Even though it was Sunday, Green could see several off-duty police officers milling around in the squad room outside. Everyone wanted to work the case on Peters’ behalf.
“No sightings of Twiggy yet,” Sullivan said, “but I phoned the hospital, and Peters continues to improve. She’s been upgraded from critical to stable.”
Green felt his mood lift even further. “That’s good news. Has she regained consciousness?”
“No, but she’s beginning to show signs, they said. The cop on guard said the doctors were actually smiling this morning.”
Good news all around, thought Green. “We should tell Gibbs. And Weiss.”
“I’ve already tried. Neither answered their phone.”
“Bob’s probably pounding the pavement again, trying to find someone who saw—” Green broke off as the elevator door opened and Gibbs himself appeared. The balding, bespectacled man who followed him out had a distinctively military stride, despite the extra two hundred pounds he carried on his massive frame. At the sight of Green and Sullivan, Gibbs’s face lit with a mixture of triumph and anticipation.
“This is Corporal Neil Thompson, sir. The Queens University student you asked me to locate.” Gibbs introduced the two detectives. Thompson dwarfed even Sullivan in size, but the handshake he extended was flaccid and moist.
“Not a corporal any more, strictly speaking,” he corrected with a diffident laugh. “The reserve unit and I have just parted company.”
Green didn’t ask why, but suspected the poundage might have played a role. “Thank you for getting here so quickly.”
“I drove down and picked him up,” Gibbs said.
“But I’m glad to come. Glad to help anyway I can. Ian and Danny were my friends.”
Green invited them all to pick up coffees and go down to a conference room where they could talk in comfort. He wanted to keep this initial interview conversational rather than formal, so he chose an executive meeting room that had recently been renovated in plush broadloom and leather. During the week, this room was reserved for intimate gatherings of the senior brass, but on Sunday, it was vacant. When they were settled around the table with hot cups of coffee, Green invited Thompson to tell them about Ian MacDonald’s experience in Croatia. The man needed no prompting to launch into his tale.
“It was a pivotal point in our lives that changed most of us forever. Do I regret going there? Not for a moment. Would I go again? Not on your life. It’s the reason I’m studying history now, because I realized the truth of the old saying. ‘Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ No one knew what they were doing over there. Not the UN Security Council, not the Europeans or the Americans or anyone else who stuck their noses in there. Not the military commanders and certainly not us lowly grunts patrolling our APCs up and down the road. But at the time we thought we were doing some good. We were keeping enemies apart, trying to make them compromise and negotiate their conflicts, trying to save innocent villagers who were caught up in the middle. And there were plenty of them.”
He picked up his coffee in his sausage fingers and took a noisy slurp. “By the end we thought, well, they’re not making a hell of a lot of headway on the diplomatic front in Zagreb, but at least on our little stretch of mountainside, we’re trying to show them a better way. Being over there sure made me appreciate Canada. I’m telling you all this to give you a sense of what we were thinking while we were over there, alternatively bored, hot, homesick, terrified and exhilarated. We had a lot of laughs and experiences of a lifetime too. Ian was no different than the rest of us in that respect. Like me, he was a bit more intellectual than some of the guys; he was planning to go to vet school, he was quieter, liked time to think and write in his diary . . .”
Green suppressed a jolt of excitement. No one had mentioned a diary. A diary might tell them everything! With an effort, he kept his expression neutral as he nodded for Thompson to continue, but mentally he was already composing his phone call to MacDonald’s mother.
“Ian always tried to help where he could. He taught the local kids English and adopted this crazy dog. He loved animals and hated it when we came across livestock that had been hurt in the shelling. Anyway, we all got a little tired and worn down, and as time went on and both sides kept dicking the UN around, we got more jaded. Plus by the end, when we were basically ordered to break up this war, it got downright scary. None of us wanted to die over there, and even our commanders didn’t believe our lives were on the line.”
Green’s senses grew alert. “Tell us about that.”
