Guns & Dusty Roads: The Iron Brotherhood Series

by Samantha Westlake

  Most of the seats in the conference room, swivel chairs around a long wooden table, were already filled with suited agents when Kara entered. A waving hand caught her attention, and she spotted Charlie down at the far end of the table. The young man had his laptop open in front of him, as usual, but also seemed to be protecting the spot next to him. He gave her a little wiggle of his fingers, and then pointed at the empty chair next to him.

  The man must have been saving that for her. Charlie’s scruffy beard looked especially out of place, and his tie was horribly knotted, but he was still a sight for sore eyes. Once again, Kara was glad that she bothered to keep on the good side of people like Charlie. Most agents didn’t treat tech support with much respect, but Kara appreciated their work just as much as, and sometimes more than, the work by other FBI agents.

  Kara shot him a smile of thanks as she sat down next to him - but before she could say anything, Rogers came sweeping into the room, instantly commanding control of all conversations.

  “We’ve got a lead!” he boomed out, slamming one big fist down on the table. Rogers was somewhere in the range between forty and sixty - his bald head, which he shaved every day, made it very tough to estimate his age - but he was one of those men that would likely be intimidating even as a senior citizen. His big frame made him look more like a bouncer than an FBI agent, and his suits always looked ill-fitting on his huge arms and chest, but no one dared to suggest he visit a tailor. He was humorless, ever-serious, and always focused on one thing only - the job at hand.

  “As some of you might have heard,” Rogers continued, his dark-eyed gaze sweeping around the table, “we were tracking some of the incoming gun shipments, looking at smugglers that we’ve busted or leaned on in the past. They aren’t talking, of course, but they seem like prime targets for this new group, moving in and taking over, to eliminate.”

  Across the table, Kara saw Shaw, another one of the FBI agents, leaning back and preening a little. She glared at the man, but her anger bounced harmlessly off of his shield of smugness. Kara knew that it had been Shaw’s suggestion to shadow the suspected dealers, and he would be insufferable now that it had paid off.

  “Well, one of those dealers turned up dead last night!” Rogers finished, slamming his fist down on the table again. “Not so good for him, but it’s a lead for us!”

  Next to her, Charlie tapped a few keys, and the screen behind Rogers blinked into life. The face of a small, wiry, scrawny looking man appeared on the screen, along with a pinned location on Google Maps.

  “This is Mario Mendez,” Rogers told the assembled agents. “Suspected smuggler, busted for some small offenses, but we heard he was looking to move up to the big time. Well, he did so - and it got him killed. This spot on the map is a bar and truck stop where we found his body this morning.”

  Rogers paused for a moment. “We found his body - but his truck was missing,” he added.

  Kara straightened up in her seat, as did most of the other agents sitting around the conference table. That was a real lead! They could track the truck, could figure out who had taken it - and they would have their first big break in this whole case!

  “Now, we also asked at the bar, tried to get in contact with some of the patrons who might have been around last night,” Rogers continued. “And we do have one lead, although it’s pretty thin. One man reported that a biker had stopped in and might have chatted with Mendez. Another man reported hearing the sound of motorcycles outside, although he can’t recall whether this was before or after Mendez stopped into the bar.”

  Across the table from Kara, Agent Shaw sat forward, putting his own hand on the table. The sound wasn’t as loud as when Rogers did it, but it still made the senior agent pause.

  “The biggest lead here, clearly, is the trailer itself,” Shaw announced, somehow managing to sound utterly confident in his own prediction. “We should be focusing on following up on that, not this biker possibility.”

  Rogers nodded at him. “This is a big case, and we’re going to follow up on everything,” he said. Did he glare a little at Shaw? Maybe that was just Kara’s wishful thinking. “We’re going to split up the leads among you, get as many feet on the ground as we can.”

