Chapter Twenty-one
King’s Men Safe House
Evanston, Wyoming
“Jesus, King,” Scars said as he walked into the large warehouse with the world-class security system. “How many safe houses have you got scattered around the United States?”
King grinned. “Let’s say it’s more than forty-five, but less than fifty.”
Scars whistled. “Damn impressive, man. I guess I’m just starting to get some sense of the scope of your whole King’s Men operation. You folks don’t mess around.”
“We don’t have the luxury of messing around,” King said grimly. “Not when we’re talking about the kind of shit that we’re going up against now.”
“Amen,” Holt said fervently as he followed his President into the massive, open room. He took in the high ceilings, the desks and file cabinets, the rows and rows of boxes and crates. “Hey, King, is this place actually running as a real warehouse? Like, what do the locals think that it is?”
“Yeah, it’s a working warehouse.” King rolled his massive shoulders. “I employ a few people who handle factory equipment shipments in and out. It’s actually a great source of legal income for me, since Wyoming has a huge cattle industry, so we’re shipping out machine parts to some farm or another almost constantly. This place more than pays for itself.”
“So how can it double as a safe house, then?” Cain asked with genuine interest. “Don’t things get…uhhh… noticed when you show up here with a bunch of King’s Men, armed to the teeth, and dragging someone who’s blindfolded and needs some ‘encouragement’ under questioning?”
“Yeah, well,” King said. “We use this place rarely, and if I have no choice, I invent some reason why the workers get a few days off.”
“What’s the reason today?” Ice said.
“Deep cleaning and power washing,” King said promptly. “They can’t be here for any of that, so they’re getting a week off, paid. And of course, tomorrow there will actually be a company here doing the deep cleaning – so if anyone drives by, they’ll see the trucks.”
“And let’s face it,” Scars said. “This place will need a clean after today. Can’t leave anything behind that shows that Bale was here… or any of us.”
“Goddamn straight,” King growled. “Speaking of which, how far out are your boys?”
“Drake texted me about thirty minutes ago that they were maybe forty-five minutes away,” Scars said. “So we have a bit of time to chat to our good buddies from Nebraska before they get here.”
“Shall we?” Ice said. “Go say hi?”
“Indeed.” Scars nodded at Cain. “Stay here and let the twins in when they arrive.”
“You got it,” Cain said.
Scars, Ice, and Holt followed King to the back of the warehouse. He slid open a massive steel door that led to another large space – where there stood three men wearing cuts with The Howling Highwaymen MC insignia emblazoned on their backs.
Fox Patton, President of The Highwaymen, turned as the door opened, his hair bright red in the sun steaming through the skylight. He grinned at his fellow Highwaymen.
“Told you that Scars and Ice would be bang on time,” Fox said to them. “I think you can set a world clock by their time-keeping.”
“Fox,” Scars said, advancing with this hand extended. “Good to see you, man.”
“You too, though I hate like hell the circumstances.” Fox shook Scars’ hand, then gestured at his brothers. “My Veep, Scorpion Morse, and one of my Enforcers, Ink Dixon.”
“Scorpion, Ink.” Scars nodded at them, and they nodded back silently. “You guys know Ice and Holt, of course, but this is King.”
“Hell of a safe house you got here,” Fox remarked as he shook King’s hand. “I might have to think about setting something like this up back in Nebraska. Smart to use it as a legit business, gives it an extra layer of cover.”
“And some extra cash,” King said. “Which I never say no to.”
“Ditto.” Fox looked at Scars again. “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what you and your boys are going through – I admit that when Wolf took you guys straight, I was pissed off about it. Told myself that me and The Highwaymen would be cordial with you all, and that would be it … but Viper Grant dragging a bunch of kids into his shit is something that I won’t ignore. When we get them back – those babies and Wolf too – me and my boys will have your backs in the future, no matter what. You just have to ask.”
“Thanks, man.” Scars sighed a bit. “It’s actually been surprising how many MC’s have offered to step up and help us, guys who swore to never even utter Wolf’s name again.”
“Yeah, well,” Fox said. “Kids getting hurt changes everything, even when they ain’t my kids. But I know damn good and well that they could have been – if I’d been the one to piss off Viper.”
“And here we thought that Crusher Alcott was the loose canon, huh?” Scars said, trying to lighten the mood marginally. “We got that fucking wrong.”
