Spiked

by Randall Denley

  “I told him I didn’t know anything about her, but he knew I was lying. Then he started slapping me around. First it was just my face, then he started punching me everywhere. In the stomach, and lower.

  “He was hitting me hard, but I knew he wasn’t trying to kill me, just scare me. Then he stopped. A second guy had arrived. I could hear them arguing, but not what they said. Then one of them got back in the SUV and I felt him run a knife down my arm. Then he cut the tape off my arms and legs and cut my clothes off. He kept asking me the same questions and every time I didn’t answer, his hands would just, they would just go wherever he wanted.

  “I tried to think. Who was I protecting? Not Mae. They had to know already about Xi. But I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction. They weren’t going to scare me into telling them. Fuck them.

  “After a while, the guy went outside the van again and he talked some more to the other guy. I looked out and saw that they weren’t looking my way. I got out of the SUV and ran like hell into the woods. That’s when I called Mike.”

  “And what about the second guy, did you get a good look at him?” Colin asked.

  “No, it was too dark. He was bigger than the first guy. That’s all I know.”

  “These bastards are going to pay for what they did,” Colin said. “Mike, shouldn’t we be bringing in the police?”

  “No!” Suzy shouted. “I’m not sharing this with the world.”

  “Besides that, there is the issue of keeping this information close,” Reilly said. “I would love to arrest and charge these guys, and I will if I can, but I want to keep my options open for an informal resolution.”

  “Meaning?” I said.

  “Whatever it takes to tee these fuckers up, whether it’s by the books or not.”

  There was a knock on the door and three of us looked towards it, surprised. The exception was Reilly, who went to answer it.

  At first, I didn’t recognize the man who came through the door. He was clean-shaven with short blond hair and he was big, seeming to fill up the entire door frame. The guy wore jeans and a blue T-shirt that looked like it had been sprayed on to his impressive upper body. He carried a bulky black duffel bag that must have been heavy, but it looked light in his hands.

  “Hi Kris,” he said. Then I realized it was Farrell.

  “I hardly recognized you. Which is the real you, this one or the woodsman?”

  “Both. I’m working with a new client. Corporate. The back-tothe-land look doesn’t work with them.”

  Colin stood and shook Farrell’s hand. Although Colin was a big man, he didn’t look it when stacked up against Farrell. “I take it you are an associate of Mike’s?”

  “Something like that.” Farrell set the duffel bag on the floor with a heavy clank. It sounded like he had brought some of his armoury with him.

  “Farrell and I met on a project a long time ago. He was good enough to give us some background advice on the Chinese and the technology and methods they use.”

  “Excellent,” Colin said. “Who were you with?”

  “Federal agencies.”

  Colin nodded, getting the drift that Farrell wasn’t there to talk about himself. “OK. We were just about to talk about how we are going to proceed. Please join us. Anyone want a drink before we start?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Colin went to an ornate cabinet and withdrew a bottle of scotch and five glasses, then set them on the coffee table.

  “Help yourselves,” he said, settling beside me on the couch. “Why don’t I start? I think we can agree that this story is proving to be something larger and more dangerous than any of us anticipated. We know now that we are dealing with a murdered Chinese spy with a likely connection to our foreign minister. This is a story that will go international. It is our job to lay out just what has happened and who is involved. Kris, I want you on this full-time. The Sandhu trial is small beer in comparison. We will leave that to news to cover. Suzy, you have done tremendous work, but for now I want you to restrict yourself to filling Kris in on what you’ve got. Our main priority has to be letting you get well.”

  Suzy began to protest, but Colin held up his hand to stop her.

  “There is still a lot we don’t know and we obviously don’t have much time to find out. The other side is moving quickly and we aren’t even sure who they are. From my perspective, the legal angles here are murky and, if foreign diplomatic personnel are involved, the odds are that they will never be brought to justice. We can’t help that, but we can put this whole matter into the court of public opinion. Thoughts?”

