CHAPTER TWENTY
When Isaac came into the clubhouse the morning of their meet with Becker, Show, Len, and Badger were already waiting and ready to go. That was Isaac’s way—impatient with waiting, he liked everybody to be ready when he got there. So Badger expected that the four of them would head out within a minute or two of Isaac’s arrival.
But he came in looking tired, the lines on his face deeper than usual, and he sat down at the bar. Badger caught Len’s eye—the SAA was surprised, too. All four men sat with their President, waiting to see what was slowing him down.
“I should call a meeting for this, but I don’t want to get in the way of the meet with Becker. Especially not now. So I’ll tell you, we’ll go, and we’ll bring it to the rest when we get back.”
Len nodded. “Yeah, boss. Okay.”
“Got word from Bart. And I talked to Hoosier, too. The Scorpions are broken. The mother charter is folding—what’s left of it. Sam, Ghost, Howler, three others—all dead, the rest wounded. Old ladies, Prospects, too. Shot down in their clubhouse last night.”
Show was first to react. “Fuckin’ Christ. Perros?”
“Who else? Don’t know yet if this is somebody actin’ on Sam the way Santaveria wants us to act on Becker and his crew, or if this is just the cartel straight-up. I’d say the former—call it ‘gang-on-gang violence,’ keep the Perro name out of it, and nobody gives much of a shit.”
Badger was about to give up trying to understand everything that was going on. Still, he had to ask. “But why? Sam was loyal to the cartel.”
“He was losing control of his West Coast.” Show shook his head as if disgusted by his own words.
Isaac nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. We need to keep ourselves extra sharp, and we need to be careful how and where we gather as a whole. For all we know, Santaveria has the same hit out on us.”
Len put his hand on Isaac’s arm. “Boss, just in case, you and Show can’t both go on this meet now. We need the leaders separate. I’m tellin’ you. It’s too much risk.”
“I hear you, brother. It a big risk—you’re right. But we can’t bring all this to Becker unless the people he trusts are all there as one. You know that. He’s hearing this news, too, or he will be. He’s going to look twice at us—and he should. Santaveria wants us to take the Bulls out. What happened in Florida doesn’t change our play.”
Len kept trying. “What if he gave Becker the same order, but for us? Boss, this is a bad idea.”
When Isaac’s fist landed on the top of the bar, the whole thing shook. “Len, I fuckin’ hear you. We’ll go in knowing that could be true. But what if that’s exactly the fear and mistrust Santaveria is trying to breed? This is the crew for this run. The four of us.” He looked around. “Unless somebody’s backin’ out.”
Nobody was. Not even Len hesitated, despite his reservations. The four of them left the clubhouse, headed for their bikes, not knowing what the rest of the day would hold.
~oOo~
They met Becker in a small town in northeastern Oklahoma, about a hundred and fifty miles or so from Signal Bend. The Brazen Bulls had a long, steady history with the local Indian tribe, and they met the Horde on tribal lands, as safe as possible from law or other threat. They left their weapons with their bikes.
Becker approached the meet with caution. Badger felt like he could smell the tension among the eight men arrayed in front of the low, red brick building in which they would meet—a smell like sweat and fire.
Isaac stepped forward first, his hand extended. “Becker. Brother.”
“Are we?” Becker was only a few inches shorter than Isaac. He was older and wearier, with thick, silver hair and light eyes that always looked exhausted. He looked like a man tired of his life. He probably was—but he was a hardass, too. Stone cold.
Leaving his hand out, Isaac answered, “I hope so. We’ve been, a long time. Could use a brother. I think that’s true for you, too.”
Becker waited two more beats, then shook Isaac’s hand. “We need to be straight, then. Wide open. Yeah?”
“Agreed.”
Becker nodded, and they all walked to the building. It was some kind of meeting hall, the space empty but for rolling racks of collapsed tables and chairs. One long table was set up, with eight metal chairs around it. As soon as they got inside, Becker turned to the group.
“I guess you know the news out of Jacksonville. In the interest of making everybody feel secure, I’m gonna ask that we all strip down, right here. To skin. Turn out our pockets, dump our boots.”
Isaac stared at Becker, then turned to the Horde and gave a curt nod. Becker started first, then Isaac, and then the men all began to undress. Badger’s heart thudded heavily behind his ruined chest. He had his ink now, and that felt like body armor of a sort, but no one other than family—and the men who had done it to him in the first place—had ever seen his chest.
