Show the Fire

by Susan Fanetti

  But they’d left their President at home, and that felt wrong. A job like this—they’d never done a job like this without Isaac at the helm. They’d never done a job like this at all. This was a hit. On a high-level associate of the Perro Blanco drug cartel. Strong as Show was on point, without Isaac, Len had the unsettling feeling that they were rowing with one oar.

  But Isaac wasn’t up to this job, and they all knew it. Convincing him to stay in Signal Bend had been agonizing. It meant forcing him to confront his limitations. It meant making him see that he might hold them back, especially if things got complicated. C.J. had weakened him. Though he’d come back strong, in some ways was even stronger than he’d been, his endurance had been materially compromised. After four hours on a bike, he became all but immobile. Even a long ride in the van would stiffen him up. The end of this run is when they’d need to be their fastest and most flexible, and Isaac would not be.

  Chicago was a long way away.

  Show pushed his plate of half-eaten biscuits and gravy to the side and spread out the map Dom had made for them. They’d gone over the plan again and again in the short time since they’d formed it, but soon the chance to be sure everyone understood would have passed. Soon, the plan would be in motion.

  “Halyard is meeting in this building here at one o’clock”—he indicated a small, green circle near the Chicago Mercantile Exchange—“That’s legit business, Dom says. Meeting with brokers or old business associates, or whatever. That’s our window. Because it’s legit business, the cartel hounds have to back off. He’ll have limited security. The intel Bart gave Dom says two guys and a driver when he’s playing businessman. Driver stays with the car. Goons get relegated to the waiting area. That’s our window.”

  Len nodded. It was a simple plan, but it required no small amount of faith to work. They weren’t espionage guys, though. Espionage took finesse. Not one of the Horde could be accused of having an over-supply of finesse. They were blunt instruments, all of them. Len was sure they were missing more than they realized. “You call Bart’s friend?”

  Show nodded. “Yeah. Bart set that up well. We meet the guy in Joliet, get two badges and worksuits. That’s you and Hav.” He turned to Havoc. “Quick and clean, brother. This is justice, not vengeance. Right?”

  Havoc glowered as he nodded. He’d wanted to take Halyard and torture him. It had taken almost as much to convince him that a quick death was the best course as it had taken to convince Isaac to stay home. What they were going to do in a few hours would start a war. It would; Len had no delusions that they’d get away from this job cleanly. The best they could hope for is to get away today and have time to marshal their allies and resources before the Perros came down on them.

  They’d been planning a war. For months, Isaac and Show had been strategizing with the Scorpions, the Brazen Bulls, and the Wayfarers, seeking a way to strengthen their positions so that they could take on this cartel which had conscripted them and run roughshod over their clubs. But, because they had this one shot to collect on the man who had orchestrated Show’s daughter’s death and actually ordered Havoc’s sister’s, the Horde were accelerating the plan. Even if this job was successful, there was a good chance they’d lose some or all of their allies because of it.

  Havoc wanted Halyard to pay his due. Show did, as well. So the Horde were chasing this chance. This is what they were willing to sacrifice for a brother. For family.

  Everything.

  ~oOo~

  As they rode in formation to their meet in Joliet, Len relaxed and let his mind go where it wanted to go. To Tasha.

  She had him worried. He still didn’t know why she’d called him, crying, in the early morning hours; he’d never gotten an answer, only assurances that she was fine—which were clearly lies. Tasha wasn’t quick with tears, but these had gone on for a long time. He put it down to the erratic way she’d been acting just in general for the past few weeks—her public innuendo to Tommy when she met him, that ridiculous jealous blowup at his place, and various minor meltdowns and mood swings she’d had as well. His girl was dangling by a thread.

  He didn’t understand it all, but he thought he was starting to. As he got to know her life in Springfield better, he saw the cracks. Like that life had been made of eggshells or something, and when she lost her job, all the other parts began to shatter under that weight.

