His squad was being led to their doom.
It all started with the Afghan cop – that tall, burly, black sergeant from the Afghan National Police. Smoking his Egyptian cigarettes, he led them all across the Helmand plain. He was eager, nervous.
Excited even.
‘Dis way, dis way,’ he said several times. ‘On da plain. You see. On da plain.’
Oliver followed. He wiped his brow with the sleeve of his uniform as they went. Early still, a chilly dew covered the tall grass of the fields, but soon it would be stolen by the arid heat of the day.
‘Hold up,’ he commanded.
They had neared their destination.
At the end of the trail was the bomb the cop had found – an Improvised Explosive Device buried deep within the rocky sand. It seemed to be a standard IED – one pound of HME, a pressure-plate release pad, and tied to a dummy bomb beside it.
But looks could be deceiving. Especially when dealing with the Taliban.
Oliver assessed the scene and didn’t like it. The work area was narrow, less than four feet wide, and flanked by drainage canals. Beyond that, tall sweeping hills backed the plains. It was an enemy haven – concealment below and cover above.
‘I don’t like it,’ Oliver said. ‘And I don’t like this man.’
‘He’s a cop,’ the point man said. ‘He’s ANP.’
‘Means nothing. They got sleepers everywhere.’
Oliver frowned. The situation was bad. He wanted nothing more than to retreat. But orders were orders in the Green Zone, and if he didn’t deal with the IED now, it would end up taking out another soldier later on.
It always did.
Reality dictated. There was no choice.
‘Cover me,’ he told his men.
Then he started the long walk.
Voices from the past haunted him.
The cop, the cop, shoot the goddam cop!
The words blasted through Oliver’s head, a desperate scream no one else could hear. He sat up with a jolt, and suddenly, he was back in the command room. On the cot. In the stark hotness of the dark grey room.
Out of one nightmare, into another.
For as the haze dissipated, the soft sounds of the monitor filled his ears. A jumble of words that caught his attention:
. . . bomber . . .
. . . shootout . . .
. . . hero cop . . .
And then the most horrible words he had ever heard in his life:
. . . believed to be Royal Logistic Corps Warrant Officer Molly Howell.
Oliver forced his stiff neck left and gaped at the monitor. One look at the image was all it took. Standing there in the camera feed was the cop – the big Homicide detective, Jacob Striker. And next to him were two large men in jumpsuits, loading a body hidden beneath a white sheet into a van.
The Body Removal Team.
‘Molly,’ Oliver said. His voice was soft and weak and tiny. ‘Molly.’
A sob filled his throat. Choked him mute. And like a slow pressing tide, Oliver felt himself slipping further and further away, into that dark fog of pain and medications, with only the image of his sister in his head. This time, he did not fight the feeling. This time he allowed himself to be enveloped by the thick, churning darkness. Within seconds, it overpowered him completely.
It was done.
He had passed the point of no return.
Part 4:
Shockwave
Saturday
One Hundred and Twenty-Eight
Police had located the rear guard of the protection team by the time that Mike Rothschild arrived on scene at his own home; the guard had been knocked over the head and rendered unconscious, but – aside from some bruises to his skull and to his ego – he was no worse for wear.
Striker found the situation odd. Why had Molly Howell not just killed the man? Why take a chance like that when a bullet to the head or a blade to the throat would have been so much more effective? After all, dead men didn’t return to consciousness and call in alerts.
Clearly, there was a difference in beliefs between the two bombers.
And it appeared as if he was left with the more dangerous of the two.
Pondering all this, Striker sat on the back porch, staring intently at the toy seized from the crime scene and absently rubbing his thumb along the red number 1 painted on its torso. To his surprise, the doll was not an accurate depiction of a policeman, but the personification of a duck, complete with legs and arms, and dressed in a policeman’s uniform.
It was strange. Such an odd thing for the bomber to leave behind. A policeman made sense to Striker, because there were so many connections there.
But a duck?
It was just so . . . odd.
Striker heard an engine growl, looked up and spotted Rothschild’s Toyota minivan just outside the strewn-up police tape at the south end of the lane. The man parked, then came walking in with purpose. The lines of his face were deeper than normal this morning.
‘Up here, Mike,’ Striker called.
Rothschild looked over the fence and spotted him. ‘The whole world’s gone insane!’
Striker did not respond. He just watched Rothschild enter the yard, stop at the entrance to his garage – which was now taped off as the primary crime scene with a patrolman standing guard – and peer inside. After a long moment, Rothschild shook his head in disbelief, then walked up the back porch steps to Striker’s side.
‘So she was actually in there, huh?’
Striker nodded. ‘Planting a bomb under your hood.’
‘She pull on you?’
‘Went for the detonator.’
‘Son-of-a-bitch.’
Striker looked to the east, where the sun was breaking through the strange mist that had flooded the woods of the park. ‘The woman gave me no choice . . . I opened fire.’
‘You scratch my paint?’
Striker didn’t laugh. Black humour was usually the key to warding off depression, but today it didn’t feel so good.
Rothschild took a seat beside Striker in one of the patio chairs. ‘They take your piece?’
‘Yeah. Noodles seized it and brought me a new SIG. No flashlight attachment or grip though. Laroche wants me off the road till I meet up with the Trauma Team, but me and Felicia are fighting him on it.’ He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. ‘They’re in there right now with Noodles and the coroner. It’s a nightmare.’
Rothschild said nothing. He just looked at all the golden streams of police tape stretching across the backyard, the laneway, and the garage. ‘I can tell you this much – next time I paint the house, it won’t be yellow.’
Striker smiled for the first time. ‘How about white and blue?’ he said, and held up the toy duck.
All at once, Rothschild’s face changed. ‘Where’d you get that?’
‘Crime scene. Molly Howell brought it with her. They’ve been leaving one of them for each victim, but we don’t know why. ’ Striker turned it over in his hands and examined the toy. Its body was wood, its beak plastic. The toy was solid. Well built. Striker stuck his finger through the metal O-ring and Rothschild stiffened.
‘You sure—’
‘It’s been checked already.’
Striker gave the O-ring a yank and the bills flapped open and the duck began speaking: ‘These criminals are making me quackers!’
Rothschild reached out and took the duck from Striker. He held it in his hands, stared at it in wonder and partial disbelief. ‘This is more than a toy, Shipwreck. It’s Chief Quackers.’