Chapter Six #2
He knew the concept. He was always prepared to make a run for it.
Every member of the club was ready. Those with wives and children were ready as well.
Czar believed in always being prepared for any possibility.
That rule had saved their lives many times over the years. Their backup plans had backup plans.
Keys left her reluctantly, but he didn’t look back.
He needed to get things done quickly. That meant setting as many traps as possible around the small cave.
If he wasn’t successful in his hunt, he wanted to ensure Lyric lived.
He hiked several of the trails and left a few tracks here and there to buy time.
That was what it was going to be all about.
Buying enough time for his club to show up.
Once he was certain Lyric was as safe as he could make her, he hiked back to where the truck was a burned-out wreck.
That would be the starting point, the place where those coming after them would first establish a presence.
They would want to see for themselves what happened to their men.
Keys knew Merrit and even Chester and Hank had spoken with someone from that location.
The Headed for Hell club used these mountains and the system of caves for their gun and drug running, and Code was certain they were involved in human trafficking.
The club had been entrenched in the territory for years.
That meant they knew the mountains and were familiar with all the back roads and trails.
It would be far better to locate them, see how many, and then follow the pairs sent out to hunt for signs on the various trails. That would save him valuable time.
Keys had a built-in map in his mind. He always had.
He wasn’t a man to get lost. Once he’d made a journey or he’d looked at a location, he could find his way back easily.
Even in the forest, he had no trouble making his way back to the site where the Headed for Hell club members had taken them to torture and make their video to prove they had done their job.
Keys and Destroyer had established they were out of work for the moment, taking time to ride free between construction jobs.
Both had impeccable paperwork: Keys was supposedly his last name, and Destroyer had been designated Riker.
They portrayed themselves as hardened, used to the road, lethal if crossed and not intimidated by any of the club members.
They would have made perfect recruits, but the club had passed on them.
Back home in Caspar, at their bar, a couple of Headed for Hell brothers had come in to party when they’d been in the neighborhood.
Keys was playing in the band. Fortunately, Seychelle, Savage’s old lady, had come in to audition and the idiot thought he might put his hands on her.
Savage had shut it down with one look, and the two had left.
Keys had dodged that bullet. Neither remembered him, and he’d been careful to stay away from them.
That didn’t mean they hadn’t met the members of the Headed for Hell club on multiple occasions in this town.
They’d frequented the bars and were downtown quite a bit.
Keys knew them by sight, but not one of the eight men who now stepped out of the two four-wheel-drive SUVs were men he had met.
They weren’t wearing colors; instead, they looked very much like a few of the militia groups he’d run across from time to time.
Men who kept to themselves and raised their families mostly off the grid.
Often, they were ex-military. Most just wanted to be left alone.
They definitely weren’t members of the Headed for Hell club.
So, what the hell was going on? No one came up the mountain without the Headed for Hell club’s permission.
Locals warned hikers to stay away, told them honestly that people disappeared in the mountains.
Was this how hikers disappeared? Were these men living in the mountains with their families?
Had they formed an alliance with the Headed for Hell club? It was entirely possible.
Keys knew absolutely that the Headed for Hell club ran guns and drugs.
They were low-key about it, but they had established themselves as major players.
They would need other clubs or maybe men such as these to carry the products to the buyers.
Sid Baily didn’t get to be president of the club because he was a wild card.
He thought things through and chose the best course of action for his brothers.
He was a solid president. He would be careful about risking his brothers.
It could fit that they had made a mutually beneficial bargain with a local militia.
One man, with sandy-colored hair and wearing dark-framed glasses, signaled to the others to spread out and look for anything that might tell them what had happened.
He was clearly in charge, and the others didn’t so much as throw him a questioning glance.
They were very efficient, breaking off into standard two-man teams to quarter the ground while the man in charge and one other examined the burned-out truck. Even that was efficient.
“I think we bought a big fish this time,” the boss said. He indicated his partner. “Silas, what’s your take?”
“Same as yours, Waylon,” Silas replied. “I don’t think our boys were killed in the crash. I think the man in that coffin killed them.”
