‘Something my old man taught me,’ Lock said.
‘And what’s that?’ Reaper said, rubbing the back of his neck with one giant shovel of a hand.
‘Always get your retaliation in first.’
13
The screen door of the rented single-story house slammed behind Chance as she emerged into the early-morning sunlight. She stood there for a moment collecting her thoughts. She was dressed in an outfit guaranteed to deduct at least twenty IQ points from any heterosexual male: cut-off Daisy Duke shorts, a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt, white cotton ankle socks and a pair of black kitten-heel sandals.
The pit bull that Chance had won from a Hell’s Angel in an all-night poker game barked a warning from its metal-framed run which ran the length of the house. She had planned to sell it on to a guy she’d met who was into dog fighting, but in the end decided to keep it, figuring it would prove a deterrent for inquisitive neighbors So far she’d been proved right. In the month she’d been renting the small whitewashed bungalow, no one had been to her front door, not even the mail man.
She climbed into the red pick-up truck parked in the drive, tossed her briefcase on to the passenger side of the bench seat and reversed out on to the street at speed. Within ten minutes she was roaring down the on-ramp and merging with the early-morning traffic on Interstate 5 South. She kept her speed at an even sixty as she headed out of Los Angeles.
She flicked on the radio, catching a Jimmy Buffett tune mid-chorus. Jimmy was singing a song called ‘We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About’. It was one of Chance’s favorites
Chance rolled down the windows either side of her as traffic ahead of her slowed to a crawl. The breeze felt good on her skin. In the lane next to her a businessman in a BMW saloon was staring at her. She raised her sunglasses and winked at him. The poor sap lost all concentration and looked up just in time to avoid rear-ending the car in front of him. Chance spotted a gap in the outside lane and zoomed into it, leaving the BMW driver in her dust.
Men. Always thinking with their dicks.
Leaving Orange County the traffic cleared, and she started making good time. The meeting was set for eleven o’clock and she couldn’t afford to be late.
In the end she made it with an hour to spare, taking the off-ramp twelve miles shy of San Diego and following the directions on her GPS according to the coordinates she’d been given.
The rendezvous point was down a dirt track at the back of a vacant lot. The track dead-ended at what looked like a disused auto repair shop. Chance parked the truck and went to take a look around.
The building was squat and low. There were two large sliding doors. She heaved one open and stepped inside. The place smelled of motor oil and tobacco. A bench ran the length of the back wall. A stack of truck tires was piled against a barred window.
Chance heard a vehicle approaching, its gears grinding. She ducked outside to take a look.
A yellow rental truck parked up and a man in his late fifties sporting salt-and-pepper hair and a pair of old-school RayBan Wayfarer sunglasses hopped out of the cab. He was wearing khaki combat trousers, a white T-shirt and black boots.
He stopped when he saw her and looked her up and down. Her outfit was definitely having the desired effect.
‘Hi,’ she said, flicking back a strand of blonde hair from in front of her face.
‘Well, if this don’t beat all,’ he said. He had more than a hint of a Southern accent. Georgia maybe. Or Mississippi.
‘You bring everything?’ Chance asked him.
‘Oh, I got everything,’ he said.
What an asshole, thought Chance.
‘Can I see it?’
‘Sure, it’s in the back of the truck.’
She followed him to the rear of the truck. He fiddled with a padlock then opened up doors at the back. He climbed in the back and helped her up. There were three plywood coffins there.
‘Nice touch,’ said Chance.
‘No one’s going to open one of these coming back from Iraq on a military transport plane,’ the man said.
‘You mind if I take a look?’ she asked him.
‘Go right ahead, honey.’
She prised open the lid of the first coffin and took a look inside. She took out an M-4 assault rifle and checked it over.
The man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘It’s all here. Everything you asked for. Now, did you bring the money?’
Chance nodded, replacing the lid. ‘You help me get this stuff loaded first?’
‘Sure thing. Tell you the truth, I’m glad to be getting rid of it,’ he said, rolling up his sleeves to reveal a black sun tattoo.
They set to work moving the coffins from the back of the hire truck to her pick-up. Chance could tell that the man was surprised by her physical strength. ‘You sure you should be lifting stuff?’ he asked her.
Chance smiled sweetly. ‘Dude, your belly’s bigger than mine. What do you think Pilgrim women did when they were pregnant? Sit home and eat bonbons?’
He laughed and they carried on.
As they lifted the final coffin he told her to be careful. ‘This one’s got that real special delivery.’
Chance felt her heart quicken. ‘The pressure plates?’
‘Calibrated to the weight you asked for.’
Slowly, they maneuvered the coffin from the truck and slid it along the bed of the pick-up. Then Chance covered all three coffins with a green tarpaulin.
‘The money’s here,’ she said, walking round to the front of the pick-up, opening the passenger-side door and grabbing the briefcase. She flipped open the two catches and held the contents up for inspection.
The man smiled at the thick bundles of hundred-dollar bills. His tongue flicked across his lips.
She looked past him to the rear of the truck. ‘Damn, that tarpaulin’s come loose. Could you fix it for me?’
‘Be my pleasure, honey,’ he said.
She put the briefcase down on the ground and reached back into the cab of the truck, grabbing a loaded Glock 9mm. ‘You’re so sweet,’ Chance said, leveling the gun at him and firing two shots into the man’s back from less than ten feet away. He took a step, his body twisting round. Then his legs folded and he fell, face down. She closed in on him, firing two more rounds into the back of his head.
Satisfied he was dead, she got back into the red pick-up, picked up her cell phone and called Cowboy, one of the two men she trusted most in the world. Along with his friend Trooper, Cowboy was a dedicated Aryan warrior. They had been by her side through the toughest of times, and in a world where trust was in short supply she knew they would stand by her come what may. They had proved as much when they’d helped her resolve the Prager situation.
Cowboy answered on the first ring.
‘I got it,’ she said.
‘Any problems?’
She stared in the side mirror at the man’s body lying flat, blood puddling out around him.
‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Plain sailing.’
14
A blue-steel light filtering through the bars of Lock and Reaper’s cell announced the dawn of a new day. Along with the other inmates in the unit, Lock and Reaper had spent the remainder of the previous day confined to their cell. Having been escorted from the yard, the three members of the Aryan Brotherhood had failed to reappear. Lock guessed they had been transferred either to another unit or solitary, and not before time.
Regardless of the reason, and even with them gone, Lock knew there was no way he could afford to relax. The Aryan Brotherhood was a powerful organisation whose tentacles stretched out beyond their immediate membership, and its leadership wasn’t about to give up without a fight.
Finishing up a breakfast of fluorescent pink ham, bread, butter and an apple, washed down with milk, Lock put down his meal tray and nodded towards the stack of books on the floor. ‘Mind if I take a look?’