Blood in the Water (Kairos) (29 page)

They set off for home as soon as Samuel was done with the call.  Paul didn’t like the oppressive sky and he was hoping they’d be able to outrun the coming storm.  They seemed to stay on the edge of it all the way back, but it was definitely following them, almost chasing them down.  Something was off, Paul didn’t know what, but the sixth sense that had saved his life more than once had the foghorns blaring.  He kept a careful eye on the road and on every passing vehicle, but nothing untoward happened.

Twilight fell early, thanks to the menacing, low clouds.  They had crossed the state line, but were still a ways from the next town and the best part of half the state away from home.  The road was clear of traffic all around them.  It was almost eerie, with the trees and bushes forming an impenetrable wall on either side of the highway.  After so long in the saddle, combined with the luminescent glow of the setting sun through the heavy clouds, Paul was beginning to get tunnel vision.

Even though the storm had been on their tail all the way from Florida, when the rain came it was instant.  In the space of a second, the sky went from overcast to a full deluge.  There were no warning drops or spatters; the sheets of rain lashed down as if God had dumped a bucket of water on the world.  They were immediately soaked through.  Paul knew, and he knew the others would be thinking the same thing; there was nothing to do but ride for home.  By the time they found shelter they would be as wet as they could get; they might as well carry on being wet and dry off in comfort.

The sound of the thunder and the rain masked the sound of the bikes that burst from between the trees as the five riders passed.  Nature also hid the sounds of the gunfire.  It wasn’t until the bullets were whizzing past them and pinging off the road that they realized they were under attack.  Terry, riding in front of Paul, tried to twist in his seat to get a view behind them, but his bike aquaplaned as soon as he loosened his control of it.  It was more luck than skill that kept it upright. 

They were well and truly fucked.  They couldn’t increase their speed to outrun their attackers, and they couldn’t turn and fire without skidding across the slick road.  They were sitting ducks.  They were weaving in and out of each other, trying to avoid catching a bullet by making themselves unstable targets.  Paul signaled to Dizzy and Dean as he caught the corners of their vision.  They did the only thing they could think of and formed a line behind Samuel and Terry, still moving in and between each other as best they could to fox the sightlines of their attackers to their president.

An ambush like this was exactly what Paul would have planned, if he had still been planning to kill Samuel and Terry.  He would have arranged for the firefight and used the chaos as cover to make the shots he needed.  But he hadn’t been planning it, and these crazy fuckers were shooting at him as much as they were shooting at anyone else.

Paul was blinded by the rain and concentrating on Samuel’s and Terry’s positions and on Dean’s and Dizzy’s as part of the delicate and deadly ballet they were dancing.  He was rendered deaf by the weather and the roaring of the engines and of his own blood.  One minute they were striving for home, hoping for a fucking miracle, the next Dean was flying through the air. 

Dean landed with a sickening thud, that Paul knew he couldn’t have heard, in front of Terry.  All three riders had to take swift evasive action to avoid hitting the body in the road and to avoid being hit by over seven hundred pounds of Harley that was sliding after its rider as if unwilling to be separated from the hand that guided it.  Dean’s bike, carried by the momentum of its immense weight, slid past the body that had been controlling it and across Samuel’s path, causing Samuel to swerve and lose control.  As his bike went down, Samuel hurled himself clear.  Terry, Dizzy and Paul damn near laid down their own rides; they were swerving and weaving all over trying to keep their seats as they avoided the bikes and bodies.

Even over the booming din of the storm, Paul heard their attackers throttle up, ready to make their escape now that their job was done.  The three remaining Priests managed to get turned around without their bikes slipping from under them.  Paul’s heart was in his throat as they rode back to the bundles of leather and denim, one lying in the middle of the highway, the other on the grass verge.  Neither seemed to be moving.  Both downed bikes had come to a rest on the blacktop. 

Paul registered Terry peeling off to check Samuel and saw Dizzy head towards Dean.  Making a snap decision, Paul twisted the throttle viciously and set off after their attackers.  Rage gave an edge to his skill but it still took all he knew about his bike and riding not to end up sliding down the tarmac himself.  Their attackers were riding trail bikes; he could just make out two assailants through the sheeting rain.  He was gaining on them, he could see that they might be from the higher end of the engine range, but they were no match for the power of his Fat Boy.  His bike twitched dangerously as he fumbled his way inside his kutte and pulled out his Beretta.  He had to grab both handlebars, barely keeping his grip on his gun as he tried to right the steering with one and a half hands.  He got the bike as steady as it was going to get and fired three times in quick succession.

One of the two bikes went down, sliding into the median in a shower of mud and grass.  The other throttled up again and sped up, but Paul ignored it; he had what he wanted.  By the time he’d slowed and turned, the rider of the downed bike was up and trying his damndest to limp away.  Paul didn’t know where the fuck the cunt thought he was going.  Maybe he thought he’d run and hide in the trees.  He was fucking delusional if he thought that would work.  Paul took aim and fired.  Red spray puffed from his quarry’s leg and the body went to its knees. 

Paul pulled up in the median and slung himself off his bike, knowing he was dropping it and that he would have to heft it back up.  He jogged towards his target, gun out in a two-handed grip.  Both hands came out from the sides of the kneeling body.  Paul paused a step, but both hands were empty, so he continued forwards.   As he got to the body he kicked, planting his foot in between the shoulder blades and sending the assassin face first into the mud.  Keeping his gun aimed, Paul yanked off the rider’s helmet.  He hadn’t known what to expect, but the deeply tanned skin and ethnic features that marked their attacker as likely being Mexican were not truly a surprise.  Paul brought the stock of his gun down against the side of the man’s head, knocking him out cold.  He had to drag the man back to his bike.  Then he had to rock his bike back onto its wheels before he could haul his prize across his lap.  By the time he had crawled back to the others, he was exhausted, the adrenaline having flushed through his system.

