The base was set up in a large circular pattern that appeared to have been dictated by the chain-link fence surrounding it.
The largest structure was also one of the oldest, the three-story house that held Nick Cannon’s office and living quarters. Behind that were a line of old shipping containers and a small parking lot for vehicles. Pre-fabricated structures had recently been erected. These belonged to Cannon’s Inner Core.
They were large sheds that had been converted into living quarters. Four were now unused, due to the deaths of Marcus, Miranda, and Cory Banks. The fourth empty unit had belonged to Isaac, and Robbie Vespa, who had been stationed in New York City. Like Nick Cannon, Logan had living quarters inside the house.
Cannon’s Inner Core was shrinking, with only Logan, Sullivan, Isaac, and three other men remaining. It was a cancer inside the militia, and it needed to be cut out.
Once you were past the shipping containers and the converted sheds, you were at the rear of a long building that contained the mess hall, its pantry, and space for storage. Years earlier, Gracie’s mother and father had converted part of the storage area into living quarters, and Gracie still lived there.
Beyond that, a narrow road wound its way to what the militia members called The Neighborhood. That was where members with families lived. Twenty-six small two-story houses were lined up in uneven rows with a building nearby that contained the base’s clinic and school. Behind the bungalow-style homes was a playground area.
The children of the militia members were few in number and were home-schooled until they were teens. From then on, they attended the only school, which Tanner learned was being presided over by a married couple who were a pair of former college professors.
As for the clinic, there was a doctor on staff along with a nurse, who was also his daughter. Gracie said that the medics were rarely needed and enjoyed a lot of free time.
A short walk past the neighborhood brought you to the barracks. The long narrow building was the second oldest structure on the base and had peeling paint. The large military-style tents were erected to the left of it, while a new barrack’s building was going up behind it. Beyond that was the fence.
The base even had a downtown section of sorts. It was located near the main gate and consisted of several box-like structures. The largest of the boxes was the canteen. During the day it sold coffee, sandwiches, pastries, and candy and cigarettes, but at night it became a bar. Tanner heard the sounds of conversation and laughter as he passed it on his trip around the base on foot.
Once Tanner had the general layout memorized, he headed back toward the main house. His target, Nick Cannon, lived inside the building as well as worked there. Tanner was confident of getting to Cannon without much difficulty. His concern was what would happen in the aftermath of Cannon’s death.
Before Gracie, Tanner would have killed the man while Pullo was settling things with Sullivan. In the aftermath, the two of them could have disappeared and headed back to New York City.
That had been the plan, but Pullo asked that it be altered. When they left, Pullo didn’t want to leave things so that he could never see Gracie again. It was obvious to Tanner that the mafia member was falling in love.
How that relationship would work when they lived nearly four-hundred miles apart had yet to be considered by Gracie or Pullo. Tanner could imagine Gracie leaving the militia but knew Pullo would never leave the mafia or New York City. Pullo was the son and grandson of mobsters and the Giacconi Family was all he’d ever known. Then again, love was a powerful thing, as Tanner well knew.
Before heading off to his final destination, Tanner decided to check out the main building again. There were lights on inside and he wondered if a meeting were going on.
As he approached the left side of the property, Tanner heard a faint sound coming from up ahead in the darkness. He moved into a similar grouping of shadows behind a dumpster and waited for his eyes to adjust. As his night-vision improved, he found he could make out a shape that was leaning up against the wall. It was the figure of a tall man. The window he stood near gave off a faint glow, but it was not enough to reveal the man’s details.
That window was located behind Nick Cannon’s desk. Whoever the man was, he was hoping to eavesdrop on Cannon.
A few minutes later, the figure standing outside the window left its location. As he walked by, Tanner peeked out from behind the dumpster to see who the spy was. To his surprise, it was Briggs. The big man wore a look of frustration; Tanner assumed his eavesdropping hadn’t worked out. The question was, why was Briggs listening at the window in the first place?
Kate answered Tanner’s knock on Gracie’s door, then smiled when she saw him. Kate’s long hair was hanging loose, and she was dressed in a pair of red shorts and a white sleeveless top she had borrowed from Gracie.
“I was wondering where you would wind up while Gracie was visiting your friend.”
“I figured they didn’t need me hanging around, so I stopped by to say hello.”
“I could use some company,” Kate said.
Tanner smiled. “I figured that too.”
Minutes later, Tanner was lying in Kate’s bed… keeping her company.
24
Testing, 1, 2, 3,
The late-night meeting Cannon held in his office was attended by Logan and Sullivan. One of Logan’s old army buddies working in Washington came across information he thought Logan would find interesting. The ATF had planted a spy in their midst.
Logan’s friend was unable to ascertain how long the ATF agent had been inserted into the group or if there were one or more of them. He was positive that the Liberty Boys Militia was under investigation.
