by Bill Turpin
El Mago notices Max’s reaction and laughs again, like they are old friends looking at old yearbooks.
“I was wondering when you would notice,” he says.
Finally Max realizes that the mysterious accent he’s been hearing isn’t an accent at all — the guy’s speaking Canadian.
“I learned to speak English in Ottawa, eh?” tilting his head to ensure Max gets the cultural reference. “I spent two years training in counter-insurgency with your RCMP’s Security Services. I still have a lot of friends there.”
“The RCMP does counter-insurgency?”
“You bet.”
“And you got this cup at the National Press Club?”
“I was an associate member, yes,” El Mago says. “About half a dozen of us were members. In addition to hacks like yourself, the place was full of politicians and diplomats, some of whom were intelligence officers or outright spies. So, it made sense for us to know who was talking to whom. And, of course, journalists and politicians are always happy to share their inside knowledge over a drink.”
“I used to go there, sometimes,” Max says.
“So I’m told,” El Mago says. “That’s why I thought you would like that mug.”
Max has read that psychopaths are charming. The two chat for a few moments about the Ottawa Rough Riders and marvel that Latin Americans are able to afford soccer stadiums triple the size of Lansdowne Park.
“I’m sorry I never got to see Russ Jackson play,” El Mago says.
Bullshit, you whacko, Max thinks. “Me, too,” he says.
El Mago offers Max a flour-covered roll and some butter.
“So, Max,” he says helpfully. “My officers say you demanded to talk to me. May I ask why?”
“Well,” Max says, retrieving his pencil and emergency note pad, “I think you would make a pretty good story. Perhaps we can begin with you telling me your real name.”
El Mago smiles ruefully. “You know, it is a standing joke here that everybody knows where the secret police building is, so how can it be secret? The truth is, we are not secret about where we are, just who we are.”
Max recalls the lack of a name on the office door. El Mago continues.
“No one inside this building uses my name or rank. Or outside, for that matter. That’s because we’re fighting the war that the Army won’t fight. The insurgents would gleefully kill my family if they knew where to find them.”
“Does your war include killing school children?”
El Mago purses his lips and turns his head sideways a little. “You’re a brave man, Max, asking me a question like that on my own turf.”
Max gets the point. He tries and fails to keep his hand steady as he reaches for a sip of coffee.
El Mago keeps going. “This building was once a mental hospital. You spent the night in a tunnel between the admin building and the treatment centre. The worst patients — the ones that they didn’t want the public to see — were kept there.”
“What’s at the other end of the tunnel now?”
“Headquarters for the regular police, which is where I start my day. Then I take the tunnel to work. The Maoists can stake out the secret police building all they want, but they’ll never see anyone go in but substaff and, of course, decoys. But Max, my point is this. The book at headquarters already shows that you were released almost as soon as you arrived.”
“You’re trying to frighten me,” Max says. “It’s not working. How many kids were injured in the shooting?”
“The shooting was a lesson that had to be administered.”
“How many were hurt?”
“Eleven.”
“That’s the same as I said in my story.”
“What you put on the wire isn’t good enough for you?” El Mago says.
“It’s just suspicious. How many dead?”
Max wondered why El Mago’s eyes seemed so blue all of a sudden, then realized that it was his face turning the colour of clay.
“You should take a fucking walk outside the city,” he tells Max. “Talk to the farmers who’ve had their crops and livestock confiscated by these terrorists. Talk to the women and girls who’ve been raped. Ask about their missing sons or the ones whose heads have been delivered to their doorsteps in burlap bags.”
El Mago is standing now.
“These ‘kids’ you talk about give these killers support with their demonstrations. Aid and comfort. The response must be harsh, for the sake of the country.”
A moment of silence.
“So, how many kids died last night?” Max asks.
“Do you know how easy it would be to sneak you out of here and dump you 200 miles over the ocean? It’s EASY! I thought I made that clear. You’ll be fish food, Max. You’ll finish up in a can of anchovies. And being disappeared is worse than death for people like you. Terrorists, journalists, crusaders of all kinds; disappearing off the face of the earth is the worst possible fate. Would you rather be Max who died defending free speech, or Max the guy who walked away from a police station toward the whorehouses and never came back?”
Max struggles to keep his voice steady. “Is that what you’re going to do?”
El Mago expels a tired breath and looks at the ceiling.
“No,” he says. “I am going to call your babysitters in the Army to come and get you. Now is the time for me to start improving relations with them.”
With that, he grabs the phone on his desk and quietly issues some orders. Max is reasonably sure he’s telling someone to send for the Army.
“Six,” El Mago says, hanging up.
“Six?”
“Six died last night, versus 33 innocent people who have died since I was assigned to protect them.”
“Can I quote you?”
“Then I could be fish food, eh?”
“Good point,” Max says. “Well, I don’t need to quote you. You’ve just confirmed what I thought I heard an officer say last night. Couldn’t be sure, though. One last question: what will you do when the number of dead children equals the number of dead peasants? Thirty-three, right?”
