick together no matter what. The closest I ever got was one of their whores, but she didn’t know jack shit.”

Cross leans in, a flash of anger in his eyes. I’m not sure if it’s for me, or the situation at large. “Take Scar and whoever else you need and go get me that info the low-tech way. I need to know if I’m setting up for war, or we’re still cool with the Vagos. And make it fast.”

“Is Doc free to go with me?” I ask, since he could come in handy in case Scar gets carried away like he sometimes does.

Cross frowns. “I sent him down to Vegas, but he’s not there yet. He’s not here either. I heard rumors about him that I’d rather not believe, but I don’t have time to investigate that shit right now. If you see him, find out what’s keeping him so busy.”

He’s not really telling me to look into it, because he doesn’t like to send me spying on our own, but I’ll see what I can find out anyway. I stand up to get going right away, like that’s gonna make this trip go any faster. But it’s not. At best I’m looking at three or four days away from Yanna.

“We’re not touching the Russians yet, right?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No need to alarm them, but keep an eye on them at all times. Take whoever you need for that too.”

“Alright, Prez, I’m on it,” I say and head for the door.

But I stop before I reach it. There’s more he needs to know, more I have to apologize for. He’s looking at me questioningly, but I’m at a loss for words again.

“I’ve been keeping the Russians from fixing the tournament my girlfriend’s competing in,” I say, equally surprised at how easy it was to call Yanna my girlfriend, and by the fact that Cross doesn’t seem surprised.

“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Cross says. Who the fuck snitched? Ice? I don’t know that guy well enough to trust him, but Cross seems to and that’s always been good enough for me in the past. Either way, I’m glad it’s out in the open.

“I’ve kept it separate from our business with them,” I assure him.

There’s no way to tell what Cross is thinking at the best of times and right now, it’s totally impossible.

He nods slowly and the effect of that is the sensation of a huge rock just rolling off my chest.

“I wish you’d told me sooner,” he says. “But I suppose that’s your personal business, and you’ve always done right by the club so I’ve got nothing to be concerned about.”

It’s a question even though he didn’t phrase it that way.

“Absolutely nothing,” I say.

“But don’t touch the Russians in a way that they’ll know it’s coming from us. If that means letting them cheat in the tournament, then there’ll be other ones she can win clean,” he says. “I don’t want them to have any kind of reason to attack us, especially not if they’re already sitting on a bunker-full of weapons and have the Vagos on their side. Is that understood?”

That is a direct question and a direct order, but I’m having trouble saying yes. So I just nod and leave to get to work.

He’s right, there will be other tournaments for Yanna. And he’s also right that we don’t need another war. We’ve only just recovered from getting rid of the Spawns.

But damn it, what’s it gonna do to us—to me and Yanna—if I fail to keep her tournament clean after all the promises I made?

She’s the first woman in my life that I’d do anything to help, just as she’s the first one I can’t stop thinking about. But I might have to let her down anyway.