“I don’t know if your group is up to anything less than legal,” the man had told Logan, “but if you are, I’d shut it down. You don’t want the government coming after you.”
Logan had thanked his friend and called a meeting with Cannon, who then included Sullivan. It was Sullivan’s job to evaluate the men and learn their strengths and weaknesses, particularly newcomers like Tanner and Pullo. When Cannon asked him if anyone seemed suspicious, Sullivan shrugged.
“Everybody seems like what they are, but you know, these two new guys are a little odd.”
Logan thought that over, then shook his head. “I think they’re too young to be undercover ATF.”
“Shit, the police have narcs working in high schools these days. Russo and Hollis might be young, but they can handle themselves. And that guy Ray has the skills of a sniper.”
“They turned me down when I first asked them to join,” Logan pointed out.
“That could have been a sly tactic,” Cannon said. “By doing that, they may have hoped to avoid suspicion.”
“What about Briggs?” Logan said.
“What about him?” Cannon asked.
“He’s so eager to get on my good side and he sucks up to you all the time. I rarely speak to him when he doesn’t ask if he can be given more responsibility.”
“I’ve wondered why you haven’t done so before now. Briggs seems competent,” Cannon said.
“Yeah, but… I don’t know, I always thought he was a little too eager.”
“But Briggs has been here for months, and he already knows shit,” Sullivan said. “He could lead the ATF to our weapons stash or bust us for selling drugs.”
“That’s true,” Logan conceded. “All right, maybe it is Russo and Hollis. What do we do about that?”
“We test them,” Cannon said. “Take them on that raid you have planned.”
Logan squinted at Cannon. “Are you serious? If they are ATF and we do that, we’ll be giving them enough evidence to lock us up for life.”
“If they aren’t ATF agents, make them prove it.”
“And if they are agents?”
Sullivan answered, while patting the gun holstered on his hip.
“If they’re government pigs, we waste them.”
“That’s right,” Cannon said with
a grin.
The three men worked out the details of their plan, then Sullivan was dismissed. When it was just the two of them, Cannon brought up the subject of Gracie’s unauthorized trip to his office.
“It sounds like she has keys to the entire building,” Logan said.
“I’m guessing they were her father’s, and she kept them. Gracie’s smart. I think she’s figured out that we’re not just selling weed and tax-free cigarettes. If she starts talking to other militia members it could mean trouble for us.”
“Who told you about this?”
“Isaac did; he heard about it from Linda.”
Logan made a face of displeasure. “Damn, and I like Gracie.”
“Think how I feel; she’s like a cousin to me.”
Logan stood. “I’ll take care of it.”
“One more thing, the project in New York City has been delayed. Robbie Vespa was killed a few nights ago after he tried to rob that bar he worked at.”
“The idiot. Why would he heist the place?”
“Who knows, but we need to get another man up there, someone more reliable, and of course, they’d have to stay there. I expect we’ll be selling girls out of New York forever.”
Logan took his seat once more as he thought that over. When he looked at Cannon again, there was a smile on his lips.
“I have an idea.”
The following night, Tanner slid out of bed and onto the floor as he heard sounds outside the tent he was sharing with Pullo. As his hand was closing on his weapon, he watched Pullo raise his head up on the other side of the tent. Pullo was no more than a shape amid shadows in the meager light inside the tent.
“Someone’s out there,” Tanner whispered. “Keep your head down.”
Pullo was easing out from beneath the covers when a voice spoke.
“Russo, Hollis, it’s me, Logan. Get dressed and come out here.”
Tanner and Pullo exchanged looks as they grabbed their clothes. When they emerged from the tent, they found Logan standing nearby with four other men, one of which was Sullivan.
“What’s going on?” Tanner asked.
“It’s time to find out what you two are made of.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Pullo asked Logan.
“We’re going on a raid, and I warn you, there will be shooting.”
“Who are we raiding?” Tanner asked.
“A group of bikers have set up shop not far from here. They’ve been dealing meth and weed. I’m guessing they’re bringing in good money, that’s cash the militia could put to better use.”
After speaking, Logan watched the two new arrivals, to study their reactions.
Pullo unholstered his gun and did a press check. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “Let’s go.”
The biker gang was operating out of an old barn. The nearby farmhouse had been gutted in a fire several years earlier, while also killing the farmer who lived there.
The man’s only child, a daughter, inherited the sixteen-acre farm, but she was busy living the life of a successful lawyer in Philadelphia. After making a trip back home to bury her father and sell off the livestock, the daughter returned to the city and forgot all about the farm.
When they came across the abandoned property, the biker gang made it their home and set up shop.
There was a shed located a hundred feet behind the barn; an odor similar to ammonia was drifting out of it. Tanner was unfamiliar with the scent, but Pullo identified it.
“They’re running a meth lab out of that shed. We need to be careful about shooting off weapons over there,” he whispered to Logan.
