Quaranteam - North West Ch. 21

I looked like one of the people who didn't care or didn't believe the pandemic was real. I'd gotten comfortable.

That explained why the people in front and behind me in line weren't even willing to spare me a glance and a chuckle when I made a little joke about bread lines.

A woman was working the front door instead of the pimple-faced teenager that was usually there, and she had me wait almost ten minutes for a couple of people to leave with their shopping before she let me in. I grabbed a cart, its handlebar freshly sanitised by a worker, and started walking around, running through the list that Erica had sent me and adding extras that I would bring up to Kara on the Rez.

The problem was, as I walked down the aisles, I realised there were big holes in what was on offer. Shortages of one thing or another had been happening since the start of the lockdown, but they'd always come back in. Toilet paper had been hard to find for a few weeks, and sanitiser had been almost non-existent. Now, though, it was whole sections in the food aisles and it almost felt like it was at random.

With my cart only half-full, I wandered towards the front of the store and went to the customer service desk, hitting the little bell since no one was there. One of the cashiers, pretty much locked in behind a booth of plexiglass at her till, called over asking what I wanted. It took a couple of tries to understand each other because she was even more bundled up than the customers.

When I finally got the manager to appear he looked haggard. It was the same guy that I'd seen arguing with the Sovereign Citizens in the past, except his shirt was untucked, his tie was loose around his collar and I doubted he'd shaved in a week or so behind his heavy N95 mask. Part of me wondered if he was sleeping up in his office that overlooked the cashier area.

"What?" he asked curtly. It looked like the 'customer is always right' attitude had been left behind.

"Sorry to bother you, sir," I said. "I just noticed there's a lot of stock missing and was wondering if you've had shipping problems or something."

"We have what we have," he said. "Everything is out there, we don't have anything in the back. Alright? No one is going to check the back area for you."

"That's not what I was asking," I said, reaching under my shirt and pulling out my badge on its chain. "I was just worried that robberies are getting more common, or if your trucks are getting hijacked."

The manager looked at my badge, blinked and raised his eyebrows, then looked at my mask-covered face again. "You're a cop?"

"Sheriff," I said. "And from another county. But this is where I come to get my groceries, and sometimes my fiancee calls ahead for big orders because we deliver to other people. Erica?"

"Oh!" The manager said. "That's you? Alright, um, sorry. I- Fuck, where do I start? The robberies are off and on. When we see them coming, whoever I have on the door tries to get it locked; that's worked a couple of times. It's always a group of guys, and they make off with a few carts worth of food. Other people are stealing stuff too, but I've given up on trying to stop them all. We did lose a shipment to a hijacking a couple of weeks ago, but only the one that I know of for our location."

"So you're just not getting everything in the shipments?"

He hesitated. "Partially," he said.

"What's the other part?" I asked.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment. "You really deliver food to other people in the area, and that sort of thing?"

"You think I need the amount of produce my fiancee calls in just for us?" I countered.

"Fair, OK," he nodded. "We don't put everything out."

I frowned. "Why not?"

"There's a... it might be easier to just show you, actually," he said. "When you're done shopping, ring the bell again."

"OK," I said, my brow still furrowed. He assured me he'd be listening for the bell and headed up to his office. I went back out into the store and gathered everything I could, or found substitutes for what I couldn't. Once my cart was full to overflowing I went through the cash, fitting about half of the groceries in the reusable bags I'd brought and trying to sort out some of the other stuff into paper bags that I could drop off with Kara easily.

The manager must have been watching for me because he came back down from his office before I was even done paying, and he asked me to meet him out back of the grocery store when I was done loading up my groceries. I agreed and did just that, slowly driving my truck around into the loading area of the store. He was waiting near a beat-up red Civic and waved me over.

"Alright," I said as I got out of my truck. "What's the deal?"

"This is off the record, right?" the manager asked me.

"That's for journalists," I said. "But yeah, you've piqued my curiosity. What's going on?"

