Snakes & Ladders (31 page)

They reached the parking lot to Safe Haven Suites.

Striker stopped at the beginning of the fence and used it as concealment. He took the moment to slow down their pace – which was always a good thing in moments like this – and reassess how things might unfold if they got into a gunfight in this area. The key was to never lose control over yourself.

Calmness equalled precision; and smoothness equalled speed.

‘You see his suite?’ Felicia asked from behind.

‘Hold on,’ he said.

Striker leaned around the edge of the fence and studied the parking lot and rear of the building. The lot was small, barely able to hold five or six cars, and the pavement was sloped. Immediately behind the parking lot was a tall wooden fence, the paint chipped and muddied. Rising up out of the fence, dead centre, was an old wooden staircase that led to the upper floors.

Striker pointed to the top, west side.

‘That should be Billy’s unit.’

‘But he’s unit 103,’ Felicia said. ‘Shouldn’t that be the ground floor?’

Striker nodded. ‘Should be, but it isn’t here. This entire place is ass-backwards.’ He glanced at Dr Ostermann. The man’s face was white, tense. His breathing was too fast. ‘You ever been here for a home visit?’

Dr Ostermann shook his head. ‘No, never. I always saw Billy at the clinic. And, of course, at Riverglen.’

Striker frowned. He had been hoping for a layout of the suite. Not knowing was never good. For a moment he considered looking at one of the other suites – this was always good practice in apartment blocks where, floor after floor, the layout was the same – but he soon killed that idea. Safe Haven Suites was too much of a mishmash. It wouldn’t help.

Like it or not, they’d be going in blind.

Before moving in, Striker took one last look at the buildings flanking Safe Haven – at the empty balconies and then at the open garages. He saw no signs of threat, but that didn’t alleviate his concern. He didn’t like the idea of climbing the staircase before clearing the yards – it left them clustered together and in the open.

Completely unprotected.

‘I’ll do it myself,’ he finally said.

Felicia shook her head. ‘What? No way – you need cover.’

‘You can cover me from down here.’

‘And what if he comes barging out up there?’

‘Then he’ll have two targets to shoot at instead of one. If we’re all bunched up together he can mow us down with a single shot.’

Felicia still didn’t like the idea. ‘Let’s wait for a dog,’ she said.

But Striker shook his head. ‘They’re both out tracking him now.’

‘Then let’s get more units here.’

Striker felt his frustration growing. ‘There are no units, Feleesh. They’re already all taken up with containment and the crime scene and transport. The only other units are the ones coming from South Burnaby, and I’m not waiting for them to arrive. The longer this takes, the more chance we have of losing him. Billy’s too dangerous for that. We can’t let him escape again.’

‘Jacob—’

‘I’m going in, Feleesh. Cover me – from down here.’

He purposely avoided her stare and left his position of concealment.

The parking lot was empty for the most; just a single fourdoor Toyota Tercel in the first stall and a plain white van in the far one. Both were older models. Late eighties or early nineties.
Junk
.

Keeping the shotgun at the low-ready, Striker moved up to the Toyota. All the windows were clear, and there didn’t appear to be anyone inside. He tried to lift the trunk, failed, then moved on to the white van. When he got near it, he slowed his pace. There were no rear windows in the van. Just a pair of solid rear doors and one sliding side door, which faced the building. Striker tried them all, found them locked, and moved on.

When he reached the bottom of the stairway, he climbed up to the first turn and scanned the yards to the right and left. They were barren. Just empty slabs of patio concrete.

Seeing they were clear, he moved up to the next level. The stairs were old, made of wood, and they creaked loudly beneath his feet. Each groan of wood felt like someone screaming out a warning to those above, and it made Striker’s guts tighten.

Still he continued. He’d turned the next bend, made it to the second floor of the building, and started for the third. He’d barely put his foot on the next step when the shot rang out – a sharp, hard
crrAACK!
in the cold winter air. But it wasn’t coming from the apartment above, it was coming from street level.

The garages behind them.

‘Gun! Gun! GUN!’ Felicia screamed.

Striker spun around and raised the shotgun. In one fleeting moment, he saw it all:

From the garage directly across the lane, Billy Mercury came sprinting out of the darkness. His face was twisted. His mouth open and screaming. And he was firing as he came: Ka-POW! Ka-POW! Ka-POW!

