The Survivor (44 page)

‘Nope.’

‘Why not?’

‘No one asked.’

Striker let this go without comment. ‘And then what? He just leave?’

‘Yup.’

‘You ever see him again?’

‘Sure. He come right back the next day. Musta spent, oh, two, three hours in the house there, just lookin’ at things.’

‘Things?’

‘Yeah, you know, in the house. Lookin’ at the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Seemed like he was lookin’ for something real specific, trying to figure things out. Like a Chinese fuckin’ Matlock.’ She sipped her Diet Pepsi and shook her head. ‘I dunno, I’m just an old woman, what do I know?’

Striker felt a twitter in his chest. Nervousness. Excitement. Hard to define. He took out his BlackBerry and brought up the images of Tran Sang Soone and Shen Sun Soone he’d downloaded from Ibarra back at the Strike Force HQ. When the images were completed, he held the phone up for Phyllis to see the screen.

‘Look familiar?’

She put on her glasses, pointed at the second image – the one of Shen Sun Soone. ‘Yep, that’s him.’

Striker put the BlackBerry away. ‘Thanks, Phyllis, really, you’ve been a great help.’ He headed for the door, stopped, handed her a business card. ‘You mind if I come back if I have any more questions?’

‘Come anytime, darlin’.’

Striker gave her the thumbs-up. ‘Fuck Coke,’ he said.

‘Amen to that, Chuckles.’

He left Phyllis alone in the room with her pink lipstick and Diet Pepsi, and closed the door behind him.

Eighty-Five

The muscles of Shen Sun’s legs were cramping when he spotted the first sign of movement. It was subtle, almost indiscernible.

But he did see it.

A man, clad in black clothing, combat vest and long gun, changed his position from the parking lot near the boarded-up warehouse to the bushes down by the train tracks. The darkness was heavier now, and Shen Sun wondered if the man thought he was concealed.

Shen Sun watched him hightail it across the road, with surprising stealth for someone so large. Soon, a second man followed, much smaller. The two paired off on either side of the bushes.

Police, he knew. Emergency Response Team. Which meant there were at least eight more here somewhere in the darkness.

Shen Sun felt nothing at the sighting. No fear, no anger. It was expected. Just one more of the reasons why he could not go home.

Inside Father’s apartment, nothing had changed. The interior remained quiet and still and shrouded by dimness. Only one lamp was on. In the living room.

Everything appeared ordinary.

And then there was movement inside. It was fast – just a blur in front of the lamp – and then gone.

Shen Sun twitched. He leaned forward, extending beyond the bushes. The only door to Father’s town home was at the front on Raymur Street. If someone was inside, they had been in there for forty minutes.

The thought was unnerving. Shen Sun watched the window, waiting for another sighting. When the image came, he flinched. A man lumbered across the room, his walk rigid and uneven, as if all the joints of his long legs were fused.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine had beaten him here.

The assassin walked into the living room. Stopped at the kitchen sink. Turned on the water. Washed his arms and face.

Shen Sun felt the last traces of his world slip away. He could not see it – he did not have to see it – but he knew what the Man with the Bamboo Spine was doing. He was washing away the blood.

Father was dead.

Shen Sun closed off any emotions he might have felt, and watched the town home – not as a son, but as a soldier, for it was all he could do now.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine finished wiping himself off on Father’s quilt, then threw it in the corner. He walked to the front door, opened it, and stepped outside.

Shen Sun gripped the Glock with care. This was a hundred meter shot. Extremely difficult with a pistol. Even more so with only one good hand. He brought up his left hand and tried a two-handed grip on the Glock, but the pain of his shoulder was too much to bear. His left arm fell away.

‘POLICE! Don’t move!’ someone cried out.

Shen Sun looked down below and spotted the two Emergency Response Team members leaving concealment. Both had machine guns out – MP5s, by the look of it – and were fast crossing the train tracks.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine was quick, so quick he astonished Shen Sun. In one fluid motion, he turned away from the police as if he had not heard them, and drew his pistol. He left it hanging by his side, partly hidden by the long tails of his trench coat.

One of the cops gave the order: ‘Put your hands in the air where I can see them!’

