Fire Lake

by J C Paulson

  “You know shit,” he said.

  “I’m sure you thought it was important work. You knew why they’d chosen that drug. They wanted to see just how apeshit those men would go. Good in theatre, maybe, but not in peacekeeping. But Somalia was a very good place to test it. No one would give a damn what happened over there. Such a backward country.

  “We know differently now, though, don’t we? The Shidane Arone murder showed us that. And now, Adrian, you’re the fall guy. Cleaning up the mess. Killing the witnesses, the ones who knew right from wrong. Lucky for you they had PTSD, so badly they couldn’t come forward. But when they found that child’s remains, everything changed. I think I know why.”

  During this speech, Cey’s face had turned into a mask of rage.

  “You know shit,” he repeated. “I will be exonerated. I will be repaid for my efforts. My friends, Adam, are in high places.”

  “Too late, Adrian.”

  “You don’t know who my friends are.”

  “I do know that you’re the most disposable man in the plan, apart from George. The bottom of the barrel. Why else would you be doing the dirty work?”

  “I’m talking about one of the highest authorities in the country, Adam. I have connections. They’ll never let you get to me. You’ll be dead first.”

  “Why did you kill Al Simpson?” Adam switched topics. “Did you think he’d roll over and give us a list of all the Airborne soldiers? And all his superiors? He was one of the men who buried Abukar. Did you threaten him with a summary trial? Were you still pissed that he fucked that up? And why didn’t he recognize you?”

  “No comment.”

  “We’ve found his body. We’ve interviewed his family. We know for sure that Abukar Dualeh was killed by your men. Someone dug a bullet out of that child’s brain. It will be in the paper tomorrow. It was you.”

  Cey leaped to his feet, placed his hands on the table and screamed into Adam’s face: “You’re lying.”

  But Adam was not. He knew Grace was almost ready to publish.

  He reached into his pocket and drew out a velvet bag with a drawstring, once the home of a bottle of whisky. Pulling it open, he allowed the bullets inside to fall clattering to the table in a metallic rain.

  “Your trophies, I assume, Adrian.”

  “How did you find them?” Cey screamed.

  “They were at Harbour House. Not hard to find. You couldn’t resist having them nearby, could you? Bad move, Adrian.”

  “I’ll deny it! I’ll say they’re not mine. You have to stop it! Stop the story,” Cey shouted. “It’ll fuck everything up. He won’t be in, and all of this will have been for nothing.”

  “Be in?” Adam asked.

  “They’ll court martial him.” Cey was ranting now. “It’ll all be for nothing. I tried to protect him. I did everything they wanted. I even took the fall in a summary trial. You can’t put my name in the paper. They’ll know. He’ll know.”

  “Who will know?”

  “He’s going to change everything,” Cey hissed, eyes bright and sly. “He’ll make the military a real force, not just a ragtag bunch of fucking peacekeepers. He’ll bring back the airborne, the joint task force. I’ll be part of it again. This time, I’ll have power. I’ve been promised. Think about it, Adam. A warrior force.”

  Adam was thinking about it, urging his brain to unearth a name, or at least a rank. Who was going to change everything?

  He thought about all the names he had searched earlier that afternoon . . . the majors, the generals, the high-ranking men from the early-to-mid 1990s who had been fired. It couldn’t be any of them; they had long since disappeared in disgrace and wouldn’t return to the public sphere. It was someone who survived the purge, someone still active, someone who managed to dodge the mess and avoid public condemnation.

  Then it rang in his brain. What Best had said: “I never knew if he or Phi . . . he would make good on his threats to expose me.” Adam thought it was just a splutter, a break in the sentence.

  No. Now he knew. He decided to take a shot. Only one thing made sense.

  “I’ll contact the government, then. I have to get in touch with the Ministry of Defence anyway, to tell them what you’ve told me, and what George told me.” Adam stood up, as if to leave the room. “Goodbye, Adrian.”

  “That won’t get you anywhere,” Cey said, the arrogant grin returning to his face.

