Текст книги "The Guilty"

Автор книги: Sean Slater

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

One Hundred and Thirty-Eight

Oliver needed to discard the dead cop.

He drove slowly along Crown Street, searching for a good dump site. To the east was the sprawling suburbia of the Dunbar area, but to the west was the wilderness of the Pacific Spirit National Park. He pulled up next to a natural hollow that was three feet deep and filled with reeds and further covered by shrouds of bush.

This was the place.

From the cop’s tool belt, Oliver took the gun – a SIG Sauer P226 – the radio, the pepper spray, and the handcuffs. He then glanced at the police laptop. On the screen, the small GPS icon flashed in the bottom right-hand corner of the task bar.

He was online.

Oliver immediately undocked the laptop and threw it into the bushes. Then, with his shoulder screaming in pain, he dragged the cop’s body out the passenger side of the vehicle and dropped it into the hollow where it was quickly hidden by bush and reed. Someone would find the body, he knew, and probably within days. But so what?

It would all be done by then.

Ten minutes later, after a quick stop at Tim Horton’s coffee shop, Oliver made his way towards Striker’s house. The smell of the freshly brewed coffee filled the car. Four large cups – double cream, double sugar – sat in a cardboard cup holder on the passenger seat, along with a second tray of chocolate milks, a couple of egg salad sandwiches, and a large box of miscellaneous doughnuts.

He drove down Camosun Street until he saw the undercover police car out front of Striker’s house. He pulled over and attached the Black Knight suppressor to the SIG Sauer pistol. Once secure, he laid the pistol on the passenger seat and covered it with the box of doughnuts. Then he pulled up in his marked patrol car, rolled down the window, and smiled.

‘Got some coffees,’ he said. ‘Compliments of the boss man.’

The patrolman in the other car was a dead ringer for Ricky Gervais. He smiled. ‘Thank Jesus. I’m falling asleep here and the day’s not half over.’

Oliver handed him one of the paper cups. ‘I hope I bought enough. All I got was four coffees, plus my own.’

‘That’s perfect – all we got is four.’

Oliver sipped his own coffee. ‘Where’s the rest of them?’

The Gervais cop removed the lid from his cup. ‘House and lane. Want me to call them?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘Tell whoever’s inside to come grab theirs. I’ll drop the rest off to the mates out back.’

The Gervais cop took out his cell, made the call, and a short moment later, the front door opened. The cop that emerged from the house was tall and thin with long bony arms. He crested the cop cars, then nodded at Oliver. ‘You from the odd side?’

Oliver wiped away the sweat from his brow. ‘Yeah. Call-out.’

They both nodded.

The cop accepted the coffee and thanked Oliver. When he sat down in the passenger seat, next to the Gervais cop and said, ‘Fuck, I hate guard detail,’ Oliver acted. He drew his pistol and shot the driver first, then the passenger. Two quick blasts. Both head shots.

Thwip-thwip!

And it was done.

Oliver watched the cop in the passenger seat slump forward against the dashboard. He felt nothing. It was all immaterial now. Just one more road block dealt with on the way home.

He exited the cruiser, climbed on top of the dead cop in the driver’s seat, and drove the car thirty feet down the road. He parked out of view, on a side street, and then walked down to Striker’s house.

The front door was unlocked.

Inside, watching cartoons in the den, were the two children. The boy – Cody was his name – did not so much as glance back when Oliver entered the room. The Girl – Shana – turned and studied him for a moment. Her eyes fell to his uniform and a relaxed look spread across her face.

Oliver smiled at her. ‘Shift change, little ones. Where’s your father?’

‘What?’

‘Your father. Your dad.’

‘He’s out killing bad guys,’ the boy said, and he made a pretend gun with his fingers, which he started shooting.

The girl rolled her eyes. ‘He went out.’

Out? The word made Oliver’s jaws clench. ‘When’s he getting back?’

‘Who knows?’ the girl said. ‘He never tells us anything.’

