The Guilty (35 page)

Two shots, one hit.

And the man in the orange work vest let out a surprised cry. He stumbled backwards. Fell. Landed on his ass. And still, he kept firing – one constant, steady rhythm of gunfire, with each
bullet plunking into the wall behind Striker.

Again, Striker rolled for cover.

And then, as quickly as the gun battle had started, it ended.

And there was only silence.

Striker looked at Felicia. Saw blood on her hand.

‘You hit?’ he asked.

‘Just glass.
Go
.’

Striker clambered to his feet. Peered out from cover. Scanned the parking lot.

Out there, the police cruiser was in flames, and Harry was on his hands and knees, struggling to cross the lot. Disoriented, Harry took aim and tried to get a shot off. But before he could so
much as pull the trigger, one of the shooters lined him up and fired.

The bullet hit him square on.

Harry let out a cry and crumpled to the ground.

Striker ran to assist him.

He took hold of Harry, saw that the kevlar vest had saved him by taking the round, and dragged him back to the paltry cover of the A&W restaurant while Felicia provided cover. Once inside,
Striker spotted his portable in the debris. He snatched the radio up, stuffed it into his jacket, and raced back outside. With his equilibrium slowly returning, he made it to the far end of the
parking lot where there was a five-foot-high concrete wall.

Felicia caught up and they both looked over the wall.

Below, the laneway was empty. Straight ahead to the north, the lot that had once been the used car dealership also appeared vacant. So was the road to the east. When Striker looked west –
towards the crime scene where the dead body of Sleeves still lay behind the Hing-Woo – all he saw was the red and blue gleam of police lights. As quickly as the gun battle had begun, it was
now over.

Their enemies had vanished.

‘Where the hell did they go?’ Felicia asked.

Striker grabbed his radio, keyed the mike. ‘We got another bomb explosion,’ he said. ‘And shots fired. Two shooters – male and female. Caucasians. Dressed like city
workers in reflective vests and overalls. Last seen running south from the A&W parking lot on Hastings.’

He took a moment to get his breath.

‘Should I call in ERT?’ the Dispatcher asked.

‘Yes,’ Striker replied. ‘And a dog. And some ambulances to the restaurant, Code 3. Casualties unknown.’

Striker let go of the mike and scanned the area to the south one more time. There was
nothing.
The two shooters had just plain disappeared. It made no sense. Pistol in hand, he walked
down the off-ramp into the rear lane with Felicia paralleling him. Once his feet touched the pavement, he spotted what he was looking for and pointed:

‘Right there. Blood droplets.’

Felicia nodded. ‘Heading east.’

They followed the trail. Twenty steps later, Striker and Felicia stopped when the blood droplets ended abruptly. Suddenly the suspects’ vanishing act made sense. Striker pressed his
mike:

‘They’re using the sewer systems.’

At Striker’s feet was a manhole cover, partially unseated. When he crouched down to look at it, he saw more blood. He looked up at Felicia.

‘Stand back.’

When she got out of the way, he grabbed hold of the rim. He readied his gun. Yanked open the manhole cover. And they both stuck their pistols down into the hole.

Leading down from street level was a series of metal rungs embedded in the cement tube. At the bottom, there was only darkness. Striker broadcast the find and stared into the void below. Images
of the two shooters escaping flashed through his mind, and it ate away at him.

He took out his flashlight and readied his pistol.

Felicia saw this and let out a startled sound. ‘Whoa-whoa-
whoa
– you’re not going down there.’

‘I need to see where they’re going.’

‘Send in a dog first.’

‘The dog’s ten minutes out, they’ll be long gone by then.’

‘So let them go.’

‘I’m not losing them again.’

Before Felicia could object a third time, Striker stepped down on the rung. The metal felt thin and weak under his shoe and the contact made a hollow scuffing sound in the cement tube.

He dropped lower and lower into the darkness.

When his feet touched the bottom, he immediately crouched down low and shone the flashlight in both directions. To the immediate west was a steel door that was padlocked. To the east was a long,
narrow passageway that darkened quickly but seemed to turn south at the end.

Striker took one step that way.

