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.’
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.
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.
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.
He needed every advantage he could get.
Out of habit, he ejected the magazine from his SIG and unloaded the bullets. He checked each round for irregularities. When he found none, he reloaded the SIG and shoved it back into its
holster.
He thought of Courtney. And like he had done a hundred times this week, he took out his cell and dialled long distance to Ireland. The connection took so long he thought the line had been
dropped, but then it rang. Once, twice, and then a third time. On the fourth ring, the call was picked up.
‘Dad!’ she said.
Her voice did something to him, choked him up a little, and he had to take in a deep breath. ‘Hey, Pumpkin. How’s the trip going?’
‘Freakin’
awesome
. . . but I miss you though.’
‘I miss you too.’ He thought of her spinal injury, and frowned. ‘You keeping up your exercises?’
‘My Kegels? Yeah, I do them every day.’
‘Very funny.’
She laughed out loud. ‘What time is it there anyway?’
‘Two in the morning.’
‘You should be in bed. Are you eating well? Felicia better be taking good care of you.’
‘She feeds me bacon cheeseburgers twice a day and took out extra life insurance on me. So it must be love.’
‘I’m serious, Dad. Eat well. Food is medicine, right?’
Striker smiled at her concern. Ever since he had lost Amanda, Courtney had taken on opposing roles – half filled with teenage angst, half filled with motherly concern. She’d been
through a lot these last few years – too much for a sixteen-year-old girl – and despite his grumblings, Striker was glad that she had met Tate. And glad that Tate and his parents had
taken her away for a while.
The break would do Courtney good.
‘I tasted real Guinness for the first time,’ she said. ‘And I loved it.’
So did your mother, he thought. It was her favourite drink.
‘You’re underage, Pumpkin.’
‘Not here – so long as I order it with food.’
‘Just don’t go crazy.’
Courtney prattled on about how she was enjoying the trip. Striker listened to every word. She told him about the Cliffs of Moher, the Lakes of Killarney, and Dublin city. And all the while,
Striker wished he could reach out across the distance and hug her through the phone.
Feeling a little more cheery, Striker stole another beer from the fridge as Courtney filled him in on the famed O’Connell Street. Bottle in hand, he exited the kitchen and wandered onto
the back porch. Three steps later, he stopped hard.
The motion detector light did not activate.
Striker waved his hand in front of the sensor. When nothing happened, he reached over, grabbed the light bulb and turned it. The connection was secure, but the bulb did not light up. He ran his
finger along the motion sensor and felt a thin strip of something. He pulled it off and found himself holding a black piece of electrician’s tape.
‘. . . and then we went to St Patrick’s Cathedral!’ Courtney said.
‘Gotta go, Pumpkin,’ he said softly. ‘I love you.’
He abruptly ended the phone call and put his beer down on the porch railing. He drew his pistol, scanned the backyard, saw nothing. He dialled Dispatch and asked them to raise the rear guard of
his protection team. Ten seconds later, the response chilled him:
‘He’s not answering.’
‘What about the rest of the team?’
‘They’re still accounted for.’
Striker thought of their positions. None were near the backyard. ‘Keep trying on the rear guard. Tell the others to be on high alert. Something’s wrong here.’
When the Dispatcher said she would, Striker shoved the cell back into his pocket. For a moment he considered retreating inside and waiting for cover. But the thought of losing the bombers again
was too much. He started down the porch steps and heard Felicia’s voice behind him. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Motion detector’s been deactivated – you got your piece?’
‘Of course. I got you covered.’
Striker nodded, never taking his eyes off the yard. He moved down the back steps onto the concrete patio and stopped at the edge of the house. Using the corner for cover, he looked down the
walkway between the houses and saw no one there.
‘Clear,’ he whispered. ‘Watch back and left; I got front and right.’
‘Copy, I got back and left.’
Striker moved forward along the cement path that led across the backyard, all the way to the fence and garage. As he went, he strained his ears for any indicating sounds, but aside from the
gentle hush of the warm summer wind, the night was quiet and still.
He reached the garage. Stopped. Looked in through the glass.
Everything was black because a shade had been pulled down over the window.
He reached out. Gently wrapped his fingers around the doorknob. Turned. And slowly opened the door.
Inside the garage, everything was dark. But one thing became immediately obvious. The front hood of the Cougar was up.
Striker held up a hand to get Felicia’s attention. Then he readied his pistol and turned on his flashlight.
In a quick burst of illumination, the centre of the garage was suddenly lit up and exposed. The air was oily and musty, and the window on the far side of the room had also been covered with
black plastic. The Cougar, sitting with its hood lifted, was parked ass-end in. As a result, it occupied both parking stalls.
On the ground, by the front tyre, was an array of tools – a wrench, a screwdriver, a pair of vice grips, and some wire-cutters. Also there was a small handheld device that looked like a
walkie-talkie.
But all that was background to what sat in front of it – a small white doll dressed in a policeman’s uniform. It had a big red number 1 painted on its chest, and the sight of it told
Striker all he needed to know:
The bomber was here.
‘Cover left!’ he ordered Felicia.
Striker swung right, taking quick aim, and within seconds saw the shape of a woman scampering on the ground. She was wearing a pair of dark overalls and had her hair pulled back into a short
ponytail. When Striker saw her face, there was no doubt in his mind. This was the woman he had been searching for – the same one who’d been shooting at him back in the A&W parking
lot.
Bomber number 2.
Molly Howell.
He took aim. ‘Vancouver Police – don’t move!’
The woman said nothing. She gave no response, verbal or otherwise. She simply looked up at him, her face filled not only with shock, but cold calculation. Her eyes flitted from Striker to the
area behind the car – as if searching for Felicia. When they turned back again, they dipped down and left.
‘It’s over,’ Striker started to say.
But before he could finish, Molly dove across the pavement.
Striker darted to the side, avoiding her attack. But then, in one horrific moment, he realized that she wasn’t jumping at him – she was jumping beside him.
For the
detonator.
He levelled the gun, took aim, and opened fire. Three shots. All direct hits.
Two to the body, one to the face.
And Molly Howell – criminal to some; decorated war hero to all – collapsed. She flopped over sideways and landed in a tangled position with both legs twisted beneath her body. Her
dull brown eyes remained open and lifeless.
It was over for her.
Molly Howell was dead.
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.