“It was when we were posted to Sector South . . .” He paused and pushed his glasses back up. Behind them, his tiny eyes peered at them uncertainly. “You guys know about the UNPAs?”
“Give us the highlights, just in case,” Green said. He wanted to interrupt the man’s recollections as little as possible.
“See, when Croatia and Serbia declared their independence from Yugoslavia, there were all these disputed parts of the country where they disagreed about whose land it was and which country it should be in, because the ethnic groups were all mixed up. Similar to where I’m from in New Brunswick, where the English and the French live side by side. The Croats claimed a whole lot of territory, and they basically wanted the Serbs out. The Serbs, on the other hand, wanted to join their villages together as part of Greater Serbia. And of course there were Muslims stuck in the middle too.” He grimaced wryly as if it were all beyond comprehension, then he shrugged.
“So the UN created these four UN Protected Areas in these mixed pockets. Sector South was the trickiest one. It was in Croatia, but the Serbs had a big population tucked into the mountains there, and they could basically cut off all of Southern Croatia if they wanted. There was a bridge, a dam and a few other strategic installations that both sides wanted to control. When we got there, the Croats had captured the bridge and dam, but the Serbs kept shelling from up in the mountains, so the Croats couldn’t use them. It was a war, and neither side wanted a ceasefire till they won. But . . .”
He paused to catch his breath. His voice was calm, but beads of sweat had formed on his upper lip and temples. The three detectives sipped their coffees and waited in silence. This was an intelligent and cooperative witness, a dream come true, and they knew it was best to let him tell his story.
“The UN had been taking a lot of heat for the mess in Yugoslavia, what with the rumours of ethnic cleansing, the blatant ceasefire violations, the land grabs, and the endless squabbling and double-talk among the various factions. The UN general at the top wanted to prove the UN military force could do something useful besides sell gasoline on the black market and get the local girls pregnant, so he decided to clean up Sector South.”
Sullivan leaned forward, suddenly alert. “A Canadian general? Was that MacKenzie?”
“No, it was a guy from France. Of course, I didn’t know any of this when we were little blue helmets down on the ground. I learned all this big picture stuff later. Anyway . . . Where was I?”
“Cleaning up Sector South?”
“Oh, yeah.” Thompson mopped his brow and pushed his glasses up again. “So the general figures the Canadians can do the job, and all our own brass were so eager to hop to it, they ignored the fact none of the belligerents wanted us there. Plus you know, no one’s supposed to fire on the UN. We had these shiny white vehicles you can see from miles away and these big-ass UN flags we’re supposed to put on our vehicles to tell everyone we’re the good guys. Target practice is more like it. We’re trying to dig in and build a bunker to hide in, and they’re shelling at each other over our heads the whole time. The Croats are trying to scare us away, and the Serbs are practically sitting in our laps, using us as cover to shell the Croats. Our leaders said ‘you’re soldiers, this is what you’re trained for.’ Sure, but we’ve got no air support, no big guns, and we’re not allowed to return fire anyway. So day after day, we’re hiding in this bunker covering our heads like kids in a sand fight.”
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“And you think this is what changed Ian MacDonald?”
“Well, it flipped out our section commander, that’s for sure. He kept trying to tell command that his men were in danger, and he kept getting told to get on with it.”
“This was Sergeant Sawranchuk?”
Thompson’s sweaty face lit with a smile. “Yeah, have you talked to him?”
“Not yet,” Green replied. “Did others find it as stressful?”
“We didn’t have the responsibility he had. And to tell you the truth, you get used to it, and you don’t think bad stuff’s going to happen to you, eh? You get to feeling invincible when you never get hit.” Thompson continued to grin, probably recalling the sheer adrenaline high of those days. “I think that’s why Ian did his superman rescue routine. The Croats launched a mortar attack to capture a bunch of Serb villages, catching us right in the crossfire. Our section had the only safe location in the village because we were dug in, right? So Ian brought all these stranded Serbs inside our section house to protect them. It was brave but reckless. He still believed we could make a difference with the locals, even if their leaders were sabotaging the peace at every turn.”
