by Sean Slater
The door was half open.
He reached out. Pushed it open. And the hinges squeaked loudly. He looked inside.
The place looked old, long since deserted. All the windows were lined with rusted iron bars and covered with a fine layer of dust. From somewhere up high, a strange white light flickered.
Striker took out his flashlight. Readied his pistol.
‘Vancouver Police!’ he called.
No reply.
‘Is anyone in there?’
When no one answered a second time, Striker made entry. The moment he was inside the barn and out of the doorway, the soft rolling hush of the river faded and was replaced by a heavy silence. There was the strong smell of fuel and oil in the air.
Diesel.
Striker kept moving. He worked his way past several stacks of old tyres and some piles of broken cement bags until he reached a narrow wooden staircase leading to a second level.
He aimed his forty-cal at the top of the stairs and moved slowly up them. The old wood groaned with every step, screaming out a warning to anyone above that he was coming.
Once at the top, the narrow beam of Striker’s flashlight revealed a small square loft with four windows – one on each side. A quick sweep of the flashlight showed that all four corners were empty of threats.
No one was there.
Sitting dead centre in the loft was one empty chair. Striker moved towards it and a bucket of water came into view. There was also a yellow sponge. And an old forklift battery, sitting three feet behind the chair.
As Striker stared at the battery, the wind blew in through the open windows; the wires extending from the terminals touched. The current arced and a quick spark of light flashed through the room.
In the brief illumination, Striker noticed that the wood under the chair was discoloured. At first he thought it was blood, but a closer look suggested it was probably water. Lying in the centre of the stain was a crescent-shaped piece of rubber with one long wire extending from the flatter end.
Oh Jesus.
A darkness washed over Striker as he connected all the items in the room: the steel chair, the water-soaked floorboards, and the battery terminals hinted at much. But the rubber pad with the wires – that was the clincher. It told Striker everything he needed to know.
He was standing in the middle of a torture chamber.
Five
Striker whipped out his cell phone. He was about to call Felicia when a flicker of something caught his eye.
Movement.
He swivelled left and looked out the south-facing window. There, down by the river shore, were the vague outlines of two figures. They were marching eastward through the thin wisps of factory smoke, one ahead of the other.
Striker moved flush with the window for a better look. He aimed his flashlight and pistol at the silhouettes, and called out.
‘Vancouver Police! Don’t move!’
For one brief moment, the two figures stopped. Then the second one turned around. Though faceless in the darkness and fog, this one was taller than the first, and thicker in build.
Definitely a man.
For a moment, the man seemed to be complying. Then he raised his arm and the sharp hard crack of gunfire ripped through the night.
The window shattered.
Instinctively, Striker dove backwards, landing hard on the wooden floor. Shards of glass rained down around him. Bullets punched through the old boards and ricocheted off the iron support beams.
He kept low on his belly. He covered his head, rolled for the stairs, and crawled down to the first level. By the time he hit the concrete, the angry sounds of gunfire had stopped and were replaced by a distant, undulating wail.
Police sirens.
Striker scrambled to his feet and raced outside. By the time he’d made it across the small lot, everything north of Kent Avenue was aglow. Police lights tinted the skyline red and blue.
Striker headed down the trail that led to the river. Along the way, he used his cell to call Felicia. She answered on the first ring.
‘He’s running the river,’ Striker warned.
‘Jesus Christ, Jacob, what the hell was that – gunfire?’
‘Just get containment going. Start up a dog. Call in the chopper.’
He hung up and plunged ahead, keeping his body low with the bramble, making himself as small a target as possible. After one hundred metres, he emerged between two blackberry bushes and stepped down onto river silt.
He looked east, then west. But both ways were empty.
Barren.
‘What the hell?’
The sight made him frown. He’d made it to the shoreline in less than two minutes. No matter which way the two figures had gone, they should still have been visible.
Striker turned his eyes to the river. A summer fog hung overtop the waterway, one thin enough to see through. Visibility was good for a hundred metres at least. If the suspects had fled that way, even in a vessel, he should have been able to spot them.
But the waters were empty.
It made no sense.
He shone his flashlight all around the riverbanks. In one patch of silt, right at the end of the trail, were a set of footprints. They faced east and disappeared after only three steps, where the ground became firmer.
A few metres beyond was a small dock.
Striker approached it. Keeping his gun at the low-ready, he stepped onto the pier and the old planks groaned beneath his one hundred kilos of weight. The entire platform felt unstable. At the end of the dock, on one of the posts, hung a thin rope. Striker moved up to it, then aimed his gun and flashlight into the river below.
Nothing but black water.
The two figures had just . . . vanished.
Frustrated, he was about to head back towards the barn when the beam of his flashlight caught something near his feet.
A gleam.
He knelt down on the dock. Gloved up with latex. And plucked the object from a wooden plank. Turning it over in his hand, he saw that it was a long thin bracelet, made of silver and gold designs. Celtic. Or Gaelic. He wasn’t sure. On the links was a red-brown splatter. He took out his flashlight, and shone it on the links.