“Right?” Fox shook his head. “Nobody saw Viper coming, and I mean nobody .”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. We’ve all been saying that for days now.” Scars looked at the door at the far end of the room, guessed from the muffled cries and the sound of a chair scraping across the floor that their guest was behind it. “Did you have any trouble grabbing him up?”
“None,” Fox said. “You’d think that a dirty cop would be a bit more vigilant, but this asshole was walking to his car like it was just any other fucking Thursday.”
“My guess is that he was looking for Scars and his boys only,” King said. “He probably also thought that having Viper’s protection was enough, that nobody would dare touch him.”
“Well, he was fucking wrong, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, we’re definitely going to touch him.”
The voices came from behind them; all of the men turned to see Dux and Drake standing there with Cain. The twins looked exhausted and stretched thin, but somehow that made them look even more dangerous, darker. None of the other men were fathers – well, Scars was, of course, but he hadn’t been in Keira’s life since before her birth – and so they could only imagine what the twins were going through. If their faces were any indication, though, it was hell on earth.
Dux and Drake walked over, and there was a quick round of greetings: hand shakes and some back slapping, then Fox and The Highwaymen left, their part in the whole mess over and done with. The remaining men all stood there and looked at each other, taking a minute to take stock.
“So,” Drake said, his voice rough from lack of sleep. “Have you talked to him yet?”
“Nope,” Scars replied. “We were waiting for you.”
“You OK with us getting started?” Dux asked, already moving to where he could hear the distinct and unmistakable sound of a man with tape over his mouth, then he paused. “Or did any of you want a word first? King?”
“Yeah, do you mind if I get some time before you get going?” King said. “Not too long, maybe five minutes. I just have a few questions about Travis Denton’s demise… though I can probably guess most of what happened.”
“We figured,” Drake said. “Go ahead, man. Find out about your friend.”
“I won’t need long,” King assured them, walking over to the closed door, the heavy silver rings on his hands glinting in the weak sunlight. “I never do.”
**
Six minutes later, King walked out of the back room, wiping the blood off his knuckles with a rag. He shut the door, and the sound of pathetic moaning and incoherent begging faded.
“And?” Scars said. “Anything surprising?”
“A bit.” King stuffed the rag in his back pocket. “As I thought, Denton wasn’t in on it at any point, and he had no clue what Bale has been up to with The Highway Hellions over the past eight years… but Bale says that with all of us involved, and all the extra eyes on him, he started cracking up a bit under the pressure of lying about an imaginary CI. He got super paranoid about everything and everyone, and figured that it was just a matter of time before we were all working with Denton against him.”
“Did Bale actually confront Denton?” Ice asked. “Feel him out to see what he might know?”
“No,” King replied. “Bale decided to just take matters into his own hands. Told Viper that things were coming unstuck, and Viper told him to take care of it. Even loaned him an old motorcycle that has since been turned to scrap metal.”
“Shit,” Scars said. “I’m sorry, man. Your friend really didn’t see it coming.”
“Bale had everyone fooled for almost a decade,” King said heavily. “And let me tell you, if Denton was working with him closely and suspected nothing, then Bale is a fucking master manipulator, but I guess that even a guy who’s the best at being the worst reaches a breaking point.”
“And your friend paid for that for no reason,” Drake said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” King shook his head. “All I really wanted to confirm was that Denton didn’t have any part in any of this… and I wanted to hear how he died.”
“He was dragged to death,” Ice said slowly. “Wasn’t he?”
“No. Bale stabbed him first, right in the throat, and he died quick, thank Christ. Then Bale dragged the body behind the motorcycle and obliterated the evidence.”
“That is – better , I guess,” Scars said hesitantly. “I mean –”
“I know what you mean,” King said. “And I agree with you.” He looked at Dux and Drake, his gray eyes steel in his hard face. “Thank you for letting me find out what I needed to know… now he’s all yours.”
Without a word, moving as one, the twins moved to the door. In the blink of an eye, they returned to Enforcer mode immediately, seamlessly, and every man in the room saw the second that it happened.
“Guys?” Scars said. “One last thing.”
They turned, their faces identical masks of cool rage.
“We’re just sitting around here waiting on Bones, so you’ve got time,” Scars said. “Make him pay for it… all of it. Do your fucking worst.”
“We promised Briley that we would,” Dux said quietly.
