by Sean Slater
There was still much to do.
It was going on three by the time the primary explosion scene was under control. There was less chaos now, but sprawling examples of the destruction everywhere Striker looked. The whitish smoke had now all but dissipated into the harbour, and the only hints of the pre-existing fire were the clusters of HAZMAT members still hosing down the rubble.
Striker leaned under a slash of yellow police tape at the south end of the block and looked at the gallons of water going down the drain. With it went so much evidence. Screens should have been set up.
Someone had really dropped the ball.
The thought angered him, and it took some determination to tear his eyes away from the drains. He found Felicia. Even though she was busy talking to Inspector Osaka – and a tall Native woman Striker did not recognize – she gave him a nod to let him know she’d seen him. After a few more seconds, she broke from the group and met him halfway.
‘EDT’s in full effect,’ she said wryly.
Striker grinned at the comment: EDT was cop slang for the Evidence-Destroying Team – a nickname police often used for the fire crews.
‘We should have screened the drains before they got here,’ he said.
‘We don’t have any screens. Osaka’s already called for some, but they haven’t arrived yet.’ Felicia reached up and brushed some cherry blossoms and ash out of his hair. ‘I’m just glad you’re okay. Last thing we need is you getting hurt in some useless chase.’
‘It was far from useless—’
‘That came out wrong.’ Felicia pointed up the road. ‘I ran south on Anderson in case he doubled back. But he was long gone by the time I got there. And then you came over the radio and killed the search.’
Striker listened to her words and came to the realization that the man must have escaped south or west. ‘He ran for a reason, Feleesh. They always do. The question is why? Was he involved in this explosion? Or was it something else?’
‘It could have been something simple. For all we know, he had a warrant – they always run when they have a warrant.’
‘Maybe so, but I don’t like the coincidence.’
Striker let the issue die, and Felicia filled him in on the scene details. ‘Fire crews have all but gotten the flames out now. Everything’s just smouldering. I called up the gas company and had the line shut down. Also, the City’s sending down an engineer right now to condemn the place.’
Striker nodded. ‘We’re going to need some help on this one.’
‘We already got it.’ Felicia jabbed a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Corporal Summer’s on scene.’
Striker paused. ‘Corporal?’
‘You heard right.’
Striker immediately didn’t like it. The Vancouver Police Department didn’t utilize the rank of corporal; instead, they employed different classes of constables, ranging from 5th all the way up to 1st. After that, the rank jumped straight to sergeant. So if this Summer person was a corporal, that meant only one thing:
The brass had brought in the Feds.
Striker looked at Felicia. ‘Why’d Osaka bring in the RCMP? What’s wrong with our guy – Christiansen?’
‘He’s back east at a funeral.’
‘What about Truc Tai then?’
‘She’s on annual leave.’
‘Then call her in.’
‘Hey, it’s not like they haven’t tried. She’s not answering her cell.’ Felicia glanced back at the tall Native woman who was walking around the crime scene with Inspector Osaka by her side. ‘Like it or not, the RCMP is all we got – and she’s it.’
Striker rubbed his hands over his face. It was frustrating. Not that the members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police weren’t of the highest calibre; they were. But they brought with them a lot of red tape. And a lot of different rules and regulations, most of which led to infighting between the integrated units. Whenever possible, Striker always tried to keep Vancouver files in-house.
It prevented a lot of unnecessary headaches.
As if on cue, Corporal Summer began barking orders to her searchers: ‘Gear up, people – masks and gloves, everyone. We need evidence of components. Anything you can find related to a fusing system: batteries, speaker wire, steel brackets. Nothing is trivial. And someone get some screens over those drains – we’re losing trace evidence!’
Screens on the drains?
It was music to Striker’s ears.
He watched the woman work for a moment, and he had to admit that something about her commanded presence. She was tall – a head taller than Felicia – and lean yet muscular. Athletic. She was also quite pretty. She looked no more than thirty-four – which would be ridiculously young for a federal bomb investigator, so he assumed she was older.
Her thick straight hair fell to her shoulders and was dyed a soft honey-blonde that contrasted with her darker skin tone. All in all, her looks were entirely civilian, yet her middle-of-the-road business suit screamed cop.
Striker turned to Felicia. ‘Well, I’ll say this – she takes command well.’
Felicia rolled her eyes. ‘She’d better be able to take command. She’s a corporal, after all – she’s told me that three times.’
Striker smiled. ‘Corporal. The dreaded C-word.’
As if sensing that their conversation was about her, Corporal Summer stopped walking around the crime scene and glanced in their direction. Upon seeing Striker, she beelined towards him. When she was near enough, she extended her hand and offered him a wide smile.
‘Are you Detective Striker?’ she asked.
He took her hand, a bit wary. ‘Yes . . .’
‘The same Detective Striker who dealt with the St James massacre?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yeah, well, that was a while ago.’
Her already wide smile got even wider. ‘Oh my God, it’s such an honour to meet you, Detective. Really. I’ve read all about you and the active shooters you took down at St Patrick’s High School. That was such a . . . such an extraordinary case.’
