“Knockout gas? Like laughing gas? What kind?”
“No, really sophisticated stuff. Some Russian stuff that could’ve killed them had a warning call not been made about it.”
“A warning call? One of the perpetrators made a warning call?” Bernadette scribbled knockout gas and warning call with numerous question marks at the top of her newspaper.
“Yeah, the 911 operator gets this call, and this guy gives the address of Ironstone and the name of the gas and then asks the operator to repeat the name of the gas back to him to make sure she has it right.” “Okay, that gets into strange territory. So who was killed?”
“They found Duncan Stewart, the owner of the company, and his assistant, Randall Francis, both shot execution style.”
“And how does this fit into the oil stock manipulation that you’re investigating?” Bernadette wrote the names Duncan Stewart and Randall Francis beside the question marks.
“Well, okay, here it is. The FBI decides to run IDs on the victims. Turns out Randall Francis has a passport, and they check it.”
“And . . . they found what?” Bernadette was starting to wonder if this conversation was worth delaying the laundry that was calling to her over the dishes.
“They have a hit. Randall Francis entered Canada last year in August. A smart junior clerk did a run on flight records. The late Mr. Francis took a flight to Toronto, then Vancouver, and then—”
“Yes, and then?” Bernadette was beginning to find the conversation excruciating.
“Galiano Island,” Anton said with satisfaction, knowing his information would be the punch line that would rock Bernadette’s world.
“Holy Mother of God, these are McAllen’s connections. So McAllen must be cleaning up, or doing a revenge hit.” Bernadette wrote “McAllen” with arrows back to Stewart and Francis.
“It could be either. A team of FBI agents is combing the place. They’ll have a computer expert doing a forensic sweep of all the computers—they might find some answers there.”
“Did anyone see these guys with their masks off, or get a description?”
“Two big guys, one short guy, with Bush, Clinton, and Obama masks on. They took the CCTV tapes from the room. The building had no main cameras.”
“These guys knew what they were doing.” Bernadette wrote “Professional” and circled it.
“Yes, definitely professional. Now, I have to get back to my other cases . . . so . . . you didn’t hear this from me. And have a great day.”
“Hey, Anton, you’re great, thanks for the info.” Bernadette hung up and stared out her window. Light snow fell; a breeze blew the wind chimes on the balcony. The thought of what McAllen was up to circled in her brain. It swam slowly like a fish looking at a hook.
Bernadette took a long slurp of her protein shake, reviewing the notes on the newspaper. Her cell phone rang again. It was the RCMP headquarters’ main phone number.
“Detective Callahan, it’s Tammy calling from reception.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know I’m probably not supposed to do this . . . but I just had a caller looking for you, Colonel James Brigham from Naples, Florida. He said he was returning your call about Alistair McAllen. Do you want me to pass this on to the CSIS contact I have on file?”
Bernadette chuckled. “You’re sweet, Tammy. I have the colonel’s number. I’ll pass it on to CSIS. Thanks for calling.” Bernadette couldn’t believe how well she could lie.
She scrolled down the numbers on her cell phone. The colonel’s was one she had copied from the case file, along with a few others. As a good Catholic, she’d have to go to confession on Sunday. Her confessions were getting longer these days.
The voice of the colonel was dry and cracked when he answered. “Colonel James Brigham speaking.”
Bernadette thought it amusing the colonel still announced his rank. “Colonel, this is Detective Bernadette Callahan of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Serious Persons Crime Unit calling from Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.”
“Well, how may I be of assistance to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?” The colonel drew the words out as if he had just won a prize.
“We need to get some background information on Alistair McAllen. I believe he was under your command back in Vietnam.”
“Oh, Mac. McAllen . . . goodness, yes he was.” The colonel launched into a dry laugh that ended in a coughing spell. He finally came back on the phone. “What’s he done? Is he in some kind of trouble up there?”
