Текст книги "The Guilty"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

One Hundred and Twenty-Seven

Oliver lay on the cot and felt sweat dripping off his body. An ache ran through him like a hot liquid in his bones, radiating from his neck all the way down to his tailbone.

He was in the dark greyness of the command room. He knew this. But he kept finding himself back there again. In the Green Zone. And it was happening – it was happening all over again.

His squad was being led to their doom.

It all started with the Afghan cop – that tall, burly, black sergeant from the Afghan National Police. Smoking his Egyptian cigarettes, he led them all across the Helmand plain. He was eager, nervous.

Excited even.

‘Dis way, dis way,’ he said several times. ‘On da plain. You see. On da plain.’

Oliver followed. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform as they went. Early still, a chilly dew covered the tall grass of the fields, but soon it would be stolen by the arid heat of the day.

‘Hold up,’ he commanded.

They had neared their destination.

At the end of the trail was the bomb the cop had found – an Improvised Explosive Device buried deep within the rocky sand. It seemed to be a standard IED – one pound of HME, a pressure-plate release pad, and tied to a dummy bomb beside it.

But looks could be deceiving. Especially when dealing with the Taliban.

Oliver assessed the scene and didn’t like it. The work area was narrow, less than four feet wide, and flanked by drainage canals. Beyond that, tall sweeping hills backed the plains. It was an enemy haven – concealment below and cover above.

‘I don’t like it,’ Oliver said. ‘And I don’t like this man.’

‘He’s a cop,’ the point man said. ‘He’s ANP.’

‘Means nothing. They got sleepers everywhere.’

Oliver frowned. The situation was bad. He wanted nothing more than to retreat. But orders were orders in the Green Zone, and if he didn’t deal with the IED now, it would end up taking out another soldier later on.

It always did.

Reality dictated. There was no choice.

‘Cover me,’ he told his men.

Then he started the long walk.

Voices from the past haunted him.

The cop, the cop, shoot the goddam cop!

The words blasted through Oliver’s head, a desperate scream no one else could hear. He sat up with a jolt, and suddenly, he was back in the command room. On the cot. In the stark hotness of the dark grey room.

Out of one nightmare, into another.

For as the haze dissipated, the soft sounds of the monitor filled his ears. A jumble of words that caught his attention:

. . . bomber . . .

. . . shootout . . .

. . . hero cop . . .

And then the most horrible words he had ever heard in his life:

. . . believed to be Royal Logistic Corps Warrant Officer Molly Howell.

Oliver forced his stiff neck left and gaped at the monitor. One look at the image was all it took. Standing there in the camera feed was the cop – the big Homicide detective, Jacob Striker. And next to him were two large men in jumpsuits, loading a body hidden beneath a white sheet into a van.

The Body Removal Team.

‘Molly,’ Oliver said. His voice was soft and weak and tiny. ‘Molly.’

A sob filled his throat. Choked him mute. And like a slow pressing tide, Oliver felt himself slipping further and further away, into that dark fog of pain and medications, with only the image of his sister in his head. This time, he did not fight the feeling. This time he allowed himself to be enveloped by the thick, churning darkness. Within seconds, it overpowered him completely.

It was done.

He had passed the point of no return.

Part 4:

Shockwave

Saturday

One Hundred and Twenty-Eight

Police had located the rear guard of the protection team by the time that Mike Rothschild arrived on scene at his own home; the guard had been knocked over the head and rendered unconscious, but – aside from some bruises to his skull and to his ego – he was no worse for wear.

Striker found the situation odd. Why had Molly Howell not just killed the man? Why take a chance like that when a bullet to the head or a blade to the throat would have been so much more effective? After all, dead men didn’t return to consciousness and call in alerts.

Clearly, there was a difference in beliefs between the two bombers.

And it appeared as if he was left with the more dangerous of the two.

Pondering all this, Striker sat on the back porch, staring intently at the toy seized from the crime scene and absently rubbing his thumb along the red number 1 painted on its torso. To his surprise, the doll was not an accurate depiction of a policeman, but the personification of a duck, complete with legs and arms, and dressed in a policeman’s uniform.

