Jigsaw sat in the passenger seat, BB was driving and the Knightrider, Sidewinder was in the back seat of the SUV. He'd been bored out of his mind all day and then suddenly at nine p.m. just as he was thinking about taking a shower and fucking his lady, BB came pounding on his door, telling him they were going on a run. He'd put on his coat, tucked his gun into the back of his jeans and pulled on his boots. When he got out front and headed toward his bike BB said,

“No man, we're taking the Swag Wagon.” The “Swag Wagon” was what the guys called the black SUV. They had names for all their vehicles, the van was the “Grocery Wagon,” the Jeep was the “Willy” and the SUV, since it was used often to transport the girls that worked in the porn side of the business, the “Swag Wagon.”

“Why?” Jigsaw asked. “Where are we going?”

“Taking a ride out to Roxbury. Sidewinder should be here in a second,” he said. Jigsaw watched him pick up two gas cans. There were two others sitting beside it. “You want to grab those?”

“Sure.” Jigsaw picked the gas cans up and followed BB toward the SUV. Roxbury was where Bobby told Dax that Carson's old lady had a couple of trailers. He assumed that was where they were going...and it wasn't a far jump from there to guess what the cans of gas were for. He wondered what Sidewinder's role was in all of this and why Dax hadn't mentioned the run to him at all. Of course, he hadn't seen him since the patching-in the night before. The ranch had been almost eerily quiet all day...like the calm before the storm. They had loaded up, waited for Sidewinder, and now it was ten p.m. and they were on the road. BB had been chatting almost nonstop, but the whole time Jigsaw could feel Sidewinder's eyes on him.

They were about ten miles from Roxbury when he finally couldn't take it any longer. He turned around and said, “Are you still trying to figure out how you know me, or do you just think I'm hot?”

Sidewinder laughed. “I guess you are kinda pretty, but not my type. Now BB there...”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed again. “You wish pretty boy. I see the lust in your eyes when you take in all that is the mighty Sidewinder.”

“Shut the fuck up, or I'll put you out on the side of the fucking road,” BB growled.

“Yeah, Dax'll be happy about that. I'm the demolitions expert here.” Then quickly changing topics...or maybe not getting far away from it, he looked at Jigsaw again and asked, “You ever been in the military?”

“Nope.” He didn't know that for sure, but it didn't feel right. He couldn't see himself in the military...at least not who he was now.

“You?”

“Yep. I did two tours. I majored in blowing things up. I could blow you up right now and not even dent the car.”

“Good to know,” Jigsaw said.

“Could blow BB up too, but I'm saving him in case there's ever a shortage of women. Put a red dress on him and some lipstick...”

“Seriously Sidewinder, say one more fucking thing.”

Sidewinder laughed. Then looking back at Jigsaw he said, “Damn, it bugs me. I know I know you. You never been to the club in Jersey, have you?”

“Wouldn't you know me for sure if I had?”

“Not necessarily. Like I said, I'm a nomad. I was a regular part of the club when I turned eighteen as a prospect. I got patched in when I was twenty and when I was twenty-five my Daddy died, and I was a little lost for a while. I signed up for the Army and got shipped overseas right after boot camp. I spent the last six years, blowing shit up.”

“Was your dad in the club?”

“Yep, he was a lifer. He was the club's road captain, and a damned good one. One night him and another guy got in a fistfight over a woman. Dad started it. He was pretty drunk. Anyways, this guy landed one lucky punch and Dad hit his head on the way down. He was dead instantly.”

“Damn. I'm sorry. What happened to the guy that hit him?”

“Well, we arranged things to make it look like my dad had fallen at home and hit his head. He was a pretty big drinker, so the cops and medical examiner...none of them questioned it. Then we had a meeting and held a vote on whether or not to let Einstein stay in the club.”

“Einstein?” For some reason that name struck a familiar chord with Jigsaw. Maybe just because there was an actual Einstein...he didn't know. Some days that kind of stuff drove him crazy.

“Yeah, that was his name. Dude's a fucking genius. What he was doing in an MC, doing grunt work for was beyond me. But anyhow, the vote was tied and they let me decide his fate.” He stopped there and Jigsaw waited for several minutes, but he didn't go on.

“So...should I assume he's no longer in the club?”

“Nope, you should never assume. When you do...well, you know. He's still in the club. The dude wasn't trying to kill my old man. It sucked that he did, not just for me and the old man who was dead...but, for this guy that had to live with it. A lot of the other guys in the club, the ones who voted against him, still treat him like shit. I give him credit for going back in there every day. His attitude has always been that we're all brothers, whether we like each other or not. It's what we promised when we were patched in, right? It's the same as blood. Your brother can be a sack of shit...but, you still love him. You got any family, kid?”

“None to speak of,” Jigsaw said. He wished he knew. He saw the old lady in the flowered dress in a lot of his dreams. Sometimes there was a man that looked a lot like him, wearing a black leather jacket and a woman right around his age, with exactly the same color eyes. They flashed in and out of his dreams like pictures in an old movie and none of them ever spoke. He didn't know their names, their relationship to him, or even if they really existed. It was frustrating as hell most of the time.

