Slow Recoil

by C. B. Forrest

  “What about the second target, this Mitovik,” McKelvey said. “He’s obviously in danger.”

  “He will wake up to my smiling face tomorrow,” Maxime said, “and that is when your local police will get a chance to put their thumbprint on this case, to pose for the photographers when the heavy lifting is done.”

  This was beyond McKelvey’s professional experience. Organized gangs, punks, thugs, hammerheads and crackheads, pathological liars, sure, even the heavyweight cons who walked into banks with sawed-off shotguns; that was the world he understood. But this, this was geopolitics, talk of a war he had not understood in the slightest when it was actually happening, let alone now, years after the fact when they were stepping into a new war. He remembered the newspapers, the TV footage of the siege of Sarajevo, daily artillery salvos, snipers taking out old ladies waiting in line for bread, the horrific news of entire villages being rounded up, the men shot or exiled to prison camps, the women and girls raped and tortured. But he was never able to decipher the starting point in the whole mess; who were the good guys, who were the bad guys, and how could tell the difference? As though one minute there had been a unified country and the next the whole thing was shattered into a hundred little pieces.

  “This man, the one I threw the wine bottle at. He’s holding my friend, Tim Fielding. I guess we’re both what you’d call loose ends in this,” McKelvey said. “We stumbled into the middle of their operation and fucked things up for them.”

  “That man is the only operator we have yet to positively identify,” Maxime said. “I believe his operational name is Kadro. He served in The Colonel’s unit with some distinction. He is a dangerous man, believe me.”

  “What do you think the chances are he’ll let Tim Fielding go?”

  Maxime looked at him and shook his head. “We must help each other, Charlie,” he said. “You get your friend, and I close my case.”

  McKelvey sat back and relayed the details of the phone call from the stranger, the letter on his fridge, the whole series of events of the past few days. Maxime listened, nodded and offered explanations where he could.

  “Closing time, boys,” Huff said, and he flicked the lights off and on.

  When McKelvey looked up, he saw that the bar was empty. It was one o’clock. He was utterly exhausted. Now that the adrenalin had ebbed, his body was spent. The two men shook hands and agreed to meet in the morning to put their plan in place.

  “I’m on the way,” Maxime said, following McKelvey out the door.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Royal York,” Maxime said. He pronounced it “royale yolk”.

  McKelvey stopped at the door to his condo and fished in his pocket for his keys. He said, “Interpol isn’t hiring, by any chance?”

  “You would not like the paperwork, Charlie,” Maxime said over his shoulder. “Bon nuit.”

  McKelvey opened the door to his condo and flicked on the lights. He stood there at the threshold for a full minute listening, half expecting someone to jump from the shadows in this strange new game he was playing. The apartment was still and quiet. He went to the bedroom and dug through the sock drawer, twisting and turning and spilling pairs on the floor. His fingers finally found what they sought: a tiny cylindrical tablet. One of the old ones from the original prescription for his leg wound. Tiny submarine of original bliss. He’d stretched out on the sofa for nearly a month after his release from hospital, getting reacquainted with daytime television, popping the pain tabs and drinking herbal teas as suggested. He floated, and he didn’t think of anything at all. He liked Ellen, she was funny, and he liked some of the game shows, too, but he couldn’t help but notice how fat most of the contestants were. How fat everybody on television was. What had happened to their civilization, he had wondered in those days of recovery and recuperation. Now he swallowed the tablet and stretched out on the bed. He didn’t bother removing his clothes or his shoes. The mattress ate him alive.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Maxime was up early and parked down the street from Goran Mitovik’s semi-detached home on Evelyn Avenue in the neighborhood of High Park North. Goran had not done as well as Bojan in his new life in this country, but then again Bojan had come from better family money, and he had been an officer in the war. Goran had served as a non-commissioned officer leading a platoon, and these days he managed a Pickle Barrel restaurant in the north end in a mall near the highway. Maxime watched the house, but there were no signs of activity, and no sign of the white Corolla either.

