Charlie had definitely managed to come through, she thought approvingly to herself as she gave the throttle another twist, feeling the big, heavy engine in between her legs instantly pick up with a throaty roar. Charlie managed to find a classic Fatboy, a 1990 - the first year that this make of chopper had been produced. Apparently, this particular hog had been confiscated from a drug dealer’s stash, he had told her - and despite being more than twenty years old, it had fewer than ten thousand miles on it, most of which were probably out on the drug dealer’s private racing strip. Hell, it didn’t even have any scratches on the long chrome exhaust pipes!
And best of all, just as Kara had requested, the seat, fenders, and gas tank were a bright, cheery, cherry red.
The wind roaring along the highway cut through small, specially designed vents in the leather suit that Agent Sybil had also received from a very eager FBI equipment specialist. The leather pants and jacket both contained built-in rubber pads, made of the latest ridged silicon rubber, designed for maximum kinetic energy absorption if she took a spill, while at the same time maintaining the slimmest profile so as not to put extra bulges in her figure.
Kara did have to admit, after she had gotten changed into her new outfit, that her figure looked quite amazing in these tight clothes. The leather pants were the perfect size, following the curves of her long legs and nicely rounding out at her ass. In these pants, she could definitely see the results of her intensive training sessions spent in the gym four times a week, including twice-weekly kickboxing sparring sessions.
When she’d stepped out of the changing room in the outfit, Charlie had looked as though he was about to pass out, all of the blood rushing out of his head and into… other areas.
Even on the highway, however, Kara’s helmet kept most of the road noise out of her ears, reducing the roaring of the hog between her legs down to a pleasant rumble. As always, Kara insisted on the full-face helmet, coupled with a mirrored face shield. “You know what we call open face helmets?” she remembered Uncle Grazer telling her when she was younger, still learning to handle a motorcycle.
“What’s that?” she had asked him, watching in awe as he checked over his own motorcycle.
“Jaw removers,” he’d replied, nodding approvingly as his engine turned over immediately upon the push of the starter button. “Remember, even though these things are awesome and badass, you have to respect their power. And that means wearing protection, every single time.”
Kara still kept that lesson in mind, and it ended up applying to much more than just motorcycles. From always using her seatbelt (she never knew when she might find herself in a high-speed highway chase) to always double-checking the safety on her gun (she’d seen several FBI agents hospitalized for “friendly fire” incidents where they nearly shot off their own toe), she always made sure to be as safe as possible.
Yet being safe didn’t mean that she couldn’t enjoy herself, she thought with a savage grin as she gave the throttle another twist, the bike beneath her putting on another burst of speed.
Yes, this would do excellently.
Kara wasn’t just cruising along this highway for no reason. Just as she’d been getting changed into her new outfit, she’d received a text from Uncle Grazer, specifying a small pit stop just off the highway, a hundred miles from the nearest town. Kara could make it to the spot by the time specified in the text - but only if she rode fast.
As she opened up the throttle on the Fatboy, grinning fiercely at the pickup and pull the machine between her legs exerted on her, Kara savored the rush of the oncoming road. She had no problem going fast.
One dusty but exhilarating ride later, Kara pulled off the highway and took the exit ramp down to the little rest stop, clicking smoothly back down through the Fatboy’s gears as she pulled into the parking lot. The big machine obediently reduced its roar down to little more than a gentle rumbling, although she was certain she could feel the engine wanting to pick up again, to jump back up to fifth gear and strive for the redline. By keeping this thing as a trophy, not taking it out, that drug dealer had been doing the marvel of engineering a disservice. Kara was glad he’d been brought down in a raid - he deserved it.
Pulling into a parking space in the lot of the rest stop, Kara noted that there were two other motorcycles already parked here, side by side in one of the spots near the door. It looked like, as fast as she’d rode, Grazer and his contact had been faster.
