“Britt’s the most resourceful sonofabitch I’ve ever met,” Hew assured him as he marched back to his bike to thumb off the headlight. His accent turned the wordresourcefulintore-sauce-ful. “If anyone can outsmart the FBI, it’s Rollins.”
She watched Hew pull a bag from the compartment on the back of his bike. He’d unzipped his jacket. So when he slung the bag over his shoulder, it made one side of the leather material swing wide. Her eyes rounded when she saw the nylon shoulder holster and the matte-black butt of the weapon inside it.
It wasn’t that she was shocked to find him armed. This was America—the wild, wild west of developed nations. A quarter of the population packed heat in one way or another. But Hew’s setup was one more piece of a puzzle beginning to take shape in her mind.
No one at Black Knights Inc. had batted a lash at Knox's story. The handsome, wild-haired man named Ozzie had seemed sure he could find the villain who’d outed Knox and her brother to the cartel, given enough time. There was that strange, terrifying tunnel that appeared behind a secret brick wall in the motorcycle shop—a tunnel dug downunderthe frickin’ Chicago River. And there was the way both Britt and Hew moved, with an economy of motion she’d only seen in stuntmen and soldiers.
All of that combined to tell her there was more to the men and women who worked at Black Knights Inc. than met the eye.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, survey says it’s a duck.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t fathom what kind of duck she was dealing with.
Pinning Hew with a searching look, she asked, “Whoareyou people? The Black Knights, I mean,” she clarified a bit breathlessly. “You’re more than just motorcycle mechanics, aren’t you?”
“If I answered that, I’d have to kill you.”
It was said as a joke. But the hint of steel in his voice matched the hint of steel in his eyes.
When she shivered, it wasn’t because the night was growing colder by the minute.
14
Huron-Manistee National Forest
“No luck on the other two motorcycles,” Agent Keplar grumbled, and Julia could sense the violence in him.
It’d become clear over the preceding hours that of the two feds from South Carolina, it was Ryan Keplar who was most determined to find Knox Rollins. A quick aside with Agent Maddox had revealed why.
Knox had been Keplar’s asset. It’d been Keplar who’d first recruited Cooper Greenlee and Knox Rollins to be the FBI’s moles inside the narcotics trafficking operation. This meant Keplar took Knox’s betrayal and the subsequent implosion of their joint operation with the ATF and IRS personally.
Not that a scream of frustration didn’t threaten in Julia’s own throat. But her fury had nothing to do with Knox Rollins—she didn’t know the man from Adam. It was leveled solely on Black Knights Inc. And, more specifically, Sergeant Britt Rollins.
“But they did find this.” Keplar slapped a heavy Maglite flashlight into her hand. “It was taped to the motorcycle's fender.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the line of pines standing guard around the farmhouse and its fields.
She could see the beams from the tactical team’s flashlights bouncing around the thick tree trunks as they continued searching for the rider of the lone motorcycle. But it’d already been an hour since she’d watched them fast-rope out of the helicopter. And so far…nada.
Every trail of footprints they’d found in the woods had petered out. Every tree with limbs low enough to climb had been spotlighted and searched. And every streambed and washed-out crevice within a one-mile radius had been scoured inch by inch.
The rider was gone.
Either he’d managed to run beyond their search parameters, or he was hiding somewhere they couldn’t find him without the help of thermal imaging. And the infrared drone they’d brought with them for that express purpose had given up the ghost on its maiden flight.
It was currently in pieces on the ground beside the helicopter as the agent certified to fly the sucker used a headlamp to do repairs.
Initially, Julia had been sure the tactical team would locate whoever had manned the wrecked motorcycle. After all, they were four highly trained agents who’d been schooled to find even the savviest of escapees. And besides, how far could one man get on his own?
But as the minutes dragged on—and from listening to the frustrated chatter over the radio—it had become increasingly apparent that the searchers had given up on their current tact and were preparing to expand their search.
Good luck,she thought despondently, knowing that the more time passed, thelesslikely they’d find their mark. Either the rider was putting more distance between them. Or he was holed up in a spot so covert and concealed that it would take a bloodhound to locate it.
“Taped to the fender you say?” She frowned down at the flashlight in her hand. “But why would—” She didn’t finish her own question because the answer suddenly came to her. “The three headlights we were chasing.” She closed her eyes and pictured the faint beams she’d seen over the side of the chopper as they’d hovered above the thick copse of trees. “It wasn’t three headlights at all, was it?”
“Doesn’t appear so.” Keplar shook his head, a muscle beneath his right eye twitching. Even in the muted yellow glow of the farmhouse’s porchlight, she could see his color was heightened. And despite the crisp nip in the air, sweat beaded his brow.
“That means whomever the rider is, he split off from the other motorcyclists after they lost that New Buffalo police officer.” The next words tasted sour in her mouth. “And that means it’s got to be Britt Rollins, right? He used himself as a distraction so his brother and the mystery woman could go on to parts unknown.”
“Or, if you were right about Hewitt Birch being part of the group, maybe he was the one doing the distracting,” Dillan supplied from his spot on the bottom step of the porch.