The Man with the Bamboo Spine did nothing at first; he only stood still and assessed the two men who had him lined up in their sights. The calm he displayed was amazing. And Shen Sun realised the assassin was lulling the cops in.

Preparing to shoot it out.

But then more cops appeared; they exploded from the shadows, every bit as deftly as the spirits that plagued Shen Sun’s life. They came in pairs, long guns out, a semi-circle of warriors. And in the blink of an eye there were twelve.

Big Circle Boy or not, the Man with the Bamboo Spine was hopelessly outgunned.

Shen Sun saw the expression on the assassin’s face turn from hard preparation to logical surrender. He was going to give up. Turn himself in.

And Shen Sun would not allow it.

He raised his Glock. Lined up the assassin. Opened fire.

The silencer was long burned out, but still managed to stifle the first two shots, allowing only a soft thunder to emit from the barrel. But the third and fourth shots were full bore. They sounded every bit their 40 calibre, and the entire valley below the overpass resonated with gunfire.

‘Gun! Gun! GUN!’ one of the cops screamed.

Shen Sun fired again. That first shot went high and wide, the second and third ones went too low, slamming into the earth at the assassin’s feet. The Man with the Bamboo Spine reacted the only way he could. He raised his own gun.

And an eruption of gunfire filled the night.

It was over in seconds. The police carbines and MP5s shredded the Man with the Bamboo Spine, waking the neighbourhood and filling the night with brilliant flashes. The assassin jerked, spun left, and fell backward.

Shen Sun could not tell where the assassin had been hit, or how many times, but he was dead. Over ten cops had been shooting, and with high-powered assault rifles. No one could survive that.

Not even the Man with the Bamboo Spine.

Eighty-Six

Striker was standing in the centre of the burned-out framework of the house when Felicia finally returned. He checked his watch. It was seven now, and it felt even later. The sun was lost to them, and the coal-coloured clouds, which blocked the incoming stars and moon, killed any natural light that was left.

The wheels of the cruiser crunched loudly as they slid on the gravelly road and came to a stop. Felicia climbed out, leaving the engine running and the headlights on. In the aura of the beams, her face looked like a compilation of satisfaction and exhaustion. The shirt she wore was looser now, partly untucked on the left side of her hip, giving her an almost slutty look. It stirred something in Striker he hadn’t had the time or energy to feel in days, and despite the weariness he suffered from and the shit they were dealing with, he couldn’t help but notice – she looked sexy.

‘You get the report?’ he asked.

She held up the electric company’s folder, a dark manila one with
BC Hydro
written across the top. ‘Take a gander.’

Striker took it from her and glanced at the tab, where only the date was written and a BC Hydro case number. ‘Have you read it yet?’

‘I’ve perused it.’

‘And?’

‘Well, you were right about this place being a grow-op. In this report there’s a list of all the supplies found: soil and seeds, lamps and fans, ozonators and filters – you name it.’

The confirmation gave Striker more confidence. He opened the folder, but it was too dark outside to read. He pulled out his flashlight, turned it on, and scanned the light across the pages.

The report was detailed, listing where the power had been bypassed and where the fire was believed to have started. The source was exactly as Striker had suspected – some kind of electrical problem in the fuse box, most likely caused by the increased power consumption of the lamps.

‘There’s our file number for the Arson,’ he said to Felicia, pointing to the top of the page, ‘and here’s one that isn’t linked in our system. Run this incident number, and I bet you find the grow-op report.’

Felicia returned to the car, then came back with the laptop and they went inside the burned-out house. Striker took the laptop from her and set it down on a small portion of kitchen counter that had not been completely burned away. On the counter, next to the laptop, he opened up the Fire Department’s folder, and next to that, the BC Hydro file.

He pointed to the CAD call on the computer screen. ‘So this is the first call Dispatch gets of someone yelling and smoke coming out the window. It comes in anonymous as a Suspicious Circumstance and turns out to be a fire from a grow-op.’ Striker ran his finger down the page. ‘Police attend and call in Grow-busters.’

‘And then they call for the City and the electric company.’

‘Right. But only after the fire is dealt with.’

