He banged out another ten inches, hit save, then send, and called the desk to make sure the file had arrived. Then he left the Hot Room, walked downstairs, and stepped out through the heavy brass doors under the Peace Tower, where he hunched against the cold wind and lit a cigarette. For the first time, as he walked toward the parking lot, he had time to think about the night before, and what he would tell the police.
He had met Ed and Sophie at D’Arcy’s, where he had a shepherd’s pie and the first beer of the evening. The three of them had gossiped about politics. He had tried to draw them out about who would be likely to replace Stevens if he stepped down before the next election. Since Sophie worked for Mowat and Ed worked for Donahoe, the two ministers most likely to get the keys to 24 Sussex, Jack had tried to provoke them into arguing about who had the better chance, in the hope that they would spill secrets, but they saw through him and laughed it off.
When Sophie tapped out after dinner, Jack was tempted to do the same, but Ed was in a drinking mood: animated, funny, laughing, singing, buying rounds, flirting with girls at the bar, and Jack decided to have another drink or two.
They did some shots at the bar, where they chatted up three Inuit girls for a while, bureaucrats from Aboriginal Affairs. Then there was another bar, Quatre Jeudis, in Hull, where they tried to hit on Quebec hotties, but were restrained by their increasing and obvious drunkenness and their bad French.
They ate greasy poutine at 2 a.m. Then they were in a cab, and then they were at Pigale, reeling into the strip bar in time to order two beers each at last call. After that, everything was fuzzy. Jack could remember the naked bodies of the tattooed Montreal biker chicks who danced there, and he could remember Ed going for a lap dance, while he sat and waited, drinking beer and leering at the dancers. Then there was another cab, which he remembered getting into, but after that, nothing.
It wasn’t going to be fun telling the cops about it.
Tim Balfour sat in his office with the door closed, wasting time on one of his computers by trying out a new first-person shooter: blowing up aliens inside a spaceship, flicking from flamethrower to rocket launcher, expertly turning alien gunmen into chunks of meat.
The call was taking longer than he expected. The little Chinese slut must be slacking off.
Then, sure enough, the phone rang.
He paused the game. His screen instantly reverted to his desktop and he picked up his phone.
“Balfour here,” he said.
“Um, excuse me, Tim,” the voice said. “This is Eileen Sing-Chu. I seem to be having a problem with my computer. I can’t access the network. It’s rejecting my password. I’ve rebooted twice, but it doesn’t want to work.”
He grinned, and rubbed his big tummy with both hands.
“Did you make sure caps lock is off?” he asked.
“Yes I did,” she said.
Of course you did, you little hottie, he thought.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right out to have a look.”
During lunch, while she was in the cafeteria, he had reset Eileen Sing-Chu’s password. She was new and by far the cutest girl to work in the encryption section of Canadian Security Establishment, maybe the prettiest girl to ever work there. She wore glasses, but she was pretty and sporty, with an appealingly boyish body, and she didn’t seem to know she was pretty. Perfect.
The encryption section of CSE, Canada’s secretive electronic intelligence agency, employed math geeks, mostly pimply, awkward boy-men like him, the type who knew enough not to wear pocket protectors, but had to fight the impulse. Balfour, an overweight, prematurely balding, socially awkward computer whiz, was unlucky with women, a fact that was not far from his mind when he hired staff. It was at the front of his mind when he hired Sing-Chu, and he was now planning on giving her computer a series of problems that he would have to solve, giving him a chance to hang around her desk, look down her top, get to know her, see if there was any way he could get into her little Chinese panties.
He was standing up to go when his second desk phone rang.
“Balfour here,” he said.
“Hello,” said the deep male voice on the other end. “Do you know who this is?”
Balfour sat down.
“I do,” he said. “Are you calling from a secure line?”
“I’m calling from my desk phone.”
“Hold on,” said Balfour, and he flicked a switch on the side of the phone.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re encrypted. Go ahead.”