  As this pronouncement stirred up some murmuring among the agents around the table, Charlie leaned over to Kara. “Already checked the transponder on the missing truck,” he whispered to her. “Been not just shut off, but totally disabled. That truck’s gonna be impossible to find.”

  Kara nodded slightly, giving him a pat on the shoulder. Charlie definitely deserved more thanks than he received.

  “So, who wants what?” Rogers called out at the head of the table, cutting through the conversations.

  “I’ve got the trailer covered,” Shaw called out before anyone else could speak, straightening his tie with one hand as he spoke. The man sounded so breezily confident about it, as if he would have this whole matter wrapped up by lunch. Oh, how Kara wanted to slap that smug smile off his face!

  But this was okay with her, especially considering Charlie’s little tidbit of information. “If it’s all right, sir, I’ll take the biker angle,” Kara called out as soon as Shaw shut his mouth.

  Rogers glanced over at her, raising his eyebrows. “You know anything about bikers, Agent Sybil?” he asked.

  “I do, sir,” Kara responded, putting as much confidence into her voice as possible.

  She did not add that most of this knowledge came from watching fictional TV shows about them, late at night. The Bureau didn’t need to know about that particular facet of her life.

  Rogers’ eyebrows stayed slightly raised, but he nodded. “Great. It’s yours,” he responded.

  Kara stood up, not waiting for the rest of the agents in the room to select their areas of focus for the case. She had her lead, and she wasn’t going to waste any more time. Inside her head, she was already plotting out her next steps.

  Special Agent Kara Sybil was all business, determined and focused on her job. She didn’t have any other distractions in her life, no matter how many times people like Tom kept on hinting at her for a date.

  She had a job, and that was all that she needed.

  CHAPTER 2

  A few minutes later, Special Agent Kara Sybil looked up as Charlie, the tech support guy from the meeting, paused as he walked by her desk. “Hey, um, how are things going?” he asked awkwardly, making it obvious that he wanted to stay and linger.

  Kara sighed, but nodded to the chair next to her desk. “Why don’t you take a seat, Charlie?” she suggested, knowing that the man wouldn’t go away until he got the invitation, but also wouldn’t simply sit down without her invite.

  Happily, the man plopped down in the seat next to the desk, although the well-worn and creased leather barely budged under his light weight. Kara made sure to finish up typing the last line of her report, taking her time, before rotating around to give Charlie her full attention.

  When she finally turned to him, the man grinned at her, waggling his eyebrows. “You know something,” he told her, the comment less of a question than a statement, voiced in teasing tones.

  Kara almost broke into a grin at the man’s impish look, but she kept her face blank. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Back there, in the meeting.” Charlie didn’t waste any time dancing around the subject. “As soon as that biker angle came up, you jumped all over it. You weren’t even waiting to hear the rest of the report.”

  “And besides,” he continued as Kara rolled her eyes at him, “you didn’t even stick around to argue with Shaw’s choice! You always go after what he picks, because he does pick the best leads. But not this time - this time, you just let him have it! See, you’d only do something like that if you know something that the rest of us don’t!”

  For a minute, Kara weighed her options. Charlie wasn’t exactly a blabbermouth, but the man did tend to get excited when he knew a piece of confidential information, and he was terrible at hidi
ng a secret.

  On the other hand, she did get along well with him - somewhat of a rarity for Kara, who found that her focused demeanor and lack of humor often tended to be a deterrent to most men. She wasn’t quite sure why. But Charlie always seemed to simply make enough jokes for both of them, happily filling the silences that always seemed to pop up in their conversations.

  And besides, she could definitely use the man’s expertise in all things technology and surveillance.

  “Okay,” she finally let on. “I may have a contact that could let us on to the biker angle, another man who could help put me in touch with anyone who’s been making noise lately for distributing out weapons, or maybe flashing around some extra money.”

  Just as she’d expected, Charlie looked overjoyed with this information. The man nearly clapped his hands together in glee as he popped up and down in his seat! “Awesome!” he enthused. “How can I help?”