  Early on, just as they’d started doing what they were doing, he’d had cause to wonder if he knew her well at all. Her friends, in particular, had really thrown him off. Not because of their sexual orientation or whatever—to each his own, and he wasn’t exactly a vanilla guy himself—but because of the sort of fancy way they went about everything. They seemed, to Len, a singularly affected group, all of them working hard to present themselves in particular ways. It didn’t bother him that none of them was straight. It didn’t bother him that they all fucked each other—well, that wasn’t true; he was figuring out that he was a one-woman man, after all, but that was a consideration for another moment of self-reflection. It bothered him a lot that they all seemed to be trying to be who they were. Tasha included.

  In the months since he’d first come to her loft, what he knew about Tasha had shifted back and forth repeatedly, but he felt it settling. He did know her; he’d always known her. She hadn’t really changed. She’d grown, and she was as shaped by experience as anyone else. But she hadn’t changed. He thought maybe she was coming to realize it. He thought maybe that was causing the cracks. She was coming home, and she’d spent a lot of years trying very hard not to.

  ~oOo~

  In Joliet, they met Bart’s contact—who represented the last of the help their prodigal brother could offer them. They left their bikes and kuttes in his care, took the plastic sack of badges and work clothes he handed them, and piled into an anonymous grey cargo van.

  An hour outside of Chicago. Now it was on.

  They rode in silence. Len assumed the others were doing what he was doing: running the plan through, trying to see it work in his head.

  It was a simple plan, and audacious, too—of the so-crazy-it-just-might-work variety. In the years since the Horde’s fight with Lawrence Ellis, since they’d killed Marissa Halyard, Halyard had become untouchable. He’d disappeared from view entirely until last winter. He’d reappeared in the inner circle of the Perros and under their impressive protection. The Horde’s only shot at him was in the brief space of time that he, of necessity, distanced himself from that protection. And he did that only rarely, to conduct the legitimate business that provided cover for the Perros’ illegal earnings.

  Normally, Halyard conducted that business in New York City or Washington, D.C.—out of reach of the Horde’s limited scope. This was the first time, and for all they could tell the only time, that he might be vulnerable. Briefly, briefly vulnerable.

  Midday traffic in downtown Chicago was heavy, but they’d accounted for it, and Show pulled into the correct alley within five minutes of their target time. He called Isaac and gave him a status report, then turned in the bucket seat. “One more time, brothers. Let’s run it through.”

  Havoc spoke up as he handed Len a folded work suit. “Badges and getups get us in as electricians. Big junction box just inside the office suite, on a wall shared with the men’s room. No security cameras inside the office suite.”

  From his seated position, Len worked himself into the blue coverall. “Halyard will leave his goons outside the door. He has to go down that hallway to his appointment. We pull him into the bathroom and end his sorry ass.”

  “Wait—wait. What about the girl? There’s gonna be a girl, right—leading him back? Isn’t there always a girl, like a receptionist or whatever?” Badger sounded agitated, but Len looked at Havoc and then at Show before he answered.

  “Yeah. Likely. If we have to, we take her, too.”

  “Take? Wait, hold up. Are we talking about killing a girl here? Innocent?” Badge was almost standing up in the van. “No way. I…no way.
Hav, I know he owes you for Sophie, but…”

  Havoc reached out and put his hand on Badger’s shoulder. “Easy, little brother. I got no interest in another innocent girl gettin’ dead because of this motherfucker. Daisy and Sophie were more than enough. If there’s a girl, and if she’s in our way, she might need to get a little hurt, but just a little. Only if we have to. We just need enough time to get out of this building clean.”

  “We’ll be on the street, rear garage exit. You abort if anything’s off. You abort.” Show turned a deadly serious face on Havoc. “You abort, Hav. I understand. We lost a lot. But we don’t throw everything else we love after our girls. Something even smells wrong, you abort.”

  “I get it, Show. I’m steady. This doesn’t work, I’ll let it go. On my ink, I’ll let it go.”

