Текст книги "The Survivor"
Автор книги: Sean Slater
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 29 страниц)
Eleven
Every one of Red Mask’s senses felt warped.
He marched eastward along Pender, moving deeper into Chinatown. He’d abandoned the Lexus long ago. It was no longer a concern. His entire focus was the pain in his shoulder. It pulsated, moving through his body like long jellyfish tendrils. Already it had forced him from consciousness once. Much time had been lost because of it.
He could not afford for this to happen again.
The Fortune Happy Restaurant sat in the heart of Chinatown. Its dirty gold awning was splattered with blood-red lettering. The location had been chosen by Kim Pham, not for its size or layout, but for its address.
Number 426. This was very important.
Red Mask pushed through the front doors, smearing blood across the pane. Inside, the smell of ginger crab and black bean sauce hit him. It made his stomach contents rise, and he fought them down.
Seated patrons gawked as he struggled by into the kitchen area. Behind him, the mutters of anxious customers arose. A high-pitched clatter, like frightened birds. Yet in the kitchen, no one – not the chef, not the waitresses – so much as flinched or made eye-contact.
It was as if he were a ghost.
At the rear of the kitchen was the black door. Red Mask pushed through it. Almost immediately the smell of whisky found him. Mah-jong tiles rattled loudly, sounding like marbles dropping on granite. And there was cigar smoke, too. Thick and heavy.
Red Mask scanned the room. In the far corner, Kim Pham, ever the gracious host, was offering fine whiskies to the clientele. He was thirty, and dressed as he always was – in a white suit, with a white shirt, black tie, and a pair of gold wraparound sunglasses on his head. His oily black hair had blond tips.
When Kim Pham looked up, his eyes darkened. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ He grabbed two of his men. ‘Get him downstairs – and call the doctor. Be quick!’
Two men, dressed in suits as yellow as egg yolks, wrapped their arms around Red Mask’s waist and guided him with force towards the stairwell, which quickly descended into a long, dark tunnel.
Down, down, down they went.
And Red Mask let them sweep him away. His head was empty and light – a balloon rising out of reach. He was floating now. Floating far away. To that dark and horrible place where not even the spirits could reach him.
Twelve
Striker hurried out of the boys’ changing room and headed down the hall. As he went, he scanned the walls and ceiling for any closed-circuit television. Cameras didn’t take long to find. They were mounted high on every corner. They were old models – big black boxy things. Striker noticed that they didn’t pan down or follow him as he walked.
That was not good news.
Striker followed Ich and Felicia on their way towards the security room. Up ahead, he heard Laroche’s nasally tone, so he cut away through the assembly hall. Inside, the elevated stage was empty and looming, and the room had a haunted feel.
The scene before Striker shocked him. Drying smears of blood coloured the stage’s front, and a yellow Star Trek costume had been left behind. Its fabric was splattered with red and torn. The sight made Striker realise he had gotten it wrong: the shootings hadn’t started in the cafeteria, but somewhere down here – in the hall or auditorium. It had all been such a panic, the exact details were hard to pull from his memory.
He looked around.
High above, Striker saw another camera. This one was silver and grey. Smaller. A newer model than the ones in the hall. He needed to know what its eye had seen.
As he cut through the opposite doorway into the next hall, before the door had even swung closed, he felt someone bump into his chest. He didn’t have to look down to see the person’s face to know who it was. He noted the small stature of the man’s frame, and out of the corner of his eye, saw a glimmer of that unnatural black hair, gelled heavily back and patted down with perfection.
Deputy Chief Laroche.
‘Striker!’ he said.
Striker stopped walking and faced the man he had moments earlier tried to avoid.
The DC was five and a half feet tall and less than one hundred and fifty pounds. Small in comparison to the normal population; puny by police standards, where the average cop was five foot ten and an even two hundred pounds.
‘Sir,’ Striker acknowledged.
‘I’ve been looking for you – have you turned in your clothes?’
‘Of course.’
‘And your gun?’
Striker forced a grim smile. ‘I’m fine, sir, thanks for asking.’
The Deputy Chief furrowed his brow. ‘What?’
