Mercer felt the anger rise from his neck into his head. He had to stop himself from jumping up from the counter and taking on all of the Rattlers himself. It must have shown in his face.
“Calm down, sonny. Everything’s OK.”
“The hell it is. This is going to stop. When do they come around to collect?”
They’ll be here in two days. Always come right at eleven in the morning.”
“You’re not paying them another cent. We are going to take care of this, Al. I promise that.”
He quickly finished his coffee and took his remaining doughnut with him out the door. He hopped onto his bike, but he wasn’t riding for more than a minute before he saw blue and red lights flashing in his mirror. He pulled to the side of the road and the cop pulled in close behind him. The officer didn’t get out of his car right away, instead making Mercer wait on him for several minutes.
When he finally did emerge, Mercer saw it was a young cop. Mercer didn’t recognize him.
“Dismount from the motorcycle,” said the officer. His nametag said his last name was Ames.
Mercer did so and stood in front of the man.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
“No,” said Mercer honestly. He wasn’t speeding and all his tags were up to date.
The officer pulled his arm back quickly and sucker-punched Mercer in the stomach. Mercer dropped to one knee, grabbing the bike for support, trying to catch his breath. Ames pulled his foot back and planted his boot in Mercer’s ribs.
“What the fuck,” gasped Mercer through shallow breaths.
“Get on your feet, you rat motherfucker.”
Ames grabbed Mercer’s leather cut and pulled him up. On his feet, Mercer still hunched over slightly from the blow.
“What the hell?” said Mercer.
Ames grabbed his billy club. “Shut the fuck up before I whip the living shit out of you.”
Mercer did as he was told. There was real hatred in the man’s eyes. Mercer thought he looked capable of beating a man senseless, maybe even killing someone.
“Look here. You motorcycle assholes may’ve had a good thing going in the past, but those days are over. There’s new laws in this town. Motorcycle gangs have been outlawed.”
“I’m not in a gang. I’m in a club of gentlemen who like to spend their free time riding motorcycles.”
The officer hit Mercer in the stomach with the butt of his club. This time, he was able to stay on his feet.
“Any identifying markers that align a motorcycle rider with any club affiliation are prohibited within city limits.”
The officer gestured to Mercer’s leather cut.
“I’ll take if off as soon as I get where I’m going.”
“You will remove it this goddamn second or I will throw your ass in lockup and you will rot there. Do I make myself clear?”
Mercer held his ground for several seconds, but when the officer made a move for his gun, he took off the leather vest with the Black Ice insignia on the back. The officer yanked it from his hands.
“Hey, you can’t do that,” protested Mercer. “I took it off. You can’t just take it.”
“Stop me,” said Ames, walking back to his car.
Mercer got on his bike and took off, not caring that he was blowing past the speed limit. All the excitement he’d felt that morning was replaced by pure anger. A lot had changed in Rawlins since he had left, and none of it for the better.
***
“I tried to warn you, kid. The shit has hit the fan in this town.”
Mercer leaned up against the counter. Doc was varnishing a large piece of wood that would eventually serve as the table in the club meeting room. He put down his brush and took a drink of beer, despite it only being ten in the morning.
“Yeah, you did. I guess I wasn’t listening. What about not wearing our cuts in town? You didn’t say anything about that.”
Doc took another drink of beer. “That’s a new one on me. I’ll call my buddy down at the courthouse and find out if that cop was just screwing with you.”
“He was doing a lot more than screwing with me. I got the bruises to prove it.”
Doc picked up his brush and kept varnishing. Mercer picked up a screwdriver and worked on getting some hinges attached to the interior door frames. They worked for an hour before taking a break. Mercer grabbed the first beer of the day out of the cooler and handed Doc another.
“It’s going to take time to get everything back. Did you really think you could waltz back to town, claim Black Ice had returned, and everyone would fall in line?”
“Yeah, I did, actually.”
Doc shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. We got a couple of new members and that’s a good start, but we need a hell of a lot more than that. We need money and the way to get money is to start earning on jobs. I got something lined up. It’s not much, but we need every dollar we can get. How much is left from the pile?”
Doc was referring to the money Mercer had stolen from the club before he left town. Now that he was back, he returned it to the club, but with the repairs to the clubhouse, paying the new members a little something to get them on their feet, and general maintenance, they were quickly running out.
