Chapter Four
Everyone sat there absorbing the information Stone had just presented. Mountain, Deke, Sam, Gator, Iceman, Wiley and all the others in the club. Reva and the other women stood in the kitchen waiting and listening.
“I hope to get a network from the East Coast all the way to the West Coast,” Stone told them. “It sounds impossible I know, but this is important to preserve our way of life. The people who would destroy us are already here, on our homeland and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them destroy it.”
“So what exactly would you want us to do?” Iceman asked.
Reaper shrugged. “Just keep your eyes and ears open and if you hear something you think we should know about call us and let us know. We can determine if the threat is real or not but if we don’t hear about it, we can’t stop it.”
“What we don’t want is anybody to be a fuckin hero.” Stone growled. “Don’t confront the source head on. Bring us into it.”
“How far are you in setting up this network?” Gator asked.
“We’re just getting started,” Stone admitted. “It took us a while to get our base set up.”
Reaper snorted then laughed. “Yeah, part of our team back home are Green Berets and y’all know how much Marines just love those Army brats.”
Sam snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. “So Pappy, what do you need us to do here?”
Stone looked over at his men. “First of all we need to find Hades. Hopefully, before he finds McKenna. Once he’s sorted out, we can deal with the network.” He glanced over at Calico. “I hope you are as good as you claim to be. I can get everything we have on Hades if you can find his dumb ass.”
Calico nodded. “I’ll find him.”
Stone turned to Deke. “We have to call in a Boston badge. She’s been working with a Matthias Jones. He can bring us more info, police report and the like.” He cocked his head to one side. “While we do all this, I need to know she’s protected.”
“She’ll have everyone here looking after her,” Deke assured him.” This wouldn’t be our first time doing that.”
Sam nodded.” Hell no. We have been up against this before.”
Stone titled his head with interest.
“NO!” McKenna shouted. “You can’t do that.” She got to her feet and began backing away.
Stone turned his head and stared at her for a moment. “Why the fuck not?”
“Because the more people you put between me and this Hades, the more chance he has to kill them.” McKenna explained. “He won’t stop. Not until he gets to me.” Shaking her head, she begged, “Don’t you see? He won’t stop until he gets to me.”
Stone stood and walked over to her. Leaning forward, his forehead rested on hers. “I’m not giving you up,” he whispered. “I’m not letting Hades take you to his world of pain and death. Don’t ask me to do that.” His lips touched hers gently.
“I don’t want someone else to die in my place. I’m afraid to die but to have someone else do it in my place, just isn’t right. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.”
Stone turned his head and glared at Calico. “Then you better pray he’s as good as he says he is, because there’s no way in hell I’m giving you up.”
“But you don’t even know me,” she argued.
“Oh, yeah I do,” Stone assured her. “I know enough for the moment and can’t wait to discover the rest.”
McKenna looked at him with tears in her eyes. Raising her hand, she cupped his face. “I think I’d like that.”
“Right Pappy, we need to get things moving to find Hades,” Viper suggested.
Stone turned his head to glare at the other man.
McKenna agreed with a nod. “Let me call Matthias and get him here.”
Stone looked over at Sam. At the other man’s nod, he reached for his phone. A few minutes later, he gave the phone to Sam. “Give my man an email address to forward the info to. That way, Calico will have it when we get the info from the Boston badge. We can get started before you arrive with the paper files.” Running his fingers through his hair, he sighed. “Man, I hate working with civilians.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sam agreed. “But in this case, we don’t have much choice. We need the information on the murders your man has committed since he left.”
“While Zipper gets the info from the badge, I need to know everything about Hades you can remember. Calico interjected. “And I mean everything. He may be smart but there is always something to trip up a man with. Most of the time, it will be something little that screw him up.”
“Such as?” Mountain asked with a frown.
Calico shrugged. “I was telling these guys earlier I caught a perp from listening to him repeat a key phrase.” He lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “It can be as simple as that sometimes, but most of the time it’s so much harder. Me, I like to know as much about the man I’m after as I can. I want to know him like he’s my brother.”
“Hey, I’m not that bad,” Reaper complained.
Calico snorted. “You, I’d know how to track. All I’d have to do to find you would be to follow the trail of beer stains. You are a slob, brother of mine.”
Reaper punched his brother in the arm.
Stone and the others grinned. Reaper was known for the messes he left behind.
He turned to look at Calico. “I can get a copy of his service file, if you need it.”
Calico nodded. “That’s a good place to start.”