  “I think I can take it from here,” I said. “I made a good connection with Champagne tonight. The door is open for a second interview. The guy is in the middle of this somehow. My first priority is to find out how.”

  “Agreed,” Colin said. “Mike, do you or Farrell have anything to contribute on Champagne?”

  “He’s dirty,” Reilly said. “I can smell it.”

  “He would have been thoroughly vetted before entering cabinet,” Farrell said. “Let me see what I can find out.”

  “Excellent. We know he was regularly visiting the building where Mae Wang died. We can use that as a lever. If it comes to it, we can simply include that as a fact in the story and let readers draw their own conclusions,” Colin said.

  “Mike, where do we stand on the police side?”

  Reilly rubbed a rough hand across his unshaven jaw. “We haven’t got much. There is this bogus joint task force with the RCMP, but I think that’s just a cover for doing nothing. I am not even on the case, officially. With the abduction and beating, we do have something solid to pursue, but only if Suzy is willing, and I don’t think she is.”

  All four of us looked at Suzy, who simply shook her head. “Not now, maybe not ever. There has to be some other way to get these guys.”

  “That’s where I come in,” Farrell said. “They have got to be with a security agency, maybe even one of ours. That’s my world, and I don’t worry about colouring outside the lines. We’ve got murder, abduction, a beating. They are covering up something pretty big. This stuff is never held as tightly as they’d like. If it can be cracked, I’ll crack it.

  “I work alone, though. Mike, I’ve left you a few things that might come in handy in that duffel bag. If we do come up against these people, you’re going to want more than a sidearm. For the rest of you, I would suggest arming yourselves, although I’m sure you won’t take my advice.”

  Farrell looked at his watch, a heavy, military-looking thing. “I’ve got to get moving. I think our time is short. The other side has to decide whether to step up the action or bug out. We need to get on top of this before they do either one.” Farrell stood and said, “I’ll report back when I learn more, using the burner phone. Who’s my point of contact?”

  “Me,” I said. “I need to know every detail if we are going to pull this story together.”

  “Done.”

  As Farrell made to leave, Reilly said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to be the only person to whom Farrell reported. Reilly’s comment about “teeing the fuckers up,” stuck in my mind. I was all for it, but not until I got the story.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  At first, I wasn’t sure where I was. A thin shaft of light came through the bedroom drapes, but nothing looked familiar. I looked at my watch. It was 8:30. Then I rolled over and saw Colin. Now it was all starting to come back to me. We had a couple more scotches after Mike and Suzy had retreated to the other room. Then one thing had led to another.

  I couldn’t say sex hadn’t been on my mind, and it was always on his. Still, it was confusing. I had spent months trying to keep Colin at bay. Now, I wondered why. Maybe I was just overthinking things, as I usually did. He was a patient and attentive lover and clearly devoted to me. He was good-looking, if a bit older, and we shared many of the same passions. What was I looking for? That was a question that I had spent a lifetime tryi
ng to answer and too often came up with “whatever comes along next.”

  Sometimes I liked to blame what had happened to us in the Adirondacks for blowing up our relationship. Knowing that he had saved my life put just too much obligation on me. But I knew the problem had started before that. Our life together had started to become domestic, routine. If I had surrendered to that, at my age, there was a good chance that I would never know the thrill of new love again. Then I found it when L.T. came along. The young cop who had been my lover in the Adirondacks had been fresh and new in every way. We both knew it wouldn’t last, but that was part of the attraction. Then he was killed and I just couldn’t think of love, or sex, again. Until now.

  I watched Colin sleep, his grey hair in uncharacteristic disarray. He was snoring lightly. I ran my fingers down his arm. He was a good man who deserved more than I would ever be able to give him.

  My touch awakened him and he snuggled close to me. It was quickly apparent that either he had to piss or he was ready for a second round.

  “Amazing to see you here,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “It wasn’t like I was doing you a favour. We both needed that.”

