Grit

 

Grit was tired of fucking around. Sitting at the bar of one of the Vandals’ usual haunts a day or so after the farewell party for Pitt, he realized that he’d been spending far, far too much time with his thumb up his ass, waiting around for some stripper to give him the information that he needed to make a move.

 

Why the fuck am I being so hesitant? he asked himself, shaking his head as he rolled the glass of whiskey by the bottom of the glass on the bar. I’m acting like a fucking pussy.

 

To that end, he’d called up some of the men in his crew to meet him at the bar and figure out a plan. Part of him wanted to just break into the place with guns blazing, so to speak, and rip that fucking strip club out of the ground by its foundations.

 

Patience, he told himself. Revenge is good, but I gotta keep a clear head. Getting emotional and making decisions in that state of mind is a good way to make some serious fuck-ups.

 

Before he could give the matter much more thought, the doors to the dingy bar flung open and the men from his crew strolled in. There were Stone, Razor, and a couple of others who were new to the Vandals. Grit liked to give the new guys opportunities to ride along with the more seasoned members of the club for serious ops, to give them a chance to show what they were made out of. He hoped that wouldn’t be a mistake tonight.

 

Grit stood up from the bar to greet his brothers, throwing back the rest of his whiskey and ordering another as he directed them to a table in the back corner. The men ordered their drinks and headed over. Once everyone was seated, Grit looked over his crew. They all seemed ready, all with the same steely look of determination in their eyes. They were as ready for revenge as he was.

 

“What’s the plan, chief?” asked Stone, his hand wrapped around a tall glass of beer. “More recon?”

 

“I say we fucking shoot first and ask questions later,” said Razor, anger lining his voice.

 

Grit knew that as much as he wanted revenge, Razor was likely itching for it even more. That could be a powerful weapon going forward, Grit understood, but he knew he had to make sure that Razor’s emotions didn’t get the better of him.

 

“I got some news about the strip club,” said Grit. “Found out that the bartender there’s been handing out free dope to the strippers, trying to get them to sample it or some shit. Sounds to me like he’s using them as guinea pigs to get his recipes down.”

 

Razor slammed his fist on the table.

 

“That’s it then,” said Razor. “What more proof do we need than that? We need to wipe this fucking place off the map before anyone else gets killed.”

 

“I’m with Razor,” said Killian, one of the newbies, a tank of a man with a shaved head and tattoos covering his neck. “I don’t know what better evidence we’re gonna get than that.”

 

Grit liked to run ideas by his men, just to see what they thought of given situations. He always had a plan in mind for what he wanted to do, but asking for opinions was usually a good way to check morale, and maybe pick up an idea of something else he hadn’t considered.

 

“We need to be fucking careful,” said Stone. “This sounds like it’s the place, but we can’t just go barging in there. Good way to make a huge fucking mistake. Maybe even get killed.”

 

The fourth man, Gray, a slim-bodied man with one of those worn faces that gives a man an appearance of being ten years older than he really was, took in all of the conversation in silence.

 

“Maybe we need to wait a little while,” said Stone. “Wait until we’re sure.”

 

Grit knew well by this point that Stone was a cautious sort of guy, the type who liked to have all the angles worked out before making any drastic actions. That was useful, but often had the result of hemming and hawing until opportunities slipped by. And Grit was certain that this was one of those times.

 

“Fuck sitting around!” shouted Razor. “How many more of our brothers have to fucking die before we make a move? I didn’t join this fucking outfit to do goddamn recon!”

 

Grit raised his palm to silence Razor, and he knew that the time for discussion was over.

 

“We’re moving in tonight,” said Grit. “We’re not a hundred percent sure that the lab is there, but if we wait for total certainty then they’re gonna get this place locked up so tight that the only way we’ll get in there will be a surgical fucking airstrike.”

 

Grit looked around at the men and saw from their faces that they were good with his plan.

 

“And we’re moving out now. We’re gonna get in there, confirm that it’s the lab, and do whatever it takes to shut that fucking place down. The time for screwing around is over.”

 

More nods from the men.

 

Gray chose that moment to speak up.

 

“I’ve been doing some recon on the place,” he said. “At two a.m. the guards take off for a half-hour to make a drop of something—probably supply. If we move in then, we should be able to break into the place without too much resistance.”

 

Grit was pleased to hear that. He appreciated men taking initiative and going above and beyond.

 

Might want to keep an eye on this guy, he thought, could be a man to move up in the crew. But let’s get this shit taken care of before I start thinking about shit like that.

 

“That’s in an hour,” said Grit. “Let’s kill these fucking drinks and get geared up.”

 

The men did just that. Moments later, their drinks were drained and they were back on their bikes, riding to one of the warehouses where the crew kept their gear. There, they located a black van they used for raid ops like this, situations where rolling up with roaring motorcycles wasn’t the most tactical decision to make. Grit and the men grabbed some guns and explosives—everything they’d need to wreck the hell out of the strip club and handle any asshole stupid enough to get in their way.