Kara instantly recognized one of the two bikes. It was a big Victory touring bike, the robin’s egg blue color half-hidden beneath a layer of highway dust. The leather on the seats was creased with innumerable lines, well worn but well maintained. It was a bike big enough to carry a hefty, equally big man - and it was perfect for her bear of an uncle.
The other bike, however, was new to Kara. It had to belong to her contact, she assumed, and she ran her eyes over it, sizing it up as she tried to picture the man who might ride astride it.
This motorcycle was another Harley, like hers, but a different style. Dyna was the model, Kara was fairly sure. The machine looked like a cross between a 70s throwback and a modern standard bike, stylish but in a restrained, reserved fashion. The machine was an unassuming black, also coated with a thin layer of road dust. Despite the dust, however, the machine looked well cared for - its owner used this vehicle daily, but Kara could spot the little signs of near-constant maintenance. It looked sleek, low, powerful, and slightly dangerous, suggesting the same about its rider.
Kara didn’t want to spend too long standing outside, so she turned to the diner, taking a deep breath as she strode towards the doors.
The truck stop was set up like an old 1950s diner, complete with the plastic seats inside in booths and the long counter running the length of the interior. A bell jingled above the door as Kara pushed it open. She’d left her helmet outside, hanging off of her bike, but she unzipped her jacket, letting out the heat of the highway as the door swung shut behind her.
It took no time at all to spot Uncle Grazer, sitting in one of the booths. If anything, the man looked even bigger than Kara remembered! Yet as he rose up out of his seat to greet her with a crushing hug, she observed how he still carried the weight well. He only had a very slight gut hanging over his massive belt buckle at his waist, and his arms and legs looked like they’d been built of tree trunks with a wrapping of meat around their exteriors. When he gave Kara a squeeze, she felt the air forcibly expelled from her lungs.
“Good to see you, my favorite niece!” Grazer boomed as he released the FBI agent, letting her get in a much-needed breath. “Grab a seat with us, relax after that ride out to this place in the middle of nowhere!”
Kara did as suggested, settling into the booth next to her uncle. The seat beneath her shifted as the big man plopped back down beside her, but Kara’s eyes were already running over the other man in the booth - the one who hadn’t stood up when she arrived.
He looked dangerous - that was Kara’s first impression, although she was hard pressed to say what exactly gave her that feeling.
The man sat there in a position that at first appeared to be relaxed and open, but on closer inspection turned out to be poised, muscles ready to spring into action. Kara saw that pose often, especially among her sparring opponents in kickboxing. An opponent could look totally at ease, but would flash from total stillness into a flat-out attack in the blink of an eye. Kara had learned not to underestimate those people.
The man had dark hair, cut fairly short, and a five o'clock shadow covering the lower part of his face. Many men, Kara had observed, tried to pull off a look like this, hoping that it would make them look dangerous. Instead, they simply came off as scruffy.
This man, however, looked dangerous. He put the FBI agent in mind of a lounging tiger; relaxed, but able to switch almost instantly into attack mode at the slightest provocation.
As she sized him up, Kara could also feel the man’s eyes on her, doing the same thing. She made sure not to make any th
reatening moves, but the man looked thorough; Kara didn’t doubt that he could spot her training, both with the FBI and with hand to hand sparring. He probably also caught the Glock 22 at her hip, loaded with the standard 9 millimeter Luger rounds issued by the FBI. That, in itself, was a strong indication of what she did.
“Ah, yes, introductions!” Grazer boomed as he dropped back down into the seat beside Kara, making the whole booth quake slightly as his weight settled in. “Kara, this is Cross, an old friend of mine. I figured that, after you called, it would be worth introducing the two of you.”
“Cross,” Kara repeated, holding out her hand across the table.
This was another test, of sorts. Kara was expecting the man to either refuse to take the offered greeting, or to try and crush her fingers in his own, showing off his strength and dominance. Here, however, she found herself surprised.
