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I threw the knife onto the desk and
laughed.

“Key?” I said to Kara, holding up the
cuffs.

She reached into her pocket and tossed me a
small metal key which I caught in my right hand. It was a difficult task with
no left thumb, but I managed to unlock the other cuff and take them off. I
placed them on the desk. They were evidence, both because they had been used on
me and because I’d used them on Adams.

“Lincoln?” A scream came from behind us, a
familiar voice thousands of miles out of place. I turned around and looked
through the open door to see Kat running toward me, two uniformed officers hot
on her tail, screaming for her to stop.

“Kat?” I looked at Kara, ‘what-the-fuck’
written all over my face. She just smiled as Kat barreled through the door. I
gestured to the officers and nodded my head, a simple command but enough for
them to know she could stay.

“What are you doing here?” I said as she
hugged me hard, the pain coming back once more. I wrapped my right arm around
her, my left I kept at my side.

“Kara called when you went missing, I took
the first flight back.”

Had I been here that long?

“It’s not safe for you in here.”

“I was waiting with an officer, down the
street. I heard you were alive. I couldn’t wait any longer.”

Her face was soaked with tears. Her mascara
ran down her cheeks as she cried. She let go of me and took a small step back,
then turned to face Warren who had come to once more.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” she said, her eyes
fixed and full of hatred. “That’s the fucker that burned our house down.”

I nodded. Kat walked up to him and stared
him down, she would have been taller than him anyway but now she towered over
him. He looked non-existant beside her and he was clearly trying to sink back
into his seat.

The lion had long ago lost his courage.

Kat didn’t say a word, she just glared for
a moment. Then her right hand shot straight out and a loud crack sounded in the
room as Warren’s nose broke and blood began to stream. Kat stepped back and
shook her fist out then rubbed her knuckles with her other hand. She turned toward
me and mouthed the word ‘ouch’.

Kara, Chen and I all laughed as Warren sat,
sniffling away trying in vain to slow the flow of blood. “You know I’ll have to
explain that one in court, right?”

Kat shrugged then gave a beaming and
devilish smile. “Sorry.”

GREGORY ADAMS, JORGE “GEORGE” RAMIREZ,
Mikael Vlacic, Rachel Bellamy.

Dead.

Robert Warren, William Moore, Yusef
Mohammed.

In custody.

And on our side: Vincenzo Chen, Dan
Howlett, Sara Marchand, Mario Lopez, Alek Gdanski.

Wounded.

Veronica Davis.

Deceased.

And of course, Lincoln Munroe was on the
list of wounded as well. And Katarzyna Munroe—fractured index finger.

We’d only lost one on our side, but it was
a war with no clearly defined sides. Five police officers were dead, shot—or
stabbed with a set of handcuffs—by their own brethren.

It was a miracle no one else had died. Dan
took a rifle round through the vest, puncturing his right lung. Sara Marchand
was shot twice in the left leg. Mario Lopez took a shotgun blast, bird shot
luckily, to the body. Most of the pellets lodged in the vest but a few went
astray, two in the abdomen, one to the right shoulder and one to the neck,
narrowly missing the carotid artery. And Alek Gdanski, he took a rifle round to
the stomach, one that passed within millimeters of his spinal column.

Vern hadn’t been so lucky. The only
casualty on our side, a rifle round through the vest to the heart. She never
had a chance.

Kat said someone was watching out for us.
We were outgunned although not outmanned and divine intervention seemed to make
sense. Even to me. Kara was the only one on the strike team to not get hit—well,
her and the TRU unit, but this was what they trained for. Maybe the divine felt
Kara had been through enough already.

And Vern, a part of me wondered if she’d be
happier now—if dying for Carter’s memory would have made up for what she saw as
her most heinous mistake. I found myself hoping—actually, praying—that she’d
found a place in whatever afterlife there may be.

The tactical team that went past me before
Kara and Chen came in went on to arrest Moore—the property Sergeant—and
Mohammed, a young OPP Constable. It had been Moore who had come to the door
with the shotgun before ducking back in. He and Mohammed had been smart enough
to give up.

But George and the other two, they were
unloading the truck when the cavalry arrived. I don’t know why they went for
it, but they did. The surveillance video showed the entire thing, with Bellamy
and Vlacic taking up arms first. George should have run inside, or taken cover,
but he joined in a few seconds later, taking an assault rifle out of the back
of the truck.

