Page 2 of Venom's Sting

“Point taken, brother,” Dutch says. “Given the number of weapons, we’ll see if we can store them off-site.”

When he sits down, Siege stands again. “I feel a lot more confident about our ability to protect ourselves from anything the Grave Diggers MC throws our way with our coffers replenished and our armory filled to the brim. Now, for new business. Rider, come and talk to us about the suspicious activity your team has seen around our area.”

Rider stands and turns to address the brotherhood. “As you know my team has been tasked with being on the lookout for any push into our territory by the Grave Diggers MC. Since they patched over the Hellfire Hounds, we’ve been concerned they might be using that as a backdoor into Las Salinas.”

Rigs speaks up, “Tell them the rest.”

Shooting Rigs a serious look, Rider launches into a short, but pointed explanation of a situation none of us were privy to, until just now. “Someone seems to be setting up shop in our territory. We’ve noted a number of out-of-state panel vans exiting off the interstate and moving through a sparsely populated area on the southside of the city, before going back to wherever they came from.”

Smoke rubs his chin thoughtfully before asking, “Do they leave right away or hang around for a few days?”

“There have been several times when we saw them leaving the area within an hour or two,” Rider replies.

“Sounds like some kind of smuggling operation,” Smoke responds. He’s saying what we’re all thinking.

“That was our thinking as well.” Siege motions to Zen, our IT guy. And within seconds our phones are all buzzing. “I just had Zen send you the exit number and the general area they’re circulating through.”

Rider looks around the room, “Here’s the thing I need you to remember. We can’t all swarm that area or begin randomly following every van with out-of-state license plates. We don’t want them to know we’re investigating the situation. If we spook them, that’ll cause them to become more secretive and go to ground.”

Rigs adds pointedly, “The goal for our surveillance is to go unnoticed.”

“Rigs is correct,” Rider interjects decisively. “Moving forward we’ll be handing out assignments. If you get one, your job is to show up at the specified time and report back on what you see. You are not to engage with any of the drivers, interrogate other people to find out what they know, or follow anyone unless we give the order. The club officers will be talking to the townsfolk on our own. If every brother does their part, we should be able to get to the bottom of this fairly quickly.”

Dutch reminds everyone, “What we see as suspicious might be nothing more than some big corporation surveying land they just bought, maybe with an eye to building an oil refinery or something along those lines.”

Rider cuts him off. “It doesn’t matter what all these out of towners are doing in our area, we’ll figure it out. We always do.”

“I’ll second that,” Siege announces as he gets to his feet again. “Operational security is a serious concern. Modern technology is making it more difficult than ever to keep clubbusiness private, so no communicating outside of our encrypted app.”

“Fucking technology,” Rigs mutters.

“Much better when it was just pen and paper,” Tank adds.

“Didn’t you used to chisel messages into a rock, back when you were a boy?” Vapor says with a smirk.

“Fuck off,” our VP glares at him. I know it’s just good-natured banter, Tank and the twins are long-time work colleagues and constantly jerk each other around.

After the meeting is over, Rage and I go out back to the patio to grab some food. I’ve not shoveled more than a handful of bites into my mouth before my phone goes off. So does Rage’s and by the pings on all sides, our other club brothers are getting their assignments too.

I pull out my phone and scan the message. “I’m headed out to exit 408. They want my drone in the sky. How about you?”

Rage frowns, “I’m headed to the other side of town. They want me to follow the river down through Brush Creek and report back anything I see out of the ordinary.”

We quickly shove a few more bites into our mouths and wash it down with coffee before getting on our motorcycles. I check the storage compartment on my bike to make sure I have my mini drone. I can cover more ground, zoom in on objects, and capture images with this drone. I think my club brothers would approve because they have in the past.

***

I ride down the interstate on my Harley, intent upon doing exactly what my club brothers asked me to do. I can’t think of any logical reason why there would be an influx of panel vans with various out-of-state license plates—other than for something nefarious. My club officers always have their ears to the ground as far as any developments in Las Salinas goes, so if it had been legitimate business I think they’d have gotten wind of it. Looking at the map Zen sent, they’re exiting off into one of the more remote areas of our county. Our club officers are right to be concerned. It could be anything from stripping native burial sites for artifacts, to some kind of smuggling operation, or even some organized criminal elements dumping bodies in our area. To be quite honest, I’m as curious as I am worried.

I park up at a junction where two overpasses meet. There’s a scenic viewing area that allows me to stop without drawing the notice of people driving past. The exit is clearly visible below. I can see for miles in every direction over the treetops. but there are huge trees obscuring my view of the ground, especially the road leading from the exit to the wilderness. This is clearly the reason our club officers wanted me to bring a drone, it can track what my eyes can’t.

I quickly pull out my favorite drone and get it in the sky. When it zooms out above the trees, the views are fantastic. Absolutely nothing beats the beauty of nature. This is definitely my happy place.

It takes me a minute to find the road again and I hover around for about thirty minutes before the first panel van exits off the interstate. I pull up high, so they don’t catch sight of my drone and follow along with their journey. They turn onto a secondary road, but something catches my attention on the left.

I try to stay on course with the van but decide to sneak a quick look at what’s going on. It could be another van or something important. I manipulate the controls, pulling the drone off my original target and fly it over a cornfield. At first, I think there’s a large animal running at breakneck speed through the field because no human could move so fast through the dense foliage.

When I drop down a bit and zoom in, I realize it’s a woman. She’s not skipping through the cornfield like in a movie, all pretty and graceful. This woman is panicked and running for her life. Although I can’t see her face. I do see her shoving her way forward as her black hair streams behind her.

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