Cross reached out and took her hand, but instead of the crushing grip that Kara was expecting, he merely showed a comfortable firmness as he gave it a single shake. Kara had shaken hands with many different people, from criminals to other legal agents, all the way up to politicians.
None of them, however, ever managed that same level of confidence as Cross showed, with a single handshake.
“Now, Cross here knows about your career, what you do for your day job,” Grazer went on, as the two of them looked into each other’s eyes, sizing each other up. “And while Cross usually doesn’t have much to do with the FBI, or any other law enforcement, well-”
“We don’t want trouble,” the man himself spoke up, cutting off Grazer mid-sentence. His voice was deep, but full of a deep rumble that Kara didn’t mind. He didn’t have that gravelly sound of a smoker, or someone trying to sound intimidating. Instead, there was almost a deep bass tone beneath his words, like the low purr of a lion.
“The last thing that we need is a full-scale police incursion in our ranks,” Cross continued, his eyes not dropping as he stared back at Kara from beneath heavy brows. “I don’t like working with you, but it’s better than finding tactical teams stopping anyone with suspected gang activity.”
In other words, Kara read into this, the man didn’t want his own gang’s illegal activities being pulled into question. He was hoping that, by throwing this other gang to the FBI’s jaws, Kara would possibly cast a blind eye towards his own illegal transgressions.
Unfortunately, at least for now, he was still correct. Kara knew that her bosses wanted the heads of these gun runners, and they would probably be willing to throw out all sorts of pardons and immunity if they could get a suspect to parade in front of the cameras and TV crews.
So as much as she disliked the idea of letting a criminal go free, she slowly nodded as she gazed back at Cross. “I can work with your group surreptitiously,” Kara replied, even though she disliked having to agree to this. “If you help me get to these gun smugglers, I’ll overlook anything else that I see - for now.”
Kara assumed that this would convince the man - but instead of believing her, she saw Cross glance sideways, over at Grazer! The man didn’t even believe her - and she wasn’t the criminal at this table!
Grazer, however, gave the man a nod. “Kara, my dear, I think you’ll be well set with Cross, here,” he said, hoisting himself back up to his feet with a grunt. “And I’ve asked him to keep an eye out for you, too - just stick close to him and he’ll help out.”
Even those words irked at Kara. She was fully trained and capable of handling just about anything - she did not need a keeper of any sort! And a glance at Cross revealed that he felt the same way. The man looked anything but comfortable with this arrangement, even though Kara was agreeing to all of his over-the-top demands.
But Grazer seemed to look past this with a mild grin. He reached out and gave Kara another pat on the shoulder, and then ambled out, leaving her alone with the other biker. Both Kara and Cross sat there, silently assessing each other, until the sound of the big man’s motorcycle had disappeared into the distance.
Finally, after another minute or so, Cross finally sighed and leaned back from the table. “Well, neither of us likes this, so let’s get it over,” he said, possibly the most honest thing to yet come out of his lips. “So, let’s get going...”
CHAPTER 4
Several hours later, Special Agent Kara Sybil was following Cross up the steps to the porch of a large, two-story rambling house, focusing on keeping her breathing slow and steady.
After Cross finally agreed to help out Kara with tracking down the gun runners she was after, they spent a good extra hour sitting at the diner where they had first met, going over different details of the gang.
There was a lot to learn.
Cross began by introducing Kara briefly to his own gang, the Iron Brotherhood. He showed off the three pieces of the Iron Brotherhood’s patch, which featured the outline of a heavy, brawny man with his head replaced by a bare, serious looking skull. The body below the skull was big and blocky, looking as though it was covered in sheets of armor - probably an allusion towards the “iron” part of the name.
Kara commented on this, and she saw Cross nod in approval - but only for a moment, and then he paused. “Allusion?” he repeated, his eyes narrowing as he gazed back at her. “I’d keep that fancy talk down, if I were you. Don’t go trying to show off that you’re too high and mighty - not to these folk.”