“Here we are,” BB said, interrupting the conversation as he steered the SUV off the road into an empty dirt lot. The big tires on the four-wheel-drive bounced over the potholes that were still filled with icy water from the most recent storm. He drove toward a collection of construction equipment and parked behind a row of porta-potties. Sidewinder grabbed a big army green canvas bag, slung it over his shoulder and hopped out even before BB turned off the engine. Using his phone as a flashlight, he walked around behind one of the big skid loaders that were parked on the construction site.

“He's been here before, obviously,” Jigsaw said as he opened his own door.

“Nah, Dax probably had some of the pictures the guys took last night sent to him. This is his gig. It's what he does and probably the only reason someone hasn't killed the asshole yet...he's not completely worthless.”

Jigsaw chuckled and said, “So am I the only one that doesn't know the details of this little mission?”

“Sorry man, Gunner was the one Dax tapped for this, but something happened and he and his old lady had to take off for Texas early this morning. I don't think Dax wanted to bother you with it last night, you were riding high on that new patch. Dax let me know about five this evening that he wanted me to take you with, but I was knee deep in filling in one of the holes and just barely made it back up to the clubhouse in time to grab you. Dax and the other exec's went up to Brooklyn to have that meet with the 69'ers.”

“The 69'ers?” Jigsaw knew that the “hole” was a construction site on the ranch where Dax was putting in a new shop. He'd had to fight with the county in order to get the permits through, thanks to the ATF still sniffing around after discovering the illegal slew of weapons in a deep tunnel on the ranch. Hawk was still claiming full responsibility for it and the only thing saving Dax was the fact that Hawk actually lived on the property for years before Dax was even born. Dax and everyone else interviewed claimed no knowledge of the tunnel at all. It wasn't selfish on their part, it was about allowing Hawk to do a selfless thing just once in his life before he died. The “hole” was being filled with things the club didn't want the ATF stumbling up on. It would be underneath the cement foundation of the new shop with an entrance that no one should ever be able to find, underground. The guys were taking turns spending a day moving things while the guys at the gates kept an eye out for the Feds.

“They're a club up in Brooklyn who recently lost their Prez, Vice Prez and a dozen or so of their men. They've got less than fifteen guys left and none of them are interested in taking over. The competition for territory with the street gangs has gotten to be too much for them. Dax was good friends with the Prez and says they have a lot in common with us. I think he's planning on offering to bring them over if they want to come, or patch them in as nomads, maybe. That's the rumor anyways.”

“Wow.” The Skulls were already the biggest club on the east coast in numbers and the wealthiest in dollars. Less of their guys were in prison or jail these days than in the history of the club, and the deaths, according to the statistics Jigsaw had heard went from over a dozen the year Dax first took over down to an average of less than one a year since. That's even counting the ones that died from medical issues and overdoses. They were impressive numbers and even a guy who couldn't remember if he'd never been in a club before or not, knew that.

“Y'all ready to do this?” Sidewinder asked, appearing out of the dark.

“Ready,” BB said. He looked at Jigsaw and said, “We're just pouring a trail. The explosion will happen from up here.”

“Okay, I'll follow your lead,” Jigsaw told him.

“Walk a path directly into that second trailer, leave a trail of gasoline as you go. Make sure you save some to throw up against the side of the trailer and make sure these cans go with us. Even melted they might be able to get a print off them.”

“Got it.” They left Sidewinder standing next to the CAT. Jigsaw assumed he'd already set up his part while he and BB were waiting. He was confident that if Dax trusted him, the guy wouldn't blow them all up...although he seemed just a bit less than stable. Jigsaw was more worried about the fumes coming from the trailers as they got closer, than he was about his back-up. His head began to ache almost as soon as he breathed it in. He wondered if using the shit made your head pound like that. As little as he knew about his past, he was glad to know that at least he wasn't any kind of addict. At least he didn't think so. He hadn't had any cravings, no track marks and no withdrawal symptoms. His body's reaction to the fumes from the trailers was instant as well, and he had to fight through bouts of dizziness and nausea that were only complicated by the fumes from the gas. He was thankful when they finally reached the back of the trailer, but as he splashed the gas he began to have a coughing spasm. BB was in the same boat, but he was closer to the front of the trailer. There was a sudden burst of light, like someone opened a door. Both men were coughing up a lung so neither could talk but Jigsaw motioned at BB to run, right before he did the same.

Jigsaw ran back up toward where the car was parked. His lungs were burning and his legs felt like they had lead in them. He wanted to throw down the gas cans but remembered what BB said, so he clutched onto them as he ran. He was within sight of Sidewinder when he heard the sound of the explosion, and felt the earth move out from under his feet. His last thought as he flew through the air, right before his head slammed into a pile of wooden pallets was, “Where the hell is BB?”