INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series) (40 page)

‘And soon you’ll run out of your lives too’ said the man who was back on power.

By now the machine guns were ready to fire another 20 to 30 rounds at least, but it seemed like both the men were inexperienced that was why when they shot, they never hit the target.

Ryan and Kevin easily took cover from the current round of bullets that came and this time the men were aware that they should not fire the bullets wildly; it would do no good except emptying their guns. This gave Ryan and Kevin one or two occasional chances of shooting back, but they held back as they didn’t have much bullets.  They also didn’t have any more ammo with them, and they knew that eventually they would get killed.

Ryan didn’t hold back, he stood up from the cover took another aim overcoming the incoming bullets and this time he was able to hit the bearded man’s leg. The man stopped shooting, threw the gun away and howled in pain. This gave Ryan another chance to shoot at the remaining two men but the grey suited man pointed his gun at him, that was why he had to take cover again.  At least Ryan was happy that he didn’t let both the men zero in on them, that would be like a death trap.

‘What can we do now?’ said Kevin.

‘I’ve no idea, man!’ said Ryan. ‘The only things we can try to do are back of, and escape’

‘What about McRae?’

‘He should have escaped by now’

Kevin shot one more bullet missing the target as usual then his gun made a clicking sound, which told him that there were no more bullets left in it.

Ryan condition was just the same, he only had two more bullets and he wanted to use them only in emergencies.

The black suited man raised his hands and signalled something as the gunman stopped shooting suddenly.

The he looked back at them, crossed his arms and said ‘Now that you have no bullets left in you, do you have anything else to defend yourself? Because you hardly got any time to live, no doubt about that’

Ryan and Kevin both of them took another step back and looked at each other.

‘Very well then’ said the man with the bloody lip, ‘I’ll take that as a no’ the man continued. He turned to the other two gunmen and instructed ‘Shoot them down’

But Ryan held up his hand and said ‘No no, wait a minute’

‘Yes?’

‘You asked us if we had anything more left in us, but you didn’t wait to hear our answer, did you?’

‘What would have been your answer?’

‘Look behind you’ said Kevin.

He turned around and saw nothing. He thought that these two cops are just joking with him and trying to buy more time, but that was not so, he soon understood that when two cars zoomed past the street and came around the corner, then slowly pulled up just some metres away from the black Mercedes. And they were not any normal cars, they were all official NYPD cop cars.

Two more cars came from the opposite side, where Kevin and Ryan stood. The doors flew open and more uniforms and armed officers came out of the cars and took their position within, pointing their expensive guns at the kidnappers.

Some of the uniforms came in the front and took position in a kneel down manner while the other officers took cover behind the cars, but the only similarity was that all their guns were pointed at the three criminals.

It was Henderson who came in the front at last and the only one who didn’t have a gun in his hands. He came near Ryan and Kevin and said ‘You two okay?’

‘Yeah, great’ said Ryan, he didn’t want to say it aloud in front of the criminals that the criminals nearly got them.

Henderson then edged closer to the black suited man and said softly ‘Now I think you can probably guess what I will advice you right? What’re we waiting for then? Drop your weapons, and put your hands behind your head’

The man stared coldly at Ryan and Kevin as if he wanted to say ‘This ain’t ending boys, I will come back to grind you all’, but they didn’t get a chance to say that as most of the uniforms were yelling ‘Drop the guns, NOW!’

‘Look man I can be wrong but everyone present here is telling you the same thing. Drop everything you have and give up. They are all probably not wrong, what do you think?’ Henderson smiled.

But the three men could do nothing, they were hugely outnumbered and they didn’t stand a chance at this moment. They could only growl under their breath and curse themselves for not killing those two cops right away when they got the chance, and then they dropped their weapons.  The black suited man looked around and examined the area for the last time trying to see if there was a way from where they could escape. But wherever he looked he could only see the tips of the guns which were aimed at him.

As he found that there was nothing he could do at this time, he signalled his men to drop their weapons, and he himself threw his gun roughly on the ground.

‘That’s more like it’ Henderson jerked again, as he knew he had the upper hand. ‘Was it too hard?’

The cops now relaxed a bit as the weapons were on the ground. One of the uniforms came and picked up the guns and threw it to someone else on the left side. They were all professionals and they knew what to do.

‘Cuff them’ Henderson instructed one of the officers as two of them came to the men, deliberately kicked their legs roughly to make them sit in a kneel down manner on the ground then they pushed their hands down and pulled their hands to the back before tying the handcuff as roughly, and as tightly as they could have done.

Then the other uniform who picked their belongings made them stand up with the help of the officers, and pushed them towards the car. They frantically obeyed and walked up to the nearest car.

‘So these are all Donovan’s men?’ asked Henderson to Ryan as the criminals were turned into hostages.

‘Yes, these are his men’ replied Ryan. ‘They came to take the money which they didn’t get of course’

‘I see, so it all ended well’ then he saw McRae standing timidly at one corner, he turned to one of the officers and asked him to help McRae.

He came and this time he  behaved a lot gently with McRae as they slowly walked towards Ryan’s car.

‘Someone told me that Ryan Raglan called the help desk of the emergency department in the main building and asked for back up’ said Henderson. ‘I instantly knew what the problem was and where to find you. And that’s why I asked the patrolling officer to sent some backup with me, and thank god he obeyed without trying to be a jackass. And of course you guys were in a pathetic position when I came with the back up , I don’t want to estimate that had I not come just in time , how much more time you would have lasted in the hands of this criminals’

‘That’s what the backup is for’ replied Kevin. ‘And we still survived with nearly empty magazines’

‘That’s correct’ said Ryan.

