Chapter 13
The chair behind Chainz’s desk groaned as he settled his bulk into it.
Vin stood beside Sean, watching as Maverick and Jessie walked behind the desk to stand on either side of their leader.
Vin looked over at Sean. There was so much he wanted to ask him about what had transpired in that closed-door meeting.
Something about this entire situation wasn’t sitting right with Vin, and he was certain there was more to this story that he didn’t know.
Chainz had been ready to kill him right there on the spot, and with good reason.
Vin had put many members of the Chain Gang away.
He had disrupted operations, seized drugs and weapons, and put a thorn directly into Chainz’s side on more than one occasion.
So, what had Sean said to smooth everything over? Vin was certain it wasn’t his impassioned plea, his promise of Chainz being seen as a liberator. Since San had first told Vin about this alliance he had forged with the criminal leader, something had been eating at his mind.
Chainz was a loose cannon. That much was well known. But he was also a businessman who chased profit at any cost. If he had agreed to help Sean, they had made some kind of profitable deal that worked heavily in Chainz’s favor.
And then, to get Chainz to alter that deal to not only work with Vin but enact an assault on a remnant camp, Sean would have had to sweeten what was already likely a lucrative deal.
But what was it? What could Chainz actually want?
It couldn’t be money. In a world without power, with a collapsing society, the concept of money became even more absurd than it already was. That only left one currency that Chainz would be interested in.
Power.
Sean had promised Chainz something that only he could provide that would increase his power over this city.
After all, Sean and Vin, while skilled, were only two men.
Chainz had a wealth of manpower that he could throw against the remnant.
That meant Sean had offered something too tantalizing to resist, and Chainz had taken it enthusiastically.
“Well now,” Chainz said, folding his thick hands together, “here we are. Unlikely allies fighting against the big bad government.”
Vin crossed his arms without realizing it. He hated this more than anything he had ever done before. Working with filth like this was a serious blow to his sense of honor, but he recognized a necessary evil when it reared its disgusting head.
“Fighting to win,” Sean said, and Chainz looked over at him.
“You seem confident, Sean,” he said with a half-smile.
“Vin and I have faced worse odds,” Sean replied.
“I bet you have,” Chainz said, looking back at Maverick and Jessie as though they knew some deep inside joke that was a mystery to the two men who stood before them. “But that was the old world. This is a whole new ballgame.”
“One we’ve been prepping for,” Vin said, drawing the attention and ire of Chainz and his lieutenants.
“Shut your mouth,” Maverick snapped, pointing a long bony finger at Vin. “You’re only here because this man allows it.”
Chainz reached a hand up and wrapped his entire fist around Maverick’s hand, squeezing slowly. The contract killer gasped suddenly, grasping at the tree trunk fingers that compressed his own.
“Maverick,” Chainz said, continuing to look at Vin while nearly breaking his trusted assassin’s hand, “don’t go speaking to our new friends that way.” He let go of the man’s hand, and Maverick jumped back, cradling his bruising fingers.
“We ain’t friends,” Vin replied, not able to stomach the way Chainz was looking at him.
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Chainz replied, a dangerous edge to his voice. “But for better or worse, we’re in this together for now. So, let’s get down to brass tacks, shall we?”
Vin exhaled. It had been stupid to talk back to Chainz like that. It wasn’t that Vin feared the man or even feared death. Rather, he was afraid for Deb and Jimmy, and he needed the cooperation of this criminal element to ensure their survival.
He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to beat Chainz in a one-on-one fight, but he was certain that even if he lost, he’d leave a memorable mark on the big man that would last a lifetime.
“Jessie,” Chainz said, nodding to the woman who stood on his left. “My maps.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, sounding more like a subordinate than a romantic partner.
But Vin realized that Chainz was one of those people who likely kept business and pleasure very separate from one another.
Jessie crossed over to a filing cabinet against the wall and pulled out several long sheets of paper. She returned to Chainz’s desk, which was completely empty, and laid out the maps. Vin and Sean took a step forward to look down at the contents of these documents.
One appeared to be a map of the city, with another being a map of the park itself.
“How the hell did you get that?” Sean asked, pointing to the park map. It was marked up with schematics of the remnant camp, down to illustrated points of interest.