  He glanced at the GPS receiver. The vehicle had not moved since the previous afternoon. Not since shortly after McKelvey had broken the window with the wine bottle. It was possible the car had been stowed to keep it from public view—which would seriously thwart his ability to trace the target. He had followed the signal first thing in the morning to an east-end neighborhood of strip malls, car washes, fast food restaurants, but there were too many laneways and parking lots to feasibly check. He glanced at his watch. It was twenty to nine. He had promised to pick McKelvey up at nine. He started the rental and pulled away from the curb.

  “Ce n’était pas encore votre temps, Monsieur Mitovik,” he said.

  McKelvey was standing on the sidewalk when Maxime pulled up.

  “Did you rest well, Charlie?” Maxime said as McKelvey hopped in the small car.

  “I think I died last night,” McKelvey said.

  He was still wearing the same clothes, which were badly rumpled, and his face was wrinkled on one side from sleep. He had tried to eat something, but his stomach would not take it. There wasn’t much selection, either, beyond a dried heel of cheddar and some celery that was well into the process of decomposition.

  Maxime pulled away from the curb in front of McKelvey’s building, and they joined the stop-and-go flow of morning traffic. The core of the financial district undulated with human activity, these ant-like columns of commuters pouring out of Union Station towards the glass and mirrored banking towers.

  Something in the glove compartment made an electronic beep.

  “Aha, good timing,” Maxime said. He reached over and opened the compartment and took out the GPS receiver. “Our friend is on the move.”

  Maxime drove and glanced down at the small LED screen.

  “You’ve got him tracked,” McKelvey said. “How did you manage that?”

  “Long story. See, he is heading southwest,” Maxime said. “Yes, he is coming down south and headed our way.”

  “This Davis Chapman,” McKelvey said. “I still don’t get the connection. If it’s not CSIS or the Mounties, what branch of the government would be involved in this sort of thing? I mean, it’s safe to say he’s a spy or an operative of some sort.”

  “A spook, a spy, we don’t call them that any more, Charlie. That was the Cold War. They are les agents provocateurs. When it comes to these affairs, your country may not be as loud as your neighbours to the south with their paranoid CIA and their FBI and their Homeland Security, but believe me, you are playing the same games. Davis Chapman is simply a—what do you say—a puppeteer.”

  They drove west and south then came back eastward along the Lakeshore Boulevard. Maxime glanced at the GPS receiver.

  “The vehicle has stopped for a few minutes,” Maxime said. “Perhaps he is getting gas or visiting the toilet.”

  The washroom, McKelvey was going to say, but he glanced at his watch and saw they were fifteen minutes from the scheduled phone call.

  “We need to head over to Union Station now,” McKelvey said. “He’s calling on the hour.”

  Maxime drove, and McKelvey felt his chest tightening. It was unbearable.

  “Our friend is heading due south,” Maxime said, “towards the lake.”

  Maxime could not park the car in front of Union Station, so he dropped McKelvey off at the main doors and pulled a U-turn to park across the street at the Royal York. McKelvey glanced at his watch as he ran down the ramp to the arrivals level. Two minutes to ten.
He came through the doors and headed straight for the bank of pay phones against the wall by the stairs that led to the departures level for the trains. One minute to ten. There was an old man standing in front of the phones, fiddling in his pockets for change, suitcase at his feet. McKelvey came up and stepped in to block the middle phone. He was out of breath.

  It rang. He snatched the receiver. “McKelvey,” he said.

  “Charlie—”

  It was Fielding’s voice. Hoarse and weak, but it was his voice. He was alive, and it was all that mattered in this moment. The phone was pulled away, and the other man was on the line again.

  “Noon,” the man said quickly. McKelvey heard something in the background, the drone of an engine, and it grew louder. “The parking lot of Exhibition Place. I will drive you to the location from there.”

