He stood back from the vehicle and took a short walk to the other side of the garage. It gave him some space – room to think. He stood in the corner for a long moment, going over everything in his head.

I must be missing something.

He turned, looked back at the car and saw Felicia standing there, her coffee-depleted patience thinning. Her long dark hair had been sprayed down and combed out, but it was obvious she’d slept on it wrong all night. A thought occurred to him.

‘Is the radio turned on?’

‘Radio?’

‘Inside the Civic. Is it on?’

Felicia looked inside, shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Christ. The radio is part of the circuit.’

He marched back to the car and leaned inside the driver’s seat. The radio was brand new, one of those disc, radio and mp3 players, all built into one. There was no brand name anywhere on the device. Just a plain black faceplate with all the LEDs turned off. Striker pressed the power button, and the faceplate lit up in bright neon blue. The screen said DISC, but nothing was playing. He grabbed the happy face magnet, handed it back to Felicia, and grinned.

‘One more time.’

Like before, Felicia placed the magnet down on the far end of the dashboard. Striker grabbed the remote, and they started the entire process all over again. When they reached the midway point of the dashboard – with the happy face magnet positioned directly above the D in DISC – Striker hit the fob and an unseen electronic lock disengaged somewhere. The click was sharp, audible, and it was followed by a soft whirring sound.

Felicia flinched. ‘What the hell is that?’

Before Striker could respond, the entire front section of the dashboard came apart. The front half moved forward, away from the baseboard. It lowered towards them on a pair of automated, gliding hinges, revealing a hidden compartment that went deep under the dashboard, back towards the engine area.

Striker smiled.

‘That’s the jackpot.’

Thirty-One

Ten minutes later, Striker and Felicia draped brown paper over a work table, then laid out everything they’d found inside the hidden compartment. The list was brief but significant:

One Benelli shotgun, single-barrel, pump-action.

Two 40-calibre Glock handguns. Pistols. Modified to be fully automatic.

Ammunition, boxed and open. Slugs and 40-calibre. Hollow-tip variety and steel-cased Full Metal Jacket.

And one ordinary brown legal-size envelope with over ten grand in cash inside.

Striker held it up, grinned. ‘Coffee money.’

Felicia finally gave him the smile he’d been drilling for all morning. ‘Make mine a latte.’

He gathered up all the free ammunition, stuck one of the rounds inside his pocket, then placed the rest in a brown paper bag for Ident. He left it in the centre of the table with a large sign that read: Ammo from Hidden Compartment in Civic. Check for Prints.

Then he called Noodles and told him about the find.

‘This is fucking insane,’ Noodles said. ‘I was just gonna call you. I heard about the ammo issues, so I did some analysis here. Looks to me like these kids were shot with different types. Some 762s and some frangible forty-cals.’

Striker glanced left at Felicia as she stared into the car at the hidden compartment. ‘I’ve got matching ammo here, Noodles. These guys were pros. I need you to get down here and look at this stuff.’

‘No can do. I’m still covering bases here on the docks with the Wong body. Plus you got me chasing down samples on Leung’s body. I’m gonna be hours still – you’re making too many crime scenes for me, you prick.’

Striker cursed. ‘I need you, Noodles.’

‘I’m sending John Winter down.’

‘Winter? He’s a friggin’ rookie.’

‘Maybe so, but he came in second overall in the competition back East. I taught the kid everything I know, Shipwreck. He’s good.’

Striker accepted it, albeit grudgingly. ‘Keep me posted on everything, and get Winter to call me when he’s done.’

Noodles agreed, then hung up. Striker walked back to the table, picked up one of the Glocks and scanned it for a serial number. Felicia was staring at him with a lost look on her face.

‘How did you know?’ she said. ‘About the compartment?’

‘I already told you. I’d seen it before and had taken courses.’

‘But what exactly? Walk me through it.’

Striker put down the Glock. ‘Well, there were a few things, really. The ignition was brand new and had clearly been replaced. That was the biggest clue. But there were other things, too. Couple of scuff marks where the dash meets the steering column. And then there was the fob.’

‘But that fob could’ve been for anything – a garage, an apartment, another car.’

‘Could’ve been. But it wasn’t.’

She said nothing, she just stared at him. Her dark eyes were beautiful but hard to read.

Striker shrugged. ‘Like I said, it was one of many factors.’

‘And the happy face?’

‘More specifically, the magnet inside. It was very strong. Kept sticking to everything. And you needed that to complete the circuit. It’s one of those extra little securities these maggots use nowadays, so that patrol cops can’t use the fob to unlock the compartment during street checks. That’s why the radio also had to be turned on, to complete the circuit. It’s one more safety precaution for dial-a-dopers.’

She nodded. ‘What else?’

Striker took the other pistol from the table, scanned it for a serial. Found none. ‘For two, no trinket should’ve been there at all. Think about it. No assassin’s going to start accessorising his key chain for a stolen car he intends to dump. It was there for a reason. I just had to figure out what that reason was – though I’m still a little bit lost as to why he left the keys at the scene in the first place. Must’ve dropped them, been his first mistake.’ He gave Felicia a thoughtful look. ‘Maybe he’s hurt worse than we thought.’

Felicia was quiet for a moment, then leaned against the car and crossed her arms. ‘Well bravo, Jacob. Nice to see you had so many ideas in your head all this time. And thanks so much for keeping me in the loop.’

He looked up from the gun barrel he was assessing. ‘You’re not actually pissed, are you?’

‘We’re partners, and you didn’t even tell me.’

‘I wasn’t sure.’

‘You had an idea.’

Striker picked up the shotgun. The serial number had been removed from the barrel here too. It was to be expected. He scanned the steel for any grind marks, saw none, and nodded. Half to himself, half to Felicia.

‘No serial.’

This seemed to distract her. ‘Gone? Completely?’

‘Looks like it. We’ll do the DNA thing first. Check it against the databank. But that will take a few weeks at best, even with a priority rush. Then we’ll see if the Feds can get some serial numbers from the barrels.’

‘You said the serial was gone.’

‘It is. But they didn’t file it off, they used acid.’ Striker held up the barrel for her to see and rubbed his finger along the black shiny barrel. The metal was smooth. ‘The factory stamping leaves an impression right through the steel. Lasers can pick it up. Problem is we got none here, but the Feds do. And if they can get a serial, we’ll do a trace, see if it’s registered. But I wouldn’t hold your breath.’

Felicia looked at all the guns laid out on the table. ‘So we got no serials.’

Striker put the shotgun back down alongside them. ‘Not worried about the serials. What I want to know is whether these guns were used on any of the victims. Ballistics will have to tell us that. Through the pathologist.’

‘But the serials—’

‘There’s a billion handguns in North America, Feleesh. Registered, unregistered, it makes no difference. There’s just too damn many for us to track. They fly across the borders like leaves. A gun won’t lead us anywhere. What will, is the hidden compartment – there’s only a handful of people in this country who can make that.’