Page 56 of Frisco

“Sounds good. I’ll let them know to prepare.”

We hung up, and as I walked toward him, Crow turned and led the way into his house, down to his basement, and through to a cellar type of room large enough to fit twenty members. The rest stood in the back. I took one of the seats at the end. Crow took the head seat as the rest trailed in. Every ranking member had a specific seat—VP, sergeant at arms, secretary, treasurer, road captain.

This was Frisco’s charter, their home, their church. So their VP would call church to start.

Crow did just that once the doors were shut. The room grew quiet, and he nodded, leaning forward. There was a gavel in front of him.

“Okay. Everyone here?” he asked.

A round of yeahs sounded, and he nodded again, looked over at me. “This here is a home-away-from-home sort of place. It’s off the books. We shouldn’t be connected to it. Now, y’all have heard about our surprise guest and what happened to the national prez, so I’ll give it over to Ghost. He’s in charge during these times.”

All eyes came my way.

I nodded. “As most of you probably heard already, Prez was shot yesterday.” I filled them in on what I knew about it. “Half our guys are coming. The others stayed back to guard him, but Estrada being here warrants a threat we can’t ignore.”

“And if it’s not him?” the Frisco road captain asked. “If there’s a different threat to the Prez?”

“He’ll go into hiding. They won’t make a move until I’m back. Heckler stayed for that reason. He’ll keep him safe.”

That seemed to appease the guys, and most looked Crow’s way.

He asked the question. “What’s the plan then?”

“We need to gather information, as much as possible. I want to know who Estrada was visiting near here. I want to know where his men are. I want to know everything we can get. Did you know he’s got local connections here?”

“Not at all, but it’s not that surprising,” Crow said. “They move through Tijuana.”

I nodded. Yeah. That was the problem.

“We need a plan for tonight,” Stripes piped up. “Just in case.” He was standing at my side, and he spoke to me, not Crow.

The rest of our guys nodded their agreement.

“We’ll leave guys here,” I told him. “The rest will come with us. No drinking. Alcohol should only be served to our guests. And everyone keep your guns ready.” I looked at Stripes. “I want half our guys outside, keeping watch.”

He nodded.

I focused on Crow. “You’re thinking the roast will be at The Bonfire?”

“Yeah. If he doesn’t know our other locations, why introduce a new place?”

“He might not even know about that, though. What about where we were before? The parking lot where we met him? It’s flat around there, for the most part. We could keep guys behind the building and outside the town.”

Crow lifted a shoulder. “Makes sense, but it won’t take them much work to find out about The Bonfire. Everyone around here knows that’s where we operate from.”

I paused to consider that.

Crow was right, keeping Estrada to the areas he knew already or could know easily made sense. “Let’s do it at The Bonfire, otherwise we gotta leave more men behind to guard that place. Empty it out except for whoever needs to be there to play a part.”

“Ghost.”

I looked back, and Roadie leaned forward, his eyebrows pulled together tight. “We really doing this? Pretending?”

“We voted, and we can’t throw everything away by making a move when we don’t know for sure. I want him to play his hand, and then we can play ours. I’ll pick the guys who’ll keep watch.” I turned to Crow. “Your charter have any ex-military?”

A few of their guys raised their hands.

Crow motioned to them. “Two Marines and a Ranger, like yourself.”