  The line went dead. McKelvey hung up. The old man with the suitcase was staring at him. McKelvey looked over at the newsstand in the centre of the station, watching the people flowing in and out. He knew the sound he’d heard on the phone was an airplane engine. And not just any engine, it was the roar of a smaller prop plane. Christ, he had it. He dropped a couple of quarters into the phone and dialed directory assistance. He had to plug his free ear and yell into the receiver before the automated attendant understood his command. Goddamned fucking automation of everything. The line rang a few times before a cheery voice answered.

  “Toronto Island Airport,” a woman said.

  “When is the next flight arriving?” McKelvey said.

  “From which destination, sir?”

  “Anywhere,” he said, “just the next arrival.”

  “A flight just landed from Montreal,” she said.

  “Like right now?”

  “It just touched down, sir. Ten a.m. arrival,” she said. “Can I help you with flight details or…”

  McKelvey hung up. He ran up the ramp, pushing through travelers and students on his way to the car across the street at the hotel. Maxime was waiting at the wheel with the engine running. McKelvey slammed the door and took a deep haul of air.

  “How close can we get with that thing?” he said, and indicated the GPS receiver.

  “It depends on the signal strength, interference,” Maxime said, “but usually within a block. Why?”

  “I know where they’re keeping Fielding,” McKelvey said. “Or at least the general area. And with this thing, we can narrow it down. Come on, drive. Head west on Front.”

  Maxime popped the car into gear and rolled them through the always-clustered gaggle of cars parked by the eastern entrance to the hotel.

  “How are you so positive, Charlie?”

  Dawson’s words came back to him. He was fucking with me. Chapman’s address. One Bathurst Quay…Lake Ontario.

  “Near the Toronto Island Airport,” McKelvey said. “There are a few warehouses, condos under construction. Chapman must know the area some how, it must mean something to him. The address he listed on his application for the immigrant support centre is the end of the street. Nothing there but water.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The GPS confirmed McKelvey’s hunch. Maxime brought them across Front Street then south on Spadina Avenue to Lakeshore Boulevard. At Bathurst Street they turned left and headed south to the Toronto Island Airport. Maxime kept one eye on the road, the other on the GPS receiver.

  “We are close,” he said.

  “Keep going towards the water,” McKelvey said.

  The airport ferry terminal to the right, the old Canada Malting Company silos and plant to the left. This is it, McKelvey thought. This area would be One Bathurst Quay.

  “Pull up over there,” McKelvey said. His heart was beginning to hammer in his chest. “Let’s check this out.”

  They got out of the car. Maxime went around to the hatch and opened his small black gun case. He looked around and discreetly clipped the sidearm to his belt in its holster. He picked up a slim flashlight and tested it against his palm.

  “After you, Charlie,” he said.

  McKelvey led them over to the fences that encircled the old plant that had at one time stored and processed malt hops. The facility had been built in the 1940s and operated until its closure in the 1980s. It loomed over the waterfront as an emblem of the city’s industrial past. There were “No Trespassing” signs posted every six feet. McKelvey found a section of fence that had been cut at one time, likely by youths looking to tag their graffiti on the pock-marked cement and brick of the landmark silos.

  They stepped through the fence and were among the overgrown weeds and wildflowers of the yard. Old beer bottles and cigarette packages. McKelvey looked up. Most of the windows had been smashed years earlier. They reached a steel side door, which was locked with a new piece of chain and a padlock. On the ground McKelvey spotted a rusted length of chain and what must have been the original padlock.

  “They replaced the lock,” McKelvey said. “He’s in here…”

  “There must be another entrance at the back, Charlie, for them to come and go. They could not lock themselves in like this,” Maxime said.

  “I don’t have time to find their secret fucking passage. This is the quickest way in.”

  “Try this,” Maxime said, and he reached down and picked up a red brick.

