Evil Eye Page 4

  Moonlight silvered the steel in Evil Eye's other hand.

  HORSEMEN

  44 A Member is down!"

  The cry sparked like electricity around the lodge, short-circuiting merriment in a blackout of anger and shock. "A Member is down!" is Force jargon for "One of our own is dead." The subtext is "This one's personal." Hear those words and Mounties drop everything else. Kill a Horseman and you take on the entire 16,000-Member Force.

  The cop who threw the verbal bomb into the banquet room stood at the door, sweat trickling down his cheeks from an all-out sprint, hands shaking from overexertion or something else. DeClercq leaned over the podium for closing remarks, the last item on the agenda before the head table was piped out, hoping Jack would be back in

  time to play Pied Piper, when his joke about Chan and Princess Di was cut off.

  "A Member is down!" the shaking cop repeated.

  "Where?" DeClercq shouted to project across the room.

  "The parking lot. Between two cars. I spotted the trail of blood."

  "How?" DeClercq barked.

  "Head smashed in. His guts are ripped out."

  "Jesus Christ!" someone cursed among the chorus of gasps.

  "Who?" DeClercq snapped.

  "Inspector MacDougall."

  The tension in the lodge was a bowstring at full draw. A deep emotional connection bound them together. Policing is a fraternity of brothers and sisters, and no fraternity is tighter than the Mounted Police. They are the Mounted. They are the Force. They are Members, capital M. They are the Thin Red Line. Canada is the only country with a police force as its global national symbol, and those in this room were that icon. The loss they felt was the loss of a family member. The last time a cop was killed, they prayed collectively it would never happen again, while deep down knowing it would—and now it had.

  Each felt rage and the urge for revenge.

  Each felt more vulnerable than a moment ago.

  Nothing spooked cops more than a cop killer on the loose.

  There would be fallout.

  And the devil to pay.

  "Stop!" DeClercq ordered as several cops made for the door. "We keep our heads. We hold the line. We're trained for this. Corporal Rabidowski, secure the area. Teams on Quarry and Oliver roads. No one gets out. Only Members in."

  "ERT Members follow me," the Mad Dog growled. The Emergency Response Team fell in. The sergeant grabbed a duffel bag from near his chair, unzipped it, and passed out semiautomatic weapons. He was ready for anything around the clock.

  "Zinc," DeClercq said, turning to Chandler. "Every dog team and a chopper on the double. Get a boat up the

  Pitt River, too. Not only Ident, but specialists from the Lab. Strip HQ and detachments from Vancouver to the border. You're field-promoted head of Operations. Take Jack's job, bless his soul."

  Chandler was on a cell phone to Coquitlam OCC when DeClercq turned back to the room. "Someone bring me a map of Minnekhada Park. Corporals divide constables into flying patrols. Sergeants gather here for orders to dispatch. Two thoughts, everyone. Don't mix them up. The parking lot is off-bounds to preserve foren-sics. The killer, on the other hand, may still be around. Search for him as best you can without ruining his trail. Dogs are coming.''

  A constable rushed from one of the side rooms with a map pulled off the wall. DeClercq slanted it on the podium as sergeants grouped behind.

  "Sergeant"—DeClercq turned to Katherine Spann— "you and a flying patrol come with me. The rest of you pick a trail and be ready to move. Eric"—he turned to Chan—"get on the phone and—"

  He stopped.

  Realization dawned.

  So caught up in the battle was he, DeClercq relied on Chan as his right-hand man, not his new superior in the chain of command.

  "Dog's here," Chandler said as he swapped the cell phone for a portable radio, switching to dispatch channel. "Handler's by the parking lot."

  "Your command," Chan said to DeClercq, no bullshit between friends.

  "Cast the dog," DeClercq ordered. Then to Spann: "Grab the man who raised the cry and have him lead us back. Same route as he came."

  Past the fountain with the statue of Pan playing his flute, the Mounties reached the parking lot by the same path MacDougall and Craven had taken earlier. As they neared the clearing of cedars and shadows, a German shepherd came at the cop in the lead.

  "Wrong scent," DeClercq told the dog's master. "He found the body. Is there another track?"

