by Mario Bolduc
Max took up his usual post behind the palm tree at the Kon-Tiki, where he’d just spotted Dennis Patterson pushing his and Juliette’s trays along the counter. Their plan had worked, Juliette having called Patterson to talk about David and suggesting this place, a public spot Max knew well. It would be easy to ditch Luc Roberge, if he was over the initial shock and back on the trail with his pack. No need to worry, though. Max had got there an hour ahead of time, and everything was normal.
After they paid, Juliette guided Patterson to a booth for four and sat down.
Then a third party appeared: Max himself. The consultant realized, of course, that he’d been lured into a trap. “Aw c’mon now, don’t be like that,” Max said. “Your food’s getting cold.”
Patterson was ready for the worst, and it showed, so he got out in front of it. “I’m sorry, Max. I had no choice. He forced me …”
“I’ll take care of Roberge some other time. Juliette and I’ve got better things to do, like finding the guys who killed David.”
“I have to understand what happened,” Juliette said.
For an instant, Patterson seemed to be sizing up the situation. Then, as though he’d settled on something, he asked Max, “What exactly do you want to know?”
“The connections between David and Stewart-Cooper International.”
“SCI?”
Juliette told him what she’d found, and Patterson frowned. “Where was the connection with David? I mean, what are you driving at?”
“Terry Hoberman, their communications guy, talked about trouble on the site: bureaucracy, delays from subcontractors, tangled connections with the Indian authorities.”
Patterson sighed.
“Look, don’t come on all righteous and indignant with me, okay? If the company hired you, it wasn’t about delays. No one thinks it was a bed of roses over there. The employees needed to figure out how to muddle through.”
But Patterson was still maintaining radio silence.
“What really happened at Rashidabad?” Max asked.
“Bureaucracy, delays, of course, but mostly threats, acts of intimidation, sabotage.… The Indian Army got called in, but it didn’t help, so the company had to hire private security to protect the workers. Rotten atmosphere, and pretty soon unsustainable. The site was shut down for long periods, and the company’s schedule went to hell. The budget doubled, then tripled, and the place was costing a fortune. The bosses in Hamilton were threatening to pack up and go build that dam somewhere else. In China, for instance, just over the mountain there had to be plenty of rivers like the Jhelum, and a more amenable population.”
“Where’d the violence come from? The jihadists? Hizb-ul-Mujahideen?”
“That’s what the authorities first thought, separatist rebels, who were unhappy that the population was putting aside their demands to court international capital and the promises of jobs with SCI, but that wasn’t it. It was the Hinduists. The extremists weren’t about to let the Muslims — and indirectly Pakistan — benefit from the plant. The dam was built only a few kilometres from the Line of Control. One assault and a surprise attack by the Pakistanis and they’d take control of the central committee and use it for themselves, but instead of caving in, Griffith decided to stand up to the extremists. She went to see the Hinduists at Jammu and confront them. She tried for three days. The hydroelectric installations wouldn’t serve one group more than another, just Indians, period. No exceptions. She was even ready to establish quotas by working with Hindus and Muslims, for instance, verifiable by any and all. She had a commitment from headquarters to correct things as soon as any abuse or omission was pointed out.”
The Hinduists had finally ceased hostilities, a real feat.
“So the violence stopped?”
“Right. They even came in on schedule. Griffith could now go back to Hamilton with her head held high.”
“No wonder the board made her CEO,” Max exclaimed.
Patterson nodded. “Too bad the real war blew it all away, for the time being anyway.”
“So what exactly was in this agreement?”
“You’d have to ask Raymond Bernatchez about that.”
Patterson explained the startup of the central committee at Rashidabad had been planned behind closed doors in the office of the high commissioner, and Griffith wound up in New Delhi from time to time in order to solve some new problem, take care of some new boo-boo.
So, thought Max, she went to the high commissioner’s place and got to know his wife, and the IndiaCare idea came to fruition? Sure, why not? Griffith had played her cards right: make sure you win over Geneviève Bernatchez, so you get the number one of Canadian diplomacy in India on board.
Raymond Bernatchez and Susan Griffith became the spearhead of a campaign aimed at various government departments and even Prime Minister Vajpayee, from what Bernatchez told Patterson. The rain was nonstop, so dykes had to be built, and for this they needed the Indian Army.
“Did they get it?” asked Juliette.
“Oh yes. The government is co-owner of the installations.”
“And SCI is taking part in the Montreal conference, right?” asked Max after a moment’s pause.
“Of course, they’re one of the chief sponsors.”
“Even though they’re temporarily shut down. It’s an open secret within the industry, and if they ever gave in to panic, it would be a disaster. Hell, I’d go invest in Thailand or buy from Venezuela.”
“Did David ever talk to you about a journalist called Ahmed Zaheer?”
Patterson had never heard the name from David or Bernatchez. He knew nothing about him, so Max brought him up to speed about the research, his “natural” death at the Falls, Joan Tourigny’s phone number, the kind of explosive used in Rashidabad and on David, all trails leading to the business in Hamilton, not to mention Zaheer’s interest in ecology.
