"Anything else?" Burke asked, his voice clipped and always officious.
"No. Still waking up."
Burke checked his watch and carefully etched a note into his Moleskein notebook.
"You write like a serial killer."
"Hmph,"
"How can you even read that?"
"Easily."
"Are you a serial killer?"
"Harassment of your fellow agent is hardly a way to win a good review, Castle."
"Neither is being a serial killer."
Burke took another note in script so small it didn't resemble any sort of text. The notebook was full of it - microscopic notes and ruminations, both on the assignment at hand and Castle's performance. Castle didn't really care for Burke. He didn't really dislike him, either, but he suspected that after a few more days of this, he'd develop a healthy distaste for the agent. His usual partner, Cochran, was laid up back home with an injured Achilles' tendon. Not from hunting suspects or seeing any sort of action, but from a pickup basketball game. So now Castle was stuck with Burke. Burke, with hair so painstakingly slicked to the side that it screamed of repression and discipline, with his glasses and Ichabod Crane nose. Burke, who was writing his review. Had it been Cochran, it never would have been a question. They'd laugh, give each other shit, get the intel, and Cochran would give him excellent marks. But Burke took this seriously. He'd even made notes in his book after the introductory handshake and during breakfast at the cafe back in town.
But whatever, Castle was a fine agent and he knew it. Even on this worthless assignment, he was determined to make it into something worthwhile. HQ would ask him to fill up the car, he'd come back with a full tank and an oil change. He wasn't a suck-up, or even particularly ambitious, he just liked looking good. So when they'd sent him to the Southwest to gather some basic intel - ask a few questions, look for signs - he'd decided to show off a little bit. He didn't know what that meant, exactly, but he'd nail it when he found it.
Even now, they were a little too close to the Goats. Operational parameters would have had them report back with the location of the camp and then pack it in. Fly back to HQ. File a report. But Castle figured that if they were already here . . .
Over the last few days, it had been exactly as he'd expected. They spoke to the locals. They stayed in cheap motels and ate greasy food at truck stops all over Arizona. There were hints of the Black Goats here and there. Nothing concrete. Nothing he didn't already know. They had a pretty good profile on them, but the gang was nomadic. Everything about them was temporary. Even the makeshift camp Castle had tracked them to was a transient thing. The gang would put a match to it and move on without a second thought. It made his job that much harder. They weren't quite chasing a myth, but it was a chase. And people had been reluctant to speak of them, especially with the black-and-white suits that screamed 'FBI'. Mention the Black Goats in the right company and suddenly you'll find things get very quiet. But they had an operational budget for greasing palms and had used it well. After healthy bribes to a handful of meth-dealers and junkies, they'd found their way out here. It was certainly isolated. No running water. No electricity that wasn't provided by cheap generators. And that should have been that. Their job was done. Burke had suggested as much. Once they'd located the camp, he wanted to pack-up. All of his boxes were checked. He wasn't wrong, but . . . Castle wanted more.
"Are the blue barrels what I think?" Burke asked.
"Probably iodine."
"How do you know?"
"They're definitely cooking. Smells like paint thinner and cat piss."
"Let's hope they're smart enough not to get busted."
Castle nodded. If the FBI or the DEA got wind of this, the last several shitty, excruciatingly boring days with Burke would be for nothing. And Cochran would laugh his crippled ass off at the failure.
A cloud of dust appeared from the west. A battered Ford truck, an old one from the seventies with a mismatched camper on the back, made its way down the dirt road towards the camp. Castle buckled down and repositioned the binoculars. The truck pulled through the perimeter and made its way into the center of camp, right into the heart of the morning. A pile of bodies under one of the tents. All alive, as far as he could tell. All members of the club.
So damned weird.
They just piled on top of each other, men and women. Some naked. Some still wearing their chaps and jackets. One of them disentangled himself, walked to the edge of the mass of flesh and hair, and started pissing. A few feet away, one of them savagely fucked another guy that was half conscious and bent over a picnic table. A cigarette dangled from the bottom’s lips. But as the truck got closer, everyone stirred. It slammed on its brakes and slid through the caliche and dirt.