  The master called the shepherd back and snapped on a line, then led him to fingers of blood reaching out from between two cars. He reapplied the dog to key on a

  different scent, casting him across the exit from the source of blood. The dog made an abrupt perpendicular turn, indicating he'd hit a track. The handler read the sign and loosed the shepherd with the command "Find 'm out." Off and bounding down the drive to the road, the dog blitzed past the ERT cops' scent mingled with the killer's, leading his handler, Spann, and the flying patrol toward the Celtic towers of the driveway gate.

  DeClercq, Chan, and Chandler stayed behind.

  Careful not to approach the corpse till Ident had combed the scene, they stood in the lot facing the path leaking blood between the cars, as Zinc shone a flashlight at MacDougall's remains. . . .

  An only child, DeClercq was nine when his father died. DeClercq was a Belgian form of the French Leclerc and, way back on his father's side, DeClercqs in Antwerp were noted architects during the Flemish Renaissance. His dad was an artist before the war and a bomber pilot during it. Ironically, after fifty ops over Germany and in North Africa, he was killed by a drunk driver while crossing a Montreal street. When peace lifted rationing after the war, people spent their money on cars and washing machines, so all the struggling artist left his son was a set of lead soldiers, his pilot's flying log, and a series of paintings— Battles That Changed the World — planned for a book.

  Withdrawn, Robert spent months alone in his room, rearranging the soldiers and memorizing the log, holding on to his father through the words he left behind ... 1942, May 30. 10/ Ops to Cologne. Over 1,000 A/C on Tgt — Beautiful Blaze . . . 1942, June 5. 13/ Ops to Essen. P.O.U/S. Reached Dutch Coast. Home on 3 Engines. Bombs in Sea . . . 1942, Sept 13. 30/ Ops Tobruk — Raided Flak Posns Using 2 x 500 & 11 x 250 lb. Fragmentation Bombs. li Commandos" Raiding. Accurate Flak. Holes in Fuselage. . . .

  That Christmas, he received a medieval fort and a miniature cannon that shot tiny shells. This was back when imagination, not lawsuits, designed toys. The lead soldiers depicted the Norman Conquest of Britain. For hours, days, weeks, he holed up in his room, knocking the figurines off the battlements. One by one he gunned

  them down with the cannon, readjusting the trajectory after each shot. A single, well-placed soldier took two weeks to hit.

  Two days before his tenth birthday, cancer claimed his mom. His aunt gave Robert her present: Battles That Changed the World. Who fought whom, where, why, and how the victor triumphed, illustrated with the paintings by his dad. His aunt providing money for a copy to cut up, Robert pinned tactic maps around his new room: Marathon, Hastings, Blenheim, Quebec, Saratoga, Waterloo, Gettysburg . . . moving lead soldiers about the floor to re-create each battle. Models of Spits, Stukas, Flying Tigers, and Sopwith Camels hung above. The Red Knight of Vienna, the Silver Knight of Augsburg, and a pair of Roman gladiators fought on his desk. The boy slept in a war museum.

  Doting on the orphan as if he were her son, the maiden aunt in Quebec became his guardian. When he was fourteen, she took him to Britain and France. Locked in a psychological danse macabre with death, his interest in fiction centered on Bradbury, Lovecraft, and Poe, so Jack the Ripper's East End, Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, and the Bloody Tower drew him like a moth to flame, until he discovered the second floor of Foyle's Books. Haunt of Walt Disney and George Bernard Shaw, Foyle's is a hodgepodge maze of forgotten tomes tracked by a cash system out of Dickens. It remained DeClercq's favorite London oddity.
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  "Yes?" said the clerk in Military History, raising eyes behind Coke-bottle glasses from a giant biography of Montgomery of El Alamein.

  "Colonial battles? Where are they?"

  "Ah," said the clerk. "French, are we?"

  "French Canadian," Robert said, disappointed his English accent required work.

  "Colonial Wars are shelved in two divisions," the clerk joshed, deadpan. "Glory and Blunders. Where does your interest lie?"

  "Glory," Robert said.

  "Over there. Under Flags and Bunting."

