by Slaton Smith
“We can try to lift it,” Otis suggested. “Let’s get the front end on the tailgate and then lift and push the rear of the bike into the bed.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
They got on either side of the bike and lifted the front end onto the edge of the tailgate. Sean steadied the bike while Otis moved behind the rear wheel. Sean joined him and they lifted and pushed the bike into the bed of the truck. Otis secured it to the edge of the truck’s bed with rope from his saddlebag.
Sean motioned for Otis to head over to the passenger side. Sean and Otis got into the truck.
“Otis this is . . . “
“Andrea,” Sandy answered, before Sean could finish.
“Thanks for the help, Andrea. I really appreciate it.” Otis settled into the passenger seat. In the back, Sandy could smell him and she did not like it. He smelled like a dirty, wet dog that had just smoked a pack of unfiltered Camels. She kept her hand on her gun and looked straight at him. Sean looked at her in the rearview mirror.
She did not return the look.
“Otis, I know where Nitro is, but you’re going to have to lead me the rest of the way,” Sean said, as he took off his black pull over. It was soaked, but it had kept him dry. He reached over the seat and tossed it on the seat next to the donuts. He caught Sandy looking at him out of the corner of his eye. She was not happy. “Oh well,” he thought.
As Sean pulled back onto I-79, he looked over at Otis. Otis’ jeans were filthy. He looked to be in his early forties, but it was hard to tell with his beard and long hair.
“Otis, I am going to guess you are a southern rock fan,” Sean said, smiling.
“What makes you think that?” Otis asked, looking at Sean.
“Just an educated guess,” Sean said and Otis started laughing.
Sandy kept staring at Otis.
Sean found a classic rock station on the radio and set the cruise control for 70 MPH. Otis looked around the truck casually. His eyes met Sandy’s and he turned around.
“You two in some sort of trouble?” Otis asked. He knew the look.
“No. Not at all,” Sean answered.
“Your girlfriend seems a little on edge.”
“She has a thing for bikers,” Sean replied, nodding towards the back seat. Sandy looked at him through the rearview mirror and let him know that he was not funny.
“Well, this is your lucky day!” Otis said laughing. He had a big booming laugh that startled Sean. Sean started laughing too. Sandy wanted to laugh, but did not want to give Sean the satisfaction. She was worried. She knew Waters had a team working on a way to find them.
Sean and Otis were becoming fast friends. Sean was fascinated with the idea of being a biker and peppered Otis with questions.
“How long have you been a biker?”
“Twenty years or more,” Otis answered. He had his long, thick arms resting on his lap. His tattoos ran all the way down his arms to the wrist. He did not have anything on his hands.
“What’s the story behind the tats?”
Otis was always happy to talk tattoos. He went into great detail.
“I got my first one right after I bought my first bike.” He pulled up his sleeve to expose a faded tattoo of a bike with a naked, large breasted, raven haired woman on the seat. Flames were shooting out of the tail pipes.
“I like her!” Sean said, with enthusiasm.
“That was my first girlfriend.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t get too excited, the artist took a few liberties with the art.”
“What happened to her?” Sean asked.
“I killed her and ate the meat off her bones,” he said, lowering his voice and staring at Sean.
Sean said nothing. Sandy kept staring at Otis.
“Ha! I think I had you for a second. Shit, she left me for some guy that worked at Dairy Queen.” Again his booming laugh filled the truck.
Otis then turned to look at Sandy.
“You have any tats you want to show, or talk about, honey?”
Both Sean and Otis started laughing again. Sean elbowed Otis.
“I will not dignify that,” she said, smiling. It was hard not to like Otis. She still kept her hand on her gun, however.
“What’s the 1% patch mean on your vest?” Sean asked.
“It means he’s an outlaw,” Sandy said quickly.
“How do you know that?” Otis responded, turning in his seat.
“Remember, I have a thing for bikers,” she said, smiling at Otis.
“I get the feeling you’re a 1%er, too,” he said to her.
More like a 100th of a percent, Sean thought.
“It’s a “cut” not a vest,” Otis said, turning around.
“A what?”
“A cut. Not a vest.” Otis explained. He then launched into an explanation of all of the patches he was wearing
Sean nodded. He found it fascinating, plus Otis wove everything into a great story.
Sandy sat in the back and half listened to what they were saying. She was racking her brain trying to remember if she had thought of everything.
Had she covered their tracks?
Did she miss something?
She had.
II
I see you!
Boston - Sunday
Back in Boston, Waters was screaming at his team in the situation room.