  “I thought you might say that,” Adam said. “Thanks, Adrian. That’s exactly what I needed to know.”

  Cey paled. “How did you figure it out? That it was Richard Phillips?”

  Adam smiled. It had to be someone in the ministry; he just wasn’t sure who, until today. He almost couldn’t believe it. Between them, Best and Adrian had slipped up. Given him a name.

  Got him.

  “I didn’t, but now I know. The new Minister of Defence. Who else could it be, with that kind of power?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Murders, military drug abuse linked to Minister of Defence

  October 3, 2007

  Page One

  By Grace Rampling

  And Lacey McPhail

  Of The StarPhoenix

  In 1993, a fifteen-year-old boy named Abukar Dualeh was murdered by Canadian soldiers near Belet Huen, Somalia, for attempting to steal from the Airborne Regiment’s supply tent.

  The Airborne was in Somalia on a peacekeeping mission during that country’s civil war.

  Last month, Dualeh’s remains were found in a sandy grave uncovered over time by the desert winds. The discovery of his body has recently led to the murders of three other men, all of them former soldiers and two of them suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

  Implicated in the killings is Richard Phillips, a former officer commanding (OC) with a once-promising political career. The prime minister, who announced the installation of Phillips as the new minister of defence just last month, has suspended him from caucus and stripped him of his role, pending an investigation. The RCMP have taken him into custody.

  Elias Crow, a member of the northern Raven River Nation, was shot in the back of the head outside his burning fishing shack in mid-September. Two days later, Martin Best was found on an acreage near Saskatoon, shot dead in the middle of the back. In both cases, the bullets were removed from the men’s bodies.

  Crow had attempted to save the boy’s life after finding him on the military base in Somalia. Martin Best was one of the two men assigned to bury the youth after he was killed.

  A week later, RCMP Sergeant Al Simpson from the Meadow Lake detachment was poisoned with strychnine in police cells and later died in hospital. He was the other soldier who buried Dualeh.

  Charged with the murders is Adrian Cey, alias Charles Best and alias David Smith, who served as a medic in Somalia. Cey had become well-known in Saskatoon as the priest who started Harbour House, a charity and haven for homeless people and addicts. Police are investigating whether Cey was also experimenting with drugs on the people in his care. He recently signed on as a chaplain for the police service under the Smith alias.

  Also charged in the cases, with conspiracy to commit and attempted murder, is George Best, a major with the military during the Somalia peacekeeping mission. Best owned several businesses in and around Saskatoon, most recently Paintball Palace and Green Summer Turf on Valley Road south of the city. Charges are pending against an unidentified third man, who was involved in an attack on Det. Sgt. Adam Davis of the Saskatoon Police.

  Phillips had a long and decorated history with the Canadian Armed Forces, spending part of his career as Officer Commanding with the Airborne. During that time, soldiers were dosed with mefloquine, an anti-malaria drug that had been previously proven to cause hallucinations, dizziness, insomnia, aggression and other severe side effects. The soldiers under the command of Best were particularly targeted with high doses of mefloquine, as well as codeine and other drugs which have not yet been identified. The experimental mixture of dru
gs caused serious mental health problems, likely leading to the murder of Dualeh and an attack on his village.

  Interviews with former soldiers indicate that Phillips was part of a military command interested in learning whether the drugs would increase aggression in theatre. The soldiers in the Somalia peacekeeping mission were a testing ground to see if the drugs would work, before the forces were sent into a war zone. The government of the time was aware of the experimentation but did not intervene to stop it.

  Phillips was elected in Ontario in 2004 and was long thought to be a natural choice for minister of defence. Those interviewed said he planned to push for reinstatement of the Airborne, which was disbanded in 1995 after the murder of Shidane Arone, also a Somali youth.

  Reuters, the Europe-based news agency, has interviewed the Dualeh family in Somalia and shared its notes with The StarPhoenix. Abukar Dualeh’s DNA identified him as belonging to that family. A brother and a cousin have testified that he was the only member of the family to go missing the night of the attack on their village.