El Mago drops the last trace of gentility and shoots him a murderous look. Max can see that he might be regretting the decision to let him go.
“You just took a big chance on your weak Spanish, Max,” he says.
He lets that sink in.
“I’ll stay in touch,” El Mago says. “We could be valuable to each other some day. If things go the way I expect, I’ll be starting a career with Army Intelligence any day now.”
“Really?”
“The signs of counter-coup are everywhere. But the Army can’t fight the Maoists without my help. It’s either that, for me, or a swim in the ocean.”
• • •
Twenty minutes later, Max is in an Army staff car with the Doorman at the wheel. He’s surprised to see the sun already well up in the sky. Time flies when you’re having fun, he thinks.
“It is good to see you, Max,” he says. “We were not sure we ever would.”
Max takes a moment to savour the feel of the sun on his face.
“Me, too.”
He notices the Photog’s absence.
“He is at the base,” the Doorman says.
“So, you’re in the Army?”
“Like your friend said, there’s more to me than meets the eye. I can take you back to the Palacio to write your story.”
“Six dead,” Max says.
“He told you that?”
“Can’t say.”
“For him to tell you that means he’s got big friends in the Army. After you write your story, I have another, much bigger story for you.”
“You do?”
“I will take you back to the capital, courtesy of the Army, where you will interview a certain general.”
“What general?”
“The general who found a basket of eggs with his morning paper today,” the Doorman says. “You are about to get a scoop!”
“What exactly do you do for the Army anyway?”
The Doorman turns to him with a wide smile: “Intelligence. But I am studying my true passion — public relations!”
1995
The Campaign:
Bentley & Steele's Problem
MAX STRIDES INTO the newsroom, noting that the City Editor is again professional-looking in a slim grey skirt and a new hairstyle that highlights her strong cheekbones. She flashes him a big, winning smile.
“Jesus, Max. It’s crazy this morning. A car accident, a fire and a bank robbery by a guy wearing a fucking OJ Simpson mask,” she says. “The photogs are bitching like crazy. I mean, isn’t this what we pay them for? Isn’t this what those assholes like to do?”
“So, we’re off to a good start,” Max says. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. You’ll love this,” she says waving a brown envelope at him. “It’s an actual brown envelope. The real thing. Just like in the movies, eh? Someone slipped it under the front door last night.”
Max looks inside. It’s a printout from the business registry showing Bentley & Steele’s corporate status is “inactive” because they failed to renew the rights to their name.
Max smiles.
“How long did it take them to notice?”
“About two months,” she says. “I called the registry. Bentley & Steele sent someone down with a cheque two days ago.”
“So, no harm,” Max says.
“No harm, but what kind of law firm can’t manage its own registration? The public should know, don’t you think?”
“Definitely. It’s an outrage. Get the story all teed up, but don’t call Bentley & Steele until I give the word.”
Max surveys the City Editor’s new look, looks her in the eye and raises his eyebrows.
“Everything’s different when somebody wants you,” she says.
• • •
“You were right, Max,” Mother Mary says.
“Those are words we need to hear more often around here,” he says.
He can see Mother Mary nervously writing that in her notebook.
Her face is too worn for someone still in her twenties.
“I was at the county courthouse looking for lawsuits involving the church and Father Peter,” she says. “But they said they wouldn’t give me anything unless I had the surname and address of a plaintiff and the year the action was filed. It was bull, but they wouldn’t budge.”
So Mother Mary asked them for a copy of the local phonebook and used the information to fill out request forms.
Each slip forced a clerk to go back to the filing room and retrieve a file, if there was one.
“I was getting really angry,” Mother Mary says. “So I said to myself, I’ll do another 50 like this and then I’ll call you to get a lawyer in.”
“You could have done that right away.”
“Yeah, but it would have been at least a day before one could get there. Anyway, finally I heard this big ‘slam!’ on the counter and it was seven civil cases — against the church. In one of them, the church says it was the boy’s own fault because he seduced Father Peter.” Her face is grim.
Max says she should track down the family and get a reaction.
“They are furious, but they wouldn’t let me talk to their son,” she says.
“You mean you’ve already talked to them?”
“Got pictures of the parents, too.”
Max tells her to write it up, but not to call the church until he gives the word. Mother Mary starts out but turns at the doorway.
“I don’t know if I believe in Hell anymore, but I did when I was a girl. I used to worry about who would go to Hell, because there were people I loved who sinned and didn’t tell the priest. But now I know who’s really going to Hell, and I’ll go there, too, just so I can stoke the fires under their feet.”
• • •
Max is headed for the news meeting when the wire guy calls him over. He points to a story on his computer screen.
“Hey, Max, is this your friend?”
The Photog has been shot in the occupied territories and taken to a hospital in serious condition. Max skips the news meeting and puts in a call to the Bureau Chief, now working in Paris.
“Yeah, it’s him, Max.”
