The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel

by Michael Yudov

That got her attention, and she excused herself from the table, heading down the hall to her room I suppose. Then Wilson started cleaning up the dishes from our tea. Wilson obeyed as he did always, I’m sure. I thought about what I had said, went over it in my mind, point by point. I’d been over the top, but what I’d said was essentially true. If Godsen thought Wilson was a ‘tough guy’, then either I had lost it and couldn’t tell a killer from a girl-guide, or I was in more trouble than I had initially thought. Maybe Wilson was the quiet unassuming type and was a lot better than I had figured. Maybe, but I doubted it. No matter how many ways I sliced it, what I had spouted was true. The guys I had worked with all those years ago had taught me something you just can’t learn from behind a desk. You can practice almost anything until you’re very good at it, but you can never practice killing. You can only do it or not. And you can’t anticipate how you’ll react to it when it happens. No matter how you feel you know yourself. After you’ve discovered this the hard way, you typically end up reassessing your place in the world. In the end, the most dangerous thing you can face in the field is your own mortality. A team leader that has wrongly assessed the capabilities of the team members usually finds out the hard way. Someone who isn’t supposed to die does. That can set off a chain reaction of killing that will make even the most hardened of hearts cringe and wither. I’d seen it with my own eyes. I’d been part of the chain.

  I shook my head at the unbidden remembrances. I pulled out my pack of Camels and lit one, got up and paced the length of the lounge cabin, just to stretch my legs and shake off the mindset that was gripping me.

  Godsen walked back into the room and settled into the lounge chair she had sat in when I arrived onboard. I walked over to join her.

  “Everything Okay?”

  “That depends what you mean by ‘Okay’.” She sighed and gave me an open look. “Sorry. Yes, everything’s Okay. It was a personal call. I’d like to say that I enjoyed your little tirade, no, I shouldn’t say tirade, speech, then. I enjoyed your little speech. It actually helped me to understand you, and I did have a confusion in my mind about your ‘motivation’, as you put it. I do appreciate the candor you expressed to me, though. George had told me a bit about you, your stubborn streak, and your tendency to keep everyone at arm’s length, strictly professional and all that. You’ve given me an insight I didn’t have before. Now.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Would you like to hear what I have planned? You can tell me if you think your role suits you, maybe suggest alternative actions.”

  “What about you spilling some of your guts? I took a turn, now it’s over to you.”

  She pondered that one for a few moments.

  “Fair is fair. Where would you like me to start?”

  I shook my head at her. “Nope, you have to determine that. Talk to me about things that matter to you, got you here from wherever you started out.”

  “That would be giving away my ‘motivator’, don’t you think?” She grinned.

  “Okay, Okay. What about how long you’ve been doing this? When did you start?”

  “I’ve been locked into my work for so long now that I hardly remember when it wasn’t like this, but in real terms, it’s been over seventeen years. I’ve walked the halls of power with the winners and the losers in our democratic tournaments for so long that when I wake up in the morning I look for my secretary before I look for my coffee.”

  “Yeah, the government does tend to be a twenty-four hour a day occupation.”

  “It’s been good to me though. I’ve had opportunities in the Service that I certainly wouldn’t have had in business, just because I’m a woman. It’s been a hard go at times, but I’ve enjoyed the challenge. I’ve had a lot of input in readjusting the counter-intelligence branch from top to bottom. The operatives have said that it helped them to get their work done. That gave me significant job satisfaction that I just couldn’t get anywhere else. There’s also been a complete revamping of hiring policies that I’m responsible for. I created a new computer intelligence and processing department about five years ago, now. Hiring people that knew what they were doing, sending them off for advanced study at McGill in Montreal, U of T in Toronto, UBC out on the coast, and even M.I.T. when we couldn’t get what we wanted at home. It’s given me a lot of pleasure to produce resolutions to some of our most wicked recurring problems using these new resources.”

  “What about your rank? Where did you pick that up?”

  She eyed me warily. “That was a gift actually. I have leadership over certain components of the military, and in order to lead effectively I needed actual rank. The military people get fussy about rank, so I was given a commission by the Defense Minister about three years ago. It’s worked out well so far. I don’t usually talk about myself this much. Let’s change the subject. What do you say we go over the plans one time?”

  I gave in. “Sure, let’s run through the first day.” Maybe it would be Okay. Maybe.

  “For a start, here are the files on the team members. We can discuss the positional setup after I’ve laid out the plan. Fine?”

  “Yeah, fine.” I looked over the files as she talked, listening with one ear while I read the jackets. I did a quick once-over, then handed them back to her, interrupting her train of thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Her tone of voice told me that she was being sincere. I gave her the benefit of my doubt and answered honestly.

  “There’s not a single thing in these records that I need to know. I don’t know why you think I wanted to see them. Did you pass my file out to the team as well?”

  “Yes, of course. If we’re going to work together we need to know who we’re working with, don’t we?” There was a note of uncertainty creeping into her voice now. She couldn’t figure where I was coming from, and that made her nervous I think.