Suddenly, a loud whistling sound filled the tunnel. High in pitch. So sharp it hurt his ears. Then a series of red lines shot out all across the path. Some of them were vertical, some
horizontal, and some crisscrossed. One look at them and Striker knew exactly what they were:

Laser tripwires.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said and stepped back.

Going down that way would be suicide.

Up above him, Felicia called out a warning. ‘I’m coming down to back you up!’ She stepped on the first rung, but Striker waved her away.

‘No! Don’t come down! Get out – get out now!’

Cradling his left arm, not allowing the shoulder joint to move, the bomber stumbled down the long, winding corridors of the sewer system with Molly by his side. The bullet had
tagged him. Torn through the upper-left shoulder. And something inside that joint had broken.

He could feel the bones grinding.

‘We got them,’ he said through the haze. ‘We got them both.’

‘Keep moving,’ Molly said.

‘. . . them both . . .’

‘Come on.
Leg it.
We have to keep moving.’

He looked left at her, and suddenly, she was no longer Molly, but one of his squadmates dragging him across the Green Valley plains. And he was watching his body bleed out.

From somewhere high above him, he could hear the sharp zings of the bullets flying by, and he could feel every ounce of the lead and steel and copper that had torn through his body from the
exploding bomb. It was hot – the metal was so goddam
hot.
He was on fire.

The inside of his body was
aflame.

‘My leg,’ he said. ‘Don’t let them take my leg.’

‘No one’s taking your leg.’

‘The doctor . . . don’t let him take—’

Molly shook him. ‘You’re not back there, you’re here. Look at me,
look at me
!’

And then, suddenly, the world changed again. And the soldier looking back at him was gone. And in the man’s place was Molly. ‘Get up,’ she was saying. ‘You’ve got
to get up! Get up! Let me help you. LET ME HELP YOU!’

He struggled back to one knee, then managed to stand. The world tilted on him. The tunnel seemed to be moving in impossible, unnatural circles. Like some demonic carnival ride. And the air was
hot. Stuffy. Rank. His shoulder
seared
with pain. So much so that he feared he’d black out.

But instead of losing consciousness, the reverse happened – a sharp, distinct clarity swept into him. And he laughed out loud because everything was finally okay again.

He was moving.

Seeing action.

Operating.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt completely, undeniably, one hundred per cent wonderful.

He felt
alive.

It was six-thirty p.m. by the time the bomb tech climbed back out of the manhole. He was a federal cop Striker had never seen before, and a smug look covered his olive-skinned
face. In his fingers was an array of pen-like devices.

Striker studied them. ‘They real?’

‘They’re just trips,’ the technician said. ‘No actual explosives down there.’

‘None?’

‘Not a one.’

Striker cursed and closed his eyes in frustration. The thought of the two shooters escaping down the tunnel made his guts tighten.

‘I can’t believe this.’

‘It was a scare tactic. To prevent anyone from following them.’

‘Well, it worked.’

‘Of course, it did. You’d have been a fool to go down there. And don’t go assuming that, next time, the circumstances will be the same – next time they might really be
rigged and ready to go.’

Striker tried to hide the bitterness from his voice. ‘Point taken.’

He turned away from the bomb tech for a breath of fresh air. With the tunnel now clear of explosives, the dogman was next to go inside, and behind him went two young constables Striker did not
recognize. They started the dog track.

Striker turned away in frustration. It was useless, he knew.

The shooters were long gone.

He approached the bomb tech again and told the man to bag and tag the laser tripwires for forensics. Then he stared at the A&W parking lot, and then at the alley behind the warehouse.
Everywhere he looked, it was barely controlled chaos. Two crime scenes. One with the dead body of Sleeves; the other with the dead body of Chad Koda.

Due to the high number of witnesses in the restaurant at the time of the explosion and subsequent gunfight, Inspector Osaka had commandeered a city bus to take them all down to police
headquarters for proper interviewing and stress counselling. Over ten detectives had been called out to assist. Victim Services as well.

With the adrenalin fading, everyone was operating on fumes.

