From this distance, saturated by the heavy blanket of fog, they looked small and faint, like tiny bulbs on a Christmas tree.
He was alone on this one.
And the girls’ lives depended on him.
The Sig Sauer sat snugly in its holster — and he dropped his hand down to the butt of his gun for comfort as he marched on. The rubber grip was cold, harder than usual in this freezing weather, almost slippery from the icy moisture. Striker wrapped his fingers around the grip, squeezed tight, moulding it to the flesh of his palm.
The wind kicked up, strong and fierce, blowing his hair in all directions and sending the flaps of his suit jacket whipping to the sides, exposing his gun. And though he knew undoubtedly that Shen Sun would expect him to be armed, there was no point showboating it. He pinned the jacket down with his elbow, kept his fingers loose and ready.
The bridge lamps, weak against the heavy fog, shed a minimal light. Striker could barely make out the vague shape of the van as he closed in, just the halogens. He strained his eyes for any sign of Shen Sun or the girls — for any sign of movement at all — but saw none.
From far below, he heard the rushing sound of water as the Fraser River slammed into the bridge foundation. Striker was well over the waterway now, had been for the last fifty metres.
He marched on. After another twenty feet, the van lights mutated from a single globular glow into two clearly distinct headlights. And soon Striker could hear the heavy rumble of the engine, and smell the dirty diesel in the air. Ten steps later, the outline of the vehicle became sharper. Ten more steps, and he could make out the blurry lettering on its side.
‘You stop now.’ The voice was quick, hard, angry.
Striker did as instructed. He looked ahead, tried to figure out where the voice had come from. But all he could see was the bright piercing glow of halogen headlights. And he realised that the van had been parked this way to blind him.
He stared into the piercing light, raised a hand to ward off the glare.
‘I’m here, Shen Sun. You got what you wanted. Now let the girls go.’
‘What I want?’ The voice was mechanical, numb, spoken more like a statement than a question. ‘Never do I have what I want.’
‘Where are the girls?’
‘Your daughter? She is here. I give proof.’ There was a brief pause, and suddenly a scream filled the air.
‘You twisted little fuck.’ Striker started forward.
‘Come, and they die.’
He stopped cold. Said nothing. Just waited. Listened. Tried to focus and calm the panic. Think. Judging by the direction of Shen Sun’s voice, Striker figured he was near the tail end of the van. Left side. A tactically sound position.
One Striker would have chosen himself.
Striker took a small step to the left, inching his way out of the worst of the glare. And for the first time, he spotted a vague outline behind the lights. A wide blur — three bodies, crammed together — between the rear of the van and the bridge railing.
Two were standing. One was seated.
‘What do you want, Shen Sun?’ Striker asked. He took another small step out of the glare.
‘What do I want?’ His voice was hollow, eerie. ‘I want my brothers back. My sisters. Father. Mother. This is what I want.’
Striker listened carefully to the words. The man was making no sense. Striker inched over a little more, tried to give his eyes time to adapt.
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I tell you what I want from you, Gwailo. I want you to feel the pain I felt, when you ended my mission, when you killed Tran. And Father.’
‘I never killed your-’
‘Yes, you did!’ Shen Sun snapped. ‘The man was here because of you — only because of you. You destroyed my future. My life. Everything! And now you have same pain I have — and you must choose.’
Striker raised his hands in the air, purposely to distract the gunman, and inched his way a little more to the left. ‘You’re talking in riddles.’
‘Then I speak simple. I have gun against daughter’s spine.’
Striker moved a little more left.
‘And here is Kwan child,’ Shen Sun continued. ‘The one we both search for.’
A little more left…
‘I give you choice, Gwailo. Simple. Choose Kwan child and she live. But I shoot daughter in spine, and you watch for rest of life knowing your fault.’
‘Shen Sun-’
‘Or choose your daughter — but Kwan child dies.’
‘That’s no option at all.’
‘It’s all you have.’
‘It’s nothing. ’
Shen Sun cocked his head, spoke softly. ‘Family, or honour?’
‘I can’t-’
‘ Family — or honour! ’
Ninety-Nine
Shen Sun watched the gwailo’s hopeless expression with a sense of euphoria. He was exhausted; his shoulder seared with pain. And there was no chance of him escaping this situation alive.
None of that mattered.
All that existed in the moment was the terror of the girls before him, and the heavenly desperation of the cop ahead. And he laughed out loud, for he could not help himself. All his life he had strived to be 14K — to be with Shan Chu, the King Daddy himself, the Dragon Head — and before the mission had started, he had been promised a swift trip back to Macau if things at St Patrick’s High had gone well.
But things had not gone well. The whole mission had been disastrous. All because of Detective Jacob Striker. Shen Sun had been forced to improvise. To alter the plan. It had been the only way to keep his dream alive. The only way to reach the place he called home.
And to find the Perfect Harmony.
How odd it was. Here at the end of his life — for that was surely what this was — he had found it. And unexpectedly so. Not in a place, or an object, or even through some achievement. No, he had found it through a state of mind. And that was what it was, wasn’t it? The Perfect Harmony. Finding whatever it was that you were missing inside, that one lost piece that would make a man truly whole. Well, he had found it. At long last, he had found it.
And it was power.
‘This isn’t necessary,’ the cop said.
‘Make choice, Gwailo.’
‘We can find another way.’
‘ Make choice, I say.’
To Shen Sun’s lower left, Riku Kwan let out a sob. He pressed his foot down harder on her ankle, making certain she remained seated. Not that she would attempt escape. He had made it quite clear: any attempt to escape would result in a quick death for both of the girls.
‘Shen Sun,’ Striker said. ‘I’ll do anything-’
‘Choose!’
To Shen Sun’s right, Courtney squirmed. He clutched the hood of her Little Red Riding Hood costume, twisting