“I can get Zipper our Intel guy…” Deke grinned. “…Looking into his life before and after the service. We can start compiling info before the badge gets here.”
Cassie walked up behind her husband and laid her hand on his shoulder. “Do you guys really think you can find this guy? I mean the military couldn’t find him ten years ago.”
“The military had better things to do ten years ago than go looking for an AWOL Marine,” Stone replied. “We were fighting a war we couldn’t win and rather than admit it, we just kept putting men in front of more bullets.”
“If you feel that way,” Reva spoke up now. “Then why are we still fighting?”
Stone’s eyes narrowed. “I never said I felt that way but the military won’t do what everyone knows needs to be done to get the job finished.”
“And what is that?” she frowned.
Reaper answered this question, “They need to just go in and wipe the bastards out. They won’t do it because the enemy hides behind women and children. More often than not, they use those women and kids to fight their battles. They put guns in their hands because they know we won’t shoot them. In our minds, women and children don’t belong in a war zone. They are innocent of the problems their men want to go to war for.”
“Getting back to the matter at hand.” Deke set his coffee cup down on the table. “I think we should get his picture out on the street and get our own army looking for any sign of this guy.”
Stone frowned. “You have your own army?”
Deke nodded. “They are the same men Cassie was telling you about before. They know this city and everywhere there is to hide in it. If they find your man before Calico does, they will keep an eye on him for us.”
“We can’t spook him or he’ll go underground,” Reaper warned.
“My guys won’t spook him,” Cassie assured them. “If fact, he won’t even know they are there. That’s why this might just work. You see, most don’t even pay attention to street people. They are almost invisible, especially my guys.” She patted Deke on the shoulder. “As soon as we have a photo, I’ll send it to Amos and get them started.”
Calico got to his feet and looked down at Deke. “Where can we set up? I need a quiet place to go through the files and set up a timeline.”
Deke glanced at everyone in the room. He knew they wanted to be part of this and he couldn’t deny them that. This was a bigger problem than they had ever worked before and they wanted to be part of it. Running his fingers through his hair, he motioned to the end of the room. “Might as well set things up here. We’re all in this as much as you are. Maybe with more eyes on the case, we can find the key to bring this down before he kills again.”
Everyone began to get set up. They moved a couple of long tables together and began stringing several lines of wire along the back wall. Zipper brought over a stack of papers to them. He’d gotten into police files from Baltimore, Trenton and Pittsburg. He downloaded what they had then warned them, “The badge from Boston might have more than are actually in the files online but that’s what I got.” He shrugged. “They always have more than they put in the files. They like to hold stuff back from the public in case they actually do find their guy.” He shook his head. “In this case, they don’t have a fuckin clue who they are looking for.”
“Why do you say that?” Deke asked.
“Because this guy is whack.” Zipper shook his head. “He’s so far gone, there is no coming back for him.”
Stone stood and listened as he knowingly nodded his head.
“You got all that from the files?” Deke asked.
Zipper nodded. “What this fucker does to these women is just plain wrong. Any way you slice it, it’s just wrong.”
“Do you think we can find him?”
Zipper shrugged. “Maybe, but it isn’t going to be easy or fun. This fucker is seriously messed up.”
“Then pray we catch a break and can find him before he finds us.” Deke said. He turned and looked at the room behind him. His family lived here and he hated the fact they might be in danger yet again.
A short time later, Detective Matthias Jones and his partner Jonah Trent joined them in the clubhouse. Matthias was a tall man but not as tall as Deke or Sam. He was only about six foot with ruddy cheeks and a pale complexion. His dark red hair and green eyes looked pale compared to the dark looks of most of the men in the room.
Jonah was younger than Matthias but looked washed out with his blonde hair and blue eyes. He stood just under six feet and his slender build told everyone he pushed a pencil rather than get his hands dirty with real labor.
Matthias brought with him a large stack of police files. Handing them over to Deke, he took a moment to catch up on the time line they had set up. When he finished, he looked over at Deke and the others. Raising his eyebrow, he shook his head. “How did you get police files?” When no one answered, he held up his hand and said, “I don’t want to know.” He walked over to where McKenna was standing and asked, “How are you doing kiddo?”
McKenna shrugged. “I’m still alive. For the moment anyway.”
Matthias took a deep breath and whispered, “How the hell did you get mixed up with this group?”
McKenna looked around and chuckled. “Would you believe me if I said it was a bar hookup?”
