Guns & Dusty Roads: The Iron Brotherhood Series (5 page)

“Gimli, I’m going to show our newest guest here around the house, before tonight’s meeting,” Cross said quickly as Kara swallowed her wince of pain at the man’s weight o her foot.  “We’ll see you soon.”

“Lock the door if you two start having fun together - or don’t, and give the rest of us a good show!” the dwarf called cheerily after them as Cross steered Kara away, up the steps and towards the second floor of the house.

Once they were on their own again, Kara turned to Cross, raising her eyebrows.  “So we’re together, are we?” she asked.  She wasn’t quite sure about how she felt with this aspect of her cover.  On one hand, it did lend more support to her story - but it also meant that she’d have to seem affectionate with Cross in public.

Not that doing so would be the worst thing she’d ever had to do for a cover, Kara suddenly thought, as she focused on his face.  The man was big and attractive, after all, and if they had met at a bar, she might have considered letting something happen.

But now that she knew he was a biker, and likely involved in multiple criminal enterprises as well through the Iron Brotherhood gang, he was definitely out of the running in her mind.

As she glared up at him, Kara half expected the man to break.  But he steadily returned her gaze - in fact, was that a little smile dancing around his lips?  Was he getting some sort of enjoyment out of seeing her feel uncomfortable?

“It does fit the cover,” Cross said.  They were standing at the top of the stairs, and there wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver.  Kara couldn’t help but notice that Cross’s body was very close to hers.  She could get tiny whiffs of his scent occasionally.  It wasn’t at all unpleasant.  “Besides, I know you don’t mind.”

The nerve of the man!  “That you should be so lucky,” Kara shot back.  “Don’t expect anything to happen.  I’m just here to find the location of these Hellraisers, and then I’m gone.”

“And I’ll be happy to see your backside,” Cross returned.  “Now, I’m going to go grab a bite to eat.  Do what you want - the rooms up here are free to claim if they’re unlocked, if you want a break alone.  But don’t forget that the meeting starts right at six tonight, and you better not be late.  Not if you hope to get any help from us.”

The man turned and headed back down the stairs, leaving Special Agent Kara Sybil alone on the second floor of the Iron Brotherhood’s house.  She watched him head down the stairs, not glancing back over his shoulder at her.

It wasn’t until later, as she was laying out on one of the beds in a small, unlocked room just off the main stairs, that Kara reflected on how there could be two different meanings to Cross’s last words. 

Was he simply looking forward to seeing her gone?

Or had that been a tacit admission that he had been checking out her ass?

The thought wasn’t entirely unpleasant.  But, closing her eyes and focusing, using the meditation techniques she often practiced, Kara cleared her mind of any ideas of something romantic between her and Cross. 

This was all about the mission.  Until she’d succeeded, she couldn’t get distracted by anything - especially not thoughts of some man.

CHAPTER 6

A few hours later, the meeting of the Iron Brotherhood was starting in the big dining room on the first floor of the rambling house that they called their clubhouse - and Special Agent Kara Sybil was fuming, just outside the closed door.

Apparently, as Cross had briefly told her, there were some sort of “rituals” that the Brotherhood had to perform at the opening of each meeting, and as an outsider, she couldn’t be present for them!  The very thought made Kara snort.  Grown men, probably repeating some sort of formal-sounding nonsense and pledges!  What a bunch of malarky!

It never occurred to her that her oath to the FBI might be viewed in a similar light by the men inside the meeting.

After several long, frustrating minutes of hearing nothing but muffled voices on the other side of the doors, there was the sound of approaching footsteps, and the door opened a crack.  An eye peered out at Kara, and then the crack widened to reveal Gimli’s bushy, bearded face.

“Come on in, girl,” he whispered to her.  “Just say ‘I do’ at the pauses, and you’ll be fine.”

‘I do’?  Kara followed the short but broad man in through the door, and found herself standing on the edge of a circle of men, each one seated in one of the dining chairs.  The lights were dimmed, and most of the men’s faces were hidden in shadow.

Even in the shadowed room, however, it was impossible to miss Bear, up at the head of the oval.  The man looked massively oversized in his chair, and Kara wouldn’t be surprised if the wooden frame was groaning under his weight.  Bear’s eyes were up and on her, and they did not look happy.

“Is the outsider who comes here trustworthy and honorable?” Bear called out, his words echoing around the room.

“She is,” came a voice from Kara’s right.  Cross’s voice.  Kara didn’t turn to look at the man, but she felt a brief surge of appreciation for his presence.  Annoying or not, he was the only one here who could possibly be considered as on her side.

“And does she swear to keep all our confidences, to respect our laws, and to follow our commands?” Bear continued.

There was a brief pause, and Gimli tapped lightly at the back of Kara’s ankle.  “I do,” she called out.

“Does she swear to defer to us, and to the law of the Iron Brotherhood?”

“I do.”

“Does she come here free of any injustice in the eyes of our members, with honesty in her supplication?”

“I do.”

“And does any member here have reason to speak against her, to cast her out from this meeting?”

Kara held her breath as Bear’s burning gaze roamed around the room.  She estimated that there were roughly a dozen other men sitting in chairs arranged in the oval around the table at the center of the room, most of their faces hidden by the dim light.  She sensed that, if just one of the men spoke out against her, she would be forcibly ejected from the meeting (and back at square one for her investigation).

However, none of the men spoke; they just stared back at her, standing towards the middle of the circle.  And finally, looking somewhat less than satisfied, Bear cleared his throat as he prepared to speak again.

“Very well,” he announced sourly.  “Than this outsider may be a part of our meeting, and may speak to the Brotherhood.”