“Where are they!!?”
A couple of the analysts had thrown out theories that they were heading to Canada. Some said they would head east and fly out of D.C. to some place in South America.
Waters dismissed them all. They had, for all intents and purposes, vanished. He paced the room, and had now removed his jacket, which was unusual and was rolling up his sleeves, when a man in the back spoke up.
“I have them.”
“What? How? Where? Show me.”
“Let’s put this up on the screens,” the analyst requested. Everyone stopped working and the images from his terminal were transferred to the three big screens that covered the back wall of the room. The man got up and walked to the front of the room. Like the others there, he was a little bit of a slob, over-weight and out of shape. His white shirt was stained from wiping his hands on his shirt after eating cheesy corn puffs.
“Walk me through it,” Waters demanded, watching the man move to the first screen.
“If she was going to flee, she would need a car. Now, she would not know when she would need it, so a commercial rental company would not work for her.” He looked at Waters, who was quickly seeing where he is going with this.
“Continue,” Waters said, rolling his hands around for the man to speed up.
“She would need to buy the car. Now leasing would not work for her. She would also pay cash and probably buy it locally. This all assumes she has the resources to do this.”
“She does,” Waters said grimacing. He knew where the help was coming from and he did not like it. It made everything more complex and certainly more dangerous for him.
The analyst continued.
“Going with the theory, I hacked into the computers of all of the dealers in the Morgantown area, looking for cars that had been purchased over the last six months. Out of 481 cars sold, only six were paid for in cash. Four of them are out of state and have been for two months, so we can eliminate them. Of the other two, one is still parked in the owner’s garage near Cheat Lake. The last one was purchased by a woman calling herself Andrea Smithson. In July, she wired the Chevy dealer in Morgantown $34,657 for a new Silverado pick-up truck. It is silver, by the way. For the last month, it has not moved and has been parked in the parking lot of the stadium adjacent to the field where they landed the chopper. Shortly after we estimate the chopper landing, the truck left the lot. It stayed in Morgantown for a short time and then headed south.”
“How to you know this?”
“OnStar. They activated it when she bought the truck. She neglected to disable it. A huge miss for someone like her.” He
then walked over to his terminal and hit a couple of keys. The OnStar display filled the monitors.
He continued.
“Shortly after I narrowed down the vehicle list, I hacked into the OnStar system. I can tell you how much gas they have, what their tire pressure is, but most importantly, where they are.”
Waters was smiling.
The analyst walked over to a monitor and pointed at a flashing light.
“And, they have just pulled off the interstate in a town called Nitro. When they stop, I can give you an exact address.”
“Good! Good! Re-purpose the team on the Blackhawk. Get them headed south. Inform our two on the ground in Charleston that we have located them.”
“Their instructions?” a man asked.
“Kill them both. Kill them on sight,” Waters answered, as he turned and left the room.
III
Don’t answer the phone!
Nitro, WV
Sean pulled off the interstate and made a left. They traveled approximately eight miles and made a right onto a narrow road. They drove for a mile or so and Otis instructed him to pull into a drive and towards a building that looked like a cinder block bunker. The land was cut out of the forest that ran right up to the property. It was a completely square building with two large, tinted windows on each side of a door that was exactly in the middle of the structure. It had two floors with the second story windows directly above the ones on the ground floor. Sean could see a barn behind the building. There were a dozen or more bikes parked out front. Three men came out of the building when the truck approached. Otis rolled down the window and shouted to them.
“They are friends!”
The men waved at Otis and went back inside. One had a sawed off shotgun in his hand.
“Pull around back,” Otis said, pointing to a dirt road that went around the building. The large barn behind the building contained what looked like a shop of some sort. There were several men working on their bikes, but as Sean pulled around he saw the barn was also full of car parts. Otis saw him looking.
“We also chop cars,” Otis said, without apology.
“I am shocked!” Sandy said.
“Cool,” Sean mumbled.
“You can park here. The guys will take care of my bike.” Otis got out of the truck and waved at a couple of men and gestured at the truck.
“OK. Sean. You have helped him. Time to go,” Sandy said, getting out. Sean hopped out too. Otis walked around the front of the truck and shook Sean’s hand.
“Sean, thanks for helping me.”
“No problem.”
“I mean it. Not many people would have stopped to help. Shit. I would not have stopped to help myself,” Otis said, with his arms out wide.
“Glad to help.”
“You feel like a drink or something to eat?”
