“Eleven vehicles are out front: four armored Supra-El utility vehicles; the two tanks you took down before; four motorbikes; and one county car, possibly Hand of the Law. Lot of people moving with purpose.”
Darson?I wondered. It would make sense for him to flee from one sex shop to another.
Watching the group who were watching me, I considered that information. Turned on a heel and walked off to the side, toward the river. “Describe the bikes.”
“Two Harleys, two LPMs, newer models, maybe last five years.”
“Black and blue and green-flame paint jobs?”
“Negative. Solid black. Why do you ask.” It was a demand, the tone of a spaceship CO talking to his subordinate.
“Spy spotted some motorbikes while we were in Charleston, and she was upset by them, but they looked different.” I sat on a rock at the water’s edge. The creek was a steady trickle, the sound of moving water rare these days, except when storms blew through. “There was a deputy’s car at the log cabin when we came through last time. Any chance the county car is Darson’s?”
“The vehicle is parked at the wrong angle for me to be sure. Do I need to work my way in closer?”
“Hold your position.” As an afterthought, I added, “Please.”
I pulled off my glove and put my fingers in the water. It was warmer than body temp and sludgy with algae. “Jolene? Did you find a paper trail on Darson’s finances?”
“It’s incomplete, sugah, but he only showed up in Charleston two years ago, so his financial backtrail is short. However, he lives in a mighty fine house in Charleston for a county Hand of the Law, and he has a partnership in a string of strip clubs from St. Louis to Louisville.”Strip clubswas a euphemism for the sex trade.
St. Louis to Louisville was the direction the MS Angels had been moving the last time Harlan and I talked. St. Louis was one of their biggest strongholds. Nothing about the sex shops was coincidence.
“Any sign the rest of the sheriff’s office personnel are living higher on the economic ladder than their salaries indicate should be possible?”
“Negative,” Jolene said. “Don’t mean they ain’t hidin’ the money better than Darson, though.”
I nodded to myself and mentally called Spy. She raced up and sat on my thighs. I tilted my head forward, asking her to touch mine. The world tilted and I wanted to vomit, but I held it in. I told her what I wanted. She hissed and backed away, nearly flying to a rock nearby, her tail twitching in either excitement or anger. Hard to tell which.
I pulled on my glove and walked back to the group, saying to Mateo, “Send the GPS to Cupcake’s Morphon.” I tapped off the comms. “Gear up. We’re taking the log cabin.” And it needed to be soon, because I could feel the shivers getting close again.
“’Bout damn time,” Cupcake said.
I stripped off the boots and pants and stepped up to the donning station. I initiated it, closed my eyes, and prepared for misery, because this time, I needed to allow full hookup, even the private parts. And it would not be pleasant.
???
Running four kilometers—weaponed up and carrying two cats—was nothing while wearing fully charged, restocked armor in full battle mode, even with me sick as a dog. It was late afternoon by the time we had positioned ourselves and were ready to initiate the plan devised by Mateo and me, one that included the cats. Spy, wearing a tiny camera secured on her chest and tied directly into our face shields, leaped from my arms, followed by the other cats, and raced for the house. I settled myself, sitting against a tree trunk, eyes closed, to follow her through the mental link we had established before we left the scrapyard.
The world shuddered and shook, and I wanted to hurl. Instead, my body stabilized and relaxed. According to my suit monitor, Jolene had taken over my armor and was injecting a combo of meds based on the transition protocol of the med-bay in the scrapyard’s office.
“Okay, Spy,” I murmured. Feeling oddly tranquil, I reached for the explorer cat, found her, and saw through her eyes.
Spy was perched in a tree, the limb overlooking the western gable of the log cabin. From this vantage, she could see the front of the house, the garages, and had a clear view of the parking area. Into my comms system, I said, “The tanks are being repaired. There are multiple mechanics and weapons specialists working on them.”
Spy showed me other visions as well, one at a time, which kept the nausea and vertigo at bay, though I got the feeling that she found it silly that I couldn’t see all seven cat visions at once. Each view was from a different outside perspective, and I told the other humans the positions of the guards before Spy turned her attention inside the windows.
Inside the front window, a woman once again danced on a pole in front of a group of men. I counted the men. All were armed. All wore gray camo fatigues, the same kind I remembered from the sex-shop camp. My fears had been right.
The high-level MS Angels wore gray camo. Had ever since the war. One of the men we squished on the way to Charleston had worn washed-out black camo. I hadn’t thought about it at the time since gray camo was common enough in the backcountry among West Virginia hunters. I hadn’t caught it until I saw the dead men at the camp.
“Mateo. They’re wearing MS Angels camo, just like some of the men at the campground. Jagger had to have noticed, and he didn’t say anything about that.”
Mateo hesitated, and finally settled on, “Good for him.”
I blew out a breath. Jagger knew stuff he wasn’t telling me. More evidence my hold on him wasn’t complete. So . . . yeah. Good.
Through a different window and the eyes of a different cat, I saw what looked like a dormitory or a barracks, bunk beds everywhere, men sleeping on some, others vacant, all the linens filthy, gray camo hanging haphazardly here and there. Another window showed a woman administering meds to another woman. A guard held a weapon on them. There was a door with a deadbolt in the background. No one put a deadbolt inside a house unless it was to keep weapons or valuables safe or hold prisoners. I had no idea how many more secure doors were in the place.
