Townsend smiled but did not reply. Bennie, Gregory Townsend, the former German soldier Bruno Reingruber, and several of Reingruber’s men were at one of the Aryan Brigade’s hideouts in the rural area of Sacramento County about thirty miles south of the city. The ranch house was in the center of a forty-acre parcel of land, surrounded by multiple fence lines and electronic security monitoring; police couldn’t get within a quarter mile of the house in any direction without being spotted. It looked like a typical stucco house common in the hot, dry Sacramento Valley, but in reality it was a small fortress. The doors, hinges, and frames had been reinforced with steel to prevent all but a vehicle-mounted ram from breaking them down; booby traps were set up all around the ranch to warn of intruders; and the place had caches of weapons, equipment, and supplies enough for an extended siege or to equip a very potent strike team. Inside, it was more of a command center than a farmhouse. The kitchen had been set up as a communications center, and the dining room transformed into a conference room.
“It is simple, Mr Reynolds,” Townsend said. “Major Reingruber’s men fought with courage and skill and were wounded in battle. As distasteful as it is to turn any of our men over to the enemy, civilian medical facilities are far superior to our field hospitals and it became necessary that they receive the care they deserve.
“Mullins, on the other hand, disobeyed a direct order to stay out of establishments and areas designated off-limits by myself and the staff. He was especially ordered not to make contact with any Satan’s Brotherhood members or frequent any of their so-called clubhouses. He violated all of these directives. His capture could have jeopardized our entire operation. There was only one penalty suitable for his dereliction of duty and gross insubordination-death.”
Well, that certainly followed the pattern of this organization, Bennie said to himself. Townsend and Reingruber were ruthless when it came time to discipline their men. Reingruber’s sergeants dispensed that discipline swiftly and painfully. Bennie had seen the German soldiers accept punishment like automatons, standing at attention while taking a blow to the stomach or a cattle-prod to the back. And if they failed to stay standing at attention or were a little slow recovering from their punishment, they got more of the same. Reingruber and sometimes Townsend himself presided over the discipline sessions, and always spelled out to the other soldiers the exact nature of the transgression for which the punishment was being administered. The converse was true too: If a soldier did well, even in a small way, they offered praise and congratulations almost to the point of effusiveness, Bennie hated to admit it, but it was challenging and rewarding to serve under these two. Their men were paid well, ate well, and trained and worked hard…
… Too bad they were murderous bastards who would kill any or every one of them if they felt the need.
Several minutes later, a lookout reported that pickup trucks were on the property. The announcements were followed by electronic warnings picked up by motion and seismic sensors-and woe to any sentry, Bennie knew, who didn’t report an approaching intruder to Townsend or Reingruber before the sensors went off.
“Pickup trucks. Brotherhood,” a sergeant reported. “Five in all.” Townsend and Reingruber nodded. A few minutes later, five Satan’s Brotherhood members were admitted into the ranch house. They were thoroughly searched, manually as well as electronically, and a boxful’s worth of weapons taken away from three of them. Typical Brotherhood, thought Bennie. Either the bikers actually thought Townsend wouldn’t check them for weapons, or they thought that once he had found one or two, he’d stop looking.
The leader of the Brotherhood, Donald Lancett, did not show. Bennie had warned Townsend he wouldn’t. In his place, Lancett had sent one of the local chapter heads, Rancho Cordova president Joey “Sandman” Harrison, to represent the Brotherhood. If there was a right choice for this meeting, Harrison was not it. Sandman had been ousted as the president of the Oakland chapter of another outlaw motorcycle club, kicked out because he was so mean, so murderous, and spent so much time in prison. He hated the role of representative, envoy, or message boy; he hated foreigners; and he hated anyone who even considered trying to move in on his very lucrative east Sacramento drug territory. Clearly, Lancett had chosen him for today’s meeting in order to get in Townsend’s face and stay there.
Harrison’s beady eyes scanned the room. He noticed the big bottle of Jack Daniel’s sitting on a table in the corner, went over, opened it, and took a big swig. Townsend watched him with an ironic grin. “Help yourself to a drink, Mr Harrison,” he said. Harrison belched, walked over to Townsend, and sent his hand down to Townsend’s right hip. The holster he found hidden under the jacket was empty. “I requested no weapons, Mr Harrison,” said Townsend. “I kept my part of the bargain.”
“Good thing you did,” Harrison grunted. He took another pull at the bottle. “So you’re Townsend, huh? You the one who had to pull Cazaux’s plug, right? You probably think you’re hot shit now.” He turned to look at Bruno Reingruber. “This the fucking German?”
“Major Bruno Reingruber, my deputy commander and senior officer.” Reingruber stood at parade rest beside and slightly behind Townsend, his square jaw held high, his chest inflated. When he heard his name, he snapped to attention and gave a Nazi salute.
“Heil fucking Hitler,” Harrison said, his voice filled with disgust. “You guys are pretty, real fuckin’ pretty. You must all be pretty stupid dumb-asses too.” Then Harrison’s eyes rested on Reynolds. “Hey Bennie, you tell your friends that if I ever catch your ass out on my streets again, you’re dead.”
“I advise you to listen to these guys, Sandman,” Bennie said. “They mean business.”
“Oh, I’m sure they do,” Harrison said, talking to Bennie but facing Townsend. “I’m sure the Angels, the Riders, the wetbacks, and the slopes meant business too. But they’re not in control around here either. The Brotherhood is in control of this state.” He shook his head. “You’re a piece of work, limey. First you kill two of our brothers and steal our chemist, then you off one of our recruits, then you set up meetings and want to be the big boss. We don’t need no foreigners trying to muscle in on our operation.”
“You are going to produce more methamphetamine in one month than you previously could in a year, Mr Harrison,” Townsend said. “Easy, safe, and guaranteed to make us all rich in a very short period of time.”
“And this deal includes hosing off a couple of cops, Townsend?” Harrison asked angrily. “You cost us plenty with that holdup of yours.”
“I see Mr Mullins felt free to talk about our operation with you,” Townsend said, his confident smile dimmer. “It seems our decision to terminate Mr Mullins’s miserable life was a sound one.”
“Mullins was a Brotherhood recruit, asshole,” Harrison said. “He was one of ours, and you knew it. He gave us plenty of access to businesses, warehouses, and events. Killing him was like attacking all of Satan’s Brotherhood. You owe us.”
“Mullins was a weasel who would sell his mother to make a dollar,” Townsend said angrily. “He did the Sacramento Live! job for five thousand lousy dollars. How much was he supposed to pay you out of that?”
At Harrison’s blank face, Townsend added, “Or perhaps you didn’t even know he was doing this inside job? The latter, I suspect. So Mullins was cutting the Brotherhood out of your share of his action. He was a lying, cheating bastard. You should have had him killed long ago.”
“Maybe so, Townsend. But I got one message for you shitheads: Get out of town now, and stay out, or we’ll fuck you over real bad. Capish?”
“Aren’t you even interested in my proposal?” Townsend asked.