The Giveaway

9

Before you attack a fixed enemy position, you always want to do a proper amount of reconnaissance. This is true if you intend to attack with firepower or if you intend to attack with psychological warfare. Either option requires a precise understanding of the lay of the land.

The first order of business is to obtain as much information about the physical area as possible. This is usually done by having several different people watching the same area from different vantage points, who then obtain salient intelligence and report back. In an ideal situation, all of that intel would be gathered and then you’d grid out the area from all angles and plan your attack.

You’d then break into seven teams: the assault team, which does the assaulting; the security team, which handles securing the area from reinforcements; the support team, which assists the assault team indirectly; the breach team, which cuts through obstacles; the demolition team, which blows stuff up; and the search team, which is sent to ferret out any remaining hostiles.

To do this effectively, a team of about fifty men would be best. A dozen claymore mines would help, some tank support wouldn’t offend anyone and an extraction team with a gassed-up Black Hawk would make it a nice, polite party

If you have less than fifty men, no claymores, no tanks and only a DVD of Black Hawk Down, you’re going to need to make adjustments. When you’re a spy, you’re often asked to do the work of fifty men simply by being better at everything.

Being better doesn’t really matter when a dozen violent bikers are beating you to death with lead pipes because you’ve cornered yourself due to poor planning, which is why Fiona and I were down the street from the Ghouls’ clubhouse just west of the airport watching who was coming and who was going, and attempting to figure out what the odds were that we could bust in and start making outlandish demands. I was keeping watch with binoculars and a camera with a telephoto lens. Fiona was keeping watch by reading InStyle magazine and periodically taking cell phone calls

“Why are the police able to pester Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan every ten minutes but can’t arrest these men at their own clubhouse?” Fiona asked.

“Because they aren’t doing anything wrong,” I said. It was true: Their clubhouse was technically a bar and they were technically patrons, which is perfectly legal. And since you could refuse service to anyone as a shop owner, they didn’t have a problem with not serving a person who might wander in off the street. Though the monster sitting in front of the door absently twirling a baseball bat probably dissuaded most casual onlookers. In the last hour, we’d watched about a dozen men who looked essentially just like Baseball Bat roll up on their bikes and enter the bar. Usually these guys had a few women with them-you could tell who they were since they wore jackets that said PROPERTY OF THE GHOULS on the back, because the Ghouls aren’t exactly known for their grand subtlety-but not today. It had been been a bad week for the company and it looked like they were doing some official business. Trying to place a legal bug into what is ostensibly a public place is a significant legal issue, which made the Ghouls’ use of a de facto clubhouse right out in the open a pretty savvy bit of criminality.

“This article says Britney is an excellent mother,” Fi said.

“I don’t think anyone thinks these guys are excellent mothers,” I said. “It’s going to be a challenge getting to the front door without hurting someone.”

That got Fi’s attention, so I handed her the binoculars. “That’s a cute bat he has,” she said. “Looks like he also has a cute gun under his gut.”

“I saw that, too.”

“If you’re that fat,” Fi said, “isn’t it hard to ride a motorcycle?”

“Maybe he just stands around looking tough,” I said. That was part of the Ghouls’ game: Scare the crap out of you just by looking frightening. Baseball Bat fit that description. He was over six feet tall, had long, shaggy hair that reached past his shoulders, a handlebar mustache, a classy tattoo on his throat of a gun barrel pointed into his chin, which was sort of imposing until you considered that it probably just meant he was suicidal or incredibly stupid. Probably both. He also ran at least three bills. Maybe three-fifty.

“How long would it take for you to take him down?” I asked.

“I could do it right now,” she said. “I’d just walk by with a bag of donuts and some crystal meth and he’d follow me like a dog.”

“I mean if push came to shove and Sam and I were fighting the other ten guys.”

Fiona focused the binoculars. “I could have him down in ten seconds. One punch to the throat. Maybe a kick to the knee first. He must be in terrible knee pain holding up all that weight.” She handed me the binoculars and went back to reading her magazine.

“That’s my girl,” I said.

“And if neither of those moves worked, I’d just shoot him.”

A gold Lincoln Continental pulled up in front of the clubhouse-which was actually a bar called Purgatory, which made it about as inconspicuous as the Baseball Bat out front-and three men got out, two from the front seat, one from the back. The man from the backseat was huge, too, but wore a suit, nice shoes, a big watch, like he was a pit boss in Las Vegas. The two other men wore jeans and boots, had long hair, handlebar mustaches and lots of neck ink.

“What do we have here?” I said.