When they were all stripped bare, their clothes shaken out, their boots turned over, they stood there, eight scarred men. Badger knew his brothers’ scars, at least those above their waists. They sparred bare-chested in the ring. So he was not surprised by the lattice of destruction across Show’s back, or the ravages of shotgun and scalpel over Isaac’s. Len’s arms and legs were a railroad yard of raised seams.
They were all replacing their ink to the extent that they could, and they all had new ink that in some way commemorated their struggles. Standing here in the raw, with his brutalized brothers, Badger was overwhelmed by the sudden, complete understanding of what they had been through in the past six years. Their bodies wore it all like a violent cartography. A map drawn in blood and bone.
The four members present from the Brazen Bulls—a club that had taken its name from medieval torture—stared dumbly at the ravaged Horde. They, too, were scarred. They, too, had paid a toll in blood to the Perro Blanco cartel. But no one had paid the price the Horde had paid.
Isaac broke the awkward silence. “Okay?”
Becker nodded, and the men began to dress. “Thank you, brother. Peace of mind is hard to come by in these times.”
“Let’s talk, Beck. Let’s cut though this crap and just talk.”
Becker nodded again and gestured toward the table. The eight men sat around it and talked.
~oOo~
When the Horde left tribal lands, they had reaffirmed a brotherhood and had an ally in their war. They also had the seedling of a plan. Not a surefire plan; not even a hopeful plan. A plan to go down taking as many Perros with them as they could—and one in particular. The Scorpions LA, the Brazen Bulls, the Night Horde—together, in total, they were twenty-eight men. Enough to win a battle at the Bulls’ weed pickup in Texas, but nowhere near what they’d need to win the war.
There was one way. Isaac had seen it.
Sitting in the tribal meeting hall, Isaac had made it clear that his primary goal was to force another face-to-face meeting with Julio Santaveria. Considering the history, he was gambling that taking down the Perros in Amarillo, with him at the vanguard, would do it. And then, face to face with Santaveria, he would kill the man. If he succeeded, then, with Santaveria dead, maybe the Perros would be destabilized enough that the clubs could extricate themselves from their traps and be free.
There was no way Isaac would come out of that alive, even if he managed to kill his target, and he knew it. Everyone at the table knew it. Show had reacted so violently to the plan that he’d almost ruined the alliance they were there to strengthen.
Badger wondered if Lilli knew Isaac’s plan. He figured not.
But he understood. It made his stomach burn and his heart clench, but he understood. Isaac was President, their leader. He took care of his club, his family. He stood at the vanguard. It was his sacrifice to make.
Now, after a nearly silent supper at a truck stop, they were riding solemnly home. The sun was low behind them, casting a red glow over the blacktop. Traffic was light. Riding at the speed limit, in a loose formation, Badger had let his mind go, thinking about Adrienne, what kind of ink he’d like her to have. He wanted her to have it before they took on the Perros.
A couple of miles from their off-ramp to home, the red glow got suddenly much more vivid and rhythmic, and Badger turned his head to see the Sheriff’s department cruiser keeping pace behind them, its lights flashing. The siren popped, one brief syllable. Badger looked forward; Isaac was waving them to the side of the road.
Before they’d even dismounted, a second cruiser pulled to the shoulder behind the first.
“Jesus fuck,” Isaac muttered. “We’re goin’ in, boys.”
“On what? We were riding straight.” Badger had not yet ever been arrested. He’d been pulled over and harassed, but he had not been on any of the five runs on which they’d been taken in during the past year and a half—taken in but never processed. Seaver was just fucking with them. He had backed off, though, since the day of the B&B fire. The fire they were sure he’d arranged.
Show walked over and stood at his side. “Doesn’t matter, Badge. Keep your cool. He’ll bring us in, make us uncomfortable for a few hours, impound our bikes for a day. It’s a pain in the ass, but keep your cool, and keep your mouth shut. Clear?”
“Yeah, I got it.” His heart was still going, though.
It wasn’t the Sheriff who got out of the first cruiser. Two deputies did instead. And two others got out of the second cruiser as well. They all popped the straps on their holsters and unsheathed their batons.
The driver of the first cruiser—older, heavier than the others—stepped forward. Isaac did as well.
“Deputy.”
“Gotta bring you in, fellas. Need you on the ground, spread eagle. You know the drill.”
“On what charge?”
The deputy’s answer to that was to draw his sidearm. His partner followed suit. Then the other two.
Show muttered, “Fuck,” then turned to Badger. “Stay cool, little brother. Don’t give them a reason.”
Badger nodded. He could be cool. He had an icy fist around his heart.
