not, Rabbit, I don’t want young Anjanette locked up any more than you do. In fact, I want her on the team as much as I want you.”
“Sorry, man, but I’m already on a team. We bowl every Tuesday night at Crosley Lanes,” I replied.
Taxi put his hands up in surrender. “I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot here. How ’bout we start over?”
“Before you kidnapped me?”
“I apologize. The nature of this project requires ultimate secrecy. Even the members of your club can’t know you’re talking to me. Besides, would you have joined me for coffee if I’d asked?”
I glared at Taxi but said nothing.
Taxi nodded. “Exactly. Bottom line is, I don’t have time for chit chat and neither does your sister.”
“I told you to leave—”
“Her out of this, I understand. But I told you, I can’t.” Taxi said. “Let me start from the beginning and you’ll understand why.”
I leaned back slightly, and Taxi continued, “Some years back, one of our agents began working with your club, here in Savannah.”
“Agent Moore. Doom and Alamo helped him bust up that trafficking ring,” I said, having heard the campfire stories.
“That’s right.
“You FBI assholes almost got them killed—”
Taxi pulled the cash Tackle had given him out of his pocket, took several bills and handed them to the biker. “Here, I owe you at least half of this money back. He’s mouthier than I thought he’d be.”
Tackle happily slid the bills into his cut pocket and turned to me. “Look, you don’t know me from fuckin’ Elvis, but do yourself a favor and hear Taxi out. What he has to say is gonna be good for you and your club. Trust me.”
Trusting this guy was the last thing I should do, but something about the way he spoke to me, and about the rapport between the two men, put me at a certain level of ease. There was a kind of fraternal familiarity between these unlikely partners that intrigued me. Taxi was clearly in charge, but there seemed to be a mutual respect between the two.
“You guys ex-military or something?” I asked.
Taxi smiled wide. “I told my boss you were smart, which is precisely why I want you on my team.”
“Alright, I’m listening,” I said, and Taxi continued.
“After Agent Moore’s success working with your club here in Savannah, the bureau selected five agents to work as undercover bikers all around the country. Savannah, Portland, Florida, and Colorado have all become hotbeds of all kinds of criminal activity over the past decade. These areas also have active, growing motorcycle clubs. My plan is to gain access to the bad guys through their existing associations with various motorcycle clubs. We’re not after the clubs. We’re after the cartels, traffickers, and other large criminal enterprises they do business with.”
I had to admit that as crazy as his plan was, it also made sense, except for one detail. “The Dogs of Fire aren’t one-percenters,” I said. “We’re not tapped into the criminal underworld.”
“Maybe not, but you run parallel with the clubs that are. Plus, I’m not really interested in you for your criminal pedigree as much as I am your mind. In fact, your clean record is a big plus. I’m going to need to convince some very uptight people to grant you access to some highly secure areas, and the cleaner your background is, the easier that will be for me. But let’s be honest. You are a criminal. You and your sister.”
“No offense taken,” I said, dryly.
“You can take all the offense you want. I don’t really give a shit,” Taxi replied. “Out of the five agents in the original program, I’m only one of two who are still alive. This isn’t a game to me.”
“What happened to the other agents?”
“One died after injuries sustained in a crash, and the other two were killed by the clubs they’d infiltrated. They were sniffed out as imposters and executed.”
“How did you manage to make it out of the Spiders alive?”
“Fortunately for me, I had an old Army buddy to vouch for me, so the Spiders never suspected me as an outsider. I was easily accepted into their club and eventually gained the trust of their president, Wolf.”
“You were involved in what went down in Portland?” I asked in disbelief. The once peaceful Pacific Northwest had recently become a powder keg. Rival clubs the Gresham Spiders, and the Burning Saints were in an all-out turf war with our club smack dab in the middle. Rumors within