‘Just informing you of my well-being. I’m sure that was your primary concern. I mean, one of your officers being in a shootout and all.’ When the Deputy Chief didn’t respond, but just stood there, hands on his hips, chest pushed out for dramatic effect, Striker added, ‘I didn’t want the worry weighing too heavily on your mind right now, when you’ve got so many press conferences to attend. God knows, those have to be stressful.’
The Deputy Chief’s lips compressed into a straight line. He looked around, as if to see who else was present. Striker looked too. He saw a few Global TV cameras just outside the front entrance, where a smear of yellow police tape blocked access.
The Deputy Chief cleared his throat. ‘Well, yes, Striker, it’s good. Good you’re unharmed. That was my first concern.’
‘Of course it was.’
When the Deputy Chief said no more, Striker looked back at Felicia, who stood beside the assembly-hall door. Her face was more strained now than it had been during the shootout.
‘Felicia is okay, too. In case you were wondering.’
The Deputy Chief stood there silently, letting the words digest.
‘Your gun, Striker,’ he finally said.
‘What about it?’
‘It’s being seized.’
‘That’s understood, sir. And you’ll have it once this incident is over.’
For a moment, the Deputy Chief said nothing. His eyes narrowed. Then: ‘It’s not a request, Detective Striker, it’s an order.’
Striker leaned forward, so that he was towering over the man. Leaned so close he could smell the oily sweetness of Laroche’s hair gel and the cigarette smoke on his breath.
‘Nice speech, sir,’ Striker said. ‘Now it’s my turn. First off, you’ve got my clothes, be happy with that. But you ain’t getting my gun – not until this incident is entirely over. And don’t bother spouting out any of that policy bullshit to me because safety supersedes policy – and what we have here is a legitimate safety concern.’
‘This is hardly—’
‘We don’t know where the gunman is, who he is, or even his motive – and I’ve already been involved in one shootout with him. For all we know he might come back. So the answer is no. No one gets my gun. Not till we got an in-custody or a dead body, preferably the latter.’
The Deputy Chief’s mouth twisted as if he’d eaten something sour. ‘We’ll get you another gun then, Detective Striker.’
‘Negative, sir. My gun is heavily modified. And I’m trained on this one.’
‘Striker—’
‘You’ll get my gun, don’t worry about that, but you’ll get it when the incident is over and not a second before.’ Striker paused. He looked back at Felicia, who stood looking uncomfortable next to Ich. ‘And don’t even think of pulling me off this case. I didn’t get shot at with a shotgun and an AK-47 so that you could come down here and play God. This file is mine. I’m the primary. I’ve had to kill over it, literally.’
The Deputy Chief shook his head. ‘You’re off, Striker. I have already made the decision.’
Striker leaned closer to the man, so close that when he whispered, no one but the two of them could hear. ‘I got video. Of you fixing your hair while the rest of us were hauling children out of the foyer.’
Laroche stared back at him. ‘Is that some form of threat?’
‘And eating sandwiches, too. What was it, anyway – Ham and Swiss? Tuna Delight?’
‘You want to end your career, Striker?’
Striker held up his BlackBerry. ‘Not the greatest video camera I ever had, but it sure gets the job done.’
The Deputy Chief opened his mouth, but no words came out. His neck stiffened. ‘This is insubordination, Striker. The Chief will hear about it. And the Police Board, as well.’
‘Good. Tell them to talk to my union rep. Directly.’ Striker forced his jaw to relax and let a smile break through. ‘I didn’t spend five years on the board for nothing, Laroche. I know my rights better than you know your policies. When you find out where the real authority stands – and ends – come find me. We’ll talk more then.’
Striker turned away and walked down the hall towards the security room. He had barely gotten ten steps when he heard the Deputy Chief barking orders at Felicia.
Striker ignored them. A sense of dark excitement flooded him as he wondered what evidence Ich had uncovered.
The security room was waiting.
Thirteen
Striker walked with Ich down to the school’s security room. As they passed one of the speakers from the PA system, a jittery voice made pleas for all students and teachers to gather in the gymnasium – the one place that had achieved lockdown.
The speaker crackled, then screeched with feedback. It irritated Striker. His hearing – all his senses – felt out of whack, one moment numbed, the next amplified. People’s voices were either too loud or muffled, the hall’s fluorescent bulbs were too bright or too dim, and everything around him smelled of fresh death.