But not at him.

At
Felicia
.

The first shot flew past her and slammed into the fence, sending splinters of one-by-six cedar flying in all directions. The second bullet hit the cement by her feet, sending chunks of concrete exploding into the parking lot.

Dr Ostermann screamed out in horror and dropped to the ground, covering his head with his hands; Felicia got moving. She got into a twenty-foot gun battle with the man—

And she lost.

The third bullet Billy Mercury shot took her square on. It knocked her back off her feet. Sent her reeling on to the pavement behind her. Left her helpless.

‘BILLY!’ Striker screamed.

Without aiming, Striker fired from the hip – a diversionary shot to distract Billy from Felicia. He then raced back down the steps, racking and firing as he went.

Billy Mercury didn’t so much as move. He stood there, out in the open, and returned fire. Bullets rained through the staircase above and below Striker, some of them shredding the wood, others plunking heavily into the stucco walls behind him.

Striker reached the first turn of the stairway. Stopped. Took quick aim.

And blasted off a shot.

A loud thunderous BOOM! filled the air, and double-odd buck exploded across the lane. Part of the spray took Billy Mercury in the legs. He spun around like a yanked puppet. The gun flew from his fingers, and he dropped forward on to the pavement.

Striker leaped off the staircase and landed on the concrete below. Gun still aimed, he raced across the parking lot to the far corner, where he used the white van for cover.

Already Billy had crawled to the gun. Reached it.

Striker took aim on the man. ‘DON’T DO IT, BILLY!’

But it was too late.

‘Fucking demons!’ the man screamed. He raised the gun—

And Striker pulled the trigger. He blasted off another round of buckshot, then racked and fired another. The first one took Billy in the shoulder; the second one tore through his chest and came out of his back.

The gun fell from his hands and landed with a soft click on the asphalt. His head dropped, then he fell. His body shuddered for a moment, then became still.

Striker raced forward and kicked the handgun far across the road, away from Billy. It was a black pistol. Not police issue. With the gun out of the way, Striker dropped one knee on top of Billy’s back, pinning him to the ground. He searched for more weapons.

All he found was a constant flow of blood.

‘. . . daemons . . .’ the man said one last time, but his voice was soft and faraway.

He was dying.

Striker jumped back to his feet and searched out Felicia. She was lying half on her stomach, half on her side, trying to get up. Her hair was draped across her face and her gun was two feet ahead of her.

She was crawling for it.

‘I got you!’ Striker yelled.

He raced over to her side. Grabbed her by the shoulders. Pulled her on to her back. And readied himself to stop the flow of blood.

But none came.

‘My ribs,’ she breathed. ‘My fucking
ribs
.’

He looked down at her chest, at the torn fabric of the Kevlar. He saw the twisted steel of the trauma plate, and let out a sigh of relief.

‘He tagged me,’ Felicia said in disbelief. ‘The fucker actually
tagged
me.’

Striker said nothing for a long moment, he just stared at her with a horrible sense of desperation flooding his chest. With Dr Ostermann proned out on the ground and sobbing, and Billy Mercury lying dead behind them, Striker pulled Felicia close and held her tight.

‘I thought I lost you,’ he said. ‘Jesus Christ, I thought I fucking lost you.’

It was all he could think of to say.

Twenty minutes later, Felicia sat in the back of an ambulance with two paramedics and Dr Ostermann. The initial assessment was not as bad as Striker had feared it was going to be: her ribs didn’t appear to be broken, but without an X-ray, there was no true way of knowing. Without a doubt they were bruised. Deeply.

As one of the paramedics palpated Felicia’s ribs, Dr Ostermann leaned back in the seat beside her. His eyes were closed and his breathing was still far too fast and uneven. He wiped his sweaty brow with his forearm. ‘I feel . . .
ill
,’ he said softly, then vomited into the bag the medic had given him.

Striker assessed the man. He appeared so different to how he had looked before. Weaker. Older.
Fragile
.

‘It’s over,’ Striker told him.

When Dr Ostermann did not respond, Striker turned to Felicia. She winced as the medic touched her ribs, but still managed to smile at him.