“On the ground NOW!” The lead deputy cocked his piece. And four Horde lay down on the shoulder of the interstate.
~oOo~
At first, Badger was alone in an interrogation room, his hands cuffed behind his back, sitting awkwardly in a metal chair at a metal table. No one asked him anything or talked to him almost at all. He’d only spoken to say he wanted a lawyer; he’d been ignored. Then one of the deputies came in and grabbed him roughly by an arm, dragging him to his feet and out of the room. He pushed him into another room and locked him in.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Badger turned at Isaac’s voice and saw that Isaac, Show, and Len were in the room already, all of them still cuffed.
In addition to a table and two chairs, this room had a bench bolted to the wall on two sides. But no one was sitting.
“Boss?” All of this was new to Badger. All of it confused him, so he didn’t know what might have provoked Isaac’s outburst.
“They’ve never put us in a room together before. Something’s up. Something’s wrong.” Isaac kicked the table. “Fuck! If he’s got—”
“Isaac!” Show cut him off. “Take a beat, boss. Watch your words.”
Isaac nodded, blanching a little, and they all stayed quiet. Badger had more questions than he could put in any kind of order, so he kept his mouth quiet and decided to go along for whatever ride was ahead. He’d follow his brothers’ lead. He was scared, but he’d known much greater fear than this. Nothing that would happen in the Sheriff’s office could even approach horrors he’d survived.
They stood silently in that room for what seemed like hours, and then the door opened. Sheriff Leon Seaver, crew cut and sharply pressed uniform, walked in. He smiled.
“Hello, boys. Have a seat.”
Still they stood.
“Suit yourself. You know, it’s been a hell of a time getting you together. Seems like an age now we’ve been looking for you four to be on the road together. I can tell you I was getting damn tired of waiting.”
Badger watched Isaac. He could see his jaw twitching, the tendons in his neck rising into ropes under his skin.
But the Horde stayed silent.
“Still not much of a conversationalist. Not a problem. It had to be you four, and now it is. Good. There’s somebody I want you to meet.” He went out the door.
A couple of minutes later, the door opened, and another man came in. Latino, with salt and pepper hair and a scruffy beard. He wore jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and a brown leather jacket. Badger had no idea who he was.
His brothers, however, did. All three reacted strongly and audibly. Isaac, his hands still cuffed behind his back, shouted something like a warrior’s cry and charged. The guy deflected his armless attack, but Isaac was much larger, and they both went down. And then there were three uniformed goons in the room. Two dragged a still-fighting, shouting Isaac off, and one held the other three Horde back with his baton, cracking Len hard to get him to back off from trying to help their President. The two on Isaac kicked him until the stranger stood and said, “Enough! Get out. We’re good.”
Isaac was still on the floor when they were alone with the man who’d made him so crazy and had Len and Show visibly shaking with rage. The man squatted near Isaac. “I’m going to uncuff you all, as soon as you tell me you’ll be calm and listen. We need to talk. I think we can make a deal.” His words had the inflected cadence of a bilingual speaker.
Isaac just shouted incoherently.
“You’re law?” Len’s voice quavered. Badger had never heard anything like that—a tremble in Len’s throat. “You’re law?”
The man looked up and nodded. “Special Agent David Vega.”
“You killed our brother,” Isaac growled from the floor. “You pulled his guts out and dropped them on the fucking floor.”
For a few seconds, Badger was sure he was going to be sick. He hadn’t known. He’d stood in this room confused about his brothers’ reaction to this man. This man had killed Havoc. While the others watched. He himself had been there, but he’d been unconscious. He hadn’t known. He hated that he hadn’t known. He fought down his gorge and found strength now.
“I’m sorry for that. I had no choice. I’m in deep.” Vega held out his hand to Isaac. “Will you listen?”
From the floor, Isaac turned to his brothers. Then he turned back to the man who’d killed Havoc. “We’ll listen. You can uncuff us. But don’t you fucking touch us.”
Vega nodded and, moving slowly, his eyes on Isaac, uncuffed him. Isaac spit blood and came to his feet, clearly hurt but mobile.
After Vega uncuffed the others, he turned to Isaac. “Will you sit, Isaac?”
“No.”
“Isaac.” That name was the first thing Show had said since Vega had entered the room. Isaac glared at his best friend and then yanked a chair from under the table and sat. Vega sat across from him. Show, Len, and Badger took seats on the bench behind their President.
“I know you don’t want to be in the same room with me, so I’m going to be quick, say my piece. This room is clean. You are not being watched or recorded. Neither am I.”
“We’re supposed to trust you on that? Fuck you.”