 

Soon, they were loaded up into the van and heading out. Grit gazed out of the window at the neon lights of Vegas off in the distance, the bright glare of the Strip a contrast to the ink-black sky above. It’d been a while since he’d been on a raid like this, and he hoped that he hadn’t gotten rusty. Tonight, he knew, wasn’t just about wiping out the competition—it was about saving the lives of whoever else might get their hands on the poison.

 

Eventually, they arrived at the club, and it seemed to be closed down for the night. The gaudy lights that normally washed the front of the place in a hard glow were turned off, and not a single car was in the parking lot. Stone parked the van a few blocks off, and once they were ready, the men strapped on a pistol underneath their leather vests and grabbed a bag of supplies.

 

“Listen up,” said Grit, speaking clearly but softly. “No room for error with this shit tonight. Not one of you makes a move to do anything drastic unless I give the direct say-so. But if anyone in there looks like he’s out for blood, take him out. No more of our brothers are dying because of this shithole. Got it?”

 

The men nodded in understanding and slipped on their masks. Moving silently across the road, the crew came up to the back entrance of the club in the rear alley. Stone opened up his bag and pulled out a small explosive while Razor disabled the camera above the door. After getting his gear ready, Stone slapped the small device onto the heavy-duty lock of the door, activated it, and gestured for the crew to back off. The device beeped a few times, then with a muffled “pop,” made a small flash of smoke and orange. Then the door opened a few inches.

 

“Nice,” said Grit. “Now let’s get in there.”

 

The men moved in through the door and entered into a dark hallway. Grit remembered just where the door down to the basement was and he directed them with careful steps towards it. It was strange to Grit to see the strip club after hours; what was normally a bustling den of seedy men, naked girls, and loud music was now as silent and still as a graveyard. It all struck Grit as eerie.

 

They soon arrived at the door, pistols in hand. Stone did his thing with another explosive, and after a few more moments, the door to the basement was finally open; Grit would at last be able to see just what the hell was down there.

 

“All right,” said Grit. “Stay fuckin’ frosty. If there’s anyone down there, then they know now that someone’s here. Could be anything.”

 

The men nodded, guns in hand.

 

Grit took point, opening the door and heading down the steep flight of steps beyond. The stairs led down to another hallway, with one end terminating in a heavily-secured door and the other leading to a large room that was aglow with bright, sterile lights.

 

“Stone, you and Gray get to work on that door over there. You two, come with me.”

 

The men did as Grit asked, and he headed down the hallway to the large room. Stepping into it, his jaw nearly hit the floor. It was a drug lab, all right—one of the most advanced that he’d seen in his life. The room was brightly lit, with three rows of tables packed full of drugs and drug manufacturing gear. It was like an industrial chemical lab down there, and Grit almost couldn’t believe that such a place was right below some regular strip club.

 

“What’s the move, boss?” asked Razor.

 

But before he could say a word, a pair of figures stepped out from closed doors in the lab.

 

Grit realized in a split-second that they were guards. And they weren’t fucking around.

 

Gunshots cracked through the lab, and Grit and the men took cover where they could. Lab equipment exploded all around them, sending shards of glass crashing onto the floor. Once Grit found some cover behind a desk, he took the safety off of his gun, raised it towards one of the men, and fired off a quick pair of shots. They both hit home, and the man dropped onto the floor in a heap. Killian and Razor went after the other one, bringing him down in a hail of gunfire.

 

“You all okay in there?” shouted Stone from down the hallway.

 

“Room’s clear,” responded Grit. “We good?”

 

Killian and Razor stood up and nodded.

 

His heart racing, Grit looked over the lab.

 

“Fucking hell of a setup,” he said. “Thousands of dollars’ worth of shit in here.”

 

Razor walked over to one of the tables, loaded down with drugs ready to ship.

 

“This is it,” he said. “This is the fucking poison.”

 

He picked up a packet of the powder, looked it over, and tossed it into the corner in disgust.

 

“I say we burn this fucking place to the ground,” said Killian. “We’ve got the gear for it; what’re we waiting for?”

 

“No fucking way,” said Grit. “You see all these fucking chemicals here? We set this place on fire and we’ll send all this shit into the air. All this poison.”

 

“Then what the fuck’re we gonna do?” asked Razor. “Just smash the place up and send ’em a message? They’ll have this joint up and running in a week.”

 

Grit thought the situation over. Then, he had an idea.

 

“I saw this documentary once about how they’d seal up mines way back in the day. See, you don’t want to just blow the place—you’ll just fuck everything up that way. All you really need to do to make the place inaccessible is to smash up the entrance tunnels. The rock collapses in on itself, and no one’s fucking getting in there, even if the network underground is still intact.”

 

“And what’s that got to do with all this?” asked Razor.

 

Before he could say a word, Stone and Gary returned to the room, each carrying a loaded-up bag.

 

“Jackpot, boss,” said Stone. “Must’ve just hit ’em before they had a chance to sock away cash from a recent buy. Must be hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

 

Razor punched the air in victory.

 

“Fuck, yeah!” he said. “Loot the fuckers, trash the lab, leave ’em high and dry.”

 

Grit was still thinking.

 

“Let’s get back up top,” he said. “We’re gonna wreck this place from the outside in.”