Chapter Nineteen
Sunday, August 31 st .
Harry Reid International Airport. Las Vegas.
Couldn’t believe how fuckin’ hot it was in the middle of the night in Vegas. Dark and hot and not a breath of a breeze as we walked through the rental lot to pick up the black Hummer Annie rented for us.
“Can I drive this baby?” asked Virge.
“Remember it’s a little wider,” said Annie.
“Yeah, I’ve got it.”
We loaded our luggage into the back and Annie programmed the address of her Vegas house into the GPS.
“Get us there, Virge. I need a cold beer, and I need to think.”
“Copy, Mom.”
Summerlin. Las Vegas.
Virge pulled the Hummer into the driveway and shut off the engine. “Wow, Mom. This is a beautiful house.”
“Neil did the house shopping in Vegas for me, and he picked this one. We all like his choice.”
“Love the way you can’t see the front door from the street,” I said. “Nice and private.”
“Neil loved that feature, Harlan. My son is a very private person.”
Annie unlocked the door, and we carried our bags inside and set them down in the foyer. “I’m going to call Kamps and get information for us. You can put your stuff in one of the bedrooms. The big one with the walkout to the pool is my room. Take any other one and help yourselves to a beer from the fridge.”
“Okay, thanks.”
Virge and I got beers out of the big fridge in the kitchen and joined Annie and Mick out by the pool where she was waking a guy up to find out about the Breed Clubhouse in Vegas.
She put the call on speaker so we could hear.
I lit up a smoke and leaned back in my chair breathing in the dry desert air. The water in the pool sparkled from the underwater lights and made me want to jump in the water and go swimming.
No time right now for that.
“Sorry to wake you up, sugar. Can you get me the addresses for Army Vincente, Chip Maitland and Ronnie Kuzenko?”
“Why do you want the Vegas Breed, Beauty? That will only get you into trouble. Who’s with you?”
“Mick is with me, and Travis’s boys. The Vegas Breed have Travis. Pretty sure.”
“And you’re going to confront them? Not a great idea.”
“Just find the addresses for me, hon bun. I have to get there before they off Travis.”
“Dale Burden payback. Yeah, I get it.”
Annie waited and then wrote down what we needed to know.
“Promise me you’ll be extra careful,” said Kamps. “Those guys are brutal assholes, and they’ll kill all of you.”
“Not if I kill them first.”
Hearing the other guy warn Mom made me a bit nervous, but we had to get Travis back—no matter what.
Before the drive to Boulder City, Annie worked out a plan with Mick. He took the grenades he needed from her stock of ordnance in the Vegas house.
Me and Virge couldn’t believe the stock of weapons she had there locked in her stash.
Annie gave us a short course on what we were going to do when we got to the clubhouse and how we’d get it done.
Me and Virge listened up because Dad’s life depended on us getting him away from the Black Breed.
Black Breed Clubhouse. Boulder City. Nevada.
Mick drove past the clubhouse driveway and backed in. He parked close to the door and me and Virge knew what we had to do. We ran around to the back door and got ready to kick it in as soon as we heard the first shot.
Annie knocked on the front door and had to pound again before she got an answer. Mick stood just behind her and to her left, so he was out of the line of sight.
One of the Breed opened the door and sneered at her, then hollered over his shoulder, “It’s a woman.”
In a sweet voice, Annie asked, “Is Army here, sugar?”
“No, he ain’t.”
“Where is he? I need to talk to him about something important.”
“He’s taking care of business.”
“At his house?”
Because she was a woman and to him she presented no danger, the biker didn’t care a blue whit about telling her where his boss was. “Yeah, private business. What’s it to you? You one of his bitches? Haven’t seen you hanging around before.”
“Something like that.” Annie raised her Beretta and shot the biker in the head. When he crashed backwards onto the floor, Mick tossed the grenade.
“Frag,” one of the bikers yelled as they dove for cover.
Harlan kicked in the back door and tossed his grenade, then he and Virge ran for the parking lot and Virge pulled the pin and tossed his into the row of Harleys.
Leaving the blazing inferno behind them, they ran for the truck that Mick left running, piled in and headed for Army Vincente’s house up in Henderson.
“Nice work, boys,” said Annie. “That will set them back a little.”
“I wanted Travis to be there,” said Virge.
“I didn’t think they’d hold him there,” said Annie, “but we had to be sure. The mess we made will create a busy diversion for any survivors while we concentrate on getting Travis away from the big boss.”
Vincente Residence. Henderson. Nevada.
The National President of the Black Breed lived in a flat-roofed frame house with a tin-roofed lean-to attached for his Harley.
Two other bikes were parked under the shelter next to the boss’s ride.
“Top three are here but only three,” said Annie. “The rest will be coming to watch the boss kill Travis, but we’ll be gone before that happens.”
“What’s the plan?” asked Virge.
“Mick and Harlan come in from the back, so nobody squirts out. Virgil and I will blast in from the front and try to knock all three of them down on the first round of shooting.”
“Copy that,” said Virge. “Long as I know what you want, Mom, I’m good for it.”