He was drowning in it.
Felicia finally caught up, and they walked on. This was the exact same route they had taken when trying to locate and intercept the gunmen this morning, Striker noted. He looked around. He didn’t recall so many bodies. There looked to be a lot more than eleven. Already he had counted four. Each one was covered by an ordinary brown sheet.
Like little sandbags dropped here and there to stifle the flow of blood.
He wondered: had he had tunnel vision at the time of the shootings, or had these poor kids tried to escape and only made it this far? The latter seemed more realistic, but he didn’t know for sure. And the more he tried to recall the exact details of how everything had unfolded, the more blank spots he found in his memory.
He passed three more kids, each one covered by a spotted brown sheet. That made seven. The sight sickened him, and he wanted to look away.
But he would not do that.
Instead, he stared intently at every single one of the children he passed, taking the time to peel back the covers and see their faces. He took in the full horror of their expressions, the rictus of twisted emotions warping their features.
He took it all in, accepted the ugly truth. Embraced it. For it steeled his determination. He would remember these children forever, each and every one of them, in image and in feeling. And he would recall these images and feelings with vigour when he caught the twisted little fuck responsible for their slaughter.
‘Jacob,’ a voice said.
He looked up from the body of a child he was staring at in the hall – a young, brown-haired girl with skin that was slack and pale – and saw Felicia calling him into Principal Myers’s office. He took one last look at the girl, then gently brushed the hair from her eyes and covered her back up. He joined Felicia in the office.
The room smelled strongly of burning tobacco and menthol. Principal Myers was leaning on the window ledge in the corner of the room. Her unstable legs looked ready to buckle. Striker marched up to her; looked her over. Her face was like a hard-boiled egg: white, hard, ready to crack. Sweat had matted her hair to her face, and her eyes looked distant, unaware. The cigarette she was holding dangled precariously from her trembling fingertips.
‘Caroline,’ Striker started.
Nothing.
‘Caroline,’ he said, this time more sternly.
It brought her from her thoughts. ‘Oh Jesus Christ, my kids, my kids, my kids!’
Striker touched her arm, gave it a squeeze.
‘I need lists, Caroline. Start with the kids who are unhurt and sequestered in the gym. Make note of all who are accounted for. Then start a separate list of the dead. Constable Kolski’s already liaising with Fire and Ambulance. Just get him the pictures and he’ll make the confirmations. When we have those done, we’ll know who’s still missing.’
She nodded numbly. ‘Yes, yes . . . a list.’
‘I also need you to make note of all the deceased’s known connections – who they hung out with, what clubs they joined, what sports they played, who they hated, who hated them. I need all of it and I need it now.’
When Caroline didn’t immediately respond, Striker looked at Felicia. ‘Can you take care of this?’
‘Got it.’
He moved over to Ich, who was preoccupied with the computer terminals in the far corner of the room. ‘So what you got here, Ich? What’s so strange?’
Ich looked up from the keyboard, the soft blue glow of the computer screens turning his pale skin into an even sicklier colour. ‘It’s the school’s security system – it’s been disabled. Happened sometime before the shooting.’
Striker narrowed his eyes. ‘You mean turned off?’
‘No, I mean disabled.’
‘Explain it to me.’
Ich scratched his high cheekbones with both hands, as if he had a tic or maybe because Striker was annoying him. He licked his thin lips.
‘All the cameras are non-functional,’ he said patiently. ‘They were deactivated. As far as I can tell, it happened sometime early this morning.’ He hit a few keys, brought up the internal history logs and scanned the electronic pages. ‘Probably around eight o’clock. Seven minutes after, if the local log is correct.’
Computer lingo was foreign to Striker, but he got the gist of it. He turned back to Principal Myers, who hadn’t left the spot where she was standing, the embers of her menthol cigarette now reaching the filter.
‘Who has access to this?’
Her eyes blinked, she came back to life. ‘Well, just . . . just me. And Vice Principal Smith.’
‘Smith. Where is he?’
‘Uh, Cancun.’
‘How long?’
‘He’s been there a week. And will be a week more.’
Striker didn’t like the timing. He cursed. ‘No one else has access to the system? No one at all?’
