Banshee Hunt

by Curtis, Greg

  BANSHEE HUNT

  GREG CURTIS

  BANSHEE HUNT

  GREG CURTIS

  Copyright: Greg Curtis

  Digital Edition: December 2015

  Dedication

  This book as all my books is dedicated to my mother Ruth Curtis and my sister Lucille Curtis, my biggest supporters, harshest critics and all round cheer team, and without whom this book would not have been written. It’s also dedicated to my father, gone too soon but not forgotten.

  Prologue

  New York 2010

  It was dark by the time James reached the warehouse Francis had described, despite the fact that he'd driven like a madman to get there. But that worked in his favour. If he was going to do what he had to he needed the cover of darkness. Really he needed a SWAT team and fifty fellow officers, but he knew he couldn't have them. First they wouldn't believe him. They would think he was mad. There were no child slavers in New York. No known gangs kidnapping children and selling them overseas. They would tell him his daughter had just run away. Eight year olds did that sometimes. What they didn’t realise was that some of those who they thought had run away had actually been imprisoned and sold. Others meanwhile were the children of illegal immigrants, themselves unregistered and so not missed. And a few had been sold by unscrupulous relatives.

  There was also no way they would believe that one person could compel a mother to sell her daughter by just talking to her. Not a normal, loving mother. That was pure madness. So even though it had happened he couldn't tell anyone that. The police would tell him that his brother Francis was lying and James was clearly stupid to believe him. They also wouldn’t believe that his ex-wife Sheryl had rung him up to tell him she'd sold their daughter to child slavers for Francis. No one would believe that. So the police would assume his little brother and his ex-wife were mad too – or lying. Although the fact that James had just beaten Francis to death would give them pause. In actual fact he'd practically tortured him to find out what had happened to his baby girl.

  But they hadn't been there. They hadn't been in his apartment when Francis had come over, laughing at him as always. They hadn't heard him telling James what he could do and everything he had done to him over the years. They hadn't heard Francis telling him almost word for word what his ex-wife would say when she called. They hadn't heard the truth and confusion in her voice. The beginnings of panic. They hadn't seen the nasty smirk on Francis' face. The look of triumph. As if he'd just won some major sporting contest instead of selling an eight year old girl into slavery. And they hadn't seen him counting out the money he'd got for her in front of James. They didn't know the hatred that lived in his brother's heart. Or had done.

  And Francis hadn't seen his fists until it was too late. Dear God! The stupid little shit had thought that the gun would be enough to protect him as he gloried in his victory!

  But that didn't change things. James' brothers and sisters in blue certainly wouldn't come out all guns blazing to save his daughter. Not to arrest the gang anyway. Not on the word of an obvious mad man or liar. They would probably arrest him however, when they saw his little brother's bloody body lying on the floor of his apartment. But that wouldn't get Matti back. And getting her back had to be his priority. His only concern. He knew he was likely to spend the rest of his life in jail for what he was about to do. He might be killed, which was why he'd left a message with friends to be given to his partner if he didn't return tonight. And even if he did succeed he knew his ex-wife would never let him see her again – assuming she didn't spend the rest of her life in jail as well. Still, he didn’t care.

  James parked some distance from the warehouse and turned his lights off. Even though this part of the city was largely abandoned as it went through what was euphemistically called “urban renewal”, he didn't want anyone seeing him. Least of all those he was going to attack. James got out, went to the trunk and started dressing. Normally as a detective he only carried his side arm, a Sig ten mm. It was enough. But not tonight. Tonight he needed everything he had. And that meant the pump action shotgun, smoke, concussion and tear gas canisters, and his vest.

  It felt strange donning the vest. He'd worn it many times before. But always as a cop. It had NYPD emblazoned across it in big white letters. But tonight he wasn't wearing it as a cop. He wouldn’t be acting on the right side of the law. Tonight he was a criminal. And wearing it almost felt like a betrayal of everything he believed in. But he had to save his daughter.

  After that he advanced into the warehouse grounds, his heart in his mouth, all his senses on edge. He searched desperately for any sign of a look out. Anyone with a gun trained on him. And then when he was finally satisfied that no one was around he headed into the first of the buildings. Despite what Francis had said it wasn't actually a warehouse, abandoned or otherwise as he discovered. It was a series of buildings that together formed what might once have been an industrial complex. Some sort of old storage facility, possibly used for car parts. He could see metal shelves all around. Old and decaying. Many of them had rusted away and fallen into ruin. Here and there he could make out in the dim light lumps of metal that might once have been engines before time had got to them. There were steel crates too dotted around the floor, looking as though some giant had simply tossed them about like dice and then left them where they had fallen. It was too dark to make out any more about them than that, but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that he hadn’t yet found the slavers or the children.