Bernadette treaded carefully with her words. “Well, no, but he is a person of interest who could give us information about some homicides and threats to the Canadian and Alaskan oil fields.”
“Well, I’ll be. Mac was a fine officer, with a bit of a hellfire streak in him, but I don’t see how he could be mixed up in something illegal.”
“I agree, however, we don’t know if he is directly involved,” Bernadette replied. She realized the colonel must not have read any newspapers on his cruise—no need to go into details. “We need to get any background information you could provide.”
“Sure, anything I can do to help,” the colonel replied.
“We need some background on his military record; did he perform well? Any citations or problems with . . . well, with attitude?”
“Oh no, no attitude problems. Mac and his platoon were extremely effective. They did patrols on the Ho Chi Min Trail, and the booby traps they set were amazing.”
“Booby traps? What kind of booby traps?”
“Well, we called it the six-foot Mac attack. He would set these little mines, you know, the anti-personnel kind.” The colonel was chuckling as he spoke. “Well, Mac would make sure they could find the first one easily. Then Mac would place another mine in the trees with a trip wire. The mine would be about six feet up, and the poor little Viet Cong were short you see, and BAM, they’d trip that second mine.” The colonel broke into loud fits of coughing brought on by his laughing. “My god the boy was good.”
Bernadette felt a chill run up of her spine. The reason that McAllen had called the newspaper in Anchorage was now obvious. His first trap had been sprung.
“Colonel, thank you, you’ve been most helpful,” Bernadette said. She needed to get off the phone and deal with this information.
“Oh, I have? The colonel paused and then asked, “Is it snowing up there?”
Bernadette sensed the colonel wanted to chat and she felt for him, but she needed to get off the line. “Colonel, yes it is snowing hard and it’s extremely cold, and if you’ll forgive me, I must go out and feed my team of sled dogs.” She winced as she told the lie.
“Ha, I knew it, you RCMP officers—a rugged breed, just like in the movies. Well, I’m sure you’ll get your man.” The colonel broke into another dry cackle that precipitated another coughing fit as he hung up.
Bernadette put down her phone and picked up a pen. On the top of her newspaper she wrote, “Six-foot Mac attack.” She remembered that one of the victims found in the tar pond was very tall and very slender. She had to find out if the victims in Alaska were the same. There was only one way to find out.
It was 10:00 a.m. She figured it was 8:00 in Alaska. She dialed Detective Mueller’s cell phone number—another number she had copied before handing over the case—and hoped he was an early- Saturday-morning riser.
Mueller answered on the third ring after putting his coffee down first. His left hand was in a splint from his run-in with Starko. “Frank Mueller speaking.”
“Detective Mueller, I hope I’m not getting you at a bad time. This is Detective Callahan calling.”
“Detective Callahan, there’s never a bad time for you to call,” Frank Mueller replied smoothly. “You’re a legend up here. Everyone in the Arctic wants to meet you, since you alerted them to the polywater devices.”
Bernadette flushed at the detective’s words. “Detective Mueller, that’s very kind of you, however, I don’t think we’re done with Professor McAllen and his polywater. Do you
remember how tall and slender your Clearwater victims were in Prudhoe?”
“Yeah I do. Marc Lafontaine was over six feet and pretty lean, and his sister Constance was the same. How does that affect the case?”
“I spoke with McAllen’s old army commander. He said McAllen’s specialty was setting anti-personnel mines that the Viet Cong would find easily and then other ones six feet higher— ”
“You think he’s set a trap? A second set? And just let us find the first ones?” Mueller cut in. He sat up in his chair. He had been home in his apartment in Anchorage since last week going stir crazy on medical leave.
“I believe we speak the same language, Detective Mueller. I kept wondering why McAllen would make that call to the Anchorage paper, and this is only reason I can see.”
“So, you think there’s another plant of this polywater stuff and McAllen’s little talk with the reporter up here was to blow smoke up our asses?”
