“So no more foolishness about bowing out, okay, Robert? Even if he wouldn’t admit it in that meeting, the president needs you, and this nation needs you.”
“Thank you for that, Angela.”
“Oh, there’s nothing to thank me for.” She chuckled. “I’m just speaking the truth.”
At the far end of the hall,Kathy Wang walked out of a door and stood waiting. She clutched her notebook computer, as usual, and her face bore a harried expression as always.
Hutton and Roseau resumed walking.
“How’s that investigation into Bill’s death going?” Roseau said.
The subject had become inescapable with them. Since the State Department hosted the FBI’s legal attachés at embassies around the world, Hutton had always been aware that their respective offices linked him and Roseau professionally. But the Mahler case was different. This one touched her on a deep and very personal level, and must have reminded her, as it did him, that their personal connection stretched back a quarter of a century. The Mahler case was a thread that now interwove their lives and seemed to be irresistibly drawing them closer together. At least Hutton hoped so.
“Nothing conclusive yet,” Hutton said. “Of course, as the primary benefactor, Fran–”
“Yes, of course.” Roseau nodded. “The surviving spouse is usually the prime suspect.”
“We’re also paying closer attention to the remaining partners.”
“So, Maitland, then.”
“And there’s also Daniel Greene.”
“Isaac’s son?”
“Yes, he’s been active in the company two years now, since his father died.”
“Well, if it turns out he’s responsible, how tragic that’d be, all round.”
“Do you know him?”
“Not personally.” They stopped just before reaching Wang. “But if I remember correctly, that boy was left behind at a boarding school in Dobbs Ferry when the parents moved to Monaco.
“He had some kind of condition and needed surgery every so often. They said he had to remain in the States so he could be under his long-time surgeon’s care.”
Roseau shook her head. “Imagine going through that all alone as a child. I heard Carmela came back once or twice when he was in the hospital, but I always thought that whole situation was unhealthy for the boy’s emotional development.”
“Thousands of kids get shipped out to boarding schools every year, Angela, and they don’t grow up to kill their business partner. It may make for a lonely upbringing, but it’s no excuse for murder.”
“Oh, I agree with you.” Roseau touched Hutton lightly on the forearm. “No matter what anybody goes through as a child, he’s totally responsible for his choices as an adult. So I expect Daniel Greene to face the full force of justice, if you find that he’s behind what happened to Bill.”
“I assure you he will.” Hutton nodded. “He absolutely will.”
Chapter 51
The dark, frigid waters of the Rideau Canal swirled directly below him. Another night of waiting; another night of disappointment. He shelled out two tens on the table to cover his drinks and a generous tip. He left sober, too sober, searching every face, hoping for the encounter that would mark the start of the rest of his life.
For the moment, that life was feeling rather crummy. Because he felt he needed to be alert when next he conferred with the stranger who had never bothered to give him a name, he had curtailed his imbibing, even though he now appeared almost nightly at his customary watering hole.
He had scheduled no wild nights at the house in Hull since he had returned from the hearing in Syron Lake; it would have been too much of a distraction.
It was now the first week of December and no one from the company had shown up.
He wondered whether his trip to the UN Headquarters to represent the CNRA the week after the hearing had caused him to miss a possible contact.
His mind latched on to this notion; he pictured the stranger in an expensive suit walking into the bar and looking about for him, then turning around and leaving, never to return.
This sequence rolled incessantly before his eyes. It tortured him to think that while he had milled around the fringes of a terminally boring conference in New York on a $200 per diem, his one chance to make his fortune could so easily have slipped out of his hands.
The night air was chilly. The ground had turned white with a light dusting of snow. He took out his keys, folded his arms tightly in front of him for extra warmth, and walked around to the back of the building where he was parked.
He stood in the dim light, fumbling to find the keyhole.
“Dromel,” a voice said in a firm whisper. The figure emerged from the shadows.
It was him.
Dromel leaned against the car. He slid his freezing hands under his jacket. He tried on a stony face to hide his excitement and the vague sense of fear that suddenly descended upon him.
The stranger, gloved and wearing a dark coat, approached.
“I thought I told you no surprises, Dromel.”
“I figured you might show up one day.”
“People aren’t happy with how you conducted that hearing. I hope what transpired is not an indication of what will be in the decision.”
Dromel remained quiet. He would play it cool. For whatever reason, they wanted that property badly, and he was the only one who could deliver. He could call the shots.
“When is that decision going to come anyway?”
“Four months, approximately.”
The stranger nodded.
Relishing the upper hand, Dromel decided to turn the screw.
“But that’s just an estimate. Could take twice that, according to the complexities we run into.”