“So MacDonald wasn’t angry at his superior officers for putting your lives in danger?”
“No, I think he felt sorry for the local people, because they couldn’t just pick up and move out after six months like we could.”
“What about Daniel Oliver? Was he angry?”
“Oh, no. Danny was the gung ho type, that’s why Captain Hamm promoted him. He would have followed Hamm anywhere. Hamm was a true blue soldier.”
“What about the higher ups? Senior NCOs and company officers. Did either Oliver or MacDonald have any trouble with them?”
“Not that I ever knew. Ian wasn’t the argumentative type. He trusted people. He really believed everybody should do their best, even if the circumstances were difficult.” His thick lips twisted in a sad smile that brought dimples to his cheeks.
Green sensed something in the smile, and in his tone. The man was remembering something more. Green kept his voice soft. “What happened?”
Thompson hesitated, his brow furrowing with distaste at having to face the memories. He shifted his bulk in his chair and took a deep breath. “We had this insane operation where we were supposed to get between the Serb and Croat armies and push the Croats back out of the Serb villages. After the Croats withdrew, the CO figured there would be lots of refugees and injured Serb villagers left behind. He also thought—we all thought, from the shooting we heard—that there might be ethnic cleansing. So he created a sweep team with different types of expertise. Doctors and medics to treat the wounded, military observers and forensic experts to collect evidence of war crimes. And regular soldiers, of course, to help with the refugees and with body recovery. Ian was picked because of his expertise with animals. There were always lots of starving and injured livestock, and I guess you pick up a lot growing up on a farm.”
Thompson took a noisy slurp of coffee, which by this time must have been stone cold. “You could smell the stench for miles. Ian came back after two weeks of that . . . and he was a different man.”
Green absorbed this information, trying to see if the explanation fit with what they knew. Had something awful happened during those two weeks? Across the table, Sullivan laid down his notebook and leaned forward, his blue eyes intense. “You said there were forensics experts. From the military?”
“No, civilians. Both forensic specialists and UN civilian police were brought in to interview witnesses and document crimes.”
“Do you remember any names?”
Thompson shook his head. “No, the sweep team was in another unit. None of us met the cops.”
“Except Ian.”
“Well, yeah. I suppose Ian would have met them.”
Green felt Sullivan’s eyes upon him. If MacDonald and Weiss had served together in that sweep team, it was an extraordinary coincidence. Surely this had to be the core of the mystery. But was it enough simply to have served together? Was the trauma of that assignment sufficient to have derailed the lives of two young men so completely?
Green felt a niggling dissatisfaction. Something was missing. Oliver had used the word “betrayal” when he confronted his assailant in the bar. Betrayal was a powerful word, usually reserved for when a trust is truly shattered.
Suddenly the implication of the rest of Thompson’s statement struck him. “You said the sweep team was in another unit. Do you remember the leader’s name?”
“That I do remember, because his name has been plastered all over the news. It was John Blakeley.”
TWENTY-ONE
Aug. 19, 1993. Maslenica Bridge, Sector South, Croatia.
The whole Canadian Battalion has taken over this sector and we’re quartered at the old school again, waiting for the withdrawal agreement. I feel like we’ll be stuck here forever, ducking the shells, while the UN plays with itself and the Croats get ready to wipe the Serbs off the map. I can’t wait to go home. Only a month to go, if we don’t get killed. Every day the artillery shells fly over our heads. The Serbs are trying to snuggle up as close as they can to use us as cover while they attack, but the Croats blast back at them anyway.
The company commander figures both sides are trying to drive us away so they can have a clear shot at each other. But he’s decided we are going to stay put, so all night long, when the Serbs can’t see us, we fill sand bags and hump them up the hill to build the biggest bunker you’ve ever seen. The soil is really red, and Sarge is afraid it’s radioactive from some old mine that’s near by. But the OC says “you want to die now, or later?”