He was the first to fall. The firefight had
lasted an unbelievable five minutes, with hundreds and hundreds of rounds being
fired. The London Police Chief had been notified and at the last minute before
the takedown, all local officers were told to stay clear. No one else came as
the battle raged on, just the handful of trustworthy officers Chen and Kara had
recruited. By the time London officers arrived to assist, the fight was over.

Kara stayed behind with a few others to
sort through the evidence, while six of us sat in Victoria Hospital getting
patched up in various degrees. I took a few stitches to the neck, chest and thigh,
as well as a cast on my left hand thanks to my broken thumb. The bleeding on my
wounds had stopped, the stitches were just a precaution and to close the gaps
that had been made. Kat stayed by my side the entire time, refusing to leave
while I went for X-rays or casting. She alternated between prayer and tears,
both cathartic in their own right.

We didn’t have a chance to talk much—I was
asleep within minutes of hitting the hospital bed. The kids were still in
Poland, safe with their grandparents. Kat hadn’t told them anything, just that
she needed to go back to help me find us a place to live.

Daylight was breaking by the time I was
discharged.

“Where to?” Kat said, now sporting a splint
on her right index finger.

“Nice look,” I said to a smile.

“That really hurt. I’ve never hit anyone
before.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” I gave her a hug, one
arm wrapped around her. “I need to find Chen.”

A helpful nurse led us to his bedside where
he lay with his left arm in a sling wrapped tightly to his body.

“Link,” he said loudly when I walked in. He
was still his usual chipper self, there seemed to be nothing that could bring
him down. Julie was in the chair beside the bed, asleep until he blurted out my
arrival.

Julie stood up, looked me up and down and
smiled. “You’re lucky you look the way you do, Lincoln. Otherwise I’d have
slapped you.”

“Babe, I volunteered.”

She looked back at Chen. “I know, but I
still think a slap would have been in order. It is in the movies.” She leaned
forward and hugged me gently. “I’m just glad you’re both alive.”

“Thanks,” I said with a wince. “And for
what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Julie nodded. It was probably worth more
now than it had been ten hours ago when she got the call that Chen was wounded.

“What’s the prognosis?”

Chen looked at me then lifted his shirt to
show me his chest. It was a mottled mess of black, purple, brown and yellow.
“Three broken ribs, better than what would have happened if I hadn’t had my
vest on. The other bullet though, shattered part of my ulna. Now neither one of
us will go through a metal detector easily.”

I stifled a laugh, Julie may not have been
ready for ill-timed humour.

“It should be fine,” Chen said. “Doc thinks
I’ll lose some movement and strength but hopefully not much. Once the bullet
hole heals they’ll put me in a cast. What about you?”

“Just a lot of stitches, and the thumb.”

“Did they do that when they were torturing
you?” Julie was asking—Chen had obviously filled her in. Probably another
reason she wasn’t mad at me.

“No, I did it myself. It was the only way
to get out of the cuffs. Otherwise I’d be dead right now.”

Kat flinched as I said it. There was little
emotion in my voice, it seemed commonplace now to be facing death or injury.

“What happens now?”

“A lot, babe,” Chen said. “SIU will need to
interview us all. I’ll be sticking around for a bit to help with the reports
and everything. I guess I’m done with my course at OPC. Once it’s all dealt
with I’ll be able to come home. A couple of days, hopefully not much more.”

The SIU—the Special Investigations Unit—had
already invoked their mandate. It was to be the second time in a year I’d go
before the SIU, the province’s police watchdog, after having killed a suspect.
Ident would be photographing my injuries and SIU would have a copy of that.
Torture and a pending execution would be enough to keep me from facing any
criticism or charges for my actions.

“Where are the kids?” Kat said to Julie.

“With my parents. They’ll be happy to hang
onto them for a couple of days. We should find a hotel for all of us, and a lot
of booze.”

“There are still a couple of people
outstanding,” I said. “We’ll find a hotel room big enough for all four of us.
Chen and I will be armed and I’ll have uniformed officers standing guard as
well.”

Julie and Kat both nodded.

“I have to get going,” I said, hugging
Julie again then giving Chen a pat on his good arm. “Kara wants me at the
detachment. They’re executing the warrants at noon.” Chen looked at me,
confused. “Sorry, I talked to her earlier. They’ve been up all night, sorting
through the warehouse and putting together warrants. At noon they’re moving in.
Toronto will be taking down Davidson, the Inspector there, and we’ve got a
warrant for the Judge.”

“Have they ID’d Carter’s killer yet?”

