The Guilty

by Sean Slater

  Striker shrugged. It was just a printout of the exact same report he’d read on the computer.

  But when Felicia showed him the second section of the report, something clicked. For one, the address was different. For two, the role code was wrong. The numbers there were 4169. Not a theft, but . . .

  ‘A homicide?’

  Felicia nodded. ‘It’s the police shooting of Chipotle. Someone put it in the wrong folder – one file number away.’

  Striker smiled. ‘You’re a god.’

  ‘Goddess, darling. Goddess.’

  Felicia spread the pages out on the coffee table.

  The first thing Striker noticed was that the report was oddly basic. The synopsis told the elementary details of what had occurred: Chipotle had been killed in a shootout with integrated forces. The shooting had happened on the Vancouver-Burnaby border, just up from the Fraser River. And Chipotle had ended up dying on the same day as his wife and daughters, who had been blown up only a few hours earlier by the bomb Sleeves had set.

  This had all led to speculation of Chipotle’s death being a suicide-by-cop mission from a grieving father suffering from cocaine psychosis. To reinforce that belief, the subsequent autopsy revealed cocaine levels of .643 mg/L.

  Striker read that number and whistled.

  ‘That a lot?’ Felicia asked.

  ‘Enough to kill Keith Richards.’

  He flipped past the synopsis, then through the rest of the pages – the investigative summary, police statement pages, witness statements, and so forth. The shooting seemed pretty straightforward.

  Gunman called in.

  Police attended.

  And Chipotle started shooting.

  It was exactly what Striker had expected. And then he spotted one ordinary detail that changed everything – the name of the cop responsible for shooting Chipotle.

  Striker read that name and slumped back against the couch. Slowly, horrifyingly, the information sank in. And connections started falling into place.

  Chipotle had been killed, not by a standard hollow jacket round, but by a bullet from a police-issued sniper rifle. That rifle was registered to a member on the Emergency Response Team. To Striker’s one-time mentor and now closest friend.

  Mike Rothschild.

  Part 3:

  Detonation

  Friday

  Ninety-Three

  The room was hot, so unbelievably hot, and yet he could not stop shaking. His teeth chattered, his body trembled, he couldn’t catch his breath. He lay stretched out on a cot that Molly had unfolded, staring at the blue and red pipes that crisscrossed the low ceiling of the command room. The pipes hummed loudly, constantly, like the distant rumble of a coming freight train.

  To his left, a pot of water began boiling over onto the kerosene stove. Molly removed it, poured the water into a bucket, and a puff of steam filled the air. She grabbed the antibiotic ointment and sanitized the scalpel, then turned to face him.

  Her approach made him shiver. And for the briefest of moments, she looked like the tiny nurse with the paper hat.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s just me.’

  He tried to lift his head off the table, struggled. ‘The news release . . .’

  ‘Chad Koda and Harry Eckhart are dead.’

  The bomber closed his eyes, as if in relief. He let his head fall back to the table.

  ‘Done,’ he whispered. ‘. . . it’s almost done.’

  Molly said nothing, she just got to work.

  She removed the tape and packing gauze from his shoulder, then applied another coat of lidocaine cream before using the scalpel to scrape away the remaining grime, which was still embedded in the entry wound. She rolled him onto his side and did the exact same to the exit wound. Once complete, she added a final rise of saline and covered both wounds with gauze.

  ‘You’re killing me,’ he said.

  ‘Oh hush,’ she said softly. ‘You’re lucky it was a through-and-through. The clavicle may have broken, but the bone didn’t splinter through the subclavian.’ She felt his wrist, and smiled. ‘Your pulse is still strong. But you need rest.’

  He tried to catch his breath. ‘You need to put lidocaine—’

  ‘I just did that. Rest.’

  He looked at her, confused.

  ‘I can do this job on my own,’ Molly said.

  ‘No.’

  He struggled to sit forward. As he did, the room tilted on him, and he had to grab on to the wall with his good hand. Small beads of sweat trickled down his neck and back, and he felt like he was floating there in the room, kind of hovering above the cot. An apparition.

  So hot . . . so goddam hot.

  ‘You need rest, love.’

  He struggled through the haze. ‘I’m finishing this mission – with or without you.’

  Molly said nothing. She just nodded and grabbed the medical tape. Firmly, almost roughly, she began tightening the tape around the shoulder joint and clavicle in order to stop it from moving.

  He let out a pained sound as she did this, but that was okay. Everything was okay.

  The operation was almost done.

  Ninety-Four

  For Striker, the night had been a long one.

  After seeing Rothschild’s name on Chipotle’s homicide report, he’d made the decision to bring Mike and the kids over to stay at his place, and had gone and gotten them himself. It was the only action that had made sense. After all, if the bombers had found Rothschild’s old house, how long before they found his new one too?

  Safety was everything.

  Once the family was at his own house, Striker felt better. They all got back to bed at sometime after three, and the remainder of the night had been uneasy and restless.

  Now, just five o’clock, Striker lay in bed, listening to the creaks and groans of the old house. With Courtney on the other side of the world, it felt like his home was half empty. And to be honest, ever since Amanda had died, the place had never felt whole again. There was always a sadness in his heart. A deep ache that would never go away.