“Hell of a lot more interesting than what the Indian authorities are working on, right?” said Juliette.
“You gotta go to the police with this.”
Max just smiled. “Like Josh Walkins, for instance? He’s a stand-in over there in Delhi. Luc Roberge, why not?”
“The cops have shown no interest at all in any of this,” added Juliette.
“Well, they had no evidence to get their hands on. Now, though …”
“More like trails that Juliette and I have followed the best we can. Now that we’ve started, you want me to just hand things over so they can sit on them?”
Patterson turned to the young woman. “You’re playing one hell of a dangerous game, Juliette.”
“She’s playing with me, and that makes it a whole lot safer,” Max cut in.
Three phone calls when they got back to the car and drove away. The first was from Jayesh in Kashmir.
“Good news. The engineer gave me a run for my money. Nobody at his old Srinagar address, the one I found at the newspaper’s offices. Klean Kashmir, they called it. After the factory and dam were built, farewell all! He collected his marbles and left the region. Then I discreetly got some info, and I walked all over the neighbourhood. I went to the mosque, the butcher shop, and the café. Finally, I stumbled on an old friend of his …”
“Jayesh …”
“Okay, in the summer of 2001, Najam Sattar went back to his home village to take care of his family. According to this guy, he’s still there.”
“What’s it called?”
“Chakothi in Azad Kashmir.”
“Pakistan?”
“I’m doing the best I can.”
The second call was from Roberge. “I oughta be furious, I don’t mind saying. But now I just feel like laughing about it. The main thing is you’re back in town. Oh, so close …”
He too had big news. “The main perpetrator of the attack was arrested this morning and you are virtually the first t
o know after the RCMP and us, of course. David’s wife and mother haven’t even been told yet.”
Max was caught short on this, and he looked to Juliette, who wasn’t privy to the conversation.
“You still there, O’Brien?”
“Huh? Yeah, yeah.”
“One of those nutjobs, and a communist to boot.”
“I thought that model was obsolete.”
“Guess not. In India, they’re still current, active, and dangerous.”
Max got the idea.
“The Canadians are beginning to see the Indians as foot-dragging, so Chief Inspector Dhaliwal goes back to an old list from the eighties and dusts off a few suspects. Hmmm, let’s see, this one’s not too bad. Besides, he lives nearby.”
Roberge’s sigh came across the line. Obviously, he didn’t share the sense of humour at the other end.
“The guy confessed he kidnapped the diplomat with two accomplices, and …”
“Things just get better and better. An asterisk next to the name means he couldn’t withstand electrodes to the nuts. The perfect suspect.”
“Look, O’Brien, this isn’t The Lonely Planet anymore. This is the end of the road, so you’ve got a choice. Come in quietly and give yourself up without harming your ‘hostage,’ and I’ll take it into account in my report. Otherwise, I throw the book at you.”
Max hung up the phone and looked at Juliette. “So, now you’re my hostage.”
“Who turned you in? Patterson?”
“Probably thinking of your safety.”
Max spent a long time looking at her.
“What you’re doing is illegal, you know. If they arrest me, they’ll accuse you of aiding a fugitive.”
“I’m big enough to know what I’m getting into. No warnings necessary.”
He shook his head. Boy, she had guts, this young woman.
“So, where do we go now?”
He paid no attention to that one. “David sure was lucky finding a girl like you.”
Juliette, ill at ease, looked away. “I’m just doing what he’d do for me,” she said. “I won’t stop asking questions till I know what happened.”
Max had on a canvas money-belt filled with American dollars and three passports, all of them maybe “burned” already. He could just see Roberge before the computer juggling aliases and playing with Photoshop to try out different combinations. For the first time since returning from India, Max had the feeling he was an easy target for the police because he was with a woman who wasn’t part of “the scene.” He absolutely needed a place to rest. He stopped next to a phone booth, opened the car door and let his cellphone slip through the grate into a sewer.
“Have you got a quarter?” he asked Juliette before heading into the booth. His third call was to Mimi.
36
During their one-way conversations, of which there were more and more before Pascale left, she’d tried to make him understand the inevitability of fate, karma for the Hindus. Life flowed as a river whose course was fixed forever. There was no point in trying to alter its direction. The current irresistibly brought us back, not into the “right path” as Christians would say, but into the path, for good or ill, that had been set for us since the beginning of time. This fatalism enraged Max, who considered life an obstacle course, a test in the sporting sense, and one for which he had chosen not to obey the rules. But when Philippe died in El Salvador in 1989, he finally understood what Pascale meant. His brother’s political mishap had been a futile attempt to change the progress of things. Philippe had returned to his riverbed, which now took him to Central America, and not just anywhere, but specifically to El Salvador, where the menu presented a military clique working for the big landowners, generals who imposed order and terror with machetes and prohibitive taxes. It was a country run by death squads supported by the U.S. Army. Rebel groups hidden in the mountains stood up to them. Assassination and kidnapping were the signs of a perpetual civil war.
