myself straight away.
There wouldn’t have been that many people who would have known what was about to go down, and all of those would have had to be at least full patched members of either one or the other clubs, if not amongst its top officers.
There would be plenty of guys in both clubs who might object to the two of them cosying up like this. Everyone in and around the outlaw biker scene knew there were hatreds that ran long and deep from what had been twenty or thirty years of virtual war between the clubs.
Or then again, it might be someone with another agenda. Someone aiming to embarrass the leadership of either club perhaps, for reasons of their own.
And that was before you started to think who outside the club might want to attack. But then how could anyone outside have known? I checked myself. No, whoever had actually pulled the triggers, they had to have been operating on the basis of information from within one or other of the clubs.
‘So what happens now?’
‘We’ll leave it to the local guys. They were hosting the run, it was their turf, they were responsible for security and they fucked up. So it’s up to them to deal with it or to ask for help if they need it.’
With the serious loss of face that would involve, I thought. Given how Thommo felt about Wibble and his crowd I guessed it would be a fairly chilly day in hell before that happened.
I gathered from his tone that was about all I was going to get for the moment. I could sense, without saying a word, he was drawing our discussion to a close, but that was alright, I didn’t need to fight it, I had enough for what I wanted at the present.
Then just as I was getting ready to go, Wibble had a last surprise for me. ‘Here,’ he said handing me a small cloth embroidered badge, ‘Before you go, I’ve got something for you to take. Put that on.’
I looked at what he’d given me quizzically. It was a smaller stylised variation of The Brethren’s patch than the one they all wore between their rockers, with the word ‘Support’ on a tab above, Wibble’s name on a flash across the centre and the initials LLH&R woven on a tab at the bottom.
‘Get that sewn on your jacket. Have it on the front or the side somewhere and it’ll give you protection, no one will lift a finger against you,’ he instructed, ‘But don’t put it anywhere on the back or you’ll get filled in sharpish.’
I understood and nodded as I slipped the token into my pocket. Having it on the back of my jacket would look too much like an outsider claiming some kinship, some entitlement to the Menace colours, and whatever my status no Brethren was going to tolerate that sort of infringement for even a moment.
But by the same token, a Freemen named support patch would be my ticket to the inside. It marked me out as someone who was trusted to work with and for The Freemen, someone on the inside and in the know. It would be a critical pass that told Brethren that they were free to speak to me. And it would be my safeguard, telling any Brethren that decided to take me on that I was under the protection of The Freemen and that they would have to answer to my sponsor if they did so.
‘I said I’d sort you out didn’t I? Well there you go.’
It was weird, I thought, as I slipped into blackness behind the balaclava again for the trip back. With this support patch, without asking for it or seeking it, I now found myself in a unique position. I was a journalist still, but now one potentially ‘embedded’ on one side for the duration of what was likely to be a bloody biker war.
I wasn’t at all sure how comfortable I was at that as a prospect. *
As we rode back I had nothing to do but think in the darkness as I jerked and swung about on the pillion behind Bung.
And try as I might, there was nothing that I could think about other than the immediate aftermath of the attack that day. And out of all the fractured images of the burning bikes, and the screaming of wounded
There wouldn’t have been that many people who would have known what was about to go down, and all of those would have had to be at least full patched members of either one or the other clubs, if not amongst its top officers.
There would be plenty of guys in both clubs who might object to the two of them cosying up like this. Everyone in and around the outlaw biker scene knew there were hatreds that ran long and deep from what had been twenty or thirty years of virtual war between the clubs.
Or then again, it might be someone with another agenda. Someone aiming to embarrass the leadership of either club perhaps, for reasons of their own.
And that was before you started to think who outside the club might want to attack. But then how could anyone outside have known? I checked myself. No, whoever had actually pulled the triggers, they had to have been operating on the basis of information from within one or other of the clubs.
‘So what happens now?’
‘We’ll leave it to the local guys. They were hosting the run, it was their turf, they were responsible for security and they fucked up. So it’s up to them to deal with it or to ask for help if they need it.’
With the serious loss of face that would involve, I thought. Given how Thommo felt about Wibble and his crowd I guessed it would be a fairly chilly day in hell before that happened.
I gathered from his tone that was about all I was going to get for the moment. I could sense, without saying a word, he was drawing our discussion to a close, but that was alright, I didn’t need to fight it, I had enough for what I wanted at the present.
Then just as I was getting ready to go, Wibble had a last surprise for me. ‘Here,’ he said handing me a small cloth embroidered badge, ‘Before you go, I’ve got something for you to take. Put that on.’
I looked at what he’d given me quizzically. It was a smaller stylised variation of The Brethren’s patch than the one they all wore between their rockers, with the word ‘Support’ on a tab above, Wibble’s name on a flash across the centre and the initials LLH&R woven on a tab at the bottom.
‘Get that sewn on your jacket. Have it on the front or the side somewhere and it’ll give you protection, no one will lift a finger against you,’ he instructed, ‘But don’t put it anywhere on the back or you’ll get filled in sharpish.’
I understood and nodded as I slipped the token into my pocket. Having it on the back of my jacket would look too much like an outsider claiming some kinship, some entitlement to the Menace colours, and whatever my status no Brethren was going to tolerate that sort of infringement for even a moment.
But by the same token, a Freemen named support patch would be my ticket to the inside. It marked me out as someone who was trusted to work with and for The Freemen, someone on the inside and in the know. It would be a critical pass that told Brethren that they were free to speak to me. And it would be my safeguard, telling any Brethren that decided to take me on that I was under the protection of The Freemen and that they would have to answer to my sponsor if they did so.
‘I said I’d sort you out didn’t I? Well there you go.’
It was weird, I thought, as I slipped into blackness behind the balaclava again for the trip back. With this support patch, without asking for it or seeking it, I now found myself in a unique position. I was a journalist still, but now one potentially ‘embedded’ on one side for the duration of what was likely to be a bloody biker war.
I wasn’t at all sure how comfortable I was at that as a prospect. *
As we rode back I had nothing to do but think in the darkness as I jerked and swung about on the pillion behind Bung.
And try as I might, there was nothing that I could think about other than the immediate aftermath of the attack that day. And out of all the fractured images of the burning bikes, and the screaming of wounded
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