  “Indeed.” He was running his hand along my back. I knew I would quickly have to decide what to do. It was one thing to fall into bed together after a few drinks and a tense day. Sunday morning sex would be more of a deliberate choice.

  Then I heard my phone ringing in my purse. I could tell by the ring it wasn’t the burner. Damn, I had left my own phone on. Farrell wouldn’t be happy with that.

  I rolled out of bed, self-conscious at my nakedness and walked across to the bureau to get the phone. I was surprised to see the call was from Gail Rakic, no doubt hoping that I would be at the trial Monday to write something positive about her husband. I was going to have to disappoint her.

  “Who is it?” Colin asked.

  “Gail Rakic, Sandhu’s wife.”

  “What the hell does she want?” he asked, clearly annoyed that the call was disrupting his plans.

  “I’ll try to get rid of her,” I said, then took the call.

  “Hey, it’s Gail.”

  “I know. What’s up?”

  “There is something I need you to know before the trial starts again tomorrow. You have time for coffee?”

  “Kind of a bad day, Gail. I’m working on something else. In fact, I won’t be at the trial this week.”

  “Really?”

  Her disappointment was clear. I knew that the trial was the biggest event in her life, but it was no longer the biggest in mine.

  “I think you are going to want to hear what I have to say. Remember I told you I knew something more about Champagne? I think the time has come to share it.”

  “I could be interested in that.”

  “Good. We’re staying at the Lord Elgin. Can you meet there in half an hour?”

  “Better give me an hour. I need to freshen up.”

  “All right. See you in an hour.”

  I hung up and Colin said, “You’re off the Sandhu story, remember? I know it’s an intriguing trial, but we just don’t have the time for it.”

  “I know that. She wants to tell me something about Champagne. I don’t know if it’s relevant to the Mae Wang story, but it could be. At a minimum, it might give us more leverage with Champagne. Gail plays hard ball. I need to know what she’s got. It will be worth an hour of my time.”

  “All right. Makes sense. You have an hour?”

  “Yes, an hour to shower, get dressed and get over there.” I leaned over and kissed him, gently. “Maybe we don’t have to be in a rush.”

  He smiled at that. “I hope not, but I think you like it that way.”

  “Sure, gives me less time to think.”

  I pulled some fresh underwear out of my overnight bag and headed to the bathroom. I knew Colin’s next move would be to call room service and ponder the hidden meaning of what I had said.

  The Lord Elgin was just around the corner from the Chateau Laurier. It was another old-fashioned hotel, a plainer cousin of the Chateau. I wondered why a person as rich as Gail wasn’t staying someplace swankier. Perhaps the attraction was that it was directly across from the courthouse, minimizing the length of the daily perp walk her husband had to endure.

  It wasn’t hard to spot Gail in the hotel’s ground floor restaurant. Her brassy hairdo stood out like a beacon. She was wearing designer jeans and a pink sweater, a change from her usual power suit. I took a chair opposite her, watching as she finished off a croissant. I hoped I didn’t have that hungover and just-fucked look.

  “You want the buffet?” she asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ve already eaten.”

  A waiter appeared at my side and filled my cup with coffee. I could never get too much of that.

  “I’m surprised that you won’t be covering the trial. I thought you were doing a good job.”

  I ignored the possibly insincere compliment and said, “I had hoped to stick with it, but priorities can change quickly in my business. Does Bernstein start his defence Monday?”

  “He does. The reason I wanted to talk to you, there is more to it than he is going to be able to present in court.”

  “I guess that’s not going to help your husband then, is it?”

  “Not in court, but we both know it’s not just the verdict. It’s what the public thinks that will determine Sonny’s future. I am confident that he won’t be convicted, but we can’t afford to have people think he’s guilty all the same.”

  “So you want to present a plausible alternative explanation for how he got into the soup, but Bernstein can’t back it up in court. That sound about right?”

