Crash (Black Ice MC Novella Book 2) (4 page)

Mercer was up early the next morning, unable to sleep.
 
Not from anxiety or fear, but out of excitement.
 
He was back in Rawlins, rebuilding Black Ice into something great again.
 
Not that bastardized version that Tank had created, maybe not even what Henry, the original president, had done.
 
Mercer was going to take Hank’s original idea and build on it.
 
Mercer would take the values and ideals and update everything.

Danni was still asleep, and he wanted to let her sleep as long as she needed, so he kissed her lightly on the head and slipped out the door.
 
He knew it had been a rough trip on her.
 
As much as she said she wanted a fresh start in a new place, Danni had only lived in Calumet, and it was going to take a while before she settled down.

The morning was cold, but the sun was shining as Mercer rode through town.
 
He wanted to get to the clubhouse soon, but there was something he hadn’t had a chance to do since getting back, and that was stopping by Al’s.

Al’s was the best doughnut shop Mercer had ever been to.
 
The selection and quality couldn’t be found anywhere else, and it was always warm inside, with the smell of sugar and fresh coffee.
 

He walked in, and the bright yellow walls welcomed him as he saddled up to the counter.

“Two chocolate glazed and a plain.
 
And hurry the hell up.”

Al was pouring coffee to another customer and looked over, very annoyed, until he saw it was Mercer.
 
The old man’s face lit up. He came right over and poured a cup for Mercer.

“You are a damn sight to see, sonny.”

“How you doing, Al?”

A smile came across Al’s wrinkled face.
 

“Can’t complain.
 
When did you get back?
 
I thought you were gone for good after what happened.”

Mercer took a drink of his coffee as Al got the doughnuts from the display case.

“You heard about that?”

“You know all the gossip runs through here anyway.
 
This place is like a line of old ladies spreading news.
 
You back for good?”

“I am.
 
How’re things in town?
 
I heard the police aren’t too friendly to MCs these days.”

Al shook his head.
 
“It’s been rough around here.
 
What the big fella did to your club, it hurt a lot of people.
 
Might seem strange, but we come to rely on the club.
 
Then it changed, and things got bad.
 
Then all you went away, and things got even worse.”

“What do you mean, Al?’

“Some punks, young kids calling themselves the Rattlers, they come into town like they own the damn place.
 
Start making demands, saying we owe them protection money.
 
We tell them we ain’t paying.
 
Next thing we know, the garage over on Third Street, the one Jared Smith owns, handed to him by his daddy, it burns to the ground.
 
Whole damn thing went up.
 
Investigators said it was started on purpose so the insurance company isn’t paying out a goddamn dime.
 
So the rest of us, we start paying.”

Mercer felt the anger rise from his neck into his head.
 
He had to stop himself from jumping up from the counter and taking on all of the Rattlers himself.
 
It must have shown in his face.

“Calm down, sonny.
 
Everything’s OK.”

“The hell it is.
 
This is going to stop.
 
When do they come around to collect?”

They’ll be here in two days.
 
Always come right at eleven in the morning.”

“You’re not paying them another cent.
 
We are going to take care of this, Al.
 
I promise that.”

He quickly finished his coffee and took his remaining doughnut with him out the door.
 
He hopped onto his bike, but he wasn’t riding for more than a minute before he saw blue and red lights flashing in his mirror.
 
He pulled to the side of the road and the cop pulled in close behind him.
 
The officer didn’t get out of his car right away, instead making Mercer wait on him for several minutes.

When he finally did emerge, Mercer saw it was a young cop. Mercer didn’t recognize him.
 

“Dismount from the motorcycle,” said the officer.
 
His nametag said his last name was Ames.

Mercer did so and stood in front of the man.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No,” said Mercer honestly.
 
He wasn’t speeding and all his tags were up to date.

The officer pulled his arm back quickly and sucker-punched Mercer in the stomach.
 
Mercer dropped to one knee, grabbing the bike for support, trying to catch his breath.
 
Ames pulled his foot back and planted his boot in Mercer’s ribs.

“What the fuck,” gasped Mercer through shallow breaths.

“Get on your feet, you rat motherfucker.”

Ames grabbed Mercer’s leather cut and pulled him up.
 
On his feet, Mercer still hunched over slightly from the blow.

“What the hell?” said Mercer.

Ames grabbed his billy club. “Shut the fuck up before I whip the living shit out of you.”

Mercer did as he was told.
 
There was real hatred in the man’s eyes.
 
Mercer thought he looked capable of beating a man senseless, maybe even killing someone.
 

“Look here.
 
You motorcycle assholes may’ve had a good thing going in the past, but those days are over.
 
There’s new laws in this town.
 
Motorcycle gangs have been outlawed.”

“I’m not in a gang.
 
I’m in a club of gentlemen who like to spend their free time riding motorcycles.”

The officer hit Mercer in the stomach with the butt of his club.
 
This time, he was able to stay on his feet.

“Any identifying markers that align a motorcycle rider with any club affiliation are prohibited within city limits.”
 

