Fire in the Stars

by Barbara Fradkin

  “Why are you crying, Amanda?” Tyler whispered.

  Straightening, she brushed an angry fist across her face. “I feel bad for Ghader,” she said. “He left his home and came all this way to escape the cruelty of ISIS and Assad, only to meet more cruel people here.”

  When Tyler twisted his head so that he could look at her, she could see the doubt in his eyes. Twigs snapped in the underbrush, and Mahmoud’s tall silhouette startled her as he loomed abruptly out of the fog. Without a word, he knelt at their side and bowed his head. Her fingers found his.

  “I’m sorry about Ghader,” she said. “Did you know him in Kobani?”

  “Friends. We have a business together. I am a engineer, and Ghader make machines.”

  “What kind of machines?”

  “Simple things. Electric, power tools. But our factory was destroyed by bomb. Syrian army think we make guns. No future for Kurds in Syria. Me, I have education, some money, cousin in Chicago, but no documents. In Turkey, can’t get visa. So this …” He shrugged eloquently as he gestured to the desolate scrubland around him.

  “So you paid someone to get you out.”

  He nodded. “I pay many people. Turkey, Hungary, so many little countries. Walk, train, truck, then ship. All my money — ten thousand American dollars — to Russian man Fazil find on Internet. It look like good plan. We go fast, because the train leaving. No time for pack, tell friends, just run.” His lips grew taut as a darker memory descended. “But Russian man lie. He cheat. Promise passport, but not give it. Give to captain on the ship.”

  “And he kept them,” Amanda said grimly. It was an old trick smugglers used to ensure control.

  Mahmoud’s lips quivered. “I had a good life before the war. Happy. I never do bad things. Never hold a gun. Never kill man …”

  Tyler lifted his head to fix Mahmoud with a bitter glare. “What about my father?”

  “I not see your father.”

  “You shot him!”

  “I not —”

  “Stop!” It was Fazil, emerging from the fog. Amanda was startled, having never heard him speak English before. He held himself rigidly straight, like a man struggling not to feel. “No fight. We go.”

  “Not in this fog,” Amanda said. “We will lose each other.”

  Fazil held up a belt. “Tie together.”

  “Take the time to bury your cousin,” Amanda said. “Maybe by then the fog will have lifted.”

  Fazil looked about to argue, but Mahmoud spoke to him in Kurdish. As they discussed back and forth, they glanced at Tyler a few times, and Amanda felt a small chill. How much English did Fazil understand, and were they using Kurdish as a code so they could make secret plans?

  Matthew Goderich hung up his phone and stared out the window in frustration. Where was the man? He’d left two voicemail messages and three texts for him, without a single reply. Even in this godforsaken part of the world, surely one of the messages should have gotten through. It was a simple message. Call me, important info!

  While he waited for Chris Tymko’s reply, Matthew continued his research into the Acadia Seafood Company and its wandering trawler captain. As a journalist covering the world stage, he’d learned to be suspicious, and the pattern that was emerging rang all his alarm bells. He’d tracked them both on the Internet, placed some judicious phone calls and even managed to speak to a couple of the man’s neighbours in Miramichi, New Brunswick.

  The Fisheries and Oceans Canada officer up in St. Anthony was unwilling to make any comment on the trawler or its crew, but Matthew had uncovered enough to believe Chris was right. There was a bigger international picture here.

  His fingers itched to file a news update on the information he’d gleaned, but he’d made a promise to Chris. Instead he updated his Witness from the Frontline blog on the dangers Amanda and Tyler faced from the worsening weather and fog. The social media response had been astonishing, and both the Prayers for Tyler Facebook page and Twitter hashtag #lostboy were flooded with expressions of concern and exhortations to keep them posted.

  As the afternoon wore on, he watched with increasing alarm as the fog settled in. Searchers would be stumbling half-blind while the killer could slip through the cordon with ease. Perhaps the fog was also interfering with Chris’s satellite phone reception. Perhaps he was inside his cruiser or a house. He might not check his phone until late that night, when the damage might already be done.