“It just plays that way in my head. I can see no other reason why McAllen would call. He must have a second device ready to blow, and that call on Thursday was his diversion. Most of the world bought it,” Bernadette said.
“How do you want to do this?” Mueller asked.
“I’m calling the oil company security person I know—he’ll check with the operations people. If the intake pipe is too small for a person to get into, then problem solved.”
“And if the intake pipes are large enough?”
“We tell everyone the sky is falling,” Bernadette said.
“Gotcha. Listen, I’m actually off the case, so without going through too many channels and getting too many people excited, I’ll find out what you need and get back to you,” Mueller said.
“I’m off the case as well. Looks like we detectives only get to chase the crack heads, and when the really good stuff comes along with some excitement, they take it upstairs.”
Mueller chuckled. “Hey, obviously we work for the same outfits, just different countries. I’ll talk to you soon.” He closed his cell phone and started to dial again. He knew just the person to call. He was hoping Troy was still on his shift in Prudhoe Bay.
Bernadette put down her cell phone. She needed to locate Pierre and get him working with the operations people. If her theory was right,
McAllen was still a threat. If her theory was wrong, a few oil workers would get some overtime pay, and no harm done.
She looked at the pile of dishes, the dirty laundry, and she could sense the plight of the lonely ingredients in the refrigerator. They’d have to wait. She headed for the shower, stripped off her clammy gray sweats, and grabbed her semi-clean bath towel. Saturday’s clean would have to wait—she had a case to solve.
33
Bernadette Showered And Threw On some reasonably clean clothes after doing a smell check. The clothes passed—barely. She’d stay downwind of people. Grabbing her parka and Sorel boots, she headed out the door and closed it quickly on the sorry state of her apartment. It would be waiting for her return.
Bernadette needed the computer at RCMP headquarters to access more files. She would have to do it quietly and hoped Detective Barnstead wouldn’t see her. It was her day off. She had already logged too much overtime and needed to take days off in lieu of overtime pay so as not to overstretch their budget.
Traffic was heavy for a late Saturday morning in Fort McMurray. Lines of traffic moved slowly through the town filled with shoppers— mine workers with their families doing the Costco-Safeway-BestBuy shuffle. The oil mines paid well, and mine workers spent heavily.
When Bernadette reached RCMP headquarters, she greeted Tammy at reception with a knowing smile. “I forgot my gloves in my office.”
Tammy responded with a wink. “Sure, no need to sign in.”
Head down, shoulders hunched, she made it to the detective room. There was no one there. She sighed in relief. No explanations, no cover story, no lies to make up for her presence.
She turned on her computer and pulled up the Clearwater case files—the files that had been sent to the CSIS, and that she was not supposed to have anymore. The coroner’s report on the two victims confirmed her observation. Kevin Buckner was 6 foot 7 and a slight 170 pounds. She wondered if that was thin enough to fit inside the intake pipe for the oil sands water supply.
She dialed Pierre but was directed to voice mail, so she dialed his corporate security office to find out where he might be.
An officious-sounding receptionist in the Synthetic Oil corporate security office would not give Bernadette anything until she reintroduced herself. “I’m with the RCMP Serious Crimes Unit.” She emphasized the last three words.
The receptionist got the hint. “Security Director Pierre Beaumont is in a meeting in Houston. I have the number here in case of emergency.” She read off the number to Bernadette.
Bernadette dialed the number, and after a few minutes, Pierre answered. “How did you find me?”
“Hey, Indians have been tracking Frenchmen in North America for centuries—ever since you landed here,” Bernadette replied. She was glad that Pierre did not sound angry, only puzzled.
“Very funny. Thanks for the history lesson—so why are you calling?” Pierre had just stepped away from a meeting with the Houston FBI. They were trying to find out how Clearwater Technologies had gotten the contract that was supposed to go to Waterflow Technologies of Houston. So far, no one at Waterflow wanted to talk. The silence would be cleared up as soon as charges for accessory to terrorism were handed out. “I think you need to shut down all the oil sands plants again to look for another threat left by McAllen,” Bernadette said. She knew how to get Pierre’s attention.