It was strange. Such an odd thing for the bomber to leave behind. A policeman made sense to Striker, because there were so many connections there.

But a duck?

It was just so . . . odd.

Striker heard an engine growl, looked up and spotted Rothschild’s Toyota minivan just outside the strewn-up police tape at the south end of the lane. The man parked, then came walking in with purpose. The lines of his face were deeper than normal this morning.

‘Up here, Mike,’ Striker called.

Rothschild looked over the fence and spotted him. ‘The whole world’s gone insane!’

Striker did not respond. He just watched Rothschild enter the yard, stop at the entrance to his garage – which was now taped off as the primary crime scene with a patrolman standing guard – and peer inside. After a long moment, Rothschild shook his head in disbelief, then walked up the back porch steps to Striker’s side.

‘So she was actually in there, huh?’

Striker nodded. ‘Planting a bomb under your hood.’

‘She pull on you?’

‘Went for the detonator.’

‘Son-of-a-bitch.’

Striker looked to the east, where the sun was breaking through the strange mist that had flooded the woods of the park. ‘The woman gave me no choice . . . I opened fire.’

‘You scratch my paint?’

Striker didn’t laugh. Black humour was usually the key to warding off depression, but today it didn’t feel so good.

Rothschild took a seat beside Striker in one of the patio chairs. ‘They take your piece?’

‘Yeah. Noodles seized it and brought me a new SIG. No flashlight attachment or grip though. Laroche wants me off the road till I meet up with the Trauma Team, but me and Felicia are fighting him on it.’ He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘They’re in there right now with Noodles and the coroner. It’s a nightmare.’

Rothschild said nothing. He just looked at all the golden streams of police tape stretching across the backyard, the laneway, and the garage. ‘I can tell you this much – next time I paint the house, it won’t be yellow.’

Striker smiled for the first time. ‘How about white and blue?’ he said, and held up the toy duck.

All at once, Rothschild’s face changed. ‘Where’d you get that?’

‘Crime scene. Molly Howell brought it with her. They’ve been leaving one of them for each victim, but we don’t know why. ’ Striker turned it over in his hands and examined the toy. Its body was wood, its beak plastic. The toy was solid. Well built. Striker stuck his finger through the metal O-ring and Rothschild stiffened.

‘You sure—’

‘It’s been checked already.’

Striker gave the O-ring a yank and the bills flapped open and the duck began speaking: ‘These criminals are making me quackers!’

Rothschild reached out and took the duck from Striker. He held it in his hands, stared at it in wonder and partial disbelief. ‘This is more than a toy, Shipwreck. It’s Chief Quackers.’

Striker looked hard at Rothschild. ‘You’ve seen this before?’

‘Of course, I have. It used to be our goddam mascot. In ERT.’

‘Mascot?’

Rothschild’s eyes took on a faraway look and he explained. ‘Was about ten years ago, I guess. I was on Red Team. That was when Chief Ackers was in charge. Guy was a self-righteous prick. Condescending. Arrogant as hell. He interfered with everything. No one liked the man, and we couldn’t wait to get rid of him.’

‘I heard about Ackers. He only lasted one term.’

‘Yeah, the union stepped in on that one, thank God.’ Rothschild turned the duck over and over in his hands as he spoke. ‘Anyway, Ackers was always bitching about the team’s stats and saying how we weren’t keeping track of our calls, and how it was making him look bad at the meetings.’

‘CompStat?’ Striker asked. It was the monthly meeting where city-wide statistics were discussed in public forums.

‘Yeah, goddam CompStat,’ Rothschild replied. ‘Anyway, one day, Koda comes walking into the bunker – he was our sergeant back then – and he’s got this little white duck in his hands. Got it from someone he knew, his wife or something, I can’t really remember. But he pulls the string and it starts speaking about how these criminals are making him quackers. And one of the guys says, “Holy shit, it’s Chief Ackers.” Then someone else yells, “No, it’s Chief Quackers.” And before you knew it everyone was laughing because it was, like, a total slag on the chief and all. Next thing you know, it ended up being our team mascot . . . Chief Quackers . . . God, I never thought I’d see him again.’