The stranger lit a cigarette and drew on it. “The time it takes isn’t an issue, as long as it’s reasonable. It’s the result that matters. And that’s where there’s some cause for concern. What was that song and dance about at the hearing?”
Up to this point, the stranger had never stated the company whose bidding he was supposed to do, but Dromel was quite sure of who he was dealing with. “Syron Lake Resources released millions of gallons of toxic waste that was under its management. That could not go unaddressed.”
“Fine, just as long as we understand what you said was all for show.”
“Well, actually, this spill wasn’t in the picture when we last spoke.” Dromel tried to keep his tone steady, but wasn’t sure he was succeeding. “It’s one hell of a complication. I’d say it pretty much killed any chance that I could maintain the guarantees given before the incident.”
“What are you getting at, Dromel?”
“The stakes have gone up.”
“Get to the point. I don’t have time to play games.”
Dromel looked around. No one else was in sight.
With his index finger, he wrote out his price in the snow on the hood of his car. His hand trembled; perhaps the stranger would think it was only because of the cold.
“You’re asking for a million dollars?”
“Half now; half when you’ve got your decision.”
The payment schedule was utterly reasonable, Dromel thought. He rubbed out his writing from the snow and folded his arms again. The company he was dealing with was so desperate that it would deliberately break a dam containing radioactive waste to achieve whatever ends it was after. He could afford to name his price and hang back.
He knew the stranger was thrown by his demand. The man likely had no power to negotiate.
The stranger took a long drag o
n his cigarette, then flicked it away. He tilted his head back and exhaled. A thick jet of smoke and condensation shot up from his lips.
“The people I deal with don’t play games,” he said slowly. “We had a deal. If you plan to break it, you’d better be sure you’re prepared for the consequences.”
With the man’s very deliberate delivery of those words, the apprehension of fear crystallized; Dromel felt as if icicles pierced his heart. He swallowed the hard ball that was now lodged in his throat and tried to maintain a steely expression. He would say no more.
“Have it your way, Dromel,” the stranger said. “You will have an answer.”
The man walked off briskly and disappeared around the side of the building.
When the key found the keyhole, Dromel flung open the door and collapsed into the driver’s seat.
His entire body shook uncontrollably. He started the engine, opened the air vents and turned the temperature knob to the highest it could go. The night was just too bloody cold, he thought.
Chapter 52
Carmichael house, the venerable private member’s club on Bank Street, was a hive of activity, as it usually was on a Friday evening. Ottawa’s business mandarins and political elite sauntered through its portico and thronged its plush, red-carpeted corridors, as had generations before them.
Upstairs, in a private room, far from the din and laughter of the wood-paneled restaurant, Prime Minister John J. Peabody sat in an ancient wing chair, watching the lights of cars streaming by on the road below.
“Angela Roseau is an absolute bitch,” he said. He took a sip of wine, then leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Firestone, who sat in a matching chair directly facing his boss, kept quiet. He had been with him nearly two decades now, and knew when he was needed only as a prop so Peabody could listen to himself rant.
“She tried to strong-arm me.” Peabody looked again at the traffic. “I mean she actually said she was putting it bluntly that America was losing patience with me. She didn’t say Canada, or our negotiation team, but me. It was almost as if she was treating me like a schoolboy. Can you imagine? As if she was some sort of school madam running a play and I was a two-bit player she wanted to shoo away so the president could take center stage. Damn those Americans!”
He finished his drink and slammed the glass down on the table beside him.
“Well, I’m even more determined not to give an inch on this softwood lumber business. They’re going to have to refund every last penny of import duties they imposed in the last three years and that’s non-negotiable.”
He adjusted his tie, yanking it roughly in either direction, and choked himself in the process. He leaned forward in a coughing fit.
Firestone smiled. It was a little reward for enduring this particular tirade.
Peabody leaned toward his chief of staff and spoke in an almost conspiratorial tone. “I’ve been thinking…”
Those were words Firestone had grown over the years to dread.
More often than not, they were followed by a suggestion so outlandish or so petty that it was either impractical to pursue, or unworthy of being acted upon. He wished Peabody would get it through his head that his job was to pose during photo ops and to read speeches written for him, and that he should leave the strategizing to those around him who actually had a mind for the business of running the country.
“That invitation that I got the other day to open a refurbished pulp and paper mill in Northern Ontario that I turned down, I think I’ll accept it after all,” Peabody said. “I’ll use it as a backdrop to launch some zingers on Madame Roseau. I’ll show her that she can’t intimidate me. I want you to arrange this. And work the media so that they’ll have the cameras rolling to catch every word.”
Peabody nodded to himself. He smiled, already relishing his triumph in his mind.
Firestone kept his head down and scribbled notes in silence. There was no point in advising the prime minister at this time that antagonizing the Americans on this already touchy issue was not the smartest move.
