Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller

by Alex C. Franklin

  She was in her element. Hutton enjoyed seeing her animated like this, but he nodded and raised his hand to stop her.

  He reached for her left elbow and led her closer to the potted plants. He positioned himself so that when she faced him, her back would be to anyone passing by.

  “Angela, I need to tell you something.”

  She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head quizzically, but her eyes strayed. It seemed she was itching to get back to the schmoozing.

  “Angela, there was a fire at Bill’s apartment in Monaco, yesterday.”

  “What did you say?” She gave him her full attention now. She frowned as she seemed to try to catch the significance of his words.

  Her face relaxed, then she chuckled. “Poor Bill. Seems he’s having a string of bad luck these days. Did you hear about the skiing accident? Broke both legs.

  “I’d meant to ring him up and rib him about it. Heli-skiing at his age! What does he think he is? Some sprightly twenty-year-old? But I’ve been so busy lately, it slipped my mind.

  “I must call him and ask him what jinx is following him around. Maybe some kind of curse from one of those African countries where Magrelma has mines.”

  “Angela, I’m sorry to tell you this,” Hutton said, “but Bill didn’t survive the fire.”

  Her eyes remained fixed on him, her body immobile.

  Silent seconds slipped by.

  “Look, I know how much he meant to you—”

  “That was a long time ago, Robert.”

  Her face appeared calm, almost emotionless. The news of the death of her former fiancé seemed not to penetrate her. Hutton thought he knew better.

  “He didn’t suffer, Angela. Monaco officials say he died in his sleep. Smoke inhalation. The fire didn’t touch him.”

  “And Fran?”

  “She wasn’t home.”

  “I’ll send her official condolences and have someone from the Paris mission attend the funeral.”

  The actions were only faintly perceptible, but he had seen them – the micro-movement of the chin upward, the rolling back of the shoulders a smidge, the stiffening of the spine. She was shifting into full Secretary of State mode.

  Hutton wished she would allow herself to be vulnerable, to show she felt this loss, and, perhaps, lean on his shoulder, even if for just a brief moment. But deep down, he knew that was expecting too much.

  “They say the fire was accidental,” he said. “But I’ve asked for our people to look into it, just in case.”

  She nodded.

  At the corner of his eye, Hutton saw someone approaching, and he looked up. Bounding with determined steps toward them was Steve Roseau, former congressman and scion of an old Louisiana family. Hutton would have preferred if Angela Woodward, as she had been known before her marriage, had ended up with Mahler instead of this silver-spooned buffoon; at least Mahler had been a fairly decent guy from a solid, upper middle-class background who had worked hard to make his own way in the world.

  She turned at the sound of the footsteps.

  “There’s my girl,” Steve Roseau said. “I was wondering where you’d disappeared to.” He looked at the director. “Robert,” he said with a stiff nod.

  “Steve,” Hutton said with an even stiffer nod.

  Steve Roseau offered his arm to his wife. She curled her hand around it. As they were about to leave, she turned back to Hutton.

  “You will keep me informed about the investigation, won’t you?” she said.

  Hutton bowed deeply.

  Chapter 7

  In the dim light, just off from the entertainment tent, the Canadian prime minister shook hands with Kees Verhoeven, chairman of a global heavy machinery company that had been started by the Dutchman’s great-grandfather.

  Peabody drew on a cigarette. The protocol officer had made it clear that no smoking was allowed on the White House grounds. But Peabody was hyped up tonight. He had to have this smoke. There was no way they would come after the guest of honor for lighting up, he figured.

  “Where are you these days?” Peabody pulled out a cigarette case and lighter from his breast pocket and offered them to Verhoeven.

  “Oh, here and there. London mostly.” Verhoeven looked around at the stony-faced security types who stood not far off. He exchanged glances with one of them, then shrugged and lit up.

  Peabody and Verhoeven had been at the University of Toronto at the same time. They never had much in common to begin with. The Dutchman, older by several years, had been finishing up a Master’s in engineering when Peabody became an undergraduate law student. They’d met only because they served together on the student council. They had never been fast friends, but their paths had crossed so often over the years, the association felt enduring.

  “How are things working out with Derek at your Hong Kong office?” Peabody said, accepting back the case and lighter.

  “He’s doing just fine.”

  “Thanks for letting me know. I don’t hear from him myself these days. Now that he’s got a job, he’s too busy to talk to his old man.”

  “That’s kids for you. They can’t wait fly the coop and, when they do, they become complete strangers. Unless you keep them in the family business, of course.” Verhoeven thrust his chin in the direction of a muscular young man who had followed two steps behind him all night. “Hans, my youngest.”

  “Good grief he’s got big since I last saw him. What have you been feeding him?”

  “He likes to take care of himself. Doesn’t have much of a business mind. But he’s good to have around.” Verhoeven sucked hard on the cigarette, then expelled a long, white stream into the cool, night air. “Listen, John, I’m glad to catch a moment with you. There’s something I wanted to talk with you about.”

