by Sean Slater
Striker’s stomach knotted up. ‘I knew their father was a member of the RLC, and had my worries their paths might have turned out similar.’
‘They’re both war heroes, Detective. Highly decorated. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how extremely sensitive this information is.’
‘I’ll be as discreet as is legally possible.’
‘Legally possible . . . That doesn’t sound well on this end. And considering the urgency of your call, I’m assuming the worst.’
‘Have you Googled Vancouver?’ he asked.
There was a pause. ‘I have indeed.’
‘What was the first thing that came up?’
The staff sergeant made an uncomfortable sound. ‘The bombings.’ When Striker made no reply, she cursed and said, ‘Bloody hell, this is awful.’
‘Tell me, Staff Sergeant, what exactly did they do in the RLC?’
There was another brief pause and the sound of pages being flipped before the staff sergeant spoke again. ‘Molly is a demolitions tech and a sharpshooter.’
Striker thought back to the woman firing at him in the A&W parking lot – her pinpoint accuracy, her use of suppressing fire just above his head, designed to keep him down and out.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘And the brother, what about him?’
‘Oliver Howell is a Commando-trained Ammunitions Technician . . . a Warrant Officer – Second Class.’
Striker closed his eyes and felt a rush of concern. Ammunitions Technician was just a fancy title for a man with a deadly job. Oliver Howell was the one thing that Striker had feared most.
A bomb hunter.
One Hundred and Twenty-Two
The first thing Striker did was flag every single database available for Oliver and Molly Howell. He then notified the airports, ferries and the US border. Following all this, he contacted Acting Deputy Chief Laroche.
Laroche listened intently, then said, ‘We need to debrief.’
For once, Striker agreed with the man.
The brass and their advisors all met in the briefing room on the seventh floor of Cambie Street Headquarters. Occupying the centre of the meeting room was a twenty-foot-long mahogany desk. Laroche took one look at Striker and Felicia, then offered them the head of the table.
‘Finally, we can begin,’ he said. ‘Detective Striker, why don’t you give us a rundown of everything you’ve learned these past three days. Bring us up to speed on where we stand.’
Striker did as asked. And the more he told the story, the greater the disbelief on their faces grew. When he was done explaining, Superintendent Stewart was the first to speak. ‘But why? What do these people want?’
‘That’s the problem,’ Felicia said. ‘They haven’t asked for anything.’
Striker nodded. ‘Which makes the motive pretty clear in my estimation – revenge.’
Constable Lincoln Johnstone, the Media Liaison Officer, and Heath Ballantyne, a civilian who acted as the department’s public image consultant, let out simultaneous grumbles. Johnstone’s eyes took on a faraway look. ‘This is going to be a difficulty with the media.’
‘A difficulty?’ Ballantyne whined. ‘It’s a public relations nightmare. Two crazed bombers hell-bent on blowing up people around the city – you think the press has had fun till this point, you just wait. Christ.’
Through the back and forth arguments, Laroche remained silent, listening, thinking. He looked at Striker and Felicia all the while, and when the ruckus was calming down, he asked, ‘What do we know about their history?’
Striker spoke first. ‘They’re both members of the Royal Logistics Corps.’
‘Bomb hunters,’ Felicia added.
The look on Laroche’s face hardened. Johnstone made an exasperated sound, while Ballantyne just let loose another string of profanities.
‘Are you certain of this?’ Laroche asked.
Striker gave him a hard look. ‘Completely.’
Felicia nodded her support. ‘The military angle also explains how they acquired the explosives . . . They’ve been here in Canada for several months now, under the guise of visiting our own army to assess their bomb-defusing techniques. I’ve called some contacts on the matter.’
‘And?’ Laroche pressed.
‘It’s interesting,’ she continued. ‘During times of war, most countries just blow up any Improvised Explosive Devices they locate. But not the Brits and Canadians. We defuse them in order to save the components. It creates a trail leading back to the manufacturers. The information gained from dismantling the bombs is invaluable, but it also costs a lot of lives. The soldiers who do this, they’re of a different breed. They have to be in order to handle the constant unbelievable stress.’