  He tried not to think about it, but it was always there.

  The relationship he had with Felicia helped. It helped greatly. Striker loved her. But that didn’t change a thing. Loving another person with all your heart didn’t nullify the love you had felt – and still felt – for another.

  Life could be hard.

  From down the hall, Cody called out amid his dreams. Striker was sure the boy was half-asleep, but his thoughts played havoc on his mind. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he checked on the boy, Striker climbed out of bed. He snuck down the hall and peered into the guest bedroom.

  The room was still and covered with different shades of black and grey. Rothschild was asleep on the left half of the bed, snoring like an old bear, and Cody and Shana were on the right, snuggled together like a pair of Pringles chips.

  Safe and sound.

  For now.

  Striker returned to his bedroom. He slowly eased back into the bed and grabbed the comforters. Then Felicia spoke: ‘The house alarm works fine, Jacob. You don’t need to check on the kids for a tenth time.’

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.’

  ‘You’re lucky we got dental.’

  ‘Why? You gonna knock my teeth out?’

  She laughed softly. ‘No. But you’ve been grinding your teeth all night.’

  Striker said nothing, but he reached up and felt his right jaw joint. He’d suffered from TMJ for years; it was probably one of the reasons he got so many headaches. The joint was sore as hell.

  ‘I must have kept you up all night.’

  Felicia rolled over to face him and smirked. ‘I didn’t mind for part of it.’

  Striker tried to smile but couldn’t. As good as Felicia was at compartmentalizing things in her mind, he was equally bad. The case was always there. Breaking through his defences with glaring brightness, like sun through cloud.

  ‘The Prowlers are some bad people,�
�� he said. ‘But do you honestly think they’d go after a cop? They usually respect our professional boundaries. And why would they care anyway? I mean really, so what if Rothschild shot Chipotle? The guy was already on the gang’s hit list. It makes no sense.’

  Felicia rubbed his chest. ‘It’s just one more theory we have to work through.’

  ‘Yeah, well, my mind’s not working through it very well.’

  She smiled weakly. ‘That’s because you’ve had only eight hours’ sleep in three nights. Close your eyes and get some slumber. We can worry about it in the morning.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ he replied.

  But fifteen minutes later, he climbed out of bed, then threw on a pair of old blue jeans and a wrinkled baseball shirt. With Felicia fast asleep again, Striker returned to the den to read through some more of the files.

  He had to.

  They were missing something.

  Ninety-Five

  The work was agonizing. Even the most minimal of movements tore his shoulder apart. But the bomber pushed through the pain. Performed the required task. And now it was done.

  The bomb was set.

  He retreated across the road to a small hole in the hedge bushes of the neighbouring yard. It was a perfect place of concealment – hidden, dark, with a full view of the target residence. It also had the wooden backing of the fence to support him, and he needed that.

  Sweat dripped from every pore of his skin, so much that the remote detonator felt slippery in his hands. He tightened his grip, slumped back against the fence, and smelled the putrid stink of his own body odour. He smelled like something that had gone bad.

  Old meat in the sun, as his former sergeant often said.

  High above, the sky was slowly lightening, the stars turning more and more invisible in the softening blue. The moon was all but gone now, dropped down to her nightly bed, and in the east, the morning sun was rising like a waking fiery beast. The sight made him smile.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  They were one step closer to the completion of their mission.

  One step closer to retribution.

  Ninety-Six

  Striker read through an Assault report – a CBH, or a Causing Bodily Harm – in which Chipotle was one of the main suspects in a gang swarming. As Striker read, he put on a pot of coffee. He leaned against the counter, waited, and listened to the machine percolate. Soon, the rich aroma filled the entire kitchen.

  As if on cue, Rothschild walked sleepily into the kitchen. He was wearing a red-and-green striped robe, was unshaven, and his silvering hair was sticking out all over the place. He took one look at Striker and nodded.

  ‘So that’s what your ugly mug looks like in the morning.’

  Striker nodded. ‘If I had a few more wrinkles, people would think I was you.’

  Rothschild shouldered him aside to get to the counter. Not bothering to wait till the pot was finished brewing, he poured himself a cup. The burner made a hissing sound when the percolating coffee hit it.

  Striker did the same, and the two men sat down at the table with the stacks of file folders in front of them.

  ‘How’d you sleep?’ Striker asked.

  Rothschild rubbed his eyes and an almost defeated look filled his face. ‘Dreams of Rozzie.’ He gave Striker a tired look. ‘I sure miss her . . . Does it ever stop?’

  ‘Do you want it to?’

  Rothschild said nothing, he just shook his head in a no manner.

  It suddenly occurred to Striker how similar their lives had been. Both of them had spent too many hard years living for the job; both had lost their wives to tragedy; and both were still struggling with the notion of raising their kids.

  Striker sipped his brew. The memories were harder to deal with than the investigation, so he changed the subject back to the police-involved shooting of Chipotle and began firing questions at his old friend.

  Rothschild soon conceded the point.

