by Ty Patterson
She zoomed in and pointed to a thin track that led from the rear and disappeared into woods half a mile away.
Zeb looked at the scene and calculated.
Siege started half an hour back. How quickly would they have escaped?
He called out to Chang, ‘Has anyone cut off their rear?’
Chang relayed his question, nodded affirmatively. ‘Yeah. They are sealed in.’
‘How long ago was that?’
More relaying, yelling, and grimacing as Chang got Zeb’s information. ‘Fifteen, twenty minutes from the first shots.’
Zeb was moving, Bwana and Roger at his side. The twins made to join him, glared furiously when he gestured at them to stay back.
Chang shouted at him to wait, he would send cruisers. Roger waved back. Send them, we are heading out.
Bwana punched the coordinates in their sat-nav and pointed out a vacant parking space when Zeb neared the block.
They looked at the building casually, donned their rear-view Ray-Bans and huddled over a pole mounted map of the city. A bunch of tourists checking out the town.
‘They have two apartments on the second story. Building has four stories, each story has four apartments. No concierge. Two elevators, one staircase.’ Zeb murmured, recollecting the info Meghan had dug up.
‘I’ll take the elevator, you two take the stairs.’
‘But first let’s check out the parking lot.’
The parking lot had cars, SUVs, trucks, and, jammed between two large trucks, were two Harleys.
Zeb called Beth; spoke briefly, nodded at his companions and jerked his head at a bike with a red leather saddle.
He looked around. No cameras.
He felt the bikes. Their engines were warm.
Must have escaped from the rear at the first burst of firing.
Why did they come here?
Stash?
They entered the building singly, Zeb headed to the elevator, his men ran up the flight.
The second story hallway was empty, silent, when they entered it. They withdrew their weapons noiselessly, Roger favored a Kimber, Bwana and Zeb were Glock men. They had more firepower on them, but this was a residential building. A re-enactment of the Shoot-out at the OK Corral wasn’t on their agenda.
They wanted to take down the biker with minimum fuss, minimal shots and ideally no bloodshed.
Three of them against a maximum of four bikers, if the two bikes had pillion riders.
Doable. Eminently doable.
They had gone up against more men, harder men, and taken them down with not a hair out of place.
Two doors bookended the hallways at either end, two others were opposite the elevator.
Roger and Bwana manned either side of the elevator as Zeb went to the farther door and inspected it.
Nothing special about it, Bwana could kick it down. The lock was a standard tumbler lock that he could pick.
What if there’s a dead bolt inside?
He slipped out a thin cable at the end of which was a nano-camera, attached one end of it to his phone from which it drew power.
He slipped the other end beneath the door.
The door opened into a tiny hallway which led to a living room. Windows at the far end, no movement inside.
He turned the cable to see up the door, but the gap was too small.
Should have brought the thermal imager.
The thermal imager would have detected the presence of bodies. He rose and repeated the exercise at the other door and couldn’t detect any bodies. They could be anywhere inside.
He jammed his kit inside his ruck sack just as the nearest door clicked and swung open silently.
A barrel came out cautiously, and then a head.
A head full of curly hair, a bearded face which swiveled in their direction.
The man’s eyes grew round and the barrel swung their way. ‘Fuck!’
The swear choked off when all of Bwana’s six feet four inches and two hundred and twenty pounds crashed into him, one hand crushed his mouth and stifled his shout.
The door rocked back, but Roger’s hand shot out and stopped it from slamming into the wall.
Roger covered the apartment while Bwana grabbed the man, dragged him out in the hallway and sat on him.
One massive hand plucked the assault rifle like it was a toy and thrust it at Zeb. A second hand jammed a Glock between Curly’s teeth. In two seconds flat, the captive was taped, cuffed, and his ankles secured.
Zeb nodded at Roger who entered the apartment cautiously, Zeb backing him from the rear.
Empty.
Zeb’s eyes darted to the other door just as Curly’s scuffles picked up. Bwana squeezed him harder and all that Curly could do was glare furiously and kick at the air.
Zeb and Roger approached the second apartment, listened.
No movement.
Zeb raised his hand to knock and stilled it when a muffled voice came from inside.
‘Bud? We gotta go. Can’t hang around.’
A shadow crossed the crack beneath the door, a bolt turned and the door opened.
A head poked out cautiously.
Bernardino.
Before he could grasp what was in front of him, a shadow moved and Zeb’s hands grabbed him, hauled him out and tossed him against the far wall.
His head smashed against the wall and his body bounced and slid down, dazed. A handgun slipped out of his hand and clattered.
‘DOWN. HANDS AND FEET APART.’
He shook his head like a bull and reared up suddenly. He fell back when Zeb clubbed his neck and a groan issued from him.
Zeb shoved him over, face down, planted a knee on his back and cuffed his hands. He nodded at Roger who dived inside the apartment, Bwana providing cover.
They came back, shaking their heads. ‘Empty. Looks like just the two of them got away.’
Bernardino struggled again when they secured his ankles, but Zeb subdued him easily.
He spat in Zeb’s face when they rolled him over.
