Blindsided (Sentinel Securities) (2 page)

"We're not in the regiment now," Nash pointed out tightly.

"Exactly. Now we get paid what we're worth and we can pick and choose our assignments."

"I don't like being used by dodgy businessmen to line their pockets. I don't want to be some hired help for criminals."

"They're not criminals. As far as we know—we've never committed a crime. Well, have we?" Mac demanded.

"Not that we
know
of—doesn't mean I'm not suspicious of some of these bastards though."

"As long as they pay us good money and keep whatever it is they do to themselves—I couldn't care less," Mac said, getting to his feet and taking cup over to the sink for a refill.

"So we're happy to go along with the whole 'don't ask, don't tell' policy then? Nash demanded from his position, leaning against the wall. "Doesn't make it right."

"Come on Nash, you're soundin’ like a girl, you know damn well just because you work for a Government doesn't make everything we did right—it's no different to what we do now. Government is just
big business
with a license to kill."

Casper unfolded his frame from his position against the bench and took a seat at the table, "So getting back to the case, what happens now?"

"We need to get Cruz," Mac said pointing his cup in the direction of the computer screen from across the room.

"Oh. Is that all? Snatch him from underneath the nose of a bikie gang."

"Yep." Mac grinned.

The four other members of the unit exchanged wry glances; Mac would always be the king of understatement.

The men spent the rest of the morning preparing for an extraction. They headed out to the location where Mac had followed the gang who’d taken Cruz in the early hours of the morning.

The club house was situated in a rundown industrial estate. Empty sheds stood in various states of disrepair, grass grew through some of the fences along the road, windows high in the buildings were broken and graffiti covered concrete and tin walls alike.

Parking behind the industrial estate, the men walked in on foot, keeping low and watching the coming and goings of the clubhouse.

Most of the day bikes came and went in o
ne
s and twos. At any given time there were at least thirty bikes parked outside. During daylight, it was impossible to get close enough to see what the layout inside was like. They'd have to wait until nightfall, under the cover of darkness. 

As the sun dropped and the shadows lengthened into darkness, the men moved into position. Sticking a fibre optic camera beneath the lopsided doorway on the side of the building that didn't look as though it had been opened in a number of years, Nash watched on the hand held monitor as the long neck of the camera swivelled around capturing images from inside the building.

Cruz sat slumped in a chair in the middle of the room, his hands tied behind him, his face bleeding. Nash swivelled the camera around searching the room and getting bearings, before backing away soundlessly and returning to the rest of the team.

Casper and Gracie arrived back and reported the situation on the other side of the building. "They aren't the sharpest tools in the shed." Gracie announced as he settled back down beside his mates. "About a third of them are stoned off their face, I'd say."

"Well it's the remaining two thirds of them that I'm worried about. Don't underestimate them. Keep your wits about you," Mac reminded them as he drew up his plan to grab the target and make a run for it.

With Casper keeping an eye on the situation from further back, Nick and Gracie took up strategic positions around the perimeter, while Nash and Mac returned to keep an eye on Cruz, ready to give the signal when it was time to make the grab. 

Three men walked into the room where Cruz was being held. Mac watched via the monitor, Nash held and they signalled to Casper to tell the others to hold off until they could assess this new hitch in the plan.

The eldest of the men walked around Cruz in a slow circle. Bald headed and covered in tattoos, his grey goatee on his chin was the only hair visible on the guy. Nash figured him to be well into his fifties and by the way the other two were watching him like a pair of rabid hyena's waiting for some kind of signal, it seemed he was the leader of this rag-tailed looking pack.

"Razor, Razor, Razor, you've been a naughty boy haven't you?"

Cruz seemed to flinch at the voice, but he didn't lift his head or speak.

"You’ve been makin’ deals behind our back. Did you really think in this industry it wouldn't get back to me what you’ve been doin’? We're your brothers
,
man! You don't sell out your brothers."

"It wasn't like that," Cruz mumbled.

The bald guy reached out and hit Cruz up the side of the head angrily. "You were going to sell the recipe to the highest bidder. Well you don't do that to your
family
. You don't sell us out. Now, where is it?"

"I don't have it."

The boss
-
man gave a nod of his head and the second goon stepped forward, flicking out a lethal looking flick knife and holding it to the guys face.

"You know he'll enjoy cutting you up
,
bro. There's nothing Slash likes more than a good blood bath."

"I don't have it anymore," Cruz panted, eyes wide in fear, staring at the blade against his cheek bone.

"Anderson had it."

"No, he didn't. Believe me when I say he was given more than enough encouragement to give it up, and he swore blind that you took it off him. How do you think we knew where to find you and where you'd been lately,
dipshit?
" baldy scoffed. He glanced over at the knife welding monstrosity and gave a quick nod.

The scream of pain carried through the room and outside to Nash and Mac. The men watched the screen of the monitor, their expressions hard, but they remained silent. The bald guy called off the big biker after a few more swipes and when he stood back, Cruz's face wore a long slash from cheekbone to chin.

"That was just a scratch to get your attention. Next time he'll work his way lower," the bald man promised. "Now.
Where
is the recipe?"

Panting through his swollen lip, blood drizzled into his mouth as he dropped his head forward and began to sob uncontrollably. "I put it someplace safe."

