Chapter 91

Everyone headed to the Hawkes bar. Ken wasn’t sure it was a good idea to go back to the mansion, what with the Fed they still had with them. Not that she couldn’t connect them to about everything anyway.

There had been a few surprises for him when he got back to the van. He hugged his wife, noting that she was still naked and even though she was streaked with blood, she’d healed herself. Cindy was also a bit bloody, but again, there were no marks on her.

“I see we have a couple of guests,” noted Ken after the very short reunion. His chest still hurt, but he was in no danger now. “Care to introduce me?”

“Well,” said Jane, “that over there is one of the Tanker girls who pissed them off.”

“I keep telling you that I’m a Federal Agent,” snapped the woman. Ken, of course, knew that she was telling the truth, but he wasn’t going to admit it. “Now I need a phone, and I want the contents of that safe.”

“Safe?” asked Ken with surprise.

Bill shrugged and pointed to a safe sitting on the floor of the van. It looked to be a couple of hundred pounds and had some dark stains on the bottom.

“Where did that come from?”

“I uh ... was directed to get it,” said Bill. The urgency hadn’t died all that much. He really needed to get into it.

“By whom?”

Bill shrugged and for lack of a better direction, glanced up.

“Hmm,” said Ken. “There’s been a lot of that going around, I think. What the hell is all over the bottom?”

“I kinda ran into one of the Tankers on the way back to the van,” said Bill.

“What’d you do, hit him with the thing?”

“Not ... exactly,” said Bill. “He was gonna shoot me unless I gave it to him.”

Ken just shook his head. Well that explained where the stains had come from.

“Listen,” cut in Connie, “you people need...”

“We,” snapped Ken, who was tired, irritated and still in pain, “don’t need to do anything. You need to sit there and keep quiet. As far as we know, you’re a Tanker, and they’re still on my shit list. Now who the hell is this?”

“Well, we didn’t talk much,” said Jane, “but he was waiting up in the hills with this.”

She held up the sniper rifle.

“I see.”

Jane had tied the man quite well. It was a Circle van after all, so there was at least some emergency rope and restraints in it. She’d used them very effectively.

“Take the gag out and let’s see if he wants to talk.”

The man spit once the gag was removed, but said nothing. He appeared to be unconcerned, and interestingly, Ken’s read of him backed that up. Ken was surprised that the man wasn’t hostile towards him, and that surprised turned to shock when he read him (something he still didn’t like doing) and discovered why he was here.

Ken walked up to him.

“No need to say anything,” he said to the man, who smiled slightly. Ken looked back at the rest of them. “He’s here to kill me. And Bobby. And,” nodding in Connie’s direction, “her.”

“I don’t know where you got that idea,” the man said as Ken turned back to him. “I’m not here to kill anyone.”

“Well I think Bobby hurt himself pretty fatally during the fight,” said Ken, “so you don’t need to worry about him.”

The man shrugged.

“I’m tellin’ you, you got me all wrong.”

Then his eyes widened as they fixed on someone else.

“It seems you know recognize me,” came Sensei’s deceptively mild voice.

The man recovered.

“Sorry, no.”

“Ken, I suggest we continue this somewhere else,” said Sensei. “We don’t know how long we have until we company arrives.”

“This is a crime scene,” said Connie. “You can’t leave. Now I’m telling you, give me a phone and we’ll wait until my people get here.”

“Sensei, can you stay with our friends here? Make sure they don’t do anything that will be problematic during our drive.”

“Of course.”

“Ken!” yelled Knife. “Time to go man! Got company on the way!”

His people piled into the van while Ken went back to the bike he’d been given. Some of the Hawkes had ridden double and they jumped on some of abandoned Tanker bikes and rode off with them. Spoils of war, apparently.

Ken’s chest throbbed as he rode. By all rights he should be dead, but it would take a lot more than this to kill him. He split is attention between the ride and thoughts of what She had set in motion. He couldn’t say he was upset that the Tankers, and Bosh, were dealt with. But he wasn’t overly amused by the Goddess using Jane and Cindy as bait. Well ... Jane could take care of herself and he knew that. Rationally. But she was his wife, and he felt a strong need to protect her in spite of the fact that he knew she really didn’t need it.

Still, it was probably time to talk with his Goddess. If she was going to be this hard on her followers, well ... he didn’t know what he was going to do.

They arrived at the bar without incident, which was a nice change of pace for the day. Ken had them pull the van around back and into a large barn where they stored and repaired gang’s bikes. He got off the bike and walked to the van as they closed the doors. He could hear Knife out back, yelling about their victory. There would be a lot of very drunk people tonight.

The side door slid open and the bound man stumbled out being held by Sensei. Jane helped Connie out, but of course the fed was still arguing. He’d had enough of that tonight.

“Shut up,” he said as he walked up to her. She stopped talking, out of surprise if nothing else.

“Now listen to me very carefully,” he said. “I’ve had an unpleasant night. I don’t really care if you’re an actual federal agent or a Tanker. But I want you gone.”

“You can’t kill me...”

“I said be quiet!” snapped Ken. “Get it through your head that fed or not, you’re not in charge of anything here. You’ll be taken somewhere, given a bike and some clothes, and you can do what you want from there. But I sure as hell don’t want to see you again. Are we clear?”