‘It’s a wonder they don’t all have PTSD,’ Ballantyne commented.
‘Many do,’ Felicia said. ‘The job has a high mortality rate. In fact, Oliver Howell was blown up once himself and hospitalized for it. I haven’t been able to get access to the army medical records yet, but we do know this – both Oliver and Molly are highly decorated war vets who have seen several tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Quite frankly, they’re the worst possible enemies we could have in this case.’
Striker turned in his seat to face her. ‘Does the army stock PETN?’
She nodded. ‘I spoke to their Ammunitions Officer. Not only do they stock PETN, but theirs was one of the batches that was recalled.’
‘Was any missing?’
Felicia frowned. ‘There’s no way of checking. The company who makes the product gave the army a full credit for the batch. Rather than waste time and money shipping the product back, they detonated it with other explosives. As a result, there’s no way of checking inventories, although I don’t think it’s a big stretch to conclude that this is where the bombers got their supply.’
Striker thought things through. ‘The faulty batch explains how Koda survived the explosion at his home. It also explains why the bombers switched to home-made explosives halfway through the mission.’
For a moment, the room turned silent. Then Laroche spoke.
‘What else can we do to prevent further casualties?’ he asked.
Striker gave them a rundown of what had been done so far – police databases, the border, and all modes of international travel had been flagged. The RCMP had undercover units set up on the Sunset Care Centre as well as Archer Davies’ second family. And here in Vancouver, Patrol was already guarding Rothschild and his family.
This seemed to satisfy Laroche for the moment. ‘Then the only remaining question is our line of action with regard to public knowledge . . . Do we inform them?’
Striker was the first to speak. ‘You go public with this information, and you might sewer any chance we have of catching them.’
Media Liaison Constable Johnstone agreed. ‘We have to consider the fear aspect. These are well-trained military officers. Informing the public will cause mass hysteria. We can’t tell them.’
‘We have to tell them,’ Ballantyne countered. He looked directly at Laroche when he spoke. ‘If you hold back this information, and a bomb goes off killing innocent civilians – and, God forbid, children – the department will be liable. Not to mention your approval rating will plummet to an all-time low. It could take years to recover from something like that. A decade.’
Striker couldn’t believe his ears. Were they really talking about public approval ratings at a time like this? It was all he could do to hold his tongue. He gave Felicia a hot look, and she returned it.
After a long moment of discussion, Laroche turned away from the table. He walked to the window and stared outside. Behind him, Ballantyne and Johnstone argued back and forth over the right decision, while Felicia and Striker waited with feigned patience. After a long moment, the Acting Deputy Chief returned.
‘We have a duty to inform the public.’
Striker balled his fingers into fists. ‘This is a mistake,’ he said. ‘All you’re going to do is create more fear, speed up the bombers’ plans, and m
ake the investigation more difficult for us.’
But Laroche acted as if he had never heard the rebuttal. He turned to Media Liaison Johnstone and nodded.
‘Go get your scribe,’ he said. ‘We have a speech to write.’
One Hundred and Twenty-Three
The house was warm and smelled of fresh-baked scones, and that Beatles guy Mommy loved so much was singing about Jude over the speakers again. Outside the sun was shining brightly in the deep blue sky. Everything looked wonderful. Like it was a perfect day. But to six-year-old Oliver, there was no day worse.
Daddy was leaving again.
‘Don’t go . . . please, Daddy . . . don’t leave me!’
He stood at the front-room window and gaped at the man he had not seen for so long he could almost not remember – not since the last time he had left in his uniform for that Green Valley Mommy had told him about, where he went to save the world.
Beside Oliver, Molly was breathing hard, crying. She had her hands pressed up against the window and her breath was fogging up the glass.
‘Don’t go, don’t go, Daddy, don’t go!’
Her cries echoed his own.