“Not much,” Mercer admitted. “About fifteen thousand.”
“We can stretch that a bit, but we need money coming in.”
“What’s this job? Guns or drugs?”
A smile crept across Doc’s face. “You’re going to love this. It’s corporate secrets.”
Doc wouldn’t say any more until they were all gathered. Red and Cruz showed up twenty minutes later, and they gathered around the kitchen table again since the meeting room wasn’t yet ready.
“Here’s the score,” said Doc. “Guy I know swiped a bunch of trade secrets from a company he worked for. They were supposed to let him in on profit sharing, but fired him instead. He figures they cheated him out of a hundred thousand dollars. Thing is, he kept copies of all the information on his computer at home, so he was able to download everything to a flash drive. He made contact with a rival company and is going to sell the information for a hundred thousand dollars. We’ll get five percent to deliver the flash drive to this other company in Billings.”
“Why not just email the information?” asked Cruz.
“Stealing those secrets was highly illegal and he’s afraid someone can track it online. Makes sense these days, with the NSA listening to everyone’s phone calls.”
Red spoke next. “Why not just deliver it himself?”
“He thinks the company has hired people to watch him, make sure he’s not going to do exactly what he’s planning to do. He says if the company has hired guys to watch him, it’s reasonable to think they’ll attack to get the information back, so we’ll need to be on the lookout. Good thing is, the drive is small enough to carry in a pocket, so it’s doable with the four of us.”
Mercer looked at each man. They all seemed to be on board, but this was the first job since the club came back to life and it needed to be official.
“OK. Let’s vote. Who’s in favor of delivering this drive two hours away to Billings?”
All four men raised their hand.
“OK,” said Mercer. He realized he had no gavel, so he slapped his palm on the table instead. “It’s official. Doc, schedule the pickup with your man and we’ll be five grand richer when all of this is over.”
The attack came from the left, catching Black Ice off guard. The other bikes crested a hill to the south and came on them fast. Cruz spotted them first and they pulled guns. They fired on the Rattlers, but none of their bullets hit; then the Rattlers were on the road with them with guns of their own.
Up until that point, everything had gone according to plan. They picked up the drive from Doc’s contact and started out toward Billings, Montana. Mercer assumed that if they were going to get hit by a rival gang, it would happen as soon as they left the city limits and it would come from behind. He figu
red the gang would ride up behind them in order to make it easier to shoot them, so he had Red stay a mile behind. If the Rattlers had come up from the rear, Red would have been able to take them down easier.
But it hadn’t gone that way. The Rattlers were ahead of them, obviously lying in wait until they rode by. They came over the hill, surprised Black Ice, and gained the advantage.
Since Red was still a mile back, it was three Black Ice against five Rattlers. Mercer gave the signal to peel and they hit the gas. They gained some distance on the Rattlers, then turned and fired. One of them hit a front tire and it blew, sending the man flying. Mercer then gave the signal to halt and they slammed on the brakes, sliding their bikes longways, dismounted, and crouched behind the bikes for cover. Once behind the bikes, they fired over the seats, keeping the Rattlers at bay.
“We can’t hold out,” said Cruz. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to hang on until Red comes up from behind.”
Mercer figured they’d have to wait about a minute since Red was a mile back and would be riding about sixty miles per hour.
One of the Rattlers called out. “Give us what we want and you can live.”
“What do you want?” Mercer called back.
“Don’t be an asshole, Mercer. We want the drive. The one you were hired to deliver.”
Mercer threw a glance to Doc—they both had the same question. How did the Rattlers know what they were doing?
“What are you talking about?”
One of them fired a shot into Mercer’s bike.
“Give us the drive and you live. That’s all there is to it.”
Mercer whispered to Doc and Cruz, “Red should be along any second. They’ll hear him come up and turn to find him. When that happens, we fire and rush them.”
They nodded, and not more than fifteen seconds later, they heard Red’s bike coming down the road. They saw the Rattlers turn, but before they could act, one of the Rattlers fired on Red. Red went down to the pavement. Mercer couldn’t tell if he had been hit or had laid the bike down to avoid it.
“Time’s up, Mercer. You going to hand it over, or do we have to come over there?”
Mercer looked to Doc, who said, “Better give them what they want.”
