It was a matte-black plastic casing, about the size of a thick paperback book. A single, tiny red LED light pulsed silently near the top corner. Two wires, one red and one blue, snaked out of the box and were spliced directly into the motorcycle’s ignition wiring.
"I got one!" Gator yelled from two rows back, holding up an identical black box.
"Got one here, boss!" another brother shouted.
All around me, men were pulling the black boxes from the bellies of their machines. My mind raced. If they were bombs, why hadn't they detonated when we started the engines?
"Huck!" I shouted, scanning the crowd. "Get up here. Now."
Huck pushed his way through the pack. He was a lanky, quiet man with a shaved head and intricate tattoos covering his arms. Before he found the Iron Kings, he had done two tours in Afghanistan as an explosive ordnance disposal specialist. If anyone knew what we were looking at, it was him.
Huck walked up to me, his face grim. I handed him the box. He didn't speak. He just turned it over in his hands, examining the casing, the wiring, and the magnetic clamps. He pressed a thumb against the pulsing red light.
"It's not a timer," Huck said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He looked up at me, his eyes dead serious. "It's a GPS trigger. Military grade. See this antenna?" He pointed to a small, raised ridge on the plastic. "It's pulling satellite data. They’re rigged to an altimeter and a speedometer."
"English, Huck," I demanded, the blood pounding in my ears.
"If we hit fifty miles an hour, or if we cross the elevation line of the county border, they go off," Huck explained, his fingers tracing the sealed edge of the box. "Inside this casing is a block of C4 big enough to turn you and this bike into pink mist. The ignition wire provides the power. Once you turned the key, the system armed."
A cold sweat broke out across the back of my neck. We had been sitting on thirty-eight armed bombs. If Lily hadn't run out when she did, if we had pulled out onto the highway and hit the throttle... the entire leadership and muscle of the Iron Kings would have been wiped off the face of the earth in a single, synchronized explosion.
I looked down at Lily. Maya had run out of the diner and scooped the girl up into her arms, clutching her tightly against her chest. Maya's face was white with panic.
"Who did this?" Gator growled, limping up beside me, his fists clenched in rage. "The Rattlers? Was it that cartel trash from over the border?"
I stared at the magnetic clamps on the box. They were heavy-duty, highly specialized equipment. This wasn't a sloppy hit by a street gang. This was calculated. Professional.
"I don't know," I said quietly, the anger beginning to burn away the shock.
I looked over at the heavy chain-link gate that secured the side alley where the bikes had been parked overnight. I walked over to it, my boots crunching on the gravel. The heavy Master padlock was still hanging on the latch, but it wasn't locked. The hardened steel shackle had been sheared cleanly in half by a pair of massive hydraulic bolt cutters.
But it wasn't the broken lock that chilled my blood. It was the two Rottweilers, Brutus and Tank, sitting calmly inside the fence. They were trained guard dogs. They would tear the throat out of any stranger who came within ten feet of the bikes in the dark.
Last night, thirty-eight men had slept in the bunkhouse behind the diner. The dogs had been outside.
And the dogs hadn't barked.
I turned back to look at my men, my brothers, the men I had trusted with my life. The realization washed over me like ice water.
Whoever had cut that lock, whoever had planted enough explosives to massacre an entire motorcycle club while we slept... was someone the dogs knew.
Someone was watching us. And someone inside my club had let them in.
The desert heat was already baking the asphalt, but I felt nothing but a bone-deep cold.
The immediate reality of the situation demanded action. Thirty-eight armed explosives were sitting in the open, wired into our machines. Maya was clutching Lily tightly, retreating toward the heavy wooden doors of the roadhouse. I could see the terror in Maya’s eyes, a silent accusation that the violence I had sworn to keep away from her doorstep had finally arrived.
"Huck," I said, keeping my voice low so the panic wouldn't spread through the rest of the pack. "Can you disarm them? Without blowing us all to hell?"
Huck stared at the black box in his hands. The tiny red LED pulsed with a steady, rhythmic heartbeat. "The primary trigger is speed and elevation. But these things usually have an anti-tamper fail-safe. If I just yank the wires, it might complete the circuit. I need to bypass the power supply directly at the ignition splice."
"Do it," I ordered. "Gator, get the rest of the men back. Clear a fifty-yard perimeter around the bikes. Nobody breathes too heavy until Huck gives the all-clear. And get Maya and Lily inside the reinforced cellar under the kitchen."
Gator nodded, his heavy face grim, his limp pronounced as he began barking orders. The men moved with disciplined efficiency, retreating toward the perimeter fence, giving Huck the space he needed.
I walked over to Maya. She was holding Lily's hand tightly, pulling her toward the heavy double doors of the diner.
"Maya," I said, reaching out to touch her arm.
She flinched slightly, pulling back. It hurt to see that reaction. "You said it was safe here, Vance," she whispered, her voice trembling with restrained anger and profound fear. "You promised me."