Northern Exposure

by Michael Kilian

  “Very fast now, ma petite. Tell me everything you know about what is going to happen today.” A few minutes later, just as approaching police sirens could be heard, the “thwump, thwump” of Sebastien’s pistol sounded through the bathroom door.

  “They do indeed have bombs,” he said, stepping out of the bathroom. “They are going to blow up the bridges.”

  Harry York, his pain and nervousness having ended his fitful sleep, had risen early and hobbled to his study, summoning various cabinet and military aides to 24 Sussex and making a number of telephone calls, most of them quite private.

  He also began receiving calls, including a high-priority one from Edmonton. He scribbled hasty notes as he listened, then, as the conversation became more casual, switched to doodling, drawing a gallows with a man dangling from it, his most habitual sketch.

  He hung up, and quickly called his secretary on the intercom, summoning the RCMP commissioner, the solicitor general, and several army officers. Before they arrived, he took another call. It was from Sebastien.

  York was beaming as the security officials entered. “Great good news!” he said, after they were seated. “We’ve stopped an attack on the North Corridor pipeline and a Papineau Fils plot to blow up the bridges over the Ottawa River. How about that, eh? Who said we’d lost control of this?”

  “Attack on the pipeline?” asked the solicitor general. “By who?”

  “By some goddamn north coast aboriginals! They were using Russian stuff. Can you imagine that? The son-of-a-bitching Russians have been playing Nicaragua with our aboriginals. But we stopped them cold. Helicopter patrol. Wiped out the entire party, and we didn’t lose a man.”

  “This Papineau Fils thing,” said the RCMP commissioner. “I was just getting reports in about it. It’s this Sebastien of yours, isn’t it? Your secret secret service.”

  “My Francophone secret secret service. And a damn good job he did. Wiped out a whole nest of them and took bombs off of all five Ottawa River bridges. Ten in all, two to a bridge. And they had a pound of gelignite in each one. They would have dropped every span.”

  “Did your Sebastien lose any men?” the commissioner asked.

  “Not a one,” York said, looking at his notes. “Very professional, these irregulars of mine, which is why I’m going to put them in charge of special security on Parliament Hill.”

  The RCMP commissioner flushed. “Prime minister, I must protest that.”

  York waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Relax, commissioner. This is only temporary. You can still have your uniformed men around, your tour guides. Sebastien’s force will merely augment them.”

  “And command them.”

  “Only on the hill. Look, do you want me to use the War Measures Act and bring the army into Ottawa? Set up machine guns by the Centennial Flame? Panic everyone?”

  “Prime minister, some of those men are no better than thugs.”

  “Next you’ll be calling them my Ton Tons, just like Duvalier’s in Haiti. Except you’ve already called them that, in front of your subordinates, eh, commissioner?”

  York winked at the man, but not playfully. The commissioner sat back, folding his hands in his lap, looking down at the carpet.

  “Is there wind of anything else up?” the solicitor general asked.

  “Not a thing,” said York, adjusting his wounded leg to a less painful position. “These people killed this morning may well have been the last of the Papineau Fils.”

  “What about out west?”

  York looked to the ranking general in the room, though he could have answered the question himself.

  “All secure,” said the general. “Situation quiet. Very quiet. In fact there’s less street traffic in Edmonton and Calgary than usual.”

  “And in the mountains?”

  “Nothing stirring that we’ve seen. That’s rugged terrain for reconnaisance, of course. But it looks secure.”

  “MacArthur couldn’t spot two hundred fifty thousand Chinese who got behind his lines in Korea through mountains like that.”

  “Enough of the history lesson, please,” said York, not politely. “Things are going well, gentlemen. We are in complete control of the situation. We should be jubilant. We’ll have the debate over in a few days and …”

  “You insist on going ahead with that?” asked the solicitor general.