Oliver steeled his nerves and refused to allow his emotions to get the better of him. Evaluate. Act. Reassess. If Rothschild was not here, he would simply go to Plan B: Why run after Rothschild when he could simply make Rothschild come to him?

Oliver smiled at the children. ‘Well, too bad for Dad. Because I brought doughnuts and chocolate milk!’

The boy finally turned away from the TV set. ‘Awesome.’

Even the girl smiled.

Oliver looked at the children and their happy eager faces. He allowed them to dig into the treats he had brought. As they ate, he offered them a wide captivating smile.

‘Who wants a ride in the police car?’ he asked.

One Hundred and Thirty-Nine

Striker sat in the car, staring at the SIG Sauer, and frowned. This pistol Hal had given him didn’t feel right. It didn’t have the special order, rubberized grip he was accustomed too. And it was brand new. The slide had barely been broken in. He ejected the magazine and expelled the last round from the chamber.

Felicia sat beside him, finishing the last of the notes she had made on the file. When done, she let out a long breath and looked back at Striker, ready to continue going over their chronological sequence of events.

‘So where were we?’ she said. She glanced back to the last line. ‘Archer is shot in the gunfight – blown up by the breach – and everyone thinks it was Chipotle who tagged him.’

Striker nodded absently as he racked the slide a few times; it needed oil. ‘At some point, either during the battle or just after it, Koda figured this out – or at the very least, he suspected it.’

‘You think?’

‘One hundred per cent. How else does Sharise Owens end up being the surgeon called out? Something had to happen there.’ He removed the slide from the base of the pistol and put it on the dashboard. ‘Besides, it makes sense from Harry and Koda’s standpoint. Think about it – Koda’s in charge of this whole botched takedown, and because he and Harry are already worried about being investigated for the trafficking operation, the last thing they want is more heat coming their way for a cop-on-cop shooting . . . this slide needs oil.’

‘I got some in my bag – hold on.’ Felicia went to the trunk and returned with some gun oil and a clean rag. She handed it to Striker. ‘So Harry and Koda get Owens to doctor the report.’

Striker oiled the rail guides as he spoke. ‘You can see why – the shooting was an accident. As far as Harry and Koda were concerned, it was a good choice of action: Archer would be taken care of. Rothschild would get a commendation. And a public investigation into a cop-on-cop shooting would never occur. So they got Owens to alter the report. Just a few amendments here and there . . . but ones that changed everything.’

‘But she made mistakes.’

Striker nodded. ‘Not destroying her original tapes was one of them. She may have been an excellent doctor, but she wasn’t used to being a cover-up artist. And she screwed up in the written report as well – she changed the locations of the entrance and exit wounds, but she didn’t change the wound sizes. That discrepancy alone proves that the entrance and exit locations were reversed.’

Striker looked up and saw Felicia grinning at him.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Everything’s connected. Except for one thing – we know why Oliver and Molly Howell did this, but we don’t know how they found out.’

‘Actually we do,’ Striker said. ‘They can request any report we have – so long as it hasn’t been stolen or misplaced or destroyed.’

‘Through the Freedom of Information Act.’

Striker nodded. ‘Exactly. Well, Oliver got them. And when he compared the police reports, the medical reports, and the medical tapes, he realized pretty quickly the same things we did – that everything didn’t mesh.’ Striker grabbed the slide and re-attached it to the base of the pistol. ‘From there on, everything snowballed.’

Felicia took back the gun oil. ‘So when Oliver kidnapped Sharise Owens down by the river, it wasn’t so much about torture as it was about information.’

Striker agreed. ‘It was an interrogation session – to corroborate what he already suspected. And what she told him only reinforced his belief that this was one massive cover-up.’ Striker racked the slide a few more times to get the oil moving.

Felicia went quiet for a long moment as Striker continued to rack the slide.

‘But why Osaka?’ she finally asked.

