Chapter 6
Axel
I was at the clubhouse today because I took a job with our security firm.
Now that I was no longer prospecting, I had tons of time on my hands and wanted something productive to do.
My first job involved inspecting the armory.
Our club had to ensure all our weapons were legal, present, and accounted for on a monthly basis. It was a slow, tedious job.
I was halfway through checking the second gun case when the sound of raised voices drifted from Storm’s office. This didn’t sound like a regular run-of-the-mill dispute among brothers. Storm let loose with a long string of curses, and then there were hushed, clipped voices.
After thinking it over, I finished logging in the serial number I was in the process of writing in our binder and closed the safe, double-checking the lock. If there was one thing the club didn’t tolerate, it was the armory being left unlocked.
As I walked to Storm’s office, I could hear a din of angry voices. Whatever this was, it sounded serious. It took a lot to rattle our club president. When I got close to Storm’s office, Celt caught up with me and we walked together.
I asked, “Do you know what’s going on?”
His eyes flickered to me. “Yer probably not gonna believe it.”
We stepped inside to find all the club officers standing in front of Storm’s desk.
Celt asked before I got the chance, “What exactly is going on here? I heard we were gettin’ evicted from our land.”
Grit said, “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. We got an official notice from the city.”
“Did we not pay our taxes or somethin’?” Celt asked.
Thunder, our club treasurer, ground out, “Don’t fucking joke around about that. Of course I pay our damn taxes every single year, like clockwork. We pay property taxes as well as taxes on all of our businesses.”
“Then what is it?” I asked. It seemed like they were so busy talking about what it wasn’t that they forgot to state what it was.
Storm gestured to a letter. It had the city seal printed in dark blue. From where I was standing, the words ‘Notice of Violation’ jumped out at me.
“What kind of violation are they accusing us of?” I asked.
Storm slapped his hand down over the letter. “According to the city planning department, our property was supposedly built over a hazardous material dump site.”
Thunder growled, “That’s a goddamn lie. I pulled the county records when we were considering buying this property. There was nothing on record indicating hazardous waste was ever dumped here.”
Hacker had picked up the letter while Thunder was talking. He glanced up at us. “Well, they’re ordering us to cease all business operations on this property until a full environmental inspection and historical review can be completed.”
“That’s bullshit,” Thunder shot back. “We’ve been here for a fucking decade without any evidence of contamination on this property.”
Storm’s jaw was tight as he took the letter back from Hacker and read over it again. “They’re citing an updated site assessment from a third-party environmental firm.” He looked up at me. “Guess when the assessment was filed.”
“Three days ago?” I guessed.
He gave me a sharp jerk of his chin. “Right after our security firm’s bid was accepted by the state for public events in Griffinsford.”
“Looks like someone has an axe to grind with our club,” I responded.
Thunder picked up another piece of paper and handed it to me. This looked like a photocopy of a zoning map. “And wouldn’t you know it, today, the Griffinsford Gazette ran a ‘community safety’ blurb about how businesses tied to outlaw motorcycle clubs might not meet health and safety codes.”
Storm growled angrily, “Don’t you worry, my old lady is all over this shit. If there is something shady going on, Zoe will fucking find it.”
“Somebody’s pulling strings,” I said. “And we need to figure out who.”
“It’s someone with clout and connections in this town,” Storm replied.
“They scheduled an inspection for Thursday morning,” Thunder said. “Right when the shop’s booked solid.”
Grit shook his head. “That’s got to be a coincidence. How could these fuckers know our garage schedule?”
Storm dropped down into his desk chair and leaned back with the letter still in his hand, he said, “They don’t know shit about our club. Someone clearly wants us off our property. But for what purpose? Maybe this is some kind of trick to get us out so they can raze our clubhouse to the ground.”
“Or maybe they think we’re a one-percent club and wanna plant listening devices all over the building?” I suggested, attempting to help logic our way through this situation.