The memories of that time were bad, and Striker tried to make light of it. He forced a laugh. ‘Well, I’m an extraordinary detective.’
Corporal Summer laughed wholeheartedly.
Felicia, meanwhile, just crossed her arms. ‘I seem to recall being beside you during the St James attack.’
Before Striker could respond, Corporal Summer brushed her long blonde hair over her shoulder and continued speaking to him. ‘You know, I would love to buy you a drink sometime and hear all about it – strictly in a professional manner, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Striker replied. ‘Corporal . . .’
‘Summer,’ she offered. ‘But you can call me Kami. We might as well be on friendly terms since we’ll be working together for a while.’
‘Tammy?’
She laughed. ‘Kami – with a K.’
‘Oh. Well, I’m Striker – with an S.’
Felicia rolled her eyes. ‘And I’m confused – with a C. Shouldn’t we be investigating this case?’
Striker gave her a surprised look, then nodded. ‘Of course, of course.’ He looked at Corporal Summer and changed the direction of the conversation. ‘So what exactly is your designation here?’
‘I’m a Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator. I’m also a member of the IABTI.’
‘Which is?’ Felicia asked against her better judgement.
‘The International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators. I trained down in Huntsville, Alabama, at the Hazardous Devices School. It was quite the course, really. You should try it sometime.’
Striker gestured to the front of the shop. ‘So, with your training and experience, what would you say this is – a bomb, or an accidental explosion?’
Corporal Summer adjusted the badge clipped to her belt and studied the scene. ‘Well, any determination at this point of the investigation would be merely preliminary, of course. But I will say this – I have mixed feelings. Could have been a nat
ural gas explosion, the way the front wall was blown forward like that.’
Striker agreed. ‘And I couldn’t make out a definable epicentre.’
A look of surprise covered Corporal Summer’s face. ‘Well, well – someone’s been doing their homework.’
‘I like to dabble.’
Felicia gave him an annoyed look, one that Striker pretended not to see. He was about to suggest deploying a bomb dog when one of the firemen hosing down the smouldering rubble let out a startled cry. The man raised his hand in the air, alerting everyone of a casualty find, and the moment made Striker’s heart drop.
‘What have you got?’ he called out.
The fireman said nothing for a short moment, then his voice took on a nervous tone.
‘Looks like a woman,’ he finally said. ‘I just can’t tell for sure.’
Twenty-Four
The bomber gripped the walkie-talkie tightly as he struggled to navigate through the tunnels. It wasn’t easy; everything kept moving around on him and distorting – like the images in a funhouse mirror. The percussive blast had hit him good. Bits of plaster debris. Glass too.
Molly was right – he had been too close.
All in all, it had shaken his foundations, but that was okay because it had jarred his mind right again. To a place where everything almost lined up. Following the blast, he’d felt like he was floating on clouds. Or filled with a fever and lifting above it all. The memories . . . the memories slammed into place:
He was off to war again.
Father was spinning him round in the air, giving him an airplane ride.
Then his men were dying all around him – chunks of flesh being punched from their bodies by AK-47 fire.
And Mother was crying, not wanting him to go.
Then Father was leaving. Standing at the car. And he was sobbing, peeking out between the drapes, saying, ‘Don’t go, Daddy, don’t go.’
And the helicopter was dropping down – the loud whup-whup-whup of the blades sounding like angry thunder . . .
The timeline was wrong, he knew. Still in shambles. Out of place.
But it was better than before.
Despite the external chaos of the world around him, an inner calmness found him. A serenity. Because the jigsaw of his years was slowly unscrambling. And he hadn’t felt this good since . . . since . . .
Well, sometime.
He placed one hand against the cold wet concrete of the tunnel wall and took a moment to ward off the dizziness that was slowly submerging him. At his side, the radio crackled:
‘All clear. Proceed.’
‘. . . copy, all . . . all clear . . . Proceeding.’
When he reached the end of the tunnel, he used the ladder to climb out. It took all his strength. Once at street level, he slid into the back of the utility van, and Molly took care of the rest. He heard her climb into the driver’s seat, start the engine, and the vehicle got moving.
For a long time there was only silence. After many kilometres, Molly spoke. ‘You were too close.’ She turned around to look at him and let out a gasp. ‘God in Heaven – your face. You’re going to need stitches.’
He said nothing.
‘Did you hear me? You were too close. Again.’
He closed his eyes, tried to bumper back his pinballing thoughts. ‘It . . . it helps,’ he finally said.
‘It does not help. You’re scrambling your brains even worse.’
‘Molly—’
‘And enough with the ducks. This isn’t a game – it’s a higher calling.’
The bomber looked away. Grinned bemusedly.
A higher calling . . .
The notion sat in his head like a benign tumour. The whole idea of God was a foreign concept to him, a subject he could not understand. Codswallop. At times, Molly’s theological and emotional conflicts ate away at him. They were good people doing bad things. He got that.
But it changed nothing.
‘Everything went according to plan,’ Molly said softly. ‘This time.’