“Holy Christ! You’ve got be to kidding me—how do you figure there’s another threat?” The FBI looked up from their discussions in the other room.
“Okay,” Bernadette began, “let me walk you through this so you’ll see how I came to this conclusion.”
Pierre lowered his voice and moved away from the conference room door and the FBI. “Yes, please do.”
“There were two things; the first is McAllen’s speech to the Anchorage newspaper reporter—you remember that?”
“Couldn’t forget it. So what’s new with it?”
“He leaned into the screen when he spoke to the reporter, just when he said he had deactivated the devices—he leaned in. Did you see that?”
“Well, maybe I did. I was more intent on what he was saying,” Pierre replied. He looked back at the FBI agents. They were getting annoyed— this was supposed to be a no-calls-taken meeting.
“Okay, in poker games, we call it a tell. Anytime someone throws chips in to raise the stakes or call a hand, if they move forward, I know that 90 percent of the time they’re lying about what’s in their hand,” Bernadette said.
“You do? How do you know that?” Pierre was getting uneasy, wondering what poker hands had to do with terrorists.
“I just do. My brothers banned me from all poker games back home on the reservation. Now here is the second-most-important thing. I contacted McAllen’s old army commander. He told me McAllen was an expert at setting booby traps because he always let the enemy find the first one. The second one was always set six feet away. Two of the Clearwater employee victims were over six feet tall. Am I making sense now?”
“Merde . . . shit. You think this bastard set a second set of polywater devices?” Pierre looked up at the ceiling.
“The only way to know for sure is to find out if the intake pipes for the water treatment plants are wide enough to fit a man. Then six feet in is where you have to check,” Bernadette said, hoping that Pierre understood the urgency of her message.
“Okay, what the hell. Your intuition found the first set. If you’re wrong about the second, well, fifty-fifty in the security industry is what we call even. I’ll call the vice president of operations in Fort McMurray and get him to shut down the plants and run an inspection. I’ll let you know what we find. Oh, and one more thing . . .”
“What’s that?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to work for private security? If the second threat turns out to be true, then Synthetic Oil will give you my job.”
Bernadette laughed. “Pierre, you’re such a charmer, but once again, Canada wouldn’t be safe without me in the RCMP.
“Okay, I tried. I’ll call as soon as I have something.” Pierre hung up and walked back to the FBI agents in the room to explain why he was leaving the meeting. They were not pleased.
Detective Mueller got through to Troy in Prudhoe Bay within minutes of dialing. Troy was not due to head back to Anchorage until Sunday.
“Hey, Detective Mueller, good to hear from you, how is that banged-up hand of yours?” Troy said when he answered the phone in the security guard office.
“Just fine, I should be back at my desk by next week. They’ll have me type up reports one handed and shuffle papers for a while,” Mueller said. What he didn’t mention was that his hand hurt like hell. He had refused the pain killers the hospital had offered while being treated in Anchorage. Mueller’s last rehabilitation had been about getting off Ambien, Vicodin, and OxyContin. He had partied with them before— and did not want to continue.
“Hey, good to hear,” Troy said.
“Listen Troy, I’m not really calling to catch up. That lady RCMP detective down in Canada thinks that McAllen has another set of polywater stuff ready to blow. I just got off the phone with her.”
“Shit, that’s bad news—how’d she figure that out?” Troy said. His boss, Chief Braddock, was standing by the console looking in his direction, wondering what the conversation was about. A security guard at the CCTV console looked back at his monitors.
“All I know is the detective got information from McAllen’s old army commander. The commander said McAllen was an expert at setting secondary mines—and he always let the enemy find the first one,” Mueller said. His hand was throbbing now. He put it back in the ice bucket at his side.
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