Matthias rolled his eyes. ‘That I could believe.” Glancing at the number of tall, young bikers in the room, he asked. “Which one hit on you?”
McKenna snorted. “I hit on him.” She nodded at Stone.
Matthias’s eyes widened. “The old man?”
“He’s older but not dead.” She told him with a wink.
Matthias gazed at her for a moment. “So how does he fit in?”
McKenna motioned at the timeline and the rest of the evidence. “Our killer’s name is Jon Ronin. At one point he was in Stone’s unit.”
“His unit?” Matthias stood up, looking surprised.
“Stone was a Colonel in the Marines. Jon was a Marine before he went off the grid.”
“Damn.” Matthias swore quietly. “No wonder, we can’t find him. The man has been trained not to be found.”
“It gets worse.” She shook her head. “The man went AWOL almost ten years ago. The military couldn’t find him either.”
Matthias took a moment to digest the new information. “What makes these guys think they can find him, if all that is true?”
McKenna nodded at Calico. “While never serving in the military that guy was trained to find runners. He claims he can find this guy before he finds me again.”
Matthias stiffened. “Again?”
McKenna nodded and stared at him. “He found me last night. He left me another feather. Stone says he’s closing in for the last time and he brought me here to keep me safe.”
Matthias swore again. He stared at her for a moment and that’s when he noticed something different about her. He saw the fear in her eyes but she wasn’t that afraid anymore. Yes, she had a killer after her but there was a confidence in her too. “You trust these guys, don’t you?”
McKenna nodded. “For the first time in four years since this nightmare began, I can take a deep breath again.” She looked around the room and saw the look in their eyes. “If anyone can stop him, they can. I can feel it.”
Matthias gazed around the room. Some of these men would scare the timid and even the not so timid. Most were well over 6 foot 6, and some were wide. All looked as though they would put hurt on somebody if you crossed them. “I hope they can find him before he finds you.”
“Stone and his men know this guy,” McKenna reminded him.
“That’s what they said.” Matthias nodded. “But let’s keep in mind, people change over the course of their lives. What this guy did ten years ago in the service to his country might not be what’s he’s doing now.”
“They know that.” McKenna shook her head. “But they aren’t too worried. They seem to think they can find him anyway.”
“Let’s hope they can.”
As the day got longer, everyone was busy setting up the files. The information they had wasn’t intense enough to show the real man Jon Ronin had become. While Calico was busy reading the files, he asked questions. Stone and his men answered the inquiries but had no idea what was behind the questions. Stone remembered to tell him about Hades not being in the place they thought he was. He didn’t know why he mentioned that particular trait but he did.
Stone walked over to Reaper and asked, “What is your brother up too?”
Reaper shrugged. “He’s learning all he can about Hades.”
“Why?” Stone demanded. “What difference does it all make?”
Reaper shook his head. “I haven’t seen my brother in a number of years but I can tell you one thing about him. He’s a bulldog when it comes to stuff like this. If Hades has a weakness, Clancy will find it.”
Running his hands through his hair, Stone said, “I fuckin hope so. We have to end this nightmare.”
Reaper stared at his old commander. “This is more than just stopping him isn’t it?”
“We should have stopped him ten years ago. Nine women lost their lives because we didn’t do our job back then. And those are the ones we know about. That number could be significantly higher.”
“I know all that but this is more than just the numbers.” Reaper nodded at McKenna. “This is about her, isn’t it?”
Stone stared at her for a moment then looked over at Reaper. “It could be. Don’t get me wrong. There is something between us. I just want the time to figure out what it might be.”
Reaper grinned. “Hallelujah, the great have finally fallen.”
Stone shook his head. “Not fallen yet, maybe just stumbled along the path.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” Reaper snorted. “She’s a pretty young thing.”
Stone rubbed his chin. “Yeah and that’s a legitimate concern for me.”
Reaper slapped Stone on the back. “Don’t let that stand in your way boss man. Git after her if she makes you happy.”
“The real question is can I keep up with her?” Stone said quietly.
“Never known you to worry about the small stuff Colonel,” Reaper stated.
Stone sighed. “Let’s concentrate on finding Hades before we get sidetracked with other stuff.”
“Yeah, other stuff.” Reaper nodded though his grin remained.
Matthias and Jonah stayed for a while but eventually had to leave to go back to Boston. They asked Stone to be kept in the loop and Stone assured them he would let them know what the outcome would be. Matthias told them he would check back in a few days’ time and if anything came up in the meantime, he would let them know.