The Burma Effect

by Michael E. Rose

  “Nothing. Not for us anyway. Not for a good while.”

  “What was his last assignment for you guys?”

  “I can’t tell you that, Francis. I wouldn’t tell many people what you work on for us either.”

  “Makes it pretty hard to know where to start. What do you want me to do anyway? I have no idea where a guy like that would go. No one over here would.”

  “Over there, yes.”

  “You want me to go over to Bangkok?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why can’t your guys find him? They know the drill over there just as well as I do. Better, probably.”

  “They’ve tried. But we can’t be seen to be trying too hard.”

  “Get the Yanks to look for him. They’re all over the place there. Everywhere. They don’t work under the same constraints as you guys.”

  “We don’t want to involve any other services on this one, Francis.”

  “You think they don’t already know what you’re up to? What Kellner’s been up to for you? Bangkok is like a small town as far as spooks go. Everyone knows what everyone else is doing.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, Francis. But the fact of the matter is we want you to go over there and find out what’s going on. Where he is, what he’s been working on.”

  “You don’t know what he’s been working on lately? Even as a reporter?”

  “We read his stuff. Just like everybody.”

  “I don’t. What’s he been writing about lately?”

  “His usual stuff. Defence purchases in the region. He’s been covering a few arms fairs. Routine stuff. Did an article about maritime security recently, a while back now—that one, actually.”

  “And for you, what?”

  “I told you, Francis. I can’t share that.”

  “Give me a general idea. What countries?”

  Rawson looked annoyed.

  “If you want me to go all the way over there and figure out what the guy’s got himself into, I can’t go in totally blind,” Delaney said. “I know what that can lead to. If you want me to go over there, you’ve got to give me a bit more of an idea where this might have come from.”

  “It might have nothing at all to do with what he has done for us,” Rawson said.

  “If you really thought that you wouldn’t be asking me to find out what’s what,” Delaney said. “We would be,” Rawson said.

  “I’m not going to go in totally blind,” Delaney said.

  Rawson put down his glass. “Look, he does the odd job for us, just like you. He goes up north for us sometime, into the Golden Triangle, looking for Canadian connections up there, drugs. He’s been over to Vietnam a couple of times, again, looking for Canadian connections, links to the Viet expats here. He’s had a look once in a while at who’s been sneaking around our companies working over there, who’s asking them to do it. Industrial espionage. That sort of thing. Cambodia once, a while back. He’s very good on Burma. And he talks to people for us about the Islamiyah al Jemayah movement in Indonesia. Risk assessment stuff, counterterrorism. That’s what we do.”

  “Does he do spook work for anyone else?”

  “Possibly. I hope not.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “No. We’d be very pleased if you found out for sure.”

  “How long’s he been gone?”

  “A month. About a month.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Come on, Francis. If you disappeared, we would find out.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “His girlfriend. Some of his mates in Bangkok. The local police. Now you.” “His family in Montreal?

  “His mother died about a year ago. His father went a long time ago. His sister’s around. I very much doubt she knows.”

  “Kellner’s girlfriend told the Thai police?”

  “Yes.”

  “She knows what he does besides journalism?”

  “Not sure. We doubt it. Girls like her don’t ask their men many questions, usually.”

  “She’s been with him a long time, that one, if it’s still the same one. She’d have to have an idea what he was up to in his life.”

  “In a general way, yes. Sure. Not sure how much she would really know, or even care. Nice little lifestyle for her, so who cares where the money comes from? Ask her yourself.” “What does she say happened?”

  “We haven’t talked to her directly. The police told our embassy people that Kellner was heading out one Saturday night to the press club and never showed up. Passport, everything, still back at his place.”

  “A month is a long time to be on a bender, even for him.” “Precisely.”

  Delaney munched peanuts, drank some beer.

  “How much are you not telling me, Jon?”

  “A bit. Nothing major.”

  “If it was minor you’d have told me.”

  “If it was something you needed to know to stay safe, I would tell you, Francis. You know that.”

  They both sat quietly for a moment, Delaney thinking about Natalia and staying safe. Rawson almost certainly thinking the same. They had become close after Natalia died for a variety of reasons. One was that CSIS had not told Delaney enough for his lover to stay safe and Rawson was a man of conscience, a man of regrets.

  “OK, I’ll have a try,” Delaney said. “I’m getting sick of things at the paper again anyway. I like Bangkok.”

  “Good one, Francis,” Rawson said. He called for a second whiskey for himself and another beer for Delaney. “Can you get away all right? When could you go?”

  “I can write that column from anywhere, Jon. And I’ve always got an emergency one hidden away. I’ll go as quick as I can. Monday probably. Tuesday.”

  “Go as quickly as you can,” Rawson said. Delaney looked over at him.

  “There’s nothing else you want to tell me about this, Jon?”

  “Nothing else I can tell you, Francis.”

  They eyed each other carefully.