"Well, with the way things are, not everyone who needs food can pay... conventionally," he said "So every shipment I get in, I've been skimming off goods and selling it at a huge discount to these guys. I write off some of it as shrinkage, and everyone in corporate knows that stealing and looting is happening so it's not even questioned."

"Who are 'these guys' you're selling it to?" I asked.

He looked nervous. "Local guys, I think. They've set up, like, a market where people can go when they don't have straight cash."

I blinked, a whole lot of things going through my mind all at once. "Alright, well, how about you tell me where it is? Because I don't care what you do with your stock as long as people aren't going hungry, but this sounds shady as hell and I want to make sure these guys aren't... fucking evil, I guess."

"I figured," he said. "And I've wondered a bit, too. They operate out of that warehouse over there." He pointed out beyond the back of the grocery store shipping area, across an undeveloped green space and past an old hardware store. Now I realised why he'd been standing by the car - the warehouse was only really visible from that point of the parking lot. It wasn't very far away, only a couple hundred yards, but with the way even 'downtown' Jewell was things were forested and spread out. "If you want to go check it out, you should just walk from here," he said. "And you probably don't want to bring your badge, they pat everyone down as they go in."

"Alright," I said. "Am I good to leave my truck here?"

The manager agreed and I waited as he headed back into the store before taking a breath. Erica's admonishments that I needed to be careful were running through my head. Was this one of those 'I don't need to do this' things? On the one hand, this wasn't my county and I didn't actually have any proof of a crime beyond the manager possibly defrauding his chain - and considering the state of the world, I could give a fuck about that. But this was still my fucking town, and this was a literal black market. It was entirely possible that it was just some little community effort put on by caring folks trying to make sure everyone had enough to eat, and if that was the case I'd give them some tips to keep everyone safe and try to help them out as best I could.

The likelihood of it being entirely innocent felt really low.

I made the quick walk through the green space to get to the back road and then trudged down the gravel shoulder. This was an unused area of Jewell, one of those forgotten nooks and crannies of the village that had been left to rot as a business became a gravestone to the prosperity that had once been attempted. The warehouse was the old Lumber depot that had closed over a decade ago, and as I approached I saw that there were half a dozen cars parked at one end. At one point the warehouse would have been visible from the main drag of the highway through town, but now it was hidden by the trees and the facade that the grocery store put up, separating it from the clean street and bustle of people's lives. The whole place was overgrown from lack of use, and rust was setting in thick on the upper reaches of the corrugated metal walls of the building. Most of the windows were filthy and too high for me to look in anyways, but there was no way that I was just walking in without taking some precautions.

Instead of heading directly for the man door near the cars that looked like the most likely point of entrance, I walked past the warehouse on the opposite side of the pothole-filled road. Short glances helped me pinpoint that someone had installed a new security camera high up in the overhang of the roof overlooking the parking lot area, and while there wasn't one covering the long side of the building facing the street, there was another one at the far end of the building covering where the load/unload docking area used to be for the depot. I kept walking until I was sure that I had passed out of any meaningful view of the security camera, then crossed the road. The forested area beyond the warehouse that backed onto an overgrown hill was thick, and I used that to my advantage as I slipped into the foliage and circled around, following the curve of the hill back towards the loading area.

As I neared the building, I found that someone had taken a heavy weed whacker to the overgrowth at that end, cutting a path and a clear area hidden away from the road. At one point it looked like there had been a gravel pad, probably for utility access or some sort of work area, back when the lumber depot had been operating. Now it was a parking lot of a different sort - six motorcycles, clean and gleaming with chrome, were backed in and resting on their kickstands.

I blew out a breath. Unless this was some sort of Bikers for Tykes charity organisation, things weren't looking up. Bikers were a subculture that permeated America, even if most people didn't ever really interact with it. They were everywhere. I'd even seen and interacted with some of them overseas, particularly while I was stationed in Germany. Most people who rode motorcycles were completely innocent, but biker gangs were real and the first thing I thought of looking at those bikes was a guy pulling up and opening on me with an Uzi less than a week ago.

