“Without calling him.”
Gabriel Knox owned a motorcycle repair shop outside Flagstaff.
Caleb appreciated the irony.
They arrived after midnight.
The building was dark except for one security light.
Thirty motorcycles sat behind a steel fence.
Rachel hesitated.
“What if Mason was wrong?”
“What if he wasn't?”
“That doesn't answer me.”
“No.”
Caleb parked several blocks away.
They approached on foot.
The shop door opened before they reached it.
A tall man stepped outside.
Gray beard.
Black leather vest.
Silver hawk patch.
He carried a shotgun.
Rachel stopped.
“Gabriel.”
The weapon lowered immediately.
“Rachel?”
Her name broke something in his face.
Gabriel crossed the distance and wrapped her in his arms.
Rachel remained stiff for two seconds.
Then she collapsed against him.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.
“Mason?”
Gabriel's expression answered before he spoke.
“I don't know.”
Inside, Gabriel locked every entrance.
Five bikers emerged from rooms behind the shop.
Caleb stiffened.
Gabriel raised a hand.
“My family.”
He introduced them one at a time.
A nurse.
An electrician.
A retired Marine.
A school-bus driver.
A tattoo artist.
Not what Caleb expected.
Rachel showed Gabriel the laptop.
When Mason's video played, Gabriel's eyes hardened.
“Russell.”
“You suspected him?” Caleb asked.
“For months.”
“Why didn't you act?”
“Because suspicion gets people killed. Evidence gets people convicted.”
Gabriel opened a safe.
Inside were documents Thomas had mailed before his death.
“I've been building a case too.”
Rachel stared at him.
“Why didn't you tell Mason?”
“Because Mason was angry enough to charge into hell alone.”
“He might be dead because nobody helped him.”
Gabriel absorbed the accusation.
“Maybe.”
The single word silenced the room.
A radio crackled on a shelf.
One of the bikers answered.
His expression changed.
“Gabe.”
“What?”
“Someone followed them.”
Lights appeared outside.
Then gunfire shattered the front window.
Everyone dropped.
Gabriel killed the lights.
Caleb pulled Rachel behind an engine block.
A bullet struck the steel door.
The retired Marine returned fire toward the parking lot.
The attackers did not enter.
They fired for less than thirty seconds.
Then engines roared away.
Gabriel examined the damage.
One of his men had been hit in the shoulder.
Not fatal.
On the garage door, someone had spray-painted a message.
GIVE US THE GIRL.
Gabriel stared at it.
Then he reached for his phone.
Rachel grabbed his wrist.
“Who are you calling?”
“Everyone.”
“No.”
“You've been running because you thought you were alone.”
Gabriel's voice changed.
“You aren't.”
“If Russell controls people inside the club—”
“He controls some.”
“How many?”
Gabriel looked at the wounded biker.
“Not enough.”
He dialed.
“This is Knox. Activate the highway chain.”
Caleb frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel looked toward him.
“It means every Silver Saints chapter from Tucson to Salt Lake gets a message.”
Rachel went pale.
“How many people?”
Gabriel's answer was simple.
“Enough.”
They couldn't stay at Gabriel's shop.
Dane's people already knew the location.
Gabriel moved Rachel and Caleb to a ranch owned by another Saints member.
The property stood fifty miles from the nearest highway.
For the first time in weeks, Rachel slept without locking the door.
Caleb couldn't.
He sat outside watching the sunrise.
Gabriel joined him.
“You're the mechanic.”
“So are you.”
“The poor mechanic.”
Caleb glanced sideways.
“That's what she told you?”
“She said you fed her when you couldn't afford to feed yourself.”
“I had food.”
“Crackers aren't food.”
Caleb frowned.
“She's been talking too much.”
Gabriel smiled.
Then became serious.
“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Risk everything.”
Caleb considered giving a clever answer.
Instead he told the truth.
“Because nobody else was there.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“That was Thomas's answer too.”
A truck approached.
Everyone reached for weapons.
It was Eddie.
Caleb stared.
“How did you find us?”
“Gabriel called me.”
“You called Eddie?”
Gabriel shrugged.
“He's useful.”
Eddie opened the truck.
Inside were medical supplies and three cases of food.
Rachel hugged him.
“I brought actual groceries,” Eddie told Caleb. “Because apparently your survival strategy is peanut butter crackers and bad decisions.”
By afternoon they had enough evidence to contact federal authorities.
But Gabriel wanted one more thing.
Mason.
A burner phone recovered from Thomas's backpack contained an unsent message.
Coordinates.
The location pointed to a Dane Logistics facility in western Arizona.
An abandoned copper-processing plant.
Gabriel believed Mason might be held there.
“We call the federal task force now,” Caleb said.
Rachel shook her head.
“If Russell has someone inside law enforcement, Dane will move Mason.”
Gabriel agreed.
“We verify first.”
“How?”
“Surveillance.”
Caleb looked at the bikers.
“You people aren't exactly invisible.”
Gabriel smiled.
“You are.”
Two hours later Caleb drove an old tow truck toward the facility.
Nobody questioned a mechanic answering a roadside breakdown.
From a ridge overlooking the plant, Caleb used binoculars.
Six guards.
Two warehouses.
Three tractor trailers.
Then he saw a man being escorted between buildings.
Thin.
Bearded.
Hands restrained.
Rachel had given Caleb a photograph.
He recognized him immediately.
Mason.
Caleb photographed everything.
As he lowered the camera, a black SUV approached his position.
He started the tow truck.
Too late.
The SUV blocked the road.
Russell Pike stepped out.
He wore a Silver Saints vest.
“Mr. Mercer.”
Caleb kept his hands on the wheel.
Russell smiled.
“I've heard a lot about you.”
“Can't say the same.”
“You've caused tremendous inconvenience.”
“I repair cars. Happens sometimes.”
Russell walked closer.
“Give us Rachel and the computer.”
“No.”
“I can pay you.”
“Still no.”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
Caleb almost laughed.
He owed twenty thousand on the garage.
Fifty thousand could save everything.
Russell seemed to read his thoughts.
“One girl you met a few weeks ago. Fifty thousand dollars.”
Caleb looked at him.
“You're missing the point.”
“What point?”
Caleb started the engine.
“If I was the kind of man who would sell her, she wouldn't have survived the first night.”
Russell's smile disappeared.
Men moved toward the truck.
Caleb slammed the tow bar release.
A wrecked sedan rolled from the truck bed directly toward the SUV.
Russell jumped aside.
Caleb accelerated down the dirt shoulder.
Bullets struck the tow truck.
But the old machine kept moving.
Caleb grinned despite himself.
He had always trusted machines more than men.
That day, the machine earned it.
Caleb reached the ranch after dark.
Rachel ran toward the tow truck.
“You found him?”
Caleb climbed out.
“He's alive.”
She stopped breathing.
Then she cried.
Not quietly.
Not gracefully.
She pressed both hands to her face and sobbed.
For weeks she had survived on the possibility that Mason might still be alive.
Now possibility had become fact.
Gabriel studied the photographs.
“We hit the facility tonight.”
Caleb shook his head.
“You'll get Mason killed.”