  “Sure. The files don’t help with that though. All the file has is records of merit achieved. If there’s enough merit to warrant a place on the team, then it’s a leader’s call that the person in question gets a seat on the team. By virtue of being named to the team, all of the members accept that the others have passed muster as well. That’s all they need to know. I’m disappointed that you saw fit to hand out my file to the whole team. I’d appreciate you getting the files back, and destroying them. You’re the only one who needs to know what’s in it. As far as your people go, if you say they’re fit for the job, then I’ll take your word for it, I don’t need to see their jackets.”

  “I see. I’ll take that into consideration. Shall we continue?” Now she was getting piqued. Novice was a kind term to place on her. She probably thought this was one of the rites of passage she had to endure before taking over the Intelligence Section. George was right, she did need me along. We got back to the plan.

  The jet engines roared away taking us ever closer to our destination, and, I hoped, Ted Dawson, with answers to some important questions. Godsen went on to lay out a ‘plan’ that encompassed all of the team, and was spread out over the next five days.

  Apparently, three of the team were heading on from Zurich after we were dropped off. The two men, Casey and Wilson, and one of the women I had spotted when we boarded the plane going by the name of Littlefox. Casey was the pilot currently flying us to our destination, and the usual driver when they were on terra firma. One of the women, Westwood, was staying in Zurich with us. Westwood was the communications guru, and there was a fair bit of high tech wizardry on board for us to employ at our discretion in Switzerland.

  The three team members forwarding on were going to meet up with George in Paris after he had carried out his Beirut assignment. That mollified me like a Rhino suppository. George and his tactics in general, I just couldn’t figure where his head had been at. At least he wasn’t going to be roaming around alone in Paris. I still didn’t think that he should be doing it in the first place, but it looked like nobody was going to be asking me for permission on that score, so I put it out of mind as much as possible. W
ith Westwood being the comms specialist and on our section of the team, we would be able to initiate contact at will with the rest of the group. That’s the way it was laid out for me anyway. I’d seen too many movies like this one to believe that it would be that simple, but I kept that counsel to myself. For the moment, it would serve no purpose other than being disruptive. We would see what we would see.

  For our little group in Zurich, what it came down to was staking out the bank in the hopes of Ted Dawson walking into our arms, which was the first and most obvious course of action, and having a talk with the manager with the aim of getting him to be forthcoming with information on the holder of Dawson’s account. Knowing the Swiss, I doubted that any covert ops people would be able to prize the information out of him. Or her. Most likely him being Switzerland. Just two years back the last bastion of Swiss male domination had given way to the democratic process of the modern world. The Canton of Basel had held a public referendum which resulted in granting women the right to vote. It was a narrow-margin victory.

  It would most likely take pressure from the Swiss government, via the Canadian Embassy, via the United Nations, with Interpol thrown in for good measure, to achieve the level of pressure required to gain account information from any head of a bank in that country, and even then, only because of the recent changes in the laws regarding international requests for information.

  Of course, there were other ways. I’d cross these bridges as we came to them. The more complex end of it, the search for a linking factor with the company we were focusing on now, the Crassberg Group AG, was being investigated as deeply as was possible back at the Computer Intelligence office in Ottawa. In the end, it was a simple job with a simple plan, and the only glitch would be if we weren’t the only ones looking for Dawson and we got to him second. I suspected that if we were second, Dawson would be dead. Simple as that. If we were first, then the job would change from one of hunting, to one of protecting. It would look worse if we found him then let him be killed while in our possession than if we didn’t find him at all.

  I let Godsen talk it all out then told her that it sounded fine and to count me in. She appeared to be satisfied with that and went off to confer with her cronies. I sat and smoked waiting for the plane to get where we were going thinking about the case and the killer. Whoever had killed John Dawson should be able to unravel the mystery of why, and his brother Ted was the only link that had come to light. If we didn’t get him under our protection soon, we might never find out what we needed to know.

  Therese wandered out of her cabin looking sleepy-eyed and not a bit the worse for wear. She came over to where I was sitting and plonked herself down on the chair next to me laying her head back against the seat and closing her eyes.

  “How you feelin’, kid?”

  She opened her eyes and turned her head my way, keeping it laid back against the cushioned chair.

  “I am… so tired. I shall never be the same again in this life I think.”

  It was apparent that she’d been thinking about John. I wasn’t quite sure what to say. The last thing I wanted to do was to spout some old adage about time healing all wounds or some such, yet it felt like she needed me to say something. I decided to be honest.

  “I have to agree with you, Therese. It will always be different now. What you have to think about is how to make the difference into one that will allow you to get to a place in your mind where you can be happy again. That could take some time, but you can get there eventually.”

  She looked at me eye to eye for about five seconds or so, then turned away, closing them again.

  “You believe I can get there from here?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Is that something you believe because you know, or because you think it should be that way?”

  “Because I know.” I was being more honest than I had intended, but she didn’t press it.

  “Then I will believe.”

  Then she stopped talking, so did I. We both sat there feeling the rumble of power from the engines, just thirty feet away, breathing canned oxygen, waiting for the destination to come rushing up at us from below.