Vega regarded Isaac for a second and then continued. “I am going to speak plainly and offer you some truths that might make you trust me a little. I am the man who interrogated Ed Mills, your contact in Joliet. I am the man who led the cleanup of Martin Halyard’s murder scene. I have you all dead to rights on conspiracy to commit. And I have Mr. Wahlberg there on murder one. There’s more. I can put you away for the rest of your lives. Your entire club. I don’t need our conversation today to make that happen.”
“Then do it.”
Vega shook his head. “Not my goal. I’ve been deep under with the Perros for almost eight years. I’ve been Santaveria’s right hand for five of those. He is my goal. I think you and I have the same goal. I can help you achieve it. But I need something in return.
“You want me to do your dirty work, and you expect something in return?”
“My official goal is the end of the Perro Blanco cartel. That’s what I’m working toward. But I have seen a great deal about the way Julio works. He has hurt others even more than he has hurt you. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t rain horror on someone. He takes strength from it. He believes it gives him power. So I am willing to help you end him. I have wide latitude from my office to achieve my official goal, and Julio’s death is a long stride toward that. The time is coming in which we have to act. He is stirring up far too much strife in the States lately. He truly believes that his power is infinite, and it is making him reckless, especially where you’re concerned. A man like that cannot be allowed to be reckless. The damage he does is extreme. So it’s time for us to act, but he will slip past us. I know he will.”
“I hear a lot of chatter. Nothing to make me give a shit about your problems.”
“Julio does not know about your latest scheme. He thinks you are still on your knees. But I know you are planning to fight.”
Isaac shifted, and Badger knew he was trying to control his reaction—and that he was short on control today. Badger’s heart sped up even faster. He was starting to feel lightheaded. That intel was still fairly fresh. How could Vega know that?
“What are you talking about?”
“The Perros don’t know. We caught it first. But one of the Scorpions in LA talked business on the wrong phone. We picked it up.”
“Jesus. Who?”
“Not your man. Not Bart. He’s good—he’s got us locked out of the club good and tight. Somebody else had the miss. You’re all way out of your depth, making mistakes that show it. But that’s beside the point. With the Florida Scorpions gutted”—Everybody in the room, Vega included, twitched at his word choice. He cleared his throat and went on—“and the LA charter seceding, the whole pipeline is in chaos. All the pipelines. Julio is putting a lot of his men in the States to fill the gaps, and that spreads him too thin, makes him weaker. The weed pipeline is the most important and the least stable now. Weed’s not all you’ve been running, by the way. I know you checked the truck at your pickup. But if you had gotten into the truck and dug back, you’d have seen a false wall. You’ve run shipments of human cargo three times.”
“Christ.” Show muttered it, but Vega heard him and looked over Isaac’s shoulder.
“Indeed, Showdown. May I call you Showdown?”
Show shrugged but didn’t answer otherwise.
Isaac’s voice was tight when he said, “Cut to the chase, Vega.”
“Yes. Here’s the deal I can offer you. I am at Santaveria’s right hand. I can get him to meet with you. You proceed with your plan to fight back—I don’t have the details yet, but I know how you think, Isaac. My guess is that you are planning a battle of some kind at the Bulls’ pickup point in Amarillo. Am I close?”
Badger couldn’t see Isaac’s face, but he knew he was simply glaring. Vega went on. “That’s good. Texas is perfect. I can get Santaveria to meet with you. I can get him back into the States. The Perros have a large packaging and distribution facility there, and he will feel safe enough to come into Texas. I can get him into a room with you. I can outfit that room in any way that you would like. And I can see to it that he is ultimately unguarded—that will take some help from you, because he travels with four guards. But I can give you a good shot at him.”
“You’re a Fed, and you’re telling me that your whole office will arrange to help me kill a man.”
Vega nodded. “I am. There is a price. The four of you go down for Halyard. He had powerful friends on the right side of the law. We need a resolution to that open case.”
Isaac laughed, and Badger could almost taste the bitterness in it from across the room. “The right side of the law. There is no right side of the law.”
Vega leaned forward, his arms crossed on the metal table, as if he had a secret to share with Isaac. “I can get you a decent deal, not too much time. Six-to-twelve. I am telling you that I have you on this charge already. I am offering you the chance to, as is your way, collect on a debt. And I am offering you short time for a premeditated murder you committed—a federal court conviction on that charge would get you mandatory life, no parole. You are the winners here.”
“If you have the case, then why don’t you fucking charge us straight up?”
