He fell back down.
‘Lie down, Oliver. Lie down . . .’ Molly stared at him from above, her round face tight, her eyes distant. She brushed a hand through his hair. ‘Jesus almighty, you’re soaked, Oliver. You’re burning up.’
He tried to sit up again; she pushed him back down.
‘Rest!’ she said.
‘Target’s away . . . left turn, south . . .’
‘There is no target, Oliver. You’re here. With me.’
‘. . . bomb’s hot . . .’
Molly stood up. Walked to the corner. And opened a small red medical cooler. From it, she withdrew a cloth and three cold packs. She sat back down and used a rag to gently mop the sweat from Oliver’s brow, then she broke the chemical seals on the ice packs and placed one against his forehead and two under his armpits.
‘No!’ He tried to take them out.
‘Leave them.’
‘. . . is cold.’
‘Leave them.’
‘My leg. Leave the leg . . .’
Molly said nothing. From the steel table across the room, she grabbed the remaining bottles of antibiotics and antihistamines, and injected Oliver for the third time of the hour. Wanting the medications closer, she crossed the room, grabbed hold of the steel table and tried to pull it across the room. But it was too heavy, so she left the table where it was and laid her supplies down on the red medical cooler.
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.’
One Hundred and Twenty-Four
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.
One Hundred and Twenty-Five
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.
One Hundred and Twenty-Six
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.