There was no other comment from the circle, but Kara thought that she sensed a few of the men holding their breath, waiting.  They were all listening to her, now, she realized.  This was her moment - she would either sell them on her story, and get the help in this case that she needed, or she would make some misstep and would be out on her ass - or worse.

No pressure, Kara, she thought to herself.

Kara took a half-step forward, bringing her closer to the center of the circle.  She kept her body angled forward, towards Bear where he sat at the far side of the lopsided shape of chairs, but she made sure to bring her eyes around to look at all of the men, holding eye contact with each one for a few seconds as best she could.

“The Hellraisers,” she began, her voice high and clear.  “They are your enemy, and they are growing stronger.”

One of the men leaned forward slightly.  “We have an agreement-” he started to say.

Kara cut him off.  “You have an agreement for now, but it is far more fragile than you believe,” she overrode his voice.  “You may be men of honor, but I have come to know enough about the Hellraisers to say that they possess no honor.

“Instead, they are using deceit and lies to further their own goals,” she continued.  “I have heard whispers and comments of how they use truckers to move their shipments of illegal guns - and more and more truckers are now turning up dead.” 

Kara pulled her eyes back to Bear, at the head of the oval.  “They are cleaning up any potential threats,” she emphasized, glaring at the man with every ounce of intensity she could muster.  “And how long before that list of threats includes other gangs, competition, in the area?”

In her peripheral vision, Kara could see some of the men nodding along with this story.  It was making sense to them.  They might have had an agreement with the Hellraisers, but to these outlaws, an agreement was only as good as the word of the man who made it.  And once that man had broken one agreement, there was no reason to trust that he would honor any others.

Bear, however, still didn’t look convinced.  He stared at her, his big eyebrows making his brow jut out even more.  “And how do you know this?” he asked.  The tone of the question was light, but there was a barb hidden in among the candyfloss.

Kara knew that barb was there, and she expertly flicked it aside.  “Savage,” she replied, using the name that Cross had given her.  “He likes to brag.”  Kara knew that it would take more, so she glanced down at herself, putting on her best impression of embarrassment.  “Even to his casual conquests,” she added.

Her ears caught the murmurs of a couple men off to the sides, and she knew that she had nailed the sympathy play.  But when she looked back up at Bear, he wasn’t falling over himself to agree with her argument.  He gave her a single nod.  That might represent that he believed her - or just that he thought she had made a solid play, even if it wasn’t true.  Kara had no way of knowing what thoughts were inside the giant’s skull.

After a minute, Bear pulled his eyes up to the rest of the gang, scattered around.  “The outsider has spoken,” he called out.  “Shall we discuss?”

“Aye!”  That was Gimli - Kara already knew the voice.  “I move we open discussion.”

“Seconded.”  Cross’s smooth voice, cautious.  The man was waiting to see how this would play out, Kara knew.  It was the smart play, the play that she would make in his shoes.

For some reason, this fact still rankled at her.

But Bear nodded.  “Then what say we?” he asked, addressing the bikers around her. 

Kara was still standing in the middle of the circle, listening as these men spoke around her.  She felt slightly self-conscious, put on the spot, but no one had told her to take a seat, so she remained there, waiting and listening.

“I think the lass has got a point, I say,” Gimli called out, taking the lead on the conversation.  “I’ve never liked how close we’ve been pushed and pulled with the Hellraisers.  This is just another example in a long tradition of them breaking their word, and we shouldn’t stand for it any longer!”

“So what are you suggesting, dwarf?” called out another man, one that Kara didn’t know.  “We should go to war?”

That question provoked shaking heads around the circle.  “Not worth it,” Kara heard muttered.  “They might be assholes, but not worth dying over.”

Behind her, Cross cleared his throat.  “There may be another option,” he offered.

It took a minute for the other men to fall silent, but eventually Cross had the floor.  “What, then?” asked one of the men of Cross.  “Hired guns?”

“Of a sort,” he replied.  Kara turned just enough to look over her shoulder at the man, and he was sitting up straight.  He looked curiously regal and in control, as if he was the real leader of these men.  “For a matter like this, we don’t need strength or brute force.  Those will only land us in a bloody war, a long and drawn-out fight that ends with massive losses on both sides.  No one is suggesting a war.”

“So what, then?”

Cross lifted up his hand, tapping one finger against his temple.  “Cunning,” he replied, as if this was a clear answer.

From the looks of the other men around the circle, it wasn’t getting through.  Even Gimli gave a snort through his hairy face.  “Boy, we know you’re smart, but you’ll have to spell it out for the rest of us,” he huffed.

Indeed, Kara thought that Cross was being especially obtuse.  But the man must have realized this - and now, the FBI agent realized, the man had the rest of his gang focused on his every word, waiting for him to explain.  He knew what he was doing.

“The Hellraisers are ramping up their criminal activities,” Cross explained.  “That’s the source of their revenue, and what’s giving them the power to throw their weight around like this.  They’ve got a whole web of connections, all built around the gun running and smuggling.”

The men were nodding, but they didn’t yet see where this was going.  But they were listening, eating out of Cross’s palm.

“But if that illegal enterprise collapses, then so will the Hellraisers’ entire web of operations,” Cross continued.  “That’s the linchpin in their setup - and it’s their weak point.”

“I don’t follow,” Gimli insisted.  “They’ll know that, though, and they’ll make sure to be guarding that operation at every single step of the shipments.  We can’t break through that enough to disrupt it.”

“We don’t need to,” Cross insisted.  “All we have to do is find out enough about it so that we can tip off the authorities - and then sit back and let the police and FBI do our dirty work for us.”

The man leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and looking satisfied with himself, as the other bikers digested this.  Clearly, none of them had ever thought of using the resources of the police in this way - but Kara could already see nodding heads, and even a couple of grins from men who liked the idea of the Feds going into the line of fire instead of themselves.