  The size of the complex was a problem. It meant he had a lot of ground to cover as he searched. But it was also useful as the sound of his weapon firing would be less likely to be heard by anyone in the area. But even if someone did the number of buildings would make it harder for them to work out where it had come from. Especially when the sound of cars in the distance was ever present, even in this part of town. That also worked in his favour.

  James moved slowly through the first building, searching to the right and left as he advanced. He wasn't a soldier but they trained cops in the same tactics for dealing with fugitives on the loose. Take your time, scan both sides, check for anything that a man could be hiding behind, pay attention to openings like doors and windows and always listen for whoever might be behind you. Also always keep your weapon trained on what you were looking at. And above all else keep your cool. Though his world was currently comprised of pain and fear – and of disbelief too – that didn't matter.

  It was unfortunate that the other part of that training didn't apply. He couldn't rely on his partner to back him up. What he would have given to have Watkins by his side. But his partner wouldn't back him up in this. He'd arrest him instead. God, he might even have called an ambulance for Francis! That could not happen. Not when his little brother had been laughing at him over what he'd somehow made Sheryl do. Practically counting out the money in front of him as though it was some sort of prize instead of blood money. If his brother still lived as he lay on the floor of James' flat, he had to be allowed to die.

  A sound made him turn hurriedly to the side just in time to see a man appear in one of the open doorways. He had an assault rifle in his hands.

  Everything happened in a split second after that. The man started when he saw him, yelled something and then swung around, raising his rifle towards James in the same motion, while James lifted his own weapon and squeezed the trigger. James was faster. Just. But it was enough as the man fell away backwards, his weapon firing at least a dozen shots into the air before he hit the ground. Fortunately none of those shots came anywhere close to James.

  After that James did as he'd been trained to, rushing the fallen man and kicking away his weapon while keeping his own trained on him.

  “Where are the children?” James yelled
it at the fallen man. But he didn't get much of an answer. Just some confused moans. The man was down. He hadn't caught the full effect of the blast but still his side was a mass of blood and he was in some sort of shock.

  Suddenly someone else came running in and James didn't have time to ask anything more. Instead he had to leap and roll out of the way as a stream of bullets came flying towards him. They missed him – shooting while running always destroyed a man's aim – and that gave James the vital seconds he needed to fire at him from the ground.

  The shotgun blast took the man's legs out from under him and he collapsed in a heap and stayed there. Even as James was picking himself up off the ground he knew he would get no answers from him either. Still, two men rushing him with assault weapons told him he was in the right place. He was looking for a gang and he'd found them. A rather better armed gang than he'd expected.

  Another bullet suddenly came out of nowhere and caught him in the chest and James forgot about everything else as he rolled away from the impact. It hurt even through the vest. Like being kicked by a horse. But the next few shots missed him and James quickly forgot the pain as he raced for cover. The shots had come from above, indicating someone had reached the overhead walkways. Fortunately there were some large, rusty steel crates to the side and he ran for them. They might or might not stop a bullet but they would conceal him. Especially in the darkness.

  Powered by adrenaline he made it while bullets danced off the concrete behind him, and he knew he was safe for a moment. Long enough to catch his breath. To deal with the pain of his ribs and regain his momentum. He had come to attack them not be attacked. Retaking the battle however, suddenly became very easy. Though he couldn't see the man he knew where the shots had come from. And the walkway was only a short distance from him.

  It was an ageing structure, connected at one side to the wall of the building, while half a dozen spindly steel legs held the other side up. But they were buckled, their cross braces having rusted away until they looked like bits and pieces of broken shrapnel and the damned thing creaked and groaned with the man's weight on it. The whole thing would come down soon enough by itself. But James decided to help that process along.

  A blast into the nearest leg shattered it, causing one whole section of the walkway to buckle and collapse. It also caused the man on the walkway to cry out in fear as he realised what was happening. Methodically James shot out two more and watched large sections of the walkway give way and fall and heard the man scream some more. It was then that James decided to take out the rest and ran out from behind his shelter to shoot out two more legs, bringing the rest of the walkway crashing down. The shooter came tumbling down with it.

  James heard the scream as the man smashed into the concrete twenty feet below. And when he finally spotted him on the floor the man wasn’t moving. Judging by the odd angle of his legs, he’d obviously broken something in the fall. But the only thing that mattered to James was that he was down, lying on the concrete floor, and he didn't have a weapon in his hands. Finally he had someone he could interrogate.

  That was his chance, and he ran for the man, shotgun in hand. Once he reached him he kicked him. Hard.

  “Where are the children?” This time James added some emphasis to his question as he placed the tip of the shotgun straight over the fallen man's heart.

  “You're a cop?!” The man stared at his vest. “Then fuck off! I'm not talking. I want my lawyer!”