“John,” a voice said.
Kees Verhoeven approached with an extended hand.
Firestone knew to make himself scarce. He stood, bowed and left.
The prime minister stood. The men shook hands and Verhoeven took the seat vacated by Firestone.
“Can I get you anything?” Peabody looked around for a waiter.
“No. I’m fine. I have only a few minutes. Thank you for seeing me, tonight.”
“Any time, Kees. Any time.”
“So, Dromel’s in charge of the Syron Lake panel after all.”
“Quite. Funny how things worked out with his chairman. It was such a shock to hear about his accident. But my chief of staff was brilliant at ensuring Dromel got that file. You know how he did it?”
A twitch of Verhoeven’s lower lip was all the prompting Peabody needed.
“All he did was tell the deputy chairman that I wanted to see him, and that the only time I had space in my calendar for that was the first week of November — which just so happened to be the week of the Syron Lake hearing.
“Of course, the deputy chair is hoping to get the nod to take over when the chairman retires in eighteen months, so there was no way in hell he was going to pass up a meeting with me. Dromel’s fate was sealed, and no one was the wiser.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately, I understand that he’s not quite cooperating.”
“How so?”
Kees looked around the room, although it was empty except for the two of them and Verhoeven’s muscle-bound son, who leaned against the door frame.
Verhoeven spoke almost in a whisper. “Syron Lake Resources wants to hold on to its license. A couple of months ago, there was an accident, a little bit of a spill of its waste material. But I understand that’s all been cleaned up. Dromel, however, has the power to revoke the license because of that mishap, and the company’s getting a bit worried because he’s been making some hostile noises.”
“So it’s Syron Lake Resources we’ve been talking about, is it?” Peabody raised his eyebrows. “I was figuring it was one of the larger public companies.”
“What difference does it make?”
Peabody thought it over for a moment, then shrugged.“None really. Truth is, though, I had Firestone talk with Dromel before the hearing to smooth the way. But to be fair, Kees, that was before the spill. An accident like that does change the picture.”
“Yes, well, that may be so. But what are you going to do about it?”Verhoeven let the question hang in the air; it was a challenge that carried the weight of the entire future between them.
Peabody’s son’s career with Verhoeven’s company in Hong Kong was at stake. More importantly, Peabody knew how deeply connected this old university mate of his was on both sides of the Atlantic. An “in“ with him would open up the doors to boardrooms in every desirable city in North America and Europe; ahead lay the possibility of a lifetime of private jets and year-round international hobnobbing once the prime ministerial gig was up.
“Dromel won’t be a problem,” Peabody said. “Leave it to me.”
Chapter 53
The freezing rain from the night before made the roads slick and dangerous, and drivers had been warned not to venture out unless absolutely necessary. But it had dressed the naked branches of the trees in a thick coat of ice, transforming the forest into a magical, hoary landscape.
For a hiker like me, it was perfect.
I drew in the crisp, early morning air in short breaths, and listened to the crust of ice crack under my feet along the ungroomed snowmobile trail. The steady, serene sound provided a rhyt
hmic counterpoint to wild, giddy thoughts, which focused on one subject: Benoit T. Dromel.
If Fate had intended us to meet, then Fate was cruel.
Dromel was different to Peter, my two other so-called boyfriends, and every other romantic prospect I’d worked up the courage to actually speak to. All those connections had brought me so much pain and had dealt such a blow to my self-esteem that I wished I’d never met any of those guys.
And here, finally, was a man who seemed deeply interested in me, perhaps as much as I now was in him. But there seemed to be an unbreachable gulf between us.
The age difference, my twenty-six to his early fifties, was not a problem; my own mother had been two decades younger than my father. From the few times he’d spoken to me about her, it sounded like they’d been happy together; and while the Trinidad woman whom he later married had been closer to his age, his second pairing had been fraught with bitterness, turmoil, and pain. So, to me, age didn’t matter when it came to love.
The problem was more insidious.
Not only did geography separate us, but his job and my role in his world seemed to be conspiring to make it impossible for us to be together.
On my part, there was no problem. I was just an ordinary citizen, free to give my heart wherever I wanted.
But the nuclear authority was a quasi-judicial body and he was presiding over a matter in which I was a participant. Anything between us would be a clear conflict of interest for him.
Every time I let myself be taken on a wild, imaginary romp between us, I would be yanked back to reality by the thought of our names appearing in the national newspapers under big, bold headlines that included the word “scandal.”
I was nobody’s daughter; my mother had been just one year out of university when she died giving birth to me, and my father had left this life as a penniless architect in Trinidad. Yet I considered my name — my good name — my most valuable possession.
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