  Even despite herself, Kara found herself grinning back at the man. There was something just infectious about his smile, she thought to herself. He was a quirky, odd, excitable little fellow, but Kara couldn’t think of a single agent at the Bureau who had the same level of energy after years on the job.

  “At the moment, I only need one thing,” she said, and she saw Charlie’s expression fall slightly. “But don’t worry, I think you’ll like helping me out with this one,” she continued, and the man perked back up a little.

  “Anything, boss,” he said with complete sincerity. “You tell me, and I’ll go get it!”

  “Anything?”

  The man wiggled his nimble fingers, fingers trained from years of flying over keyboards and probing into tiny electronic devices. “Trust me, I can manage it,” he said with utter conviction. “Just name it.”

  Kara leaned back a little in her seat, glancing up at the ceiling. “I’m going to need a bike,” she said, her expression unfocusing slightly.

  “A bike, got it,” Charlie repeated. “Any specific type?”

  “Yes. I need a Harley - ideally a Fatboy, maybe one with a modified lower ride if possible. I’ll be okay if you can find only a twelve hundred CC engine, but I’d prefer one of the new models, at fourteen hundred and fifty CCs. I’m going to need saddlebags and a full leather outfit, as well as the number of a guy who can do custom detailing and modifications on a bike for us, for Bureau rates.”

  After a moment of silence, Kara’s eyes tracked over to Charlie. He was sitting there, staring at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. No doubt, Kara thought to herself, the man was picturing her dressed all in skintight leather and astride a motorcycle. She had heard it from several men who’d seen the real thing that it was an utterly arresting site.

  “Charlie?” Kara snapped her fingers at him.

  After another moment, the man blinked, zoning back into reality. “Yeah? Bike, Harley, old and strong, leather everything, got it. Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Kara added, once again tilting back and half-closing her eyes as she gazed up at the ceiling, picturing her next move.

  “Make it red.”

  Once Charlie had all the details of her size, wisely not making any comments as Kara told him her measurements, Kara leaned back in her chair for a minute or two longer, considering her next move.

  She would have to call the man, she decided. Email? Sometimes, it took him weeks to respond to those. And given his mobile lifestyle, she had no way of guessing where he might be, so that she could track him down.

  She could always trace his phone, but that might be seen as a waste of Bureau resources - and beside, was that any way to treat family, even family members she hadn’t seen in years?

  So instead, after taking a deep breath, FBI Special Agent Kara Sybil pulled out her phone, scrolling through the extensive list of contacts. After several swipes of her thumb, she found the name she was looking for, and pressed down.

  A minute later, as she lifted the phone up to her ear, she could hear it ringing on the other end.

  After six rings, the person at the other end of the phone picked up. For a moment, Kara heard nothing but the rushing sound of wind at the other end of the phone, and then a gruff, heavy, thick voice said, “Yeah?”.

  “Hi, Uncle Grazer?” Kara said, trying to sound a little less professional than standard Bureau training put into her voice. “It’s me, Kara. Um, do you have a minute to talk?”

  “Kara?” The voice sounded surprised, but not upset. Instead, however, Kara thought that she caught a note of wariness. “Is that you? What have you been up to? Did you like my Christmas present?”

  Kara rolled her mind back, trying to remember what she’d gotten from her uncle several months previously. “Wait a minute - weren’t you the one who sent me all those llama skins?” she said, the memory suddenly flooding back to her. “My god, Uncle, those things stank to high heaven! They weren’t even tanned!”

  “Well, I might have needed to think ahead a little more, but they were so soft, they reminded me of you!” the man exclaimed on the other end of the phone, now sounding much more excited and open. “Kara, my girl, it’s great to hear your voice again!”

  “You think I’m soft? Me, the FBI agent? The woman who carries a gun strapped to her hip?” Kara shot back, but she couldn’t keep a smile off of her face as her uncle chuckled along with her on the phone. “Maybe your mind’s the thing going soft, like that llama fur you sent me!”