More likely than not, these bikes had nothing to do with those guys. Still, I had to forcefully remove my hand from the grip of my sidearm at my hip.

I snuck down the side of the building, looking for ways that I could get a peek in, but found none. My options were quickly getting limited, and it was obvious that whoever's operation this was, they had done their homework. The location felt remote even though it had good access to the grocery store and the highway. The building was secure, and if they were smart enough to install the cameras then I had to assume they were smart enough to have someone watching them. I could either walk in through the front door and act like a customer, or I could use the small access door near the bikes to sneak in.

Neither option seemed particularly careful. I could always back off and try to get some reinforcements, but I doubted I'd get backup from the Staties for something like this. The next best option was calling Miriam and trying to get her to lend me a couple of her Air Force goons, but this was completely out of their jurisdiction as well. That left me with the option of getting Kyla down here, and there was no shot I wanted her to be involved in this after everything else that-

"Who the fuck are you?"

I'd been slowly working my way back through the overgrowth towards the bikes as I'd been considering my options and hadn't realised that the access door there had opened. There hadn't been a bang of the door bursting open, or a squeal of rusty hinges, so I had completely missed the woman opening the door and stepping out into the shade.

She was immediately eye-catching for two reasons; first, she was gorgeous. She had to be in her mid-twenties, had a broad face with a sharp jawline and pointed chin, and big eyes that she had done with thick black eyeliner and shadow. Her hair was a silky black, long and wavy, and based on her skin tone I would have immediately assumed she was at least part native considering the nearby Rez if it wasn't for something about the shape of her eyes, nose and lips that reminded me of women I'd seen overseas. She was either Arab or Persian, the cultural difference of which had been drilled into me by an interpreter while I was deployed.

The second thing that was eye-catching was her hourglass figure and absolutely astounding tits. She was wearing a tight, beige turtleneck that hugged her body and highlighted her bust in a way that actually cast a bit of a shadow under it on her stomach. She was also wearing a thin black leather jacket, black skintight jeans and black boots.

And she was looking right at me.

"Just passing through," I said, not stopping my walking.

"Bullshit," she said with a bit of a snarl. She darted back into the darkness of the warehouse, clearly going to fetch someone.

I had a moment where I could run; it wasn't that far from the grocery store back lot, and I could cut through the green space. They would chase, but the motorcycles wouldn't do them too much good so it would be a footrace. Once I was in the lot they would see my truck and that could dissuade them, and the store definitely had cameras so they probably wouldn't want to shoot me up.

Probably.

Or I could stay and figure this shit out.

I quickly yanked my badge from around my neck and dropped it on the ground under a bush, kicking some dirt over it, then headed towards the open doorway as I muttered and thought of Erica. "Sorry, babe." I made it past three of the six motorcycles when a guy came rushing out, his mouth pulled into a grimace as he was already reaching to grab me with both hands. He was big, he was burly, and he smelled like cigarettes as he got his hands on my shirt and yanked me around a bit.

"Hey, whoa," I said, holding up my hands.

The first guy was followed by a second one, somehow even bigger than the first, and he was carrying a shotgun. They were each dressed roughly, standing out as rough-and-tumble sorts rather than street thugs or rednecks. 'Biker' was definitely the right word for them. They both also happened to be wearing leather vests, called cuts, with patches on the front. Only one of them stood out to me in that moment - black diamonds with 1% stitching.

Definitely not a charity group.

I got spun around, not fighting it, and slammed against the side of the building. "Gun," the one with the shotgun grunted, and my pistol was yanked from its holster at my hip.

"Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing here?" growled the guy who had grabbed me. He had a neck tattoo of an American flag clutched by an eagle, and my mind quickly sifted through the notes I'd taken of the raiders but didn't find anything. The good news, if I could call it that in my current situation, was that they were both wearing gaiters pulled up over their noses, mouths and chins. The bikers were at least a little health conscious. How couldbikers be more concerned about a pandemic than sovereign citizens?