  Show nodded. “Let’s do this, then.”

  ~oOo~

  The badges and uniforms Bart’s nameless friend had given them were good; Len and Havoc got into the building and to the fifteenth floor with no trouble. With guidance from Bart, Dom had managed to get a fake work order in, too. So they went into the suite of Middle States Commodities Brokers without incident.

  Halyard was in the waiting area. The reason Havoc and Len were going in, aside from their expertise as enforcers and Havoc’s vested interest, was that they both looked considerably more Joe Public than either huge Showdown or Badger, with his nearly waist-length hair and heavy beard. Inside their coveralls, and wearing billed caps, not even Len’s ink was excessively noticeable. They’d both been in the room when Marissa was killed, but they had not been stage front. They were taking a chance that they would not be noticed. And, in fact, neither Halyard nor his goons took notice. They were alone in the waiting area—that was a best-case scenario.

  Havoc and Len got into the hallway and set up quickly. The bathroom was empty. They had several weapons from which to choose—a silenced Sig, a garrote of Hav’s design, and a short blade. Len also had his Glock, but using that would mean they were in big trouble. They were hoping for the garrote. Though the Sig would be faster, it would be messier. The blade was more of a self-defense option. Len was good with a blade, but there was a limit to how much control he had over how fast someone bled out. And, again, messy.

  There was a girl, a pretty, nicely dressed and carefully coiffed girl sitting at a sleek, rounded desk facing the door. She’d looked up from her screen when they’d come in, but had given them only the most cursory glance.

  So far, this chance was coming up golden. No one was around except the girl at the desk; the office suite was constructed so that there was another layer of privacy between the more public waiting area and the actual offices. The whole suite was quiet, a dense lack of noise that pressed slightly on one’s eardrums. Realizing what it meant about the quality of the sound insulation, Len smiled. He caught Havoc’s eye and tapped his ear. After a cock of his head, Havoc smiled, too.

  The phone on the receptionist’s desk chimed, and she picked it up. Len couldn’t hear her words—the insulation was so good sound was actually not carrying well through open space—but after she hung up, she stood and crossed to the door.

  “Showtime.” Len muttered the word. At the same time, it occurred to him that whomever Halyard was meeting in this office was powerful enough to make a man like him wait. At any other time, Len would want to pause to consider that fact, but now the girl was opening the door to reception and stepping through.

  She came back with Martin Halyard, looking much the same as he had five years ago—impeccable suit, impeccable white hair, the ruddy complexion of the wealthy. Len and Havoc turned, putting their backs slightly into the hallway.

  In the first snag of their plan, the receptionist was walking back with Halyard. So be it. Len and Havoc exchanged a glance, and then they moved.

  They turned, and Havoc caught Halyard in a chokehold, one hand almost entirely covering Halyard’s face. Len took the girl, silencing her and dragging her into the men’s room behind Havoc and Halyard.

  “Sorry, doll. But you’re gonna be okay, I promise. Just need you quiet.” His arm snug around her throat, Len pressed on her carotid artery until she relaxed completely. He checked her pulse as he laid her on the marble floor. She’d be okay.

  The same could not be said of Martin Halyard, who was struggling against the twisted wire around his throat. Len watched, fascinated. The whole dance was so quiet. He’d never seen anyone garroted before, and he supposed he’d expected it to be noisier. But the only sound was the softshoe scrape of Halyard’s fancy loafers scrabbling over the pinkish-gold marble tiles.

  All the muscles in Havoc’s arms were corded with his effort, but his face seemed simply focused, almost calm. Halyard’s face, on the other hand, had gone a color Len didn’t even have a name for, a kind of purply, pinkish grey, and his eyes had both gone red—the vessels had blown.

  Halyard fought hard, and then he stopped, abruptly, as if a plug had been pulled. Blood oozed lazily in trails down his neck and into his brilliantly white dress shirt. His eyes were bulged and dead. Havoc dragged him into a stall and sat him on the toilet.

