The God Game

by Jeffrey Round

  Dan thought of Nick, how lost he felt without him. He saw now that he had it wrong, and had always had it wrong. It wasn’t simply finding the right person that was difficult, it was learning to love through disappointment and doubt, and trying to stay the course, accepting that the other person loved you despite all the many reasons you believed deep down inside that he should not. That was where he had failed.

  “It was just too hard to watch the many ways you made yourself suffer,” Trevor continued. “So I ran away. And I’d do it again. Don’t think I could ever come back.”

  There it was, the unspoken question.

  “I wasn’t —”

  “It’s okay, I didn’t think that was why you came. But I’m glad you’re here. Maybe old loves are the best.” He held up his glass. “You need someone as hard as you by your side, though. Someone who forces you to let him in. I couldn’t do it. Maybe your policeman can. I hope so, for your sake.”

  Twenty-Eight

  The Graduate

  Dan caught an early ferry from the Mayne Island terminal. He found Ked sitting in the kitchen of his flat when he arrived, a look of trepidation on his face.

  “Um … the police were here this morning asking questions.”

  Not a great way to start the day. “About me, I take it?”

  “They wanted to know if you were here. I said no and they asked if I knew where you were.”

  “I’m sorry you had to lie for me,” Dan said, feeling sick that his son had had to do that for him.

  It reminded him of the excuses he used to make to his Aunt Marge about the whereabouts of his father. Out with friends. How many times had he said that particular untruth? His father didn’t have friends, only drinking buddies. Fetch him home from the pub, his aunt would say with a world-weary sigh and a shake of the head. And off young Daniel would run, hoping he’d be let into the bar despite his age so he could find his father, cheerless and remorseful, sitting over in a dark corner, working on his seventh or eighth drink. And all the time praying he wouldn’t find him, not wanting his father at home.

  “I didn’t lie,” Ked said. “The truth is, I didn’t know where you were. You could have been on Mayne Island, but you might have been on the ferry coming back by then. And it looks like you were.” He grinned. “I also said I spoke to you in Toronto last week and that I was flying home soon to see you there. All true.”

  “Did they see the pot plant?”

  Ked shrugged. “Probably. I didn’t try to hide it. It’s like having a tulip growing in your window here. I doubt they’d even notice.”

  They both laughed. Then Ked turned serious again.

  “You don’t have to come to the ceremony …”

  Dan shook his head. “I’m coming. Just try to stop me.”

  “I called Mom and told her not to wear anything too flashy, not to attract attention if you were with her. She agreed.”

  “You even think like a sleuth.”

  “Hey, you trained me well.”

  The crimson fingers of a trumpet vine climbed the red-brick auditorium in bright warning. Blood on blood. Dan looked for signs of a police presence as they reached the campus. There was nothing obvious, but then what would be the point of trying to catch a fugitive while making yourself easy to spot?

  Kendra met them outside the convocation hall. True to her word, she’d dressed demurely, but she was all the more stunning for it. Dan had never seen her so lovely. A Syrian beauty. Well, after all, she’d captured his interest long enough to produce a son. And though neither of them could have foreseen it at the time, here they were twenty years later, proud of what they’d shared in creating.

  She took Dan’s arm. “What’s this I hear about keeping a low profile? You’re on the lam? Let me know if there’s anything I should do or not do.”

  “You’re doing all the right things,” he told her as they entered the auditorium along with all the other excited parents.

  “Can you believe we’re doing this?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief at what parenthood had brought.

  “Whether we believe it or not, we’re here together and we deserve a big reward for what we’ve accomplished.”

  She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Yes, we do.”

  “Trevor sends his love, by the way. I spent a day with the Mayne Island hermit. He looks really happy.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” She paused. “I hate to ask, but what does Nick think about all this absconding from justice?”

  “Nick will have to adapt,” Dan said, feeling a twinge in his chest. It wasn’t getting easier, but rather worse each time he contemplated a life without Nick by his side.

  He grabbed her by the arm and steered her toward their seats.

  “C’mon. It’s starting.”

  Kendra had tears in her eyes by the time the ceremony was over. Dan, too, was moved, as were the other parents. Only the graduating students seemed lighthearted, sighing with relief to think their studies were over and real life had begun. If only they knew, Dan thought.

  The crowd spilled out onto the lawn in front of the auditorium and stood there blinking in the sunshine. All these proud parents with their progeny, Dan thought. It was refreshing to see people rejoicing in something for once, rather than pushing their way past one another or complaining and resenting each other for no good reason. Kendra had met a lesbian couple who introduced her to their daughter, a young woman in a wheelchair. Somewhere else, a signer’s hands busily interpreted for a deaf family. This mass of humanity, varied and unique, each limited in his or her way, didn’t for a moment let anything distract them from the pride they felt that afternoon.

  Dan motioned for Ked and Kendra to stand before the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains, the sky blue and open. As he framed them with his camera, he found himself taking stock: the boy he’d raised to the best of his ability was standing on the threshold of manhood, looking out and contemplating what his own life would bring.