“And we always keep our promises to that woman,” Drake added.
They went into the room and shut the door; the screaming began soon after.
**
Three hours later, in a silence that had only fallen about ten minutes earlier, Scars’ burner cell chimed, chimed again. And again. And again.
Knowing exactly what he was about to see, Scars picked up the phone, opened the first attachment, then another and another.
“And?” King said.
“Well, I can’t tell you what the hell might have done this. ” Scars held up the phone to show the grisly image of Viper Grant with blood, vomit, and some kind of clear foam around his blue-tinged lips, his back eyes open and locked in frozen pain and horror. “But it looks pretty permanent.”
“Can I see?” Ice asked. “I have some unfortunate experience with poison exposure from my time in Afghanistan.”
Scars handed the phone over and Ice went through each image carefully, noting body positioning, fluids, and skin color. Finally, he glanced up at the other men and nodded.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was some kind of airborne chemical. Maybe carbon monoxide, since it made them puke everywhere, but the blood looks like it comes from the stomach and lungs. But…” He stared closely at the pictures, went through them again more slowly. “Despite all the blood and puke, their blue lips make me think that they actually suffocated.”
“Does carbon monoxide work that fast?” Cain asked doubtfully. “It’s only been a few hours since Bones texted that he was on his way to Viper’s card game.”
“Not usually,” Ice said, gazing down at the photo of Preacher slumped over the table, some kind of liquid all down his chin and chest, surrounded by what looked like poker chips. “It depends how much you dump on them all at once, I guess. All I can say for sure is that from the looks on their faces, whatever Bones did to them, it fucking hurt .”
The phone rang then, and Ice handed it back to Scars who picked up right away, then put it on speaker.
“Scars?”
“Yeah. What the fuck did you do to them, man?”
“I locked them in the Hellions warehouse where Viper and Preacher and their little lapdogs play cards,” Bones said. “Then I pumped in gallons of phosgene through the air vents.”
“Of what ?”
“Phosgene,” Bones said, launching into a science lesson. “An organic, chemical compound that is ridiculously easy to make, even if you aren’t great at chemistry. It was used as a chemical weapon in the Second World War, and if it’s inhaled in large quantities – and I made sure that it was – pulmonary edemas appear immediately.”
“So…” King said slowly. “So pulmonary means the lungs, right? So does that mean that they puked up disintegrated lung tissue? They choked to death on it?”
“No. Pulmonary edemas cause massive fluid buildup in the lungs.”
“So…” Scars said, struck by the sudden understanding that came to him in a blinding flash. “So… they drowned ?”
“Yep.”
“Holy shit.” Scars stared at the photos in horror, trying hard not to imagine what it must feel like to drown from the inside out. “That is the worst thing that I think I’ve ever heard.”
“It was painful, I can assure you,” Bones said. “But it was pretty quick, as far as things like this can go. I exposed them to so much all at once, that it was all over in about forty minutes, but they were incapacitated within five. They’d have been aware and conscious for most of what was happening, but no way to get to their feet or even crawl.”
“I – I don’t know if that’s better or worse than what I was imagining,” Cain said. “That is fucking gruesome .”
“They deserved it,” Dux said quietly, and his brother nodded. “For what they put Briley through, for what they did to Vixen… they had it coming. I’m glad it hurt, I’m glad that they knew what was going on, I’m glad they died afraid.”
“ All of that happened,” Bones informed them. “I swear it.”
There was a short silence as the men looked at the photos for a few more seconds, then snapped their eyes back up. It was time to move on to the next part of the plan, and none of them were wasting any time feeling pity for a bunch of baby kidnappers and attempted-murderers of children.
“Scars?”
“Yeah, still here,” Scars said to Bones, his mind already four steps ahead of where he was actually standing. “Call me when you get eyes on Wolf and the twins.”
“You got it,” Bones said and disconnected.
The six men stood there, mentally switching gears to the next part of the plan: they had to clean up the mess in the back room, in preparation for the cleaners the next day, and Ice and Cain were the ones tasked with making the body disappear. They’d be travelling a bit for sure, but thought that they’d be back in Denver in about three days.
“Let’s do what needs to be done back there, and then go get our President,” Scars said now, then looked at Dux and Drake. Both men had knuckles that were bruised and raw, swollen and scraped to shit; both men looked utterly at peace. “ And your babies.”