“All right,” said the voice. “I’ve got a job for you. I want you to try to locate a stolen BlackBerry for us. This is right from the top, and we need it in real time. Okay? We can’t afford to go through channels.”
“Have you got the PIN and the phone number?” said Balfour.
“I do. Ready?”
The voice read out the seven-digit code, a mix of numbers and letters, and then the telephone number.
“Got that?”
Balfour read it all back.
“Good,” said the voice. “When you get a read out, let me know the location. Got it?”
“Yup,” said Balfour. “On it.”
The line went dead.
Shit, he thought. No time for games. He quickly reset Eileen Sing-Chu’s password and called her to tell her to reboot.
Then he booted up a computer underneath his desk, and launched a program that disguised his computer’s ISPN on the internal network. After it was running, he plugged the computer into the network. It would now appear to any network administrators bored enough to be watching, that an extra computer had come online in the Digital Intelligence Interception branch of CSEC.
He typed in a password and username he had previously stolen using a keystroke capture program on a computer in his office used by a visiting DII agent.
He found the cell-phone tracking program used by DII agents, opened the interface and started wrestling with the problem.
Every time anyone uses a cell phone, the unit sends a radio signal, which, in a city, is picked up by a number of towers. Those towers send each other signals to decide which tower will handle the call. By measuring the signal strength at each tower and triangulating, the network can quickly estimate the location of any cell phone, but it took 10 minutes for Balfour to figure out how to make the program do that.
Once he had it figured out, he entered the PIN number and phone number and sat back to watch it work.
Jack’s BlackBerry vibrated on his hip while he was waiting for a light on O’Connor Street. It was a message from Sophie asking him to call.
She started crying when she heard his voice. “Oh, Jack. Did you hear about Ed?”
The light changed and Jack pulled into the intersection.
“I’m on the way to the police station now,” he said. “It’s terrible. I wish I had stayed with him. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it happened. I should have been with him. We were both so drunk.”
Sophie choked back her tears and spoke just as Jack’s BlackBerry beeped in his ear, the signal that the battery was running down.
“What?” he said. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“It’s awful,” she said. “He opened his eyes but he’s just staring. It’s like he’s not even there.”
“Oh God,” said Jack. “I don’t know. It’s early days yet. He might come around yet. Jesus. I’ll come see him after I go talk to the police.”
“You can’t get in to see him today,” said Sophie. “Only family can get in until he’s out of critical condition.”
“Oh, Jesus,” said Jack.
“What happened?” said Sophie. “Why didn’t he come home last night?”
“I’m just on my way to the police station now,” he said. “I don’t know what happened. We were out till late, Christ, till Pigale closed. Then we took a cab. I think he dropped me off first. But it’s hard to remember. Christ. We were shitfaced.”
Sophie started crying. “I’d better go back in ther
e,” she sniffled, and she hung up.
“Lord Jesus,” said Jack. He cursed at the horror of the situation, and at his phone, which was running down. At the next light, he remembered that he had another one in his pocket.
“Fuck,” he said, and pulled over and dug it out, thinking he could use the battery from Sawatski’s BlackBerry. He had a vague memory, suddenly, of Ed slipping it into his pocket when he went for the lap dance.
Jack punched at it, tried to look at the inbox, but it was password-protected.
He tried SOPHIE, but that didn’t work.
He lit a smoke and thought about it, then opened the back of the phone, took out the battery and popped it into the back of his own.
The first time the cell phone that Balfour was tracking sent out a signal, it bounced off seven towers in downtown Ottawa. After about thirty seconds, the tracking program he was staring at lit up over Ottawa on a map of North America. He hit zoom and waited while the map redrew itself. The second signal came in while the map was redrawing, and Balfour’s computer crunched it and came up with a fifty-square-metre signal zone, centred at the corner of Lisgar and O’Connor.
“Bingo,” said Balfour. “Bingo, bingo, bingo. Take that, mofo.”
