“You’re letting a kid do the electrical?” I ask.
Niro leans a little closer to the screen. “Yeah. The kid’s got smaller fingers than me. It’s perfect.”
I shake my head. I’m sure he’s turned off the power, but still…
“King said you guys installed new standards,” Garrett says, nudging us to the conversation we’re meant to be having.
“Yeah.” Halo points to something over his shoulder. “Can you see this?”
He angles the camera at a large board with members’ names down the left and a whole bunch of categories across the top.
“Yeah. What are we looking at?” Garrett asks, leaning forward and squinting.
“We introduced four categories,” Niro says. “Endurance, Firearms Accuracy, Tactical Mobility, and Auxiliary Skill Set. Since we put it in place a year ago, Jersey’s men have improved endurance by thirty percent, firearms proficiency and accuracy by twenty-eight percent, tactical mobility by forty-three percent, and every member has at least two additional recognized skills. Locksmithing, advanced driving, reconnaissance, EMT trauma basics—Switch even started a triage and nursing program.”
“Those are good numbers,” Garrett admits.
I nod. “We’ll get to how you implemented it in a second, but what do you think caused the biggest buy-in?”
“Themenwould say it was that King chewed them all out,” Niro says.
“So, what’s the truth?” I ask
Halo laughs, and he flips to another chart that looks exactly the same. “This.”
The improvements look just as powerful, and then I see the names. Gwen. Iris. Rae. Calista. “You got the old ladies doing it too.”
Niro grins. “My idea. I was already doing self-defense shit with them, but they were getting bored of drills. As soon as Clutch saw Gwen’s numbers, he kicked his own up a gear.”
I can just imagine Grudge’s face if I started sharing Lucy’s numbers with him.
Halo laughs. “I remember the day Gwen fucking smashed his assault course time. The guy has now lost sixteen pounds, dropped to single-digit body fat, and runs that course every fucking week.”
“Clutch always did like cake,” Garrett says.
“So, walk us through it,” I say. “What’s in each section? How did you train the men for it? Was there pushback? How frequently do you address it?”
Garrett and I both make notes as the brothers talk about setting up an infrastructure, finding the right teachers, leveraging external expertise. Halo hired one of his former Navy SEAL brothers to consult on an assault course they’d built on land next to the clubhouse. Spark helped the club figure out how to walk the line between acting like a military unit, but also still feeling the freedom of the life by positioning it as increasing their success rates in carrying out club business.
As for time, each member was meant to put an afternoon a week on their additional skills, with brothers taking it in turns teaching one another. Like Vex teaching drone surveillance or Niro teaching survival skills. King has also made an investment in gear. Discrete body armor during raids was now mandatory to reduce injuries.
Now, they’re more effective, with more skills, which means they make more money and get hurt less.
Halo sets the laptop back down and wipes sweat from his forehead with his elbow. “Anyway, that’s the overview. We can send you templates, the breakdown, the minimum-standards list. You can adapt it however you want.”
“We appreciate it,” I say, wrapping up writing my notes. “We might have to start small, like you did, and build up to what you have now, so if you have some of your early-day stuff too, that would be helpful.”
Garrett nods beside me. From the way he’s pulling at a loose piece of thread on his hoodie, I can see he’s checked out. Whatever’s been weighing on him this morning still has him in its grip.
“You two good?” Niro asks.
“Yeah,” Garrett answers too quickly. “Just thinking.”
“That’s dangerous,” Spark says, arriving with Archer under his arm like a wriggling and chuckling football. He waves as he walks by.
“Fuck you,” Garrett says, but he manages to pull some warmth from somewhere, so no one gets offended.
Then, Halo claps his hands. “Okay, Colorado. We got to get back to childproofing this deathtrap.”