"Wait a minute," Castle said.
His heart began to race. The Goats rose. They started to spill and stumble from trailers, pulling on their boots and jackets. They buzzed around the truck. The driver, the freakishly skinny one they called 'Harlan', hopped out and slapped his hand proudly on the hood. And then Gideon emerged from a trailer.
"Oh shit." Castle said.
"Is it -"
"Yes. Yes. Quiet."
The man emerged like royalty. His duster billowed in the breeze and his silver jewelry sparkled. He moved calmly, slowly, like a lion that knew exactly what it wanted. His cane, just an affectation, parted the crowd of men in front of him, now thirty strong. He embraced Harlan, who then took him around to the back of the truck. Harlan opened up the camper and lowered the tailgate. The crowd was quiet. Gideon just stared at it. From their perspective, Castle could barely see it. It was a crate covered in massive chains.
"No way," Castle said, barely a whisper.
"It can't be."
"I think it is."
Gideon extended his cane and poked at the crate. Slowly, he nodded and Castle could see his gleaming grin. The tangle of Goats erupted into cheers. Gideon patted Harlan on the back.
"Is it?" Burke asked.
"It's got to be."
"Gideon isn't even supposed to be in the country."
He handed Burke the binoculars. "I know. But that's him. And if that's him..."
"Then that's the crate."
Burke watched for a minute before handing the binoculars back. The Goats moved en masse back to a drab, olive tent up on poles. Beneath were an assortment of picnic tables, card tables, and various chairs they'd probably found on the side of the road. Music blasted from an old stereo, sounding like a Gypsy riot. It was a celebration.
Burke pulled the satphone from his coat pocket and slid away from the edge of the ridge. "I'll call it in."
"Wait."
"Why? What is it?"
Castle lowered the binoculars and thought for a moment. His heart was still pounding. It was a different fear now, one that had settled in and waited. He studied the area around the camp: cholla, desert scrub brush, snarls of old cottonwood, an arroyo.
"We need to make sure."
Burke cocked an eyebrow. "We've confirmed that's Gideon. That's enough. We need to disengage."
Castle pointed to the arroyo. The dusty notch in the landscape cut through the ridge to the east of them and wound serpentine through the dirt and trees.
"There," Castle said, tracing its path through the air with his finger. "It runs all the way down, right behind the truck. We can get as close as we need."
Burke thought on it for a moment and searched the terrain. "We'd still be too exposed. If we hike down there, yes, we'd be able to get close, but there's far too much ground to cover between them and the suburban if we were spotted.
"We take the suburban. The ditch is deep enough. We roll right up there. With all the noise they're making, they'll never hear us."
Burke pursed his lips. Castle thought to press harder, but decided to let it settle in. He had him.
"This is exceptionally reckless."
"It is, but - "
"But if we're right, and that is the crate. . ."
Burke smiled. It was the first time Castle had seen it since they'd been put together.
"You drive," Burke said.
***
Burke and Castle held their breath the entire way down. It wasn't a road they navigated. The arroyo was filled with debris and rocks that jutted out like axe heads. The tires could shred or the gas tank could puncture and then they would be a turtle on its back. The side of the hill was where they were the most vulnerable. Their suv was a black spot that gleamed in the desert sun. Castle wanted to go fast enough that they wouldn't be spotted, but not so fast that they'd throw up clouds of dust to mark their arrival. So they held their breath as Castle pumped the brakes. Anything over twenty could blow the shocks or damage the undercarriage, they stuck to five. Burke braced himself as if they could tumble into some unseen abyss, He kept the binoculars fixed on the tent and neither of them spoke.