  Sucked into a seducing hell of Redcoats, bagpipes, and singing swords, blood red spilling around the globe to Africa, India, Burma, Malaya, China, Australia, New

  Zealand, Canada, Caribbean Islands, and other conquered lands, staining maps royal red for the Empire on which the sun never set, Robert was entranced by tales of the Iron Duke and Nelson Touch; Lords Raglan, Lucan, and Cardigan's Charge of the Light Brigade into the Valley of Death; the Siege of Delhi, Well at Cawn-pore, and Relief of Lucknow during the Sepoy Mutiny; the Opium War with China and storming the Heights of Laloo; Wilfred Blake and the Ashanti War; Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift, and Ulundi; Gordon of Khartoum and the Road to Mandalay. . . .

  "Thin Red Line, is it?"

  The clerk snooped over his shoulder.

  "Strange, when all the color you need is in your own backyard."

  Tactics had served DeClercq well in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, where his campaigns were launched against psychos and predators, not foreign folk defending their homes. As in every war, there were battle casualties, but the last thing he became a Mountie for was this. . . .

  When Eric Chan was ten years old, his father sat him down for a man-to-man talk. They were on the porch of their Strathcona home, less than a block from Chinatown. The family next door was painting a dragon for the New Year's parade.

  "Son," the elder Chan said, an abacus in his hand, "four secrets lead to success in Gold Mountain. One"—he flicked across a bead—"be pragmatic. If you wish to prosper, you adapt. Two"—he flicked another bead—"be self-reliant. Earn your own way. Don't expect handouts. Three"—a third bead clicked—"be industrious. To succeed, you must work hard. Four"—he pushed the beads back— "be discreet. The ghosts despise a wealthy Chinese."

  The antique calculator of wood and brass passed from father to son.

  "Your great-great-grandfather worked the Cariboo mines. He was a British Columbian at the start. Not once in five generations have we left this land, surviving through hard work and the long view. The time has come, youngest son, for you to join the business, so where in our grocery does your future lie?"

  "I want to be a Mounted Policeman," Eric said.

  His father choked.

  Only through "the long view" did Chan survive. The Chinese consider police work "the dishonorable profession," so Eric's nose was bloodied weekly at school. Finally, when he rapped on the door, the Force didn't want him either, for traditionally Red Serge enhanced a white face. If not for burgeoning heroin traffic from Asia, his application would have been denied. Eric Chan was the Mounted's first nonwhite.

  While training at Depot Division in 1961, he was nicknamed "Charlie" by the ghost recruits. Ostracized, one afternoon he bussed to the library, where he read Earl Derr Biggers's The House Without a Key. Charlie Chan was the hero of the book, a great detective fond of prophetic proverbs. Fresh weeds are better than withered roses y Chan thought.

  Eric's most embarrassing date was his first Red Serge Ball. Sally Fan, now his wife, flew in for the dance. As they entered the banquet hall, conversation hushed. Chan wondered why until he found their table: sixteen chairs and only two name tags. "It doesn't matter," Sally whispered. "Pretend it's a restaurant." A few minutes later, a couple approached from the head table with their plates and cutlery. "Mind if we join you? We're Kate and Robert DeClercq."

  Chan worked hard to become the Force expert on Triads and heroin. Forming the Asian Gang Squad was his idea, after he drove the Five Dragons from the West Coast. When HQ began selecting Members for college degrees, he studied random processes and probability at UBC. Graduating with honors, he computerized the Force, programming the Headhunter dragnet in 1982. The Violent Crimes Analysis Section was also his idea. Corporal, to sergeant, to inspector, his foresight paid off, and now "the long view" had launched him to one of the six top positions in the RCMP.

  As deputy commissioner, his next formal duty would be a Red Serge funeral. . . .

  Chandlers had worked their Saskatchewan farm for a century. Zinc's dad had raised two boys to inherit the land, and never forgave his elder son for abandoning it

  to join the Force. Pop's last gasp on his deathbed was "At least one turned out a man."

  Zinc and his brother Tom were dressed for bed. Pop sat at the kitchen table with his drinking buddies, and slopped a round of Canadian Club from the bottle in his hand. Fixing his rheumic eyes on the ten-year-old he slurred:

  "Take up the White Man's burden—

  And reap his old reward: The blame of those ye better,

  The hate of those ye guard.

  "Think lively, son. Name the bard."

  "Kipling, Pop," Zinc replied.

  Her workday far from over while Pop held court, Zinc's mom sighed and turned from the sink. "Run along, boys. And say your prayers."

