“Who?”
“Friends. Good things for us, he says.”
“Okay. Call tomorrow. Same time. The next number.”
“Bien, Leon. Vive Papineau!”
“Vive Papineau! Vive Québec!”
He hung up, grunted to himself, then rejoined Paulette. They set off back toward the apartment, but by a different route.
“It’s done,” he said.
“Leon, you killed the wrong one. The one who should die is in the apartment in Rue Clef. He should die now. This is all a big mistake.”
“Non, Paulette. It is as Hillion wishes.”
“Hillion doesn’t matter anymore. We are responsible for everything. We should have our own plan. He, in the Rue Clef, he doesn’t trust us. We should not trust him. Leon, think!”
Macoutes was quiet for a long while, as they walked along the cracked and broken pavement.
“I will send some more men to watch him,” he said.
“Pah!”
Inspector J. I. Beckett of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Staff Sergeant Major O’Neill, his closest aide, sat on the cold earth of the slope, hidden from the men down below on the beach by thick pines and the foggy dark of night. They could hear the small waves, the thumping of the crates and boxes, the grunting and swearing of the men. Far out in the Strait of Georgia, almost at the mouth of Desolation Sound, the freighter rode the swells, its riding lights dimmed, its crew patient in this dangerous passage of hours. The engine sounds of the approaching and departing motorboats could be heard. At any moment there might be other boats.
“They don’t worry about us,” said the inspector. “They don’t worry about anyone.”
“‘The sea belongs to whoever sits by the shore,’” said the staff sergeant major.
“What?”
“It’s from a poem, sir,” said O’Neill. “‘Atlantis,’ by Louis Dudek.”
“Czechoslovakian?”
“No, sir. Canadian.”
“Hmmmm. Yes. This unloading has been going on too long, Staff Sergeant Major. Entirely too long. We have been too patient.”
O’Neill said nothing. One of the motorboats was approaching the beach. It was a slow way to supply an army.
Inspector Beckett stood up, brushing off the seat of his pants. “We’ll let them have this one last boat, Rory,” he said. “Then we shut them down.”
“They’ve been lucky,” O’Neill said. “This many hours without rain.”
“Do not disparage the British Columbia summer, Staff Sergeant Major.”
The sound of the boat’s engine fell to an idle. A moment later, it ground ashore. The thumping of the boxes began almost immediately. Beckett had been told they contained British Lee-Metford semi-automatic rifles. Within two weeks the guns would be in Alberta, unless the RCMP intercepted them. The RCMP could do that at almost any point—in the trucks, at one of the transfer rendezvous, here on the beach. It wouldn’t take much to pocket the lot right now, including the freighter.
Inspector Beckett had, until September 1981, been Superintendent Beckett. Then came the unpleasantness in Ottawa, the official government outrage over revelations that the RCMP had been behaving like the American CIA in domestic counterintelligence matters, opening citizens’ mail, wiretapping, being beastly to suspects in basement rooms, the entire catalogue of horrors that the government had been indulging the RCMP in since Trudeau had suspended every civil liberty possible during the Montreal FLQ kidnappings in 1970. The official government outrage had been severe and the RCMP was stripped of much of its counterintelligence function. Careers were ruined or damaged, including Beckett’s. Now he was going to redeem himself.
“All right, Staff Sergeant Major,” he said. “Let’s go down to the beach.”
The men by the boat all ceased working when Beckett and O’Neill stepped out from the trees, several reaching for their weapons. A tall man, who looked to be Hastings, the leader, came forward.
“You’ll have to stop,” Beckett said.
“But you guaranteed … Is something gone wrong?”
“No, but I want to be sure that nothing does. You’re taking too long. The trucks must be out of the area by dawn. The ship has been here too long as it is. I’m sorry, but we must be prudent.”
“This is your jurisdiction.”
“I want to keep it that way. Now, finish this load, and go. There’ll be another time, another way, for the rest.”