  “Of course. I won’t be there for the opening, unfortunately. I can barely hobble to the goddamn john. But that’s no reason why not to start. I fully intend to be there for the voting. We have to move ahead, gentlemen. Assert ourselves. We have our enemies off balance, on the run. We must seize the moment …”

  There was a sharp crack, and then a long, loud rumbling. The sky had begun to thickly cloud, but no one in the room mistook the sound for thunder. Every one of them including York looked to the west window of the room and its upriver view, watching in numbed silence as a dark column of distant smoke rose above the trees.

  It had been the eleventh bomb. Not knowing what else to do with it, the Papineau Fils had stuck it onto the middle of the Chaudiere Bridge. Sebastien, assuming all the charges had been placed in groups of two, had missed it.

  The explosion had dropped two sections of the span into the river. A truck and two cars had been crossing at the time.

  “I will not call off the debate,” York said. “I will not be intimidated by these vermin.”

  “At least five killed,” said Showers, repeating what the news announcer on the car radio had just said. “God. I can’t believe this is Canada.”

  Joyce had suggested they dress as inconspicuously as possible, and had himself put on a nondescript sports coat, blue trousers, and wrinkled checked tie. Showers, predictably, ignored Joyce’s advice and example and prepared himself as though for a diplomatic garden party at which royalty might be present.

  There were a number of police cars on the Portage Bridge as they crossed it. The Chaudiere Bridge upriver was thick with them, flashing lights twirling almost in rythmn, except for in the middle. The smoke had long before cleared, but as they drove past, they could see some blackened automobile wreckage.

  Joyce, driving, reached in front of Showers and opened the glove compartment, removing the pistol Showers had stuck away in there earlier, as though for good.

  “Take the piece, man.”

  “Let us please stop these gunslinger games.”

  “Look, my man. This is getting to be a very uncool situation. Uptight, all right? Now take the piece and put it in your belt.”

  “I won’t use it.”

  “You may find yourself in a situation where you’ll change your mind about that, and if you do, it won’t do you much good to have this sitting in the glove compartment. Now take it. I’ve got my own but I may need some hurry-up back-up.”

  Sad-faced, Showers unbuttoned his jacket and leaned forward, slipping the pistol into his belt behind his back. “I’ll carry this for you,” he said. “But if there’s going to be all this bloodshed, I don’t want to contribute to it.”

  “That may not be for you to decide, my man.”

  They parked in an underground garage just off Wellington Street and then strolled across toward the Parliament, taking Showers’ indirect route that led first to the Supreme Court building and then up the hill past the Victoria statue. “It’s going to rain,” Joyce said.

  “We’ll soon be inside.”

  “If we can get past all them gendarmes.” There were easily ten times as many police as Showers had ever seen there, most in uniform, but a great many plainclothes men skulking about the building entrances as well. There was a great crowd of civilians milling about in front of the Peace Tower, many going in, many coming out.

  “Laidlaw didn’t tell you anything more?”

  “Just to be here at this time. He said it would all become clear to me presently.”

  “That ain’t much help.”

  “He has a very oblique personality.”

  Something, so
meone, in the crowd caught Showers’ eye.

  “Be cool, my man,” said Joyce. “That fuzz by the corner there is giving us the long, careful eye. Smile and laugh or something as though I’m saying something funny. That’ll look cool. Hit men and bomb throwers don’t go around cracking jokes.”

  Showers smiled woodenly and laughed nervously. He felt suddenly and dreadfully vulnerable. That fat policeman, on some vague suspicion or whim, could stop them and search them, recognize them from some wanted circular, and arrest them, cutting off Showers’ long chase just at its conclusion. He’d not see Felicity. He’d have had all these troubles visited upon him for nothing.

  There was that movement in the crowd again.

  “Just keep looking ahead, my man. Just keep smiling. He’s watching us, but he ain’t moving.”

  That movement was a woman, a dark-haired slender woman wearing a tan skirt and blue jacket, much like that of the woman he had seen on Pennsylvania Avenue that noon back in Washington.

  Showers began to walk faster.

  “Slow down, my man. Be cool.”

