next to him when the worst of the shit hit.
That couldn’t be said about all the other cops he’d worked with.
A long hedge of manicured bush, five feet high, separated the two yards. In the rain and darkness, it looked like a solid row of blackness. As Striker flanked the hedge, searching for a break in the bush, a sliver of light found his eyes. It was coming from Que Wong’s backyard.
From the ground.
‘What the hell?’ Striker heard Felicia say.
He reached back and tapped Felicia, then pointed to the lit-up area of grass. Her long hair was wet, sticking to the edges of her face, and she shivered as she nodded. Striker felt the cold, too. The fall wind picked up, whistling through the greenery and blowing the rain into his face.
With Felicia covering his back, he crept along the bush-line until he found a small break in the greenery. It was narrow, but passable. He pressed between the two bushes and took in the full view of the yard.
It was ordinary, small. In the middle, near the house, was a small patio area, complete with a propane barbecue and an outdoor patio table with chairs. At the far end of that, an upright cement birdbath stood, nestled between two rows of barren shrubs. Striker let his eyes roam beyond the shrubs to a pile of old broken cinderblocks by the far fence.
The light was coming from the pile.
Striker made sure Felicia saw it. When she nodded, he moved forward and cleared the rest of the yard, finishing up with the patio. From this new vantage, he could see that the cinder blocks weren’t in a pile, but were arranged in a small square design. And in the very centre of them was a hatch, coming right out of the earth. A square of dirty light spilled out around the edges.
‘Well water?’ Felicia guessed.
He shook his head. ‘Bunker.’
‘Bunker?’
‘An old bomb shelter, I think. Step back. Cover me.’ He dropped down to one knee and studied the door in the earth. It was small, barely two feet by two feet. Only one person could get through that space at a time, and that was if there was a ladder going down, not steps. He took out his flashlight, turned it on, and ran the beam all around the edges of the hatch.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Looking for wires. Igniters. Switches.’
‘You see any?’
‘No. But be ready.’
He put his flashlight away and with the shotgun in one hand, he grabbed hold of the latch, the steel feeling cold and wet against his skin, and heaved as fast and hard as he could.
The door was hinged at the top, and the joints screeched gratingly as the door opened, then slammed hard against the back row of cinderblocks.
Striker stared down into the hole and saw no movement inside. A dim light from an unseen source revealed a rickety-looking ladder descending into the earth. At the bottom, a murky passageway trailed north.
‘It goes towards the house,’ he told her. ‘Watch our backs.’
As he stepped down onto the first rung of the ladder, Felicia grabbed his shoulder.
‘You’re not going down there,’ she said.
He never took his eyes off the cavern below. ‘You got a better idea?’
‘Yeah. Get a dog.’
‘Forget that. No mangy mutt’s going down here to tear through all my evidence.’
‘Jacob-’
‘Just cover me,’ he said.
‘It could be a trap.’
‘Exactly, so don’t follow. Stay here and make sure no one locks me down there.’ And before she could protest more, he descended into the earth.
The ladder went down ten feet, then ended abruptly. Once on the ground level, he could see the source of the light: an exposed fluorescent tube that ran down the centre of the far room. From its light, he could see that the long corridor he was standing in ran straight towards the house, then ended in a large open room. From where he stood, there appeared to be no other doors in or out.
Just one big underground square of concrete.
Keeping the shotgun ready, he stepped forward. The room was cluttered with things. Stacks of small water tanks lined the far wall. Wooden shelves held canned goods, survival kits, batteries and toiletries. Sheets of white plastic covered the walls.
Striker stood still. Breathed as quietly as he could. Waited and watched for movement. There were no obvious signs of threat, but that meant nothing. Situations like this were explosive and often unpredictable.
He inched forwards into the open room. Almost immediately, he detected something in the air. Something beside dampness and old rotting wood. It was a distinct smell, a familiar smell.
Urine.
He took another step forward and scanned everything.
Old planks put together to form benches and a table took up the bulk of the room, sitting out of place and centre stage. It bothered him. They were mostly covered by an orange tarp. Striker looked around. Though the bunker was old, it was still unfinished. Fraying chunks of pink insulation poked out through the white plastic sheets that stretched from two-by-four to two-by-four. Here and there, homemade wooden shelves had been nailed up haphazardly. In the far corner of the room sat a new workbench, covered in metal parts.
Everything seemed normal.
Seemed.
And then Striker took a closer look at the details. On the shelves, unlocked and out in the open, sat several copper pads, wire brushes, and dirty rags — cleaning tools for weaponry. On the far wall, overtop the fraying insulation hung a small piece of cardboard, containing handwritten directions on how to construct homemade grenades. And on the workbench, all the pieces of metal Striker had taken for scrap were actually filed-down splinters of metal filler for explosive devices. Shrapnel.
He had walked into a weapons lair.
‘Got gun stuff down here,’ Striker called up to Felicia. ‘Be ready.’
He raised his shotgun, swung into the centre of the room, and stopped abruptly. Down to his right, directly beside the workbench, a leg stuck out near the front of the benches. The leg was covered by black pants and a black runner. The remainder of the body was obscured by the hanging orange tarp.
‘Got a body!’ he called.
He took a wide arc around the couch for a better view.
Lying there, face up on the dirty concrete, was a young Asian male. A teenager. His mouth was agape, his empty eyes wide open. The top of his head was blown away, as if he’d shot a bullet through the roof of his mouth. Clutched in his right hand was a 40-calibre pistol. A Glock. And lying beside him on the ground was a blood-red hockey mask.
Striker eased his finger off on the trigger, but kept the gun at the low ready. ‘You can come down,’ he called.
He’d barely yelled the words and Felicia was beside him. She saw the damage to the gunman’s head and the wetness of his crotch. She wrinkled her nose.
‘Jesus Christ, another one,’ she said.
‘Good things come in threes.’
Striker studied the ceiling and saw a dirty spray of redness against the old brown wood. In the centre of the stain was a small hole, where the bullet had penetrated. Surrounding the hole were splinters of bone and splatters of skin and hair, and a mess of other dark things he could not define.
‘Keep us covered,’ he said.
When Felicia nodded, he handed her the shotgun and gloved up. He snapped the latex and leaned down over the dead kid. He took out the photocopied picture of Raymond Leung, the one Principal Myers had given him from last year’s yearbook. Comparing the picture with the dead boy on the cement floor left little doubt.