  He stepped out of the stall and looked back on what he had wrought.

  “Fuck. I thought I’d feel…fuck.” He shook out his gloved hands; the bloody garrote dangled from his right, leaving drops on the floor.

  “C’mon, brother. We gotta go.” The time for existential crisis was not while they were standing before the body of a man they’d killed and of the girl they’d knocked out, while cartel heavies were twenty feet away. “We gotta go now.”

  Havoc nodded, coiling the garrote in his fist, and they left the bathroom. Still they were alone, so they moved as quickly as they could, grabbing their stuff and walking out past the goons waiting for Halyard. It was difficult to move slowly then, but they did it.

  Len was tempted to breathe a sigh of relief as they got to the main hallway and headed toward the stairs. But then the back of his neck prickled, and he looked quickly over his shoulders.

  “Move it, Hav.” The goons were coming for them—slowly, steadily, as if unsurprised.

  They had to try to run for it—the only other option was gunfire, and in this building, in this open space, that was no option at all. Hav made the stairwell door and yanked it open. He ran in; Len was right on his heels.

  And they came face to face with three Latino men, arrayed on the stairs, all pointing very large guns at them.

  No one spoke. Len felt Halyard’s goons come up behind them, and he knew that he and Havoc had found the end of their road. He laughed quietly. Figured. He was just starting to get his shit figured out.

  That was his last thought.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Horde clubhouse lot was so full that cars were parking each other in. Two young men manned the gate, closing it as soon as she and her escort were through. Tasha saw several armed men at posts along the perimeter. With Isaac and Tommy trailing her, Tasha pulled to the end of the lot and then into the scrubby grass edge. She grabbed her medical bag and her backpack from the passenger seat and headed for the clubhouse.

  Lockdown. She hadn’t been in a lockdown since she was a kid. The Horde had locked down a few years back, with all that Main Street drama, but she had refused to come in, preferring to stay at work—until Isaac had called for her to help Lilli.

  Today, Lilli had called, and then Isaac had been at her door within ten minutes, telling her to pack a bag for a couple of nights and to bring her kit. He didn’t say more, and she didn’t fight him. Len’s call the evening before had prepared her for the idea that something might happen.

  She hadn’t let herself dwell too much on the fact that Len was on the run that had caused the need for a lockdown. She didn’t know what it meant, and she knew no one would tell her anyway, so she focused elsewhere.

  Isaac waited for her near the door and took her bags from her. His face was rigid with stress. “C’mon inside, Tash.”

  If the parking lot
was crowded, the clubhouse itself was a fire hazard. It looked to Tasha as if the entire town was wedged into this one room. She scanned the Hall and saw very few kuttes—Isaac, Tommy, an older guy she’d seen before but hadn’t met, and a couple Prospects. No Len, no Show, no Havoc, no Badger. No Dom. Half the Horde was gone.

  There were a lot of women and a lot of civilians, though. She saw Lilli and Shannon moving back and forth between the kitchen and the bar, laying out simple food. She saw Cory, with her new baby strapped to her chest, standing near the dorm hallway, rocking back and forth and talking to another woman with an infant in her arms. Cory’s oldest boy—Nolan, his name was Nolan—was behind the bar, helping a Prospect. Gia ran after a toddling Bo, making him squeal.

  But the sight that caused her heart to cramp and stutter was the pool table—laden with guns. Tommy and the older guy stood at the table checking the stock and loading all the guns with ammunition. It was a motley array—a couple of semi-automatic rifles, several handguns, quite a few shotguns, and a preponderance of hunting rifles. Tasha saw that pile and knew that the town had brought their guns with them. The Horde had asked, and they had complied.

  They were preparing for war. Again.

  Isaac gave her a gentle push toward the kitchen and the women. “I’ll put your bags in the locker room, Tash.”

  She turned, refusing to be pushed away. “Isaac, you have to tell me what’s going on. If you need me to be a doctor, you have to tell me what to expect.”