Hastings stood motionless, studying the inspector in the darkness. Beckett wondered if he had lost the man’s trust that he had worked so mightily to gain. He didn’t think so. He had, after all, obtained keys to an RCMP small-arms storeroom in Victoria for Hastings, providing the western rebel group with its first military weapons. Those guns should have bought Beckett a lot of credibility.
“Okay, Inspector,” Hastings said. “We’ll do as you say.”
Harry York, prime minister of Canada by grace of one of the narrowest elections in the nation’s history, rose early, a professional habit that had become a political one. He had reason to be busy, these mornings. Despite his tiny electoral margin and lack of political base, he had embarked on a legislative initiative truly as monumental as that with which his predecessor, Pierre Trudeau, had given Canada its first constitution. York was now attempting to rewrite Trudeau’s constitution, before the country tore it apart.
York knew Trudeau well, and admired him for his guts and brains. Still, he thought Trudeau had been a classic fool in this gambit, like Churchill, well intentioned, courageous, and wrong. He considered Trudeau’s constitution a prescription for chaos. It was an eminently logical document, but Canada existed as a nation only by defying political and geographical logic. Trudeau’s strong central government concept was not merely intelligent but necessary for the running of a major industrialized country; it was no way to run Canada.
Harry York’s amendments would weaken the federal government’s power over economic matters while strengthening its security powers. It gave the increasingly rebellious western provinces more autonomy than they had ever known. It took away the special privileges that had been granted Quebec, including national bilingualism. That was Harry York’s draw: Appease the west; risk the east; minimize the risk with force. It required parliamentary authority for the long haul; required mothering, seducing, and extorting every swayable member of Parliament whenever possible until the amendment passed. Stealing a device of American presidents, York had begun having delegations of them to breakfast, a thoroughly disgusting way to begin a day. That was not the reason for his early rising this morning, however.
“Cross the river and drive out the Aylmer Road,” he said to his driver, as he slid into the rear seat of his green Oldsmobile.
After the next budget, York was going to order a Cadillac.
As always, the morning newspapers were on the seat beside him. York picked up the Ottawa paper first, turning to a political columnist he particularly disliked. He winced, finding the words “civil war” in the very first sentence.
It wasn’t a preposterous speculation. Quebec would be provoked by York’s amendments, enraged by them. Terrorists would see their moment to strike. The War Measures Act Trudeau had employed so ruthlessly in 1970 might have to be resorted to once more. Troops might have to be sent into Montreal and Quebec. With the federal government so preoccupied, the rebellious westerners might feel encouraged to make their move, and then the game would be lost. Or won, depending on one’s attitude toward Canadian federalism.
It would be lost or won slowly, painfully. Conceivably, the United States might intervene, or the British and French. The Soviets could be counted upon to take their profit. Even if order were somehow restored, Canada could never be put back together again. Canada would be dead, and most of the North American continent a vast, volatile, simmering political void.
This risk was a component of York’s plan, but as he had repeatedly explained both inside and outside of Parliament, the object of his plan was to
bring the question to resolution and put all such risk behind Canada once and for all. There were peaceful political means of solving this, and York was pursuing every one he could think of—an effort little helped by inflammatory newspaper columns such as this.
York had found himself paying increasing attention to television news reports of insurrections in Central America and elsewhere. He remembered a film of a massacre on a plaza outside a church, a random machine-gunning of dozens and dozens of men, women, and children. That image returned to his mind again and again—with the victims being Canadian. Blond Canadian women, dead in the street, because of what Harry York had put at risk. It was worth it.
Pushing his glasses back up onto the top of his balding head, he rubbed his eyes. General Sherman had it all wrong. War was easy; it was politics that was hell.
“Shall I take the Alexander Bridge, sir?”
“No. Drive downtown and then take the pont Chaudiere. Then go west.”
“Yes, sir.”