  A while later, Godsen came back into the lounge and handed me four file folders. All mine, a good sign. She hunched over the chair Therese was napping in and gave me an update in a low voice.

  “We’re due to land in about thirty minutes. You might want to get refreshed first. I’ll handle the paperwork when we get there, and my people will have a car meet us on the tarmac. You won’t have to bother with customs this trip.” She looked at Therese. “You can wake her when you think you should. I have to make some more calls.” She left again. That woman spent more time on the telephone than a teenager. I nudged Therese awake.

  “Huh?” She opened her eyes and for a moment I saw the innocence and pleasure of her youth, then it occurred to her where she was, and I watched the transformation in her eyes as reality kicked in. It made me remember that she didn’t do anything to deserve being in the position she found herself in. Life could be vicious, but it could be worse than it already was. That was how I got through some hard times of my own remembering that. It didn’t do much for Therese, though. She wouldn’t know what I meant if I said it to her. At least I didn’t think so. She turned to me.

  “Is it over now? The flying?” She tried to look out the window, but all of the covers were pulled down.

  “Yes, we’re landing in about half an hour. Would you like something? Coffee maybe?”

  “Oh, oui, merci. That would be very nice. I will be back in a moment, yes?” When she got up she stretched out in all directions at the same time and made it look good. Ballerinas were definitely a fit bunch if she was any indicator. Come to think of it, I just might start going to the ballet maybe when this case was locked down. I caught myself thinking too far ahead and refocused.

  Reaching up, I pushed the call button, which delivered Wilson to me before Therese had walked out of the room.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Do me a favour Wilson?” He looked inscrutable for a moment. Must have worked the Far East at some point. He took everything so seriously.

  “If I can, certainly, sir.”

  “Okay, drop the ‘sir’ business, will you? Just call me Jeffry. That works for me. What do you say?”

  He grinned a bit, and nodded.

  “Right you are, Jeffry. Anything I can get for you or the lady?”

  “Sure. I’ll have a Perrier, and Therese will have a coffee. Thanks.”

  “No problem, be back in a moment.”

  I was by myself for a few minutes. I thought again about the people we were trying to pin down. They were well connected and very effective at their chosen criminal activity because of that connection. Presumably, the act of murder perpetrated on John Dawson was done in order to protect that relationship, because he knew something about it, and it was a tight little circle. He wasn’t supposed to know. We were also assuming that the inside connection that made the gang so effective was some person or persons unknown within the Crassberg Group. That’s the only way we could view it at the moment, because that’s the only corporation that had inside information was in documented contact with most of the banks that were robbed and was linked, albeit indirectly, with John Dawson, our murder victim, who was linked to Ted Dawson, who was linked to the Brazil deal, which was linked to the Crassberg Group. Because of the Brazil deal, and possibly some additional mystery, he was being hunted. ‘Round and round and round we spin, to weave a wall to hem us in’. Neil Young. Now there was a songwriter, and Canadian to boot. This was certainly a spider’s web we were climbing through. A very deadly spider at that too. Drifting. No good. I tried getting back on track.

  The Crassberg Group. That person or persons unknown. They were most likely in contact with only one of the gang of bank robbers. At least that’s the way I would do it. There were two things to focus on. One, the likeliest suspect out of the people who were in a position to be capable of bein
g the information contact within the Crassberg Group. Two, the most likely method used for the actual passing of information. The second would be dependent on the first. The method of contact was a variable which was going to remain unknown until we could narrow the choices for number one. If the person at Crassberg held a position that kept them at the head office in a nine-to-five type of slot, then there were only three possibilities: they made contact by telephone, the contact came to them, or it took place after working hours. Or the fourth possibility: it was at lunch time. If the Crassberg person held a job that allowed them to leave the office at will, perhaps even travel out of town on business, then the possibilities for contact grew exponentially. At the moment, I couldn’t conceive of any way to be able to narrow that down to something manageable. We needed Ted.

  Therese made it back, looking somewhat perkier than she had. Wilson brought the coffee and my Perrier water at the same time and told us that we were on schedule, we would land in fifteen minutes.

  I excused myself for a minute and went to my cabin to put on my gear and jacket. I felt a bit uneasy, but I couldn’t really say why. Maybe it was just being in Europe and wearing guns. I’d never done that before, so maybe that was what was making me edgy.

  When I came back Godsen was sitting in my seat talking with Therese, so I took the one across the aisle from them, and buckled myself in. I was having to swallow and work my jaw to get my ears to pop. We were coming down fast. I tried opening the drawn shade over my window, but it seemed to be stuck. Godsen stood up and stepped over the aisle sitting down next to me. Leaning over, she reached across my lap and flicked a small latch set into the frame of the window well.

  “Try it now.”

  I pulled up on the shade and this time it slipped up smoothly, revealing a sky of… dark and not much else. No stars twinkling in the heavens, no city lights blazing in homage to the ingenuity of man’s ability to tame the dark below us, just dark. And the wing of the plane, naturally. There was a small reflection of mist visible flowing over the edge of the wing as we sliced through it, caught in the beam of the landing lights, but that was all. So, we were in the clouds. I waited, transfixed by the nothingness.