  The shutter clicked. Time folded in on itself, never stopping for a moment as life rushed busily onward.

  They were at the airport saying their goodbyes. Dan opened his wallet and removed one of Peter Hansen’s thousand-dollar bills. He’d just spent another on a return ticket. No skimping. This time he was flying business class.

  He held the banknote out to Ked, who looked at him in awe.

  “Dad, that’s a lot of money.”

  “To some people. To others it’s a little. It’s how you spend it that counts. Spend it well.”

  “Thanks.” Ked pocketed the bill with a wistful look. “I was waiting to tell you that you’re a hero to me, but now you’ll think I was bribed into saying it.”

  Dan laughed. “I’m not a hero. I’m only doing what I’m paid to do. Heroes go beyond the norm.”

  “Okay, maybe not a hero, but you’re the best dad ever. Seriously.”

  Dan hugged his son so tightly he thought his heart would break. “I’ll see you in a week, okay?”

  “Deal.”

  As the plane took off, Dan thought of his beginnings. His father had been a sad, broken man, his mother a frivolous woman whose dreams had exceeded her grasp. The soil his roots were nurtured in hadn’t seemed fertile, but now those roots extended to a new generation for his son to carry on.

  He looked down over Canada’s westernmost edge, a thousand kilometres of indented fjords and islands, sandwiched between the Yukon and the forty-ninth parallel. It occurred to him that his life was like that, a vast coastline stretching far into the past and disappearing somewhere far up ahead.

  A smiling steward came down the row. Dan took the newspaper offered and settled in for a long flight. It wasn’t till he turned the page that he found himself named as part of the ongoing investigation into the murder of Simon Bradley, his current whereabouts unknown.

  Twenty-Nine

  Big Bang The
ories

  It seemed ages since Dan had walked up the front steps of his office building. In fact it had been just four days. He kept his eyes peeled for undercover officers, but no one looked likely to perform the public duty of arresting him.

  The warehouse was a hive of activity, a swarm of busy bees buzzing in and out of the premises on their way to lunches, trysts, hair appointments, business meetings, and whatever else constituted the workaday rhythms of the successful young entrepreneur.

  Some of them, Dan knew, might turn out to be tomorrow’s leaders, captains of industry running the show, the country, and even the world. He only hoped they wouldn’t turn out as jaded and self-centred as his own generation. The sellouts. People who’d given up on bettering the world in favour of bettering their own standards of living.

  He liked these new go-getters, likening them to big bang theorists always on the lookout for a formula to create the new world order. Ked had explained to him how scientists no longer believed the universe began as a massive explosion rushing outward to fill a void, but rather as a blast constantly expanding space itself, where future events were occurring simultaneously on multiple horizons. Due to the speed of light, however, some of those events hadn’t yet reached us, like a letter lost in the mail, and in fact might never reach us.

  Perhaps if he’d stepped aside from his father quickly enough that fateful day on returning from school, Dan thought, he might not now have the scar that stretched down his temple. On the other hand, while it made him feel a bit of a Frankenstein, more than one boyfriend had confessed to finding it sexy. You could never tell. One man’s deformity was another man’s turn-on. More importantly, maybe there was a place in the galaxy where he had not yet pushed Nick against the doorframe, ending their once-enviable relationship. The thought sobered him.

  He stopped at the front desk to check his mailbox. The secretary glanced up, a pretty young woman with a vacant expression. Her eyes glazed over as if she’d never seen him before. If she’d read the newspaper article about his absence, clearly it hadn’t registered. Or maybe she just wasn’t paid enough to care.

  After buying the property, the building’s owners had dropped the personal touch. The previous secretary, Sylvia, had used to greet Dan by name and bring him baked goods. No more. Dan had seen the writing on the wall when the new management took over, but it only truly hit home with the eviction notice. He’d been approached by two other long-term tenants who asked if he was interested in fighting it, though they all agreed it would do little more than postpone the inevitable. Dan told them he’d be leaving along with all the rest.

  They’d shaken their heads woefully at him. “Sad tidings,” one told him. “End of an era,” the other said.

  Dan wasn’t sure the era amounted to all that much.

  Now, he pulled his mail from the box and headed for the stairs. He’d called in for messages on the way back from the airport. The first three were from the police, each more insistent than the previous one, demanding that he call back. The fourth was from Will Parker, asking Dan to get in touch as soon as he got the message. The final message was from Nick. Dan felt his heart leap at the sound of his voice, but it was cut short by Nick’s tone: Dan, it’s Nick. I’ve got a murder investigation unit breathing down my neck looking for you. What the fuck are you playing at? And then a loud hang-up. So much for love’s fevered whisperings and tender messages of regret.

  He continued up the stairs. Someone passed him hurriedly on the landing between the second and third floors. Young, sullen, and scruffy beneath a woolly toque. Not the sort of face he’d really want to remember, but it struck a chord of some sort. He looked for a glint of recognition in the other’s eyes, though it was hard to say what he saw in those depths. If indeed there were depths to plumb.

  They passed each other by.