  Finally he shut his laptop and left the Mayflower Inn to head over to talk to the local Roddickton RCMP. A friendly young woman behind the glass reception counter informed him that Corporal Willington was out, but could she help? No, she didn’t know when he’d be back, there was a major incident in the region, and yes, all available officers were committed to that.

  Matthew had never been able to rely on his sex appeal when talking to women, but he had found that the bumbling teddy bear approach sometimes worked. He tilted his fedora back to scratch his head, and furrowed his brow. “Oh, dear. I need to speak to one of the officers, Corporal Tymko,” he said. “I have urgent information for him.”

  A lovely smile softened her face. “Oh, Corporal Tymko is down in Croque with Corporal Willington, in fact. But you should pass on all information to Sergeant Noseworthy down in Conche. She’s the —”

  “Yes, I know who she is, but I hate the thought of that long drive to the coast in the fog. Can you contact Tymko by radio and let me speak to him?”

  The smile wavered. “Oh, no, sir. The radio channel has to be kept open for search information. But I can give you the sergeant’s phone number.”

  Dutifully Matthew wrote Noseworthy’s number down, thanked the nice woman, and left the station, thinking it would be a cold day in hell before he passed Chris’s precious information on to that tight-ass. Shoving the card into his jeans pocket, he headed back to his car. Fog now obscured the white mountains across the bay and blurred the outlines of shops and homes along the highway. Street and car lights lit up the canvas like an impressionist painting.

  Croque. The friendly young receptionist had let that slip. Did that mean the search was narrowing to the area around the village? The Croque road was more than half an hour north of town, but at least the main highway up to the turnoff was paved and relatively flat. It would be closer to the action, and maybe he’d have more luck with the officer manning the roadblock there.

  To his disappointment, however, the junction was empty and there was no sign of a roadblock. Perhaps the officer had been reassigned as the search narrowed. He sat in his car for a few minutes, absorbing the muffled silence of the woods ahead as he pondered his next move. Not only did Chris need this information, but as a reporter Matthew could not move forward on his own story if he couldn’t discuss it with him. That had been the deal.

  Thousands of people around the world were reading his blog, more attention than he’d ever had, even for his reports from the Boko Haram war front last year. Thousands more followed his Twitter feed and the Facebook page created to support Amanda and Tyler. Astonishingly, people were offering not just prayers, but money to help the fatherless boy cope in the months and years ahead. So far, thousands of dollars had been donated.

  In the end, Tyler and Amanda were what mattered, he decided. Not his own big exposé, not even Chris’s personal tussle with Noseworthy over the scope of the case, but the safety and rescue of two lost and frightened people.

  Grudgingly he turned his Fiesta around and drove slowly back south toward Conche through the fog that swirled in his headlights. The command post was relatively quiet, suggesting all available officers were either in the field or catching some much-needed rest after more than twenty-four hours of searching. In the corner, surrounded by computer maps and assignment sheets, the ERT leader was hunched over his radio, presumably monitoring calls.

  Noseworthy looked more exhausted than annoyed when Matthew entered the trai
ler. Her lean frame stooped a little lower and her skin was grey.

  “We have things in hand, Goderich,” she said. “When I have something to report, I will issue a statement but at the moment the last thing I need is your cockamamie scare stories about people smuggling.”

  “I have obtained some information that —”

  “Do you know where our MisPers are?”

  “No, but the trawler captain —”

  “Then I’m not interested.”

  “Hear me out! Unless you want your name in a headline about how the RCMP’s secrecy and tunnel vision fucked up the search by discounting crucial information.”

  Noseworthy snapped to attention and flushed fuchsia. “If you want one iota of co-operation out of the RCMP — ever — you won’t print that.”