The ash fell off the end of the Principal’s cigarette and landed on the toe of her shoe. She didn’t react. ‘Well, we do have some student helpers. There’s two of them, but they—’
‘Their names, Caroline.’ Striker took out his pen and notebook.
‘Nava Sanghera and Sherman Chan. But they’re good kids. Nava’s in the hospital right now, getting her appendix out. And there’s no way that Sherman would ever—’
Striker pointed his pen at Felicia. ‘Send someone to check on Nava, but see if you can find this Sherman kid yourself. Talk to him. See what he says. If you can’t locate him, at least get me his picture.’
Felicia stepped back as if he’d put her on the defensive. ‘I should stay here. On the investigation with you.’
‘You need to find Sherman. The fewer people involved here, the better. I need you to do it. And be quick.’
Her face reddened and she gave Striker a look, as if she was pissed at being directed. For a moment, he thought he was in for an argument, but then she turned back to Principal Myers.
‘Which hospital is Nava in, Caroline?’
‘Saint Paul’s, I think.’
Felicia wrote down the information in her notebook, then snapped it shut and jammed it into the inner pocket of her suit jacket. She left the room without saying another word, slamming the office door behind her.
Ich whistled softly. ‘Wow, your first day back, and just like old times.’
Striker didn’t respond. He watched Felicia through the office window as she stormed down the hall, turned the corner and then disappeared from view. What the hell was wrong now? Of all the places for them to argue, this was the worst. A goddam school shooting. He felt like going after her, but didn’t.
He struggled to let the thought go and turned his attention back to the series of flat-screen monitors that were arranged in three rows on the far wall. Each one of them showed nothing but an empty, sky-blue screen, except for the three monitors on the bottom-most row, which were turned off and completely black.
Striker looked down at Ich, who was still seated at the keyboard.
‘This a good system, Ich?’
Ich looked up from the computer logs and swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a yo-yo. ‘It’s an excellent system, even if it is analog. It’s the VISION 5, made by SecuCorp, the programme the Department was lauding a few years back – though I wouldn’t go spreading that around now, if I were you.’
‘Secret’s safe.’ Striker turned his attention back to Principal Myers.
‘I’ll get those lists you need,’ she said, and left the room.
Striker was glad when she was gone. He approached the computer screens and propped his chin between his fingers and thumb. ‘I wonder, Ich, could someone circumvent the system? You know, hack it. Do whatever it is you techies do.’
Ich shook his head. ‘Unlikely. Not unless you had a real whizz here. And I mean a real whizz. Like “Hi, I’m Bill Fucking Gates”. This thing is high end, man. Two-five-six-bit encryption. Even for a pro with a high-end rig it would take months. Weeks at the very least. Whoever turned this baby off had a password.’
Striker studied the different flat-screen monitors, then said slowly, ‘I’m no techie, but there’s something here that doesn’t make sense.’
Ich looked up. ‘What?’
‘Come with me and I’ll show you.’
Ich stood up from his desk, his joints cracking loud enough for Striker to hear, and Striker led him out of the small security room and into the hallway. Immediately, the nasally tone of Deputy Chief Laroche’s voice grew louder. Striker ignored it. He pointed up to the camera that was positioned in an upper corner, where the two walls met, just outside the office door. It was a big boxy black thing with a large lens, set on a mounted tripod.
‘Is that camera a part of the closed-circuit television?’
Ich nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘And you say it’s analog?’
‘Without a doubt.’
Striker led him around the corner and down the hall in the direction of the cafeteria. Before they reached it, he stopped them just outside the auditorium. The entrance door was already open, the rubber stopper keeping it that way. Striker stepped aside and jerked his head towards the auditorium.
‘Go ahead, take a look.’
Ich went inside, looked around the room. Saw nothing.
‘Look up,’ Striker said. ‘Above the stage.’
Ich did, and for a moment his eyes remained lost. Then . . .
Positioned between the stage and the door, mounted on a circular swivel-bracket, was another camera. This one was very small, a silver-and-grey rectangular unit. It was almost unno-ticeable, except for the blinking red light.
Striker looked at Ich. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
The techie nodded, and a wide smile stretched his lips. ‘You’re damn right it is. They got two systems.’