  “Go ahead. Shoot.”

  “This Syron Lake hearing.”

  “Syron Lake hearing?” Peabody cocked his head; his eyes darted from left to right, as if rifling through a mental filing cabinet. “You’ll have to remind me of that one.”

  “Syron Lake, Northern Ontario. From what I understand, four or five companies had uranium mining operations there until the market bottomed out in the nineties. All the mines closed. They’ve been managing the toxic waste left behind ever since. In November, a regulatory panel will review plans for the government to assume control of the waste.”

  “Oh yes, that matter.” Peabody smirked. “Getting into the mining business now, Kees? Haven’t got enough on your plate already, eh?”

  “I’m only inquiring on behalf of a third party. Just repaying a favor from years back.”

  “What about it then?”

  “How far can you ensure that the panel will be, let’s say, friendly toward the mining companies?”

  “I can’t. As far as I know, the chairman of the nuclear regulatory authority is set to handle that proceeding himself. He’s as straight as an arrow. Believes in transparency and all that kind of crap. You know, when I go to social events, mining executives come up to me all the time and complain that he refuses to even shake their hands when they run across him during a hearing.”

  “Is there any way he could be persuaded to hand the hearing over to Ben Dromel, then? You remember Dromel, don’t you?”

  “Hmm, Dromel? Dromel?”

  “He’s also a U of T man. Did a double major in law and engineering. He was in the debating club when you were president.”

  “No. Coming up blank on the name.”

  “Well, he’s been with the nuclear regulator a couple of years now. I understand that he’s, let’s say, malleable.”

 
“The chairman isn’t one of my appointees. And he’s very vocal in asserting that the nuclear regulatory authority is supposed to be an independent, arm’s-length body. I can’t force him to do anything. Sorry, Kees. You know I’d love to, but I can’t help you there.”

  Verhoeven held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay. Just asking.”

  Approaching footsteps caused the two men to look up. Angus Firestone, the prime minister’s chief of staff, walked briskly across the lawn toward them.

  “They’re looking for you, John,” Firestone said. “They’re about the start the entertainment.”

  Verhoeven slapped Peabody on the shoulder. “Go on in and enjoy it,” he said. “The night belongs to you, after all.”

  Chapter 8

  Thursday, September 16

  Benoit T. Dromel had hardly had a chance to settle in at his desk for the morning when the phone rang.

  “You heard about Stan?”

  It was the deputy chairman. Dromel had always found the man’s voice irritating; but then again, he had found the man himself utterly uninspiring. The two of them had just never hit it off.

  “My secretary mentioned something about him being in the hospital, just as I walked in.”

  “Oh yeah. He’s in the hospital alright. I went to see him before I came in.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Very. Get over to my office. I need to talk to you.”

  Dromel put down the phone and took a few moments to straighten papers on his desk that didn’t need straightening. He didn’t appreciate being ordered about like that.

  The deputy chairman, a bear of a man with a unibrow and hunched shoulders, sat behind a desk cluttered with binders, manila folders, envelopes and stacks of loose sheets. Dromel took the mess to be an indication of a weak and disorganized mind. He wondered, now, as he’d often done, why this guy was sitting pretty as the deputy chairman instead of him when they’d been appointed to their posts within weeks of each other.

  He took a seat.

  “Well?” he said.

  “It was ugly. He was sedated. He’s all black and blue.”

  The deputy chairman focused on Dromel’s completely bald pate. Dromel found this disconcerting. He wasn’t sure the deputy chairman was avoiding his eyes out of weakness or staring at his cleanly-shaved head out of contempt.

  “What happened, exactly?”

  “Volleyball.”

  “Again?” Dromel shook his head.

  Three months earlier, the entire executive floor of the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Authority had been shocked to see the chairman walk in with a large purple welt under a reddened left eye. His weekly volleyball game had been a little more exciting than expected, the chairman had joked.

  Dromel liked the man. Small in stature and good-natured about it, the chairman was affable with fellow commissioners and his staff, even if a little too earnest about regulatory matters. Oddly for a man so keen about his job, the chairman was at the same time altogether too casual about his position and the status it carried. Dromel had teased him not to play with the “big boys” – he knew if he were chairman, he wouldn’t be mingling with just anybody and everybody in weekly drop-in volleyball games at his local community center, even if the facility was in a mostly upper middle-class neighborhood.

  “Nobody saw what happened,” the deputy chairman said. “Police questioned two Serbian cousins who were nearest him when he went down. Nobody had seen them at the center before. But everybody had signed injury waiver forms. So nobody was held responsible.”

  “I bet Stan’s learned his lesson now. He shouldn’t have even put himself in that situation.”

  “The doctors say two months, maybe three, for recovery.”

  Dromel shook his head.

  The deputy chairman opened a thick folder.

  “Anyway, that means all of his duties fall to me, and I’m delegating some of them to you.”

