Page 9 - Hunter - The Vigil

More screams and gunshots echoed inside the warehouse. Vince heard Waters’ footsteps hard on
his heels as he raced down the block and dashed for the open doorway. He stumbled on the outfl ung
arm of another of the thugs, lying facedown on the pavement in a spreading pool of red.
Gabreski paused beside the door, clipping the radio to the collar of his jacket. He checked
back over his shoulder at Waters — and found Raimundo and his pugnacious bodyguard right behind
the black detective, holding guns of their own.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vince snapped at the gang leader.
“Watching your back, bitch,” Raimundo shot back. “I got too much invested in you to watch you
get killed, man.”
Vince gritted his teeth in frustration, but there was nothing he could do. Nodding to Waters,
he spun and ducked through the open doorway, pistol at the ready.
The air inside the warehouse was thick with the smell of cordite and the stink of spilled
blood. Trash and debris covered the building’s concrete fl oor, but a large space had been cleared
farther inside the cavernous space, and someone had used lumber to frame out a large, rectangular
space, much like the skeleton of a small house. Heavy plastic sheeting had been hung over the
wooden frame, and bright lights inside turned the white sheeting nearly opaque. The truck was
parked at a loading dock just on the other side of the roll-top, its back door open wide.
Bodies lay everywhere. A man in dark fatigues with a shotgun in his hand was crumpled by the
side of the door, a hole the size of Vince’s fi st gaping in his back. Gabreski counted fi ve Hispanic
men and women lying near the door, their bodies riddled in the cross fi re.
Gunfi re strobed in the darkness on the other side of the wooden framing. Vince gestured for
Waters to head in that direction and dashed forward. “Spread out,” he warned, searching the
shadows for threats.
Plastic sheeting twitched sharply out of the corner of Gabreski’s eye, and a searing pain cut
across his upper left arm. He heard the gunshot a half second later and ducked instinctively.
One of the Russian thugs stood in a framed-out doorway, pointing his pistol at Gabreski’s head.
Vince fi red two quick shots, and the man toppled to the ground.
Vince rushed toward the thug’s prone body, alert for signs of movement on the other side of the
sheeting. Gabreski kicked the pistol from the man’s motionless hand and then glanced back over his
shoulder at Waters.
There was no one there. He’d somehow been separated from Waters and the gangbangers in the
darkness and confusion. Biting back a curse, Gabreski pushed aside the tarp with his pistol and
edged inside.
Beyond the plastic sheeting lay a notional corridor, with three doorframes covered with tarps along
each of the long sides. At the far end of the corridor a fi gure lay curled in a fetal ball. It was the man
with the steel case they’d seen outside. His hands were bound behind his back with a plastic cable tie,
and blood oozed from a cut across his forehead. The case itself was nowhere to be seen.
Edging forward, Vince sidled up to the fi rst doorframe on his right and pushed the tarp
aside.
Within, he found a small, framed-out room, brightly lit by a circular lamp suspended on a metal
arm above a fl at, metal table. A young Hispanic man lay there, his dead eyes wide and staring.
Someone had expertly cut the man’s chest open with an electric bone saw and spread the ribs
apart. His heart, fresh and glistening, sat on a bed of ice in an open cooler resting beneath
the table.
“Jesus Christ,” Vince said, feeling bile rise in the back of his throat. He staggered
backwards, letting the tarp fall back into place, and dashed to the next doorframe. The scene
within was much the same, except that the butchers hadn’t had time to cut into the body of the
young woman lying on the table.
In the third operating chamber, the plastic wall had been sliced open with a scalpel, allowing
the surgeons to escape. With a deep breath, Vince ducked through the tear and found himself once
more in darkness.
Confused shouts and the sound of running feet echoed in the blackness somewhere ahead of him.
There was a gunshot, and then all Vince heard were screams. Terrible, throat-rending screams that
echoed crazily in the vast chamber.
A wild volley of gunfi re rent the darkness — then Vince heard a low, guttural growl. It was a
vicious, liquid sound, unlike anything Gabreski had ever heard before, and it sent a thrill of
pure terror racing down his spine.
Clutching his pistol tightly, he rushed toward the sounds of the fi ghting. More screams and
wild shots punctured the blackness, followed by a chorus of terrifi ed shrieks. With a shock, Vince
realized that some of the screaming was coming over the radio clipped to his collar.
He stumbled over a body, half illuminated by a Mag-Lite clutched in the corpse’s left hand.
It was another one of the ambushers, his head half shot away. Gabreski snatched up the fl ashlight
and kept going, desperate to fi nd Waters and his other teammates.