Chapter 7 - Steel in the Dark
The flashlight beam trembled across the rotting wall of the shed, catching the edge of Jax's front tire. The man holding the light paused, the crunch of gravel beneath his heavy boots freezing instantly.
"Over here," a low voice called into a shoulder radio. "Found the bike. Looks like the old bastard dumped it in the muck."
Jax didn't move a muscle. He was crouched behind the collapsed timber roof, breathing shallowly through his nose, his right hand gripping the knurled hilt of his combat knife. Toby was tucked entirely beneath a pile of moldering burlap sacks, barely visible in the gloom.
The operative stepped past the doorway, the light sweeping across the empty saddle. He was wearing the cutoffs of the Dead Pines, a heavy automatic pistol drawn in his right hand. As the man turned to inspect the dark interior, Jax exploded from the shadows.
He didn't aim for the head. With the weight of his entire body behind the strike, Jax drove the flat of his shoulder into the man’s chest, slamming him against the damp cedar wall. The pistol went flying, disappearing into the dark underbrush.
The biker roared in fury, throwing a wild right hook that caught Jax across his wounded shoulder. Agony blinding him, Jax stumbled, but his right hand whipped out, driving the heavy steel hilt of his knife directly into the man’s temple. The thug went limp, slumping into the wet moss with a heavy thud.
Jax dropped to his knees, panting, his hand scrambling through the dirt until his fingers closed around the fallen pistol—a standard nine-millimeter semiautomatic. He dropped the magazine, felt the weight of eight rounds, and slammed it back home with the heel of his palm.
"Jax?" Toby’s voice emerged from beneath the burlap, shaking but quiet.
"Come on," Jax said, pulling the boy to his feet. "His radio already pinged them. They’ll be on this ridge in three minutes."
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He dragged the unconscious operative deeper into the brush, then swung a leg over his chopper. There was no time for subtlety anymore. He switched the fuel petcock to reserve, thumbed the starter, and let the motor roar.
They burst out of the brush onto the highway just as two sets of headlights crested the curve below them. Bullets whined through the night air, chipping asphalt behind their back tire, as Jax gunned the bike toward the forgotten pass leading to Red Rock.