Mercer stood up and the Rattlers ordered him to slowly walk over while the others stayed behind. The Rattlers never took their guns off them. Mercer recognized one of them as a former Black Ice member.
“Here you go, Roscoe. Burn in hell.”
He reached into his pocket and threw the flash drive to Roscoe.
“Good going, Mercer.”
“Eat shit, Roscoe.”
Roscoe fired at Mercer. It missed him, but went flying through his new leather cut.
“Black Ice is done, fellas. I knew that a long time ago. Time for you to figure it out too. This area belongs to the Rattlers. We see any of you again, we’ll put a bullet in ya. Now, one last thing, all of ya be good boys and throw those gats into the bushes.”
Mercer threw his pistol into the scrubs. The others followed suit. The Rattlers laughed and took off. When they were down the road, Mercer ran over to Red. The bullet had grazed his temple, knocking him down, but the bleeding had already stopped. The collected their guns and inspected their bikes.
“Everyone good to ride?” asked Mercer.
They reported that their bikes were fine.
“Good. You two head on back. Doc and I got a little more business to take care of.”
Red said, “We should come too. In case they decide to attack again.”
Mercer shook his head. “I appreciate it, but I want you guys back at the clubhouse in case the Rattlers decide to do more damage. We’ll be back in a few hours.”
Cruz and Red protested more, but eventually did as they were told.
Once they were gone and the sound of their bikes had faded, Doc turned to Mercer. “What other business do we have?”
Mercer unlatched a secret compartment on his bike. It looked like part of the crankshaft, but opened easily. He pulled out a flash drive.
“We have a delivery to make.”
“You gave them a fake?”
“I sure did. Now let’s get the real one to our man in Billings.”
They climbed on their bikes and took off.
It was a good day for Danni. She woke up to a sunny day outside her window, found a good place for breakfast, and then found a nice apartment. It was just a couple of miles from the clubhouse and not too far from downtown. The price was right, especially when you considered hardwood floors and a deck that looked over a wooded area.
She was so excited to find the place, she signed the lease without showing Mercer and moved all their stuff from the hotel room to the new apartment. It didn’t take long—everything had been carried in on Mercer’s bike.
Paying the deposit and first month’s rent completely wiped out her bank account, but her luck continued. When she walked to the car, she saw a hip little bar around the corner from her new place. She decided to press her luck and went in to talk to the manager. After she explained everything she had done for at Stax, the bar back in Calumet, he immediately offered her a job, as long as she could start tomorrow.
Giddy with all the news to tell Mercer, she went to the clubhouse, but found it empty. It was just after noon. She was just deciding whether to wait around or come back later when she heard bikes pull up outside. Cruz and Red came in looking shaken, and Mercer and Doc weren’t around.
“Where’s Mercer?” she asked.
Red shrugged and didn’t stop walking. He headed towards the back and disappeared behind a door.
“Mercer’s fine,” said Cruz. “But we got hit. The Rattlers attacked us and took our delivery. Mercer sent us back here, but him and Doc went on somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Cruz shrugged, grabbing a beer from the fridge.
“He just took off and didn’t tell you where?”
After a long drink of beer, Cruz said, “You know, I’ve been with a few clubs, and I can say the ones that really make it are the ones that communicate. When the leaders start keeping secrets, that’s when shit turns bad. I can already tell this club isn’t going to make it. Your boy Mercer isn’t big on letting anybody in on the plan.”
“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Danni said
“Maybe he does,” said Cruz. He took another pull off the beer, half of it was gone. He leaned back against the counter and Danni could see the muscles beneath his tight t-shirt. Mercer was still too skinny from his time running from Tank, but Cruz obviously hadn’t had trouble finding enough to eat. Danni assumed that Mercer had skipped more than a few meals if money was tight, while Cruz just stole whatever he needed.
“I’m leaving,” said Danni. “I’ll leave a message for Mercer on his phone.”
“Where are you going?” asked Cruz.
“Not really your business,” she fired.
As she turned towards the door, there was a loud bang, followed by windows being blown out of the front of the building. Cruz dove for the ground, taking Danni with him. He pinned her to the floor as another loud bang echoed, followed by engines roaring and tires squealing.
Crash (Black Ice MC Novella Book 2) Page 3