  “Cheers,” said Rawson, holding up his glass. “Your health.”

  “My health,” Delaney said, holding up his beer bottle.

  *

  There was something else Rawson wanted to talk about.

  “How are you on speechwriting, Francis?” he asked.

  “There is no way I’m writing any speeches for CSIS, Jon. My patriotic fervour does not extend to that. No way.”

  “No, no, I don’t want you to write anything. Just have a look over this for me, would you?”

  Rawson pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his inside jacket pocket and flattened it on the bar. The text was covered in arrows, crossed-out lines, marginal notes.

  “The chief is giving a speech in Vancouver next week, to a convention of intelligence types. He’s asked me to give him a hand with it.”

  “What do you know about speechwriting?” Delaney said.

  “Nothing. But they think I’m a clear writer. They like my reports.”

  “Report writing and speechwriting are two very different things.”

  “Have a look at it would you, Francis? He’s worried about this one. He wants to, you know, give these guys a bit of a peek at what we’ve been trying to do overseas lately. Generate some debate, see how it flies.”

  “That’s a bit of a risk isn’t it? Operating outside your mandate and telling people about it in a speech?”

  “Oh, a few years ago, yes, sure. When you and I first started working together, yes. But slowly, slowly, people are starting to come around, I think. The politicians aren’t stupid.”

  “You’re talking to a former political reporter here. I still always assume the worst,” Delaney said. “Just have a look at it, would you?” Delaney read the first few lines aloud: “Many of Canada’s security preoccupations originate abroad, m
aking it imperative to identify and understand developments that could become ‘homeland issues’ for residents or citizens of this country. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service continues to adjust its method of investigating threats to national security in response to the changing geopolitical environment and the emergence of threats against the Canadian economy, information infrastructure, proprietary information and technology.”

  He looked over at Rawson. “Pretty dreary. Annual report stuff.”

  “Well spotted, Francis. A lot of that draft is from annual reports, documents like that. Not too exciting.”

  “No. The audience will fall asleep. If they are already in this sort of game.”

  “I know. Have a look at this section, though.” Rawson flipped a couple of pages over and showed Delaney a typewritten section that had been pasted into the text:

  Delaney read aloud again: “Foreign sources of threat-related information have become predominant. Events have increasingly required us to operate abroad.” Rawson looked somewhat furtively around the bar.

  “That’s getting better,” Delaney said.

  “Any reporters going to be listening to this?”

  “Yes, probably. Or maybe we will leak it to someone here.”

  “This will get some play, I would imagine. I wouldn’t mind covering this myself. Or leak it to me,” Delaney said with a grin. “Your guys would love to see my by-line on something like this, wouldn’t they?”

  “Behave yourself, Francis,” Rawson said. “Read on.”

  Delaney read: “Canada’s enemies respect no barriers, either international or moral. The situation calls for an integrated approach to intelligence collection that is not bound by artificial administrative barriers. Accordingly, working covertly abroad has become an integral part of CSIS operations . . .”

  “Jesus Christ, Jon.This will set the cat among the pigeons. There’s a headline if I ever saw one.”

  “You figure? That’s mostly from me. And Smithson.”

  “Of course. No one’s ever said this in public before, as far as I know.”

  “This might be the time,” Rawson said.

  “Is your guy going to buy into this for a speech?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Some of the politicians across the road from here are going to go apeshit.”

  “This might be the time.”

  “Or you might be looking for work.”

  “I’m not giving this speech. The chief is giving it.”

  “You’re helping to write it.”

  “Me and a cast of thousands. Hundreds anyway. Dozens.”

  “The MPs across the road, a lot of them anyway, are going to take a very dim view of you guys operating way beyond your mandate. You always told me that and I always thought that anyway. What are you going to do next, tell them about people like me and Kellner? Why don’t you just take out a full-page ad in the Globe and Mail?”

  “We want to generate a little bit of debate about our mandate. Some of us are sick and tired of sneaking around, doing what needs to be done abroad and fussing about legislative mandates. You of all people know that.”

  “Well, you’ll generate some debate with this, Jon. No doubt.”

  Delaney finished reading the speech, making a few notes in the margins as he went. Rawson drank his whiskey slowly and appeared to be pondering his fate. Kenny the barman stood idle.

  “It’s good,” Delaney said when he had finished. “Except for the bureaucratese in the first couple of pages, it gets pretty good. You’ll have reporters ringing your phones off the wall.”

  “If our guy delivers it like that,” Rawson said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Maybe he’ll figure the time is not right.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We shall see,” Rawson said glumly.

  The bar was starting to fill up now, as print media reporters and editors and hangers-on came in after their day’s work. The TV people would start coming in soon as well. Kenny started scurrying around making drinks. He had turned up the sound on CNN.

  “Put it on CBC,” someone called out. “The news is almost on.”

  “Fuck that,” said someone else. “Leave it on CNN.”

  Kenny ignored everyone and went on about his business. CNN prevailed.

