“But! I do have an area to target. And luckily, part of that area is covered by a highway.” He turns the screen my way, and a map pops up. He has drawn a large red circle over the area, and, as he said, most of the area inside the boundaries is a stretch of highway I’m very familiar with.
I lean in closer, noting all of the street names and the mile markers. In my head, I’m piecing together bits of my regular rides as if it will help me spot where the Coyotes would have taken her. “I know that part of the highway. I used to ride it to get to Chris’ repair shop to do inventory and check-ins. That is, until I burnt it down a few days ago with Ryan.”
“That has to be where she is, Cal.” Ace stands next to me, pointing towards where the repair shop is located on the map. “Maddie said something about it being smoky. Maybe she meant it smelled like smoke or the air was still smoky. If they are holding her at a part of the repair shop that wasn’t destroyed, it will still reek of the burn. And most repair shops have those underground areas to do oil changes. That could explain why there isn’t any windows.”
I look at him, totally deadpan, before I burst out at him, “You’re right! You’re motherfucking right. They have to have her there. There’s nowhere else on this map that would fit that description.” A million thoughts are racing through my head as I rummage through my jacket for my keys.
I’m nearly out the door before I turn around. No one has moved or begun to follow me. They are all still sitting there waiting for Jager to make the call. I stand by the door pleading with them, “What are we waiting for? What are we doing?”
“We can’t just go in there. That’s what they are expecting. They’ll execute them before we can get through the front door. We need a plan.” Jager turns back to his men. His hands rest upon his head as he leans back lazily. “What do you have, guys.”
There’s silence as everyone hunches down a bit lower. Finally, Red Dog clears his throat. “If we can’t charge in, we have to go in bit by bit. We’re in a war right now, there’s no doubt about it. This is our chance to lay it out all on the line, our chance to say no more. I say we go in for a three pronged attack.”
He pulls the computer out of Walton’s hands and types in a web address. A map again pops up, but this one has three points designated. I walk towards the table to see what he has in mind.
“First, we send our main crew, the young guns, and some of the newer enforcers out to attack their clubhouse again. The attack lasts two hours. After the first half hour, enough time for them to inform the other Coyotes what’s going on, we send the seconds and main enforcers to head out towards the warehouse where they do the main distributions. It won’t be guarded, but as soon as we make our move, their seconds and top teams will respond leaving Chris’ repair shop open. That’s when we go in – the Alpha Squad. We go in quickly, quietly, and we take down Addison Bell and the Mountain from there.”
Jager looks at him long and hard before leaning forward in his chair and reaching out his hand. “That’s brilliant, Red. They won’t see us organizing and hitting three at once.” He begins writing down a list of names and placing them in columns. A large map of the city is pulled out from his supplies in his basement office. He circles spots, drawing lines. It’s as if we are a football team getting our plays right rather than motorcycle club members on the attack.
He uses sticky notes to place men at each of the spots. Red Dog and Ace stand next to him arguing who goes where and the vantage points to be used. But I stay in the background. I’m too emotional to make this my mission. This needs men who have their head in the game, not men who are transfixed on the idea that the two people he cared for most were getting slaughtered in the down time.
There’s another part of me, though, that is longing to jump in. That part of me aches knowing those names and the people they belong to won’t be making it out of the places we are sending them to. I feel like I should be the one putting their name down in that black ink, the one condemning them to being shot at, to being taken, to being killed. I’m signing their funeral receipts. I’m the one issuing them to say goodbye to their own daughters and women. But the ultimate sacrifice is worth it for this club. And these are the decisions that have to be made. So I keep my head down, my mouth shut.