Chainz smiled at Sean in response. “You think you’re the only ones who know how to get people to talk?
” he asked, reaching up to scratch at his chin as he fell back into a memory.
“We made a few soldiers squeal like pigs. After that, I reached out to my military contacts and got everything we needed. I knew this base was gonna have to be dealt with eventually.”
“Military contacts?” Vin asked, wide-eyed with shock.
“Don’t be so surprised, Vinny,” Chainz said with a satisfied smile. “Even soldiers have their price.”
Vin shuddered at the thought. It made his skin crawl to imagine soldiers dealing under the table with a piece of scum like this, but it was the unfortunate reality of the world. Chainz made his living off of the weakness and greed of others, and Vin had no optimistic misconceptions about people.
Soldiers were people, too. Some of them were good, and some of them were bad. It stood to reason then that some of the bad apples would be more than willing to take Chainz’s money while betraying their duty.
“Your girl is likely here,” Chainz said, pointing to a large rectangle in the center of the camp. “It’s a detention pen where they keep prisoners before shipping them out.”
“Shipping them out?” Sean asked, confused. “How the hell are they planning on doing that?”
“Apparently, the military has some old, recommissioned steam-powered trains,” Chainz said with a laugh. “I guess you boys weren’t the only ones prepping for this, eh?”
Vin hated how Chainz continued to mock them while going over their plan. It made him grind his teeth together in frustration. This wasn’t going unnoticed by Chainz. He would periodically glance over at Vin with a mocking smile as if to highlight the powerlessness Vin was experiencing.
Powerlessness wasn’t a new feeling for Vin. When he had returned from the Middle East, wounded physically and mentally, he had felt helpless when the medical care he had so sorely needed was denied.
A fresh wave of tingling pain down his left arm served as a grim reminder of that horrible period where the country he’d served had failed him.
These random bursts of pain weren’t uncommon, but it had been several days since he’d experienced one.
The nerve damage caused by his injuries could be excruciating during a flare-up, and Vin fought with everything he had to keep that pain from registering on his face.
It was bad enough that Chainz was highlighting his situational powerlessness. He wasn’t going to feed into that by putting his pain on display for the entire Chain Gang to talk about. The only indication Vin gave as to the pain he was experiencing was a slow opening and closing of his left fist.
“Anyway,” Chainz said, waving this thought away, “if she and the kid are still there, that’s where they’ll be.”
“There’s no way they got a train in here just yet,” Sean said, shaking his head slowly. They’d have to prep the engine and clear the tracks. There’s a lot of logistical stuff that would have to happen before moving out.”
“Agreed,” Chainz responded with a nod. “But I’m willing to bet they’re fast-tracking the process. I’d be shocked if they don’t get the first load of prisoners transferred by tomorrow or the next day.”
“True,” Vin said, nodding in agreement and trying to set his mind off of his pain and onto the task at hand. “So, we’re dealing with a ticking clock here.”
“Yeah,” Chainz said, his response practically a harsh growl. That was his tone every time he responded to Vin. “I mean, there ain’t no guarantee that your girl would be on that first transfer, but I don’t think you wanna take that chance.”
“No,” Sean agreed, shaking his head. “We’re gonna have to move quickly.”
“They got a bunch of my men in there, too,” Chainz said, “So once we get them out, we can add their numbers to ours.”
“That’ll hopefully replace some of the folks we’re gonna lose on the way in,” Vin observed, and Chainz nodded.
“Getting in might not be as big of a challenge as you’re thinking,” he said, giving a knowing smile that lorded the fact that he had information they didn’t over their heads. “I’ll send word to my contacts, and they’ll make sure that we’ve got a clear path inside the camp.”
“That won’t work,” Vin said, and Chainz’s face instantly dropped into a scowl of anger.
“The fuck you just say?” the crime lord growled angrily.
“All due respect,” Vin said, though his tone showed how little respect he actually had for Chainz and his leadership, “but the second we start coming through, open gate or not, they’re gonna rally to that spot and pick us off like fish in a barrel.”
“You don’t know that,” Chainz said his right hand curling into a powerful fist that could likely splinter the desk in half if he were so inclined.
“He’s right,” Sean said, risking incurring Chainz’s wrath by standing with Vin against him.
“Excuse me?” Chainz asked, an eyebrow raised at the challenge.
