Silent Night - By Tom Barber Page 0,80

They’d kicked the absolute shit of his dad right in front of Jake, who’d watched on helplessly. His father had been hospitalised for the next six weeks, half of it in a coma. Every boy thinks his father is indestructible but that illusion had been stamped and trampled out of Jake by the gang that night. Sitting beside the hospital bed, watching his father lying there unconscious, the younger Hendricks had felt rage boiling inside him at the injustice of it all. And in the twenty six years since, he had never forgotten what had happened that night. It had been the impetus for him becoming a cop.

Criminals and gang-members often thought they had the upper hand when it came to the police because cops had to follow rules and they didn’t. So some of them saw it as a game. Hendricks viewed it as warfare. If you dealt drugs to kids Hendricks would see to it that you would be sucking your food through a straw for the next six months. You had girls working corners for you, he’d send them away and then send you to the Emergency Room. His ruthless reputation definitely preceded him, both in the Department and on the street. It had landed him in hot water a number of times, his superiors nervous of the legal ramifications or consequences of such ruthless justice. But deep down, Hendricks knew they all secretly supported him. He just had the balls to do what most others wanted to do.

He hadn’t applied to join the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. He’d been approached. Lieutenant General Franklin had called him in for a meeting at the beginning of the year and offered him his own hand-picked team. Franklin was old school and had policed New York when it was a far more dangerous place to live. He admired and respected Hendricks, especially in the no-nonsense way he tackled the streets. He’d operated the same way himself back in the day. Hendricks had thought long and hard then accepted the offer, taking four of the best people from his team at the 75with him, and they’d set up shop across the River in Queens. One of Hendricks’ informants told him later that once word spread through Brooklyn that he was moving on, a party had almost started.

Hendricks had been a cop for fifteen years and he’d been friends with Matt Shepherd for just as long. They’d started out as partners in their early twenties fresh out of training, riding a squad car together. Their families had shared many Thanksgivings and holidays and Hendricks considered Shepherd to be one of his closest friends. Knowing what had happened to Shep recently, Hendricks had been keen to help him out any way he could. Hendricks was a father too; he had two kids, a boy and a girl. He couldn’t begin to comprehend the pain that Shep and his wife were going through. It was an accident that could just as easily have happened to Hendricks himself. So if staking out and taking out this skinhead cesspit was what Shep needed, than that’s exactly what Hendricks and his detail would do.

He looked down through his binoculars at the gathering below. He and his team were hidden behind several boulders to the west on a slight elevation. He’d counted twenty three Chapter members down there, including the ATF man Peterson. They were all in the centre of the compound, long abandoned buildings behind them. It was a frosty night and the neo-Nazis had built a large fire in the middle of the concrete, burning anything they could find. Their cars and motorbikes had been parked around and behind them, forming a second layer to the circle. Someone had heavy metal music going, bottles of whiskey being passed around and a ragged circle of the thugs had formed around the campfire. Hendricks also saw many of them were carrying weapons. Not pea-shooters either. He’d counted six sawn-off shotguns, two M16s and a handful of what looked like modified Glock pistols.

That could be a problem.

Straight ahead behind the group were three caravans, Chapter members in protective gear ducking in and out, removing masks and sucking in breaths of fresh air. None of their activity had anything to do with the virus however.

These idiots were cooking meth.

Hendricks had encountered production of the drug like this before. They were called rolling meth labs. Handlers liked to use wheeled labs for a number of reasons. Firstly, they could be easily moved to