  McKelvey used the brick as a hammer. Sparks shot as he struck the padlock. Any hope they had for the element of surprise was surely lost. The sound bounced and echoed from the side of the massive structure. The lock blew apart. McKelvey pulled the chain and tossed it to the weeds. He gave the door a tug, and it opened with a groan.

  They stepped inside the near-darkness. Their nostrils were immediately assailed by the deep funk of must and mould mixed with the lingering pong of rich malt hops. Water dripped from overhead pipes. Maxime led with his flashlight and his weapon drawn.

  “This way,” he said, aiming the band of light at a set of iron stairs.

  McKelvey picked up a length of rusted pipe from the ground and followed.

  Kadro had been preparing to leave the abandoned factory and meet McKelvey at Exhibition Place. He had a length of rope and a band of cloth which he planned to use to tie McKelvey’s hands and blindfold him for the drive back to the plant. He had asked Turner to meet them at the factory at eleven, providing Kad with enough time to eliminate both the school teacher and the police officer. Kad had even contemplated ambushing Turner and perhaps staging it so the one-eyed Canadian could take the blame for the killings. He had left the afternoon completely open for the assassination of Goran Mitovik, who generally worked late afternoons and evenings. He wouldn’t be coming to work this night, however. Since the previous day’s epiphany, Kadro now believed it was his obligation as a survivor to endure. It was his job now to live and to remember. He would return home after all of this.

  Kad had put the cellphone in front of the school teacher’s mouth so the policeman would know that he was alive. He realized, as he took the phone back, that the incoming flight could give away his location, at least to some degree. So they were near the airport. He doubted McKelvey had the ability or the equipment to triangulate a precise location based on the sound of an engine. Still, it had been an error in judgement, and he had admonished himself for the lapse. Now Kad was finished re-tying the knots on the school teacher and gathering his tools when he heard the banging on the door.

  He was on his haunches. He stopped. Listened.

  “He’s coming,” the school teacher croaked.

  Kad moved to him. He ripped a small length of the cloth and shoved it in Fielding’s mouth. He turned and pulled the handgun from his belt. He cocked the weapon, sliding a bullet into the chamber. Each office on the top floor was connected to an office on either side by a single door, so that it was conceivable an employee could walk from one end of the hall to the other by passing through each office. Kad walked on the balls of his feet over to the door on the right side, he slid the lock latch, turned the knob and stepped into the darkness. He would come out at
the far end of the hall and surprise McKelvey.

  Maxime and McKelvey reached the top of the stairs. There was a long hallway with offices along the left-hand side. It was open on the right-hand side, with a railing overlooking the plant floor, presumably so supervisors and foremen could stand and watch the workers’ progress below. There was stronger light on this level, coming through the shattered windows, falling in broken bars across the dirty floor. Maxime nodded for McKelvey to head left to the end of the hallway.

  McKelvey crept along the hall with the rusty pipe cold and rough in his hand. He noticed he was shaking, and he couldn’t catch his breath. He paused at the first door, put his hand on the knob and turned. The broken light illuminated Fielding on the floor, his hands tied behind his back and around a foundation pole.

  Jesus, McKelvey thought, he’s alive…

  He pushed the door wide to make sure there was nobody behind it, then he went to Fielding. He pulled the cloth from the man’s mouth. Fielding gulped for air.

  “Tim,” he whispered, “where are they? How many?”

  “One,” the teacher managed, and he nodded towards the door leading to the adjoining office.

  McKelvey worked furiously to untie Fielding’s hands. When he had pulled the ropes off, Fielding did not move his arms. McKelvey went to help him bend them slowly, but Fielding cried out in pain.

  “It’s okay,” McKelvey said, and he set his friend on his side. “I’ll be back.”

  Kad could hear the soft footsteps, then he heard the cry from the school teacher. He was inside the last office now. He paused at the door, then turned the knob slowly. He opened the door a crack and listened. The hunted rarely had the advantage, so he crouched low and peered into the hallway. Put them on the defensive, Krupps had always said.