“Get your family shit together, Shadow,” Jax said, turning back toward the map.
Sami smiled at Raze. “You’re lucky, Shadow. So lucky to have your sister here.” The room went quiet for a moment, and Sami flashed to memories of her sweet sister and the good times they’d had together. Man, Sami had gotten Jackie drunk when she’d turned twenty-one.
Jax cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present. “Where is Grey’s current headquarters?”
Sami shook off the past, stood, and grabbed a marker off the table to circle the location of the current headquarters. “Here’s where he and Damon stay, and here’s the headquarters trauma area, and here’s where we found the supplies. There was a seven on the door.” She made notations.
Jax took another marker and drew a rough square over acres. “We think this is the entire Merc territory. So if they have at least six depots like the one you found, where would they be?”
“Probably spaced evenly, just in case,” Sami said, glancing around.
“What?” Jax asked.
“Pencil,” she said, just seeing markers.
Jax reached in his back pocket and drew out a stubby, well-chewed pencil. “Here. I didn’t bite it.”
She winced and carefully took the pencil to draw wider circles spaced evenly throughout the Merc territory. “Say there are ten, then here’s an even spacing of them.” Of course, she was just guessing. She retook her seat.
Jax planted both hands on the table. “I’m figuring we’d need a full-out assault to get the provisions?”
Tace nodded. “I think so. An infiltration would be another way, but those places are usually well guarded. The one nearest headquarters is the most open, but that’s because it’s the farthest from the borders, and the guards and scouts circle out.”
“Give me a pro list for waging an attack,” Jax ordered.
“They have a lot more medicine and water than we do,” Sami said slowly. “If every depot has the number of guns I saw in the headquarters depot, they have plenty of weapons and ammunition. And they have vitamin B. A lot of it.”
Jax breathed out. “Cons?”
“They’re trained and well prepared,” Tace said. “If we take fifty soldiers, we’d be man on man, but then we’d be leaving Vanguard vulnerable. And Jax, we’re gonna lose people in a fight. Greyson won’t fuck around.”
Sami nodded. “Agreed. I’m not a profiler like the doc, but Greyson seems like a good guy to have on your side. Loyal. But cross him, and I think he’d slice your neck and not lose a minute’s sleep.”
“Good point.” Jax turned and eyed the map. “Both of you meet with the doc today and give her your impressions. I want an actual profile from her.” He tapped the map at several places. “Raze? If we decided to go in and take resources, what’s the best infiltration point?”
Raze studied the map. “They’re vulnerable from the north. I think they’ve protected the area south because of the university holdings. They only have so many guards to rotate, so they have to concentrate on the most valuable area. If we go in, we go in from the north and west.”
“From the beach?” Sami asked. “Won’t they be expecting that since that’s how the president attacked?”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason that’s how the president infiltrated,” Jax murmured. “So attack first from the north, draw the guards, and then a secondary hit from the beach.”
Tace nodded. “Looks good to me.”
Sami shook her head. “We’re not really considering attacking the Mercs, are we? I mean, we still have the president and his Elite guard on our butts, and if we’re allies with the Mercs, that gives us more fighting strength.”
“Agreed.” Jax drew out a chair and sat. “But we’re running out of B, medicine, water, food, and ammo. All the allies in the world don’t help us if we can’t feed our people.”
“What if we brokered a deal?” Tace asked slowly. “A trade of services, so to speak?”
Raze lifted his head. “I hope you’re not saying what I think you are.”
Tace blew out air. “If they have food resources, and your sister can get those or develop those or grow those or whatever the fuck a food production expert does, then why wouldn’t we do that? Especially if she wants to go and check out the holdings.”
“No.” Raze crossed his arms.
“Your call. Then how about medical expertise for hire?” Tace asked. “I’m fine going back periodically and helping out if they give us medicine and so on.”
Jax studied him. “That’s not a bad idea.”
