Chapter 1 #3
And then I watched Victor Preston go down in seconds.
Ember was also bald, not even eyebrows, and she didn’t look much like a woman, though she was much smaller than the men, so it’s possible the asshole knew a woman took him down.
Or guessed, since there’d be no way to know for certain.
For my part, I quite enjoyed the string of expletives he gave off when the duct tape came out.
He’d figured he could get loose from the zip-ties, but thick silver tape is another thing entirely.
He even offered her twenty million dollars in bitcoin if she’d let him go, but she just kept working.
For the most part, the guests went down easy. Men who’d paid six figures to watch not just illegal fights, but to watch men and women get beaten to death for sport, and all but a few just went right down without a fight. Several of them cried, and nearly all of them offered huge sums of money.
And we had it all on video.
Eighty guests.
How do you find that many soulless, evil people with that kind of money?
It made me worry even more that this might get buried, and I resolved all over again not to let that happen. This fucking ring was going to see the light of day, even if I died making it so.
Our people made sure we got everyone’s face from all angles, and I knew I’d be spending weeks delving into every last one.
Months. I knew the senators and many of their aides, a lot of lobbyists, two professional athletes, some attorneys, some well-known finance guys, but there were a shitload of people I didn’t recognize.
People with money who preferred to stay in the shadows, but those days were over for them.
A team had been pulling every hard drive we could find during the last part of this, and when everyone checked in that all tasks were complete, and the three of us let McGyver know all our people were ready to pull out, he finally said, “All teams off the X.”
But the tricky part came next — getting all of us out of there and the Feds in before someone could step in and rescue everyone we’d packed up all nice and neat for what Ember called the FeeBees. Her term for the FBI.
The plan was to call local LEO in, but a package was currently being transmitted to a half-dozen people really high up at both the FBI and the White House, and it included details of the missing people, the fight ring, and the first family of Virginia’s involvement, along with a note that the fighters have been rescued, and the guards and guests have been giftwrapped and are waiting, but time is of the essence.
Also, a note about how bad of an idea it would be to try to cover this up and make it go away.
Sloan had said the combination of local and federal would create a ton of paperwork, plus the locals could arrive the fastest, which was their best bet to keep the bad guys from swooping in and cleaning everything before the authorities could arrive.
I kept an eye on the checklist while our guys got out of there. On our end, McGyver pulled the mesh inside and drove us out of our hidey-hole.
Traditionally, I hold it together during a crisis and fall apart after.
Sloan had talked to me about the stress of the op, questioned me about when I’d fallen apart during stories, when I had not.
After quizzing me about it, he’d told me it won’t be over when we drive away.
Told me I can’t fall apart until I’m in whatever safehouse they put me in after, and where that is will depend upon how things go.
Gears was sitting with his eyes closed and looked like he was sleeping, so talking to him was out, but I wanted to check in with him. See how he was doing.
McGyver was driving, and I had a printout of where we were going.
He didn’t seem to be up to conversation, so while I kept a mental eye on where we were, I went through my mental checklist of what came next — broadcasting everything the bikers had given the all-clear for me to talk about, deciding on which of the new footage to show, and my part in dealing with the Feds while keeping the bikers out of it.
There was a very real chance the authorities would try to put me in jail for not telling them who was responsible for rescuing the fighters.
And if guards died, they might threaten me with accessory to murder.
I went into this knowing that, and I was already armed with one of the best attorneys money can buy.
Turns out, Magnum is the kind of rich that can buy any damned thing he wants.
I guided Skippy into a state park, and to a heavily wooded section.
Everyone got out, removed the skin on the RV, and was back in within thirty seconds.
We kept going until we came to a van pulled over in a roadside camping area, and I breathed out in relief when a window rolled down and Sloan smiled at me.
They’d driven faster, and had been dropped off a mile away, so they’d hiked through the woods to the van.
I grabbed my backpack and duffel, stepped out of the RV and into the side of the van, and watched the RV drive away.
“Everyone okay?” I asked. “It looked like Logan was shot.”
“Flesh wound,” Ember said. “He’s fine. The DNA he left behind might be a problem. We hit all the blood we could see with bleach. Hope we got it all.”
The adrenaline crash that happened ten minutes later was real, but I breathed through it and held myself together. Being incommunicado with the rest of the team was maddening, but I understood why.
From here on out, I was a reporter who’d hired private security to keep me alive while I worked hard to bring this illegal fight ring to the light of day.