  ‘Yeah, I shot Chipotle. So what? It was a goddam gunfight. Everyone was shooting. Bullets were flying everywhere. Mine was just the one that finally found its target – I had the sniper rifle.’ He took a long sip of his coffee and made a bitter face. ‘It’s old fuckin’ news. I still don’t see how any of this is relevant.’

  Striker splayed his hands. ‘It has to be relevant, Mike. It’s the only thing that connects you to the Prowlers. And to Koda and Harry too.’

  ‘Harry? He was never part of the Emergency Response Team. How the hell is he connected?’

  Striker thought of how the two bikers – Sleeves and Chipotle – were linked to the two cops – Harry and Koda – by way of the drugs. Then he thought of how Chipotle and Koda were also linked to Rothschild through the Emergency Response Team and the shooting.

  The whole thing was a tangled web. Two separate files that were connected, though only through the people involved.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Striker finally said. ‘But there’s no denying one thing – the bomber was at your house, Mike.’

  Rothschild nodded. ‘He was also at the Toy Hut, and I got no connection to the shop or that woman he killed.’ He stood up from the table looking stressed out. ‘I need some air.’

  He topped off his cup with another splash of coffee, then walked down the hall to the front door. He disabled the alarm, opened the door, and walked out onto the porch.

  Striker got up and followed him. By the time he stepped onto the porch, Rothschild had already lit up a cigarillo. The sweet burning smell of wine-tipped tobacco filled the morning air. As much as Striker hated to admit it, he loved the aroma. It reminded him of his father.

  At his feet, on the front-door mat, was the morning newspaper. It was all rolled up in an elastic band. Striker picked it up, unrolled it, and read the headline:

  Mad Bomber Blowing Up The City

  How to Protect Your Family

  ‘Oh Jesus, you gotta be kidding me,’ he said.

  The header was your typical media scare tactic, implemented to sell more papers, and it drove Striker crazy. The editors often unleashed their stories with no concern for the public anxiety it would create. All this would do now was put even more attention on the file, and more pressure on the bombers to achieve their task.

  It would speed up their attacks.

  ‘You see this, Mike?’ he asked.

  ‘What? Yeah, sure.’

  Striker looked up and saw that Rothschild had wandered down to the roadside, where he was enjoying his smoke and watching the sun rising in the east. Next to him was a marked cruiser, and inside it was the patrol cop on guard.

  Striker looked farther down the road.

  Ten feet away was another car – an old Honda Civic, parked by the kerb. The vehicle was covered with leaves and the right front tyre looked half flat. Striker had never seen the car before, and something about it bothered him.

  ‘Hey Mike, move over here.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Get away from that car.’

  Before Rothschild could so much as respond, Striker realized what was bothering him. It was the maple leaves on the hood – they didn’t match the cherry blossoms of the tree above it. On autopilot, Striker swept his hand down to his gun, felt nothing – not even a holster – and realized he hadn’t geared up yet. He felt naked without the gun. Exposed.

  He started down the porch steps.

  ‘Get away from that goddam car!’

  Ninety-Seven

  Tiny, invisible strings pulled at the bomber’s consciousness as he waited, hidden in the dark crevice of the observation point. Like a slowly coming night, the darkness was pressing in on him, forcing out the light. And his body was weakening as fast as his mind. Thoughts of the big homicide cop kept charging into his mind, and he found that oddly intriguing.

  Jacob Striker was the one cop he had no desire to kill. But desire or not, some things were unavoidable.

  Collateral damage was often necessary.

  He stood there with so many thoughts rampaging thro
ugh his head. And he fought to stay alert. It was hard. His mind felt off. Like he was losing control. Like he was slip . . . slip . . . slipping away into a semiconscious state . . .

  And then the haze cleared.

  And Target 4 was spotted.

  There, coming down the walk.

  The goddam cop.

  The bomber took a quick look at the sedan. At the little wooden duck with the red number 4 painted on its chest. It was sitting on the hood. He willed his fingers to relax on the remote detonator, tried to calm his nerves. The plastic device was slippery in his sweaty grip, and his fingers felt clumsy. He flicked the switch. Armed the bomb. And the wheels became hot.

  The cop came. Ten feet.

  Five feet.

  Two.

  One.

  And the bomber pushed the activation button:

  Click – spark – combustion.

  The driver’s side of the car exploded in a fountain of flame and light and smoke, showering the cop with metal shrapnel and sending him reeling twenty feet from the percussive blast.

  It was done.

  Target 4 was eliminated.

  Ninety-Eight

  Striker and Rothschild stood on the front porch, Striker drinking his coffee and Rothschild sucking back a second smoke.

  ‘Man, you really need to relax a little,’ Rothschild said. ‘You really scared the shit out of me back there.’

  ‘I needed you to get away from that car. And fast.’

  ‘It’s your neighbour’s car.’

  ‘Well something looked off about it. The leaves on the hood.’

  ‘The leaves?’ Rothschild let out a soft laugh that was filled with cigarillo smoke, and shook his head. ‘Look thirty metres down – there’s a maple right there. The owner just moved the car a little, probably because it’s got a flat . . . The stress is making you paranoid, man.’