“I need that safe,” she said. “Let me call my people. We can cut a deal...”

That was it. He was on her in a second, his hand around her neck. The move surprised everyone, even Sensei.

“You think,” he said quietly into her ear, “that I don’t know what you were going to do? If the Hawkes hadn’t come along when they had, you would have let them sell Jane and Cindy, CINDY who is only fourteen, into slavery just so you could make a collar. You think I don’t know that? You disgust me. You’re everything I’ve come to expect from a government agency.”

Connie almost fainted. There was no way ... no way that he could possibly know that. None!

Yet from the look in his eyes, it was clear he did.

“Put her back in the van, someone grab a bike and some clothes for her, then get her out of my sight,” said Ken.

“I’ll take care of it,” said Eric. He looked over at Gary who nodded.

“Hey Ken,” said Bill, “Um ... I really need to get into that safe.”

“Do what you have to,” he said. “I need to have a talk with Jeremy here. He needs to understand his contract is complete.”

As he walked away, he pulled out his cell. He was going to need help with this situation. Connie’s involvement was a big problem. Jeremy was also a problem, but he doubted anyone would notice if he permanently disappeared.

He walked over to where Sensei and Jane were standing with Jeremy while Bill pulled the safe out of the van.

“So you were contracted for one point five million dollars to kill me, Bobby and Connie,” said Ken looking at the man. “How about I pay you two million to walk away?”

The man smiled, but shook his head. He had no idea where this guy was getting his information, but it was spot on. That was scary. Not as scary as the fact that he’d somehow gotten on the wrong side of Scott Turcotte though. Still, he had a rep and if he ditched a contract it would damage that rep. A man had to have standards.

“We could turn him over to the police,” said Jane.

“Yeah, because they’ve been so helpful,” said Ken.

“He would never talk anyway,” said Scott. “He has far too much to lose.”

“So what the fuck are we going to do with him?” asked Ken. “We let him walk and he’ll just keep coming.”

“There is one solution I can think of,” said Sensei. Their eyes met.

“Fine.”

Costa was at the mansion with two men Ken had never met, and probably wouldn’t meet again after tonight. He didn’t know who they were, and didn’t want to know.

“Glad to know everything came out okay,” said Angelo. Then he frowned. “Is that a bullet hole in your clothing?”

“Yeah,” said Ken. “Turns out being shot sucks.”

Costa let out a laugh.

“It does at that.” The he turned serious. “Here’s what we need to do. At the least, your van and that safe need to disappear. I will make that happen. I can provide alibis for you and your people. Easy, since we were here at a private dinner party all night. As long as there is no other physical evidence we need to worry about, we should be fine. The cops won’t care over much about two biker gangs having it out. Your federal agent might be more of a problem though. Especially if you have something she wants.”

“I think that we do, actually. She wanted the safe.”

“It’ll disappear with the van.”

“Okay.” Then, “We already have the contents. Maybe if she gets that, she’ll go away.”

“Doubtful,” said Angelo with a shrug. “But I have good lawyers.”

The men with Angelo were definitely professional. Exactly what kind of professional Ken didn’t know, but they left in short order with the van and the safe -- sans the contents. Apparently there’d been a laptop and some other electronics inside it that Bill had insisted on keeping and Ken thought that the Feds might be interested in the rest. It was after midnight before they got around to dealing with Jeremy. He’d been cooling his heels, still bound, at the back of the house.

“Nice place,” he said as Ken, Arianwen and Sensei walked up. Jane had been keeping an eye on him while Ken and Angelo dealt with getting rid of the evidence from the evening’s activities.

“I asked you a question earlier,” said Ken. “At least you were honest about your answer -- mostly. So now I’m going to give you a choice.”

“Sounds ominous,” said the man. “You don’t really look like the cold blooded killer type. Gonna get wifey to do the deed? She looks like she’d enjoy it.” Then he looked at Sensei. “Unless you’re gonna get him to do it.”

“We’re not going to kill you,” said Ken.

“Oh?” said the man. He was pretty confident that they were going to turn him over to the police. What else were they going to do with him, after all? Well ... there was Turcotte.

“I have a friend,” said Ken. “His name is Angelo Costa. Said he’d be happy to have a talk with you.”

That was a death sentence. If this guy was Costa’s friend, he’d almost be better off with Turcotte.

“That might be interesting,” said Jeremy. “Still, I like to keep my options open. What’s this other choice?’’

“You and I will go for a short walk, and then I’ll leave you.”

“So you are going to kill me.”

“Me? No. Whether you live or die will be up to you.”

Costa was certain death. Turcotte would be worse.

“I’m up for a walk.”

They untied him and to his surprise even gave him his gun back. Unloaded, of course. Ken picked up a black bag and looked at him.

“Let’s go.”

They headed deeper onto the property.

Jeremy was confused about what was going on, but wanted to bide his time until they were out of range of the house. More specifically, Turcotte and that insane woman that Whitestone was married to. He didn’t think she could beat him again. Her being naked had thrown him. Her being unbelievably fast and strong had been a real surprise. Still, now that he was warned, she wouldn’t get away with cheap tricks twice.