Chapter 31
31
Asher
They were fucking organized; I’ll give them that.
One of the men I’d come to know as Weasel was their tech ops guy who cloned Sienna’s phone and now was hacking something else. He loaded up another laptop, plugged a phone to it, and an overhead map lit up the wall.
And Clutch… well, it paid to have retired military friends who now worked in the underbelly of the U.S. Government.
Hell’s Guardians club membership came with fucking perks. Just exactly what these men did still eluded me. But whatever they did for side cash, well, they were better than some black ops crews I’d worked with in Bahrain.
“Got him!” Weasel announced loudly from the end of their huge club table. “Fucker is so stupid.”
Intel hadn’t given us a location for any of the Double Dagger’s safe houses, so it had been like trying to find a needle in a haystack all morning.
I glanced up at the wall, seeing what looked like a rudimentary phone app.
“We’re in. Thanks. I owe you,” Clutch said into his phone. “I think we’re just down to the time and place to make that happen. You said that the last time. Yeah, I’ll hold my breath.” He shoved his phone into his back pocket.
I gave him a nod. He wasn’t talking to anyone male with that tone coming out of him.
“He’s got him up in Black Canyon City. Yeah, see right there?” Weasel pointed. “Dad’s cell phone is pinging in the far corner of the building.”
Somehow these men hacked a friends and family tracking app and now we landed right on top of where Sienna’s dad was being held. I knew the town, not well, but it was a bit rural in areas which gave plenty of places for pieces of shit to hide.
The next question was to find out how many men we were up against. Regular folks had no clue how much intel you could gather from all the regular apps circulating. You didn’t need satellite surveillance to plan a hostage rescue, but it helped. Old Google Maps gave us all the images we needed.
They had Sienna’s dad in an old pole barn building with two twelve-foot garage doors on the far end. Well, that’s where his cell phone was and if Diesel was waiting on her to call, he’d be there too. It looked easy enough to breach. The whole thing was clad in dingy, old, white aluminum sheeting.
“Used to be a pool repair company. Now it looks like it’s been converted to an auto repair shop,” Weasel said. He tapped more keys. “Let me see if I can get more intel.”
An hour later, we had enough detail of the layout to form a plan.
“We need a four-man team. This building is paper thin, so be aware of crossfire. This looks like the best entry point.” I tapped the image. “We draw fire to this end and breach here.”
Once the plan was settled, we just needed to wait out for the cover of darkness. That’s when Clutch took me for a visit to their armory. Yes, indeed. They had plenty of toys.
“You have any flash bangs?” I asked.
Clutch just smiled. “I’ve got everything you need.”
Distraction was always the key for a night raid.
Weasel was right. These fuckers were stupid. I saw the appeal for the location they’d hunkered down in, it was remote enough, but they were fully exposed.
“I don’t see any,” I said to Clutch, who was also scanning the building’s exterior with a set of night vision goggles.
“Yeah, north and east ends are clear. No cameras on the ridgeline. Nothing on this side either,” Clutch muttered back.
Within the scope of a few hours, these men had morphed from bikers in leather cuts to special ops. No visible identification. Nothing to tie them back to their club.
Clutch was in his glory, taking me right there with him. I’d spent over a decade in full battle rattle, seeking insurgents under the cover of darkness. To any onlookers, we looked like a SWAT team hiding in the darkness. To me, it felt like coming home.
Ballistic helmets, vests, even fucking mics. I didn’t ask Clutch why their club needed all this shit—on the outside, they looked like a bunch of badass bikers who loved to ride, worked on cars, and designed custom motorcycles. But he’d sort of answered my question back at the clubhouse when I was lacing up my boots. “Gloves on. No prints. Everything on this rack is clean.”
I slid them on my hands. I hadn’t worn this pair since the day I’d had Sienna at the range. He handed me a nice knife, solid handle. I attached it to my rig.
“Cartels have more,” he’d said. “Daggers have been taking girls off the rez. Not women. Kids. Who is going to stop that?” He chambered a .45, releasing the slide. “A year ago, our Prez, his woman was caught up in it. Like the life here. Different war. But they were unprepared. Fixed that. This isn’t the first time we need to send messages.” He then handed the gun to me. “Compliments of the cartels.”
I got it. No ballistics matches. No fingerprints. While our military was distracted by endless foreign wars all meant to make men richer, the real wars were here at home, infecting every state.
We’d been surveilling the building for almost an hour. So far, there’d been no activity. “Ready?” I asked him.