  Further charges are pending against two other members of the Airborne command.

  The life of Elijah Starblanket, Elias Crow’s uncle and stepfather, was also threatened, but he escaped to a neighbouring reserve. Starblanket had been warned by police to abandon his home.

  “Elias returned from Somalia a broken man,” said Starblanket. “The mefloquine, the codeine, the abhorrent drug testing on Canada’s soldiers, and the directive of the army commanders that stealing was a capital offence, all led to his PTSD and ultimately his death. I call on the government to ruthlessly weed out and punish the men who caused this, and who are responsible for my family’s grief.”

  Crow will be laid to rest on the Raven River Reserve. Best’s body will be returned to Manitoba, his home province, and buried there. Al Simpson is survived by his wife, Gillian, and children, Jason and Jennifer; his mother, Margaret Robertson; a sister in Calgary and her family; and numerous cousins. A service in his memory is planned for next week in Saskatoon.

  Simpson, had he lived, would have been charged with aiding and abetting Best and Cey. However, the charges would have been mitigated by the threats against his mother’s life.

  Continued on Page 4.

  *****

  “Elder Starblanket, it’s Grace.”

  “How are you, Grace? I saw your story in the paper. Well done. Thank you. And please call me Elijah. I’ve stopped calling you Miss Grace. It’s only fair.”

  Grace laughed. “It’s hardly the same thing, but thank you. I just wanted to say how glad I am that . . . that you’re all right.”

  She cleared her throat. She was already not just fond of Elijah, but also felt a sense of awe at his kindness, knowledge and courage. She was deeply relieved that the police had persuaded him to leave his home, and that he had escaped harm when a package arrived for him.

  “When is the funeral? Have you decided?” she asked.

  “On the weekend. We will be glad to at least have that closure.”

  “I’m so sorry, Elijah. Elias was a wonderful human being. I will always be grateful to him.”

  “Thank you for that, Grace. And for your incredible work on this story. I hope to see you again soon.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Adam had been forced to postpone his chat with Chief Dan McIvor for a couple of days. Once he had scared hell out of George Best and backed Cey into a corner, chaos ensued. Chasing the clues and information all the way to Ottawa was a new experience for Adam, and he had to admit it was equally exhilarating and exhausting.

  Finally, he was knocking on the chief’s door.

  “Come in Adam. Sit down. I see you brought coffee,” McIvor said, holding out his hand for a steaming mug. “Thanks. How the hell are you feeling?”

  “Not too bad. Shoulder is starting to heal, and the hand is pretty good now. Chief, I should tell you I’m back in therapy. I kind of . . . well, broke down out there. It was worse than I let on at the time. Grace connected me to a psychologist, and I think she’s really helping me. But you needed to know.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better, and good for you to explore more therapy. Great work on the case. Kind of puts us on the national map, doesn’t it? In a good way, this time.”

  Adam understood that the chief was referring to a previous time in the police force, under a different command, when Indigenous people were not treated well. A few officers had taken men outside the city in the depth of winter and forced them to walk back at great risk to their lives. It had, of course, hit the national news.

  “I guess it does,” Adam said. The publicity was not important to him.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” McIvor said, “is why Simpson accepted the pastry from the so-called chaplain. Didn’t he recognize him?”

  “We’ll never know for sure. Maybe he didn’t; it had been fourteen years, and Cey was disguised. Maybe he trusted Cey from their time in the army. He may have just accepted that the man visiting him was the chaplain, and the slight disguise did the rest. And I’m sure Cey had a Plan B if Al didn’t accept the food.”

  “How the hell did he know where Al was? And that the detail on him had been removed?”

  “He didn’t know about Pearson removing the detail. He wouldn’t have known we had one in the first place. He was enough of a risk-taker he didn’t care. He just figured out where Al was; he called the Meadow Lake RCMP and was told Sgt. Simpson was away. Where else would he be? And if he was wrong, he would have simply kept looking.”