  He shouldn't have said that. He really shouldn't have, as it reminded James of the one thing he wasn't just then – a cop. His career was gone. And he wasn't going to worry about it for this piece of filth. So he moved the weapon down his body until it was pointed straight at his crotch and squeezed the trigger without even thinking about it.

  The blast was a little subdued this time by the man's flesh, but it made up for that by spraying blood and gore everywhere. It caused the man to scream, a sound that James took great pleasure in. There would be no more demanding of his rights. No more expecting lawyers and trials. If the man hadn't worked that out by then he was incredibly stupid. But it was more than that that made James smile. It was that it had felt right shooting him like that. It had felt like justice. These miserable shits were selling children into slavery. Most of their victims would end up in the sex industry or sold to sick perverts. There could be no lawyers and no trials for that.

  Really the man was lucky to be alive. James had pushed the gun into his nuts and angled it slightly away so that the blast would head towards his feet rather than his head. And the closeness of the shot had limited the spread. But even so he was probably going to lose his legs. But since he was alive, he could talk. And that was the only thing that mattered.

  “Where are the children?” James yelled it at the man again when he finally stopped crying. And this time for effect he place the tip of the shotgun against the man's belly button. This time he saw the fear in the man's eyes as he knew what came next if he didn't answer him.

  “Next building! There's a door leading down to the cellar.” The man gasped it out desperately, still trying to deal with the pain and shock of his injuries.

  “And how many more of you scum?”

  “Seven? Eight maybe?” The man started stammering in terror even as he was gasping for breath. And then he started begging. “Please!”

  James kicked him in the head, knowing he didn't have time for anything more. Seven or eight more. Or not. The man didn't know how many were down already. It was still a lot. More than he'd counted on. But it didn't matter. They still had Matti. They were going down and he was going to get her back. It was time to think tactically. And tactics always began with being prepared.

  James reloaded his gun, stuffing as many shells as he could into the shotgun's slide. He had no intention of running out of shots in the middle of a fire fight. He then checked the carry bag to make sure just how many of each canister and grenade he'd brought with him. Finally he took a moment to listen for the sound of sirens. There were none. The distance, the lack of people in this area and the distant traffic noise had protected the battlefield. Having the gunfight inside a structure had probably helped as well. Though of course he knew, they could be on their way.

  As he worked, preparing himself for the battle ahead, James had to try and keep the overwhelming wrongness of what he'd just done from getting to him. He'd never done that before. Deliberately shot a man. And ever part of him wanted to scream out that it was wrong. He was a cop. But he couldn't be one just then. He couldn't even call his fellow cops now. Forget Francis, dying on the floor of his flat, he'd literally just tortured and possible killed a helpless man. But his daughter was still a prisoner, and James knew he had to focus on saving her. Nothing, absolutely nothing could come before Matti. So as much as he needed to give in to his emotions, he couldn't. And somehow as he worked, he squashed them down and pushed them away.

  Once he was more or less in control of himself again James headed out, crossing the open space between this building and the next, and then started scouting out its perimeter before going in. He had to know what he was getting into. He couldn't afford to get himself killed in another surprise attack. Not before Matti was safe.

  The first thing James discovered was that the man had been wrong. The building didn't have a cellar as he claimed. That had made no sense anyway. What it had was an underground basement for car parking. But no cars would be using it ever again. Because when he found the drive way leading up and out of it, he found not only the roller chain fence down and locked, but the ramp itself blocked with what looked like part of the building's roof. No one was getting out through it. There was light inside though, shining out through the rubble. Clearly someone was home.

  Inside the building he didn’t find anyone waiting. But he'd expected that. The gang had set guards upstairs just in case someone came, and when he'd opened fire on the first one, the others had come running from the other buildings. Those below clearly hadn't heard the battle. The chan
ces were that they had no idea what was happening. That gave him an edge. But only if he used it correctly.

  It began with half a dozen smoke canisters. They were too big to fit through the gaps in the roller fence, but he could set them off against it and watch the smoke billow in. Air was flowing in the right direction underground, suggesting that while everything else was dead and decaying, the ventilation system still worked down there. It would have to or the gang wouldn't be able to stay there.

  After that it was simply a matter of going inside, taking position and waiting for them to come up. Fortunately he had a perfect position. The building was exactly like the first one with the single exception that there was a basement. And there was a stairway leading down to it housed in a four by six yard concrete block structure. It was simplicity itself to simply take up position on the outside of that structure, peering around the corner at the open space in front of it. Soon he knew, worried slavers from the basement would be rushing up the stairs thinking there was a fire outside. They would come flying out of the stairwell door and run straight out into the open. And just to be sure they wouldn't put up too much of a battle, he tossed a tear gas canister just in front of the doorway and pulled down his mask.