The officer gestured to Mercer’s leather cut.

“I’ll take if off as soon as I get where I’m going.”

“You will remove it this goddamn second or I will throw your ass in lockup and you will rot there.
 
Do I make myself clear?”

Mercer held his ground for several seconds, but when the officer made a move for his gun, he took off the leather vest with the Black Ice insignia on the back.
 
The officer yanked it from his hands.

“Hey, you can’t do that,” protested Mercer.
 
“I took it off.
 
You can’t just take it.”

“Stop me,” said Ames, walking back to his car.
 

Mercer got on his bike and took off, not caring that he was blowing past the speed limit.
 
All the excitement he’d felt that morning was replaced by pure anger.
 
A lot had changed in Rawlins since he had left, and none of it for the better.

***

“I tried to warn you, kid.
 
The shit has hit the fan in this town.”

Mercer leaned up against the counter.
 
Doc was varnishing a large piece of wood that would eventually serve as the table in the club meeting room.
 
He put down his brush and took a drink of beer, despite it only being ten in the morning.

“Yeah, you did.
 
I guess I wasn’t listening.
 
What about not wearing our cuts in town?
 
You didn’t say anything about that.”

Doc took another drink of beer.
 
“That’s a new one on me.
 
I’ll call my buddy down at the courthouse and find out if that cop was just screwing with you.”

“He was doing a lot more than screwing with me.
 
I got the bruises to prove it.”

Doc picked up his brush and kept varnishing.
 
Mercer picked up a screwdriver and worked on getting some hinges attached to the interior door frames.
 
They worked for an hour before taking a break.
 
Mercer grabbed the first beer of the day out of the cooler and handed Doc another.

“It’s going to take time to get everything back.
 
Did you really think you could waltz back to town, claim Black Ice had returned, and everyone would fall in line?”

“Yeah, I did, actually.”

Doc shook his head.
 
“Doesn’t work that way.
 
We got a couple of new members and that’s a good start, but we need a hell of a lot more than that.
 
We need money and the way to get money is to start earning on jobs.
 
I got something lined up.
 
It’s not much, but we need every dollar we can get.
 
How much is left from the pile?”

Doc was referring to the money Mercer had stolen from the club before he left town.
 
Now that he was back, he returned it to the club, but with the repairs to the clubhouse, paying the new members a little something to get them on their feet, and general maintenance, they were quickly running out.

“Not much,” Mercer admitted.
 
“About fifteen thousand.”

“We can stretch that a bit, but we need money coming in.”

“What’s this job? Guns or drugs?”

A smile crept across Doc’s face.
 
“You’re going to love this.
 
It’s corporate secrets.”

Doc wouldn’t say any more until they were all gathered.
 
Red and Cruz showed up twenty minutes later, and they gathered around the kitchen table again since the meeting room wasn’t yet ready.

“Here’s the score,” said Doc.
 
“Guy I know swiped a bunch of trade secrets from a company he worked for.
 
They were supposed to let him in on profit sharing, but fired him instead.
 
He figures they cheated him out of a hundred thousand dollars.
 
Thing is, he kept copies of all the information on his computer at home, so he was able to download everything to a flash drive.
 
He made contact with a rival company and is going to sell the information for a hundred thousand dollars.
 
We’ll get five percent to deliver the flash drive to this other company in Billings.”

“Why not just email the information?” asked Cruz.

“Stealing those secrets was highly illegal and he’s afraid someone can track it online.
 
Makes sense these days, with the NSA listening to everyone’s phone calls.”

Red spoke next.
 
“Why not just deliver it himself?”

“He thinks the company has hired people to watch him, make sure he’s not going to do exactly what he’s planning to do.
 
He says if the company has hired guys to watch him, it’s reasonable to think they’ll attack to get the information back, so we’ll need to be on the lookout.
 
Good thing is, the drive is small enough to carry in a pocket, so it’s doable with the four of us.”

Mercer looked at each man.
 
They all seemed to be on board, but this was the first job since the club came back to life and it needed to be official.

“OK.
 
Let’s vote.
 
Who’s in favor of delivering this drive two hours away to Billings?”

All four men raised their hand.

“OK,” said Mercer.
 
He realized he had no gavel, so he slapped his palm on the table instead.
 
“It’s official.
 
Doc, schedule the pickup with your man and we’ll be five grand richer when all of this is over.”

The attack came from the left, catching Black Ice off guard.
 
The other bikes crested a hill to the south and came on them fast.
 
Cruz spotted them first and they pulled guns.
 
They fired on the Rattlers, but none of their bullets hit; then the Rattlers were on the road with them with guns of their own.

Up until that point, everything had gone according to plan.
 
They picked up the drive from Doc’s contact and started out toward Billings, Montana.
 
Mercer assumed that if they were going to get hit by a rival gang, it would happen as soon as they left the city limits and it would come from behind.
 
He figured the gang would ride up behind them in order to make it easier to shoot them, so he had Red stay a mile behind.
 
If the Rattlers had come up from the rear, Red would have been able to take them down easier.