“Because you can be useful. Santaveria needs to be neutralized. Other attempts have failed. He has been a very cautious man. But he’s developed an obsession with you. I swear, it’s like a crush. You make him reckless, and the consequences are beginning to spread. I can use that.”
“I am so motherfuckin’ tired of being useful. Somebody’s always got their hand up my ass, tryin’ to make me dance. I have had it. God DAMMIT.” Isaac slammed his fists on the table.
Vega didn’t flinch. “Isaac, I am offering you a chance to kill Julio Santaveria and live to tell the tale. You know it’s a one-way trip if you go for him on your own—and that is assuming you could even get to him. This way, you will get back to your family some day.”
After three deep, slow, audible breaths, Isaac said, “Here’s the only deal for my men. They go free. Immunity. You leave them the fuck alone. They have hurt over the Perros all they will. You can have me. I’ll go down for Halyard. You want me to be useful, that’s the deal. Me.”
The other Horde jumped up, reacting all at once.
Show roared, “Dammit, Isaac!”
Len yelled, “Fuck that!”
Badger shouted, “Boss, no!”
Isaac didn’t even turn around. “That’s the deal, Vega. Me.”
Show stepped forward and put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “No, Isaac. Think about this.”
Isaac shrugged him off. “Take me or leave me, Special Agent.”
Vega stared at him for a long time. Then he held his hand out. “Deal.”
Isaac looked at that hand. Instead of shaking it, he said, “One thing. Are you the Fed exchanging coded messages in nasty jokes with our fine Sheriff?”
Vega dropped his hand, letting it fall to the table with a thunk. “Huh. That surprises me. Yes. Why?”
“That about us? Haven’t been able to break the naming code.”
“Mostly. The Sheriff is obsessed with you, too. Not sure what your mystique is.”
“Guess I’m just a fascinating guy. You know he’s the one arranged the fire at our little bed and breakfast in town, killed one of our people, hurt a few others—one badly. Badger’s old lady. Burned her.”
Vega’s eyebrows went up. “Proof of that?”
“No. But we know it’s true. I want him off the Horde’s back. Permanently. I want him out of office.”
Vega laughed. “You ask a lot.”
“All that talking you two do, I bet you know something that could get him to resign quietly.”
Leaning back in his chair, Vega crossed his arms over his chest. “Say I do. What do I get for that?”
“Me.” Badger turned his head so quickly at Show’s voice, the room spun a little.
Isaac turned around. He moved stiffly; the beating he’d taken earlier had hurt him. “No, brother. Absolutely not. You have Shannon and the twins. And I need you to take care of my family. And the club. You stay.”
Before Show could say more, Len interrupted him. “It should be me. You can’t go in alone, boss. If it’s known you put down the Perro king, you won’t make it to the first mess line on your own.”
“I’ll be okay. I bet there’ll be as many willing to offer their protection as want me dead.”
“Not on your own, Isaac. Please. If you’re gonna do this, be smart. Let me get your back. That’s my damn job.”
“What about Tasha?”
“She’s got club in her blood. She’ll understand. And we don’t have kids.”
Isaac considered Len, then turned to Badger. “You got any notions of speaking folly, too, you end them now. Keep your trap shut, little brother. We need you on the outside. You’re the future of the club. I’m the past.”
Badger had been too stunned and confused by the developments of this surreal day to have thought to speak up. And now his throat was clenching at Isaac’s words. So he nodded and continued to shut up.
Isaac turned back to Vega. “For Seaver, you get Len, same time or shorter. We’re together, medium security, tops. Close to home.”
“It must be a federal facility.”
“Marion, then. Six-to-twelve bid. No more.”
Vega held out his hand. “Will you shake on it now?”
Isaac stared at that hand, and Vega held it steady. Finally, Isaac shook, his hand dwarfing Vega’s, then yanked away in evident disgust. “You gutted our brother in front of us.”
“It’s on my conscience.”
“I can’t believe we’re letting you walk away from that.”
“Santaveria is your goal, right?”
Isaac nodded, his head rising and falling slowly.
“Okay. It will take a couple of days to process what I need to process to make our handshake official. I assume you have a lawyer on retainer—he should look over the paperwork. The rest of it is off the books.” He handed Isaac a card. “I wrote a secure number. I’ll call from that, or you can call me at it. We will work out the logistics of the rest of this plan. I’ll get your bikes released and your effects, and you’ll be free to go tonight.”
“Len signs nothing until Seaver is gone.”
David Vega nodded, then stood and left the room. Isaac rose and turned to his brothers. The Horde stood in a loose circle, facing each other. No one spoke.