“We need a distraction team,” Sean said, pointing to the far end of the camp.
“Enough people to mass outside the gate on the opposite end. They engage the enemy from afar. We’re talking gunfire, grenades, Molotov cocktails, the whole works.
All without getting too close. They can stay in relative cover to keep casualties limited. ”
“Right,” Vin said, stepping up beside Sean and pointing back to the side of the map Chainz had been highlighting before. “Then, once that happens, and all their attention is facing one way, we sneak a smaller shadow team in through the back.”
“With any luck, we can free the prisoners and be on our way out before the entire base knows it happened,” Sean continued.
The two of them were feeding off of one another now, just as they always had.
Sean and Vin were very different people in the real world.
They had vastly different temperaments and were nearly opposites in how they viewed and dealt with people.
But when it came to strategic combat operations, they were often of a singular mind.
Chainz glared down at the map. It was clear to Vin that the big biker had seen the logic in their words, but it was a huge hit to his pride. Vin knew the look he wore. He was trying to find any kind of flaw in their plan, anything he could add to it to save face in front of his top lieutenants.
“Well, if that’s the case, maybe we hit them from three sides while we slip in through the fourth,” Chainz added, trying to contribute and take his power back.
“That won’t work,” Vin replied, shaking his head as the crime lord’s scowl deepened.
“If we attack from three sides, then they’re going to know it’s a coordinated assault and not just a civilian uprising.
That means they’ll expect a hit coming on the side that we’re trying to sneak in through, and they’ll post a defense there. ”
“Agreed,” Sean added, trying to step in. “We want to keep their attention directed one way, to make them think this is some disorganized rebellion of average Joes and Janes. The last thing we want is for the brass over there to think that we’re performing a military operation.”
“But then my men are taking all the risk,” Chainz said. “Meanwhile, you boys get to just ride in like white knights. That ain’t happening.”
“That’s why we have to get strategic about it,” Sean added, pointing to the buildings on the far end of the camp. “We place your men high and low. Some on the roofs, some at ground level. Maybe even snipers in the windows of some of these buildings. They won’t know where the shots are coming from.”
“They’re gonna have soldiers posted in those buildings,” Chainz said, practically scoffing at their naivety. It was as if he had won a major victory by poking holes in their plan. He could scarcely keep the smile from spreading along his face.
“Oh, I agree,” Vin said, and instantly the smile vanished from Chainz’s lips.
“Then why are you recommending this?” he growled, slamming his fist on the map, making the entire desk shake.
“They’re gonna be spread out,” Vin continued, pointing at the buildings. “Radio communication isn’t an option right now, and they’re still probably figuring out how to best relay orders. That means regular routes and runners coming from the camp to give command changes.”
“Or flag communications placed on high ground within the camp where all of the operatives can see,” Sean added, pointing to the gate.
“Or that,” Vin said, agreeing. “So that means we move in quiet and take out those soldiers. Both on the side we’re launching the full attack from, and the side we’re sneaking in.”
“Well, looks like you boys thought of everything,” Chainz said slowly and with great difficulty.
This was clearly a blow to his pride, but there was too much on the line here. Vin wasn’t willing to risk the lives of Deb and Jimmy just to play up to the ego of this maniac.
Sean seemed to agree. It was good that they were on the same page again. “We should launch the attack as soon as possible,” Sean said, taking command of the situation. “Tonight, if possible.”
Chainz laughed at the notion. “You really think we can coordinate the manpower you’re talking about in just a few hours?
” Chainz scoffed. “Nah, you said it yourself; we got no digital communication. This is gonna take some time. That means you boys need to cool your shit and relax a bit while I put this plan into motion.”
Vin wanted to argue the point. He agreed with Sean and desperately wanted to go after Deb and Jimmy as fast as possible. But, much to his chagrin, Chainz was making a lot of sense.
It wasn’t enough to just enact the operation. It had to be enacted in the right way. That meant strategically, and there simply wasn’t enough time to put everything together in just a few hours.
“What’s the fastest we can move out,” Vin asked, crossing his arms in thought.
“Tomorrow night,” Chainz said, waving the idea away. “And that’s at the absolute earliest.”
“Fine,” Vin replied, looking down at the map. “Tomorrow night, we raise hell in their backyard.”