Endicott barked back. “Look, kid, this is not a game. Identify yourself, or the agents will arrest you instead of just taking the phone.”
Jack was confused. This didn’t make sense.
“I’m not telling you anything until I know who you are,” he said. “Why don’t you give me a CSIS switchboard number?”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Look,” said Endicott. “Let’s try this again. Believe me, the last thing you want to do is face charges under the Security of Information Act. Please identify yourself and confirm your location.”
Jack stood at the urinal, looking up at the ceiling. There was a hole in the drywall, in the corner, where two walls met the ceiling. It looked as though somebody had cut it out to run a wire and had not bothered patching it.
“What do you mean, confirm my location?” he said. “Do you know my location? Are you tracking me?”
He looked at the phone. The screen said Unknown Caller. He could hear the voice talking still, but he had stopped listening. He flipped the phone over and took out the battery, cutting off the voice. He looked around him, his mind racing. Someone was coming for him, and he didn’t know who. He jammed the BlackBerry deep inside the hole by the ceiling, so that nobody would see it without a flashlight and a good reason to go poking around in a dirty hole, then sprinted upstairs into the bar. He caught the waitress’s eye, paid, and left. Once he was outside, he broke into a run.
Five minutes later, two middle-aged men entered the bar. One of them walked around the room, scanning all the customers, then followed the sign pointing downstairs to the bathroom. His companion sat at the bar and ordered a coke. He smiled at the waitress.
“Tell me, we were supposed to meet my friend here, but I think we got our wires crossed, and he might have left just before we got here. Did you see somebody leave about five minutes ago? I just was talking to him on his BlackBerry.”
“I’m sorry,” said the waitress. “Lots of people coming and going.”
Balfour got bored of watching the dot blinking, so he restarted the video, and left the tracking map open in another window. When it stopped blinking, he shut down the porn, checked the time of the last ping, and sent another message.
To: 74X93B4
From: 58K42E6
Subject: BB location
BlackBerry no longer transmitting. Last transmission at 8:47 p.m.
As soon as he sent it, he got a call.
“We lost him,” said the voice. “It looks like he turned the phone off. I’ve been thinking about this, and I think it’s likely that the suspect has a second BlackBerry or some kind of mobile phone. Can you write a program that would match up the known movements of this phone with other phones that were in the vicinity at the same time?”
Balfour leaned back in his chair and thought about it.
“Hello?” said the voice.
“I’m thinking,” he said. “You’re talking about a co-location phone. That makes sense. It should be possible to find him that way. We can go through the raw feeds from the transmission receivers for the past 24 hours. It might take a while, but it should be possible.”
“Well, you get on it, and message me as soon as you get anywhere,” said the voice.
“Roger that,” said Balfour.
He set to work, drilling down through the tracking program to the raw data feeds from the transmission towers that handled the signal from the BlackBerry over the previous 24 hours. It took some doing, but he was able to download massive database files.
He wrote some code for a database program and ordered it to search for other phones that were present that appeared more than once in the files. The program whirred quietly for a moment, then spat out a list of 3,276 numbers.
Balfour cursed and sat up in his chair. His mind set to work. If there were hundreds of thousands of numbers in his lists, then thousands of them would be doubled. Some people who worked in Centretown during the day lived in Hull, or went there for dinner, so it was natural that there would be some overlap. He needed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but if he only looked for numbers that matched all the transmission towers, he could easily miss the right phone.
He’d have to figure out a way to order them by signal strength, so that only those phones that were in close proximity to the missing BlackBerry would show as matches.
He picked up his BlackBerry and sent a PIN.
To: 74X93B4
From: 58K42E6
Subject: This could take a while
I’m doing everything I can. Will let you know as soon as I have a match.
As Jack ran down Murray Street, toward King Edward and his apartment in Sandy Hill, he realized that he was making himself stand out and slowed to a brisk walk. He suddenly felt alone on the near-empty street, so he turned left onto a side street, doubled back, crossed Dalhousie, and walked up to Rideau, where there were always people about. He wandered toward Sussex Street, lost in the crowd, and tried to work out what had just happened.
Somebody badly wanted to get their hands on Ed Sawatski’s BlackBerry. It wasn’t the police, and Jack doubted very much that it was CSIS. As a reporter, he had occasionally called sources back through a switchboard to confirm they were who they said they were, and officials always agreed to that as a security measure.
Whoever it was, they seemed to have the tools to track Sawatski’s cell phone, which would make them cops, or the phone company. But it wasn’t the cops. And maybe the guy was just bluffing, trying to convince him to cough up a name and his location because that was the only way they could get a line on the thing.
His mind spun in circles as he tried to figure out who would want the BlackBerry. Ed’s boss, Jim Donahoe? The Ministry of Justice surely wouldn’t like having one of its cell phones go astray, and it might have secret stuff on it, but they would likely just ask the police to find it. And the police would likely just ask him if he had it. Flanagan hadn’t even done that. It seemed unlikely that they would not bother to ask and then suddenly try cloak and dagger stuff.
