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“I’m gonna send Country with you, too, just in case,” Magnus tells us. “Be good to have four men on the job. Go faster, too.”
“Fine by me,” I say. Country’s good company. As his road name indicates, he’s a rural boy through and through, born and raised on a farm in west central Minnesota. The man might be a biker — and he’s a damn good, loyal MC brother to boot — but he’s got a naive streak a mile wide. It’s fun as hell to fuck with him.
Wreck was checking his phone the whole time Money was counting the inventory, and now he clears his throat. “If we’re good here, me and Pony are gonna get back on the road,” he rumbles. “I wanna get the hell back down to Omaha ASAP.”
“What’s so pressing you gotta get back so soon?” I ask him. “No offense, brother, but that drive to Nebraska is boring as fuck. I wouldn’t be in any hurry to get back on it if I was you.”
Pony Boy gives us a smirk. “Wreck is just hearin’ the call of the pussy,” he jokes. “His old lady, Sydnee, has him wrapped around her little finger. Not to mention their little girl, Angel. Wreck’s in husband and daddy mode. He wants to get back home and get back to playin’ family man.”
“Shut it, Pony Boy,” Wreck warns, shoving his phone back in his pocket. “You’re damn right I wanna get back to my wife and my family. You’d feel the same if you were in my shoes. I ain’t ashamed of it.”
Reed and Black give Wreck some shit about this, joining in with Pony Boy on razzing him. I take a couple of shots at him, too, but my heart ain’t in it. Wreck is about the last guy I’d have ever imagined would settle down with one woman, much less marry her and have a kid. But shit, I thought there was something different about him when he showed up, and now I realize it’s something in his face. The lean and hungry look he used to have is gone. In its place is the expression of a man who knows who he is. Someone who knows his place in the world. It’s the expression of a man who knows what’s waiting at home for him.
Kat’s face flashes in my mind, unbidden.
Could I have that, too?
I gave up believing in a future like that when I gave her up the first time. But hell, maybe it’s not too late.
Wreck and Pony Boy pile into their van and go back to Omaha. Black, Reed, Country, and I get ready to head up north. We pack my F-150 and hook a pop-up trailer to it, into which we load our shipment underneath some fishing and camping supplies. If we’re stopped by the law, our story is that we’re going up north to a buddy’s cabin on Lake of the Woods for a fishing trip. It won’t hold up if they decide to search the camper very carefully, but at that point we’ll have other problems anyway. Once we’re loaded up, Reed gets behind the wheel and we take off, with instructions on where and when to meet our contact.
The Lake of the Woods cabin isn’t a lie. That’s really where we’re heading. The club’s got a place about three miles south of the lake, north of a town called Baudette. It’s secluded enough that there aren’t any neighbors close enough to see any of our business. People up north are pretty independent and tend to keep to themselves anyway. And they’re generally respectful of signs that say no trespassing.
It takes us about six hours to drive up there, counting a stop at a diner for lunch. When we arrive, we pull the camper in behind the cabin so it can’t be seen from the road and detach it from the F-150. There’s a fishing boat and a boat trailer on the property that we use for transporting our product across the border. We’ve transferred the AR-15s and the ghost gun kits into water-tight containers, which we pack into the livewell of the fishing boat. Then we hook the boat trailer to the truck and drive the few miles to the public boat launch.
Half an hour later, we’re out on the water. I’m at the helm, motoring slowly on a route I must have done a dozen times at least. The boat’s got a good-sized motor on her, but I keep her speed to about ten knots so as to not attract too much attention. At that speed, it takes us a couple of hours to make it to the meet-up point at Big Island, just across the border.
The trawler is already there, waiting for us. It’s a smallish one, say thirty-two, thirty-three feet long. Three guys are fishing off the back of the boat. All are deeply tanned, dressed in khaki shorts. One wears a white polo shirt with the logo of a fishing company on the left breast. The other two wear Hawaiian-style shirts and brimmed golf visors. They’re the only boat in the inlet.
“How they biting?” Black calls to them as we motor up.
“Can’t complain.”
“Permission to come aboard,” I shout.
“Granted. Come on over.”
Black and Reed grab the fenders and sling them over the port side of the boat, and they do the same to their starboard side. I maneuver us so we’re parallel to the trawler. They’ve picked a good spot. Our sterns will be out of the line of sight of anyone who might come up on us unexpectedly.
We toss lines across and secure the boats together. I signal to Black and Reed to stay back on our boat. The trawler sits higher in the water than we do, but climbing aboard isn’t too difficult.
The balding guy in the white polo shirt seems to be the one in charge. He eyes me wordlessly, waiting.
“You catching any walleye today?” I ask. The beginning of the code sequence.
Bald Guy shrugs. “Better for sturgeon. Walleyes we got are too small. Have to keep throwin’ ‘em back.” He pauses. “Been seein’ a lot of tulibee, too.”
“Good for smoking,” I reply.
He gives me a brief smile. Code complete. “You’re right on time.” Lifting a chin toward our boat. “You got everything?”
“In the livewell. It’s all there.”
I give the signal. Reed, Black, and Country start hauling up the crates. We transfer them to the other boat via the transom, and Bald Guy’s men pull them aboard. One of them opens each container and shows Baldie, who squints at the merchandise for a bit like he’s mentally calculating what’s in there. Once he gives his okay, the other ones immediately start transferring it down into the hold.
“Heads up!” Country calls out just as the last container has been loaded aboard the trawler. I turn to him and he points toward the west. A boat is approaching, headed straight for us.
“Shit,” I hiss. I hop back over to our boat and tell Black, “Turn on some tunes.” Then, bending to the cooler we brought just for a situation like this, I open it up and grab four cans of beer. I toss three of them to the men in the trawler and keep one for myself, then climb back onto the transom of their boat just as Lynyrd Skynyrd comes pumping out of the portable speaker we were using earlier.