"I'm just a guy trying to figure out what the deal is here," I said, mostly honestly and keeping my hands raised. "I heard there was a sort of market going on."

The two of them glanced at each other, the one with the shotgun grunted and nodded, and the one with the neck tattoo grabbed me and hauled me into the warehouse. The quick transition from outside to inside had me blinded for a moment as I got manhandled, but I quickly saw that I was in what must have been the office area of the depot before it closed. It was mostly empty except for a few old desks and chairs, and I got yanked into the centre of the space and slammed down into a wooden chair that creaked from the strain.

The only lighting in the area was a couple of white, battery-operated lanterns closer to the door that led deeper into the warehouse. They cast a sort of ghostly pale light over the two bikers and the woman, who was grimacing at me as she eyed me up and down.

I decided, instead of trying to stammer an explanation and make a show of it, I'd just keep my mouth shut until I was asked a question. A couple of moments later I was glad I did, as Neck Tattoo turned away while Shotgun kept me covered, which gave me a look at the patch on the back of his vest. It was big, bold and I recognized it immediately, though I hadn't seen one in years.

The Guns of Thunder were a small biker gang that had sprung up in the back regions of Oregon. In the 90s and 00s they'd been a growing criminal element and had started to gain traction running opioids and knockoffs. Then they'd gotten into a short and bloody war with the other major biker gangs in the state, namely the Gypsy Jokers and the Mongols, and had dropped off the face of Oregon after a summer of killings that had spiked the murder rate for the state dramatically.

"He's clean," grunted Neck Tattoo as he reached the far door.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" asked the other guy with his shotgun still trained on my chest.

"Like I said, I heard you guys had a sort of market going on here," I said. "I just wanted to check-" I cut off as another man entered, pushing past Neck Tattoo.

This new guy was older and walked with the confident swagger of a man who had earned every ounce of his ego but didn't let it control him. He had a sort of long face, though the gaiter he was wearing obscured most of his features. He was wearing a red flannel shirt under a dark denim cut, and his sleeves were rolled up to reveal his arms were peppered with a variety of small tattoos and his fingers had a half dozen chunky rings spread across them.

"He was out there skulking through the brush," the woman said. She'd put on a medical facemask much like my own at some point while I'd been getting grabbed.

"Well, I guess I'll need to have a talk with him then, baby," he said, his voice gravelly as he rubbed her shoulder for a moment before turning to me. He grabbed another chair and dragged it over, setting it down with a thunk in front of me before sitting down and staring into my eyes. "Do you know who I am?"

"No clue," I said. "Well, specifically. I recognize the patches."

"Hmm," he grunted, then leaned back. "Swear allegiance to the flag."

"What?"

"If you aren't one of those fucking hicks spouting off that dumb shit in the woods about not being an American, swear allegiance to the flag," he demanded.

Shaking my head, I sat straight and cleared my throat before putting my right hand over my heart. "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

"Well, that's one question answered," he said. He glanced at his brother with the shotgun. "What did he have on him?"

"Handgun," Shotgun said, nodding towards Neck Tattoo, who showed off my sidearm.

"So what the fuck are you doing walking around my building with a weapon like that?" the bossman asked, turning his attention to me again. As my eyes were adjusting to the light I could see that his hair, shorn short all over her head, was more silver than black, and he had crow's feet heavy at the corners of his eyes. I would have placed him in his late fifties if I had to guess.

"I heard about your market and wanted to see what was going on," I said. "And my sidearm is for my protection."

"'Sidearm' sounds a lot like you're a cop," he said.

"It's also just the correct term for it," I said.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, looking me over again. "Military."

"Yeah," I said.

"Navy?"

"You think I'd fit on a ship?" I snorted. "Army."

"Not everyone who served in the Navy was on a ship the whole time," the guy said and turned over his arm. His inner forearm had an eagle gripping a globe, a K-bar knife stabbed through.