Chapter 3 #3
Caleb pointed at the four empty mugs on his desk—that was my answer.
He might’ve lived off caffeine and Twinkies, but he knew when to stop.
The hum of servers filled the silence, a steady rhythm under the clack of his keyboard, and I settled at the desk Killian usually used, straightening the photo of the four of us Cave originals at college, back when we were devising the Cave.
We looked so young there. Young and angry.
“So,” Caleb began, not looking up when he spoke. “Kyle Rourke is our dead guy—goes by Red. Iron Bulls MC. Prospect. His tattoo was done at Dead End Ink in Lincoln Heights. Not long out of an eight-stretch in Snake River Correctional, which means the coroner will ID him quick enough on DNA.”
At least the cops, aka the Cave, anonymously advising them, wouldn’t need to happen to find an ID. “What was he in for?”
“Beating a store owner almost to death during a robbery.”
“That tracks,” I muttered. “Anything else?”
“Until the coroner files his findings and I crack the records, I won’t know more on IDing the old bones in the burial ground.” He tapped the desk again, gaze flicking up, holding mine for a beat too long. “You sure you want to be the one on this?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Caleb gave a humorless snort. “Because anytime an MC gets involved in shit, your dad’s name will appear in background chatter. You know that.
My teeth sank into the inside of my cheek. “I know. Do we have any new intel on the MC?”
“Not on our watch list, more because of room than anything else,” Caleb said, gesturing at our wall of people we were working on exposing to the world, before leaning back slightly, eyes on one screen while his fingers danced across the keyboard.
“Rudimentary search shows they’re running product for the águilas Cartel out of Mexico—drugs, guns, people, and rumors of organ trafficking.
” He paused to let that sink in. MC prospect dead with missing organs.
MC running organs for a cartel. “MC has a few arrests, a couple of short stints inside. Still the kind of outfit that keeps its mouth shut and its business airtight.” He flicked through a few files, his tone detached but precise.
“Organ trafficking…”
“Yep.”
“Yet they haven’t reported this Red guy missing.”
“Nope.”
“Tell me more about the cartel?”
Caleb sat back in his chair, the glow from the monitors cutting hard lines across his face.
“We’re on the second iteration of the águilas Cartel down in Sinaloa,” he said, “First iteration built their route through Oregon, California, Nevada, until there was a massacre that wiped out the entire leadership. Labeled by the federales as a full-blown territorial war between rival factions, the kind that redraws borders in blood.” He tapped the edge of the desk, eyes flicking to me.
“There’s been a rebuild, someone drags the name águilas back from the grave, and before you ask, I don’t know who yet. ”
“Okay.”
“There’s something else; I got a hit on facial rec to video we’re trawling on another case.
Our MC victim with missing organs was in a fight at the Pit two weeks ago.
Rio has footage from running surveillance on the guy behind the Pit itself.
He said it went bad fast. Red got his ass handed to him, and this guy they’ve used at Redcars—Doc—medic, patched him up behind the cage when everyone left. ”
“Doc.”
“Underground medic for hire who works for whoever can pay, regardless of morals. Cash, no questions asked, has a cleaning crew.”
“So, this Doc patches our victim up, then what? Do we have footage of the victim leaving? Did Rio see anything?”
“Nope. Footage of Doc tending to Rourke AKA Red, two cleaning crew standing by, but nothing about what happened to Red after Doc patched him up.”
“Okay,” I said. “You think this doctor has a sideline in organ trafficking?” My stomach tightened, the same old cold creeping up my spine.
“Morally gray, only-for-money, doctor. Yeah, probably.”
“Okay, so, what do we have on him?”
“Whispers,” Caleb said with a sigh, scrolling through screens and showing a picture of a man taken from surveillance, around my age, with dark hair and even darker eyes. “Nothing more.”
“Nothing? Real name? The hospital he works out of?”
“Nope. No name. No hospital. Black market surgeon, a ghost doctor paid in cash. I tried to trace the payments Redcars have made to Doc in the past, but it’s lost in a tangle of noise and fake accounts.”
“It takes know-how to cover tracks.”
“Yep. Maybe he has a pet hacker? Or he hired someone? Jamie is all over that right now. Rumor around this doc is that he’s moving medical-grade painkillers, black market trading in organs, he’s a murderer for hire with assassination by poison his go-to, or he’s a good guy who’s quiet as a pussy cat, all depending on who you ask. ”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “A biker turns up dead in a pit with missing body parts, and the last person to see him was a medic with no real identity you can find.”
“One of the last people,” Caleb corrected. “Doc’s cleaning crew was made of two men, blurry, caps low, so we can’t get anything from the footage.” Caleb finally looked up, eyes tired but sharp. “I’ll pull traffic cams, trace comms, follow the digital dust.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Flag anything tied to Rourke. He’s dead, and I want to know who put him in the ground, and how it’s connected to all the other bodies we found in there that go way back.”
“You want me to anon-inform the cops on the ID I have?”
I hesitated, thinking it through. A sudden ID dropping into the system would raise flags—too clean, too fast. If the wrong people saw it, it’d blow back on us before we had a chance to dig.
The Cave had learned that lesson years ago: when to feed information, who to feed it to, and when to keep our mouths shut.
We played the long game, trading patience for survival.
Not yet, I decided. “As you said, they’ll get the DNA from the prison system.
I want to talk to Doc first, off the books.
Do you have an address or a location for him? ”
“We have the number to call, but it’s a redirect. Seriously, the man is a ghost.”
“Can you un-ghost him?”
Caleb huffed a laugh. “That’s not a thing, Levi.”
“Then how do we get me with a face-to-face as soon as possible?”
Caleb tapped his chest. “Get yourself stabbed.”