“Yeah. London copper. Brandon Simpson.
She’s got a warrant for him and his place as well, but the surveillance team
said his Mustang isn’t there.”

“We’ll get him, Link.”

I nodded. It would just take some time.

* * *

Thirty-six hours.

That was how long I’d been there,
handcuffed to that god awful chair. Kara noticed I was missing only a couple of
hours after I’d been taken, when she went to my hotel room to talk to me.
Instead she found two men tearing my room apart. She held them at gunpoint
until cruisers arrived.

They were nobodies. Criminals, hired thugs.
Warren didn’t do all of his own dirty work.

Kara and Chen both knew where I was—it
wasn’t hard to guess—but they didn’t have the resources to go in. Had it just
been Chen and Kara, they would’ve both been dead.

The forces were mobilized and the warrant
ready by six in the afternoon, the day after my abduction. Kara and Chen knew a
shipment was due in that night, sometime in the next couple of hours. If they
went in, they risked being there when the shipment came, putting them in a
dangerous place. It made sense to wait, to wait for as many of them to show up
along with the shipment—to take them all down in one fell swoop.

And they figured I was already dead.

Both Chen and Kara had held out hope, but
they assumed the worst. And they were right to have done so. Personal feelings
aside, Kara made the decision to wait for the truck to arrive. I couldn’t fault
her for it. She’d made the right choice. Anything else would have put more
people at danger and prolonged the nightmare.

Now we only had two more people to find.

* * *

Kat drove to the station and I didn’t argue
with it. I had no desire to drive. There would be time later on to figure out
the mechanics of driving with a cast on—the ankle hadn’t take long to work
around, but my hand might prove more difficult. We arrived shortly after nine,
the sun was up and spreading a little warmth through the cold air.

Kara was hard at work in the office,
looking through documents she’d seized from the warehouse.

“They’ve been at this for years,” she said,
never taking her eyes from the page. I wasn’t certain how she knew it was Kat
and I walking through the door.

“I’m not surprised. And who knows how long
it could have gone on.”

“How Carter figured it out, I’ll never
know.”

I smiled. “Actually, he’s got reports on
the thumb drive. Statements he typed up. Never got to that point in our
conversations, I guess.”

She looked at me, eyes wide.

I thought back to what I’d seen. “He’d come
into town on a night shift to grab something to eat, happened to drive past the
warehouse. It was late but there were three cars leaving. One was a Porsche
Cayenne and the other two, I can’t remember what they were, but one had an OPP
parking pass and the other an LPS one. He knew something was weird about it so
he took down the plates and started his surveillance.”

“That’s it?” Kara looked disappointed. “I
mean, he did a hell of a job. But no great sleuthing, just happened to be
driving by?”

“That’s how we get some of best cases. You
know that.”

She nodded. “I just can’t believe how many
people we’ve lost. Five cops dead—six with Carter—two more in custody, a whole
lot of wounded. It’s been weird in here today. No on’s saying a word. I mean,
they all know what happened. It’s in the papers, we had to release it.”

“No way to hide a shootout like that.”

“Yeah. So they know it was a takedown on a
smuggling ring run by crooked cops, they know five cops were killed. They know
Carter was murdered, we put that in as well. And they know George and Vern are
dead. They put two and two together pretty fast.”

George and Vern were the only ones from our
detachment killed. Mohammed and Moore were both ours, but they were locked away
alive and unharmed.

“The looks I’ve been getting, Link. It’s
like we did something wrong. I know how well-liked George and Vern were, but…”

“It’s the line, Kara. Despite what they
were up to, we crossed it. And some will never think we did the right thing.”

“Did we?”

“You did.” Kat surprised us both. “These
people were responsible for the murder of an honest officer, for spreading
drugs and guns through the province, for torching our house, for… your mother.
I wish they could have all come in alive, but they chose their end.”

She was right. And her views continued to
change. These deaths, they were justified. Three of the dead opened fire with a
barrage of shotguns, rifles, assault rifles and handguns. Another was seconds
away from executing me.

I knew she was coming around to the idea of
justifiable killings, but I still questioned if she would ever accept my
shooting of Saunders. Serial killer, yes, ready to kill two more women. But
shot in the back as he fled, it was a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow.
Even if it did save two or more lives.

“She’s right, Kara. You can’t think like
that, it’ll tear you apart.”

“I know. I can’t worry about what people
think about me. I doubt they could even begin to understand without having been
there.”