York hated all this hide-and-seek, cat-and-mouse business, but as the presumed mouse, had accepted its necessity. His new security operative, Sebastien, had broken up two assassination plots already, and York had been in office just three months. He glanced out the rear window. The RCMP car was following at a discreet distance, as usual. His predecessor had told him he didn’t trust the RCMP. York had grown up trusting the RCMP.
He lighted his pipe, ignoring the flecks of tobacco that fell to his gray trousers. Before his election to Parliament, York had been a history professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, and was guilty of every aspect of the stereotype, including untidiness. The newspapers exploited this, gleefully and mercilessly, but York tried not to let it bother him. If they wanted glamour, they could take back Trudeau. Or Joe Clark.
With so little traffic at this hour, they reached the bridge quickly. The spires of the government buildings on Parliament Hill glinted in the breaking sunlight as they turned onto the access ramp. The sight pleased and satisfied him. The next, as the car proceeded across the Ottawa River, did not. On the other side was the city of Hull, replete with such street names as Rue Principale, Frontenac, Charlevoix, and Papineau. On the other side was the “province” of Quebec. York felt he was entering a foreign country. He felt it every single damned time, and it infuriated him. The question had been irrevocably decided in 1759. The decision had been reaffirmed in 1838 and in 1970. Pont Chaudiere, indeed.
“Chaudiere Bridge,” he said.
“Sir?” said the driver.
“Nothing,” said York.
He opened his briefcase and took out some economic papers. There was more to his job than rewriting the Canadian constitution, or fending off civil wars, especially with inflation at 20 percent and the Canadian dollar worth just about half the American.
The road took them west out of Hull and then curved north along the turn of the river. Just short of the town of Aylmer, York saw the gas station, an old wooden-sided Ford station wagon parked at the pumps.
“Pull in here,” he said. “I want to go to the men’s room.”
As a matter of fact, he actually did. As he stood at the dirty urinal, the immense Sebastien emerged from the adjacent stall, coughing and wheezing as he lighted a cigarette. He was dressed in a winter-weight gray gabardine suit and an old white shirt, frayed at the collar and bulging with the immensity of his belly.
“Well?” said York.
“We have traced Porique to the States,” said Sebastien, coughing again. “He went through Chicago to San Francisco. He had a woman in San Francisco. From there, qui sait? Maybe still in California. Maybe up in Vancouver. En tous cas, he is being helped by the Papineau Fils.”
“Papineau Fils? Are you sure?”
Sebastien squinted at York through the folds of flesh around his eyes. Sebastien was always sure.
“Vraiement. They stole cars for him, moved him around. I think they have provided him with money. We have a hold on his bank accounts—as you requested.”
The prime minister stepped from the urinal to the grimy sink and began to wash his hands in the cold water.
“You said Vancouver. Do you know anything more?”
“That is only a possibility. I am going to send two of my men.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I told you I didn’t want you operating west of Hamilton. Toronto, fine. Ottawa, Quebec City, Montreal, yes. Put as many agents into the United States as we can find money for. But stay out of western Canada. There are too many Frenchmen there as it is.”
Sebastien frowned. York reached for a paper towel, but the container was empty. He stood there a moment, shaking his hands dry.
“You’re not running our intelligence service, you know,” he said.
“What am I doing then?” said Sebastien, reaching into his pocket and pulling forth a pint bottle of rye whiskey. He unscrewed the cap, hesitated, then offered the bottle to the prime minister. York probably should have been offended, but he accepted it politely, and drank.
“You are helping me prevent civil war,” he said, afterward, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. Here, he was saying it himself. But why not? It was perfectly true.
“A very nasty civil war, Monsieur Sebastien. Many of the French tongue killed.”
Sebastien took his turn at the bottle, a much longer one. When he was done, the bottle was half empty. “The threat is in the west,” he said.
“The threat is all over the damned place,” York said. “The threat is with Porique, as long as he is alive and well and walking about, especially if he has linked up with those damned Papineau Fils. Your job is to save Quebec, Sebastien. It should please you.”