Oliver banged on the glass as hard as he could with his little fists, but it made no difference. Daddy kept walking. He reached the taxi cab, adjusted his hat, and looked back towards the house. For a moment, they saw each other, and now the tears began to fall.
‘Don’t go,’ he said, all but a whisper.
Daddy did not move for a moment, he just stared back and his face became awfully hard and his eyes looked like wet glass. He gave them a quick salute.
‘I love you two,’ he mouthed, and touched his heart.
From the kitchen, came Mother. Her apron was covered in flour, and she gently wrapped her arm around both of them, then guided them away from the window. ‘Come on, dears, I’ve made your favourite treat – scones with cream and strawberry jam.’
‘No!’ Oliver yelled.
He spun away from her. Ran back to the window. Placed his hands and face against the glass. Big tears rolled down his cheeks.
Outside, the cab was already driving away. And Oliver let loose a wild, agonized sound as it left. He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed some more, while Bert and Ernie talked on the TV and the smell of fresh-baked scones spread throughout the living room.
Don’t go don’t go don’t go . . .
‘DON’T GO!’ Oliver yelled.
He reached out and grabbed for nothing that was there.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Molly said.
Her voice – her tone – startled him. Woke him. And he looked around the room in a haze. It was as if someone had suddenly screamed in his ear while he was meditating, and he now realized he was horizontal with the ground. He tried to sit up, and the earth shifted beneath him.
He fell back down.
‘Lie down, Oliver. Lie down . . .’ Molly stared at him from above, her round face tight, her eyes distant. She brushed a hand through his hair. ‘Jesus almighty, you’re soaked, Oliver. You’re burning up.’
He tried to sit up again; she pushed him back down.
‘Rest!’ she said.
‘Target’s away . . . left turn, south . . .’
‘There is no target, Oliver. You’re here. With me.’
‘. . . bomb’s hot . . .’
Molly stood up. Walked to the corner. And opened a small red medical cooler. From it, she withdrew a cloth and three cold packs. She sat back down and used a rag to gently mop the sweat from Oliver’s brow, then she broke the chemical seals on the ice packs and placed one against his forehead and two under his armpits.
‘No!’ He tried to take them out.
‘Leave them.’
‘. . . is cold.’
‘Leave them.’
‘My leg. Leave the leg . . .’
Molly said nothing. From the steel table across the room, she grabbed the remaining bottles of antibiotics and antihistamines, and injected Oliver for the third time of the hour. Wanting the medications closer, she crossed the room, grabbed hold of the steel table and tried to pull it across the room. But it was too heavy, so she left the table where it was and laid her supplies down on the red medical cooler.
She turned on the relay system, then the monitor, and watched the news. What she saw turned her blood ice-cold. She changed the channel several times, but it made no difference. Everywhere she looked, the news was the same.
‘Our pictures . . . they’re everywhere, Oliver.’
‘. . . doctors . . .’
‘They know who we are.’
‘. . . took my leg . . . my leg!’
Molly stood up uneasily, almost hesitantly from the table.
‘We’re all out of options,’ she said softly, and there was a tremor in her voice. A note of finality and despondency and regret. ‘I have to finish the mission without you.’
One Hundred and Twenty-Four
It was eight o’clock on a Friday night and the city was in an uproar. During the news release, Media Liaison Officer Johnstone had informed the press that the investigating officers were Detectives Jacob Striker and Felicia Santos. As a result, their office phones had been ringing off the hook. Striker had over twenty-three messages waiting for him.
He turned off his ringer and swivelled in his seat to face Felicia. ‘This is ridiculous. The brass really screwed us on this one.’
The look on Felicia’s face mirrored his own. ‘They’ve made everything so much harder. Now it feels like one long waiting game.’
‘Cat and mouse.’
‘More like Whack-a-Mole, if you’re Harry,’ Felicia suggested.
Striker couldn’t find a smile. ‘Any calls on him?’
‘Not a one. The undercover guys have had no sightings. And I even called his brother, Trevor. But no one’s heard or seen a thing.’