Witnesses aside, there were also seven victims of the blast. Each one had been injured by some form of flying shrapnel, and each had been taken to one of several hospitals. Fortunately, none of
the wounds were considered critical. There had been no deaths here today.

Other than Sleeves and Koda.

‘Jesus H. Christ,’ Inspector Osaka said. His dark eyes were underscored and his white wavy hair was out of place. He approached Striker and shook his head in frustration. ‘You
got to get these guys. They’re blowing up the entire city!’

‘We’re doing our best, sir.’

‘Well it’s not good enough! Do
better.
I got three bomb blasts in my city, an unresolved kidnapping in District 4, and a media frenzy. The public is panicking and so is
Laroche – he’s on my ass every second of the day and is threatening to pull me from the road!’

‘We’re doing our best, sir,’ Striker said one more time.

Inspector Osaka let out a long heavy breath. He closed his eyes. Pinched the bridge of his nose. Nodded slowly. ‘Just . . . keep me informed every step of the way.’

Before Striker could respond, the inspector turned away and marched up the road to face the ravenous media horde. Striker watched him go. Inspector Osaka was a good man. But no matter how this
thing played out, he was in for a shit storm with his superiors. That was just the way life went in the VPD. All par for the course.

He turned around and got to work.

Ten minutes later, Striker was busy diagramming the scene and trying to figure out timelines when Felicia walked back from the other side of Semlin Drive. She held a bandage against her left
hand, where she’d cut herself on the glass, and looked tired.

Striker examined her hand. ‘It gonna need stitches?’

She shook her head. ‘Nah. Sleeves’ body has been taken to the morgue for autopsy. Noodles is processing the scene right now. He’s none too happy.’

Striker didn’t much care if Noodles was happy or not. He was just glad Felicia wasn’t cut too bad. He looked at his diagram, then at the explosion scene, and made sure he had
everything right.

In the parking lot, Corporal Summer was busy working on her third bomb in two days. Her young, pretty face looked older and harder than it had the previous day. With so much debris to sort
through, she had sent tech requests to all other departments – New Westminster, West Vancouver, Delta, Abbotsford, Port Moody, and to her own Fed bosses with the RCMP. It was necessary.
Yellow police tape cordoned off two entire city blocks.

This amount of work was staggering.

Behind the yellow tape of Semlin Drive, Inspector Osaka was busy debriefing the media. He still looked like a Japanese Colonel Sanders, but one that had just finished battle in World War Two.
All around him, swarms of reporters and soundmen buzzed: newspaper, radio, TV – the works. As far as they were concerned, the city was under siege and every child’s life was in
immediate danger.

Considering the magnitude of this nightmare, Striker thought Osaka was handling himself extremely well.

‘Are you okay, Jacob?’

He blinked. Looked back at Felicia. Saw her staring at him with concern.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re
shaking
.’

He looked down at himself. Saw it too. ‘Adrenalin dump.’

She touched the side of his face. Turned his chin. Scraped away some crusted blood with her fingernail.

‘Glass or shrapnel?’ she asked softly.

‘I’ll take glass for two hundred.’

He forced a smile, fought to keep it, couldn’t. Thoughts of Chad Koda’s charred body in the car kept resurfacing in his mind. He looked back at the parking lot and a dark sombre
feeling overtook him. Whatever problems Koda had brought upon himself, it sure as hell didn’t warrant this.

He turned to Felicia. ‘We need to check out the car bomb.’

She nodded silently.

Together, they walked back to the parking lot. Once at the mouth of the lot, the smouldering mass of steel became more apparent. From it, a thin smoke rose into the air. Not white like before,
but
greyer
in colour. Inside the burned-up shell, the blackened, unidentifiable body of Chad Koda had yet to be removed. A horrible meaty smell filled the air, and Striker wasn’t
sure if it was from the burger stand or Chad Koda’s burned-up body.

Felicia covered her mouth.

Striker did not. He just took all this in, somewhat numbly, and images of the explosion returned to him in quick, jarring patches. Like broken video clips. He sensed Felicia’s eyes on him
– her unwarranted concern – and was relieved when Corporal Summer approached them from the side.