I stared at the blinking light, realization hitting me with the force of a freight train.
"Whoever planted these knows we found them," Huck said quietly. "And they know exactly where we are."
I looked up at the horizon. A plume of dust was rising from the main highway, miles away but moving fast. Moving toward us.
We weren't just targets anymore. We were the bait.
CHAPTER 3
The rapid flashing of the red LED light seemed to burn into my retinas. The trap hadn't failed; it had simply changed shape. We had survived the silent assassination attempt, but now we were facing a loud, violent execution.
"How much time do we have?" I barked at Huck, turning my back to the distant plume of dust.
"Hard to tell," Huck said, frantically tossing the black boxes into a heavy canvas duffel bag. "If they were waiting a few miles down the highway to confirm the detonation, they could be here in five minutes."
"Get the men armed. Rifles, shotguns, whatever we have in the lockbox," I ordered, my voice cutting through the rising panic in the parking lot. "Block the driveway with the heavy trucks. Put shooters on the roof and in the tree line. We hold this roadhouse."
The Iron Kings moved like a well-oiled machine. There was no hesitation, no debate. Within sixty seconds, three heavy pickup trucks were parked nose-to-tail across the dirt driveway, forming a makeshift barricade. Men scrambled up the wooden trellis to the flat roof of the diner, carrying heavy canvas bags of ammunition. The metallic clack of pump-action shotguns and the sharp click of rifle bolts echoed through the dry desert air.
I turned and walked briskly into the roadhouse. The interior was dark, the neon beer signs buzzing faintly against the wooden walls. I walked straight past the bar and pushed open the heavy wooden door to the back office where we were holding the young deputy.
He was tied to a wooden chair, his uniform torn, sweat pouring down his pale face. He looked up at me, pure terror in his eyes.
"I didn't know about the bombs!" the kid blurted out before I could even speak. "I swear to God! Miller just told me to drive out here and confirm that the place was leveled. He said you guys had a gas leak explosion!"
I grabbed the back of a chair, pulled it up close to him, and sat down heavily. I leaned forward, my face inches from his.
"Sheriff Miller wants forty men dead," I said, keeping my voice terrifyingly calm. "He wants to murder a woman and a seven-year-old girl. Why?"
The deputy swallowed hard, struggling against the zip-ties on his wrists. "It... it’s the airfield. The old airstrip ten miles north of here. It sits right on your territory border."
I knew the airstrip. It was a crumbling slab of concrete from World War II, mostly reclaimed by the desert. We rode past it all the time.
"What about it?" I demanded.
"Miller has been using it for the last six months," the deputy confessed, his voice breaking. "Night drops. Unmarked planes coming in from south of the border. They’re running military-grade weapons. Assault rifles, heavy ordnance, body armor. Moving it through the county."
The pieces slammed into place. I had strictly forbidden the Iron Kings from dealing in cartel drugs or heavy weapons. We controlled the highways in this county, and we kept the poison out. Miller couldn't run a massive weapons smuggling operation with forty heavily armed, territorial bikers patrolling the roads. He needed us gone, and he needed a cover story.
"If the Iron Kings blow themselves up with military-grade C4," I murmured, staring at the wall, "the feds assume we were a domestic terror cell building bombs that went wrong. The heat comes down on us, and Miller looks like the hero sheriff who cleaned up the county. And the airstrip stays wide open."
"Yes," the deputy whispered. "But you weren't supposed to find the boxes. When the tracker went hot, Miller knew the plan failed. He mobilized the county tactical team."
"He's bringing a SWAT team here?" I asked, my blood running cold.
"Not real SWAT," the kid said, shaking his head frantically. "Mercenaries. Cartel muscle wearing sheriff's department tactical gear. They’re coming to finish the job. They’re going to kill everyone here and say you resisted arrest during a raid."
I stood up, kicking the chair backward. I had to talk to Gator.
I left the office and walked out the back door of the diner. The storage container sat in the dusty rear lot, baking in the sun. Two of my men were guarding the heavy iron door. I nodded to them, and they slid the heavy metal bolt back, pulling the door open.
The heat inside the metal box was suffocating. Gator was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest, his head buried in his hands. He looked up when the sunlight hit him. He looked like a man who had already died.
"Gator," I said, stepping inside and letting the door close halfway to block out the guards.
"I didn't do it, Vance," Gator croaked, his voice raw. "You have to believe me. I would never hurt the club."
"I know," I said softly.