  For a few minutes longer, they reminisced together, swapping back and forth stories about various relations. Grazer was Kara’s father, and her whole dad’s side of her family somehow managed to lead various different wild lives. Her father had been in the military, but his brother had taken a less disciplined approach. He’d always been a bit of a gearhead - Kara could remember her father inviting over his brother “for dinner” any time that their car started making weird noises - and had channeled that into fixing motorcycles. From there, it had been just a short jump to joining a gang himself.

  Kara hadn’t seen the man in person in years, but she still had fond memories of him, still remaining from when she was a child, before she’d grown up and left her innocence behind her. She could remember the man coming over and sitting down on their couch as he waited for her mother to finish preparing dinner. He was a huge man, and the entire couch would slump down in towards him. Sitting next to him on the couch, Kara would always find herself slowly sliding down until she collided with his hip - at which point, he would sweep her up in a bear hug, smelling of motor oil, the metallic tang of engines and mechanical work, and his own deep musk. Those hugs always felt like she was being grabbed by a happy and overenthusiastic bear.

  Grazer also always told her that he picked up his nickname from time at the buffets with the other bikers, after a long day on the road putting the pavement behind them. “I’d just love to get a taste of everything,” he told her and the rest of her family over dinner, as he took another heaping spoonful of loaded mashed potatoes. “I’d spend so long just adding different things onto my plate, well, they thought that I was grazing like a sheep on grass!”

  Now, after Grazer had been brought up to date on how Kara’s parents were doing, and after she had heard that the gang was still going strong, the man paused, clearing his throat. “So, let’s get down to those brass tacks,” Uncle Gazer said, his voice losing just a little of that jolliness. “What’d you call for?”

  Kara knew that she should get down to business, but she couldn’t resist poking the big bear a little. “What, a favorite niece can’t just give her uncle a call?” she asked.

  “Oh, she can,” Grazer responded. “But I know you, my little girl, and you are more focused on your job than anyone else I know. And when you call me, especially before ten in the morning on a Tuesday, I know that you’re focused only on work. So drop the act, and let’s just get right to it. What are you after?”

  The man might be direct, but he could smell bullshit. Kara dropped the pretenses. “I’m after a group of gun smugglers,” s
he said, her tone all of a sudden sounding much more businesslike. “They killed a truck driver last night - a man who was also suspected of smuggling. And one of the witnesses says that he saw a biker in the area, just before the man was killed. The biker might even have spoken with the victim.”

  Kara felt as though she could say more, but she stopped there, waiting. Let Grazer fill in the rest of the story as he saw best.

  The man was quiet for a long moment, considering, and then he spoke up again. “So what do you need?” he asked, simply.

  “Access, and introductions,” Kara replied. “I still remember how to handle a bike, since you taught me - but I don’t know anyone in these gangs, anyone who could get me the connection I need, and could also vouch for me.”

  After she finished talking, she waited, but there was nothing but silence from the other end of the line. “Uncle, I really could use your help with this - but I need to get moving right away,” Kara added, trying to drive her point home.

  Finally, her relative spoke again. “Kara, some of these people, these gangs, can be extremely dangerous,” he said, sounding very unsure.

  “Uncle, I’m used to dangerous people! I work with them every day in the FBI, chasing down criminals. This is no different.”

  Her uncle let out a long sigh, but Kara held firm. She knew that she could outlast him. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do to get you an introduction,” he finally told her. “But Kara, I’m not happy about this.”

  “Thank you, uncle,” Kara said to him, ignoring that last little comment.

  She hung up, and then stood up, looking around the office. “Charlie!” she shouted. “I need that ride and gear right now!”

  CHAPTER 3

  Four hours later, Special Agent Kara Sybil was riding astride her new vehicle, pushing the limits of how fast she could send it roaring down an open, straight stretch of highway.