It occurred to him that the Liberals would enjoy looking at a smart phone full of emails to and from an aide to the justice minister, but Pinsent’s shop barely seemed able to get their leader to give a coherent speech, much less run phone-snatching operations.
In any case, it didn’t matter much. Jack resolved that in the morning he would tell Flanagan where he had left the BlackBerry and he would let the cops worry about it.
He started when his own phone rang. It was Sophie.
“Hi Jack,” she said. “I just wanted to hear a friendly voice. The Sawatskis are with Ed now and it’s so depressing. His mother keeps crying and whispering to him and he’s just staring at the ceiling, and his dad just keeps patting his hand.”
“Lord Jesus,” said Jack. “I can’t believe this is happening. Do you want me to come down there now?”
“No,” said Sophie. “I think I’m going to go home soon. The Sawatskis are going to sit up with him, but I think I should go into the office tomorrow, so I should try to get some sleep.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” said Jack.
“Um, I was wondering, though,” she said. “Do you have any idea what happened to Ed’s BlackBerry?”
“No,” said Jack, lying without thinking. “I don’t. As far as I remember he had it when I saw him last. But, God, we were so drunk. I wish I could tell you more. How are you? Is someone going to stay with you?”
“No. Marie-Hélène offered, but I think I’ll be okay.”
“Call me later. I could pop by. It’s not far. I’m worried about you.”
Rupert Knowles, principal secretary to the prime minister, sat in his office on the third floor of the Langevin Building, fiddling with the remote control in his hand. He had an image frozen on the 40-inch TV next to the door of Greg Mowat’s face at the moment he stopped walking and turned to Ellen Simms earlier that day. Mowat wore a poised, serene look, like a pastor about to begin
a sermon. He hit play, and Mowat started to talk.
“If we’re discussing Mr. Stevens’s resignation, the first thing we should do is look at what he’s done for the country,” said Mowat. “Under his leadership we have run a scandal-free government. We’ve cut taxes, rebuilt the military, got tough on criminals, managed the economy through a very challenging time, and made life better for Canadian families. I’m very proud to have worked for Mr. Stevens. He is an inspiration to us, personally and professionally. If he has, as you say, decided to step down, I think this is a good time to reflect on all he has done for the country, and not a time for personal ambition.”
Knowles hit rewind, went back to the beginning, and froze the screen again at the moment when Mowat’s face took on the expression of pleasant anticipation. He stared for it a moment longer and went to the office door.
“Suzanne,” he said to the middle-aged receptionist he shared with the prime minister. “Could you ask Ismael to come in for a moment?”
He sat down and waited for Balusi, staring at the screen.
“Hey,” said Balusi, as he entered. “What’s up?”
Knowles gestured to the screen. “I want to ask your opinion about something. Sit down.” He nodded to the couch against the wall.
Balusi was nervous. He got on well with Frank Naumetz, the boss’s chief of staff, who appreciated him for his hustle, his subtle communications skills, his work ethic and his partisan instincts, but Knowles made him uneasy. For one thing, they were about the same age, but Knowles had been working for Stevens a lot longer. He had worked his way from his body man – his go-fer – to principal secretary, the man who speaks for the boss when the boss can’t make the call himself, the man who can walk into ministerial offices, casually, and see what’s going on, asking questions that leave little doubt about what the boss wants.
Unlike Balusi, who liked to party with other young staffers, Knowles went home to his family whenever he could get away from the office early, and also unlike Balusi, he had the prime minister’s personal confidence.
Knowles pointed to the screen. “What do you see?”
“Uh, Greg Mowat,” said Balusi, glancing back and forth between the screen and Knowles. “The minister of public safety.”
“Yeah,” said Knowles. “How’s he look?”
“He looks relaxed. Comfortable.”
“Yup,” said Knowles, and hit play. They watched Mowat gave his spiel. “What do you think? Good lines, eh?”
Balusi nodded. “Yeah. About perfect.”
“The way Bouchard would write them?”
Balusi thought for a minute and nodded.
“Not like something he was making up on the spot?”
“No,” said Balusi. “It looks like he had his lines ready.”
Knowles rewound further, and played Wong and Donahoe’s clumsy responses and Mowat’s again.
He pressed pause and looked at Balusi.
“Looks like we’ve found our leaker,” said Balusi. “Mowat.”
Knowles shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he and his little press secretary – what’s her name, Sophie – maybe they were just shooting the breeze, hashing out what Mowat should say after QP, and so he was ready for the ambush.”
Balusi said: “Or maybe Mowat leaked so he would look sharp and Donahoe would be caught flat-footed.”
Knowles laughed and got to his feet, signalling an end to their little meeting. “Politics is a funny business.”
Mallorie Ashton opened a bottle of Pinot Noir the minute she got through the door of her condo. She finished her first glass as she drew her bath, her second as she soaked in the tub, and was making a pretty good start on the third by the time she finished warming her leftover Thai takeout in the microwave.