  For hours he heard them carousing through the bedroom wall, betting who could identify the most obscure poem, thumbing the thick anthology that arbitrated the game. When the Plowmen Poets were so sloshed they could barely speak, Pop began to rant at life. The speech was a standard. The same each time.

  First Pop quoted from Wordsworth's The Fountain:

  "The wiser mind

  Mourns less for what age takes away

  Than what it leaves behind."

  Then he launched into a wild tirade on the tyranny of time: how life was so unfair because we peaked at twenty-one when we didn't know sweet-fuck-all, spending the wise years of our lives watching our flesh decline, sliding downhill slowly at first, but gaining speed rapidly as middle age took hold. "What's the use?" Pop shouted. "Why struggle on?" Then he turned his vitriol on Zinc's mom.

  Oh, how he hated Pop for that. Lying in the bunk beds he shared with Tom, listening to the old man berate his wife.

  "Would you believe it, boys. Look at her. Prettiest girl in Saskatchewan the day we wed. See what cruel

  time has done? Left me with a crinkled, gray-haired hag."

  Shivering in the dark, Zinc's heart bled for her. Why did she put up with such abuse? For the sake of her sons? Because she was afraid? Crying himself to sleep, he promised one day he'd make the hurt up to her.

  Come morning, Zinc knew what to expect. Hungover and sleep-deprived, Pop would make him run the gauntlet of the bards, hitting him with quote on quote to bring him to his knees, flaring at his mother if she tried to intervene.

  "Stand back, woman," Pop would growl. 'Til not raise an illiterate lout.

  "For he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day:

  But he who is in battle slain Can never rise and fight again.

  'Think lively, son. Name the bard."

  "Goldsmith, Pop."

  Then one day he'd stood up to the old man. Told him to his face he didn't deserve a wife like her, someone who saw him through drought, famine, near bankruptcy, and his boozing bouts, someone who made him a good home and defended him against gossip no matter how big an ass he was. Told Pop eye to eye he was a piss-tank bully, but the beating he'd taken in return was so severe it made his mother scream, so Zinc never mouthed off like that again to save her distress.

  Got the old man back, though, by becoming a cop.

  Pop had hated cops since the Depression, when he was clubbed unconscious in the Regina Riot.

  What Zinc hadn't joined the Force for was to shine a light on this . . .

  The beam of the flashlight lit the aisle like a spotlight onstage. Jack's head was toward them with his legs in the fa
r bushes. He lay faceup while a stream of blood flowed their way. A red smear on the ground showed he had been dragged, the back of his head concave where his skull was smashed in. Both his shirt and Red Serge waistcoat were slashed from sternum to groin,

  spilling pinkish-brown coils from his abdomen. The sliced bowels discharged yellowish-brown intestinal fluid into a pool of blood.

  "Kill the torch," Chan said in disgust.

  When the beam died, the sole light was the grin of the moon.

  "Jack was clubbed from behind near the driver's door," said DeClercq, "then dragged by the feet half into the woods to shadow the body from sight."

  "The bludgeoning killed him," Chandler said. "So why the disemboweling?"

  The question hung pregnant in the night.

  Finally, Chan said vehemently, "I want this prick. Jurisdiction or not, the case is ours." The "ours" registered with DeClercq as head of Special X—horror had psychologically pulled Eric back to the squad—and the rancor made him turn. By the anemic glow of the moon he saw muscles jump along the jaw of Chan's balding, foxlike face. Today DeClercq had lost both his right- and left-hand men: Eric to promotion and Jack to death. He was unaware the inspectors were that close, then their bond struck like a clock.

  Prejudice, he thought.

  Eric was Chinese.

  Jack was gay.

  The portable in Chandler's fist squawked to life. "Mad Dog"—Spann's voice—"we're looking for a car. Anything suspect?"

  "Negative here. I'm at the junction of Oliver Road and Gilleys Trail."

  "The dog?" Chandler said. "Where'd he lead?"

  "Out the gate"—Spann again—"turning right past the cars lining Oliver Road. Nose up, he stopped by an empty space and worked in a circle. Handler read him as 'Off the track. This is the end.' The killer escaped in the missing car."

  "Echo Five?" The Mad Dog.

  "Copy, Bravo Three."

  ''Anything your end?"