"All teams. Wolves ahead. Quarter mile. Two vans, one SUV." I scanned the horizon past the convoy. Two miles east—a compound. Low buildings behind a fenced perimeter, no lights visible yet. And further beyond, the first structures of Billings catching the gray dawn light, the city waking up in the distance while the road between here and there belonged to us. "Their compound is close. Two miles. They're almost home. We hit the rear van now or we lose them behind those walls."
"Copy." Tank's voice from the SUV behind us.
"Copy." Axel. Flat and ready.
The rear van. The one closest to us. The one they'd loaded at the cattle operation, shoving workers and Logan through the doors while the gunfire covered the screams. That was the one.
"Ghost. Right side. Irish, go with him. I take the left." I dropped lower over the tank, the wind roaring in my ears. "Target is the rear van. We stop it without killing the driver or shooting the tires. An accident at this speed kills everyone inside."
"Understood." Ghost's voice tight through the comms.
"On it." Irish, already accelerating.
The three bikes surged forward, closing the quarter mile in seconds. The wind roared past my helmet. The road surface blurred to a gray river beneath my wheels. I dropped low over the tank, the borrowed Harley's engine screaming at peak RPM, the vibration traveling through the frame and into my bones.
Ghost and Irish split right. I rode left.
The van grew in my vision. White panel van, no rear windows. I pulled alongside the driver's door at seventy miles an hour. Close enough to see through the glass.
The driver saw me.
His head snapped left. Eyes wide—young Wolf, mid-twenties, leather cut visible beneath a denim jacket. His mouth opened. His hands jerked on the wheel.
The co-pilot reacted faster. His hand dove beneath the dashboard and came up with a Glock, the muzzle swinging toward the driver's window. Toward me.
The driver wrenched the wheel left. Hard. The van lurched toward me—three tons of steel closing the gap in a fraction of a second. I leaned left, the bike tilting, the footpeg nearly scraping asphalt, the van's side mirror passing six inches from my shoulder. Close enough to feel the displaced air tug at my jacket. The van straightened. I straightened. Still alive. Still alongside.
The co-pilot had a radio now. Free hand bringing it to his mouth while the Glock stayed aimed through the driver's window. If he transmitted, the rest of the convoy would know. The SUV ahead would circle back. The compound would mobilize.
A single shot cracked from the right side of the van.
Ghost's Glock. The round came through the passenger window at a precise diagonal angle—punched through the radio an inch from the co-pilot's lips and continued through his skull. The radio exploded into fragments of plastic and circuitry.
The co-pilot's head snapped sideways and he slumped against the door, the Glock falling from his hand into the footwell. The passenger window spiderwebbed and then shattered, the glass showering inward across the dead man's lap.
One shot. Comms and co-pilot. Both gone.
I processed it in a fraction of a second. Ghost's marksmanship had jumped past anything I'd seen from him in his short time at the clubhouse. The angle through a moving vehicle's window, the target selection—the radio first, then the skull, one round doing both. That wasn't the restless kid from the motor pool. That was something else entirely.
The van swerved. The driver's hands white-knuckled on the wheel, his face a mask of shock, the dead man beside him leaking crimson onto the seat. The vehicle fishtailed, tires screaming against the asphalt, the rear end swinging wide before the driver corrected and the van stabilized in the center of the lane.
The driver looked left. At me.
The Desert Eagle was already drawn. The muzzle aimed through his window at his head from four feet away, while my left arm kept me balanced on the bike. I made a single gesture with the hand that was pointing the gun at him—pushing downward.Stop.
He looked right. Ghost was there. Glock aimed through the shattered passenger window. The engines of our bikes probably racking the driver's senses further.
He checked the rearview mirror. I looked back. Irish was a cautious distance behind the van now, pistol aimed at the rear tires, the message clear.
He looked ahead. The swerve, the shot, the deceleration—it had all cost him speed. The rest of the convoy was pulling away. The SUV and the lead van were three hundred yards ahead now, approaching the compound gate. Not turning around. Not slowing.
He was flanked, and his convoy was leaving him behind.
The van slowed.
The vehicle rolled to a stop on the shoulder. Engine idling. Dust settling around the wheels in a slow cloud that the wind drifted east toward the compound.
I dismounted the Harley. Left the engine rumbling. Kept the Desert Eagle trained on the driver's window as I approached on foot.