She flicked on the TV as she tucked into her red curry chicken and rice. The news was just starting. The lead item was the resignation of the prime minister. Ashton watched as Ellen Simms walked viewers through the news, showing Stevens addressing the Commons, then the Liberal leader’s attack, which seemed beside the point. The piece continued with more gracious quotes from Lesley Nowlan, the leader of the NDP, who congratulated Stevens on his decision and urged him to use the rest of his mandate to leave a positive legacy for working families, and Bloc Quebecois Leader Richard Tremblay, who said that Canadians and Quebecers, whatever their political views, should be grateful to Stevens and his family for his service.
The piece ended with clips of Jim Donahoe and Greg Mowat, who Simms said were the most likely candidates to succeed Stevens. Ashton grimaced when Donahoe said that he would “leave the speculation to the speculators,” and thought that Mowat hit the right tone, although he struck her as a bit preachy.
When Simms’s piece was over, the old reporter, Murphy, did a story on Stevens’s career, from his days as a Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario legislature, his decision to join the Canadian Alliance when he switched to federal politics, to his patient takeover of the party, and finally his three minority election victories.
When the anchor set up the next item, about a helicopter crash in British Colombia, Ashton muted the sound, pushed her plate away, and thought for moment.
She always voted – she had voted for the Conservatives in the last election, based on the Prime Minister’s promise to put more police on the street – but she didn’t follow politics they way most people in Ottawa did. She and her husband used to watch the news together, but since her divorce three years ago, she had stopped paying much attention. She picked up her phone and called Flanagan’s cell number.
“How you doing?” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Tired. That was a long day. How about you?”
“Not bad,” said Flanagan. “Just dropped Jason off. We managed to catch the last two periods of the Sens game.”
“How’d we do?”
“Lost to the Leafs,” said Flanagan. “So where are we on the case?”
“Well, I just watched the news,” said Ashton. “And there was a piece on about Stevens’ resignation. It looks like Donahoe and Mowat are the two main contenders to take over. Our victim works for Donahoe, and his girlfriend, Sophie, works for Mowat. There’s likely not any connection, but I should probably have a chat with Sawatski’s boss, see what files he was working on, get some understanding of his professional life. Did you talk to the reporter?”
“Yeah,” said Flanagan. “But he didn’t give me much. Said he and the victim were loaded and he could barely remember getting home himself. Said he had no idea how Sawatski ended up in the canal.”
“Did the kid know what happened to Sawatski’s cell phone?” said Ashton.
“Fuck,” said Flanagan. “I forgot to ask him. I’ll call him in the morning.”
“According to a message from the victim to his girlfriend, he gave it to Macdonald to hold while he went for a dance,” said Ashton.
“Christ, I can’t believe I forgot to ask him,” said Flanagan.
“Did you buy his story?” said Ashton.
“I think so,” said Flanagan. “But I don’t think we should give up on him yet. I was thinking I should go to Pigale, show their pictures, talk to the bouncers, see if I can find the girl he had a dance with, see if the reporter’s story holds up.”
Ashton laughed. “That sounds like a tough assignment for you, an afternoon in a strip bar.”
“I will not rest in my pursuit of public safety,” said Flanagan.
Jack was dog tired by the time he turned the corner to his street. He was thinking of drinking a beer, of microwaving a frozen chicken pot pie he had in his freezer and going to sleep. He glanced up at his three-storey brick apartment building from across the street and froze in his tracks. A flashlight beam was playing against the window of his apartment. He stood stock-still and stared, and then saw it again. The inside of the window briefly lit up.
Even though it was dark, he suddenly felt exposed standing in the open. On the other side of the street was a 1960s apartment building,
with a covered parking area making up the first floor. He backed into its shadows, crouched behind a car and watched his building.
It took some doing, but Balfour eventually got the number he was looking for.
First he had to write some code to sort all the numbers by signal strength winnowing by the range, which left him with 1,341 matches.
He wished that he had access to the programs the counter-terrorism boys used, instead of having to sit here scratching his head, trying to create one from scratch, but he knew he would get it if he fooled around long enough.
After he had checked his smaller list, making sure that he hadn’t inadvertently scratched any phones that might be the match, he merged all the databases into one file, then sorted the list by the frequency of each phone’s appearance, so the phones that contacted the same transmission towers as the target phone appeared at the top. It was immediately obvious that the phone at the top of the list was the one he wanted.
The two phones had been together from 6 p.m. the night before, first on Sparks Street in Ottawa, then pinging together at various locations in Hull, then back in Ottawa overnight, at a location in the Byward Market.
Balfour tried the matching number in an online reverse directory, but got nothing, so he connected to a database on his work computer and checked a cell phone directory maintained by CSIS. The number was listed as belonging to the Telegram Ltd., with an address in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
He Googled that, and learned that the Telegram was a newspaper. The phone must belong to the paper’s Ottawa reporter, Balfour guessed. Another search found him the name: Jack Macdonald. A final search gave him Macdonald’s home address. He checked that against the location of the two phones overnight. It matched.
He picked up his phone and messaged those details, then entered Macdonald’s number into the tracking program he had used to find the first BlackBerry. By the time his land line rang, he had located Macdonald’s phone. A little dot was flashing on the middle of the block on Peel Street.
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