Forging Steel (Steel Riders MC Book 3) (2 page)

Daphne sat up and looked at her through watery eyes. “You’re sure about that? Really sure?”

“No doubt at all. His name was Ernando, Ernando Delvalle.”

“Yes.” Daphne nodded. “That’s what Derrick said while we were out there. Ernando was going to bring him $100k in cash, and then we were riding out of here in style.”

Cyn shook her head slowly. “Never would have happened. Ernando was an enforcer for the Ruiz Cartel, a killer. Derrick was nothing to him. He would have gotten out of his truck, looked around, saw that it was a good place, and before Derrick could say a word, he would have shot him. He might have raped you first, but you would have been next. Then he would have taken the boxes and drove back to his place. He would have read through the files, found out about Hank, and then he would have begun killing everyone in those files. Everyone.”

“Derrick said that too,” Daphne choked out. “That every one of them was going to pay. They were all going to die. All of them. That’s when I asked about you. And he said definitely you, since you were Hank’s little whore.”

Daphne looked down at her hands. “So, I went to the car and got the gun out of the glove box. He was still babbling about how there wasn’t going to be a club anymore, and it was all going to burn. I told him I loved him, and then I shot him.”

They held each other’s hands, leaning into each other like the living victims of a storm or refugees of a war. Survivors, both of them.

“Come to bed with me. I want to hold you, baby,” Cyn told her, and she urged her by pulling her hand.

Daphne followed. Cyn took off her shirt and then pulled Daphne’s off her. She lay her down and held her, soothing her body with deep loving strokes. She told her she loved her. They stayed like that until mid-afternoon.

CHAPTER TWO

Hank was at Airstrip 8 at four in the morning on Tuesday. It was nothing more than a long, narrow mesa with vehicle access from the west and east. The trail from the west was easier on tires and suspension, however. The mesa was in a shallow canyon with walls of other mesas rising above to the north and south. This was one of the reasons Hank had picked this spot; the higher walls to the sides would limit the visibility of explosions and gun fire. It would really suck to win this one-man ambush and then get arrested.

It took nearly six hours to lay out the trip wires and claymores. If the normal amount of men was dispatched to this drug drop, he would be facing between ten and fifteen armed, seasoned enforcers, along with Orlin himself and maybe one of his lieutenants.

Hank has lobbied several times for Orlin to allow his lieutenants to handle these drops on their own, pointing out the obvious risk factors. As Hank expected from Orlin’s personality, Orlin was a man who enjoyed such advice and enjoyed turning it down even more. He was still young, after all. It was best to be a hands-on leader as long as possible. Hank, of course, feigned disappointment in a dutiful manner.

For several more hours, he hid guns in locations he was expected to be that night, and then walked the area several times, memorizing features such as large rocks which could offer cover, and shallows which could hide him.

By two in the afternoon, he was tired, slightly sunburnt, and confident that he understood the tactical aspects of Airstrip 8. He had plenty of digital photos of the area from up close, as well as several looking down at Airstrip 8
from vantage points on the higher mesas. He had recorded GPS locations as well.

Getting back into his truck, he took off his hat and drank a whole bottle of water in one go while turning on the air-conditioning. It was close to a hundred degrees out there now, and he made sure that he wasn’t suffering from any aspect of heatstroke before he started back down the trail. Blurred vision on these trails could mean a stranded truck.

Once he was back on Interstate 8 heading west, he opened the truck up and pressed the gas on the straight, empty blacktop. He reached 200mph much faster than he expected and there was still room to climb, but he backed down. It was a very well-built hot rod truck. Even with the new paint job and normal tires, though, it continued to remind him of the night he nearly lost Cyn to the animal mentality he was currently working against.

Back in El Cajon, he entered the hotel room he rented for a shower and shave. After putting on his black suit (one of eight now hanging in his hacienda room’s closet), he packed up his work clothes and left the room. By five o’clock, he was back in his room at the hacienda.

While making notes of his observations that day, his cellphone rang. It was Orlin.