“One of us?” A tall man chewing gum ventured, suggesting Keys might have been military.
“Maybe, Justin,” Waylon responded. “Anyone able to read what went down here?”
“He burned the bodies for certain,” Justin’s partner said. “Scattered the ashes for miles.”
Another man nodded. “King’s right, Waylon. And then he burned the truck.”
“Stripped it of anything useful,” Silas said. “We’ve got ourselves a wounded mountain lion, and he could very well be hunting us.”
The eight men looked carefully around as if they might find their quarry sitting in the nearest tree, ready to jump them bare-handed.
“He took their weapons,” Justin said, chomping fast on his gum. “He’s armed.”
“So are we,” Waylon pointed out. “And he’s got a woman to slow him down.
We know they both had head wounds. Chester sent photos of both of them down.
They got hit hard before they were stuffed in the transport coffin.
So he’s injured and has an injured woman to slow him down.
He doesn’t know these mountains. He most likely doesn’t know the way home. ”
Waylon indicated the vehicles. “Let’s hit the second location. From there, we spread out and look for traps. He can’t be so good he’s a ghost up here. He’s one man.”
“One man who killed five of ours,” Justin pointed out. “Merrit had a wife and two kids.”
“We’ll find him,” Waylon said with confidence. “We always do. He got lucky, but we’re going to be prepared for him. The others weren’t.”
“We going to make the video?” one of the other men spoke up. He was wearing dark green from head to toe.
“We took the job, Koda,” Waylon reminded him. “So yeah, we want to get paid, we make the video.”
“Gotta fuck both of them up?” Koda’s partner asked.
“That’s the deal, Jay,” Waylon said, a sigh in his voice.
“I got a wife.” The man who stayed in the background spoke up. “I’m not fuckin’ the bitch. I don’t mind beating the shit out of her, but I’m not cheating on my wife.”
“How is rape cheating, Jared?” Koda asked. “It isn’t sexual. It’s just part of the deal we made. Grow a pair.”
“Don’t rile him, Koda,” Waylon said. “He’s got the right to say he isn’t participating in that aspect of the job.”
The last of the eight slapped Jared on the back. “Gotta respect you, man. Your decision. I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend. I’ll do your part and mine, no problem.”
“Thanks, Wells, appreciate it,” Jared muttered.
Keys noted each man’s name. He particularly took great exception to Koda and Wells. They seemed just a little too eager to sexually assault Lyric.
The men loaded back into their vehicles, but Waylon paused before stepping inside to take a careful look around.
Keys noted that his expression was grim.
He ducked into the SUV and leaned over to speak to the two men in the back.
The one they called Justin, and his partner, King.
From his vantage point, Keys watched the two dark SUVs with tinted windows pull a U-turn and start down the trail.
He didn’t move. Sure enough, he heard the second vehicle slow, the one Waylon, Silas, Justin and King rode in.
So fuckin’ predictable. And so stupid. Keys waited, and within minutes, he caught a glimpse of the tall man moving at a brisk pace along one of the game trails leading back to the site of the crash. Run, little rabbits. They were the bait.
Waylon had made the very mistake he was annoyed with the first team over.
He’d given himself away when he’d taken that careful look around.
They should have slowed the SUV farther down the trail if they didn’t want him to hear.
So that meant they wanted to alert him to the two-man team they’d dropped off to backtrack him.
They would only do that if those men were protected.
Which meant two others had been dropped off farther out, where he hadn’t been able to hear the vehicle slow.
He slipped out of the crack in a split tree that appeared so slim nothing could fit in it.
They’d looked right at him twice and hadn’t spotted him.
He wasn’t even wearing clothes that blended that well.
Still, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake they were.
He wasn’t underestimating them. All eight men had been shocked that their teammates were dead.
Keys watched as Justin and King made a show of looking for tracks and then began to move along the game trail, heading toward the peak where Keys had used the phone. He was meant to follow, but he didn’t. He simply waited. Hunting took patience.