AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Take it easy, son,” Boomer said. “Agent Harris is clearly experiencing some emotional distress. But now that he’s seen everything there is to see… and more importantly, that there is nothingtosee… he and the rest of the FBI will be leaving. Won’t you, Agent?”
Without another word, Harris spun on his heel and stormed out of the back office, his underling agents trailing behind him like baby ducks desperate to keep up with their mother. Once they were gone, silence hung heavy for a few moments, like a tornado had just run through town unexpectedly and everyone had come out of their homes to look around at the damage.
It was Griz who finally broke the silence, with the question that was on everyone’s minds.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he said.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Pony said. “Where did this come from?”
“It was like they were expecting to find something. You see how that FBI guy went straight to the bar?”
Boomer’s voice was still calm. “We knew there was an undercover fed around here somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Griz said. “I guess they decided that now was the time to make their move. But there wasn’t anything here… seems sloppy for feds. They usually don’t move unless they know what they’re going to find.”
“Maybe they got spooked after the cabin,” Pony said, “and thought they needed to move faster than they wanted to.”
Boomer said, “You said they looked like they expected to find something.”
“Yeah,” Griz said. “That Agent Happy guy…”
“Harris,” Pony said.
“Harris, right. Whenever Becca gives someone a stupid nickname, it tends to stick in my head. But anyway, yeah, he bee-lined over to that shit like he expected to find something there.”
“Any reason why there would be?” Boomer said.
“No. No, all the brothers have been watching themselves, and we went through this place and cleaned it all out of anything that even looked a little squirrelly.”
“And yet,” Boomer said, scratching at his beard. “Judging by Agent Happy… damn it, now I’m doing it… judging by the FBI’s reactions, they clearly expected to find something right there, and when they didn’t, they freaked and started grasping for straws.”
The three men were silent for a bit, working through the angles in their minds, trying to sort out the whys and wherefores of the FBI’s sudden appearance. Once again, it was Griz who broke the silence.
“Someone was inside. The undercover. Told them about something they saw under the bar.”
“Or put under the bar,” Pony said quietly.
“Motherfucker,” Griz said. “Yeah. Or that. You think the feds have that much of a hard-on for the club, that they’d actually plant evidence?”
“Maybe Agent Happy does,” Pony said.
“Right,” Boomer said. “Not all federal agents are created equal. We might be dealing with someone who’s willing to step outside of the lines in order to manufacture a case against the club. Or against one of the brothers, enough so that they could hope to flip them and make them testify against the rest of us.”
“Fat fucking chance of that happening,” Griz said.
Pony nodded silently, thinking it all through. Finally, he said, “The weak spot is the undercover. None of the brothers are going to crack, or make a stupid mis-step now that we know the feds are watching. But if they’ve got someone on the inside…”
“They could open up the gates to the castle, so to speak,” Boomer said. “Which they just tried to do today.”
“So now we have to start thinking about who might’ve been spying on us,” Griz said. “And what to do with them once we catch them.”
“Let’s start with identifying the informant, and worry about what we’ll do later,” Boomer said. “Limiting the damage is the priority.”
Pony was quiet again, staring at the floor. Thoughts were swirling in his head, thoughts he didn’t like, but thoughts that wouldn’t stay away and instead swirled around and around in his head, refusing to be ignored.
Harris had been sure there was something under the bar. Something important, something worth showing his hand and kicking in the door, so to speak, with a warrant.
So sure, that when there hadn’t been anything, he had thrown a hissy fit. A very un-FBI thing to do. Griz was right; those guys were usually all business, never moving unless they were certain.