He whipped out his BlackBerry and typed a message.
To: 74X93B4
From: 58K42E6
Subject: BB location
The BlackBerry in question is at the corner of O’Connor and Lisgar.
As he pressed send, Sawatski’s BlackBerry sent another roaming signal, and when Balfour looked again, the signal zone had moved south, to the corner of Gladstone and O’Connor.
He sent another message.
To: 74X93B4
From: 58K42E6
Subject: It’s moving
Now at Gladstone and O’Connor.
He quickly had a reply.
To: 58K42E6
From: 74X93B4
Subject: Can you set up remote tracking?
We need to follow it.
Balfour pulled on his bottom lip and thought about it. Shouldn’t be too hard. Just go under the interface, find the code with the latitude and longitude, set up a little mailer program to forward it. He’d have to write a bit of code for the recipient phone, but that should be easy, an add-on for a mapping program. But just as he started to type a message saying that he could do it, the dot disappeared from Balfour’s screen.
Flanagan had started a timeline on the Sawatski case, and when Ashton forwarded him the messages from Sophie, he added them to the document.
Approx 6 p.m.: Subject meets Sophie Fortin and Jack Macdonald at Darcy McGee’s. They eat. Subject drinks three or four beers.
Approx 8 p.m.: Fortin leaves D’Arcy’s.
10:15 p.m.:
De: Sophie Fortin
A: Ed Sawatski
Sujet: Come home
I’m finished work and I’m bored.
10:28 p.m.:
To: Sophie Fortin
From: Ed Sawatski
Subject: No way
Me and Jack are macking on Eskimo hotties.
10:32 p.m.:
De: Sophie Fortin
A: Ed Sawatski
Sujet: Enjoy them
Just have a shower before you come to bed. :-p
11:45 p.m.:
De: Sophie Fortin
A: Ed Sawatski
Sujet: Going to bed
I hope you got lucky with the Inuit ladies, cause I’m going to sleep.
12:18 p.m.
From: Ed Sawatski
To: Sophie Fortin
Subject: Going to Quatre Jeudi
You should come! We can parlez vous.
12:32 p.m.:
De: Sophie Fortin
A: Ed Sawatski
Sujet: No way!
I have an early morning tomorrow.
And so do you!
Have fun.
Bisous!
2:20 a.m.:
From: Ed Sawatski
To: Sophie Fortin
Subject: Viva le Quebec Libre
If Quebec separates, we totally are keeping poutine.
Mmmm. Poutine.
3:12 a.m.:
From: Ed Sawatski
To: Sophie Fortin
Subject: Pigale
Nonne of these bitches is hot like you.
But I’m going to get a lap dancce with this trashy little biler chick.
But don’t worry. I’ll get Jack to hold my bb.
Love you.
:*
4:48 a.m. Security video from Chateau Laurier shows two men walking from Parliament Hill to the Rideau Canal locks.
5:25 a.m. Sawatski discovered in canal by Isabelle Galarneau.
When it was finished, Flanagan emailed a copy to his partner and printed one for himself. Then he took a deep breath. He had already called his son to let him know that he might not be able to take him to the game. Jason had sounded quiet and sad, so he told him he was chasing some real bad guys, but he’d try to finish up in time.
While he was on the phone, he got a call from reception. It had to be Macdonald. He told Jason he loved him and headed down the stairs to fetch the reporter.
The kid looked like shit. He had a wine stain on his lapel. His face was pale and his hair was messy. They shook hands in the hallway, and Flanagan led him upstairs. He had already decided to talk to the reporter in one of the interview rooms, which had a window out into the squad room, not one of the shitty little concrete interrogation rooms. Play it nice.
He sat down with his notebook, a digital recorder and the time line. Macdonald pulled out his own notebook and digital recorder and switched on the recorder.
Flanagan looked at him over his glasses. “You recording this, too?” he said.