Not blood. River muck.
The sight should have filled him with relief, but it did not. No blood meant less evidence for the lab. Less of a trail. Hopefully the barn would provide some decent DNA samples. The forensic techs would have to start processing ASAP.
Striker bagged the jewellery and his cell went off.
He answered. ‘Striker.’
Felicia’s tone was one of relief and anger: ‘Where the hell are you now, Jacob?’
‘Down by the river. They’ve escaped.’
‘Well just watch your back. A dog’s coming down from the south. Chopper’s almost here, too.’
Striker could already hear its distant approach. The rotating blades were like soft thunder cutting the air. One minute, the bird was nowhere to be seen; the next, it rose up over Mitchell Island to the south, and the entire shoreline was flooded in the blinding white glare of a 30-million-candlepower spotlight.
Striker felt his jaw tighten at the sight. The chopper had arrived. So had the dog. With any luck, one of them would find something to go on, because so far the immediate crime scene was offering him zero.
The thought of this hit Striker like a physical force. Left him winded. He had been too slow in reaching the woman. He had failed her. And that failure might have cost the woman her life. It was a fact he had to face.
Sometimes reality could be cold.
Six
A quarter-mile downriver, at the westernmost precipice of Mitchell Island, the bomber pulled himself and the woman in between the logs and flotsam that were jammed up against the shoreline. The woman was waterlogged – an anchor pulling him down. Had it not been for the scuba gear, they would never have made it.
Two hundred metres across the river, to the north, the entire area from Granville to Main was spott
ed with red and blue police lights. Completely knackered, it was all he could do to focus on them.
He tore the breathing apparatus from his lips and pulled himself and the woman up the steep bank of mud, deep into the island bush, until they were under the thick overhang of a pair of weeping willows.
There, he dropped to the ground and rolled the lifeless woman over so that she was facing upwards. He cupped a hand under the back of her neck. Angled her chin. Parted her lips. Blew air into her lungs.
Nothing.
He interlocked his fingers over her chest and began compressions. Finished. Breathed again. And repeated the process several times.
‘Breathe, for fuck’s sake. Breathe.’
Finally, when hope was almost gone, the woman made a gagging sound. She jerked and hacked and spewed, then rolled away from him. She formed a protective ball and lay shaking in the sand.
A numb relief spilled through the man.
He lay flat on his back and tried to control his breathing. He was thirty-six now, and though he did not feel old, he definitely felt worn. Damaged from the years of abuse and trauma.
He killed the thought and focused on the immediacies.
The nylon sheath of the prosthetic was soaked and it was losing suction against the stumpy end of his disfigured leg. He reached down, pulled the sheath tight, and felt the surgical screws inflaming his bones.
He tried to gather his breath.
Found it difficult.
High above, the eastern sky was lightening, turning from blood-pudding purple to a lesser bruised blue. All along the shoreline, the blinding glare of the police chopper spotlight was turning the riverbank white. The bird was far away right now, way down by the Arthur Lange Bridge. But that meant nothing. It could reach Mitchell Island in seconds. Even now, as it floated westward, the steady whump-whump-whump of the helicopter blades shook the air with a physical force, and they shifted his mind back to harsher times. More violent times.
The bomb going off, blowing him to pieces.
And the tragedy that had followed.
The recollection was vicious, malignant. And yet oddly enough, it slowed his frantic heart. Helped him breathe. Allowed him to regain his sanity again. It actually relaxed him.
And still the woman coughed and spluttered beside him.
After a short moment, the police helicopter floated all the way to Heather Street – too close; dangerously close. So he got moving. He dumped the flippers, oxygen tank and breathing apparatus in the river, then grabbed hold of the retching woman’s underarms and began dragging her through the grove. They headed for Twig Place Road.
Where the backup vehicle was parked.
Once under cover of thicker tree tops, a place where the chopper could no longer illuminate them with its omnipotent eye, the bomber took a moment to reassess the situation. The woman was awake now, fully conscious of what had happened – of what was still happening – and she gaped at him with large wide eyes. A disbelieving stare.
‘You . . . you saved me,’ she finally whispered.
He merely nodded.
‘Of course I did. You’re not supposed to die this way.’
Seven
Striker bypassed the steel barn with the orange lamp.
He hiked up the river embankment and cut through the loading zone of the cement plant. It was barely quarter to six now, and despite the police emergency lights, the early skyline was still cloaked by a charcoal fog.
Quarter to six, Striker thought disbelievingly.
The chase had felt so much longer.
He detected movement and looked left. Walking towards him, coming from the opposite end of the yard, was a familiar face: Sergeant Mike Rothschild – one of Striker’s oldest and dearest friends. In one hand was a roll of yellow police tape. In the other was a paper cup with a plastic lid. Coffee, no doubt.
‘Mike,’ Striker said.
As always, Rothschild had a warped smile on his face, one that made his moustache slope unevenly across his upper lip. His face held a look of concern.
‘You okay there, Shipwreck?’
‘Guy’s a friggin’ magician.’ Striker pointed towards the river. ‘I lost them down there somewhere. By the pier. It makes no sense.’