Annie smiled. “You’re a good boy, Virgie.”
As soon as Mick and Harlan were in position in the tiny back yard, Virge kicked in the front door. Adrenaline pumping, he and Annie ran in shooting.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Virge fired off three quick head shots and dropped all three of the Breed before they knew what happened.
Annie didn’t have to fire her gun and that made her smile. She could make Virgil into something special. She was sure of it.
Mick and I blasted in from the back and Virge had already killed the Breed fuckers. I ran past their bodies in the blood-drenched kitchen, focused on finding my father.
He was tied to a chair in a small storage room at the back of the dirty house. He’d been beaten and stabbed again and was covered in blood and dirt.
But he was breathing.
The Breed were killing him a little at a time.
“Boys, cut Travis loose and put him in the back of the truck. I’ll ask the GPS for the closest hospital.”
“Keep breathing, Dad,” said Virge as he cut the ties and released Travis from the chair.
Travis stared at us with half-dead eyes. He was only semi-conscious, not aware of what was going on around him.
Virgil freed him and without the ties holding him to the chair, Travis slumped forward and collapsed onto the floor.
“I’ve got him, Virge. Get the door of the truck open.”
“Copy that, bro.” Virge ran the length of the shitty house and out the front door to the truck. We loaded Travis into the back seat and climbed in with him.
“All set, boys?” Annie climbed into the front. “Let’s get him to the hospital.”
Mick started the truck and turned on the strobes and the siren. We made a fast trip to the hospital.
Saint Rose Hospital. Henderson. Nevada.
The trip to the hospital didn’t take long, but by the time we got there, Dad had lost consciousness.
Mick parked the truck in the Emergency loop and Annie ran inside to get help. She was back seconds later with an orderly pushing a gurney.
Me and Virge helped the big guy in the blue scrubs get Dad out of the back seat and secured on the stretcher. He never said a word. Just worked real fast and as soon as Dad was strapped on, he ran with the gurney into the hospital.
We sat in the waiting room and drank strong coffee until a doctor from the emergency room had examined Travis and came to talk to us.
“I’m taking Major Bristol into surgery now to clean up his wounds. I’ll stitch the fresh ones and re-stitch the ones he sustained before that. What are the older ones? A couple of days old?”
“Yes. Two days, Doctor. A bunch of bikers are trying to kill our dad,” said Virge.
“Your father will be heavily medicated when he gets to the ICU a couple of hours from now. I suggest you call in later for an update, then come back in the morning after I’ve had a chance to examine him.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Annie. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. Come on, boys. Let’s go get dinner and then we’ll call and check on Travis.”
“I don’t like leaving him here,” said Virge.
“This is the best place for him, honey. Like the doctor said, when he comes out of the operating room, he’ll sleep until tomorrow. He won’t miss us at all.”
“I guess you’re right. Seems wrong to leave him.”
Outback Steakhouse. Las Vegas.
Me and Virge didn’t like leaving Travis at the hospital and Annie tried to cheer us up. “We’ll have a great dinner, then we’ll pick up some cream for coffee and more beer and snacks so we can survive until we’re allowed to see Travis tomorrow.”
“I am tired and hungry,” said Virge.
“I’m starving too, Mom, but I feel better now that we got Travis back and he’s got doctors and nurses taking care of him.”
“It will take him a long while to recover,” said Annie. “You boys will have to run the ranch and carry the load for the next few weeks.”
“We can do that,” I said.
“Yeah, we can,” said Virge. “Harlan can cook a couple of things, and we can survive.”
Mick was quiet in the restaurant, and he looked tired. We drank a beer before our steaks came and they were cooked to perfection. Virge could hardly finish his and we had no room for dessert.
One cup of coffee and Mick drove us home to Annie’s house in Summerlin.
Crazy day. Helluva day.
Summerlin. Las Vegas. Nevada.
“Do you think any of the Breed will be waiting for us at your house, Mom?” asked Virge.
“Anything is possible, but we eliminated a lot of them today and they might need time to regroup and bury their dead.”
“Hope they do,” said Virge. “I’m dead beat and I don’t want them killing me in my sleep.”
Annie laughed. “I’ll make sure they don’t do that, Virgie.
We drank a couple of cold ones out by the pool, and it wasn’t a bit cooler than it had been all fuckin’ day. Dark but still about a hundred dry, crackling degrees.
Annie made phone calls to Blaine, Farrell and the kids while I texted Lucy.
“We got Travis and he’s in the hospital.”
“Fantastic. When are you coming home?
“Don’t know until we talk to the doctor in the morning.”
“I miss you.”
“Same. When things settle down at our ranch, we’ll go out on a real date, okay?”
“Okay. I love you, Harlan.”
“Same.”
After talking to Lucy, I felt better like I always did. Her life was so solid, she grounded me. I glanced over at Virge, and he was asleep in his chair.
I rousted him out of his chair and hauled his tired ass into the house. “Time to sleep, Virgie. Tomorrow might be another long day getting Dad home to Texas.”
“Yeah, I need sleep.”