The survivor

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 anything.’

Striker smiled. ‘Look at the Fire Department’s report. See the structural engineer who attended for the City.’

Felicia skimmed down the page, found the name. ‘Pevorski. Polish person.’

‘Stefana Pevorski,’ Striker said. ‘Now run her in PRIME.’

Felicia did. When the name returned, she made a surprised sound. ‘It’s a perfect hit,’ she said, meaning all the details matched.

‘That’s because Pevorski is Stefana’s maiden name. She’s been married twice and she’s never corrected it on the work system. Her current married name is O’Riley.’

Felicia looked up from the report, an excited look covering her face. ‘They’re all there then. We got Kwan-’

‘Vancouver Police.’

‘And Chow-’

‘Structural Engineer for the City.’

‘And O’Riley-’

‘Electrical Engineer for Hydro.’

‘And MacMillan.’

Striker tapped on the Fire Department’s folder. ‘Our HAZMAT guy for grow-ops.’

Felicia looked up from the file folders and smiled. ‘That’s a parent for every kid targeted. All four names. Connected.’

‘Plus it explains why Doris Chow and Margaret MacMillan would never have made the link — they probably never even knew.’ Striker bit his lip. ‘We’ve been looking at this the wrong way ever since this nightmare began. The kids aren’t the problem here, Feleesh, they never were. They’re simply pawns in it all.’

Felicia shook her head absently. ‘But why? For a friggin’ grow-op? That doesn’t make sense. We close down pot palaces all the time, so what was different here? What could these people have done that would warrant such a horrific response from any gang?’

Striker led her into the other room, where a large part of the wall was still intact. He pointed at the grey insulation lining all the walls.

‘This is it here, the key to all this.’

‘The stasis-foam?’

‘You bet. The report says it’s more than just a fire-retardant, it’s impossible to X-ray through. And drug dogs can’t detect smells through it. These pockets in the insulation aren’t areas that the fire burned away — look at the ridges, they’re completely uniform.’

‘Then what are they?

‘They’re prebuilt vaults. For cash. We’re standing in the middle of a huge underworld bank, Feleesh. Even this one room alone could hold millions — and we have no idea how many other vaults were burned away in the other rooms. For all we know, the whole house could’ve been built this way. The money stolen could be in the tens of millions.’

‘But why would a gang use a grow-op for a bank when there’s such a high risk of fire?’

‘That’s the key — there’s not. The stasis foam should have prevented that, but this place wasn’t designed for being doused with white gas.’

Felicia ran her finger down the supple edges of the stasis-foam. ‘So you’re saying that Kwan and Chow and MacMillan and O’Riley are.. ’

‘Thieves. Nothing more.’

Felicia thought it through silently, while Striker went on: ‘They found the grow-op, did their due diligence, and later, after the drug teams left and everything was evacuated, they somehow discovered this.’ He pointed to the series of vaults in the walls. ‘A payday beyond what any of them could fathom. More money than they could ever have dreamed about, even collectively. So they took it — maybe as much as thirty million dollars — and then used accelerants to set the house on fire. They thought the place would burn to the ground and cover up their trail. Then they’d lay low for a few years before taking off somewhere else. They thought the gang and the police would never know better.’

‘But they hadn’t counted on the stasis-foam,’ Felicia said. ‘It slowed down the fire and gave the next Fire crew enough time to put out the blaze.’

‘Exactly. And they hadn’t counted on Shen Sun watching from the shadows. My witness, Phyllis, saw him there. Monitoring what they were doing. He knew something was up. Later, he did a thorough investigation of the house, figured out their plan and reported it to his bosses.’

‘The Shadow Dragons?’

Striker shook his head. ‘First off, don’t confuse the gangs. The Shadow Dragons are nothing but a feeder gang for the real baddies — the Triads. More specifically, the 14K Triads — the strongest faction of the worldwide gang. They’re the one every East Asian criminal wants to be a part of. They have all the power, all the history, all the respect. In Canada, their main liaison officer is Sheung Fa, who acts as kind of a bridge between the Shadow Dragons of Vancouver and his boss in Macau — the guy everyone calls Shan Chu. The Dragon Head.’

Felicia made a lost sound. ‘My head is spinning. When did you work all this out?’

‘When I finished talking to Phyllis and was waiting for you. It came together slowly, when I realised what the stasis-foam was being used for — and when Phyllis told me about the Asian guy watching the police from the bushes. That was Shen Sun Soone. So when Pevorski’s married name came up as O’Riley, all the connections were there. Kwan, Chow, MacMillan and O’Riley were stealing from the Triads, and Shen Sun Soon and his Shadow Dragons were sent to deal with it.’

‘So this was all just one big payback? Nothing more?’

‘Oh, it was payback,’ Striker said grimly, ‘but that and a whole lot more. This is the Triads we’re talking about. The 14K. Follow them back throughout their history and they have one main rule: disrespect the gang in any way and you will lose what is most precious to you.’

‘Your children?’

‘Your firstborn,’ Striker said. ‘It was a message being sent — to those who were guilty, and to the rest of the criminal underworld: steal from us — disrespect us — and this is what it will cost you.’ He let out a sour laugh. ‘Jesus, we thought Kwan was delirious back at the hospital, yammering on and on about the house being on fire, and dragons rising up all around her.’

‘She was telling us exactly what we needed to know.’

‘It also makes sense why some of the parents weren’t too willing to meet us. They were afraid. Of us and the gangs. Some of them still have other children to lose.’

Felicia looked ready to say more, but Striker’s cell went off. He snatched it from his belt and stuck it to his ear. ‘Detective Striker, Homicide.’

‘Shipwreck, it’s me.’

‘Meathead?’

‘Yeah. We’re at Shen Sun’s father’s place, down here on Raymur.’

‘And?’

‘It’s all over,’ he said. ‘We got the fucker. He’s dead.’