Striker stopped playing with the slide. ‘He was the Internal Investigator in charge of the shooting.’ Striker frowned. ‘Fact is, Archer was shot by one of our own men. And mistake or not, Osaka dropped the ball on that file. There were reasons for the mistake – this was at a time when Osaka was already dealing with the Stanley Park Six incident. The man was swamped.’

‘Stanley Park – what a hell file that was.’

Striker nodded. ‘The worst. But Osaka did an excellent job on it. And as a result, four months later, he got promoted – and not just to sergeant, he jumped two ranks to inspector. You know, that was only the second time in the department’s history that anyone has ever jumped two ranks.’ Striker grabbed the pistol one more time and starting doing a function test to be sure it wouldn’t misfire in a time of need.

Felicia looked at him. ‘You’re not implying that Osaka dropped Archer’s file in order to get promoted, are you?’

Striker shook his head. ‘God, no. Osaka was a man of the highest integrity. I don’t think he had any idea that Archer was shot by one of our own guys. I mean they had a coked-up biker with an AK-47 shooting at them. Archer got hit. It all seemed pretty straightforward.’

‘But Oliver thought the shooting was intentional.’

Striker nodded. ‘He still does. He thinks the squad murdered his father. He also thinks the department knew about this and covered it up to avoid public embarrassment. And he thinks that Rothschild was the worst of the lot because he was the man who pulled the trigger.’

Felicia continued writing down the information. After a long moment, she put down the pen, shook out her fingers, and scanned through the six pages of notes. She blinked as if relieved and horrified all at once.

‘It all fits,’ she said.

‘It does.’

‘You don’t seem overly happy about it.’

Striker reloaded the magazine with bullets and frowned. ‘Why should I be? So many people have died over this file – and I’ve got a really bad feeling about what’s ahead.’

‘How so?’

‘Oliver Howell is a soldier, Feleesh. He’s been through hell. He’s seen war. And now he’s on a personal vendetta.’ Striker loaded the magazine into the pistol, held it with two hands, and looked down the sights.

They were good.

Felicia looked at him with concern. ‘You’re worried he won’t go down without a fight.’

Striker nodded slowly.

‘It’s a suicide mission,’ he said sadly. ‘It has been from the start.’

One Hundred and Forty

The sun beat down upon the graveyard, turning the green grass a dying yellow-brown colour and bleaching the tombstones white. Despite the brightness, the sweltering heat of the past week had suddenly evaporated and the air was oddly cool. When the wind hit Harry, he shivered.

In the northeast section, under the tall overhang of a dogwood tree, was the grave of his little boy – Joshua William Eckhart. The Boy Who Had Died.

Harry stood at the foot of the grave.

He had been standing there for a long time now. How long, he had no idea. But long enough that the joints of his knees ached. So far, all he’d done was stand there. Stand there and do nothing, say nothing, think nothing. He just listened to the cool wind ruffle the white flowers of the dogwood trees, like it was the ghost of his boy trying to tell him something.

The headstone had Joshua’s name on it with the words ‘Beloved Son’ beneath. It was surrounded by four sculptured angels. Each one faced a different direction – north, south, east and west – and each one brandished a sword.

The stone-and-granite artwork had been demanded by Kelly, Harry’s wife at the time – as if spending vast amounts of money they didn’t have would somehow diminish the grief and culpability they both felt.

Harry had given her everything she needed back then. And it had been a mistake. The money they spent had done nothing to assuage their loss. All it did was put them another twenty-eight thousand dollars into debt, and start the ball rolling on what had been their financial doom.

By the time everything was done – the funeral, the procession, the headstone, the flowers and the videos, and all the extra medical bills – Harry had found himself owing almost a hundred grand. With Kelly not working and barely communicating in her stark depression, there had been no hope of paying off the debt. At the time, Harry really hadn’t cared. All he’d known was a grief so overwhelming that suicide had been a daily thought.

It had been a dark time. Such a dark time.

Kind of like now.

He blinked, coming out of the sad reverie, and almost immediately the tears slipped from his eyes. He would have traded his life for Josh’s a thousand times over. Put a bullet through his own head, killed another person – hell, he would have done damn near anything to have him back.

‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I love you so much.’

Harry started to shake because he knew now what he had to do. For his other son. For Ethan. The Boy Who Still Lived. And that meant he would probably never be back here again.

This was the final goodbye.

Harry wiped his eyes. He knelt down. He kissed the headstone. And then he got up and left the graveyard.

He never looked back.

One Hundred and Forty-One

It was exactly twelve-thirty, and Striker and Felicia had just grabbed a couple of green apple & cheddar sandwiches from the Kit’s Coffee House on Broadway. He sat back in one of the outdoor patio chairs, unwrapped the cellophane and took a bite. The flavours were odd but good, and as he swallowed, his cell rang. He looked down at the screen and saw Rothschild’s name.

He answered. ‘What’s up, Mike?’

‘They’re gone, they’re fucking gone, he took my kids!’

Striker’s throat clenched and the world around him ceased to exist. He dropped the sandwich and jumped to his feet.

‘Where are you?’

‘Your house. My kids, Striker – he’s got my fucking kids!’

‘Just calm down, Mike, calm down. How do you know—’

‘I went out for a smoke. Ten minutes – just ten fucking minutes.’

Striker tried to keep his voice steady. ‘Mike, listen to me. There’s a patrol cop out front. Go out there and talk to—’

‘The car’s down the road . . . they’re dead, the cops are dead, they’re all fucking dead!’

Striker’s blood turned ice cold. ‘Call it in.’

‘No!’ Rothschild screamed. ‘Do not call it in.’

‘Mike, you have to—’

‘He’ll kill them, he said he’ll kill them.’

‘You talked to him?’

‘He called, he fucking called.’

Striker felt the world collapsing all around him, and suddenly he was racing back to the cruiser with Felicia running after him. ‘Don’t move, Mike – we’re coming right now!’

But the line was already dead.

One Hundred and Forty-Two

With Felicia providing cover, Striker raced up the steps of his porch, kicked open the front door, and moved inside.

Too late. The house was empty.

Rothschild and the children were gone.

‘We have to call this in,’ Felicia said. Her voice was unusually high and tremor-filled.

‘Just give me a goddam second,’ Striker said.

He stood in the horrible stillness of the den and fought not to grip his gun too tightly. Behind him, the sound of Felicia’s heavy gasps filled the room, broken by only the deep steady tocks of the grandfather clock – each one a reminder that precious seconds were being lost.

Striker paced the room, tried to think.

In here. In my house . . .

He took the children from my own house . . .

He stopped pacing, scanned his surroundings, looked for any evidence left behind. When he saw nothing, he walked back outside and looked there. On the welcome mat, trapped in the rough wool-like tendrils, was another dusting of that same whitish powdery substance he had seen in the mud by the docks and again on the window ledge at Rothschild’s former home.

Striker knelt down, studied it.

Once again, it looked like concrete. But greyer. With tiny bits of white in it. He reached down, picked some of it up, rubbed it between his fingers. It looked and felt like nothing more than dirt and dust.

He took out his cell phone and called Noodles.

‘Did you get an answer yet – from the lab?’

The man was lost. ‘Huh? On what?’

‘That goddam white substance!’

‘The powder, oh yeah, we got the results.’

‘Well, why the hell didn’t you call then?’

‘Because it was nothing.’ Noodles made an exasperated sound. ‘Jesus Christ, Shipwreck, it’s just fucking dust. Dust. That’s it. What the hell is up your ass today?’

‘It’s not like any dust I’ve ever seen before. What else did they tell you?’

‘Nothing, that’s it – just dust.’

Striker hung up on Noodles and dialled the lab himself. Being Saturday, they were still open, but the technician who had done the actual testing was not available. Striker managed to get hold of the head boss. He explained the direness of the situation, and within sixty seconds, received a phone call back from the primary technician. The woman seemed perplexed by the severity of the situation.

‘It was just ordinary dust,’ she explained.