‘Are you okay?’ Striker asked. It was the tenth time he had asked her this.

She frowned. ‘Go check out the crime scene or something.’

‘I will when you’re—’

‘Really, Jacob. Please. Just go check out the crime scene.’

He didn’t move at first. He just stood there and looked at her.

Lost her. The notion was unthinkable, yet true. He had almost fucking lost her.

Finally, he moved back. ‘I’m gonna go check out his place,’ he said.

Felicia looked relieved. ‘
Go
.’

Striker closed the ambulance doors. Before moving, he turned his head and stared at the body of Billy Mercury, lying in the very centre of the laneway. Blood had pooled all around him in a distorted, oval shape, and the skin of his face and arms looked terribly pale. Bloodless.

Striker moved up to him. He bent down on one knee and studied the man’s face. Even in death, Billy Mercury looked ill. More than ill, he looked downright
insane
. His lips curled back, exposing uneven yellow teeth, and his pupils were black and way too large. Like a doll’s eyes.

Demons
, the man had said.

Striker shook his head at this. It was a sad statement on the state of this world that Billy Mercury was a war vet. He’d been through combat. And he had broken down because of it. The numerous mental health problems he suffered were in no way his fault. Demons; there had been many of those in Billy Mercury’s life.

But it was all over now.

Striker looked up at the cop guarding the body. A young woman who looked no more than twenty-three.

‘Who took the gun?’ he asked.

‘Sergeant Rothschild, Detective.’

He nodded. Rothschild had seized the shotgun, too. Good. That meant they were in good hands.

Striker looked back at the woman. ‘When Jim Banner from Ident gets here, tell him I’m already up in the suite.’

The cop said she would, and Striker left the dead body of Billy Mercury lying in the middle of the lane. He walked to the parking lot and took note of the licence plates of the vehicles left in the lot – the Toyota Tercel and the old van. Neither came back to Billy Mercury, and within minutes, both the owners were located as living in one of the bottom suites.

Disappointing, Striker thought.

He had hoped for a lead.

He left the vehicles behind and slowly started back towards Safe Haven Suites. The wooden stairs creaked loudly as he walked them, as if warning him once more. But he continued on.

Pandora’s Box had already been opened. He might as well see what was inside.

The door to Billy Mercury’s unit was painted dark brown and had been labelled not with a proper sign but a thick smear of white paint:

103.

The door was already open, though just a few inches.

Striker stopped in the entranceway and took out his flashlight. This was one part of the investigation he was not going to rush. Billy had been excessively paranoid, and Striker was worried about encountering IEDs – improvised explosive devices – in the suite.

Booby-traps
.

Without opening the door any further, Striker shone his flashlight inside the apartment. He looked all around the edge of the door and saw no signs of tampering – no wires or snares or flip-switches. Satisfied, he gloved up with fresh blue latex, grimacing as it snapped against his burned hand. He pushed on the door lightly. It glided open effortlessly and soundlessly, revealing the apartment inside.

All the lights were out. Only the rear window offered some natural light. Striker scanned the suite. What he saw was surprising.

The place was damn near empty. The apartment owned nothing but two wooden chairs and a small table in the far corner of the room. On it was an old desktop computer and a mouse with keyboard, along with some papers and pill bottles.

Striker turned his eyes from the computer to the rest of the tiny apartment. Like any Single Room Occupancy dump, it was an all-in-one – a kitchen, washroom, and a common room, which also served as a bedroom.

The place was almost empty of furniture. No bed sat in the corner, just a blanket and a pillow on the ground. But at least the floor was clean. The blanket had been spread out into a perfect creaseless rectangle. Billy Mercury had made his bed after getting up in the morning.

Striker found that odd. It didn’t seem to go with his psychosis.

In the same corner of the room was a pile of clothes. Striker inspected them. All were freshly laundered, ironed and folded precisely.

Striker noted that, too.

He looked briefly around the kitchenette. The plates had been washed and set in the drying tray; the counters were clean; and when he opened up the cupboards and fridge, there was plenty of food. Basic stuff. Peanut butter and jam. Bread. Coffee and cream. Some Raisin Bran cereal.