State of War

30

Junior sat at the table with the three bikers, Buck, Dawg, and Spawn. Seemed like half the businesses in Georgia had the word “peach” in their names.

Even armed as he was with two guns, Junior wouldn’t have wanted to be in here alone. At the very best, he’d only get twelve shots off before the remaining gang members stomped him. The basic biker code that the Hell’s Angels had come up with a long time ago was simple: One on all, all on one. Most other clubs took that one for their own. If you looked funny at one rider, you were looking funny at the whole club.

He might shoot six, eight, ten of them, but then they’d get him. And that was assuming none of them pulled their own pieces when the first round cooked off, which would be a stupid assumption. He’d bet dollars to pennies that every one of the people in that bar — men and women both — was carrying something lethal.

As long as he had an honor guard, though, he was probably okay.

The Peach Pit was like a dozen other biker bars Junior had been in: loud music, a lot of smoke — a mix of tobacco and marijuana — and worn-out dancers and waitresses. There was the usual mix among the riders, too: Little weasely looking ones, and others the size of small countries; young, old, fat, buffed, long hair, skinheads, bald; all wearing their colors. They sat at tables or the bar, played pool or the old-style pinball machines, and drank beer by the bottle or pitcher. The big image on their jackets, their colors, was a skeleton wearing a Confederate uniform with a cap, one hand up, giving the world a bony finger. “Gray Ghostriders” was written over that, and “MC” underneath the rebel skeleton.

The women here were hard-looking, sporting a lot of blond and red dyed hair, with purple and blue eye shadow. Most of them wore tank tops and jeans, no bras, and there were enough tattoos on the bikers and old ladies visible to make a mural that would practically cover the whole outside wall. There was a row of bikes parked out front that together probably cost as much as a fleet of Cadillacs. You might not have the rent, your old lady could be in jail and you couldn’t make bail, but you didn’t cheap out when it came to your scoot. A man had his priorities, and in the biker’s world, it was his ride.

Darla, who might or might not be Joan’s sister, wasn’t in yet, but her shift was supposed to begin in half an hour.

Junior figured God owed him one on this whole deal, and if Darla showed up, Junior was willing to call it even.

He was starting on his third beer when Darla came in, through the back door, because he didn’t see her until she was at the bar.

And glory be, right behind her was Joan!

God had paid off, in spades. About time something went his way.

Now the next part might be a little tricky, since Darla was known to the local bikers and Junior wasn’t. He wanted to ease into this, get close enough to Joan to grab her and run before any ruckus.

But before he could even think about the best way to go about it, Joan looked right at him. He saw her see him.

A cold feeling washed over him.

Joan leaned over and said something to her sister — and there was no doubt about Darla being related, they looked like two peas in a pod — who nodded. Then in a voice that could shatter glass and must have carried five hundred yards, Darla screamed:

“Yankee MC!”

Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked. Darla was pointing her finger right at him.

Junior didn’t know the name, but he wasn’t slow. Being a member of the Yankee Motorcycle Club was definitely not the thing to be in this bar. It could be fatal.

Any idea he had of talking his way out of it went away when Buck, his buddy, looked at him and said, “Junior? You ride with the Yankees?”

“No way,” Junior said. “She’s lying!”

But the time for talk was done. Junior jumped up and ran. He angled for the bar, and as he gathered speed, he reached for his guns. He had maybe a second before the bikers came to life, and he’d have to stretch that to get clear.

He pulled his revolvers and started blasting as soon as the barrels were clear of the holsters. It didn’t matter what he shot, he just wanted to make a lot of noise in a hurry, get people scrambling for cover. When guns start going of in a bar, any bar, people hit the floor. They might reach for their own guns, but only after they made sure the first shots didn’t hit them and they could get a fix on the shooter.

He swung his right hand up and pointed it at where Darla and Joan had been, hoping maybe to tap Joan on the way out, but they had already moved, and he didn’t see them.

Then the back door was there in his face. Junior twisted and hit it sideways, shoulder leading. It popped open. He went through, realized he was clicking on empty with both revolvers, and churned his feet for all he was worth. The rental car was to the side, fifty yards away, and if he could get to it and crank it before the riders raised their heads and then boiled out of the bar, he’d be okay. They’d be looking for a man on a hog; serious bikers didn’t ride in rental cars. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice him, but if they did, he’d be reloading first thing he got rolling.

It was a lot easier to shoot out of a moving car than it was from a two-wheeler, especially those with long rakes on the front forks: You needed both hands on the handlebars until the scooter got going enough to steady it. He couldn’t outrun them in the rental, but he could drop a couple, maybe three bikers in the road. The rest would have to slow to get around them.

And with any luck, enough of them would be paranoid enough so that they’d worry that this whole deal was a trap. After all, they had to know that no Yankee MC biker would be stupid enough to go into enemy territory alone. They’d have to think — once they had time to think at all — that he’d have a posse waiting out there to waylay anybody chasing him. Bikers didn’t mind fighting, they’d do it at the drop of a hat, knock each other’s teeth out just for fun, but they didn’t like to be suckered. They liked things on their own terms.