“Jesus. What happened?”
“They’re saying it was a stray bullet,” the Bureau Chief says, “but it went right through his camera and hit him in the face. Sounds intentional to me.”
He adds that the Photog has a chance of surviving, but others in the local press corps doubt he’ll ever be the same.
“It’s pretty bad, Max.”
Max can’t work, so leaves the Indonesian in charge and heads home early. But being home is no help. At a loss for something to do, he goes into his office and just sits.
An hour later he feels something give way in front of him. It’s so subtle and sudden that he stops to reflect, to be sure it happened. It’s like a string has broken, letting something go.
Not too long after, the Bureau Chief calls to say the Photog has died.
“I know,” Max says.
• • •
Max and the Wife are enjoying a late Sunday afternoon on the deck when the phone rings. Incredibly, it’s a ham radio operator.
“I don’t get much call for this these days,” the guy says, “but I picked up a walkie-talkie signal way out in the woods. He asked if I could connect him with you.”
This could only be the News Weevil.
“Thank you,” Max says. “Can you patch him through somehow?”
“Roger that. Here you go.”
There follows a rush of static and then the hushed tones of the Weevil: “Max, Max, Max. This is me. Over.”
He is following marine radio protocol, despite the fact he’s connected to a landline. Max is looks at the Wife and rolls his eyes: “Weevil, this is Max. Go ahead on this channel.”
“Weevil? What’s Weevil? Over.”
“Ahh . . . it’s a code name.”
“Good idea, Max. Over.”
The Wife has figured it all out. She dashes into the house and comes back with another phone so she can eavesdrop.
“Weevil, what’s your twenty?”
“Chief, you have to say ‘over’.”
“Over,” says Max.
The Wife is bubbling over with mirth.
“Chief, I am in the woods next to the runway. There are workers painting stripes on it. Over.”
“Weevil, why are you in the woods . . . uh, over.”
The Wife has now moved on to tears of laughter.
“Max, they said they would beat me up if I didn’t go away. Over.”
“Weevil, maybe you should leave that location and talk to some of the nearby homeowners.”
There follows a good half-minute of silence before Max catches on.
“Over,” he says.
“Chief, I’ve done that already. Got pretty much the same response. Over.”
“Weevil, they threatened to beat you up? Over.”
“Chief, roger that, and a woman threatened to shoot my gonads off with a 12-gauge shotgun. As you know, at that range a 12-gauge would blow out my entire pelvic region. Over.”
“Roger, Weevil. Recommend full retreat at this time. Over.”
“Chief, roger that. But in case I’m killed, you should know something. Over.”
“Weevil, no one’s going to kill you. Over.”
“Uhhh roger, but with respect, that’s easy for you to say when you’re in Halifax. Over.”
“Weevil, you seem petulant, but your point is taken. Over.”
“Chie
f, the thing is, it’s not a runway. It’s a highway. It’s got pavement markings, a culvert and a 100km/h speed limit. It also has a big green overhead exit sign but with just an arrow. No words. Over.”
Max has had enough of protocol.
“Where the fuck does it go?”
“That’s the thing, Chief. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t start anywhere. It’s just there.”
Max gives the Weevil a heartfelt attaboy and tells him to get out before he gets beaten up.
Then he turns to the Wife: “Do you get it?”
“Yep.”
“The fucking thing is a vote-creation program. It’s about votes. That’s why they keep piling on the pressure.”
“I get it. And I love the way you say ‘roger’.”
“You didn’t say ‘over’.”
“Umm, over.”
“Roger that, and come over here.”
1995
The Campaign:
The Ride of the Valkyries
FOR THE FIRST time in months, Max’s insides aren’t torturing him. He feels a freshness, a lightness of being.
He calls the City Editor into his office and asks her to close the door.
“What?” she says. “After all these years, now?”
Max ignores her: “You and the Indonesian don’t seem to mind spending time together.”
The City Editor looks skyward.
“So I have a job for the two of you,” Max says. “Two days from now — a week before election day — I want three stories on Page 3: the road to nowhere; the archdiocese’s seduction defence, and Bentley & Steele’s failure to maintain their registration. All edited and ready to go.”
“Can’t be done,” she says. “The Collective will tip off the Cobra. He’ll kill the stories and fire you. Maybe all of us.”
“The Collective will never know,” Max says. “Just quietly get those stories ready for publication. Leave all the stuff on my desk and I’ll come in during the night and get it camera-ready.”
“You don’t know how to do that,” she says.
“How hard can it be?”
• • •
Two days later Max arrives at the newsroom at 3:30 a.m. to get the page ready. He finds a large envelope pinned to his office door. It’s hard to miss because taped to it is a black-and-white photo of dog feces, the ones deposited so long ago by Big Mac. There’s a sticky note from the City Editor: “Max, we never had to use this to fire the prick, but I’ve kept it for some reason. Thought it might cheer you up. Nil bastardo carborundum.”