Striker reached First Avenue, where one of the Special Constables had set up a roadblock, preventing the traffic from turning north on Commercial. The Constable was a young kid, about nineteen, with a hooked nose.
‘Hey, kid,’ Striker said. He held up his badge to get the boy’s attention. ‘You see either of these two girls?’ He showed him his BlackBerry and paged between the photographs.
The kid scratched his chin. ‘There’s been a lot of girls.’
Striker’s BlackBerry buzzed. He turned away from the boy, looked at the screen, and read the incoming text: Got them B4 U. Turks Coffee Shop.
Striker replied immediately: Only 5 blocks. Meet U there.
He looked down the Drive. Turk’s Coffee Shop was not far under normal circumstances, but in this crowd it seemed like miles. Everywhere he looked, something blocked him — a guy on stilts, roaming the street; a tall makeshift billboard, selling next year’s Parade; and the outcrop of the stage, which cut Commercial Drive in half. Compounding all this was the firework and firecracker smoke — it floated through the air, ghostlike, greying everything in its path.
Striker frowned. Something didn’t feel right. His instincts were screaming. And before he knew it, he was fighting his way through the crowd, shoving people out of his way.
‘Asshole!’
‘Jerk!’
‘… the hell he think he is…’
The comments were endless, and he didn’t care. He pushed on with even greater force, until he made it to within a block of the coffee shop. At first, he saw nothing, and he hoped they had already left for the police cruiser, but then he spotted Felicia and the girls a half block down.
A cop, a nurse, and Little Red Riding Hood.
Striker crossed Charles Street, spotted the man in the hockey mask, and his entire body tensed. Flashbacks of the school shootings bombarded him, and at first, he thought he was reliving memories of the past.
But something about the man gave Striker the creeps. He was facing Felicia and the girls, just standing there, watching them. They were his entire focus. They were everything.
Striker ran towards them.
As he did so, the bass guitarist from the band jumped up on one of the stage speakers and began his intro. ‘You monsters having a good time?’ he yelled, and the crowd began to cheer.
Stage fireworks exploded, sending waves of green and red and orange flame into the air, and were followed by more trails of thick grey smoke. Someone set off a series of firecrackers. Bang-bang-bang-bang-BANG!
Striker sprinted down the sidewalk, slicing the crowd in two, knocking people over and sending them onto their asses. When the crowd thinned for a patch, Striker scanned the area, but could no longer see Felicia or the girls. An icy coldness pierced his heart, and he knew instinctively:
Shen Sun was here.
Ninety-Three
Shen Sun saw the two girls — one dressed in red and black, the other dressed as a nurse. The woman cop was beside them. They were so close. A gift from the spirits.
A gift from Tran.
He adjusted the mask, reached behind his back and felt the gun. The magazine had five rounds left, which was not a lot. He didn’t want to use one single bullet.
Not yet.
With this in mind, Shen Sun cut across the road, snaking in between the partygoers. They danced and stumbled and paraded all around him, each trying to close in on the stage as the band geared up and blasted their music into the night. The burned-gunpowder scent filled Shen Sun’s head as he closed in on his targets.
The woman cop was looking the other way.
In one quick motion, Shen Sun pulled out his Glock. He held it by the barrel, raised it high, then slammed the steel butt down towards the back of her head. She sensed the blow coming, and at the last second turned, but it was too late. The gun smashed into her face with as much force as he could deliver.
Her head snapped hard and she dropped. Both the girls screamed, and suddenly one of the teenage boys dressed in a yellow uniform reached out for Shen Sun. Shen Sun easily pistol-whipped him to the ground. Another boy standing nearby took off through the crowd.
‘Get away from us!’ Courtney screamed. The girls turned and confronted him.
He pointed his pistol at them. ‘Escape is forbidden. If one runs, both die.’
Courtney’s mouth opened and she nodded slowly, as if understanding the command, or at the very least understanding the direness of the situation. Riku Kwan just stood there, her hand over her mouth. Her drunken face was a smear of disbelief.
‘Felicia!’ a voice called. ‘FELICIA!’
Shen Sun turned. He looked south and spotted the gwailo. The cop was rampaging through the crowd. People were flying in his wake. The rage and fear and determination on his face were palpable. Simple escape was no longer an option. He needed something to slow the cop down. A diversion. Chaos. Pandemonium. Like…
A frantic mob.
Shen Sun aimed his pistol. He fired twice, once to the east, where the crowd was massing in front of the stage, and once to the south, where the gwailo was coming from.
The blasts were loud, deafening, unlike any of the firecrackers; and for the first time, people stopped partying. They turned around and looked at him. Really looked at him. At his stance. At his mask. At the gun in his hand.
A scream filled the air: ‘She’s been shot — someone shot her. She’s been SHOT!’
And more followed:
‘Gun gun gun — he’s got a GUN!’
‘Fuckin’ nutcase! Run!’
The crowd exploded. Turned mob. Survival instincts took over. The partygoers scrambled in all directions. Dropping their drinks. Fighting for escape. Crushing the others before them.
When Shen Sun turned back to face the girls, they stood frozen. He reached out and grabbed hold of Courtney, pointed his pistol at Riku Kwan.
‘Move away from crowd.’ He flicked his pistol to show the way.
When Riku hesitated, he struck her across the face, splitting her lips.
She let out a wail. ‘Please, we don’t even know-’
‘Move, or be killed!’
He wasn’t sure if she heard him or not, but the pain woke her. She did as instructed. When the crowd thinned, Shen Sun turned the girls through the rolling masses into Grandview Park. Towards the van he had commandeered.
Escape was just a grass field away.
Ninety-Four
Striker saw Shen Sun cut north through the crowd with both Courtney and Raine as his hostages. One moment they were there, the next they were gone, swallowed up by the mob.
‘Courtney!’ he screamed.
He plunged forward, fought to race after them, but was knocked back by wave after wave of terrified, drunk party-goers. People screamed, cried out, grabbed on to him and begged him for help. He shoved past them all. Courtney was out there somewhere. He had to get to her.
She was everything.