Junior got to the rental car, which he’d left unlocked, jumped in, and shoved the key into the ignition. As soon as the engine was running, he rammed it into gear and peeled out. He thumbed open the cylinder on his right-hand gun, tapped the ejector hard with the butt of his other gun, and spewed empties all over the seat. He dropped the second gun, pulled a speed-loader from his pocket, shoved it into the cylinder, twisted the release, dropped the loader, and snapped the cylinder closed. He rolled the window down and fired two rounds at the bar’s front door as he passed it, reached the street, and floored the accelerator.

He was half a block away before he saw anybody in the parking lot. By then, he had reloaded his left-hand gun. Out on the road, he had a chance, even if they came after him. They’d have to come from right behind him and he was good enough that he could pick them off if they got too close.

He shook his head. Well, this was royally messed up. Now Joan knew he was after her, and after he had gotten this close, she’d really go to ground. This was bad. This was a disaster.

The mirror stayed clear after a mile, and Junior decided that maybe the Gray Ghostriders weren’t that interested in running him down. Of course, Buck, Dawg, and Spawn were going to have some explaining to do, and even if the bar crowd bought it, and probably they would, that wouldn’t do Junior any good. Junior was in deep trouble now, no matter what.

Toni said, “Here is his diaper bag, in case you want to go for a walk or something. The stroller is on the front porch, and he can walk for a couple of blocks okay, but then he’ll get tired and want to ride or be carried.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tyrone said. He was a polite young man. His mother had dropped him off and would be coming back to pick him up later. Toni liked Nadine Howard; she seemed a down-to-earth person, and a great mom, too, if Tyrone was any indication.

“He likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but he’ll eat tater tots, ham and cheese, or fish sticks. In the fridge and freezer.” She waved in the direction of the kitchen.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He can have two peppermint candies if he eats his lunch. He’ll try to get you to give him more.” And he usually manages to finagle his mama out of three, sometimes four.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He might want a bottle of milk if he gets sleepy. Sometimes he takes a nap after an outing. That’s okay, to give him a bottle.”

Tyrone smiled.

“Here is my office number, and here is the number for my virgil. If you have any problems, anything at all, call me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Tyrone said. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

Toni was a little amused at herself for being worried, but worried she was. C’mon, girl, John Howard’s son can certainly keep a two-year-old in check for a few hours.

When it came time to leave, Toni was afraid that Little Alex might get teary-eyed and clingy, but he was busy stacking Lego blocks with Tyrone. “Bye, sweet boy. Mama has to go to work for a little while.”

“Bye, bye, Mama,” he said. He glanced up, then back down at his toy construction. “Ook, I-rone, ook!” He waved at the toys excitedly. He still had trouble with his “l”s, “g”s, and “t”s sometimes. He called her mother “Am-maw,” which everybody thought was incredibly cute.

It bugged her, just a little, that he seemed so blasé about her leaving. Not that she really wanted him to cry and be upset… Well, okay, maybe she did a little.

So much for being indispensable.

She fretted in the car, but she knew in the long run it was for the best. The boy needed to get used to being with other people. He was shy around strangers, although it had taken all of forty seconds for him to warm up to Tyrone, a factor much in Tyrone’s favor. She didn’t want him to turn into a little recluse who never went out into the daylight.

Halfway to the office, she shifted into work mode. She’d been disappointed that the man who had hired the virus-spewing hacker hadn’t shown up for the arranged meeting. Could be it was just a coincidence, but he hadn’t called back, and Toni’s thought was that the man had somehow spotted the trap. Which, when she thought about it, probably wasn’t that hard to do. When they wanted to, the regular FBI could become invisible — they knew sub rosa surveillance techniques as well as anybody. But they probably wouldn’t have been in full-stealth mode for this kind of arrest. A businessman, in a mall office, in Long Island? How worried about him seeing them would they be? Not to mention what the local cops might have done.

The background check on the office renter had come up negative. The references had been fake, the rent paid via no-trace electronic transfers. The guy had been hiding something, all right, and smart enough not to leave an obvious trail.

Well. She would get Jay to poke around it some more. Maybe he could find a lead. Not that it was a major attack on the Republic or anything, but it was her case now, and she wanted to clear it successfully.

She had gotten a call from Guru earlier in the morning. Her great-grandson, who had apparently taken a turn for the worse just before she had arrived, was apparently doing better. Another few days and he would be out of the hospital. Guru would come home, then, which was good because Toni missed the old woman. Both Alex and the baby did, too, though Big Alex would never admit it.

The sun was broiling the city, and it was going to be another hot day, but all in all, Toni couldn’t complain. She had a wonderful husband, a gorgeous and bright little boy, and a job that allowed her to stretch now and then. Her silat teacher, who had been a part of Toni’s life since she was thirteen, would be coming back to occupy the spare bedroom in a few days, to be nanny and live-in great-granny to her child. Everybody was healthy. Life could be a lot worse.

She had a lot to be thankful for. A whole lot.