Striker looked at the duck for a long moment and felt some of the pieces fall into place. ‘They’ve been leaving one of these ducks for each victim.’

‘Like a calling card?’

Striker nodded. ‘Calling card, signature, taunt – call it whatever you want. The point is they’re doing it to let the victim know why this is happening.’

Rothschild shook his head. ‘But I was part of that squad and I still don’t fucking know why.’

Striker took back the duck and stared at it for a long moment.

‘Doesn’t matter if you know why or not,’ he finally said. ‘Oliver Howell thinks you do.’

One Hundred and Twenty-Nine

The memory of losing his leg was so vivid to Oliver, like it had just happened yesterday – or to Oliver’s messed-up mind, like it had happened ten years ago, or ten minutes.

It made no difference.

The tall beefy black cop from the Afghan National Police had led them to the site of the IED, and it was in the worst possible location – down a narrow strip of dirt, flanked on both sides by canals and high sweeping hills. As Oliver made the long walk towards the bomb, the unusual tension from his squad was palpable.

He absorbed it right through his skin.

He reached the bomb site and felt himself sweating on the chilly valley plain. He scanned his eyes across the hills, east and west, searching for any sign of the enemy. But all he saw was cold blue sky. Sweeping rocky hills of unforgiving terrain. And crevice after crevice, cave after cave.

The favoured ambush spots of the Taliban.

With time running thin, Oliver dropped low. Opened his case. And pulled out the tools required for the job – wire-cutters, alligator clips, and a paintbrush of fine horsehair. He lay prone across the dirt and rock, and used gentle sweeping motions to brush away the pebbles and dirt until the rectangular form of the pressure plate became visible.

This was the first bomb, and that was a good start. But the wand had picked up two signals. So he angled himself to the right and performed the same actions once more until a second plate was uncovered, this one a pressure-release pad.

Finding the plate was always a relief. And a smile broke Oliver’s lips. The operation was going smoothly thus far. And he felt good. Positive. Optimistic, even.

And then he saw the line – one long piece of dead wire snaking off to the east canal.

It was a goddam trap.

Oliver shoved himself back, spun about, and scampered to one knee in an effort to run. But the blast came. Light exploded, followed by a swelling of darkness as the earth rose up beneath him like some giant creature breaking out of hell. An invisible force tore through his body, and was followed by a thunderous wave. Suddenly he was airborne. Floating, spinning, rolling through the sky. When he finally landed, a wave of agony ripped through his body. He lay there, on the dirt of the path, feeling every inch of his being throb and spasm as he stared out, not thirty feet into the field, and saw the ground being torn apart by gunfire rounds and mortar.

‘Sandman down – SANDMAN DOWN!’ Someone was screaming. One of his men.

Oliver could barely hear the man.

He managed to turn his head. To look back down the trail. And he saw his squadmates running his way.

High-calibre rounds rained down from the rocky terrain above. East and west. AK-47 fire. Mowing them down. In the constant drone of gunfire, half his men were ripped apart. Shreddings of meat and tissue and blood exploded from their bodies. The few who survived the assault grabbed him. Lifted him from the ground.

‘The path,’ Oliver whispered weakly. ‘Stay on . . . the path.’

But no one could heard him, and suddenly more bombs were going off. Loud, thunderous booms. One explosion to the east – a one-pounder that tore off the bottom half of his point man’s legs. And one to the west – a definite two-pounder that obliterated two other men completely.

And for Oliver, everything just sort of sloooowed down.

Greyed out.

Muted.

Even the high-powered chain guns of the Black Hawks seemed soft and distant as the rescue birds came sweeping in from the hills and rained fire on their enemies. To Oliver, none of it mattered now. There was only pain and spasm, and a deep dark hollowness that was sucking him down like an animal in a tar-pit trap, covering his head in suffocating blackness.

He couldn’t breathe . . .

Back in the command room, Oliver’s eyes snapped open and he gasped for air.