  Matthew wanted to say “Just watch me,” but checked his childish defiance, which he knew would not advance his cause. Instead he opened up with both barrels. “The captain of the trawler is the truck driver who’s disappeared in the Croque area. He said he was going for ship parts, but instead he drove inside the search area and hid the truck. The trawler is jointly owned by Canadian and Finnish companies. Finland may be a nice, innocuous country, but it serves as a transit station for human trafficking from all the little former Soviet countries to the south.”

  “This isn’t relevant.”

  “It is, when the trawler had some supposedly Finnish crew that, according to the Newfoundland crew, didn’t know a damn thing about shrimp fishing and were paid a fraction of proper union rates. And according to his neighbours in Miramichi, the captain makes way more money than any shrimp boat captain they know. I think you have a much bigger problem on your hands than a lost woman and child. You’ve got a bunch of illegal aliens on the loose and a captain desperate to shut them up. And God knows who killed Phil Cousins.”

  Noseworthy stood very still. A silence had fallen over the handful of staff still in the trailer, and Vu’s eyes were narrowed. Matthew paused to catch his breath.

  “Now do you want to hear exactly what I know?” he said finally.

  After glancing at Vu, Noseworthy nodded brusquely, grabbed her radio, and gestured toward the door. “I need a cigarette. Let’s go outside.”

  Outside, she leaned against the side of the trailer and lit up. Matthew took five minutes to sketch out what he’d learned from talking to neighbours, disgruntled ship crew, and skeleton staff at Acadia Seafood. The ship’s crew had been told that the Finnish crew was part of the ownership agreement, but they never mingled. The Finns worked in the trawler’s processing plant and had their own sleeping and eating quarters. They were kept separate in order to minimize discord over their different working conditions, the Canadian crew had been told. More likely to keep both sides in the dark, Matthew said. Then one morning, only one Finnish crew member showed up for work.”

  As Noseworthy smoked, her scowl deepened. “Who told you to look into this?”

  “I’m a reporter. It’s what I do. I look for the story behind the shadows. I knew about the body in St. Anthony, the lifeboat spotted offshore, and the trawler stuck in port. I also knew Phil Cousins became interested in foreign workers when he met one in a pub last week. That guy had been hitchhiking down from St. Anthony. Dollars to doughnuts he was the one worker who didn’t go in the lifeboat. He’s probably long faded into the underground immigrant community in Toronto or Ottawa, but you might want to let the spooks know.”

  “But who told you all this?”

  “Around here, people notice things. They talk. They love to share in the drama.”

  Noseworthy blew out a long trickle of smoke and stared him down in silence as the seconds ticked by. Matthew knew the woman didn’t believe him, and he was thinking up his next lie when her radio crackled to life. The caller’s voice was broken and distorted, but Matthew could hear the urgency. Noseworthy obviously did as well, for she stomped out her cigarette and snatched up her radio.

  “Tymko, it’s Noseworthy. Where are you?”

  “I’m with the search team that found the abandoned rowboat, ma’am. The radio signal is poor, so I may lose you.”

  Matthew saw Noseworthy try to interrupt, but Chris rushed on. “There’s been a development, ma’am. Looks like someone shot at them. There are two bullet holes in the bottom of the boat, likely what sunk it, and we found bullets in the sand. They’re badly damaged but they’re big-game calibre, like Stin — Parsons. Over.”

  “Any sign of the shooter? Over.”

  “Negative, ma’am. We’ve been searching the bay and the shoreline by boat, but so far no sign of Amanda and the child, either.”

  “If they weren’t wearing life jackets, in that water …”

  “But we did find another message, ma’am, etched into the boat. ‘Frogmarched.’”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” Noseworthy caught Matthew’s eye and scowled as if she’d only just remembered he was there. She pursed her lips and seemed to come to a decision. “Well, we do have some relevant intel at this end. That truck you reported yesterday was driven by the captain of the trawler in St. Anthony, and there may be an overseas connection to illegal immigrants.” Noseworthy’s nostrils flared, and Matthew suspected the admission was difficult for her. “Corporal Vu is sending in as much ERT backup as he can round up, but this damn fog is a serious impediment. Sit tight. We don’t know what the captain is up to, or why he’d be hunting for Amanda and Tyler. We can’t run an operation on wild guesses. A second K9 is on its way, and Vu is covering all the ATV exits, so sit tight with the ERT unit so that back-up can find you.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but —”

  “And Tymko? For once, obey me.”