  “Right. Well. I didn’t call you in to chat about the case, Adam. I haven’t announced this yet. I thought you should be the first to know. I fired Terry Pearson last week.”

  “Holy shit, Chief. You’ve managed to keep that quiet.”

  “I want you to take his position.”

  Adam stared at his boss, in a state of considerable shock. It took several seconds for him to respond.

  “Thank you, Chief. But are you sure I’m the right person for the job? It’s not like I have the perfect temperament for inspector.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Adam. You have exactly the right skills, sensitivities and personality. If you’re referring to the PTSD, I’m not all that concerned. You’ve managed very well, and it’s the one thing you will have to try to overcome. You can do it, Adam. I know it. Goddamn it, man. I see in your face you’re thinking of turning me down. Don’t do that.”

  “I appreciate your confidence in me, Chief, and I’m honoured by your request. But I do have to think about it. I have to know I can do it.”

  He stopped and grinned at McIvor.

  “You really fired Pearson? How did it go?”

  “He swore and stomped around and called you some very bad names. Oh, and threatened to sue for wrongful dismissal.” McIvor chuckled. “Let him try, especially after that disaster in cells with Al Simpson. I must say, it’s great to know I’ll never have to fight with him again. Adam, think hard. I want you to take this promotion. You’re the best goddamn crime solver on this force. Say yes.”

  “I’d really like to talk to Grace about it first. If that’s okay.”

  “Yes. Of course. Don’t wait too long. I need a fucking inspector.”

  Adam thought of little else as he drove to Hope’s house for Grace’s birthday party. Should he accept? Could he do it? Would it take him off the street more than he’d like? What would Grace think about it?

  He arrived at Hope’s only a little late and just in time for dinner. Hope, Grace and their mother Sandra were zipping around the kitchen, carrying platters of roast beef, potatoes and vegetables to the table. Sandra was telling her daughters about their grandmother’s progress after her hip surgery; she was doing very well. Wallace and Grace’s brother David opened wine bottles as they congenially argued about politics and the Dean of Law’s curriculum adjustments.

  Grace gave a little squeak of joy when Adam appeared, and ran to welcom
e him with a hug.

  “Hi love,” Adam said, once again experiencing shyness now that he was in the fold of her family. He didn’t know them well yet, apart from Hope. She had been a constant, stalwart protector that spring while her sister lay frustrated and helpless in the hospital, healing from being attacked outside the local gay nightclub. Ferocious little thing, he thought, a smile curling his lip. Hope was a darker, shorter, slightly rounder version of her sister, with the personality of a lioness. He loved her.

  “Adam, come in, come in,” Wallace said, holding out a hand. “Let me get you a drink. Wine, whiskey, beer?”

  “A short scotch, if you have it, please. Thank you, Wallace.”

  Adam took his drink, smiled his appreciation, and joined the conversation.

  “What’s this about the dean? Has he been making changes again?”

  Wallace the lawyer and David the law student launched into the curriculum problems, as they saw them, and Adam tried to pay attention. He had another mission tonight.

  Over dinner, the chatter turned to Hope’s new adventure. A social worker, she had recently decided to adopt a foreign child, furious as she was about the conditions in overseas orphanages. Many of her clients were from other countries, and she heard constant horror stories.

  “Adam,” Grace said, catching him up on the news, “Hope has found a child. She is going to Thailand next month.”

  “That’s wonderful, Hope; so exciting,” Adam said, putting an arm around her for a quick hug. “Are there pictures?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask,” Hope said, jumping up and leaving her dinner to cool. The photo was attached by magnets to the fridge; she snatched it down and brought it to Adam. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

  “She is, Hope. She really is.” Adam looked down at the tiny girl, clad in a threadbare pink dress. A quiver connected his heart to his brain. A child.

  “How old is she? Two, maybe?”

  “She’s three. You can see how small she is. I have to get her out of there.” Hope emitted a tiny sob, followed quickly by a crooked smile.