  “It does. I’m going to give you a file, and I’m giving it to you exclusively.”

  Unless I didn’t use it, then she would give it to someone else exclusively. I didn’t like the idea that Gail had chosen me as a mouthpiece for unprovable defence strategies, but if what she had would let me pin down Champagne, I was all for it. I didn’t want to sound too eager. “Tell me about it and I’ll tell you if I can use it.”

  Gail pulled her large, soft black leather purse off the chair beside her and set it on the table. It was Coach, I wasn’t surprised to see. She removed a manila file folder that was intriguingly thick and held together with a heavy rubber band.

  “When the police started to question Sonny, we were suspicious about what was behind the allegations. His relations with Champagne had been cordial, once, but that was before they were the two leading rivals for the leadership. In politics, you have no real friends. Have you met Champagne?”

  She seemed surprised when I said I had.

  “Well, I guess it’s a small town. So you have some idea of what he’s like; a charmer on the outside, a snake on the inside.”

  Even allowing for her bitterness, I didn’t think her estimation was far off.

  “Preparing to go up against Champagne for the leadership, we had some opposition research done. Standard stuff, looking for embarrassing things he had said or done, policy contradictions, financial issues, old girlfriends with colourful tales to tell, that kind of thing.”

  “And?”

  “Less than we had hoped, except for one thing. That girl you asked me to find out more about, the one who fell off the roof of your building? She was Champagne’s girlfriend.”

  I had pretty much concluded that, but showed grateful surprise all the same. “Really? That’s intriguing.”

  “There’s more. She worked for the Chinese Embassy. A cabinet minister screwing an employee of a foreign embassy? You people would have a field day with that.”

  “So why don’t you use it?”

  “We were going to leak this out, drop the hammer on Champagne back when he was still in the Conservative race. He beat us to it with this bogus story about Sonny taking a bribe. Then, when Sonny was charged, we came up with another plan.”

  Gail was telling me that she and her husband weren’t any better than Luc
Champagne, just slower off the mark. “I assume you have proof?”

  “I do, right here in this file. We hired a PI to tail the girl. Champagne showed up at her apartment every Tuesday night, didn’t leave until morning. We bugged the apartment. There’s no doubt as to the nature of their relationship.”

  “And this continued when he became foreign affairs minister?”

  “It did. There is no evidence here that he was giving away national secrets. He had other things on his mind. But this,” she said, tapping the file, “is enough to finish him.”

  “You’re right about that, but how is it going to help you?”

  “Ben had a two-part strategy. First, we’d subpoena the girl and put her on the stand. Even if she wouldn’t answer a single question, it would give us a chance to suggest her relationship with Champagne, destroying his credibility. Then, he was going to subpoena Champagne and grill him directly on these phoney charges and his role in setting the whole thing up.”

  “Champagne is a cabinet minister. Would he have to appear?”

  “Ben says there are some technicalities about when the House is sitting, but he was confident we could get him. He’d look pretty bad if he didn’t show.”

  Trust Bernstein to come up with the bold play. “All right. Interesting strategy, but now you don’t have the girl.”

  “Exactly. Ben even sent someone to meet with her, try to get a statement, but she refused to co-operate. Now she’s dead and he can’t find a way to get this in front of the judge. It was going to take some latitude to get her on the stand anyway, but he can’t question an empty chair.”

  “So I destroy Champagne’s credibility, then Bernstein subpoenas him.”

  “That’s it.”

  I pointed at the folder and said “May I?”

  Gail shoved it across the table. I opened the file and saw that it consisted of time-stamped pictures of Champagne entering and leaving my building, along with some murky shots of two people who could be Champagne and Mae, in her bedroom. The best picture was one of Champagne and Mae in a daring moment, sharing a coffee on the Bridgehead patio where she later died. It could be passed off as innocent, were it not for the rest of it. There were detailed logs of the surveillance and the PI’s observations.