His mouth was dusty dry, his tongue felt too large. Sounds from the monitors hit his ears. Talk of bombs and police. And for a moment, he thought it was the ANP cop again, and he reached for his assault rifle. When he found no long gun there, he forced himself to sit up. And all at once, reality spilled over him like a cold wave.

The news was still on.

Molly was not there.

And she would never be coming back.

Oliver let out a wail.

A mixture of emotions hit him. His squadmates, gone. His friends, gone. His father and mother, gone. And now Molly . . . she too was gone. Molly. He wanted nothing more than to break down and give up.

But he did not. The soldier in him would not allow it.

Thirsty, exhausted, throbbing with pain and fever, he forced himself to his feet and shuffled like an old man across the room to the costume Molly had created. Her last one. He grabbed the uniform, then a SIG P224, because it allowed for the attachment of night sights, a tactical light-laser attachment, and above all, a sound suppressor – which would definitely be needed for this job to be successful.

Hot yet cold, and slick with a chilly sweat, Oliver placed the compact SIG behind his waistband, then stumbled and had to grab the wall for support. The fever – and perhaps the infection – was still going strong. A microscopic symphony in his veins. But so what?

Oliver knew sickness; he had been ill many times before. Been deathly ill. And he knew that without rest, this injury would kill him. But that was okay. He had the uniform. He had the gun. He had the plan. After that, nothing really mattered any more.

He didn’t plan on surviving the day.

One Hundred and Thirty

Striker pulled Felicia from the house.

‘We’re going,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere but here.’

‘But Laroche—’

‘We have a bomber to find.’

Felicia looked at him curiously, almost cautiously, then smiled.

‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Moments later, they were marching up Trafalgar Street towards the undercover cruiser. As they went, Striker explained what Rothschild had told him about the toy duck. Felicia listened intently, biting her lip with every detail. When Striker was done speaking, Felicia made a point:

‘So that gives us one more connection to Williams,’ she said. ‘She was the toymaker who gave Koda the duck.’

Striker agreed. ‘It’s how she was connected to the squad, yes, but I think her main role was hiding Harry and Koda’s drug money through her accounting practices.’

‘But why kill her? The drug crimes are only indirectly connected to the shootings. Unless . . . maybe Oliver doesn’t know that. Maybe he thinks it’s all connected.’

Striker shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t matter anyway. From everything we’ve seen with this man, it’s obvious his mind is fractured. His belief system is polarized. He treats everything as if they were absolutes. There are no degrees of right or wrong here, no grey areas – only black and white. Either you’re culpable or innocent. There is no in-between. So for Keisha Williams to be funnelling away the money, she was involved. Period.’

‘It still leaves us with nothing for Dr Owens.’

Striker nodded and sighed. ‘The very person whose kidnapping started this whole call.’

They reached the undercover cruiser and Striker used the remote to unlock the doors. Once inside, he took a moment to think things over, then had an idea. He turned to Felicia. ‘Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way.’

‘How so?’

‘We keep assuming that, because Sharise Owens had once been in a relationship with Koda, that this was her connection to it all. But that doesn’t make sense. Harry and Osaka had wives too, and yet none of them have been targeted.’

‘Or tortured, for that matter.’

‘Exactly. Dr Owens worked at St Paul’s Hospital. But the nurse said she’d been there for, what?’ – Striker flipped back through his notebook to find the answer – ‘seven years. Seven. Yet she’s been a trauma surgeon for twelve. Do we know where the rest of those years were spent?’

Felicia shook her head, and Striker continued.

‘The shooting down by the river . . . it took place on the Vancouver-Burnaby border. So when Archer was injured, what hospital would he have been taken to?’

‘Burnaby General.’

Striker put the car into Drive and headed that way. ‘We need to read that medical report.’

One Hundred and Thirty-One

They walked down the dim corridors of Burnaby General Hospital without speaking, Striker deep in his own thoughts and Felicia checking her iPhone emails. When they reached the Health Records Office, they went inside. The woman behind the counter had dyed auburn hair and far too much blue eyeliner on. She looked up from her newspaper, snapped her gum, and said, ‘Can I help you?’

‘I sincerely hope so,’ Striker said.

He explained the situation.

