Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,53

gangs in Texas. They call themselves The Stuttgart Soldiers.’

Faison pointed to the SS tattoo on Peterson’s forearm.

Shepherd nodded. ‘Gunnar’s organisation.’

‘You know Kyle Gunnar?’

‘We had him in here twenty minutes ago. Nothing stuck. He’s clean.’

‘Of course. He epitomises the leadership of these groups. They’re smart as hell. As you all know, the most intelligent criminals put distance between themselves and the crime. Even if they get caught, it’ll never get traced back to them. It’s like any successful criminal enterprise. Mafia bosses did it for years.’

‘Tell us about the Texas chapter,’ Shepherd said.

‘They operate out of a town called Roller, located near the border. They run guns and pump dope back and forth, in and out of Mexico. We think they have entire caches of illegal weapons stashed in the area, which is where we come in. A cache of Glock pistols was recently stolen from a weapon’s storage facility outside San Antonio. Less than a week later the entire Chapter were walking around carrying the pistols, but modified.’

‘Modified how?’

‘An auto-selector switch mounted on the weapon. Highly illegal. Turns a semi-automatic into an automatic pistol. One squeeze drains an extended clip in about a second.’

‘Who runs this Chapter?’ Josh asked.

‘Two men. Finn Sway and Bobby Rourke.’

Shepherd glanced at Marquez, who nodded, making a mental note of the names. Without a word she turned and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

‘Are they similar to Gunnar?’ Archer asked.

‘Physically?’ said Faison. ‘No. Not at all. Sway’s tall and kind of skinny. He’s got a mullet haircut, short on the sides, bit of length on the top.’

‘What about Rourke?’ Shepherd asked.

‘He’s a seriously nasty piece of work. He’s a creep. He uses the club for sexual favours. He tells female prospects that it’s a necessary part of joining the organisation and that they have to do everything he orders. It’s his vice. He did two years at Dallas State for rape. He and two other members ganged a sixteen year old schoolgirl.’

‘What about Sway?’

‘He’s not a rapist, but he’s a murderer. He leads those militia trucks out in the desert, shooting anyone who isn’t white Caucasian. Both of them are killers.’

‘How do they finance all this?’ Josh asked.

‘They run meth-houses and move weight back and forth across the Mexican border,’ Faison said. ‘They rob any drug dealers they haven’t already driven out of the area or sell their own product. Classy stuff, right? A real holy war.’

‘How many in their Chapter?’

‘I’d say thirty or so. Sway and Rourke at the top.’

‘Do you interact with them personally?’ Shepherd asked Peterson.

He nodded. ‘My cover pushed me up the food chain. To them, I’m ex-US Army just back from the Middle East. These gangs are always looking for ways into Army bases and camps to try and leech some weapons from the quartermasters. I told them that I still have contacts inside and can get them rifles and ammunition. Right now they’re kissing my ass.’

‘You’re supplying them?’

‘No. We haven’t passed over a single weapon. But they almost don’t need us to. The Brady Law passed in ‘93 demands a five-day waiting period and background checks when purchasing a handgun. But these boys are already running around with modified Glock machine-pistols and assault rifles.’

Peterson paused.

‘A big trade has been brewing for the past month or so. I told them my guy inside Fort Hood could smuggle out thirty M16s and a load of ammo. We’ve been in the process of setting up a deal. That’s when an Agency Task Force would take over and bring them all down at the scene. The trade was being planned for this weekend.’

‘So what happened?’ Shepherd asked.

‘This is where it gets relevant to you. Rourke called me into his office last weekend. He said the deal would have to be delayed.’

‘You think he was on to you?’

‘No way, otherwise I’d be dead. He was excited. Rourke’s got three weaknesses. Money, teenage girls and the fact that he can’t keep his mouth shut. He just loves the sound of his own voice. I showed interest and asked him what had come up. I didn’t think he’d tell me. But he did.’

He paused.

‘He said something had fallen into his lap. It was bigger than anything the Chapter had encountered before. He was being cryptic, but I could tell he was desperate to talk about it. He and Sway called a meeting in the club room that night, a week ago today. Everyone was there. They said that we were heading to