Felicia nodded. ‘And then six hours later, we have the big fire – the arson. A coincidence?’

He gave her a sideways look. ‘There are no coincidences. And here’s the real connection – look at the name of the engineer who attended for the electric company.’ He turned the page and pointed to the author’s name. ‘Stanley Chow.’

‘Tina’s father?’ Felicia asked.

‘None other.’ Striker picked up the Fire Department’s report, then jabbed at the author’s name. ‘And look who wrote
this
one.’

Felicia read the last line. ‘Archibald MacMillan – Conrad’s father.’

‘And who was here for
our
file number?’

‘Patricia Kwan,’ Felicia said. She scanned through the Fire Department’s report, frowned. ‘That still leaves one name missing – O’Riley. I’ve run Chantelle through the system ten times. No one in her family shows up for anything.’

Striker smiled. ‘Look at the Fire Department’s report. See the structural engineer who attended for the City.’

Felicia skimmed down the page, found the name. ‘Pevorski. Polish person.’

‘Stefana Pevorski,’ Striker said. ‘Now run her in PRIME.’

Felicia did. When the name returned, she made a surprised sound. ‘It’s a perfect hit,’ she said, meaning all the details matched.

‘That’s because Pevorski is Stefana’s
maiden
name. She’s been married twice and she’s never corrected it on the work system. Her current married name is O’Riley.’

Felicia looked up from the report, an excited look covering her face. ‘They’re all there then. We got Kwan—’

‘Vancouver Police.’

‘And Chow—’

‘Structural Engineer for the City.’

‘And O’Riley—’

‘Electrical Engineer for Hydro.’

‘And MacMillan.’

Striker tapped on the Fire Department’s folder. ‘Our HAZMAT guy for grow-ops.’

Felicia looked up from the file folders and smiled. ‘That’s a parent for every kid targeted. All four names. Connected.’

‘Plus it explains why Doris Chow and Margaret MacMillan would never have made the link – they probably never even knew.’ Striker bit his lip. ‘We’ve been looking at this the wrong way ever since this nightmare began. The kids aren’t the problem here, Feleesh, they never were. They’re simply pawns in it all.’

Felicia shook her head absently. ‘But why? For a friggin’ grow-op? That doesn’t make sense. We close down pot palaces all the time, so what was different here? What could these people have done that would warrant such a horrific response from any gang?’

Striker led her into the other room, where a large part of the wall was still intact. He pointed at the grey insulation lining all the walls.

‘This is it here, the key to all this.’

‘The stasis-foam?’

‘You bet. The report says it’s more than just a fire-retardant, it’s impossible to X-ray through. And drug dogs can’t detect smells through it. These pockets in the insulation aren’t areas that the fire burned away – look at the ridges, they’re completely uniform.’

‘Then what are they?

‘They’re prebuilt vaults. For
cash
. We’re standing in the middle of a huge underworld bank, Feleesh. Even this one room alone could hold millions – and we have no idea how many other vaults were burned away in the other rooms. For all we know, the whole house could’ve been built this way. The money stolen could be in the
tens
of millions.’

‘But why would a gang use a grow-op for a bank when there’s such a high risk of fire?’

‘That’s the key – there’s not. The stasis foam should have prevented that, but this place wasn’t designed for being doused with white gas.’

Felicia ran her finger down the supple edges of the stasis-foam. ‘So you’re saying that Kwan and Chow and MacMillan and O’Riley are . . .’

‘Thieves. Nothing more.’

Felicia thought it through silently, while Striker went on: ‘They found the grow-op, did their due diligence, and later, after the drug teams left and everything was evacuated, they somehow discovered
this
.’ He pointed to the series of vaults in the walls. ‘A payday beyond what any of them could fathom. More money than they could ever have dreamed about, even collectively. So they took it – maybe as much as thirty million dollars – and then used accelerants to set the house on fire. They thought the place would burn to the ground and cover up their trail. Then they’d lay low for a few years before taking off somewhere else. They thought the gang and the police would never know better.’

‘But they hadn’t counted on the stasis-foam,’ Felicia said. ‘It slowed down the fire and gave the next Fire crew enough time to put out the blaze.’