Thunder’s irritated voice rang out once more. “It doesn’t fucking matter why they want us gone. Leaving here means moving inventory, shutting down two bays, and losing garage customers that are already on the books. Our whole operation will be suspended until they say otherwise.”
“They want something in our clubhouse,” I muttered. “What if it’s something really fucked up like planting enough drugs to send us all to prison for a nice long time?”
Storm’s gaze met mine, and it’s like he was looking at me with new eyes. He respected that my suggestion was unhinged and paranoid. “Get with Hacker and Zoe, Axel. Find out who signed that environmental report. I want all their names and then find out who paid them.”
I nodded once. “We’ll get right on it, Prez.”
Hacker wheeled his wheelchair towards the door. “Follow me to my office, Axel. We’ll get to the fucking bottom of this no matter how dark and deep the rabbit hole goes.”
I liked that he didn’t waste time after Storm gave us our marching orders.
If we were going to track down these fuckers, we had to jump on this as soon as possible.
Hacker was an expert at breaching electronic systems and digging into local government records, and I was more than capable of running down every fucking clue he dug up.
Hacker headed straight for his little office. Zoe hustled through the door along the way and joined us. “Storm wants me to work with you on this zoning issue.”
Hacker didn’t slow down as he spoke. “Good. We could use your experience and community connections to get at the kind of intel that’s not kept in official records.”
I already knew all about Storm’s old lady. She ran a popular vlog with almost a million subscribers that focused on small-town corruption and unsolved crimes. She had a reputation for being fucking tenacious.
His office was a tangle of computers and rigged with several monitors.
All the screens were feeding him information on security from the clubhouse and our business locations.
He pulled over his laptop and started punching buttons.
I learned all about Hacker my first week prospecting.
He was former military intelligence who could hack any system on a long enough timeline.
“Hacker,” I said, sitting in the rolling chair across from his desk. “I want to discuss something with you before we get started.”
He didn’t look up from his laptop screen. “If you’re going to bitch at me about the Wi-Fi speeds while you’re here, don’t. It’s working fine.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Wi-Fi speeds.” I held up the folder Storm gave me on the way out of his office. “We’ve got a very serious problem on our hands. I can’t be sitting around here waiting for you to hack into local government systems. I need to be out there shaking out some leads.”
“Don’t run off half-cocked. Just give me a fucking minute. I’m hacking the city planning department’s database as we speak.”
I glanced at Zoe, but she wasn’t paying us any mind. She had her cell phone out, texting someone. Looking back at Hacker, I asked, “Really? That was easy.”
Hacker didn’t look up from his screen. “No, it’s really not.”
“I’ve got something. An outfit called Drake Environmental is the one who filed the complaint against our club.
Fucking hell, it looks like this might have actually been a dumping site.
There was a court-mandated cleanup order issued by the judge.
Any issues should have been mitigated, making building on the property safe by the time we bought it. ”
I shrugged, turning around in the stool to face him. “Drake Environmental? I’ve lived here all my life and never heard of ‘em.”
Hacker responded, “They’re new to the area. So new that it makes me think they might be a front.”
“They’re not a front,” Zoe chimed in. “I’m texting with the planning administrator’s receptionist, and she’s reporting that Drake Environmental is a well-established corporation registered in Los Angeles.”
His eyebrows rose a notch. “Why in the hell are out-of-towners interested in our property?”
“The receptionist, Mary, says she doesn’t know why. Just that her boss is keeping the file locked in his office instead of letting her file it with the rest of their open cases.”
Hacker nodded without looking up. I decided he did that a lot.
It’s weird how easily he multitasks. At the moment, Hacker had information showing on three different computer screens.
One seemed to be cross-referencing our club’s address with old news articles.
Another was a bot trying to hack into county records.
And the third one was trying to hack into the offices of our regional water board. This man was worth his weight in gold.
He quickly accessed a folder on his computer and opened several documents at once. His eyes roamed over the header and the city file numbers.
“It looks like the planning department filings are public,” he said, “but the city’s portal doesn’t give you the metadata. It’s a good thing that I don’t need access to their portal to grab the information we need.”