The Protector (Jack Widow Book 17), page 17
When we’d stopped for gas, I asked Fry about them. And he told me. That information made me like Callesy almost as much as Fry did.
I told him she was a keeper. He reiterated it was complicated. And I let it go.
The drive to Gasper took us two hours and ten minutes with a gas station break. Riding the motorcycle was slow going at first, but I got the hang of it after a while. By the time we reached Gasper, I was good enough to be passable. Learning to ride a Harley wasn’t rocket science. But I wasn’t going to pop any wheelies on it. If you can pop a wheelie on it? I didn’t think it was impossible. But it definitely wasn’t probable.
Gasper was a town in the valley between several mountains in the Blue Ridge range. The weather in the town was cold and windy, but not snowing. The mountains had snow caps, though. There were falling leaves everywhere. It was a scenic little town. I’d guess the population was under a thousand people. There were all the staples of a small American town. Everything was gothic but craftsmen. There were hardly any large department stores. Everything was local owned, mom-and-pop businesses. There was one of everything—one bank, one grocery store, one police station, one fire station, and one church. The church was the most interesting part. It was built on a hill, above the town. There was a graveyard behind it. Beyond the church, down a long empty road, there was The Phantom Sons’ clubhouse. It was built on several acres of land. There was a gate with guards posted at it.
Before we entered Gasper, Fry pulled over. I followed, and we met on the side of the road. He gave me a gun out of the trunk. It was a M9 Beretta. He told me that Callesy gave it to him, off the books, and without me seeing it. He didn’t want me to witness her hand it over. The M9 wasn’t for my protection so much as it was part of the cover story. I was supposed to an out-of-town biker. No one would believe that I came to another gang’s territory unarmed. Then, he gave me a burner phone he picked up at the gas station and told me his number was already programmed in it, as well as the address for The Phantom Sons’ compound—which was on the other side of the town, about five miles past the last town business.
He warned me that because of the long road to it, they’d know I was coming before I got to the front gate. Then, we discussed the plan to infiltrate the clubhouse. Fry also pulled some more strings to have my cover story verified by phone. As he explained it to me, there were three guys who could verify me as one of their own. Two of them would never lie about something like that, but one of them was an informant. His handlers were DEA. Fry knew a guy who knew a guy, kind of thing. And he called all his favors in from a guy who owed him. The informant was told to wait for a phone call. Normally, this would’ve all been set up far in advance, but this was short notice. So the informant couldn’t promise anything. When I showed up at The Phantom Sons’ front gates, and they called a number to verify my story, there were two-to-one odds that they’d get the wrong guy on the phone, and I’d be eating a bullet.
I wasn’t happy to hear this, but what choice did I have? Fry reassured me that the odds weren’t that bad because our guy was looking for a phone call. He’d be watching the only number that they would call to do a verification. As long as the guy wasn’t out to lunch, I’d survive it. My preference was to avoid them making the phone call. So, I’d try to think of something. Maybe a peace offering?
We went over it all one last time. We’d already gone over it several times as we began crafting it on the plane ride from Atlanta. I was supposed to ride straight up to the front gate, state my business, and request accommodations, just for a day or two.
The idea was that I’m on a Pilgrimage, which The Phantom Sons should respect. They’ll be suspicious. But, as long as they buy it, they’ll respect it. A Pilgrimage was a universal motorcycle club ritual, where an agent of the club heads somewhere outside his region. Often this was to pay tribute to an elder, who was imprisoned somewhere, or to go to his funeral. Often club members will visit an important elder who was locked up behind bars. There’s a strong sense of tribalism and family in motorcycle gangs, Fry had explained to me. I was learning a lot.
Here’s where we got a little lucky because The Vikings had an elder doing life in prison in New York. But he recently died of natural causes. So, my cover story was that I’m headed up there for the funeral to pay my respects, representing the club, but also to deliver compensation to his widow. It’s actually something The Vikings do when the situation calls for it.
After we went over the cover story, Fry shook my hand and said, “Good luck. Don’t get yourself killed.”
“I’ll try not to,” I said, and I petted Scout one last time. Then, I got on the bike and left them there on the side of the road.
I rode into town, sunshades on, acting like I was just another biker without a care in the world. Which was how I already lived my life, minus the motorcycle. I have to admit that riding this machine with the wind in my hair and the rush of the speed and power gave me a feeling of being free. Maybe I should get a motorcycle? It’d make traveling around a lot easier. Then again, it’s another thing that comes with maintenance and insurance and regulations and gas and storage. Where would I keep it? Suddenly, I’m buying a house just so I can have a garage to store a bike that was supposed to make me feel free. Motorcycles are just a different version of the same trap, an alluring trap, but still a trap.
The people of Gasper seemed so used to guys on motorcycles roaring through the town that no one batted an eye at me. The streets were busy with people walking to their work or destinations. Children were in their last days of school before the winter break. I saw a coffee shop, the only one in town, and thought about stopping for a quick cup of joe, but I had a mission to accomplish.