“No. We really need to go,” Sandy said quickly. Sean looked at her.
“We can stay a minute. I am starving.”
Otis led them up the stairs to the club. The door opened to a short hallway that opened up to a large room. There was a long, wood bar to the left and off to the right, a handful of couches and a big screen TV. It was tuned to some show on hippos. Three guys were glued to it. The rest of the room had an assortment of tables and a few people were playing cards. The room smelled of smoke and stale beer.
Everyone turned and several men got up when Sean and Sandy entered. Otis in a booming voice said, “They are friends of the club!”
Otis explained that they would be extended every courtesy as FOC, including protection while they were here.
Sean kind of nodded. Sandy stood still, scanning the room. All the men sat down.
“I think we have pizza left from last night . . .” Otis said, walking over to the bar.
Sean did not say anything. He was too busy taking everything in. He was still fascinated by the biker culture. There were a couple of neon beer signs scattered around the room. He could faintly hear the hum they made. The Allman Brother’s were playing low in the background. Sean smiled to himself. Southern rock.
“We also have beer,” Otis offered.
“I’ll take a beer,” Sean said quickly.
“Nothing for me,” Sandy said. Several of the bikers were really looking her over. She had the backpack over one shoulder. She returned their stares.
Otis turned to the group and noticed them looking at Sandy.
“Guys, this is my buddy’s old lady. Let’s be polite,” Otis said, smiling and teasing Sandy. She nudged Otis with her elbow.
“Maybe I need a new old man,”
Otis grabbed two beers from a guy behind the bar.
“You’re in the right place!” Otis said, and again let out a booming laugh. He pointed with his beer to the back door. Sean laughed too.
The two agents dispatched by Waters were now pulling off the interstate and were about five minutes away. Back in Boston, Waters had tapped into a satellite and was working on getting an image of the area where Sean and Sandy had stopped. The image was fuzzy. The cloud cover did not help.
“Let’s go back outside.” Otis led them back down the hallway and outside. They walked past the truck and into the garage. A guy was already working on Otis’ bike. Towards the back of the barn another couple of men were working on the removal of the door of a 2001 Honda Accord. They talked a little while longer. Sean was nearly done with his beer. The club had cameras in front of the club and monitors in the barn. Sandy heard car tires crunching on gravel and looked up at the black and white screen. The two agents had arrived. She looked at Otis.
“You need to get your friends out of the club! Get them out the back door!”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, taking a sip of his beer.
“Those men will kill you all!” Sandy pointed at the screen. Sean had seen them too and was already reacting. He moved before Sandy could do anything, or see what he was doing. He ran to the truck and threw open the door and grabbed the first gun he could find, a Glock 17. He ran along the side of the house towards the front.
Sandy turned around and he was gone. She panicked.
“Where is he? Where is he?”
One of the bikers pointed towards the house. She caught a glimpse of him as he went around the house. She pulled her gun from behind her. Otis’s eyes got wide and he stepped back.
“Stay here!” she said, to him, already running out of the barn.
“No problem,” he said, continuing to back up, with his hands in the air.
Otis looked up at the screen and could see the two men from the car getting out and pulling automatic weapons from the trunk. His men had seen the same thing and wisely did not go out to tell the men to scram.
The agents walked slowing with the weapons up, sweeping them back and forth in front of them.
Waters now had a clear look at the building from the satellite, but he did not like what he saw.
The two agents had almost reached the porch when Sean rounded the corner. The Glock was already up and extended out from his body. He didn’t stop moving towards them.
“I think you are looking for me,” he said, firing the weapon as he spoke. The agents, as good as they were, did not have a chance. They could not get their weapons around fast enough. Sean’s first two shots dropped them. Both head shots.
Waters saw the whole thing. Clouds then obscured his view. He had one more idea to rid himself of both of them. He picked up a phone and got a secure, outside line. He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at the code McFarland had given him many months ago.
Sandy was rounding the corner as Sean walked towards the bodies. She had her gun up but it was trained on Sean’s back, not at the men on the ground. Sean stood over them, pointed the gun and emptied the clip into their heads. This was personal. He held both hands up in the air with the gun dangling from his index finger. He did not turn around.
“Sandy, you can put the gun down,” he said calmly.
“I’ll k
eep it where it is,” she said, keeping it trained on him. He spun around and looked at her.
“Sorry I took your gun. I could not let these guys hurt you or the guys in there.” He laid the gun on the ground and stepped back. The men in the club were now watching from the window. This was better than the hippos on the Discovery Channel.