  He went through a list of meetings, planned announcements, and reports that had to be signed off on. Dromel frowned as he noticed a pattern: anything that had the least possibility of press or involved top executives in the mining or power companies went to the deputy chairman; he got the grunt work.

  “As for the public hearings, there are only two, both out-of-towners.” The deputy chairman cleared his throat. “I’ll chair the one in Saskatoon next month, and you’ll do the one in Syron Lake the first week in November.”

  It was the last straw.

  Syron Lake was way up in the bush in Northern Ontario. The chairman may have been worked up about it; but he was zealous about everything. The hearing was about long-closed mines that most people had forgotten. There was zero chance of media interest. And it meant traveling to what was certain to be a crummy, dilapidated, near-ghost town in the forest for a whole week.

  The Saskatoon file, on the other hand, was sexy. A handful of environmentalists and First Nation activists had clashed with police while protesting plans to expand one of the biggest uranium waste management sites in the country. Blood had been shed and the incident had made national headlines. The reports all mentioned that with tension remaining high, restoring peace hinged on the upcoming hearing before the Canadian Nuclear Regulatory Authority. Whoever chaired that panel was almost certain to make a career-boosting appearance in front of the television cameras.

  “Shouldn’t we at least discuss this?” Dromel crossed his arms and tried to catch the deputy chairman’s eyes.

  “What’s there to discuss?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. How about a bit more balance in the apportioning of these duties?”

  The deputy chairman slapped the folder shut, then rested his clasped hands on it.

  “Balance?” He forced a smile.

  “Yes. I’m seeing a huge difference in the significance of the duties assigned to me and those you’ll be handling.”

  “It seems you’ve failed to grasp that there’s no symmetry between us, Dromel. In Stan’s absence, I’m in charge.”

  “Sure you are. But how about an effort to give at least an appearance of fairness?”

  “I’ve made my decisions, Dromel.”

  The two stared down each other.

  “Fine.” Dromel stood up abruptly.

  “I’ll have my secretary send you an email with all that we’ve discussed,” the deputy chairman said.

  Dromel was already out the door.

  In the evening at his regular watering hole overlooking the Rideau Canal, Dromel held the third glass of gin and tonic to his lips. He was contemplating how flat his career path had been when a stranger in an expensive-looking suit took a seat, uninvited, opposite him.

  His table was in a dimly lit corner since he preferred to drink alone, unseen. It was far from all the other patrons who gathered rowdily around the bar and the billiard tables. Even so, the stranger leaned over and spoke in a hushed voice.

  “You’re Ben Dromel from the nuclear authority, aren’t you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Heard you’re heading the Syron Lake panel.”

  Dromel put his drink down slowly. He had told no one about this. Apart from the deputy chairman, the deputy chairman’s secretary and his own secretary, no one else knew.

  But then he thought about the fact that his secretary was not his assistant alone; she acted for all seven commissioners other than the chairman and deputy chairman. And she was not exactly known for being the most discreet person in the world.

  He remained silent as he squinted and studied the eyes of the stranger.

  “You know, the mining companies don
’t like surprises,” the stranger said.

  Dromel acted unconcerned. He took another sip without removing his eyes from the stranger’s face. But his pulse raced.

  He figured he knew where this could be going. He had been here before, more than a decade ago. He’d been working as an engineer back then, and a certain piece of information needed to disappear so a project could move forward. And it did disappear — after a certain thick, brown envelope had been left in his locker at the gym. The contents had come in handy when he needed to make a down payment on a smart, little condo on Riverside Drive.

  The stranger continued. “I hear you’re a persuasive man, and that the newer commissioners look up to you.”

  Dromel maintained an air of nonchalance.

  “It could be worth your while if a certain company could be assured that the panel will not spring any surprises.”

  After a long silence, Dromel sniffed. “If, hypothetically, I were interested in any of this, which of the companies are we talking about?”

  The Syron Lake hearing involved five mining companies of varying sizes. A couple belonged to publicly-traded global behemoths, and the other three were privately-held. The disparity in their financial resources was enormous.

  He would be not so gauche as to raise a discussion about a dollar amount, but, for him, that was the biggest deciding factor.

  The stranger seemed to read his mind. He took a gold pen from his breast pocket, wrote on a napkin, and slid it across the table.

  Dromel took a brief glance. Involuntarily, he looked again. Yes, the figure was interesting. Very interesting, in fact.

  “What do they want?”

  “Simply to be sure their request will be granted.”

  Dromel finished off his drink. All of the mining companies wanted to hand back their licenses for managing the former mine sites. The requests they had submitted, and the hearing for that matter, were more or less a mere formality. The mines had been closed for decades and the active work of cleaning up the sites and building waste holding facilities had been completed years prior. Since there was noting more to be done other than watch over the waste, the companies weren’t interested in sticking around forever. The government authorities had made provisions for precisely this kind of exit, which they deemed an orderly transfer of responsibilities.