Zeb wiped it away, sat back on his heels and spoke mildly to the trussed man.
‘You could have walked in and saved yourself all the hassle.’
‘Fuck you, pig. I ain’t done nothing. I’ll sue you for assault. You assholes are not even cops.’
His shouting got the farthest apartment’s door open. It shut quickly when Roger went over and explained the circumstances.
Zeb looked at Roger, got thumbs up, and turned back to the captive. ‘Consider it a citizen’s arrest given what we found in your apartment.’
Bwana waved bags of meth at their captive. ‘Ten Ks, I reckon. Street value of about half a mil. Betcha these bags have your prints all over them.’
‘Those are plants,’ Bernardino blustered. ‘I don’t know anything about them.’
Bwana shook his head pityingly as he hunkered down next to Zeb.
His eyes were on the ex-con, but his words were directed at Roger.
‘They never learn do they?’
‘Nope,’ the Texan drawled. ‘If they did we’d be outta jobs wouldn’t we?’
‘You’ve got a point, bro.’ His voice was amused when he addressed Bernardino. ‘Listen insect, you heard of something called body cams? We are all wearing them. That feed will show we found that shit stuffed under your mattress.’
Bernardino bared his teeth in contempt, ‘You pricks didn’t crash my place for the meth. You came here for the killing. I ain’t done that.’
The feral smile grew. ‘I was in Florida that day. I got back just yesterday and saw my mug plastered on TV. Guess what assholes? I got alibis. I hit bars and night clubs in Miami this entire week. My face will be all over their cameras. In fact I got into a brawl with a bouncer there, he’ll remember me.’
Zeb cut off his gloating by taping his mouth, hauled him up roughly and led him and Curly to their vehicle. He secured the two to the rear door handles and waited for the local P.D. to turn up.
Bwana placed hi
s hands on his hips and surveyed the two bikers with disgust.
‘If what he says is true, the Flayer will be rolling around in laughter.’
Chang and Pizaka were glum when they boarded the jet in the evening.
‘He’s got a watertight alibi for Christmas day. We called the bar he was in and they have video of his brawl. There was no way he could have come back in time for the killing.’ Pizaka’s shades were speckled with dirt and when he removed them; his eyes were weary and frustrated.
Bwana kicked out his seat in anger and growled a sound that reverberated in the confined space. ‘How did his hair get there?’
‘He isn’t saying. He has lawyered up.’
Jan 1st-7th
The Flayer couldn’t stop chuckling when he caught the news.
What I wouldn’t give to see their faces.
It had been ridiculously easy to procure Bernardino’s hair. There were several internet sites that sold hair, nails, clothes, even samples of blood, of convicts and killers. There were innumerable buyers too, in fact several dark net auction sites existed to serve killers and their twisted followers.
The Flayer had researched inmates in all prisons several years back and had come across Bernardino and when the killer was released, it had been short work to make anonymous contact and get samples of his hair.
Insurance for just such a moment.
He had deliberately planted the hair in the Stark bathroom.
Nothing like sending New York’s finest and Mr. Carter on a false trail.
He stood up and stretched and yawned. This killing business took a lot out of a man. He had started reducing his business commitments – there wasn’t any point unnecessarily risking his face in public - not with the ongoing manhunt.
It’s not as if I need the money. Pops and Mom set the trust fund up and I also did well on my own.
He got to work.
Kohler had to go. He rigged a tackle over her tank, attached a winch to it and after fastening belts around her body, he lifted her out of her liquid home.
Sorry, babe. Gotta make way for the new. You know how it is.
He dragged Stark’s body off the table, enjoyed the smacking sound it made as it fell on the plastic sheets below.
He attached securing belts to her and winched her in the tank. He adjusted her body so that her eyes looked beseechingly at him.
He saluted her.
Think of it this way. You died for a noble cause. My cause.
He rolled Kohler over a plastic sheet and taped it and then dragged out an old carpet and rolled the body in it. He had vacuumed and shampooed the carpet and was confident it would not lead back to him.
Once he had finished, he washed his hands, wiped himself and sat down at his cramped work space.
A note. How do I greet my hunters?
The body was found by a bunch of urban explorers who had spent the day checking out the silent structure. They had stumbled across the carpet and had initially viewed it as another item cast away by the city’s residents.
One of them noticed something white sticking out and had promptly puked when he saw it was a human hand.
Pizaka warmed his hands by thrusting them deep inside his coat pockets and surveyed the desolate ruin. His partner stood by his side, Zeb and the twins a few feet away.
‘I didn’t know such ruins existed anymore.’ Beth’s breath frosted in the cold air as she stamped her feet to keep warm.
‘There are a few. They used to be where drug addicts hung out or where gay men would rendezvous. Now they are not only abandoned, they have become tourist hotspots.’ Zeb replied absently as he watched the CSI crew led by Cleary go over the site.
The grain terminal was in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and was built to store grain before loading it into freighters. The terminal however never made a profit and it closed down for good in the mid-sixties. Attempts to resurrect the structure in different avatars failed and it now stood as an ugly scar on the city’s landscape, a place where hobbyists visited.
