across the street, Damien and The Suit sat in a car looking out through the tinted windows. The Suit lowered his binoculars and said, “That’s O’Reilly!” Damien took a quick glimpse through the binoculars, then picked up a portable radio.
“Pork chop number two just entered through the main entrance.”
Whiskey Jake, who was the president of the east-side chapter, sat in a van parked in the underground parking lot of the building. With him were Sparks, Thumper, and Two-Forty Gordy.
Whiskey Jake thumbed the radio and said, “Copy that.”
A couple of minutes later, Damien gave another message: “Lights just went on. He’s in the apartment. It’s up to you guys now.”
“No problem,” replied Whiskey Jake.
Damien glanced at Bishop and said, “I’m taking you to your car.”
“No, I want to see it,” said The Suit. “I want to see them beg for their lives!”
Damien grabbed The Suit by the front of his jacket, jerking him halfway across the seat. “You put my family and everyone in the club at risk today! I’m not selling ringside seats here! This isn’t a fucking game you’re watching!”
Twenty minutes later, Damien stopped a block from where The Suit’s car was parked. Neither man had spoken a word. The Suit got out and slammed the door as he left.
Two hours later, Jack drove into the underground parking lot and parked in his stall. A minute later, he opened the metal door leading to the alcove where the elevators were. He stepped inside and saw that he wasn’t alone. The man facing him was wearing a ski mask.
Jack’s adrenal glands instantly electrified his body, but it was too late to prevent the solid kick he received to his groin. His knees wobbled as two more men grabbed each of his arms from behind. The pain made him want to vomit.
He was slammed face down on the concrete floor. He could see the square-toed boots of the man who had kicked him. A small piece of leather was curled back off the end of one of the boots. He wondered, briefly, if it was the result of someone being kicked in the teeth, then thought it ironic that he would think of that when he was about to die. A hand jerked his pistol out of his holster, and he braced himself for the shot.
Seconds later, his eyes and mouth were plastered with duct tape. He hands were bound behind his back and his ankles were also wrapped. They found the knife he carried for undercover duties and slid it out of its scabbard. He was then lifted off the ground by his arms and dragged out the door. He heard the sound of a sliding door and was tossed inside a van. Perhaps he had been optimistic, thinking that his life would end so quickly. They want to know who the informant is first, he realized.
He felt someone remove his keys from his pocket. Nobody had spoken a word. He heard the sliding door again as some of the men left the van. He had a sickening feeling that he knew why they had taken his keys.
His body rolled against a metal bar under a seat as the van sped away.
Danny was sitting on the sofa watching television when he heard the sound of the key in the apartment door. “Good, you’re back!” he hollered. “I feel like a drink.” He heard the footsteps behind him and said, “I talked with Susan. She’s scared but she’s okay.”
Danny felt the cold barrel of a pistol in his ear. He snapped his head around, and the barrel of the pistol obscured the vision of one eye. The man holding the pistol was wearing a ski mask. He looked past him and saw two other men. They were also wearing ski masks — and they were also pointing pistols at him.
chapter thirty-three
Jack estimated an hour had passed before the van came to a stop. During the trip, he vowed that he would never release Lance’s name. He would quickly give them a few names, then hold out for as long as possible — and finally give them Rolly.
He thought of other things. He wished that he had a chance to tell Natasha that he loved her one more time. He wished that he could apologize to Susan for failing to protect her husband, and somehow to Tiffany, for giving her a life without a father.
The sliding door of the van opened and he was hauled out by the arms and dragged across rough ground before being placed in a kneeling position.
The minutes ticked by and all he heard was the engine noise from a couple of vehicles. He started to lose his balance and felt himself falling forward, but a hand grabbed him by the hair and jerked him back into position. The duct tape was unwrapped from around his eyes.
Jack blinked and strained his eyes to see. Headlights behind him cast light and shadows across a construction site. He stared down at a hollow wall of rough planks interwoven with metal bars. He was kneeling in front of a large pit that had been dug out of the ground to build a basement. The construction was at the stage where the forms had been prepared for the pouring of the cement floor.
Jack looked behind him but was blinded by the high-beam headlights of a van and a car. He glanced down at the feet of a man standing beside him. He could make out the same square-toed boots and realized that his groin still ached. The man was no longer wearing a ski mask and sneered down at him. He recognized him from photographs of the east-side chapter as someone who went by the nickname of Thumper. Two more men approached from out of the headlights, and one of them used Jack’s knife to cut the tape wrapped around the back of his neck before peeling it off his mouth. Jack recognized him as a striker from the same chapter. The striker handed the knife to the third man, who commanded, “Leave us!”
Thumper and the striker walked back and disappeared behind the headlights. Jack recognized Damien’s face as he stepped closer.
“Do you know who I am, Officer Taggart?”
Jack looked up at his face. “Sure I do, Damien. Please, call me Jack. I hate formalities. Excuse me for not shaking hands.”
Damien did not appear to be amused. “Let’s get to the point. What do you think the point is, Jack?”
“The point is, you fucked up this morning by trying to kill my partner and his wife and baby. Now you’re fucking up again!”
“I can understand why you would think that. Tell me, why do you think you ended up out here?”
“You want me to give you the name of someone. Good luck. Let the games begin! What will you start with? Water and a cattle prod?”
“Interesting tip. Tell me, Jack, just out of curiosity, what name would you yell out first?”
“Yours!”
A wry smile flashed across Damien’s face, and then he said, “That’s what I thought. I know we’ve got a rat in our club. I accept that. It happens, and it is something that will be dealt with. Unfortunately for you, others don’t accept it quite as easily as I do, which brings us to the point of our meeting here.”
“The point being?”
“The point being that sometimes large organizations have internal problems that need to be dealt with. You referred to an incident this morning. I had no knowledge about that incident until after it happened. I admit that someone in my organization may have been impetuous. I have since rectified the situation.”
“Impetuous!