Clutch nodded and communicated that to the rest of the men through our coms.
My brother Zip came up next to me and gave me a chin lift. I returned the gesture. Yeah, him being here on this mission for me went above and beyond being even. Now I owed him.
The three of us slid our gas masks on, Clutch on my right. I loved my brother, but this was not his rodeo. Only two of us had training here. Time to go knock on the fucking door. I just hoped we weren’t to late.
Clutch tossed the first grenade which blew the door right off its hinges. The concussion kicked up a cloud of dust and dirt. As soon as the door blew, another one of the Guardian’s crew, a guy named Skid, set off a second blast on the other side of the building to confuse them and draw their attention away from the hole we’d just made. I pulled thepin on a flash bang and tossed it into the room, hearing it bounce and roll over the concrete floor. Zip crouched low and tossed another.
Gunfire rang out from inside, but years of training gave me a clear view through the smoke. I took aim, dropping one of them to the ground. A second biker was trying to shoot from the garage. Clutch put a line of bullets through the wall, dropping our target. Zip picked off the third hiding behind an old, metal filing cabinet. I hoped to hell the fucker I took down was Diesel.
We cleared the rooms, finding Sienna’s dad tied up in a chair by the corner. He was in bad shape but still breathing. A pool of blood was beneath him on the floor.
Zip, Clutch, and Skid went to clear the garage area. I needed to get Sienna’s dad clear, but we needed a clean exit first. I flipped the guy I’d taken out. He seemed older, wearing his Double Daggers cut, blood dripping from the hole I put in his chest.
The guy Zip had shot was still groaning. My brother hovered over him, and without remorse, ended his groaning with another bullet.
I couldn’t allow myself to feel it. These men had ruthlessly kidnapped a man in his sixties who hadn’t done a single thing wrong in his entire life. Now that man was slumped over in a chair, bleeding from their bullshit.
Zip kicked over the third guy.
“That him?” I asked. I pulled the knife attached to my chest and sliced the rope tying my future father-in-law up.
Zip’s head shook. “No. None of these fuckers are.” He glanced at the door.
Skid came up behind me, his rifle pointing down. “Only three bikes in the garage.”
I cut the ropes tying Jack Tatum’s feet to the chair. This was not the way I’d ever envisioned meeting the man but cutting him loose from captivity had to earn me his blessing.
“Diesel’s still in the wind, Brother,” Zip said.
“Tank, need the van,” Clutch said over the coms. “Step carefully. No boot blood tracks.” He pulled out a wad of white wrapped in plastic, dumping white powder around the dead bodies. The rest got shoved under one of the dead men’s hand. “Enjoy your coke, compliments of the cartel.”
Sienna’s father was mostly awake, though deep in agony. “Mr. Tatum, need to get you out of here. Can you walk?” Zip grabbed ahold of the man’s other arm, both of us slinging him up to carry him out.
Tank wrapped him in blankets, helping us load Mr. Tatum in the van. Weasel pulled up nearby in another car. We needed the club clear of ever being here. We’d just made a lot of noise.
With the Guardians in one car and us in the van, we headed out, putting distance between us and the carnage we’d just caused.
Liam was driving while I held Jack Tatum from bouncing around over the rough roadway.
“We got you, Mr. Tatum,” I said to him.
His eyes blinked at us in a daze. “You boys…police?”
“Asher Hayes, from next door.” I nodded at my brother. “Liam Hayes.”
With a trembling hand, he pat my face. “Hayes. Hayes boy. How’d you find me?”
I smiled at him. “Long story. We need to get you to the hospital first, but you need to understand what you’ve just been through isn’t something you can tell anyone.”
“I know the men who took me. The one was my daughter’s ex-boyfriend. Piece of shit.” He groaned when we hit a bump. “You cops?”
“No sir. Your daughter is safe. Those men who took you, they’re no longer breathing.”
He nodded. “Good. That bastard dead?”
“Not yet.” Man to man, he understood. “You cannot tell the cops the truth. You need to understand that. They’re going to ask questions and you’re gonna have to lie to keep your daughter safe. So you best start forgetting everything. You don’t know who attacked you. Nothing. Amnesia on the details. You fought off someone trying to rob you. Never saw his face. Worked you over pretty hard. Neighbor boys found you, since we’re bringing you in.”
I pulled the burner phone Weasel had given me out of my pocket. Sienna needed to hear her dad’s voice. I needed to hear hers.
I stripped off my gear and guns as Zip pulled into Mercy General Hospital. It was time to start the healing for everyone.