‘Then why the strange white-grey colour?’

‘Well, that’s because it’s been exposed to quite a high heat, and for a long time, I would say – it’s all in the report we forwarded yesterday.’

‘We don’t have that report yet,’ Striker said. ‘And minutes are critical. Now what kind of heat and what kind of times?’

The woman made an uncomfortable sound. ‘That, I can’t really tell you with any certainty. But it would have to be quite hot.’

‘How hot? Like as hot as a foundry or something like that?’

‘I wouldn’t think so. Some of those foundries can reach sixteen hundred degrees Celsius. That would be exceedingly hot. Plus, you would then find contaminants within the dust – bronze or magnesium, copper or tin, steel or—’

‘I get it,’ Striker said. ‘Then where?’

The tech made a frustrated sound. ‘Well, any factory setting where industrial machines are hard at work, especially ones that have boilers or an ongoing distillation process – oil refineries; garbage incinerators; recycling plants; heck, even some food processing plants. The list is really endless.’

Striker felt his hopes deflating, felt the seconds ticking away. ‘I’ll call you back – stay by the phone.’ He hung up and turned to Felicia. ‘Location-wise, if you had to make a guess, where would you think this guy would be hiding out?’

‘Geographically speaking?’ She turned silent for a moment. ‘It would have to be somewhere relatively close by. He’s hurt. He’s got two little kids with him. And his sole focus lies here in Vancouver.’

Striker nodded. ‘I agree completely.’

Felicia flipped back through her notebook pages. ‘That Alpha unit had a white van take off on them just ten minutes after the Osaka bombing, remember? It was racing west on Southwest Marine Drive. From Collingwood Street.’

Striker mapped out the area in his head. ‘There’s nothing west of there but the Shaughnessy Golf Club, the Musqueam Reserve, and the university grounds. After that, it’s all ocean.’

‘And I don’t recall there being any factories on the reserve,’ Felicia said. ‘Same thing goes for the golf club.’

Striker nodded. ‘But there are some on the university grounds.’

Felicia continued flipping back through her notes. ‘And wasn’t that the way the bomber fled from Rothschild’s house? On Thursday morning? He ran into Pacific Spirit – that park is how big?’

‘Seven hundred acres,’ Striker said. ‘And he did so without a getaway vehicle.’

‘So either he hid in the woods and waited us out – which seems highly unlikely given that we had police dogs tracking him – or . . .’

‘He’s hiding out somewhere on the university grounds.’

Striker grabbed the laptop and used Google to bring up a map of the University of British Columbia. He scanned the grounds for any possible locations where Oliver might be hiding. By the time he was done, he had narrowed it down to three possible areas – the Food Systems buildings, the Applied Sciences grounds, or the UBC Hospital. Each one of them had numerous boilers and areas of constant high heat temperatures.

He called back the technician. She answered on the first ring and Striker didn’t even say hello. ‘The university hospital, the Food Systems, or the Applied Sciences buildings – do any of those match?’

Her response was defeating. ‘There would be contaminants,’ she explained. ‘Especially in the dust from the Applied Sciences buildings and the hospital. As for the Food Systems, that would depend on where the dust came from – it’s quite a big facility.’ She turned silent for a moment as she thought it over. ‘Then again, because of the type of machinery involved and the health regulations required, I can’t see the dust coming from there either.’

Striker ground his teeth. There was also the issue of the heat being constant. He closed his eyes. Struggled to calm his thoughts. He felt like an overheated boiler, ready to explode from the growing pressure.

A boiler . . .

And then he realized where.

He snapped his eyes back to the map of the university grounds, but did not see what he was looking for. No icons, no writing.

But it was there. He knew it. That one place out west, on the university grounds, where heat was a constant factor. Where no one would ever find Oliver. And where the dust he tracked would have no telltale impurities within it.

A place where it was always hot and humid. A place where the pipes could reach a hundred and eight degrees Celsius.

He stood up and met Felicia’s stare.

‘He’s in the steam tunnels.’