I rode through the town and saw various members of The Phantom Sons. I saw motorcycles parked and some on their bikes. None of them waved at me, but each of them stared me down like I was in hostile, enemy territory. Suddenly, I hoped that Fry and Callesy’s information was correct. These motorcycle gangs are territorial. If I wasn’t friendly and was stepping on their turf, I could be put down before I even confirmed that Kara and Christopher were still alive.
I drove around town for nearly an hour, getting the lay of the land, and establishing myself—making my presence known. I didn’t want to show up at the compound without being seen in town first. I wanted the word to get back to them. I was here, and I just didn’t automatically show up.
Plus, there was the verification issue by phone thing with a guy I never met from the real Vikings. I didn’t like the sound of it. I needed to get into the club alive. Dead did nobody any good, especially me. Also, I needed to get in quickly. Kara and Christopher’s lives were on the line. I didn’t have time to go through a whole rigmarole about trust. I needed to earn trust instantly. So, I came up with my own plan. I’d been an undercover agent with the NCIS for sixteen years. I knew how to get into places. The best tactic to infiltrate an organization quickly like The Phantom Sons wasn’t to show up on their doorstep, like the new guy who mysteriously shows up right as the drug bust is about to go down. The best way to get access was to be invited.
So, I stopped several times and talked to the locals. Each encounter went the same way, with the same set of questions. I asked for directions to the compound. I pushed locals to tell me about The Sons and what businesses they might be involved in. A criminal motorcycle club was like any other criminal organization. They made tons of illegal money and they needed some place to funnel it through. What I learned was that The Sons owned more than half the town. Which meant that their fingers were in a lot of legitimate pies, so they could wash their money through the local businesses. It was a win-win for everyone involved. The business owners get protection, plus significant percentages. And The Sons got to clean their money. It helped the local economy.
The locals were apprehensive of me, but they told me basically the same information. They gave me directions and hinted at the economics of The Phantom Sons’ existence. Everyone seemed to approve of them being there.
The last piece of information that I heard twice was that Berghorn liked Cuban cigars. So, I made one last stop. This one went the same way as the others, but with a twist. I’d tried at a few different Phantom Son-tied businesses to get someone to take the bait. This guy took it.
The last business owner I visited was a guy selling vape pens out of a cigar store. He had no customers. So, I parked the bike out front and stopped in. There was a piece of information that Fry gave me I figured would be useful.
The cigar store was in a long line of stores that faced the street. There was plenty of street parking. The place looked empty. It was next to a furniture store with Going Out of Business signs plastered in the windows. The inside of the store was drab. There were shelves behind a long counter with glass tops. Various items were displayed throughout the place. The items for sale were mostly vape pens and vape pen cartridges. There was one of those old-timey Native American statues. There were cigars and cigarettes and lighters as well, but the vape stuff took up most of the shelf space.
The guy behind the counter was wire thin, like a coat hanger all bent straight. He was tall, an inch shorter than me. His face was like sandpaper, but he was clean shaven. He said, “Can I help you?”
“Yes. I’m looking for The Phantom Sons?”
“The Sons? You ain’t one of them?”
“Do I look like one of them?” I asked, and I showed him the emblem on the back of my jacket.
He plucked his gums like he was hiding something in there. And I realized he was chewing tobacco. He lifted an old coffee mug to his lips and spit. He said, “Sorry, friend. I thought you was one of them.”
“No. I’m an outsider, looking for them.”
“What you want with them?”
“That’s not your concern. I just want directions.”
“Well, you see that road there,” he said, and pointed back to the road I was just on.
“Yep.”
“Take it to the right about a mile, and when you pass the drugstore, take a left and go straight out of town. You can’t miss it. It’s the only thing on that road.”
I nodded and said, “Okay. Thanks. I’d also like to get a box of Cubans.”
“Cubans?”
“Yeah. The cigars. You sell cigars, right? Not just these weak-ass vape pens?”
“This is a cigar shop. Of course, I sell cigars. But we ain’t got no Cubans. Cubans are illegal,” he said and stared at me with beady eyes.
“I was told that Berghorn likes Cubans.”
He said nothing.
I said, “Since you’re the only cigar shop I saw in this poor excuse for a town, then you must carry them, or you get them for him?”
The guy looked me up and down and then back in my eyes. He said, “You a cop?”
“Do I look like a cop to you?”
“No. But you better know what you’re doing. Berghorn don’t like tricks. Wait here,” the guy said, and he went into the back. He came back out a minute later with a large cigar box with a painting of a woman on the front and red trim around the bottom. The box had writing on the front. It read: La Aroma de Cuba, a brand of Cuban cigars I’d heard of before. The box had been opened previously. He set it down on the counter, opened it, flap to me, and took out a black .38 revolver. He pointed it at me and said, “Who the hell are you?”