His heart lodged itself firmly in his throat when he got to his brothers.  Samuel was in the middle of the highway, holding the bundle that was Dean.  Paul couldn’t see his face, as he was forehead to forehead with his son.  The bundle was still not moving.  As Paul brought his bike to a stop and kicked the stand down, the rain eased as suddenly as it had started.  Terry and Dizzy’s expressions were desolate and Paul knew that there were tears mixed in with the raindrops on their faces.

“He’s...?”  He was no stranger to the ending of lives, but Paul couldn’t bring himself to apply the word to Dean.

“Yeah.”  Terry was stood by Samuel’s shoulder.  “There’s no blood.  Looks like his neck’s broke.”

“Fuck!  Just... I... fuck.” 
Paul had no other words.

“What you got there, brother?”  Dizzy asked.

“I thought we could have a conversation with this asshole.  Find out if he knows anythin’ interestin’ because I want to fucking know how they knew we were goin’ to be here on this road at this time.”

Three heads faces snapped towards him.  Terry looked stricken.  “Fuck!  We were sold out.”

“Must’ve been.”  Paul gritted.  “Someone must’ve passed on that we were comin’ back early.”

When Samuel turned his face up, it was the ghost of the man looking at Paul.  “It could only have been a brother.  I only made the one call.”

“Who did you speak to at the clubhouse?”  Dizzy asked gently.

“Geoff.   I called the house line.”

Dizzy fished out his phone.  “We need to get clear before the law comes by if we want to get first crack at our friend there.”  He hit some numbers on his phone.  “Kong?  Bring the van....  I-10... You can’t miss us.  I’ll explain when you get here, but we need you here an hour ago.  See ya.”

Dizzy turned back to the group.  “I’d trust that man with my life.  I’ll stake my life that wasn’t him, and we need help.  We need trust.”

No one answered him.  Paul didn’t know how to.  He was stunned.  He’d thought he was the one that didn’t deserve trust, that he was the one hiding betrayal.  His world was seven different kinds of shot to shit and his brain was struggling to keep up.

Terry squatted, put his hand on Samuel’s shoulder and spoke gently.  “Sam, we need to get him out of the road.  Let us help you.”

Samuel nodded vaguely and allowed Terry to guide him back with a hand on his shoulder.  He watched as Terry and Dizzy carried Dean’s body between them and laid it gently on the grass verge.  Paul walked his bike over to the same spot.  He allowed the unconscious Mexican to slide unceremoniously off his bike into a heap, but the man did not wake.  He kicked his bike to standing and as Terry, Dizzy and Samuel moved their bikes onto the verge, Paul went back for Dean’s.  He didn’t try to start it.  He lifted it as gently as he could and walked it over to the somber group.  He kicked the stand down rather than laying it on its side again.  He checked his prisoner’s leg to see how much damage his bullet had done.  It was a deep graze and it would need taking care of, but he wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death, not yet.

It was a lonely vigil.  Not a single vehicle passed in the gloomy dusk as they waited for Kong.  Samuel was up and standing, but visibly favoring his left leg, the one that would have been caught between vehicle and tarmac as his bike went down. 

It seemed like forever until the club van appeared over the rise.  Kong was speaking as he slid out of the driver’s seat, having spotted Dean’s lifeless body.  “No!  Oh no.  No.  What the fuck happened?”

“Ambush by the Mexicans.”  Dizzy answered.  “We’re gonna havta call this in, but we got one of the fuckers.  We need you to take him and his bike to the shack.   Stay with him.  We wanna chat with him when he comes to.”

Kong’s face hardened.  “You got it.  I’ll keep the fucker still for you.”  He turned to Paul.  “Take it you’re gonna be the one askin’ the questions.”

“Yeah, unless anyone has a problem with that.”

“Not at all, brother.”  Terry answered.  “You know how to go hard.  Hard would be good.  Hard is what we want.  We need answers and we need ‘em quick.”

“Somethin’ I’m missin’?”  Kong asked.

“We were supposed to be stayin’ in Florida.  The only people who knew we’d be back early was anyone that Geoff spoke to after he talked to Samuel earlier.”

Kong’s face was a mask of absolute fury.  “Me and Crash were in the room when he took the call.  He shouted over, told us you were comin’ back and not to tell Moira, then he fucked off for a bit.  Crash has been with me ‘til I got your call.”

“Call Crash.  Tell him to find Geoff and get him to the shack.”  Dizzy instructed.  “We’ll load the van.”

Kong nodded curtly and pulled his phone out of his pocket to make the call.   Paul gave Dizzy a lift to the Mexican’s bike.  The keys were still in the ignition and it still turned over, although the engine rattled in an unhealthy way to show its displeasure at having been dropped.  Dizzy rode the bike back up the road, following Paul, until they got to the club van.  Between the two of them they hefted the bike into the back of the van.  It was much easier work to toss the body of the Mexican in after it.  He started to stir when he hit the metal floor, but Dizzy hopped in after him and pulled some bungee cords from a dark corner.  He used the thick elastics to bind the man’s wrists and feet and then bound them together so that he was completely hogtied.

They waited until Kong had set off before Terry called 9-1-1.  The sun had almost completely set, so they turned the five bikes into a rough circle around Dean’s body.  They kept the headlights on, not just as a beacon to their location, but to dissuade any wild animals that might think an easy supper was in order.  Once the circle was complete, Samuel knelt in the center.  He cradled his son’s body and wept.  His brothers were the only witnesses to his grief.