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
