Up ahead, he spotted Corporal Summer. She was rushing around the scene, setting up screens over the drains so that the firefighters didn’t wash away all the trace evidence. Striker ran over to help her. When they were done, she stood up and wiped her brow and looked at him with a lost expression distorting her features.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘Osaka.’
Striker pushed away the grief. There would be plenty of time for that later. Right now time was critical. ‘What have we got here, Summer?’
The corporal regained her focus. She raised her hand in the air and whistled loudly, signalling for one of her techs to bring over what they had discovered. A large man in white Tyvek coveralls walked over carrying a twisted steel container. Striker wasn’t wearing latex so he didn’t touch it.
‘That’s the base?’ he asked.
Corporal Summer nodded. ‘It is.’
‘Jesus, that’s a ton of explosive.’
‘HME again.’
Home-made explosive . . . the notion concerned Striker. Not only because of the bomber’s apparent skill in creating the material, but because they were smart enough to realize that all other routes of acquiring a commercial or military grade product would now be flagged.
‘And look at this,’ Corporal Summer said. She held out a plastic bag, containing the remnants of what appeared to be a doll in a policeman’s uniform. ‘Is this what you were talking about?’
Striker took the bag from her and nodded. It was the same kind of toy found at the Toy Hut and at Koda’s place – a ten-inch wooden doll in a policeman’s uniform. Just like before, the head and legs had been blown away in the explosion, making Striker believe that those two areas must have been structurally weaker.
On the doll’s torso was another number. In red paint.
A number 4.
The sight left Striker chilled.
A 6, a 5, and now a 4. There was no more doubting the fact that this was a countdown of sorts – a taunt from the bombers.
But what was the significance? And furthermore, who were the remaining numbers left for? Although only one number had been found at Koda’s, there had been three legs there, so therefore, two dolls. No doll had been found in the carnage of the exploded police cruiser, back at the A&W parking lot, but that didn’t mean one hadn’t been there – the vehicle had burned for a long time. And there was no doubt that the same people had set that bomb.
So had it been placed there for Koda, the resultant victim? Or had it been placed there for Harry? For both of them? Striker went over everything in his mind for the umpteenth time. It was entirely plausible that Harry and Koda were targets 3 and 2.
But if so, then who was target 1?
Only one person came to mind, and it was one that left Striker feeling sick to his stomach.
Rothschild.
He got on the phone with Dispatch and made sure he had units stationed outside his house. Then he looked back at Corporal Summer and cautioned her. ‘The doll is holdback evidence, you understand?’
She nodded. ‘What doll?’
‘Exactly.’
She returned to work, and Striker let her go. Thoughts of his own preoccupied him. Too many of them. And he was still deep in thought when a strong voice with a French drawl called out from behind him. ‘Striker. Striker!’
He knew it at once. Acting Deputy Chief Laroche.
Striker turned around to face the man.
‘Sir?’ he said.
The Acting Deputy Chief looked tired and stressed, but focused. As always, his thick black hair was pristinely combed back over his head and his white commander’s dress shirt was without crease. He came to within a foot of Striker.
‘What is the status of this investigation?’ he demanded.
With forensic techs and patrolmen running all around them, Striker gave Laroche a five-minute rundown of everything that had occurred from the torture scene down by the river, up to and including the death of Inspector Terry Osaka. He left out as much as he could regarding the details of Harry and Koda, and also of the dolls he had found.
It was necessarily prudent to do so.
The Acting Deputy Chief was often like a spinning top, knocking down everything around him with his misguided, erratic decisions. It wasn’t entirely his fault, Striker knew. Laroche always meant well, in his own twisted way. But over the years the man had become more of a manager and politician than a cop. As a result, it was best to placate him with the bare minimum of facts and leave him in the dark on the full details.
‘And that’s when we got here,’ Striker finished.
Laroche’s face remained hard. ‘You’ve been in two gunfights in forty-eight hours. If this was any other day, I’d put you on stress leave and send you for crisis counselling. But we got bombs going off all over the goddam city and cops are being targeted.’ Laroche’s posture sagged, and suddenly, unexpectedly, his expression softened. His face looked fragile.
‘Sir?’ Striker asked.
Laroche cleared his throat. ‘Terry was . . . a good friend of mine. I knew the man for twenty goddam years.’
‘He was a friend of mine too, sir.’
Laroche nodded. ‘Just keep me informed – every step of the way.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Do better.’
Striker made no reply, and seconds later the Acting Deputy Chief spotted Corporal Summer. Without so much as another word to Striker, Laroche spun away from him and cornered her by the car wreckage. With the conversation ended, Felicia walked up to Striker and gave him a dubious look.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
‘A difficult situation just got a whole lot more complicated,’ Striker said. ‘Laroche is on the case.’
One Hundred
Harry hadn’t slept a wink all night. Bad dreams and an even worse reality. Eventually, he had gotten up and spent the bulk of the night drinking coffee in an all-night café and listening to the police scanner for more news.
Wish granted.
It had come.
He parked his undercover cruiser on the east side of Kerr Street, directly across from the Fraserview Golf Club. A sense of horrified disbelief swept over him. In the far-off distance, he could see the red gleaming lights of the fire engine and the greyish smoke that poured from the shell of a vehicle. Half-dazed, in disbelief and stupor, he walked up the road until he was flush with the yellow police tape.
‘Media point’s on Killarney,’ the young cop guarding the scene told him.
Harry barely glanced at him. Keeping his eyes focused on the chaos ahead, he took out his wallet and showed the badge. The young cop nodded, took down the badge number, and lifted the tape for him to enter.
But Harry did not budge. He just stood there and watched Striker and Felicia and the RCMP bomb specialist cluster together with Acting Deputy Chief Laroche. His eyes fell to the white sheet that lay a few feet from the smouldering wreckage. ‘Is it true?’
‘Detective?’
‘Is that really him?’
The young cop nodded hesitantly. ‘Inspector Osaka is what they’re saying. But it’s all hush-hush right now. I really don’t know too much about it.’
Harry did not respond. He just stared at that white, wrinkled, dirty sheet. At the uneven lump in the centre of it. And he felt his world come further apart. A dizziness hit him. Spun his head like a top. And the road looked like a tarmac on a blistering hot day – distorted, wavy, blurred.
With the heavy bass strum of blood pulsating through his temples, Harry turned away from the scene and walked back to the undercover cruiser. He tried to sort things out in his head, but couldn’t.
When Keisha Williams had been targeted, he’d thought he’d known everything. Even more so when Koda’s ex-wife had been whacked. But now, if these people had gone after Terry Osaka as well, then he and Koda had gotten it wrong. All wrong from the very start.