I stayed where I was. I didn’t raise my hands. I didn’t flinch.
The guy stared at me. His hands shook, just a little. It was subtle, but I noticed it. I stared him down dead in the eyes, right over the barrel of the gun. I looked the barrel down just as much.
The guy repeated his question. “Who the hell are you?”
I said, “You know how to use that thing?”
“I know how to use it. I served this country.”
“You did? What branch?”
He went quiet.
I said, “Tell me about your service.”
“I did two years in the National Guard.”
“The National Guard?”
“Right here in North Carolina.”
I mocked him and said, “Right here? In North Carolina?”
He nodded.
I said, “Did you get a lot of action? How many combat tours did you do? Got any medals?”
“National Guard doesn’t deploy like that. At least not back then.”
“When was that?”
“Back in the nineteen sixties.”
I paused a beat. Something dawned on me. I asked, “So, you deployed to the local schools?”
“No. What for?”
“You one of those segregationists? Did you spray little black kids with fire hoses to keep them from going to school?”
He said nothing.
I was just trying to rattle him. Being from Mississippi originally, I knew all about the kinds of racism attached to the old South, but I wasn’t sure about North Carolina. I made a mental note to read up more on the topic.
The guy gave himself away. He said, “I never took part in that sort of thing.”
“But you did something related to it. Didn’t you?”
He stayed quiet.
I listened. I was waiting for a particular sound. It didn’t come. Not yet. So, I said, “You never answered me. You know how to use that gun?”
“I told you. I served. Of course, I can shoot a gun.”
Then, I heard the sound I was looking for. Just then, a low rumbling noise came from down the street. It was faint at first, then it grew louder and louder. The rumbling turned into loud roaring. Suddenly, there were motorcycles on the street out front. They swept in a large swarm, like locusts in a Biblical plague.
The guy wasn’t really planning to shoot me. He was distracting me until The Sons arrived. He called or texted them when he was in the back, getting the “Cubans” out for me.
The rumbling continued. Several bikers drove past the store windows. They stopped on the other end of the road and created a blockade, directing traffic to go the other way. They did the same thing on the other side of the street. This move confirmed what Fry had already told me. The Phantom Sons have got Gasper’s cops and mayor in their back pocket. Outside of Gasper, they were outlaws. Here they were the law.
Six bikers pulled up to the store. They parked their bikes in front of the store window, turned them off, and dismounted. They stayed outside and watched.
The store clerk said, “Now you’re in trouble. Shouldn’t be running your mouth.”
I said, “You think they’ll save you?”
He glanced at the window. The bikers stood there. They didn’t enter the store, not yet. They stood there like they were watching how it all played out first.
One of the pieces of information I got when I was asking around town, making myself known, was that the cigar shop owner was the weakest link in the chain. He was not in Berghorn’s good graces. A bar owner on the other side of town told me the cigar shop owner was on the chopping block. Those were his words.
The cigar shop owner kept the .38 pointed at me and turned his head and called out to the bikers. He said, “Hey! Come in! I got him at gunpoint!”
The bikers all wore slight variations of the same black leather jackets or vests. They each put their own spin on their biker uniforms. One of them was a guy about my age. He was white, but looked slightly Italian with thick, black hair. He wore a red bandana as a headband. His hair was slicked back above it. He approached the store windows. The others moved out of the way for him. He wore black sunglasses. He kept them on and leaned into the window and put one hand over his eyes like a sun visor. He stayed there, watching.
The cigar store owner glanced at him. He shouted, “Are you coming in? I got the guy right here at gunpoint! What are you waiting for? Come get him!”
I glanced at the guy staring in through the window and asked, “Is that Berghorn?”
The cigar store owner nodded a quick nod, like he forgot about our situation.
I said, “If you’re going to shoot me, you need to pull the hammer back first.”
The cigar store owner glance down at the hammer, giving me the second I wanted, and giving me the audience I wanted. So I exploded at the hip and snatched the .38 from his hands, reversed it, and shoved it into his face.
Berghorn and the others stayed where they were, watching.
The cigar store owner guy stared at the empty air where his gun used to be, like he missed the whole thing. Then, he stared at me, down the same barrel that I had stared down. He raised his hands up near his shoulders. Before, he slightly shivered. Now, he violently shivered because his life was going to end right here and right now. If I wanted it to.
He begged for his life, over and over. It was a whole, pathetic display, which was what I hoped for. He really sold it. I couldn’t have hired an actor to play the part better. The guy gave Meryl Streep a run for her money. Then, he looked at Berghorn and asked, “Are you going to help me?”
Berghorn stayed where he was, watching, waiting, letting the scene play out.
I said, “They're not going to help you.”
“They’ll kill you if you hurt me.”
“What they do to me after you're dead is none of your concern.”
The cigar store owner begged some more.
I cocked the hammer back, aimed at his face, and asked, “How much for two cigars?”
The guy nearly peed his pants, but he answered, “They’re two thousand.”