He offered no reaction, he only spoke. ‘With Target 5 dead, we can go back to dealing with Target 6 – the way we intended. Get back on track.’
‘The sooner the better.’ Molly let out a sound of concern. ‘My God, if she escaped—’
‘She’s going nowhere – not unless she can uncuff herself and navigate her way out of that maze.’
For a long moment, only silence filled the cab of the van. When Molly spoke again, her voice was low and soft.
‘I just want this to be done.’
‘It will be,’ he said. ‘Already, one target is down and one is our prisoner. That leaves only four more to go.’
Molly made an uncomfortable sound. ‘We need to use less explosive from now on.’
Her words stirred something within him. ‘Less?’
‘Yes, less. Or we’ll end up killing someone innocent.’
He closed his eyes. ‘Innocent.’
‘Less than a half-kilogram,’ she pressed. ‘It’s enough – these are high-grade explosives, after all . . . Are we in agreement? Are we?’
He opened his eyes. ‘Will it make you feel better, Molly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay then,’ he said. ‘Okay.’
Twenty-Five
Normal procedure at any fatality is for the coroner to pronounce death before the body is removed. In most situations, this is gospel. In this case, however, that procedure was overruled by Inspector Osaka.
For obvious reasons.
As Striker waited for the Body Removal Team to arrive, he gave the victim a cursory look. The blast had all but destroyed the head and neck regions. As for the body, it had suffered extreme trauma from the percussive force. And the flesh had been exposed to high levels of heat and flame, which had burned away the fat and turned the muscle tissue black. As a result, the remaining limbs had contracted into something of a foetal position.
But one arm was missing.
Striker examined this. From the yellow line, news media – digging for a front-page storyline – kept taking pictures from every accessible angle. Their usual lack of sensitivity made Striker angry, and that anger disrupted his thought process. He wanted the body moved to protect the family.
And he got his way.
When the Body Removal Team arrived, they found the victim hidden beneath a blue police tarp. The three orderlies, all dressed in civilian clothing, donned latex gloves and loaded the body into a generic white van. Body in possession, they drove through the frenetic cluster of reporters and headed for the basement of Vancouver General Hospital.
That was where the morgue was located.
Striker watched them go. When the patrol cops sealed off the road with more yellow police tape, Striker and Felicia assisted in a secondary sweep of the area. This time, they weren’t looking only for bomb components, but for body parts too.
It didn’t take long.
‘Over here,’ Striker called.
He pulled back a square-shaped chunk of support beam and pointed. Wedged between chunks of wood and concrete was a twisted fleshy mass. Perhaps the remaining limb. It was hard to tell.
Striker got forensics to bag and tag the tissue for the Chief Medical Examiner.
‘Good work,’ Felicia said.
Striker didn’t respond. A deep concern filled his belly. There were too many unanswered questions here. About the case and about the person in the rubble. Not much was known about the victim so far: the body was that of a female, and – from the few lower-limb parts that weren’t completely burned – the female appeared to be of non-Caucasian ethnicity.
African-American was a possibility.
Felicia touched his arm. ‘Hey, you okay?’
He turned to face her. ‘A black woman is kidnapped and tortured this morning down by the river. Now there’s a black woman killed in the explosion here . . . I hope to God they’re not related.’
Felicia nodded. ‘I’ve been talking to some of the people in the area
. The owner of the Toy Hut is a woman by the name of Keisha Williams. She’s black.’
Striker listened, but the information somehow didn’t connect. He was tired. The day felt long, yet it was only four-fifteen. He looked at the different pods of forensic and search crews, and tried to keep track of everything. There were so many divisions. Multiple departments. It was an inter-agency nightmare.
‘Come on,’ he finally said. ‘We need to round everyone up and make sure we’re all on the same page here.’
Felicia agreed.
Striker gathered together all their counterparts. Once everyone was listening, he began listing the tasks of all the associated units. He ended the speech by discussing the role of Victim Services. They would be escorted by Patrol to the Williams residence for two reasons: One, to verify that Keisha Williams was not, in fact, safe at home and alive. And two, to prepare the family for the worst case scenario. The thought of telling the family left Striker ill – it always did – but he fought to suppress his emotions.
There was work to do.
With the primary and secondary scenes now contained, Striker gave Felicia the nod to get going, and they headed back for the car. He wanted to attend the morgue, not only to inspect the body, but to ensure that extra tests were conducted – complete swabs of all body tissues for explosives residue, and full-body X-rays to determine what kinds of shrapnel were lodged inside those same tissues. Grim though it seemed, it was an absolute necessity.
Striker looked at Felicia and spoke the words they had both been thinking but wanting to avoid. ‘We may just have a bomber on our hands.’
Twenty-Six
Ten minutes later, Striker and Felicia reached Vancouver General Hospital. They took the freight elevator down to the sub-levels, feeling the booth chug and jerk with every foot descended. Felicia made a nervous sound when the booth stopped for a moment, her claustrophobia kicking in. She switched the portable laptop from her left hand to her right, and looked at Striker. ‘Hopefully, the ME will find something to connect the explosion to the torture scene at the concrete plant.’