Sean Slater - The survivor

What he saw made his stomach tighten.

He checked over the first victim, finding three well-placed shots, two in the chest and one in the head. He rolled the body over to see the exit wounds, then did the same with the second victim, who had also been shot three times. Two in the chest, one in the head. And by the looks of things, they were from a forty cal. Exact same placement and the exact same kind of ammo Red Mask had used on the targeted kids at St Patrick’s High.

And by Hydra-Shok rounds.

It told Striker what he had already known in the darkest corner of his heart.

Red Mask was still alive.

High above the Pacific Ocean, at approx thirty-seven thousand feet, the Man with the Bamboo Spine walked down the centre aisle of the 747 in an effort to stretch his joints. At just over six foot, he was tall for an Asian male, and lanky. His legs and arms were disproportionately long in comparison to the rest of his body.

On returning to his seat, he pulled out the laptop given to him back in Macau. He powered it on, punched in his password, SWORDS, then waited for the operating system to finish loading. The ticket he had purchased was for a window seat. He had also purchased the seat next to him.

When the flight attendant came by and asked him if he was thirsty, he said, ‘Yes.’ When she asked him if wanted tea or coffee, he said, ‘Tea, black.’ And when she asked him if he wanted anything else, he said, ‘No.’ These were the first words he had spoken since entering this plane the previous day on the other side of the world.

He waited in silence, looking at nothing until the flight attendant returned with his drink. He folded down the tray of the next seat, accepted the tea, and placed the cup down in the circular inset. He waited for the flight attendant to leave.

When she was gone, he got to work.

The laptop was an Apple, and it had a rotatable screen. He turned the screen forty degrees to the left, so that it faced the window, where only he could see it. He brought up the file folder that was password protected and encrypted by FolderSecure. He used his second password, THUNDERBOLTS, to gain access, then opened the unlocked folder.

Images popped up.

Spread across the screen were five jpegs. Four of them were the faces of children, smiling, happy. Three of them were now dead. One was presumably alive, the whereabouts unknown. The fifth jpeg was an image of a man he had not seen in decades. Not since those bad, bad times that he never thought about any more.

The sight stirred strange feelings inside of him.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine looked at the images for a long time as the plane crossed the Pacific Ocean and entered Canadian air space. He did not shut the computer down until the flight attendant announced that they would soon be making their descent.

He sat straight and said nothing more. Stared at the back of the seat in front of him as the plane prepared to land.

Vancouver, Canada.

He had arrived.

Striker and Felicia left the crime scene in Rothschild’s capable hands and cruised the Skids. It was fast approaching two o’clock. Above them, any clarity of blue sky was being slowly hazed over with a depressive greyness.

It matched the areas they were searching — the Raymur underpass with its tranny hookers; Pigeon Park with its open drug trafficking; Oppenheimer with its endless fighting drunks; and now, Blood Alley with its drug-sick hypes and crazies.

At times, this city felt like a demented fun house.

Striker and Felicia were searching for someone who could ID the three dead men in the van. Their best bet was forty-five-year-old Carol Kalwateen, who went by the street name Trixie. She was a regular around the Skids, and Chinatown, and the Strathcona Projects. She had been a rounder for as long as Striker could remember.

Trixie had started out as a high-end call girl, one who was popular among the Asian gangs. So popular she’d ended up helping them in their business deals — holding six, providing a safe house, and often being paid as a go-between.

In her day, Trixie had done very well.

Then she’d become a girlfriend to a mid-level drug trafficker for the Red Eagles. A guy by the name of Ngoc. That had been a long time ago. So long it was measured in decades, not years. After that, Trixie had jumped loyalties from gang to gang, becoming connected internationally, and getting even richer in the process. Things had gone extremely well.

Then she’d started using her own product.

Within two years Trixie had become an addict — heroine and crack cocaine predominantly, but there was other stuff, too. A little meth. A little prescription. Over the years, her habit had grown, pushing past the point of her drug-sale profits. So she’d returned to stealing and whoring, doing up to twenty Johns a day.

And it showed.

Every time Striker saw her, she looked thinner, a bit more haggard. Back when he’d first known her, she hadn’t been that bad. He’d even liked her, found her more pleasant than the other crooks he had to deal with down here. But now she was just like the rest — a desperate addict. One step away from some violent form of death.

Such was the life of the Skids.

‘This is another one of her hangs,’ Striker told Felicia. ‘Keep your eyes open.’

They drove down the old, uneven cobblestones of Blood Alley, on the north side of the Stanley Hotel, which was the last chance for any drugged-out crazy before they were sleeping on the streets. Striker looked around the laneway. Cobblestone road, old iron lamps turned green from rain and time, and a small brick patio courtyard, hidden behind the roundabout of maple trees and flower-filled planters. The scene should have seemed quaint, tranquil. But this was Blood Alley.

It held nothing but pain, bad memories, and death.

‘Eyes left,’ Felicia said.

Striker looked past the roundabout and spotted the woman they’d been searching for. Trixie was leaning up against the far wall in one of the narrow alcoves beneath the rusted stairwell, the shadows almost hiding her completely.

Her twitching was what attracted their attention.

‘She’s got the sickies,’ Felicia said.

Striker agreed.

Trixie was swaying back and forth. Twisting like an old wooden building during an earthquake. Her muscles twitched. Her limbs jerked. She made nervous groans that were audible, even inside the car.

‘Man, she’s got it bad,’ Striker said. He brought the cruiser to a slow stop, then placed it in park. He climbed out, felt the cold rush of damp air on his face. Stepped around the rusting metal staircase and marched straight into the darkness.

Felicia caught up to him. There was a guy standing next to Trixie — a clean looking white guy, no doubt here for some cheap suck and fuck. She gave him a cold stare.

‘Get walking, asshole,’ she said.

He didn’t say a word — the guilty ones rarely did — but just spun away from them and hurried westward down the breeze-way, thankful he wasn’t going to be charged. Thankful that his wife and kids wouldn’t find out. When he was out of ear’s reach, Striker took a long hard look at Trixie and shook his head.

‘You’ll get killed down here, you know.’

Trixie looked back like she recognised him, but couldn’t find the name — despite the fact he’d arrested her thirty times and had dealt with her a couple hundred more. She took a weak step forward, into the better light of the old iron streetlamps, and focused on him.

‘Detective Striker?’

‘So you remember me.’

He looked her over, felt a tug at his heart. In the better light, the truth was harsh. She looked terrible. Her clothes were rags. Her emaciated body had no muscle left; she was just translucent skin over knobby bone. Drug eruption sores covered her flesh. Her right eye was swollen shut. The rest of her face was bruised like an overripe banana. She’d been shit-kicked, probably over a crack debt.