The Unlucky (21 page)

At least heading for that Chinese restaurant was going to be fun in this thing.

Sarah got in, started the engine, felt its low rumble, and then peeled out of the lot. She turned on the stereo system and played the CD in the dash. Skrillex shot out of the speakers.

“Interesting taste, Detective.”

After heading south a few city blocks, then across Queen Street and up Spadina toward China Town, Sarah located the restaurant by psychic magnetism as Vivian guided her. When she laid eyes on the front of the building, she knew it for what it was. Not a restaurant, but a drop location. A place that took payments, facilitated the movement of cocaine locally and was a big import-export player. Shipments were narcotics, but also humans. The food serving part of the restaurant was only there so deals could be made over chicken chow mein and sweet and sour chicken balls.

The street was lined with vehicles. She eased by the restaurant slowly and watched the building. The two men acting nonchalant and chatting on cell phones out front were security. The one on the right had a shoulder holster exposed. She had to assume the building was wired with cameras and like a casino, those cameras were always monitored by someone in a back room.

Maybe she would try the rear door or a window at the side of the building. There had to be a way in without walking through the front door.

Garbage littered the sidewalk and the smell of the area came off the already-hot pavement. The sidewalks were scattered with hundreds of people shopping, touring, and preparing for lunch. Ill equipped with a small gun, she had no idea how she was going to get inside and rescue Samantha Mason.

Sarah turned up a side street half a block away and parked by a garbage bin. She kept the car away from the brick wall of the building to her right so she could use the passenger door if she needed it to get Samantha inside fast.

After turning off the Pontiac, Sarah checked her mirrors and removed her seatbelt.

“I’m here, Sis,” she said to the empty car. “What now?”

At first nothing came, even though Sarah could feel Vivian was close.

“Vivian? Anything? Any ideas on how you want me to get inside this restaurant and extract—”

Get down!

Sarah reacted instantly, lying across the seat of the Catalina. It was like a sofa, one long piece.

“What was that for?” Sarah whispered. Her hand snaked back and withdrew Diner’s gun, her eyes on the driver’s side window. “You gonna tell me why you yelled in my head like that? It’s disorientating. Scares the fuck out of me.”

Chinese voices bickered about something close by. Cautiously, Sarah sat up high enough to use the passenger side mirror to look behind the car, then ducked back down.

“Holy shit, holy shit,” she muttered over and over.

She fumbled for her cell phone, hit 911 and got directed to the police department. As the line clicked, the Chinese voices outside stopped arguing.

“Police, what’s the emergency?”

Sarah checked the mirror once more. Earlier there had been three, but now five men fanned out behind the Pontiac Catalina. Each man carried a large machine gun slung over his shoulder. But now all five men had them aimed at the Pontiac.

“What’s the emergency?” the 911 dispatcher asked again. “Is someone there? Are you all right?”

Sarah opened her mouth to speak but was cut off as a cacophony of machine guns erupted behind the car. The cell phone dropped out of her hand and fell to the floor mats as she moved to cover her head. The vehicle shook violently from the assault of the fusillade. The back window burst inward, covering her in bits of tempered glass. She couldn’t hear herself scream as the bullets rained down.

For fear of the car’s gas tank exploding, she wanted to get out, but the thought of moving anywhere, let alone into the open without the protection of the car, kept her immobile.

Then, just as fast as it started, it stopped. She panted like she’d just come up from under water after being submerged too long. She moved to check the mirrors, but both outside mirrors were shattered. Glass covered the seat and floor. Even the front windshield was broken in multiple places.

Diner’s going to kill me.

Without eyes on her surroundings, her attackers could be walking up to the car on either side and she wouldn’t know about it. She had to get out of the car.

Using the tip of her shoe, she pulled the door handle toward her and pushed outward with her other foot. The driver’s side door popped open. The second it was open all the way, gunfire exploded from behind, shattering the inside panel. Chunks of plastic, liner and little bits of metal danced from the assault and came to rest on the pavement below.

She let out a small scream and reached for the passenger side door, shoving it open. Then she thrust forward and was about to climb out the passenger side head first when more bullets hit that side. The door was destroyed to the point where it broke free from the body of the car and dangled at a forty-five degree angle.

The guns wouldn’t let up. There was no way out. All routes of escape were cut off by a deadly hail of bullets. She screamed at the injustice. Why allow her to park here? Why did Vivian let it end like this?

Through the front windshield, from her spread-out position on the front seat, Sarah stared up at the blue sky, panting, mouth open, covered in a cool sweat. She had been through a lot, but had never been held down like this by machine guns. Diner’s small weapon would be no match for the five men behind her vehicle.

At any moment one of those men would walk up beside the car, spin their hand cannon toward Sarah, and empty their clip until her body succumbed in an epileptic death dance.

The distant whoop of a police siren felt like safety, security. But there was no way those men would walk away, the job incomplete. This wasn’t a warning. This was a death squad and they had left her with no play.

Glass crunched underfoot nearby.

The police were still too far away. Her life would be over in seconds.

Vivian wouldn’t leave her in this situation unless there was a way out.

Glass crunched again. Sarah assessed how close they were. Then closed her eyes and whispered to Vivian to help in locating them.

She counted to one.

Slipped her finger inside the trigger guard.

Counted to two.

Applied pressure on the trigger.

Three.

