Page 366 - Hunter - The Vigil

The gang leader laughed and shook his head. “Hey, man, what makes you think we got
that kind of hardware —” Raimundo caught the look in Gabreski’s eye and gave up the act.
“Whatever you say, vato,” he replied, and reached for the ignition key.

Vince sent Humphrey off with Raimundo to get what they needed; he didn’t think the
suit would try anything cute in a car full of Siete Muertos soldiers.
He also hoped that Humphrey would keep Raimundo honest. It wasn’t much, but it was

Sometime after 2:30, the sleet turned to snow. Andrea and Jack sat in the back of
all he had.
the van, talking quietly. He guessed they were passing the bottle of rum back and forth,
too, but he didn’t make an issue out of it. Instead, he sat in the driver’s seat of the
van and tried to keep warm as he watched the street outside the apartment building.
Darnell was almost certainly dead by now. He knew it, deep down in his bones. There
was no point in sitting out there in the cold, waiting for the Russians to show. It
wasn’t going to bring Waters back. The only thing he stood to gain was revenge. An eye

for an eye.
Gabreski would take what he could get.
The knock at the van’s cargo door took him by surprise. He hadn’t seen the gangbangers
roll up. Raimundo and Humphrey climbed into the van, carrying a pair of duffel bags
that smelled of gun oil. Dean helped the gang leader unpack and check the weapons while
Humphrey climbed into the vehicle’s passenger seat. He’d changed into a pair of jeans
and a dark jacket, and carried a large, nylon case, which he tucked into his lap.
“Got everything we need?” Vince asked. He had a feeling the case contained more than

just autoinjectors.
“All set,” Humphrey said, peering out at the snow. “Looks like a completely different
Vince nodded. After everything that had happened in the last fi ve hours, he didn’t
street now.”
think he would ever be able to look at his hometown the same way again.
“I wonder what the Feds would think about you guys,” he mused. “Agents of a foreign
conglomerate operating death squads on American soil? If Homeland Security ever catches
wind of what you’re doing, you’ll wind up at Gitmo, or worse.”
“Death squads?” Humphrey barked, incredulous. “Please. And what makes you think the
Feds aren’t doing the exact same thing?” He shook his head. “You’ve got no idea what’s
really going on out there, Detective. With luck, this is the most of it you’ll ever

see.”
Vince thought about that for a long while.
Finally, at nearly four in the morning, a familiar trio of Suburbans appeared out of the
white haze and raced down the deserted street. Gabreski straightened in his seat. “Okay,

people, here we go.”
Using the night-vision goggles, he watched half-a-dozen men climb out of the SUVs
and rush into the old building. Within minutes, a steady stream of women and children
began fi ling out of the building into two of the waiting Suburbans. “Looks like the rats
are leaving the nest,” he murmured.
“Yeah, they’ve had a lot of practice at this,” Humphrey said. “They’ll have a couple
of safehouses set up to hide the kids and their mothers in case they’re discovered. They

don’t dare put them at risk.”
“Why is that?” Vince asked.
Humphrey gave Vince a strange look. “What do you think the ghouls get out of the

deal with the Khaurovs?”
Gabreski frowned. “Bodies. What else?”
“You saw them up close. Do you think they need help getting their food? No, the
Khaurovs supply something much more important. Breeding stock.”
“Jesus,” he whispered. Vince recalled the horrors he’d seen inside the apartment and

felt his guts churn.
“Yeah,” Humphrey agreed. “Don’t imagine for a moment that the Russians are the ones
in charge here — they’re slaves, at best.”
The Russians emptied the tenement within minutes.