  With that, Noseworthy signed off. She flung open the door to the trailer, now fully recharged, and snapped her fingers at the comm clerk. “Get hold of Corporal Maloney. He’s on the roadblock at the Croque road turnoff. Ask him for the GPS coordinates of that truck while I bring Corporal Vu up to speed.”

  While the comm clerk placed the radio call, Noseworthy filled the ERT leader in and then picked up her phone. She glanced at Matthew as if debating whether to send him away, but then shook her head. “Wait, in case Corporal Vu or Major Crimes has some questions.”

  Matthew tried to keep track of the two conversations. The coordinator, Helen, was trying to raise Jason, and Noseworthy was passing on to Sergeant Amis the latest information Matthew had uncovered. The discussion was brief, and when she hung up, Noseworthy made a face and began jotting notes on her computer. Matthew watched until he could stand it no longer.

  “Was Sergeant Amis aware of the captain connection?”

  “He is now. We’ll take it from here, and I should warn you, if you publish any of this, you may jeopardize our investigation.” She drew her mouth down. “I’m sure you don’t want that any more than I do.”

  Matthew tipped his fedora slightly as he trotted out his favourite line of sap. “I only want to help. I have tremendous respect and admiration for Amanda and Phil.”

  “Sergeant?” Helen called from across the room. “Corporal Maloney isn’t answering his radio.”

  “Then call back.”

  “I have, ma’am. Five times.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Out of respect, Amanda and Tyler sat some distance away while the two Kurds prepared and wrapped their countryman’s body and laid spruce boughs over the grave. Moist fog cocooned the woods, reducing their conversation to a muffled murmur and blurring out all but their spooky silhouettes as they foraged for deadfall.

  After a while, even their voices died away. In the silence, Mahmoud called out. Waited. Called again. Twigs cracked in the distance. A few moments later, Mahmoud materialized out of the fog, his shoulders drooping with fatigue and grief.

  “Fazil here?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Isn’t he with you?”

  “He lo
oking for big stone for put on top. Go away, not come back.”

  “I heard branches breaking,” Amanda said, rising to peer through the darkening cocoon. “I think it came from that direction.”

  Listening to the silence, she heard nothing but her own heartbeat. Kaylee lay at her side, supremely indifferent to the brooding woods. If Fazil was out there, he was already too far away to catch her attention.

  “I wonder why he didn’t call out,” she said.

  “I make a lot of noise, calling him.”

  “Call again. In this fog, it’s hard to tell direction and he may panic.”

  Mahmoud cupped his hands and bellowed several times. No answer. Darkness was gathering fast. “What we do?”

  “We stay here, light a fire, and hope he finds his way back. If we try to look for him, we may get even more lost and farther away. By morning the fog may have lifted.”

  She and Mahmoud gathered small bits of wood for a fire and she searched the clearing for berries and roots. It was a dismal harvest but she didn’t dare venture farther afield. In the clammy darkness, they hunkered down around the fire, listening to it spit and hiss and drawing comfort from its flames.

  Tyler looked wan and listless as he wrapped his jacket more tightly. “I’m so hungry,” he whispered.

  Amanda draped her own jacket around him and rubbed his back. “In the morning we will look for a pond or the ocean to catch some fish.”

  “I don’t hear any waves.”

  “Then we will climb a hill.”

  “God willing, Fazil will find us,” Mahmoud said. “He will see the fire.”

  Amanda kept her fears to herself. It was an unforgiving landscape. They were surrounded by cliffs and bogs that could swallow you up within minutes. It was a dreadful way to die, slowly drowning in the soupy mud that sucked you down.