“I don’t need a lawyer, do I?” said Jack, looking around the room with unease. “I want to help you. But this makes me nervous.”
“You are entitled to a lawyer if you feel you would benefit from one,” said Flanagan. “But we don’t even know if there’s been a crime. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” He switched on his recorder. “What time did you meet Fortin and Sawatski?”
“About 6:30. Me and Sophie were there first, then Ed arrived.”
“And you stayed at Darcy’s for how long?”
“Well, Sophie left around 8:30. She had work to do, she said, so Ed and I were on our own. We had a few more drinks, tried to hit on some girls.”
Flanagan looked down at his notes. “These were Inuit girls?” he asked. “Is that right?”
Jack was surprised he knew that. “Yeah,” he said. “We chatted them up for a while, had a few more drinks, but D’Arcy’s was getting dead, so we decided to go to Quatre Jeudis.”
“In Hull.”
“That’s right. It was hopping. So we had a few more beers. We got pretty loaded.”
“And then you had poutine?”
“Yes, at that greasy little place on Portage, a pizza joint.”
“Then you went to Pigale?”
“It was Ed’s idea,” said Jack. “But he didn’t have to talk me into it really. We were pretty loaded.”
“And what happened there?”
“We ordered some beers. It was last call, so Ed got us each two beers and we sat down to watch the girls.”
“Did either of you get a lap dance?”
“Ed did,” said Jack. “He wanted me to get one, too, but I was too hammered. So he went off on his own, left me at the table.”
“Did you get into any disputes while you were there? Any hassles with bouncers or other customers?”
“No, we’re not those kinds of drunks. We were having fun, but low-key.”
“Did Sawatski express fear at any time?” asked Flanagan. “Did he say he was worried about someone harming him?”
“No, but to be honest with you my memory of the last part of the evening isn’t too good. We were really hammered. Like, really hammered. I felt terrible this morning. Still don’t feel too good, as a matter of
fact.” Jack rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have a hazy memory of Ed telling me something, something he thought was important, while we were at Pigale, just before he went to get his lap dance, but I can’t bring it back. It’s just … gone.”
Flanagan leaned in. “Did you and Ed argue at any point in the evening? Were you upset with him?”
Jack shook his head. “No way. We were having fun. We weren’t upset or angry or anything. No.”
“What would you say if I told you the bouncers at Pigale said you two almost had a fight? That you seemed very upset with him?”
“I’d say they were confused. Or lying. It’s bullshit. Are you making it up? I think you are.” He stared at Flanagan hard. “Are cops allowed to make shit up?”
“All right,” said Flanagan. “Forget it. I’ve got to ask lots of questions.” He turned back to his timeline. “What time did you get a cab?”
“I’ve no idea. Four? What time does Pigale kick out its customers? Whenever that is.”
“Do you remember the cab company?”
Jack looked up at the ceiling. “No. Not at all. I barely remember getting into it, and I don’t remember much after that.”
Flanagan leaned back in his chair and looked away from Jack. “Do you remember going up to Parliament Hill?”
“No,” said Jack. “I’d remember that.”
Flanagan looked at him sceptically. “Do you remember walking down, you and Ed, going under the bridge by the canal, at about ten to five?”
Jack looked at him like he had two heads. “No,” he said. “That didn’t happen.”
Flanagan stared at him, hard. “What would you say if I told you I had a video that shows you and Ed walking down there together?”
Jack stared back, just as hard. “I’d say you were making shit up again. Jesus. What the fuck is this? I’ll tell you what happened. The cab dropped me off at my place. Ed didn’t get out. After that, I have no idea where he went or what he did, or how he ended up in the canal. I know he lives by the canal. Was he drunk enough to wander over and fall into it, pass out? I don’t know. I’ve got no idea. But I know I wasn’t with him, at any point, near the canal, and I don’t know who was.” He stood up, shaking his head. “Is that clear? Jesus. Maybe I do need a lawyer.”
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