  She was moving through the crowd with a train of small children behind her, eight or nine perhaps, six or seven years old. A schoolteacher with her class, except that it was summer, and the schools were closed. She was probably from a day-care center or a church group then, taking the children on a field trip. She paused on the steps leading through the Peace Tower to the foyer of Confederation Hall, gathering the children around her. They all carried little cloth lunch bags.

  Showers had an instant’s glimpse of her face. It sufficed.

  “It’s her!” Showers said.

  His heart pounding madly, he began to push his way through the crowd.

  “Easy, man. Easy. There’s law everywhere.”

  There were too many people. Showers went from side to side, trying to slip and nudge his way around them, but the crowd was too thick. The police at the entrance had with great civility let her and the children pass, but now had moved so close together as to create a bottleneck. She had disappeared inside.

  “Just be cool,” said Joyce. “We’ve got to get past those guys.”

  In the end there was nothing for it but to be carried along with the crowd. The police at the doorway were compelled to step aside somewhat and, several long moments later, Showers and Joyce were inside.

  The hall was filled with people, but there was no sign of her. Showers glanced about desperately, and then remembered. Indeed, there was a tour group moving away through the long corridor toward the House of Commons. He could see her and the children, hurrying along at the rear, lunch bags swinging to and fro.

  Showers hurried after, only to be stopped by a uniformed policeman’s grip on his arm.

  “Sorry, sir. You’ll have to wait for the next group.”

  “Please, it’s important.”

  Showers could see them at the far end of the corridor, stopping as their guard guide pointed out the sculpture work in the foyer of the House of Commons.

  “Please,” said Showers. “That’s my wife up there. I promised to meet her here, but I was late. Please. I promised her I’d go on this tour with her. She has all those children with her.”

  The policemen gazed down the corridor, then relaxed his grip.

  “All right, sir. You’d best hurry.”

  “I’m with him,” said Joyce, following after.

  But by the time they reached the Commons foyer, the tour group had moved on.

  “We fell behind,” Showers explained to two staring, unsmiling police sergeants. Before they could speak, Showers and Joyce darted on, turning the corner past the glass doors to the Commons chambers, brightly lit and very crowded.

  She was at the next turning, by the entrance to the stairwell, gathering up all the lunch bags from the children, sending the children on one by one.

  Showers began to run. At once he sensed someone approaching them from the rear. A policeman? He slowed, looking back. It was a nun, a tall nun, coming fast, limping.

  Showers kept on. She had all the lunch bags now, and was starting for the stairs.

  “Felicity!”

  She stopped, startled, staring at him.

  A gunshot rang out, echoing maddeningly down the hallway.

  “The Sister, it’s him!” Joyce shouted.

  Showers stopped, and turned. The nun had a gun.

  Joyce slammed Showers back against the wall and dropped to his knee just as the nun fired again, sighting awkwardly. There was something wrong with the nun’s arm.

  Joyce and the nun fired several times, so rapidly Showers could not count the shots. The nun was hit twice and, cursing, fell down, the cowl of the habit sliding back and revealing a man’s ugly head. Joyce fired again, and the swearing stopped. Policemen were visible at the end of the hallway, but were hanging back, crouching.

  “That’s the bastard who went after Alixe,” Joyce said.

  Showers ran on. Something was wrong, something was terribly, terribly wrong. Felicity was not standing in the stairwell anymore. She was lying on the floor on her stomach. A man was stooping nearby, snatching up the strewn lunchbags, picking at them like some carrion among the dead.

  “Porique!”

  Quickly grabbing up two more bags, the man stood, looking at Showers as he rose, then turning quickly and disappearing up the stairs.

  Showers had no thought of pursuing him. His chest heaving, he knelt by Felicity, seeing that one of the nun’s bullets had struck her in the middle of the back, in the spine. He touched the bloody wound with his hand. She was quietly whimpering. He turned and lifted her, holding her tightly in his arms, looking at her face, into her eyes.

