Bull Mountain(67)

“Where’s the truck?”

“We had to wipe it and leave it. Don’t worry, it’s clean.”

Halford looked at the three tarped pallets of pot with no truck to be loaded into. He scratched at his mammoth beard. “What did they get?”

Bracken unzipped his leather cut. “They got it all.”

“All what?”

“All the money, Hal. They took it all. Let’s go in and talk about it.”

The little bit of skin that showed through Halford’s mane flushed red. “What the f*ck is there to talk about? You lost my money. You need to get out there and find it.”

Bracken flicked his eyes to his men and then back at Halford. “We didn’t lose shit. We got jacked. What we need to do now is sit down and try to figure all this out. These guys were prepared. They had information. It’s a very short list of people who knew we were gonna be out here and knew they could work without the law showing up.”

“Not my problem,” Halford said. “Your people. Your problem.”

Bracken tilted his head and looked at Halford as though he might be someone else. “How long have we known each other, Hal?”

“Not long enough to forgive a two-hundred-thousand-dollar f*ckup. Folks get killed for a whole lot less around here, and they been knowing each other since before their nuts dropped. You need to call Wilcombe and make it right.”

“I tried that already.”

“And what did the old prick have to say?”

“I can’t reach him.”

That gave Halford pause.

“You can’t reach him?”

“I’ve tried to call him six times since we got hit, but he’s not answering.”

“He’s not answering?”

“That’s what I said. He’s not answering.”

“Has that ever happened before?”

Bracken looked back at Moe, Tilmon, and Romeo. None of them had the answer to that.

“No,” Bracken said. “Never. That’s why I’m saying we got something to figure out here.”

Halford dropped the shotgun down off his shoulder into both hands. Bracken and Romeo both reached for their weapons but froze at the echoing sounds of several cocking weapons flanking them on all sides.

“You’re pretty goddamn jumpy, Bracken, for an innocent man.”

“Hal.” Bracken held his gloved hands in plain sight. “Everyone needs to calm down for a second and think. If I wanted to rob you, would I have done it, stashed the money, and then rode up this mountain a day late right into the lion’s den? Seriously, would I walk right up to the man I just ripped off and shit on his front porch? I mean, damn, Hal, if I wanted to rob you, I could have just kept riding. I know what a war with you means, and I certainly wouldn’t have come here to your doorstep to fight it. Put the gun down.”

Halford glared at Bracken and the bikers. At least ten armed men stood behind them, waiting on the word to mow them down, no different to them than picking off turkeys. Bracken kept his hands up, palms out, showing the shredding on the leather. “Hal, I wouldn’t have wrecked my bike on purpose.”

“With that much money, you could buy another one.”

“We were robbed, Hal.”

“Right, by the phantom G.I. Joe crew that disappeared into the wind.”

“Not all of them,” Moe said.

Halford pointed the shotgun at him. “Keep talking.”

“Romeo tagged one of them. Killed that f*cker in the street.”

“That right?”

Romeo nodded in agreement.

“Where’s the body?”

“Most likely with highway patrol,” Bracken said, edging back into the conversation. “We left it in the street. I didn’t recognize him, and it was everything we could do to get to a friendly place to patch up and get here.”

Halford lowered his gun. He nodded, and his men lowered theirs, too. “Come on, let’s call your boss.”

3.

Halford stomped up the front steps of the compound, passed a shaky young Rabbit, and headed straight to the kitchen area. He yanked open one of the drawers and rummaged through the contents until he found a silver-and-white cell phone. It was a dedicated burner used only as a direct line to Oscar Wilcombe. He rarely used it. He rarely had to contact the man directly anymore, but when he did, it never went unanswered. He fished around in the drawer for the battery, clicked it in, and held the power button down until a series of beeps indicated it was powered up. He paced around the kitchen as he waited for a signal, grumbling and cussing under his breath. Bracken and the other Jacksonville Jackals, as well as Scabby Mike and two more of Halford’s lieutenants, Franklin and Ray-Ray, entered the great room and spread out into the armory. Each of them filed in quietly, knowing full well they were standing in a house of cards that could collapse at any second with a simple nod from the man with the phone.

Halford put the phone to his ear. It rang only once.

“Hello, Halford.”

“What the f*ck is going on, Oscar? I’ve got Bracken and three more of your boys here and they’re light. About two hundred grand light.”

Wilcombe was silent at first, but when he answered, his voice was restrained. It was a liar’s tone. “That’s unfortunate.”