‘Okay, you two did a good job’ said Henderson patting Ryan’s back ‘I was kidding.’

The criminals were loaded in three separate cars and as soon as they were done, the cars left. They didn’t want to give the criminals much time before they turned them from hostages to prisoners.

‘Anyway, what about the kid we were looking for?’ asked Henderson expecting a positive answer. ‘Got any news about him?’

Ryan smiled. ‘Positive. The boy is in safe hands now’

THIRTY  THREE

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah, why not? I’m fine’

Alicia drove the car in an average speed as Alan gave company to Jake in the back seat.

‘It’s hot out here, isn’t it?’ Jake said.

‘Yep, still it’s cooler today than the past few days’ said Alan. ‘Why? Was it cooler where they kept you?’

‘Not really, but of course cooler than what I’m felling now’

‘I see’ said Alan. ‘So tell me, did they try to hurt you or something?’

‘No no, not at all’ said Jake. ‘But they do have a tendency to become too much vocal when becomes angry. And most of the time they argued among themselves’

‘You mean there was a conflict going on between them?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.  Or maybe their habit is just like that’

‘And what about the place? Was it always dark?’

‘Not always, no’ then Jake thought a little more and said with a soft voice. ‘Sometimes it is, other times a LED bulb always glowed. And I can keep up in dim light. That’s not a problem’

‘So what was a problem?’

‘Scarce food and water’ said Jake.

‘They gave you less food?’

‘Not too less. It was about okay’

‘Hmm’ said Alan and looked at the boy more closely. He had a white and beautiful round face with blue eyes, the colour you see when you go scuba diving. He was of average height maybe a little too tall for a fifteen year old, but it was still okay. He was a little taller than Alan’s elbow portion. But he didn’t look healthy enough, he was pale and lean. That was the only negative effect Alan found in him. But he was still a lot better than you would expect a kid to be, who lived with a bunch of killers for a week.

‘But I was wondering about something’ said the boy looking outside.

‘And that is?’ asked Alan.

‘Why did they care to kidnap me, what did I do anyway?’

It was a tough question for Alan to answer. Even he himself didn’t know why.

‘That’s a long a story’ he finally said.

‘Really?’

‘Yep’

‘You know what, I once read in someone’s Facebook status that when someone says ‘It’s a Long Story’ it actually means they are not interested in saying it’

Alicia laughed from the front seat hearing this, and admiring the kid’s wit.

‘Well that’s not the case here’ said Alan defending himself. ‘It really is a long story and a convoluted one. Let’s just say you were at the wrong place at the wrong time’

‘That doesn’t clear anything’

‘I know. You will know everything soon enough’ said Alan. ‘And it was also quite hard finding you’

‘I gave you a clue’

‘That was a nice clue. But the clue was also tough. Most of the people thought that it’s meaningless’ said Alan as Jake laughed. ‘Still I knew that there got to be a meaning, and I found it after a lot of experiment’

‘It was easy’

‘Trust me it wasn’t’ said Alan. ‘And if you find that easy, then you should definitely become a detective’

‘Come on, I made the puzzle, of course I will know the answer and find it easy. That doesn’t mean I have any qualities of a detective in me’

‘True enough’ said Alan.

‘So where are we going now anyway?’

‘To the precinct’

‘To the NYPD?’ said Jake cheering up a little more. ‘Wow, this will be my first trip there’

‘That’s weird,’ said Alicia looking at Jake from the rear view mirror. ‘Why are you so overjoyed to hear this? People don’t usually like going there. And there is nothing really, no entertainment. Just plain and stale police work’

‘I like it. Police work. Sounds good’ he said.

Alicia turned left and then finally parked near the 13
th
precinct building.

‘Ok, so here we are then’ said Alan as they all came out. One time Jake stood and watched the whole building and said ‘Looks nice’ then they all three went straight in. Jake was fascinated, as he looked everywhere and found that most of the people were busy and working. He thought they are doing justice to the police work.

They stepped into the elevator and headed for the destined floor. As the door parted open, a minute later, they were greeted with some laughter and jokes form Kevin and Ryan. Jake also found that although they are all over-worked here and handles some of the most serious and dangerous work of this city, still they finds time for jokes and keeps their moods light. That was another nice quality of these cops. He smiled at himself, without even hearing the joke.

Henderson was also there and he was in a nice mood. And that was more important , if he wasn’t in a nice mood then he will not let anyone joke or laugh in front of him, and if he was in a light mood then he will make sure nobody remains serious in front of him.

‘Here , guys, we got someone’ informed Alicia as they entered the large room , and more or less everyone working in this room who were all sitting for the whole day with their heads stuck inside the computer now was looking up hearing this.

‘Hello’ Jake said to everyone, as they were all strangers to him.

‘Oh, hey how is our little man doing?’ said Henderson and patted his cheek.

‘Just fine’ Jake replied promptly.

‘I hope you didn’t have any hard time for the past few days’ said Kevin.

‘Nope, no way’

‘Cool’

‘Hey did you catch the bad guys?’ he asked to everyone.

‘Yep we did catch them. You can meet them in the ground floor cells’ said Henderson.

‘No I don’t wanna meet them. I just asked’