After a quick system check, the clerk confirmed the existence of the medical report for a patient known as Archer J. Davies. As expected – and much to Striker’s chagrin – she would not release the documents without the proper authorization, and that meant one of two things: obtaining a warrant, which would require writing an Information to Obtain, or giving the hospital a Release of Medical Documents form, signed by the deceased’s closest living relative.

There was no time for writing an ITO at this point, so Striker spent an uncomfortable ten minutes on the phone with Lilly Davies, explaining the need for police access to the medical records. After getting her consent, he spent another half-hour waiting for the papers to be faxed.

‘We’re wasting so much time,’ he griped.

‘We’re saving time,’ Felicia countered. ‘It would take us four hours to write an ITO – and that doesn’t include getting some judge to approve it.’

He knew she was right, but he grumbled anyway. Moments later, the clerk motioned them over to the counter. In her hands was a deep red folder marked:

Trauma Surgery Report.

Striker wasted no time. He signed the form and grabbed the medical report. With Felicia peering over his shoulder, he sat down in the same chair he had been waiting in and opened the report. The first thing he noticed was the author’s name.

Dr Sharise Owens.

It gave him hope for a new lead.

Together, they started reading through the medical report, skimming through the Procedural Summary and finishing with the full Operative Narrative. Once done, Striker sat back and looked at Felicia. The glum look on her face told him she had learned the exact same thing he had.

Nothing was amiss.

‘It’s all standard procedure,’ she said. ‘A very detailed and thorough report. In fact, it looks like she went beyond the call with this one – probably because Archer was a cop.’

Striker nodded. He went to snap the folder shut, then paused. He looked at Felicia. ‘What are the odds that Koda’s common-law wife would be the trauma surgeon working at this hospital when the call came in?’

Felicia thought it over. ‘Low?’

‘Definitely low.’

He got up and approached the front-desk clerk again. Her hair had fallen out of place and she was struggling to pin it back again. She gave him a queer look when he asked her for a copy of the shift schedules for the night of the shooting.

‘That was, like, ten years ago,’ she said.

Striker nodded. ‘They still should be archived, shouldn’t they?’

She gave him an exasperated look, but nodded. She muttered something about archives, then disappeared around the corner. When she returned some ten minutes later, she had a ten-by-fourteen photocopied page in her hand.

‘This is it, Your Highness.’

Striker smiled and thanked her for it.

He and Felicia analysed the page. In the left column were the shifts and times. In the right was a list of doctors’ names, each one followed by their practitioner number. Next to Sharise Owens’ name were the letters ‘CO’ in brackets.

Striker showed it to the clerk behind the counter. ‘What does this mean?

‘CO?’ she asked. ‘Called Out.’

‘So this was not her normal shift?’

‘That’s what called out means.’

‘Interesting,’ Striker said. He looked at the shift schedule, then at the medical report Felicia was holding. He asked the clerk, ‘Tell me . . . how come there are no recordings in the medical file?’

‘Recordings?’

‘Last time I checked, there were audio tapes made as well.’

The woman gave him another queer look. ‘Audio tapes are standard procedure on autopsies, not surgeries.’

Striker shook his head. ‘They were with Dr Owens. The woman was meticulous. I’ve seen the copies she keeps back at her office.’

‘Hold on, let me check.’ The clerk spoke the words with irritation but she swivelled her chair around and began typing on the keyboard. After a while, she made a hmm sound. ‘There’s something here that says “micro”.’

‘Those would be the audio tapes,’ Striker said. He explained the situation to the clerk. ‘Everything may be digitally recorded nowadays, but ten years ago it was all put on mini-tapes.’

‘I can’t give you those.’

‘I’ll take a copy.’

‘Hold on.’

She started to turn away from the computer, then stopped. Chewing her gum harder and faster, she leaned back towards the computer, studied the screen, and frowned. ‘That’s odd . . . Is this the second set of copies the police have acquired?’

Striker shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of. Why?’

‘Someone else obtained a copy of these tapes just two months ago.’

‘You got a name?’ Striker asked.

She nodded.

‘Tom Atkins.’