The front bumper crunched into the rocks and gravel at the bottom. Castle shifted into a lower gear and kept the acceleration low and steady. He could feel the wheels slipping in the sand. The suburban trudged through it and the camp disappeared behind a dense thicket of cottonwoods as they reached the base. Once they were out of view, Castle felt confident to gun the engine a bit more. Still careful and steady. Now and then, they heard the shriek of rock on metal as the dry bed scraped at the bottom. Beside him, Burke was still coiled in his seat, ready for impact. He'd lowered the binoculars, but now had his agency-issued Glock ready. The branches from the trees reached down and stretched out over them. They clawed at the roof, nails on a chalkboard. The foliage grew thicker. It provided cover, but the Goats would be on top of them before they ever saw them. Castle killed the air conditioner and rolled down the window to listen. The generators from the camp puttered, mingling with the strains of music and the jubilant growls of their celebration.
After it twisted for almost one hundred yards, the arroyo terminated in a dense snarl where sycamore and cottonwood warred for purchase. The lip of the arroyo was just a foot above the roof of the suv, but the cover was thick. Branches provided a canopy that reached out as if to claim their suburban as its own. Castle cut the engine and let the truck roll to a stop. The tires crackled on the dead leaves that collected underfoot. Each one of them sounded like gunshots and fireworks.
Castle exchanged a look with Burke and drew his own gun from the holster beneath his jacket. Delicately, they opened the doors and stepped into the bed of leaves. Castle winced with every step. He was sure the gang's revelry drowned out anything as light as the crunch of leaves, but his stomach still knotted with tension. They reached the front of the truck where it butted up to the wall of the ditch. The wall was steep and loose. They clumsily slithered up it, grasping at exposed roots with their free hands. After agonizing, frustrating minutes, they crested and poked their heads over the edge.
Forty yards away was the tent. It was crowded, a tangled mass of leather and whiskey. The men inside roared and spat. They smoked and fought. A few took turns fucking a sun-withered hag bent over a card table. Castle scowled. He'd misjudged the angle and distance to the Ford. From the ditch, they faced its side. The back of it was even more obscured than when they were on the ridge. He'd have to go up there. He looked over to Burke, who shook his head vehemently, mouthing, 'No!'
Castle whispered, "I have to get up there. I can't see it from here. We don't have much time. You circle around, maybe ninety degrees. Keep an eye on me."
Burke whispered back with an angry hiss. "Castle, no. No! We're already too close. We hit the objective. Let’s go!"
"It'll just take a second. Keep an eye out."
Castle began to clamber the rest of the way up, staying as low as he could. Burke spat a quiet invective and crept away to the east, slipping through the brush as stealthily as he could. Once flat, Castle got a better idea of the terrain. The grass was gone in most of the area, indicating the Goats had been here a while. Instead of grass, there was broken glass, bottle caps, cigarette butts, and used needles. He frowned again and used the sleeve of his coat to sweep the area in front of him clean as he crawled to the edge of the trees. He got there and rose slowly, trying to look in every direction at once. The truck with the cargo was only fifteen yards away. It was a short distance, but he'd be exposed. His black and white suit wasn't exactly field camo. The truck itself was unguarded. The Goats were bold. No one would dare bother them here. Castle stayed in a low crouch, scanned the camp again, and ran for it.
He reached the side of the truck and nearly slammed into it. Crouching low again, he crept around to the back. The tailgate was still lowered and just past it . . . There it was. The crate. Wrapped in chains, but otherwise unsecured in the bed of the truck. He took another nervous glance and hoisted himself inside. Looking down on the thing, he could barely breathe. The organization had a line item in the budget just for this, just to find this one old box. They had one blurry photo of it at HQ, one that was decades old and that their analysts still questioned the veracity of. The only other thing they had to go on were descriptions to those lucky - or unlucky - enough to come across it. The dimensions were right, and the massive chains were in place. Only one way to be sure. Castle crouched to get a better look at its side. The letters were there. Faded, wood chipped away, but they were there, burned into the side of the box: Demeter Shipping.
It was all Castle could do not to vomit from nerves. This thing suddenly had gravity to it. He could feel it in his bones. It dragged him down and everything tipped and slid towards it. It was bigger than him and it resonated all around. According to their intel, it hadn't been spotted in decades. Bouncing around from owner to owner, all over the globe, it changed hands. Before they lost track of it, a science team in India had it. Before that, a private collector in Cairo. They'd received word - just rumor, really - that the Goats had managed to get their hands on it. Now here it was. And here he was, crouched over it, bathed in cold sweat.