“Yes?” he answered.

“Are you on the grounds?” Orlin asked.

“For perhaps another couple of hours, then I have plans. What can I do for you?”

“Yes, I know it is your day off, but it would be very beneficial if you could join a meeting in my office area.”

“On my way,” he said, and turned off his laptop, turning on the security encryption feature.

Entering the room, he saw there was a man in one of the visitor chairs in front of the desk. One security man was at the entry door with the door open, and another inside the room close to the patio doors, which were also open.

Two thoughts pounded into Hank’s brain as he studied the man sitting in front of the desk while he approached him. The first was that he didn’t like Orlin very much — in fact, he was quite hostile. And the second was: He’s a cop. Probably DEA. Hank continued to examine the man as he passed him to stand beside Orlin.

“Hank,” Orlin said, “This is Brian, Brian Fowles.”

Hank nodded his head. “Coming up on ten years soon, aren’t you? Has the DEA changed much?”

The man was noticeably stunned, and Orlin was beside himself with laughter. “Pay up,” Orlin laughed.

Brian Fowles, or perhaps Agent Fowles would be more appropriate, pulled out a twenty from his pocket and put it on the desk with a slap.

Orlin snatched it up and kissed the bill. “I love winning bets.”

“Was that all you needed me for?” Hank asked Orlin.

“No, of course not. I wouldn’t interrupt your personal time with that. We made this bet on your way here. Fowles is very proud of his undercover abilities. But anyway, he had begun to tell me information he has on Cuarto Rivera when I stopped him and called you.”

“I understand,” Hank told him. He leaned back against the wall behind him, ready to listen.

“Please continue, Fowles,” Orlin urged.

“Recently,” Fowles said, “Rivera purchased a large amount of weapons. We expected them to go to his hacienda, but they didn’t. They crossed the border and then disappeared.”

“They disappeared while you were watching them?” Orlin marveled.

Fowles looked a little uncomfortable. “Yes.”

Orlin processed this. “Go on, please.”

“Well, Rivera doesn’t have a hacienda on this side of the border and never has, though he has talked several times about advancing into the US. This shipment wasn’t a shipment that would be for sale in the US, except to a paramilitary group about to declare war on the state they were living in.”

Fowles looked a little uncomfortable again. “We also recorded a conversation, which was at first a little strange to us before this weapons shipment came in to focus. The conversation was between him and his eldest granddaughter, Sibel. She’s what now — seventeen, I believe? Anyway, she is telling Cuarto that she wants to get married. He’s telling her that isn’t going to happen. She cries and says that she forgave the man a long time ago, after she spoke to the nuns. He tells her that she’s not going to marry a rapist, no matter how many baubles he sends her, and basically ends the conversation with her running from the room in tears.”

Fowles added, “It is soon after that when Cuarto says, ‘I’ll kill that fucking Orlin.’”

Orlin looked up to Hank. “Baubles? What is baubles?”

“Cheap costume jewelry and showy tourist silver,” Hank replied.

Orlin was instantly offended. “I didn’t send her baubles! What is this? I sent her a necklace worth $50k! US!”

“Did you also send a card?” Hank asked.

“Card? It was a diamond necklace!”

“You should always send a card with a gift. Women like that. They’ll keep the card and cherish it much longer than the jewelry.”

“True?”

“Oh, yes. Something with a little poetry inside, and always use a pen with your own handwriting. Trust me, they memorize—”

Fowles interjected with, “Gentlemen? I think you are missing the bigger picture. The guns?”

Orlin looked across his shoulder at him. “Guns? No, those guns are broken up and shipped all over the continent by now. Being sold on some street corner in a barrio near you.”

Fowles turned a little red. “Look, I’m very good at my job—”

“You think you are very good at your job,” Orlin interrupted. “Which is good. You should have pride in your abilities, but you also think you are good at undercover and Hank spotted you coming in the room. I could see it on his face. Thank you for this other information, though, because it is very important to me. Far more important than a few guns crossing the border. Your payment should be ready on the table beside the door as usual.”