She opened her eyes, sat up, aimed out the broken back window and shot three times into the chest of the man standing by the trunk. Even as he fell, red bursting up on his chest where Sarah’s bullets entered, the four remaining men twenty feet back opened fire on the Pontiac again. This time they didn’t stop until they emptied their weapons and had to reload.

Sarah screamed along with the assault, waiting for the moment when their ammunition would pierce the back of the car at the right angle, enter through the back seat and continue through the front seat and into her. With her head between her arms and legs scrunched up, covered in glass and various other pieces of upholstery, an idea occurred to her.

She couldn’t exit the car through the doors and going out the broken back window would be stepping into the line of fire.

But the broken front windshield was another case entirely.

Quickly, before they could reload and continue towards the car, Sarah swung her legs around and kicked at the windshield with both feet. Two hard stomps later and it disconnected from the frame in almost one piece. It landed on the hood, slid down and fell off slightly to the right.

She pivoted on the seat, got her feet under her and twisted around to fire her weapon out the back window.

The four men were just bringing their weapons around to aim at the destroyed Pontiac Catalina as Sarah’s bullets went wide. It had the effect she wanted as each man ducked aside and spread out to avoid being hit.

She pushed off with her feet and dove through the open windshield, holding the gun tight. Her shoulder took the hit on the hood of the car before she rolled off and smacked onto the pavement. Before she could catch her breath, she looked under the car for anyone approaching but the alleyway behind the Pontiac was empty now.

The four Chinese assassins had disappeared. Only the body of the one she shot was visible.

Police sirens were pulling up out front of the restaurant and at the mouth of the road she had parked on. It had been a long time since she was happy to have the police arrive.

Weakened by the ordeal, her muscles jelly-like, she pushed off the dirty ground, slipped Diner’s gun away, and got to her feet. A minor tremble went through her knees. She leaned on the hood of the car and examined the extensive damage.

How the hell did I survive that?

Men ran into the street and looked her way.

“Hey,” one shouted. “You there. Freeze!”

Sarah turned away and hobbled into a back alley. Finding strength from somewhere, she ran to the end of the alley until she realized she was standing behind the Chinese restaurant that held Samantha Mason.

The back door was opening. She caught a glimpse of a uniform as she slipped behind two large garbage dumpsters. Stained cardboard boxes and wooden crates were piled high by one dumpster. She edged behind them and covered her feet with a crate. The smell of rotting food was overwhelming. Scents of rot and decay came off black gunk piled under her shoulder blades. Grease or used vegetable oil piled an inch thick already oozed through her T-shirt. A mouse scurried inside the crate beside her head, dining on a half-eaten piece of something that might have once been lemon chicken.

She retched silently as the smell was so horrid she could taste the rot. She covered her mouth fast enough to quell any noise as men drew near her position.

A few words came her way. They were talking about a woman. Something about a funeral home. The two officers who had chased her from the Pontiac stepped close to the garbage bins.

The mouse turned to watch her. Its tiny nose sniffed the air, its whiskers jerking back and forth. Then it moved closer and sniffed the air again.

If she screamed now, it was over. There could be no coming back from this. No resolution to her Toronto tasks and the people she hunted would get away with everything.

Come on, Sarah. Get tougher. Like the old days. Fuck this situation and everything about it. You’re better than a shit mouse.

She tightened her jaw, clenched her fists and then paid attention to the men on the other side of the garbage bins.

One of the lids opened and slammed down.

“Hey, what are you doing there?” someone asked.

For a brief second, Sarah thought they had discovered her and that the voice was addressed to her.

“We followed the girl down here, Councilor. Just checking to see if she jumped in one of these bins to hide.”

Councilor?

The other bin’s lid slammed back into place.

“Carry on. No one ran down this way.”

“Yes sir.”

The man they called Councilor moved closer. She couldn’t see him from her position, but another man walked with him.

“We almost got her. Had her pinned down in that car. What happened?”

“The police got here,” another voice said. “Someone else must’ve called them.”

“Okay, find her. Kill her. We can dispose of the body at the funeral home.”

Funeral home? The same one Vivian asked Aaron to meet me at in the note she left him?
Sarah closed her eyes.
Golly, thanks Vivian. Guess I’m dead, is that it?

“What about the woman’s body?”

“Take Samantha’s corpse to the funeral home, too. I’m meeting Niles Mason there later. They can cremate together. Then we cremate the stupid girl and it’s done. This whole mess will end. Now, leave me. I have to make a call.”

One set of steps moved out of earshot. A moment later, the councilor started talking but he had turned away from her and was whispering something unintelligible.

She was too late.

Samantha Mason had been killed. This councilor was responsible and now he was going to kill Detective Niles Mason.

She eased Diner’s empty gun out and quietly escaped her hiding place behind the garbage bins.

It was time to turn the heat up.

It was time to stop the murders by killing a few more assholes.

Chapter 25

After easing out from under the crates, Sarah crouched behind the dumpster and scanned the alleyway. The councilor talked on his phone five feet away, near the back of a Lincoln Continental.

Marshall Machiavelli.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Machiavelli said into his phone, his back to Sarah as she stood to her full height. “The fact that that meddling bitch was in the vicinity makes the plan work. Explain during your press conference that Sarah Roberts has murdered again and Samantha Mason, a cop’s wife was the victim. That’s why there’s a large police presence here now. Say that we’re locking the area down to find Samantha’s murderer, an American named Sarah Roberts. The public will believe it.”