‘The dog’ll find something.’
Striker hoped to God so.
He looked at Rothschild. In the murky light of the factory’s glow, every line on the man’s grizzled face was apparent. He was pushing fifty now, and the years of policing and shift work had left their mark on him. Like it did every cop. But today Rothschild looked especially aged.
Striker knew why. Rothschild had a lot on his plate right now. Like Striker, he too had lost his first wife. And raising two grief-stricken little ones made the situation all the more difficult.
Striker asked him, ‘You almost done your shift?’
Rothschild laughed bemusedly. ‘Just beginning, man.’
‘Beginning?’
‘Yeah, I know, I look like shit – thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘You just need some sleep.’
‘Tell me ’bout it. The twins haven’t been sleeping well. They’ve been giving me grief about this whole move thing; they don’t wanna leave the old house. Too many memories of their mother, I guess.’
Striker made a point of looking the man in the face. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there . . . to help with the move.’
‘Duty calls.’
Striker shook his head. ‘I’m the kids’ godfather. I should’ve been there. This damn job – it eats up your life.’
‘Yup. Faster than a fat kid devours a Mars bar. Get used to it, man, it ain’t gonna change.’
Before either one of them could say more, Air 1 – the Vancouver Police Department’s helicopter – roared overhead, the heavy percussive blasts of its blades beating down on them, stirring up the dirt and gravel of the parkway. As the chopper floated south, Felicia and their young witness were lit up on the side road.
Striker focused on them. ‘Something’s not right with that girl.’
Rothschild just nodded. ‘I’ll tape off the scene for you.’
Striker nodded his thanks. As Rothschild hiked down to the river, Striker beelined across the lot towards their witness.
The girl was still crumpled at the front of the police car. The unforgiving glare of the halogens made her tight face look like white rubber. She sat on the gravel of the road, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso as she rocked nervously back and forth. Her miniskirt rode up her thighs, exposing the curves of her ass, and her long blonde hair spilled over her knees as her head snapped from side to side in response to any sudden movement.
With more time now, Striker took a really good look at her. She was maybe seventeen. His daughter’s age. And the thought of Courtney being out in an area like this, at this time of the night, bothered him. The blood that had covered her forehead had now been wiped away.
He looked at Felicia. ‘The blood?’
Felicia stood up from her crouched position. ‘It was her own. From a small cut on her forehead. She banged it on something when she was scrambling to get away. Looked a helluva lot worse than it was.’
Striker knelt down in front of the girl and touched her arm. Despite the warm summer air, her skin was clammy, sweaty. And she flinched from the contact.
‘Look at me,’ Striker said softly.
No response.
‘Look at me.’
The girl lifted her head slowly, and Striker shone his flashlight in her eyes. The pupils were large – too large, even for this darkness – and they remained so, despite the glare of his flashlight and the car’s headlights. She licked her lips several times and rolled her tongue in her mouth as if it were too large to fit.
‘What are you on?’ he demanded. ‘Special E? Jib? What have you been taking?’
‘Uh, nothing. No. Nothing.’
Striker wrapped his fingers around the girl’s chin and made her look at him. ‘This is no time to scr
ew around, kid. I’m not looking for charges, I’m trying to save a woman’s life. Now what the hell are you on?’
The girl stared back through glassy eyes. ‘Beans, I took some beans.’
Striker nodded. Beans. MDMA.
Ecstasy.
Judging by the size of her pupils, she’d taken an awful lot. And who knew what else she’d mixed in with it? There was more than just ecstasy in her. She was zoning out bad for that.
‘Why were you even down here in the industrial area?’ he asked. ‘There a rave somewhere?’
She nodded again, licked her lips. ‘Yeah, yeah. Big party.’
‘Where?’
The girl looked up for a moment, her eyes twitching left and right. Her teeth chattering. ‘Over there . . . somewhere. I dunno.’
‘Why did you leave the party?’
‘Had a fight. With Billy . . . we had a fight.’
‘Billy who? He your boyfriend?’
‘. . . so cold.’
‘Where did he go? Did he come after you?’
‘It’s so cold.’
Striker resisted the urge to swear and looked at Felicia. ‘Ambulance en route?’
‘A mile out.’
Striker turned silent. He watched the girl sniff and tremble as he thought things through. When she let out a strange hyena-like laugh, he frowned. She was high, confused, and her story was all over the place. But she had definitely stumbled onto something.
He looked back at the river’s edge. When thoughts of the bracelet entered his mind, he looked back at the girl. ‘Were you down by the docks?’
‘Huh?’
‘By the pier. By the river.’
‘No no no.’
‘This man you saw in the barn – did he take anything from you? A necklace or anything like that?’
‘Uh . . . no?’
Striker gloved up with fresh latex, then pulled the evidence bag from his pocket. When he opened it up and removed the bracelet, the girl looked at it with obvious confusion.
‘Do you recognize this?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
He put it away and tried coming at this from a different angle. ‘What do you remember about the woman in the barn?’