Aug. 22, 1993, Maslenica Bridge, Sector South, Croatia.
Today all hell broke loose inside the camp. We got blasted by this shell fifteen metres from the bunker while we were asleep. It blew up a whole wall of sand bags and we were all choking on the red dust. Sarge says “that’s it!” and he grabs his rifle, jumps in the Jeep and goes off. Word is he threatened to blow the company commander’s head off and it took three guys to restrain him. Anyway, a few hours later the Hammer comes up, pins a master corporal maple leaf on Danny and says he’s the new section commander. Just like that. I’m glad for Danny, but I’m worried about Sarge. He was only trying to look out for us.
John Blakeley’s condominium was not at all what Green had expected, given what he had learned about the man. It was on the twelfth floor of a glass and steel spire on Laurier Avenue West, and had a spectacular view of the Ottawa River, the copper roof of the new War Museum, and in the distance across the river, the rounded hills of the Gatineau. The taxes and condo fees alone, even without a mortgage, would have put the average enlisted man in the poorhouse, but Blakeley also had a riverside estate in Petawawa, where he and his wife presumably spent most of their time.
As soon as they had finished with Neil Thompson, Green and Sullivan headed straight over to see Blakeley, wanting to catch him by surprise and give him little time to plan a defence strategy. Atkinson had almost certainly warned him that they were making inquiries about the past, but neither the sweep team nor MacDonald’s and Weiss’s names had been mentioned before. Green hoped that gave them at least a small element of surprise.
Standing outside the steel and glass high rise, Green was no longer sure what to expect. A man as tall and remote as the place where he lived? To his surprise, Blakeley buzzed them in cheerfully, and when they emerged from the elevator on the twelfth floor, he was standing in the hallway with a hearty grin on his face. In person, even more than in his photo, the ridged white scar across his left eyebrow gave him a warrior’s air. He was dressed in ratty jeans and a red Ottawa Senators T-shirt. His white hair, so well tamed in his campaign poster, flew about in wild disarray and his grin revealed a chipped front tooth. He was shorter than Green, with a thick, muscular body.
He shook Green’s hand with a vigour that made Green’s teeth rattle.
“You caught me in my Sunday b
est, boys,” he exclaimed as he ushered them inside. “But I’ve been expecting you. Roger said you’d dropped by. I’ve asked Leanne to put on a pot of coffee. Terrible thing about your detective, and I’ll do whatever I can to help. I have some contacts with the police up in Petawawa.”
He led the way through a brightly lit hall into an enormous living room banked by an entire wall of windows. The view was unobstructed by curtains, as if inviting the vast open skies into the room. The floors were acres of blond wood and, again surprisingly for the rugged warrior who lived there, the furniture was white leather. The only strong colours came from the vivid framed photographs that lined the walls. Close-ups of nature—a gnarled tree, a rusty tugboat at sunset, a snake coiled in a tree. Not the nature of postcards and tourism brochures, Green noted, but the underbelly. A reflection of the man himself, perhaps?
Green sensed immediately that he was in the presence of a powerful man. A man of strong emotion, vast intellect and a charisma that pulled people in his wake. No wonder the Liberals wanted him. Green chose the leather armchair by the window, so that he was facing into the room and backlit by the sun. It was a small advantage, but he suspected he was going to need every one he could get. Sullivan folded himself into a loveseat at the opposite side of the room, leaving Blakeley no choice but to sit between them, unable to keep both in his sights.
A woman glided into the room with the grace of a cat, bearing a tray with coffee and a plate of scones. She sized up the situation and her lips drew a thin, tight line. “Perhaps you’d prefer to sit at the table,” she said, gesturing to the adjoining dining room, where a heavy white table was encircled by plush suede chairs. “It’ll be easier that way.”
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