She wanted to say more, but Kara just nodded. She didn’t have time to argue with this dark, commanding man, and she needed to learn everything that she could, if she was going to fit in.
Now that they had pulled up at the house, parking their bikes in amid a cluster of other hogs out in the open driveway in front, Kara was working hard to project confidence. Her mind was still awash in the information Cross shared with her only an hour or two earlier, but she let it all settle within her.
This wasn’t the first time that she, as an agent of the law, had been thrown into an unfamiliar situation with almost no training and little time to internalize her lessons. From infiltrating drug runners to chasing down several organized crime units, Special Agent Kara Sybil had built a good part of her career around infiltration, around easily and quickly becoming one of the “in” group, not an outsider.
But even though this wasn’t her first time, she knew better than to assume that things would get any easier.
Every time she did this, she found herself confronted with a whole new set of unknowns, a whole new set of variables and risks. A single slip-up could spell disaster for her, and she had to be at her peak performance.
Climbing up the stairs, a little corner of Kara’s mind noticed that, surprisingly, this wasn’t one of the worst communal houses that she’d seen or visited. The building might be inhabited by a bunch of men who worked on motorcycles, or pursued other, less savory, pursuits for a living, but the house was definitely well maintained. None of the paint on the exterior was peeling, and it actually looked as if someone had made at least a valiant attempt at trimming the grass and bushes growing around the sides of the porch. There weren’t any award winning flower beds here, but at least the place looked well maintained.
Somehow, Cross must have caught a hint of Kara’s surprise. “Just ‘cause we don’t always love the law doesn’t mean that we’re slobs or dirty,” he commented over one shoulder, not looking back.
For a moment, Kara felt blood rush to her cheeks in a blush. What? How had the man managed to pick up on that particular thought of hers?
“I didn’t say anything of the sort,” she replied, keeping her tone calm and level.
Cross paused at the top of the stairs for a minute, waiting until she drew up alongside him. Kara was quite tall, and her black leather boots lent another half-inch or so to that already lofty figure. But Cross was still taller, and he could look slightly down at her as she stood beside him.
For a minute, Cross didn’t say anything, but just stared at the FBI agent. Kara forced herself to keep his gaze, but it was surprisingly hard.
She had stared down criminals and killers, people who were true psychopaths without a soul. She had gazed into those empty eyes as they leered back at her, faced down the darkness, and had always won.
But something about Cross’s gaze was different.
The man looked as if, just as she evaluated him, he was doing the same to her. He was judging her, silently evaluating her on some hidden list of factors that only he knew. And every time he looked at her, Kara got the vague impression that she wasn’t quite measuring up.
Still, Kara wouldn’t back down, and she stared back at the man. While she waited, she considered his face. The man had lines already showing at the edges of his eyes and cheeks, signs perhaps less of age than of a life lived out on the edge. He looked hard, and his eyes held the glint of steely ice chips. But his hair was trimmed evenly, and while his cheeks were covered with a slight stubble, it was also well trimmed and maintained.
A thought suddenly popped into Kara’s mind that the man would almost be handsome, if he ever bothered to smile.
She started slightly. Where in the world had that come from? That was definitely not the sort of thing to be thinking when she was about to walk into a dangerous, unknown situation!
But in the realization, she’d broken Cross’s gaze. When she looked back up at him, the man still wasn’t smiling.
“You’ve got the gear,” he said quietly to her, his eyes flicking out to where their bikes were parked. The man had expressed grudging respect, possibly even admiration, when she fired up the Fatboy, and his respect had grown significantly when he watched her handle it without a problem.
“But that doesn’t mean that you fit into this life, that you can survive here,” he went on, his eyes narrowing. “These guys aren’t the typical bunch, but they’re all hard, and they don’t take easily to outsiders. Especially not ones like…”
The man trailed off, but his eyes dipped down to below Kara’s eyeline, running down to her neckline. Wait a minute. Was he checking her out?
Guns & Dusty Roads: The Iron Brotherhood Series Page 3