Yet leaving Ukiah locked in the basement seemed dangerous. There was a risk that he'd leave or call out or be found—none of which would be good.

Ru guessed the reason for his silence. "We could lock him back in the Jaguar's trunk."

"Don't tempt me," Atticus snapped. "But, he could easily wake up and cause a problem."

"Well," Kyle said, "we could kill him."

"Kyle!"

"He'd get better."

"No, Kyle."

"Well, I could rig some remote alarms. We'd at least know if any of the doors were opened."

"Even with the phones down?"

"Oh, yeah, I'd link them to a hub that could page my PDA if anything got triggered."

"We're going to be over an hour away," Ru said. "We might know something went down, but we're not going to be able to do anything about it."

"We can't take him with us." Atticus wasn't going to endanger Ru and Kyle to keep Ukiah safe. "Can you search on 'Cub'? That's his street name."

Kyle shook his head after several minutes of searching. "No, nothing is coming up under that name. Did you get a last name out of him?"

"No, the Iron Horses showed up before we had a chance to ask. He did make a call on Ru's phone."

"Ah, tricky." Kyle typed on his keyboard to cue up the recorded conversation.

The number had a 412 area code. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It rang seven times before being picked up, and a sleepy male voice grunted into the phone. "Hmm?"

"It's me," Ukiah said with all confidence his voice would be recognized. And it was.

"Ukiah! Oh, thank God."

"I've got a broken arm, broken ribs. I've been shot about five times. I've got a dozen mice on my hands . . . and I'm at the ocean. What the hell happened?"

Who had Ukiah called? Rennie Shaw?

"The cult nailed you yesterday evening. The police called early this morning; they found your jacket on the Mass Pike but there was no sign of you. We've been worried sick that the cult torched your body. Are you still with them, or are you safe someplace?"

"I think I'm safe. I got yanked out of the trunk, dead, by . . ." There was some mysterious grunting on the other end of the line. "Max?"

No, not Shaw.Atticus leaned over Kyle's shoulder, substituted "Max" for "Cub" and hit return.

"Oh, I'm just trying to get my PDA," the mysterious Max said. "It's—damn it—I hate hospitals. There! Give me the number you're at."

Ukiah read off Ru's number. "Is everyone else okay?"

A woman's voice, distant but growing closer said, "Hi, I'm Deb, your physical therapist. I need to clear you on crutches before you can be discharged."

"Ummm, I'll talk to you later about that. My physical therapist is here." Obviously this Max didn't want to discuss murder and mayhem in front of hospital personnel.

"Max, was anyone hurt?"

"Don't worry, kid. They took you down in Ohio with the Dogs."

"If you want to be released today," Deb said impatiently, "you're going to have to get off the phone."

"Hang tight, kid. And be careful. You're too vulnerable right now to believe anything that anyone tells you. These loons specialize at getting people to trust them. If you were"—a pause as the word "dead" was caught before being said aloud—"if you've got that many mice, your 'rescue' might not be what it seems. I'll call you back as soon as I'm done here."

"Okay."

The line went dead.

Well, that explained why Ukiah had come back from the phone call sullen. The conversation only raised more questions. The search for Pack members with the name of Max had come back empty. So who was this? What was his relationship with Ukiah? Why was he in the hospital? If the "Dogs" were the Dog Warriors, why had the cult attacked them? When did religious groups start wars with biker gangs?

"The number was a private room at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh," Kyle complained. "I'll have to hack their database to find out who was in the room."

Ru read the call log off the computer screen. "This Max has called back a dozen times since Ukiah called him." He kept his phone on silent mode; it must have vibrated unnoticed. "If we leave Ukiah here, he might disappear back to Pittsburgh, or wherever he came from."

"We can't take him with us," Atticus repeated.

Ru glanced at his watch. "He'll probably wake up soon after we leave."

"If we get him to take back all his mice, he'll be asleep the rest of the day."

"You think he'll be safe?" Ru asked.

"The only ones who know he's here are the Iron Horses—and they seemed fairly respectful. He should be safe here. We can't take him with us."

By the looks on Ru's and Kyle's faces, the one he was trying hardest to convince was himself.

CHAPTER THREE

Hawg Heaven, Hull, Massachusetts

Monday, September 20, 2004

The town of Hull sat on a narrow dogleg of land that jutted out into the Atlantic Ocean. On the way to it, they passed signs for "World's End," which seemed appropriate as they drove down Nantasket Avenue, water flanking either side of the road. To their left, the water was nearly pond still, fringed with trees dressed in fall colors. On their right ran an empty parking lot, a sandy beach, and the ocean. Seasonal businesses were closed up, and no one was out on the rainy cold afternoon.

They scouted the area in the drizzling rain before dusk started to set in, not that there was much to be learned. The bar sat on a lump of land in the middle of the narrow peninsula, between the mainland and the bulk of the town on the bulbous tip. Nantasket Avenue split around the bar and its parking lot, with traffic going out to the land's end running in front of the bar, and the lanes heading for the mainland lying behind it. Motorcycles already sat in the bar's parking lot, so they had no chance to scout the inside before the buy.

When it came time, they parked the Jaguar where Kyle could keep watch on both it and the bar and yet stay out of direct sight. They had the money in a backpack on the theory it would draw less notice than a briefcase. Atticus slung it onto his back, made sure it didn't interfere with drawing his pistol, and then led the way into the bar.

Steppenwolf leaked out around the door, wailing about heavy metal thunder. Atticus opened the door and the music flooded out on a wave of warm air, thick with cigarette smoke, beer, and hot grease. Obviously the bar was the refuge of men who had nothing better to do than sit around and abuse themselves with diluted poisons. Atticus stepped in far enough to give Ru room to enter, and paused, letting all the little details sink in. Once the bar became known, his senses would work on automatic, acting like a "spider sense," alerting him to danger as long as he didn't get too deep into focus on something.

"Born to be Wild" beat against his skin. The banks of smoke came from Winston, Old Gold, and Marlboro cigarettes. Off to the right was the clack of billiards, the table screened by bodies. The beer on tap was Samuel Adams and the whiskey of choice seemed to be Jack Daniel's. Unlike other bars he'd been in, this one was heavy with cured leather and blue jeans embedded with the exhaust and engine oil of motorcycles. After the bars and raves of the Beltway, the men were shaggier, dirtier, and more heavily armed. He picked out knives—and in lesser numbers pistols—hidden in boots, in pockets, and under clothing.