Sebastien grunted, and swigged again from the bottle.
“Anything else?” York asked.
“The British,” said Sebastien, coughing once more. “The new military attaché, Hotchkiss. He’s MI Six.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oui. The turnover last month. The new people are all MI Six.”
“And?”
“The British, I think, are trying to cause difficulties for you. They resisted Trudeau’s constitution. They will fight your changes.”
“Are you suggesting that London is trying to foster an armed rebellion in Canada?”
“Non. Not at all. But I am suggesting that they are not your friends, and should be dealt with.”
“Monsieur Sebastien, you get Porique. Get him at all costs.”
“At all costs? Shall I call in the Americans?”
“No! For God’s sake, not that.”
“They are your friends. They want to end these troubles as much as you do.”
“I’ll tend to foreign policy, if you don’t mind. You, you get me Porique. Alive, please, but get him.”
“Bien. In the meantime, we may have a present for you soon. I think I have located a Papineau Fils headquarters in Montreal. It could be bad, though. There could be killings.”
“There could be killings,” echoed York. Hundreds of thousands of killings. He grinned at Sebastien, until the fat man looked away.
The Santa Cruz County sheriff’s car lurched off the mountain road into the clearing, halting in a hanging cloud of dust. Two deputies got out of the front, followed by a young man in hiking clothes, who had been riding in back. Still carrying his bright red backpack, he hurried on ahead of the policemen, toward a large tree beneath which were two sprawled human figures, hovered over by noisy clouds of flies.
They went first to the woman. The younger deputy gagged. The older one studied the naked lower half of her body, the spread legs, the trickle of dried blood on her abdomen.
“How long ago was it, did you say?” he said to the hiker.
“An hour before I called you, maybe more. I was going along that ridge line there when I heard all the flies. Then I saw her …”
“You didn’t see anyone else? Didn’t hear anyone?”
“No. I mean, jeez, who’d …
?”
“The older deputy had turned away. A purse and its contents were strewn near the body. He picked up a driver’s license.”
“Hope F. Stuart,” he said, reading aloud. “San Jose.”
The small photograph on the license was of a very attractive young woman, dark haired, very patrician. He picked up the other identification cards. They all said the same: Hope F. Stuart. There was no money.
“Let’s go look at the man,” he said.
The hiker followed. The younger deputy took a few steps, then turned back and vomited. The older policeman stopped, and looked again at the crimson maw that had been the woman’s face. The driver’s license would be the only means of identifiying her.
Arthur Jordine lay on the largest bunk in the cabin of his big sailboat, lay naked on his back, happier than he could ever have imagined himself. Marie-Claire Showers, her shins on his shoulders, was sitting on his face, sitting, yet leaning forward, her hair tossing with the jerking motions of her head. This was supposed to have been a shared effort, but he had quickly found it impossible to concentrate on anything other than what she was doing to him, and so had relaxed his head and tongue, closing his eyes. She did not pause. If anything, her vigor had increased.
When they were done, she scampered off to the galley sink and rinsed her mouth with Listerine. Then she poured them each a glass of Pernod, her favorite drink. Handing him his, she started toward the hatch leading to the after deck. The Annapolis wharf was just outside.
“Marie-Claire!” he said. “Remember where we are!”
She halted, then turned and smiled, returning to the bunk. She sat beside him, running the fingers of one hand over his chest.
“I am so many places I am not,” she said. “It is hard sometimes to remember where I really am.”
“You are with me,” he said.
“I have no doubt of that,” she said, looking down his body. “But, soon I shall be in Ottawa, in that big house that goes to the DCM.”
“I can still stop that,” Jordine said, rising up on one elbow to sip his drink.
“What, you would do that to me, chéri? It will be enchanting to be the wife of a DCM. In Washington, I am, just, another wife. And Canada is very important, yes?”
Northern Exposure Page 3