Fi looked up from her magazine but didn’t bother taking the binoculars. “Do Lincolns come stock in gold?”

“Not usually,” I said. I set down the binoculars and picked up the camera and took a couple of pictures through the zoom lens.

Baseball Bat greeted the man in the suit with a fist pump, the other two men the same way, and let them into the clubhouse and then quickly closed the door. He took several steps down the street and looked around, though not very well. He didn’t bother to notice me and Fi in the Charger less than a block away. But then, maybe the people he was worried about weren’t the kind to sit in a car a block away with binoculars.

Baseball Bat moseyed back to his post, which took him some time and effort. Fi was right: Kicking him in the knee would probably take him out of commission for the foreseeable future.

Motorcycle gangs have tried to diversify their business practices. The Hells Angels have a very popular fund-raiser for sick kids, for instance, and sell stickers and buttons and T-shirts. The Outlaws have tattoo parlors where sorority girls get dolphins inked onto their hips. The Ghouls, however, were trying to keep it real by selling drugs and hurting people for fun and profit, but the appearance of the man in the Lincoln had me interested. Clearly he was of some serious importance, because no one else driving a gold Lincoln would be treated as well by old Baseball Bat. And also the man in the Lincoln was the last person to arrive. All of the other bikers got there plenty early.

Real power is the ability to arrive late and without an excuse while knowing that not a single person will question you. If you want to prove to yourself just how important you are, waste other people’s time.

I reached into the backseat and grabbed the Ghouls’ constitution and flipped to the section on leadership structure. The odd thing about the Ghouls’ constitution was that it was actually quite well constructed, even in how it meted out payments on drug sales, shy-lock business and prostitution and a nebulous other category called “incidental accruing accounts,” which I suppose could mean just about anything from stealing wallets to knocking over a Brinks truck. It made sense, really, since the first members of the Ghouls were ex-military coming back from Vietnam, guys who lived by a code and were shit on for it and came back with drug problems and a desire to flip off the government they worked for.

And it looked like they’d succeeded. Not that any of the current members were likely ex-Delta Force, but the militaristic formation of the group added layers of bureaucracy to their business dealings, which meant you needed one guy who wasn’t always driving around on a chopper to make decisions and order punitive damages.

A guy in a gold Lincoln, for instance.

“I’m going to say the gentleman in the bad suit and pinkie ring is the local president,” I said. There was also a vice president, a recording secretary, a sergeant-at-arms and even a road captain, who was in charge of booking hotel reservations and such when they went on long rides. Sort of sweet, really, like a cruise director who will beat you to death for looking at him wrong.

“What kind of man becomes the president of a motorcycle gang and then consents to drive that car?”

It was a good question.

“Why don’t you go find out?”

“Really?”

“Really. Why don’t you go see if you can use the restroom in Purgatory. See what they’re talking about. If you can’t hear them, leave some ears behind.”

Fi closed her magazine, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “The day is not a total waste,” she said.

She reached into the backseat and started rummaging through her purse, dumping out various weapons. She probably wanted to travel light.

When you’re planning an assault, occasionally the best use of intelligence is to throw it all out the window and send in your best person to shoot the man in charge in the head.

That’s usually been my job.

When you have a weapon like Fiona, who looks as if she’d blow away in a brisk breeze but who relishes violence like most women covet new shoes, you have to learn to use her wisely. Sending her into the Ghouls’ clubhouse would assure two things:

That when I went back the next day, I’d know all the avenues of escape, precisely what might be used as a weapon and all of the soft spots in the men.

That when I went back the next day with Fiona by my side, they’d know I already had the upper hand, that they’d been gamed, and, maybe, they’d start wondering if someone in their midst was talking to the wrong people.

All of that was working on the assumption that Fiona didn’t end up permanently disfiguring anyone.

I took her by the wrist. “Take as many guns as you like,” I said, “but please try not to kill anyone. It won’t help Bruce in the least.”

“I will try not to kill anyone. Kneecapping is allowed if need be, correct?”

“Correct.”

“If I’m not out in ten minutes,” she said, “please come and get me.”

“If you’re not out in ten minutes,” I said, “I’ll already be inside.”

“That’s sweet,” she said.

“Be careful.”

“Michael, I must say that I like this new sensitivity. Where did you learn it?”

“Something I’m trying out,” I said.

“It doesn’t really suit you,” she said.

“I know.”

“But keep trying, will you?”

She popped out of the car then and began sashaying up the sidewalk toward the bar.

The Ghouls didn’t stand a chance.