  Felicity. So much the same. An older face, with a slight, faded scar, but the same dear, wonderful, beautiful, sad, sweet, wise, incomparable face. Her eyes were cloudy, but found his.

  “Toby,” she said, choking, struggling to say the word, blood coloring her lips.

  He held her more closely, tight against his chest, his face pressed against her cheek and hair. Here was his moment, that which he had so ardently wished for that drunken, lonely night in Washington. Here was his Felicity, with him, one with him, a dark-haired girl in crimson plaid, walking with him through a golden cornfield amidst the firey colors of a Westchester autumn. That had been a brief moment. All moments are brief. Goodbye, dear Felicity. Good-bye.

  There were footsteps behind him. He gently lowered her body and saw that her eyes had gone cold, had gone vacant and staring.

  “Come on, my man!” Joyce said. “We gotta get out of here!”

  There were policemen running down the hall, led by the fat policeman from outside. They had guns drawn. One of them fired, hitting Joyce. The black man’s pistol spun out of his hand as he sagged back against the wall and slid to the floor, his body toppling forward next to Felicity’s, his head cradled by her lifeless arm.

  Showers ran now, scrambling up the stairs as bullets sang and pocked the wall. He was all adrenalin and instinct now, a terrified animal in desperate flight from relentless hunters, but as he ran and panted, his body aching bone and muscle, cold skin soaked in sweat, his numb, detached mind began to function, like some stalled machine jostled into action.

  There were explosives in those children’s lunchbags. These violent people were bomb happy, and those were bombs. Laidlaw said Porique meant to interfere with the parliamentary debate, and now he had bombs, enough to prevent this and all future parliamentary debates. He meant to destroy Parliament, to destroy Canada.

  The staircase was noisy with hurrying, stumbling footsteps behind him, and there was one more gunshot. Reaching the upper floor and the corridor, Showers was a rabbit scurrying into an old familiar bramble. He knew these hallways, these governmental byways, these nooks and alcoves. The day before he might not have recalled any of it, but pressed now by his desperate need, he remembered all, which door led nowhere, which led to a narrow passageway reaching to a cluster of back offices, then back again toward th
e Commons chambers, to the galleries.

  He turned two corners and, mysteriously, the running footsteps behind him ceased. Had he confounded them? He ran faster.

  The narrow, sunken corridor was where he remembered it, the wooden, paneled doors, reminiscent of those explored by Alice in Wonderland, where he remembered them. Porique would not have gone to the public gallery at the north end of the chamber. There would be police there to bar his way. The same would be true of the members’ gallery on the opposite end. He would enter here, through one of these Alice in Wonderland doors, to one of the side galeries reserved for important guests, perhaps the one that Showers had used so many times, this one here, reserved for foreign diplomats.

  It faced the desk of the prime minister, just opposite below. There was Porique’s target.

  But how would he explode these bombs? Would he slip into the chamber, place them carefully under a seat, set the timer of the detonator, and then slip away again? Or would he stand there at the railing, hurling a few outrageous words at the frightened assemblage before pushing the switch that blew the Parliament and himself to bloody bits? That would be suicide. Was Porique capable of suicide? Showers decided that he was.

  Showers paused before the door. The debate was still in progress. Or was it? Someone was speaking, loudly, and in French. It was a strident, ringing speech, shouted out with a marked cadence, a harangue. It was his voice. It was his friend, Guy Porique.

  Putting his left hand to the knob, Showers hesitated, remembering. With his right hand he reached behind his back and brought forth the pistol. He paused again, remembering something else. Clicking off the safety, he slid the automatic’s receiver back and let it snap forward, arming the weapon with a fresh round in the chamber. A touch on the trigger would be all now needed.

  Now he put his hand to the knob again, with more purpose, slowly turning it, slowly inching it open, inching it further, swinging it wide in its easy arc until all of that great Gothic cathedral of a legislative hall was visible to him, the brightness of the huge, glittering chandeliers; the vast sweep of the green carpeting; the members sitting frozen in their seats, staring upward in stark, terrified silence.