The call disconnected and Cherry turned to stare directly at Busk. “Shit? Your shit? Handle it.”
Busk gave a jerky nod, so Cherry glanced at Marcus.
“Busk, meanwhile, get to know Marcus. His old man was Gord, something I didn’t find out until today. Would have thought our intelligence man might have carried that information to our ears sooner.”
“Oh, fucking shit.” Busk whirled to face Marcus. “Your old man was hardcore. He was a hell of a member, loved his club, loved his family just as much. I rode escort on his funeral.”
Confident Busk would keep the kid busy with his thousand-question conversation process, Cherry pushed through the door leading to the room at the back of the club, the one with a drain in the middle of the slanted floor, the one with a signal jammer, the one with hooks on the walls. The one where his work was most critical.
Life or death, yin or yang. Depends on a thousand little things.
He passed through two more doors, these with guards inside and out. The members each gave him a somber nod. They knew.
We all fucking know.
“Hold a second, Reggie,” he told the outside guard on the final door. “I’m going to listen in.” The room next door held speakers and a screen. He nudged the mouse to wake the computer underneath the desk, and the scene from the holding room came on screen. Adjusting the volume in tiny increments got him the verbal action, too.
“Why am I here?” That wasn’t a voice he knew, and that wasn’t a face he knew, which meant the ASMC was actively recruiting members. Not prospects, but members. The flayed threads around the nameplate on the vest made more sense now. That patch belonged to the club, not an individual member.
“Why do you think, asshole?” That was one of the IMC members in the room.
“I don’t know, man. I don’t know.” That was the voice of desperation talking.I don’t buy it.
Cherry heard three sets of footsteps, two coming towards the microphone. The man on the door opened it for them to exit. Cherry gestured them into the surveillance room.
“What did you see?”
“Stranger walking through the trees. I’d been on perimeter watch for a few hours, caught movement and zeroed in on him. Skulking like a coyote, moving tree to tree like a cartoon bandit.” Salty, a member for several years, shook his head. “All the focus was front facing, which made it easy to get behind him. That’s how we found the bike. He had the cut on his fucking back, out skulking on IMC land. Pissed me off, Cherry.”
“How did you catch him?”
“Seriously, the man had no awareness at all. I even stepped on a stick to see if I could spook him with no luck. I had my arm around his neck before he realized what was going down.” Salty pointed at the screen. “Rooster’s still in there with him. He’s the one who rode the bike back to the compound. He’s got info on what was in the bags, and Cherry, you’re gonna wanna hear about it.”
“Fair.” Cherry turned to the other man. “And your side of the deal?”
Bruiser, only patched for a handful of months, shook his head. “I got called in after Salty had incapacitated the asshole. I’m muscle only on this one, boss.”
“Okay. Salty, can you go in and spell Rooster? Get him to come out here? Bruiser, give it five minutes and you spell Salty. I don’t want anyone spending more than 5 minutes with him. I’ll text Busk and get him to round up brothers to work the play. We want him thinking we’ve got a never-ending roster ready to go to war with one single man.”
He shot a text to Busk and received a thumbs-up response. By then, Salty had gone in and Rooster had come back out to the hall. He came into the surveillance room and gave Cherry a chin lift.
“What was in the bags?”
“Serious putty. He was carrying enough C4 to blow the whole clubhouse off the map. But, and this is critical, he did not have a detonator on him or on the bike.”
“Shit.” Cherry tipped his head down and studied the toes of his boots for a moment. “How was it packaged?”
“M112 blocks, and I checked to see that there were sequential scan codes on them. I doubt they’d had a chance to set anything in place.”
“They. Same thing I’m thinking. Someone out there has the detonators. Take half a dozen brothers and lock down the in and out access from our land. Pour another dozen into the woods. Salty saw him first, once Bruiser rotates in, get Salty to show you on the map exactly where he was. Map that back to his bike, and you’ll likely find the other one. Did this guy carry a phone?”
“In the bags of the bike, opposite side to the C4.”
“So he’s got an understanding how the things work at least.” Cherry reached for the doorknob. “Reggie, come in with me, let’s sort this shit out.” He glanced back. “Find the detonators.”
“Ya boss,” Rooster nodded.
“And make sure that serious putty is stored well away from anything we hold dear.” Cherry paused. “Where’s the bike?”