"Where?"
When Cruz dropped his head to his chest in defeat, Skull gave a harsh grunt,
"Okay Slash, this time go for his balls. He can function with just one."

"N
o
!"
T
he other biker came over to help pull at Cruz's filthy jeans, trying to rip them off him as he sat with his arms tied behind the chair. "Stop, you already killed Anderson, and he was the one who discovered the stuff, if you kill me there's no one else who knows about it."

"We're not going to kill you; we're just going to help you remember where you left it."

"
I told you, I don’t have it,
b
ut
I'll
get it back
, I promise. Just no more…
please
, Skull. No more."

"
Who did you give it too?” Skull bit out quietly.

“
I
stashed it with
my Girlfriend
.”

"You stashed something this valuable with an Ex-girlfriend?" Skull asked in disbelief and more than a little angry.

"
I panicked. But s
he's got a kid to me
, so
I knew she wouldn't be able to
just
take off
.
I'll get it back."

“
How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"I swear I am
…
"

“Which one, Romeo? There's more than a few of em’ out there."

"
Her name’s
Briella Matheson."

Without warning the door to the room burst open and another biker stood in the open doorway breathing heavy. "We got company, Skull."

A signal came from Casper, and Mac nudged Nash, giving him a sign to pull in the camera and move out. Quickly retrieving the equipment and shoving it back in his small pack, they made a silent retreat and merged back into the undergrowth where the three others were waiting, just as a roar filled the silence and blinding beams from multiple single headlights lit up the car park. Men and bikes scattered, as pandemonium broke loose.

"Looks like some kind of gang war," Mac muttered.

"Great timing." Nash watched bikers running from the club house like angry ants out of a nest. Crow bars, bat's, knives and fists were all flighting in a flurry of rage amidst screams, swearing and battle cries.

"There's too many of them for us to get back into the room and get Cruz," Nash muttered.

"We don't need him," Mac said, easing backwards in the direction they'd walked in from.

"What?" Gracie sen
t
a startled glance back and forth between Mac
and Nash
. "I thought the whole point of coming here was to grab Cruz?"

"The whole point of coming here was to get the info he stole from our client," Mac corrected, signalling the others to move out. "We know where it is, we don't need Cruz. We're sure as hell not getting paid enough to get mixed up in a biker war. Come on let
’
s get outta
’
here before the cops turn up."

No one spoke while the men made their way back to the vehicle they'd arrived in, it wasn't until they were safely back at the office, that they sat down to revise the plan and go back over what had happened at the club house.

"So how do we find this recipe or whatever the hell it is?"

"We track down this Briella Matheson," Mac told them as he took a beer from the fridge. 

"How do we know he wasn't lying?"

"You didn't hear him in there
,
Stone. That was a man who was telling the truth. You can't fake that kind of fear."

"So what do we know about this Cruz fella?" Gracie asked.

Mac walked across the room and picked up a manila folder, returning to drop it on the table before the rest of the men who sat around drinking their cold beer to unwind.

Gracie picked up the folder, reading through it quickly before surmising it aloud to the others. "Poor little rich boy, lived in the northern suburbs most of his life. Went to private schools, got expelled from most of them, blah, blah, blah…dabbled in some small time crime in his early twenties. He went quiet for a while, kept his nose clean, before turning up in front of a judge for assault and drug related crimes multiple times over the last few years. Last known address was almost two years ago, where he lived with one, Briella Matheson
,
but she moved out and seems to be the last contact he's had with her."

"So we need to get on to this woman and find her," Mac told them, sculling the last of his beer.

"What if she hasn't got it?"

"Then we go back for Cruz—if what he's saying is true, if he's the last person left who knows where this thing is, then they won't kill him until they have what they're looking for. We'll just have to keep an eye on our merry swordsmen and be ready to snatch away Cruz if we have to. Our main concern is finding Briella Matheson…before they do."

Briella Matheson let out a long sigh as she pulled up in the front of her rented duplex. It had been a long shift, full of testosterone driven, alcohol induced idiots who thought somehow on a Saturday night they suddenly became invincible. The emergency ward was a busy place at the best of times, but come Friday and Saturday nights—it turned into a mad house.

When Briella had late shifts, Gladys, her neighbour and landlord, would come next door and stay with Lucy until she finished work. As she walked inside the cosy little flat, she met Gladys in the hallway. "Everything was fine here, how was work?" she asked as she slipped her dressing gown on over her floral nightgown.

"The usual," Briella smiled tiredly. Having no family of her own, Gladys Harvey was her guardian angel on earth. Not only did she take pity on the young woman and child, she provided a safe place to live and threw in her baby sitting services as part of the deal.

The night Gladys was brought into the ER with chest pains
had actually been a Godsend. Somehow Gladys managed to get beneath the usual professional barrier Briella kept pulled tightly around her at work. It was all too easy to care
too much
. The constant strain could take a toll on a person who spent all day and night caring for people, often in a great deal of pain.

But there was something about Gladys that made her drop her guard and open up to the older woman. She’d been wasting away, fretting for the loss of her husband who had
recently
passed away. Knowing the older woman was socially isolated
,
unable to drive, Briella began dropping by and visiting her after she was released from hospital, concerned about her isolation. Eventually Briella took Lucy along for a visit and the delight on the older woman’s face when they arrived was priceless. Lucy adored the kindly older woman and without grandparents of her own, soon began looking on Gladys as a segregate grandma.