“He was injured on the mine road, whatever that is, by a bunch a hooligans, his words, on the way from Logan, and they stole his scooter. He killed two getting it back.”
I didn’t blink. When I was twelve, I’d crawled into a Mama-Bot and permanently disabled it. Kids grew up fast when times were hard.
“He was given a mission by the leader of the so-called militia in Logan, which is run by his father or his uncle or maybe both.”
Logan was Jagger’s first name. Coincidence? And some of the club members had turned down the road the kid had ridden in on. I doubted the kid would have called an MC a hooligan. I knew for sure no MC would ever have attacked a kid. However . . . “So did our clubs or the kidnapping riders come through the same area where the ‘hooligans’ attacked him?” Where MCs were concerned, things always got complicated.
“Unknown.”
“The militia is run by his daddy-uncle or the town?” I asked.
“Close as I can figure, both. Kid’s name is Andy Gaither Hatfield. It’s his kinswoman or sister who was kidnapped. Her name is Eloise, or maybe Aloise, something like that, and she’s sixteen. The bikers killed three of his daddy’s extended family before the militia could gather. They killed two of the attackers and also killed a motorcycle, which his daddy has in hand.They’re taking it apart, learning how to repair it and getting ready to machine parts.”
If they had the skills, the tools, and the materials to machine parts, the junkyard could do business with them. I currently had four shot-to-hell bikes that needed parts. I didn’t add that in. Amos was still talking.
“His daddy is an ‘honorable man,’ but it sounds like that part was programed in only after they decided to seek help. His mama’s a lady. He can read, write, do math, and shoot. And he’ll take us back the way he came so we can clean out the hooligans who hurt him. He seems to think you’re part Wonder Woman and part Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”
The kid was into the old Hollywood action stuff and magic. Good to know. “That’s a lot of talking for a short chat.”
“He was thirsty, in pain, and ready to collapse. I used your name to get him to talk, gave him some water, and let him finish his mission. I’m the Hulk, to his way of thinking.” There was humor in Amos’ gruff voice.
“Anything else stand out?”
“He lives for hero worship. If his daddy-uncle turns out to be a bad guy, it’ll kill him.”
“Protect the kid’s hero worship. Got it. Thanks.” I tapped off and dropped onto the comms chair. I had barely opened my own place. I didn’t have time to go on a wild goose chase after some “dark riders.” But if the bikers who attacked people in Logan were the same group fought off by Jolene, Gomez, Wanda, and her kid six months ago, while the rest of us were killing Clarisse Warhammer, I didn’t have much choice. I had to go clean out a nest of hooligans, make nice-nice with a potential Hatfield, and track down the riders who attacked junkyards in two non-adjacent counties.
“Bloody damn,” I whispered. I said aloud, “Gomez?”
“I am here. How may I assist you?”
“Will you and Jolene scour the various nets and see if there have been any other attacks by unaligned bikers or dark riders?”
“Of course.”
Jolene said, “We’d be honored.”
“And scour all the nets for this Devil Anse Hatfield. The current one, not the historical one.”
“On it, Sugah,”
I closed my eyes and dropped into sleep, sitting upright in the comms chair.
???
I woke two hours later, feeling stupid about taking a nap, which I hadn’t done since I was a child. When I sat up, the skin on my back crisped and pulled where the shirt stuck to me.
I made a half pot of coffee—the good stuff—changed shirts, and turned on the screens, scanning info about attacks made by a group of motorcycle riders wearing black, no insignia, no colors, no identifying marks. Dark riders for sure, though not a club name. There had been an uptick in reported attacks in the last year. Sometimes there were twelve riders, sometimes as few as four. I scanned through several pics and some security video on the viewscreens in the office, but there was nothing better than what had been taken here at the junkyard when they attacked. There were a few things that stood out: they struck after dark, moved with military precision, seemed to have one leader each time, used high-quality untraceable military weapons, stuff no civilian should have access to, and appeared to be mostly male, though two could have been stout muscular women. All the hits had been at junkyards, trading posts, clearing houses, and pawnshops. They always aimed for small, local, and undefended businesses. Except theyhad miscalculated where my Junkyard was concerned, and apparently Anse’s place, as well. The riders had been fought off, at least in those two places.
I tapped up a sat map of the area and input the locations attacked by the bikers. They had avoided Charleston, West Virginia, which was the territory of the Hell’s Angels and the chapter house of the regional prez, Marconi. They had avoided Winston-Salem, which was also Hell’s Angels territory, and had taken a wide berth around Asheville’s Iron Order Rifles MC, an indie riders club and militia. I was most familiar with the OMW, and none of their cities had been hit either.
No military bases had been hit.
No heavily fortified area had been hit.
The riders had avoided any place known to be protected and well-armed.
They had taken girls, gems, and unspecified tech equipment. My blood boiled at the proof of sex trafficking. The rest was merely interesting.