Or where bodies get dumped.
Zeb had got the call from Chang early in the morning and had found the twins waiting by his vehicle when he got there. Meghan had picked a handful of newspapers, most of which carried headlines about the NYPD’s incompetence.
Zeb shrugged silently. All they could do was keep pursuing any and all leads.
His musing was cut short when Cleary trotted their way and showed them a piece of paper, a note.
You gotta admit it; the hair was a neat trick. Be warned, my next event will break the internet. I might sell tickets. Prime time viewing at the House of Flaying.
Chapter 21
Januart 1st-7th
The Butcher had a different target this time.
The HOF’s security was at its highest and many innocent people had been tortured and killed under suspicion of aiding the Butcher.
He didn’t have any helpers, but the HOF didn’t know that.
The Butcher was in Syria this time, in a portion of the two hundred thousand square miles of Syro-Arabian desert formed millions of years ago from lava flow. It was flat, rocky, and hot. The only sign of life was the occasional lizard that stared flatly at the Butcher and got a stony look in reply.
He moved at night as usual and hunkered down during daylight.
He saw a convoy once in the distance, light reflecting off the windshield of trucks, army trucks.
HOF trucks now, captured from the Syrian army. They swung away and disappeared into the dancing heat waves.
The desert was the HOF’s killing ground. It was where they performed mass executions and left the bodies to either decompose in the heat or covered them with sand.
Killing HOF commanders was increasingly risky and this time the Butcher had chosen a secondary target.
His target was due to rendezvous seventy miles away, two nights of walking. He wasn’t expecting trouble, but it came on the second night.
The sound of engines came to him first and then he saw the horizon glow. The glow became brighter and two pairs of headlamps cut through the night.
He dropped down and remained motionless.
The HOF wasn’t known to patrol the desert at night, but he couldn’t think of any other entity that would be out in the dark.
He moved slowly - sudden movement attracted attention - and dropped his night vision over his eyes. They looked like Jeeps. The distance and the darkness made it hard to tell.
Coming straight toward him.
Behind him lay Iraq, to the left of him was Lebanon, both several hundreds of miles away.
The Butcher was carrying only one main weapon this time. A rocket propelled grenade launcher. In some circles it was also called a SMAW, a Shoulder Launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon.
It fired High Explosive Dual Purpose rounds and also High Explosive Anti Armor rockets. The weapon once belonged to an American soldier. It was now the Butcher’s.
His original target was a HOF convoy of weapons and supplies, an ideal target for this weapon.
He peered through his night vision binoculars and a shock raced through him as the vehicles came closer and resolved into more detail. They were still on course, heading straight toward him.
The lead vehicle was a Jeep; the second one was a rocket launcher.
A truck-mounted mobile launcher.
Both bore the HOF’s flag. He knew the HOF had such mobile launchers, but this was the first time he had seen one.
He loaded his SMAW and switched his mind off.
It could be the last night he ever saw.
It didn’t bother him. What would be would be.
One kilometer away now.
Vision narrowed down.
The desert started blurring. A cold breeze swept across his face and stirred sand. The sand didn’t care who lived, who died. Everything became sand ultimately.
Half a kilometer away.
Locked and loaded and ready. Breathing steady. Respiratory cycle unchanged.
; Four hundred meters away.
The vehicles came on.
No change in speed.
They didn’t seem to notice the slight disturbance in the sand that was the Butcher.
Three hundred and seventy-five meters.
The mobile launcher was his universe.
That universe exploded in flame and a blast thundered across the desert as the explosive round propelled at seven hundred and fifty feet a second, smashed into the vehicle and blew it apart.
Secondary explosions followed as the explosives in the launcher detonated.
The first vehicle slid in the sand and the Butcher saw heads swivel, guns thrust out. Two heads sought the sand ahead. He thought he saw a hand point in his direction.
Too late.
The second round was even more spectacularly devastating against the Jeep, flinging its metallic carcass high in the air. It fell down several meters away and burned, a pyromaniac’s dream.
The Butcher didn’t stop to admire his shooting.
The sounds and burning vehicles would attract attention. He moved swiftly, coldly efficient as he packed the SMAW and slung it across his shoulder. His camo tent followed and rested lower down his back.
He commenced a moderate jog, a pace he could maintain all night even with the weight he carried on his back. The original mission was scrapped. But it wasn’t a failure. He still had taken out a HOF mobile missile launcher.
It was now time to vanish into the night.
‘How did he know they would be there?’ Three, Tayyib, raged when they met late the next day at a hastily convened meeting.
The Butcher’s video had gone up in the early hours and this time there was an air of mocking in his normally even tone as he showed images of the burning vehicles. The video was spectacular and the vision of the burning vehicles spread all over the world, spread by users on Facebook, Twitter, and numerous other channels.
By accident or design, the Butcher had ended the video with an image of the burning HOF flag on one of the vehicles. He had also put a disturbing spin on the attack, saying that the two vehicles were fleeing the HOF to join Al Qaeda.