Striker stood up. ‘Come on then. If we can’t find the bombers, let’s go where the bombers might find us.’
‘Rothschild’s new place?’
‘You got it.’
Twenty minutes later, they drove through Dunbar and headed for the Kerrisdale area, where Rothschild’s new home was located. Striker wanted to test the protection detail, so they parked three blocks south of Trafalgar and made their way in on foot.
Striker went straight; Felicia walked a parallel lane. The purpose of doing so was to either spot the protection team or have the protection team spot them. When Striker neared Rothschild’s backyard, he peered inside the garage window and spotted Mike’s prized possession – the old Cougar. From what Striker could see, there were no undercover operatives near it. When Felicia also reached the garage, Striker reached for the doorknob, turned it gently—
And a deep male voice called out:
‘You’d already be a dead man, Detective.’
Striker stopped turning the knob and smiled; the protection team had caught him before he’d caught them. That was good. He and Felicia turned around, but they saw no one in the lane.
‘Good work, guys,’ Felicia said.
Striker searched for the source of the voice but all he could see were backyard fences, dark shadows which lined the inter-house walkways, and bushes and trees in every yard.
‘Felicia and I will be staying in the house tonight,’ he said.
‘Cool,’ came the reply. ‘We’ve been bored back here. Tell Felicia to have a few drinks and put on a show for us.’
Felicia offered a weak grin. ‘You couldn’t handle it.’
Ignoring the banter, Striker walked up the back porch steps. At the midway point, he was lit up by the motion detector light. Squinting against the glare, he unlocked the patio door.
Inside, the kitchen was filled with a table and chairs and a half-dozen unpacked moving boxes. Striker opened the fridge and was pleased to see a row of Sleeman’s Original Draught bottles lined up along the shelf of the door. He took two beers, twisted off the caps, and held one out to Felicia.
She took it and clinked her
bottle on his.
‘To catching these guys,’ she said.
Striker smiled back.
‘Bombs away,’ he said.
One Hundred and Twenty-Five
Harry sat in a black pickup truck, parked a half-block back from where Striker and Felicia had parked their undercover cruiser. An hour earlier, Harry himself had tried to go home, but he’d done some of his own reconnaissance first. It had taken him less than ten minutes to spot one of the undercover operatives watching his place.
Strike Force, he thought.
There to take me down.
He killed any thought of an Internal investigation and stared down the road in the direction of Rothschild’s place. Striker and Felicia were spending the night here. And that was good news.
It worked perfectly for him.
He grabbed a wire brush and the GPS tracking device. It was one he had purchased from Best Buy – nowhere near the quality of the BirdDog devices the department owned; those were several thousand dollars apiece. But so long as Striker and Felicia didn’t take the tunnel into the Richmond area, this consumer model would work just fine.
Harry got moving. He lay down beneath the undercover cruiser, reached up with the wire brush, and vigorously raked it along the uppermost part of the frame. When the metal was shiny clean, he hit the ‘on’ switch and attached the unit. He gave the device a firm tug, felt the magnet hold, and was satisfied with the result.
He returned to his vehicle and backed up a few blocks into a T-lane near Balsam. When he turned on the tracking device, it worked fine. A small red icon filled the centre of the display.
Striker was all set to be tailed.
Somewhat relieved, Harry let out a long breath. Tracking other cops . . . the whole thing left a bad taste in his mouth. But so be it. This was no longer about good and evil, or right and wrong. It was about survival. And Harry would be damned if he was going down without a fight.
One Hundred and Twenty-Six
The night was hot and dark.
Striker sat in the dimness of the kitchen. His body was tired, and his conscious mind begged for sleep. But every time he tried to doze, his subconscious kicked in, sending a wave of adrenalin surging through his body and giving him a wicked case of restless legs. Sleeping fully clothed with a holster attached to his belt didn’t help him get comfortable, but that was how it had to be. They were up against some highly trained operatives right now.