“Fine,” Fowles said, leaving the room in a hurry.

They watch the DEA Agent leave, and Hank walked slowly back around the desk in deep thought. “There are two other cartels in this area that he could be after.”

“Either of those rape his sixteen-year-old granddaughter?

“No.”

“No, Hank.” Orlin sighed and stretched out his arms and back. “He’s going to come for me. This marriage thing has somehow backfired. I was worried about
her
rejection, not his. I can’t quite get myself to believe that after all the work and effort and planning it took to get me to this point, I may lose it all because of one mistake. An honest mistake, as well. There was no reason for her to be near my bedroom area where the entertainment girls were.” Then he shook his head. “No, that doesn’t matter. It certainly wouldn’t matter to me if I was the father, or the grandfather.”

“Wish we knew more of an exact location,” complained Hank.

“Oh, pardon,” Orlin said. “He gave me that before I stopped him and called you. The crossing was over close to Juarez country. Here’s the map Fowles supplied.”

“Do you believe that he’ll actually make an assault on the hacienda? SWAT, DEA, FBI — hell, the damn military will be on his ass if he brings in the amount of men those munitions suggest he’s gathering.”

Orlin sighed. “That’s the way they do it in Mexico. They pay the local cops to be somewhere else and then attack with numbers and fire power, using explosives to blow the gates, then storm the house and slaughter everyone inside.”

“Of course,” Hank said, “you and your son, as well as much of the staff, will be at your La Jolla house, or perhaps the Carlsbad estate. The longer Rivera is here, the more likely the authorities are going to catch up with him. Fowles and every other DEA agent knows those weapons are coming to San Diego.”

Drumming his fingers on the desk, Orlin said. “That is true, very true, and once he makes an assault, they’ll be all over him. This is not Mexico. But since he will obviously have eyes and ears in my staff somewhere — at least one of my guards — I’ll need to move Juan with some clandestine efforts. The staff, si, to La Jolla, with most of the guard. We’ll keep a skeleton crew here with orders to run like hell at the first sign of trouble. Juan, however, will need some thought.”

“I could take him to my place. No one here knows where that is. Just put him in the truck and tell him he’s visiting with me for a week. Shouldn’t be much longer than that. Time is not on Rivera’s side.”

Orlin stopped drumming his fingers and studied Hank closely. “Still, that is a risk, especially for you.”

“Living is a risk,” Hank told him.

“Well, that’s true as well. The offer is very tempting, because like you say, your personal life is not scrutinized like mine is. I could do the same with Maria as well. This is a good option, thank you, Hank. My mind was building up much more complicated scenarios of getting Juan into a safe harbor. Simpler is better.”

“And you?” Hank asked.

“Me?” Orlin smiled and reaches for a large black velvet sack. He shook the sack and the objects inside bounced around. Then he reached in and pulled out what looks like a bingo ball with the number 8 on it. “I will be getting ready for a drop at Airstrip 8, and as soon as that happens, which is this Thursday, I’ll be going into hiding as well. I definitely want you at this drop. This is a very important one, and must be handled with extreme professionalism.”

“Same time frames?” Hank asked.

“What? No spiel about me not going there, that it is too much of a risk for me to take?”

Hank said with very little enthusiasm, “No, no, don’t go, stop.”

“That’s better.” Orlin smiled. “Yes, we’ll begin arriving at the airstrip at eleven, and then expect the plane at close to midnight. Same cautions and precautions as always. Don’t mess with something that works.”

“Agreed,” Hank said as he watched Orlin place the bingo ball back into the sack and place the sack back on the shelf. “Don’t fix what isn’t broke. Will that be all? At least for now?”

“Si, yes, I’ve got a few more loose ends to tie up. But, one thing. How could you tell, from the doorway no less, that Fowles was a DEA man?”

“Handcuffs in his belt. So he was a cop of some sort. DEA made sense, that’s all. The ten years was based on his apparent age.”