A hundred thousand dead in ten years, just one more senseless conflagration on a planet that held to them with demonic persistence.
Max was sure Philippe knew what hell he was getting into and even suspected he chose El Salvador deliberately, maybe because Lebanon, Burma, and other hornets’ nests were unavailable. Philippe had determined the location of his sacrifice the way Joan of Arc had resolutely said to her executioners, “Put the fire and stake here, not over there. It’s too far!” Karma perhaps, but one he had chosen for himself, as if to prove he didn’t care about dying any more than about the latest limo.
Sure, and why not El Salvador?
The sacrifice had been calling to him, and sooner or later, he’d have to face it head-on. The generals just had to wait for the right time to intervene. By seeking to provoke the powers that be, Philippe stood himself in front of the bullseye, but he also drew the sympathy of the people of the capital, terrorized by the violence that corrupted the atmosphere in the country, be they of the right or the left. Lo and behold, here was one, at least, who wasn’t barricaded behind bodyguards at every private cocktail party. He dared to drive along the Panamericana without ten motorcycle cops from the Policia Nacional on his tail.
Béatrice watched this provocation, this ritual of death, with anger she could barely contain. What her husband was doing made no sense. If he wanted to die, okay, but why take his wife down with him? That wasn’t his plan, either. He chose one of her return trips to Montreal — there were lots of them — to open the embassy gates to some peasants and rebels fleeing the death squads, and in a single night transform his office into Noah’s Ark.
Ottawa was informed, and the minister awakened in the middle of the night. Philippe O’Brien once again. He regretted not having insisted on the Singapore posting instead of giving in on this one, but the wimpy prime minister had wanted to soothe his fallen star, and here was the result.
The view from Ottawa showed Philippe creating his own personal crisis to draw attention to himself. This was Bonaparte on Elba plotting his return to the French throne. No question that when this ambitious headline-grabber came home after saving these poor people, his twisted family history would be all forgotten, but what the minister of foreign affairs saw as a rebirth, a resurrection, a roaring comeback, was in reality nothing but an uplifted middle finger. Okay, so Philippe had manufactured his own distinct flashpoint, but he’d done it to be able to make a spectacular exit. A gesture out of the ordinary, the kind that made its agent “useful,” no longer a spectator powerless to act on events, but someone with an impact that made him “essential” to his peers. Since Canadian voters had refused his “total commitment,” illiterate peasants — who probably had no idea where Canada even was — would be the beneficiaries of his act of bravery.
Things unravelled very quickly. While the whole world watched, Philippe negotiated for the lives of the peasants with representatives of the generals. He offered his own for theirs, despite orders to the contrary from Ottawa. But who were they to get in the way of his sacrifice? The authorities weren’t expecting anything like this insane courage. Then there were the television cameras, and the generals were getting to enjoy their new show. They could of course storm the place and kill everyone, including the ambassador, and put an end to the drama. But these morons enjoyed being instant TV anti-stars, bogeymen scaring good suburbanites all across the West.
Ottawa was in panic mode. What the hell kind of game was this cretin playing? Communications were cut off, naturally. Anyway, Philippe couldn’t care less about their advice, and within a week, the media getting bored with their clinking medals and grandiose uniforms, and their own grand play, the generals decided that at last they could act. In a crackling fireworks of shots, soldiers invaded the embassy like drunken festival-goers carrying machine guns. They were expecting the usual panic and desperate acts, but what they got was a deserted building that was way too calm for that. This place s
melled like shit. They came across the ambassador writing letters in his office. He barely paused to invite them to take a seat.
Not a trace of the rebels.
What was this? A trap? An ambush?
Philippe suggested they take a look in the basement.
A tunnel dug through the wall led to the sewers of San Salvador, which accounted for the infernal smell that permeated the building.
Later on, one of the escapees told American TV reporters that he’d once worked in the sewers and knew the city’s underground world by heart. An important conduit was situated nearby, and for a week, while Philippe faced down the generals under the eye of the camera, the fugitives had punched a hole in the cement and dug through the crumbly earth to the main sewer and freedom. They subsequently found refuge in Guatemala, and the media that had once demolished Philippe’s political career were now the ones that, despite themselves, allowed him to save these poor people and become a hero.
For the military, Philippe’s victory was intolerable, especially when it was so cool-headed and insulting. He ought to be at their feet begging for pity, but instead he was beaming and seemed to be at his all-time peak. They killed him on the spot at point-blank range.
“If I’d turned myself in to the police when Béatrice asked me to,” Max sighed, “Philippe would be alive today.”
Juliette was moved listening to this story. A few hours earlier, an elderly woman, Mimi, had greeted them with arched black eyebrows and a strident voice, as well as hot soup. Antoine, her taciturn brother, used his equipment in the basement while listening to Madama Butterfly. Mimi didn’t seem pleased by Juliette’s presence, but she kept her opinions to herself. Max let her use his room and he got settled on the sofa. Juliette wasn’t sleepy, and neither was he. She joined him in the living room, and that was when she had asked him exactly what happened to David’s father. This time, there was no avoiding the question for Max.