“We have a situation. It needs resolving tonight. I’ll try and be brief, but I need you all to stay quiet and hear me out. We’re short on time. First off, Shark came here tonight to tell me that he’s been here on a mission to assassinate me and Terry.”
There were shocked exclamations and curses around the table. Every head turned towards Paul. He would not look away from the expressions of confusion, anger and hurt that were turned his way, but he was sorrier than he could say to see every one of them. Chiz had shoved his chair back from the table in disgust; Paul couldn’t blame him one bit. Samuel slapped the palm of his hand down hard to get everyone’s attention back.
“He swears to me he wasn’t involved in any of the attempts that have been made on my life. He swears he wasn’t behind Dean’s death and I believe him.”
“Who was?” The question came from Dizzy.
“We know the Mexicans were behind Dean and the shooting at the fundraiser. Geoff confessed that much and I believe that Paul had no hand in it. The Satan’s Tails want to patch over the Rabids, and the Rabids are on board with this, and they want to wipe us out and take over the run for the Rojas. If the Rojas won’t have them, they’ll climb in bed with the Mexicans. Either way. It was Jimmy that sent Paul after us with Spike pullin’ his strings.”
“That fuckin’ backstabbin’ cunt has been pretendin’ to grieve with us all day!” Kong gave full vent to his outrage.
“I know. I know. We don’t know how many of the club are on board with this. Shark tells me not all of them knew about this plan, but things might have changed since then. For all we know the whole lot of ‘em have been showin’ us two faces all day.”
“So Spike was behind runnin’ you off the road?” Dizzy was seeking confirmation rather than asking an outright question.
“Seems so.” Samuel replied.
“So what’s happened that you called us all in here and now? We dealin’ with this tonight?”
“What happened is that when Paul came to confess to me what had been goin’ on, he got a call. From Spike. They’ve taken Ashleigh.”
The gasps and curses rippled around the table again and again Samuel slapped his hand down to call for silence.
“They’ve taken my girl and they want Shark to deliver Terry and me for her.”
Dizzy’s face was blank of all emotion. Paul didn’t even want to guess what the man was feeling, but he knew he was doing his job as SAA, he was concentrating on the job at hand, finding them a path of action.
“We get Tink back. Then we deal with Shark.” He turned to Paul. “That’s if you can be trusted. Maybe this is some fucked up plot to get us out in the open.”
Samuel spoke before Paul could. “It isn’t. I was sittin’ right here when the call came through. He’s as worried about her as I am.”
Paul was grateful for Samuel’s intervention. He knew he had no hope of convincing every man sitting at this table that he was being honest with them now without it. “I came here tonight to tell Samuel the truth and to accept the judgment of this table,” he looked around, making sure to catch everyone’s eye, “whatever that may be. I’m still ready to do that. But we need to get Ash back first.” He had to clench his fist against the fury that was sticking in his throat at the thought that she might be being hurt somewhere while they were sat debating his intentions.
Samuel spoke up again. “We need to focus. We’re runnin’ out of time. They think that Paul’s persuadin’ me and Terry to follow him, or that he’s killing us and draggin’ our cold, dead bodies over to the Traveler’s Rest Motel as we speak. They said room eight. That’s as much intel as we’ve got at the moment.”
“So we’re talkin’,” Dizzy paused, “eight Rabids, Spike and I’m guessin’ at least one more, that’s at least ten men waitin’ for the nine of us.”
“No.” Paul said, causing all the heads to turn his way again. “They don’t know you all know I was s’posed to be betrayin’ this club. They’re only expectin’ me, Terry and Samuel.”
When Crash spoke, all the heads swiveled in his direction. “You need decoy and flankin.”
Dizzy nodded his approval. “Good call, brother. The decoy is Paul takin’ Samuel and Terry as promised.” He paused and looked at his hands as he tapped his fingers on the table in no discernible rhythm. When he looked up, he looked at Samuel and Terry. “Shark’ll be takin’ you to the main players. It’ll be up to the three of you, the two of you, to take them out. Me, Chiz and Crash will take care of the rest. Fletch and Kong should stay on Moira and Dolly. Morse can stay here, be our contact if we need him. You get them to let you set eyes on Tink. We need proof our girl’s alive, and we need to know where she is. Sinatra and Tag concentrate on gettin’ her.”