Logan nodded his understanding, then he sent two of the men over to the building to be ready for whoever came out of it. The militia members reached the shed by circling around to it and keeping to a low crouch.
“How many men are in that barn?” Tanner asked.
“They’ve got eight guys total, so we’re outnumbered by one, but we’ll have the element of surprise on our side. That will even things out.”
Tanner agreed with Logan in theory, but he didn’t know how good the other men with him were. He was sure Pullo could handle himself, the others were a mystery. He smiled, if Romeo had been with him, the two of them could have handled things alone.
When the men were in place at the shed, Logan stood and headed toward the barn while cradling a shotgun. Tanner thought it a good sign that the bikers didn’t have a sentry posted, but then he spotted the outline of a man in the open doors of the barn’s loft. It was the silhouette of a figure aiming a rifle.
“Get down!” Tanner said. At the same time, he drew his weapon and fired at the man. His target let out a scream while releasing his own shot. The slug went high and struck a tree. The man who’d fired it tumbled from the loft and landed in front of the barn doors while breaking his right arm in the fall. Tanner’s shot had hit the man in the abdomen. The biker wailed from the agony of his wound until Sullivan placed a bullet in his head.
The remaining bikers poured out of a side door in the barn and the battle was on.
Thanks to the shotguns wielded by Logan and another of the men named Perez, the battle ended swiftly. Although three of the bikers sustained wounds from shotgun pellets, none of the injuries were fatal. Logan had fired low, causing damage to the men’s shins and calves. Once they were down, Sullivan stepped in to finish them off.
Four bikers had been inside the shed when the fighting began. Hearing the shots come from the area of the barn, they ran outside without first looking. The two militia members who were at the meth lab took the men by surprise and disarmed them. They had come up on the drug dealers from behind as they were riveted by the gun battle going on at the barn.
One man had raised his gun. Before the biker could fire, a militia member had buried a knife in his shoulder and disarmed him. Because of the threat of an explosion in the meth lab, they were refraining from using their firearms. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t risk shooting if threatened again.
The wounded biker was dressed in a lab coat and goggles. The man had been cooking meth when the fighting began.
The farm was in a secluded area; despite that, its nearest neighbor was less than a mile away. Logan was certain that the sounds of the battle would have woken someone and that the cops were on their way to investigate.
Sullivan entered the barn with Logan and another man after telling the others to head back to the vehicles and be ready to move. This included the four surviving bikers. The men had been gagged and had their wrists tied behind their backs. They were shoved inside a van and guarded with a shotgun.
Tanner had a suspicion why the bikers had been allowed to live. If he was right, they wouldn’t be alive much longer.
“They want to test us,” Tanner whispered to Pullo. As he spoke, he was staring at the van with the hostages in it.
“I think you’re right,” Pullo agreed.
Sullivan and Logan returned with the third man, who was lugging four ten-pound packets of marijuana. They also scored two kilos of meth, and about eighty thousand in cash. Once they were inside Logan’s truck, the group left the farm behind them.
The vehicles stopped six minutes later. After leaving a dirt road, they had traveled a hundred feet into an overgrown field. When Logan ordered everyone out, Tanner knew what was coming next.
The four bikers were shoved to their knees and held at gunpoint. The one who’d been shot in the shoulder was moaning in pain, while another man was weeping quiet tears.
Logan pointed at the men while talking to Tanner and Pullo. “We can’t let them live. They’ve seen our faces.”
“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “We want you guys to kill them.”
“Why?” Pullo asked. “Is this some sort of initiation?”
“Something like that,” Logan said. “You men used your guns back at the farm when it was a matter of kill or be killed. Now, we want to know if you can murder in cold blood.”
“Do you need anyone else killed?” Tanner asked.
Logan did have another murder in mind. It was Gracie, but that was being attended to by Isaac.
25
Fight For Your Life
Kate left Gracie’s quarters inside the mess hall building. She was headed to pay Tanner a late-night visit with instructions to send Pullo back to Gracie. The women were unaware that Tanner and Pullo were off on a raid with Logan.
Isaac was lurking among the shadows cast off by the old shipping containers. The sizeable metal boxes had been there since the militia’s founding. They sat rotting between the main house and the mess hall.
Isaac almost mistook Kate for Gracie, but then he saw the long braid Kate had placed her hair in. He wondered where she was off to at so late an hour while being grateful she was gone. Gracie would be easier to kill if he didn’t have to deal with her roommate first.
Isaac had mixed feelings about killing Gracie. He still desired her, while also loathing her for rejecting him. She only made it worse when she began sleeping with Pullo.
Logan informed Isaac that Gracie had been sneaking into Cannon’s office to gain information. They presumed that she had suspicions about what they were really up to. Gracie was well-liked by the majority of militia members. If she rallied them against Cannon, he might be removed as the militia’s leader. That couldn’t happen.
Tanner- Year One Page 12