  “I’ve got to go,” Rawson said.

  “OK,” Delaney said.

  “You staying?”

  “No. Not with this crowd.” Delaney said. They took the elevator down together and came out of the National Press Building onto Wellington, all but deserted as usual on a weeknight. Across the street on Parliament Hill a TV reporter, standing in a circle of intense light, delivered a stand-up to camera. The sound man hovered with a giant microphone the size of a mortar covered in furry grey felt.

  “Sources on Parliament Hill have told CTV news that the second reading of Bill C-78 may have to be postponed for at least a week,” the reporter said, with a stylish toss of her heavily permed hair. Delaney and Rawson exchanged glances.

  “Hard-hitting stuff,” Rawson said.

  “She’ll blow this town wide open.”

  They got to Rawson’s car, a brown government issue Ford.

  “You going back tonight?” Rawson asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You’ll head to Bangkok on Monday?”

  “Tuesday latest.”

  “It’ll be our usual arrangement. Let us know where you want the money sent.”

  “I trust you guys, of course.” They both smiled. “You’re always good with payments. Payments yes. Information not always.”

  “Watch how you go over there, OK Francis?”

  “I know Bangkok,” Delaney said.

  “It’s not the city I’m talking about.”

  “I know that.”

  “How have you been anyway?” Rawson asked suddenly.

  “You asked me that already. In the bar.”

  “How’s the Mountie?” Rawson asked.

  “No comment.”

  “Troubles?”

  “No comment.”

  “You all right these days? How have you been? Seriously.”

  “I’m seriously all right.”

  “Francis, I often wonder . . .”

  “No, Dad, I’m not over Natalia yet. No. You usually ask me that earlier in the night.” “It’s a long while ago now, Francis.”

  “Yes. And you think it’s time for me to move on.”

  “Yes.”

  “Move on where?”

  “Hook up with that Mountie, maybe. See how that turns out.”

  “I don’t like surprises, Jon. You know that.”

  “You’re getting into the wrong business if you don’t like surprises, Francis.”

  Delaney watched as Rawson’s car moved off down Slater Street. He watched until Rawson signalled left and turned onto Laurier. Then he walked on down to where he had parked his own car, across from the Westin in an outdoor lot. For a moment, he thought about checking in and ordering a room-service meal and a good bottle of wine. But then he thought about how many hotel rooms he had done that in, in how many cities, and he unlocked his car instead.

  It was just after 10 p.m. He sat in his idling car and felt an urge to just drive anywhere, any direction, except Montreal. It was Thursday night. He could be in New York for breakfast if he left now. He could be in Toronto sooner than that.Then the urge passed. He could check into the Ottawa Westin instead. He could pick any hotel in Ottawa, put down a credit card, stay for a week, more if he wanted to, live on room-service meals, watch movies, news channels, game shows on TV.

  The car idled quietly, ready to go anywhere. Delaney pulled out his mobile phone and dialled Kate’s home number. No answer, no answering machine. He looked for a long while at her mobile number in his own mo
bile’s memory.Then he tossed the phone onto the seat beside him and pulled out of the parking lot, heading for the only place that ever felt remotely like home.

  Chapter 3

  As always, there were a few loose ends to tie up before Delaney left on any assignment, whether as reporter or spy. He usually declined to think of how few loose ends he actually had left. Light duties now for the newspaper, apartment and related matters, an on-again off-again book project, a few friends, mainly O’Keefe, maybe Kate.

  He decided he would see Kellner’s sister before he left. And he decided he would go to Bangkok via London, to see some of the people Kellner worked for at Defence Monthly. He spent most of Friday morning setting things up: plane ticket for Sunday night, emails to the London magazine trying to make appointments, reading some of Kellner’s recent articles on the Internet. Kellner’s sister said she could see him that afternoon.

  He tidied up one of his emergency columns for the Tribune, a stand-up piece about whether the Quebec separatist movement had now, once and for all, lost its way. Patricia will think this doesn’t break any new ground, he thought grimly as he called her just before noon. It would have to do for the next week. The one after that, if he was still away, he would write in a hotel somewhere or other.

  “Patricia, I’ve got some good news for you,” he said when she answered. “Two bits of good news. I’m going away for a week or so, so I won’t drive you crazy for a while. And I’m filing next week’s column early, today. It’s in the system now. Your lucky day.” Nothing ever made Patricia truly happy.

  “You’re going away again?” she said “Yeah, I’m going to chase up some columns in London, maybe a few other places.”

  “The focus is supposed to be on Canada and Quebec,” she said.

  “The column is called ‘Delaney at Large,’” he said. “I’m at large for a few days. I’ve always got the Canadian angle firmly in mind, Patricia. It is lodged firmly in my mind. Have no fear.”

  “You clear this with Harden?” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  “You going to?”

  “Probably.”

  “You’ll need to for the travel money,” she said, apparently sensing an obstacle that would prevent the trip from taking place.