  Dan continued to the top floor, where he shared the space with the invisible bible salespeople. He wondered what their recent sales count might be. Perhaps he should ask the good folks at CSIS.

  His cell rang just as he reached his door and stood fumbling with the keys. Donny’s name flashed across the screen.

  “Ah, the wanderer returns,” came his friend’s voice.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “It’s about time. You’ve got half the country looking for you.”

  “Not quite a quarter by my count. But, yes, I’ve heard.”

  “Nick called twice to ask if I knew anything. I felt like a bastard lying to him.”

  “Sorry for putting you on the spot. He called me, too, and left an angry message, if it’s any consolation. How did Lester make out with the phone?”

  “Yeah, right — that. He didn’t. He says it’s password-encrypted in a way that after three wrong attempts it will erase the phone’s contents. He didn’t want to proceed with it. What the hell is on this thing?”

  “I wish I knew.” Dan dropped his keys and bent down to retrieve them. “I thought Lester was the sort of kid who could get around that kind of stuff.”

  “Normally, yes, but this is an iPhone. Lester says even the FBI can’t do what it takes. They’re trying to force Apple to invent software to break its own codes and get behind the firewall, stating terrorist concerns, et cetera. Predictably, Apple refuses, knowing the technology will eventually end up being used to spy on everyone. He’s here if you want him to explain it to you.”

  “That’s okay,” Dan said, sorting through the keys while balancing the mail in his other hand. “I’ll thank him later. I just thought it was worth a try.”

  “Can’t you force the phone’s owner to tell you what’s on it?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “I didn’t need to know that.”

  “No, probably not.”

  Donny harrumphed. “No clues as to what it might be? Any last words of advice before he died?”

  “Apart from always making sure I brush and floss? Nah. I thought he was asking me to call 911 with it.” Dan flashed on Simon’s dying struggle to hand over the phone, his final breath implicating the Magus as his murderer. If only he knew who … but no.

  He had the office key in hand and bent to insert it. In the back of his mind, something registered a problem with the lock casing, but that vanished as a piece of the puzzle fell into place. A future event horizon had just arrived with all the subtlety of an atomic blast.

  He left off fumbling with the key and stood upright. “Wait. Of course! I’m stupid! Put Lester on …”

  Lester’s boyish treble came over the phone. “Hi, Uncle Dan.”

  “Lester, hi. Listen to me very carefully. You’re only going to try this once. If it fails, leave it alone. Understood?”

  “Sure.”

  “The password is a five-letter word. Magus. M-A-G-U-S.”

  He waited, holding his breath till Lester yelled in triumph. “That’s it!”

  “Okay. Very carefully, copy whatever is on it. I’ll come and pick it up when you’re done.”

  Donny came back on the phone.

  “You’re a genius, thanks for that,” Dan said.

  “Whatever I did.”

  Dan bent down and saw the gouging on the lock cover. This time it registered solidly. Someone had been trying to break into his office. Someone sloppy and poorly trained, when it came down to it.

  An alarm went off in his mind. His thoughts floated back down two floors to the face he thought he’d recognized. The scruffy cheeks, the woolly toque.

  “Hang on a sec,” he said into the phone.

  Dan took the stairs two at a time, his feet tripping over one another. His heart was thumping out a warning as he reached the bottom and grasped the railing to steady himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so physically reckless. Yes, he could: it was the night he’d chased the black Mazda with a tire iron.

  There it was again far down the block. The ca
r peeled away from the curb just as he raced outside.

  “Fucking hell!” he screamed, startling several passersby.

  A squawking came from the phone. He put it to his ear.

  “What is going on over there?” Donny demanded.

  “Sorry, I —” Dan began, just as an explosion ripped through the air.

  He looked up. His office belched flames and black smoke into the sky three stories up.

  “What’s happening?”

  “I think my office just blew up,” Dan said.

  “What?”

  “Correction,” Dan said, staring up at the flames. “I know my office just blew up. Call you back.”

  It took nine minutes. Dan timed their arrival and watched as the emergency response team poured from the three EMS vehicles parked at crazy angles outside the warehouse. A crowd had gathered to stare, blocking the street. The team ushered people aside, urging them out of harm’s reach in case of further explosions. Dan gave particulars to a red-headed EMS driver without stating his real name or mentioning the scratches on his lock. Those he would save for a later date, a more pertinent audience.

  The driver left. Dan called Donny back.

  “What the fuck?” came his friend’s expletive. “This is what comes of hanging around with these deviant types.”

  “I might remind you the ‘hanging around’ part is not exactly voluntary. And I should also point out that nothing yet confirms anything of a suspicious nature. It could be a gas leak for all we know.”

  “Well, let me know when you get to the ‘suspicious’ part and catch up with the program. I’m sure it won’t be long.” Donny sighed. “Quite the homecoming. Just like you, Dan.”

  A young fireman came over to Dan. “Sorry, sir, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

  “Gotta go,” Dan said into the phone. “There’s a good-looking fireman who wants to talk to me.”

  He’d just finished that conversation when a figure crept up next to him, watching the smoke coming from the window.