Fourteen
Pinkerton Morningstar was an inside cop, carpet cop, call it what you want. He never set foot on the road, choosing to spend all his time in Investigations. It was sad and brilliant all at once. Sad because at six foot seven and three hundred sixty pounds, there was no one bigger in the Department. Out on the streets, there would have been no greater threat in patrol. Brilliant because the only thing that dwarfed his build was his mind. He had been in several levels of investigations – Robbery, Missing Persons and Homicide – for the better part of twenty years.
That was why Striker had chosen him to sort through the detained witnesses. Most of them had been sequestered in the gym; however, the priority witnesses had been relocated to the Drama Room.
Striker marched through the lifeless corridors under the soft hum of fluorescent lights, around wayward strips of yellow police tape until he reached the Drama Room. Along the way, he passed two of the remaining teachers, who looked lost and bewildered. He sent them on to the gym.
Two rookie cops guarded the doors to the Drama Room. Striker was just about to enter when Pinkerton Morningstar walked out. Next to the two rookie cops, Morningstar stood out like a giant oak among seedlings. Even his head looked large, decorated by a pair of John Lennon-style prescription sunglasses. The tint was pink.
Striker assessed the man. Morningstar looked tired. Sweat trickled down the sides of his bald brown skin, some drops sliding under the frames of his pink shades, some disappearing into the greying thickness of the beard and moustache that made his head look even larger.
‘Pinky,’ Striker said.
The giant Detective wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt and cursed. ‘Hotter than Hell in there, man. Goddam air conditioner’s broken and there’s no windows. And Laroche won’t let us take the witnesses anywhere else. Says it’s a safety concern. The fuck.’
Striker fought the urge to go on another Laroche tirade. ‘I’ll get you some water.’
‘Right about now, I’d drink your urine, if it was cold enough.’
‘The water’s less salty.’ Striker nodded at the room. ‘How’s it going in there?’
‘It’s not.’ Morningstar let out a frustrated sound. ‘But follow me.’ He gave Striker no time to ask questions.
‘Most of the witnesses are useless,’ Morningstar said as they went. ‘They heard shots. They freaked out. Ran and hid. Did pretty much what you would expect someone to do with a gunman rampaging through the halls. They can’t tell us anything we don’t already know. And believe me, I’ve been over it a dozen times with each one of them.’
‘What about their parents? We gotten a hold of any of them yet?’
Morningstar stopped walking, offered up a hard look.
‘I got a hundred people calling for info,’ he said, ‘and we’ve had over sixty moms and dads show up, freaking out, wanting to know where their kids are.’ The muscles behind the pink shades twitched. ‘We got over three hundred kids in this school, which translates into damn near six hundred parents. Laroche keeps directing them to me, and I got nothing to tell them. We haven’t even completed the list of the dead. Got kids sent to every damn hospital from here to New Westminster, and I don’t even know which kids are where.’
‘I’ll help you with it.’
Morningstar shook his head. ‘Got Patrol for that. You just catch this whack job and bring him in, preferably dead.’
Striker said nothing.
They stopped outside the entrance to the teacher’s lounge, where another patrol officer stood guard. Striker stepped closer to the cop, a tall white guy with scruffy facial skin – he clearly hadn’t had time to shave and shower before getting the mandatory Call Out – and peered through the small window in the door.
Standing at the far end of the room, her head down, her posture so still she looked like a part of the furniture, was a young Asian girl. Thin build, small face. Too much make-up smeared around her eyes, a lot of which had drizzled down her face from the tears. She was maybe fourteen.
Striker turned back to Morningstar. ‘Who is she?’
‘Name’s Megan Ling. And she’s a survivor. She tried to help the others. She’s seen a lot – and she’s pretty fucked up.’
‘Where’s her parents?’
‘Mother’s already on the way down.’
Striker nodded. ‘Felicia will be back soon enough,’ he said. ‘Hook her and the mother up, will you?’
‘Done.’
Striker looked back through the window. Megan Ling hadn’t budged. He gave the patrolman a nod to move out of his way. When Striker started through the door, Morningstar put his hand flat against Striker’s chest.
Striker turned, gave him a questioning look. ‘What?’
‘Brace yourself for this one.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re not gonna like what she has to say.’