Castle poked his head out of the back end of the camper. Burke wasn't around. The revelry from the tented area continued. Out past the tree line, through the brush, he could make out the black of their SUV. It looked so close from here. Before he knew what he was doing, he scrambled to the front of the truck bed and put his weight behind the crate. The damned thing was heavy. It slid forward, towards the tailgate, a few grudging inches. He put a foot up to the back of the truck to push off. The raking noise across the metal bed might have been the loudest thing he'd ever heard. The chains shrieked as they scraped. He kept pushing, getting leverage behind it. And then it tipped over the tailgate. Castle snatched at the chains, but it was too heavy and slid out of his grasp. It smashed into the dirt outside. Castle’s breath caught in his throat and his bladder quivered. He waited. He listened. The music was still loud, the debauched yells were still out of control, but someone had to have heard that. He breathed deep and jumped out of the camper.
The long rectangular crate rested upright against the tailgate, one end in the dirt. Castle looked around again. His chest thudded and his lungs burned, not from exertion, but the first signs of full blown panic. He put his back into it and pulled on one of the chains near the ground. The crate slid the rest of the way out of the truck bed and crashed down again. Its weight thrummed through the earth when it hit. Heavy. Loud. He froze, biting his lip. The breath he held was an electric agony and he realized how little he was breathing and how he didn’t care and still didn’t want to take a breath. If there wasn’t movement after the noise, maybe they wouldn’t look over here. All it would take is something slightly more than a glance in this direction. So he just stood over the crate in the dirt as every fiber in him buzzed with fear. He tried to keep his eyes fixed on the crate because on some primal level, with the panic that made grown men call for their mothers, he thought that if he didn’t make eye contact with the Goats, they wouldn’t see him. He’d be invisible to them and everything would be fine. More importantly, the ancient and heavy thing at his feet didn’t crack open. Then he'
d be fucked. They all would. Forcing the hot, held breath out slowly through his teeth, he shook off a wave of vertigo and crouched. He threaded his fingers through the links in the chains and pulled. Inch by inch, it moved. He couldn't drag it in one long slide. It was too heavy. He had to jerk, pulling it in fits and starts through the dirt towards the arroyo.
"Come on. Fuck. Come on. Come on."
He reached the tree line and pulled faster now, ignoring the strain in his limbs and the tearing sensation in his back. It happened quickly after that. The crate slid more easily across the leaves, but the dirt at the edge of the arroyo crumbled. The lip of the ditch just dissolved beneath him. Castle fell. He went feet first into the ditch, but his throbbing fingers were still threaded through the links in the chains. Above, the crate hit the edge of the arroyo, tipped, and came sliding down after him. Castle wrenched his fingers free of the chains and pulled himself out of the way. The nose smashed into the dirt, next to the front wheels of the suburban, and balanced there against the arroyo wall, a monolith. At what felt like half a ton, the damned thing would have crushed him. His fingertips, wrenched in the chains, were singing with pain and already turning purple. At his feet, soil the color of coffee poured on top of the sun-bleached sand of the Southern Arizona desert. The lid to the crate had jarred open at the corner. Castle started to shake. He couldn't move. The soil drained from the edge of the box like an hourglass and he felt a scream building and thought to run. He thought to leave the keys, to leave Burke and the SUV, and just run into the desert until he couldn't breathe. Until his legs quit.
A gunshot snapped him out of it. It came from somewhere in the camp. He looked down at the crate and stomped the loose corner back into place. Another gunshot. Then three more. The crate was still balanced against the incline, standing upright. From the bottom, he pulled, now growling with the effort and trying to ignore the flaring agony in his fingertips. For a brief moment, the crate stuck. He pulled harder, bracing his foot against the front tire of the suburban. Finally, it slipped and slid flush with the ground. He dragged it towards the back of the suburban.
The Black Goat Motorcycle Club Page 7