Mind Games

by Claude Bouchard

  The transaction had gone through early in the new year, with CSS being acquired by CompuCorp, leaving both Walter and Chris very wealthy men. Although CompuCorp’s CEO had tried to convince Chris to stay on, the latter had refused, intent on completely turning the page. Little had he known to where that turning page would be leading him.

  During his last week with CSS, left with little to do, Chris had received the unexpected visit of Jonathan Addley, Director of Police Relations with the Ministry of Defence. In a rather animated fashion, Addley had described Chris’ life with relative accuracy, concentrating especially on the ‘Vigilante’ era. Apparently a witness had come forward with information which indicated that the late Carl Denver, the supposed Vigilante, had been framed. Following a thorough investigation, Addley had determined that Denver had in fact not committed the murders. Although he had no definite proof, Addley had pieced together enough information to believe that the infamous Vigilante was none other than successful businessman, Chris Barry.

  Chris had listened to the man’s story with some amusement, though he had been bothered somewhat by this turn of events. However, Addley had reassured him that the witness in question had no idea who the true Vigilante was; only that it had not been Denver. He had then gone on to discreetly describe his true function within the government. He was, in fact, responsible for a small elite team, unofficially known by very few as Discreet Activities, which worked in close collaboration with similar organizations from other countries. The purpose of this special network was to offer whatever help it could to ensure national security and the well-being of the member countries’ citizens. Emphasis had been put on the whatever.

  Addley’s objective had turned out to be recruitment, so impressed had he been by the Vigilante’s talents and especially, intellect. He understood why Chris had committed the acts he had and hoped to have the country benefit from the man’s capabilities.

  Following a few days of consideration and several in-depth discussions with his most precious Sandy, Chris had accepted Jonathan’s offer and embarked in a new career; that of a secret consultant specializing in clandestine activities for the government. Immediately, Jonathan had assigned him a project which Chris had successfully brought to fruition in less than three weeks. Two other assignments had been sent his way since and both had been satisfactorily completed.

  The project he was currently working on, his fourth, involved a small radical group which had become quite active in recent months. Displeased with Quebec’s failure at secession and angry at Canada’s efforts to maintain national unity, the Quebec Separation Movement (QSM) was suspected to be responsible for a half-dozen acts of terrorism which had taken place of late. These ranged from the bombings of several federal buildings, one of which had taken the lives of seven people, to unsuccessful assassination attempts on the Quebec Opposition Leader as well as the Canadian Prime Minister. Although the group had not claimed responsibility for any of these acts, enough information had been accumulated by Jonathan’s team to establish QSM’s masterminding of the schemes.

  The mission of the day would be a simple one. Having identified Tremblay’s farmhouse as the regular meeting grounds for the faction, Chris and Jonathan would pay the place a visit and treat the radical group to a taste of their own medicine. Jonathan had had the farmhouse under surveillance for several weeks and it was clear that it was not guarded whatsoever. To their detriment, the QSM probably weren’t the brightest terrorists known to mankind.

  * * * *

  Dr. Samuel Bowman finished rereading his most recent entry about Randi and sighed. Pushing away from the computer, the psychiatrist swivelled his large leather chair around and leaned back, raising his feet onto his desk as he contemplated. Randi had not been a good boy, or girl, depending on one’s point of view. Dr. Bowman did his best to help control Randi’s violent and sadistic tendencies but, in the end, Randi had the final word; as had been the case the previous night.

  What really bothered the psychiatrist was that Randi felt no remorse for his action. This he had summed up nicely with “The little faggot got just what he deserved. Teach him to try to take advantage of me, treating me like a whore.” The doctor had tried to reason with Randi, to coax him into admitting that he had initiated the get-together the previous evening. But Randi would have nothing to do with that kind of talk and had eventually closed up and gone, leaving Samuel Bowman alone.

  Sighing again, the psychiatrist ensured that he had saved his entry, turned off the computer and left his office.

  * * * *

  The two four-wheelers reached the top of the incline and slowed to a halt.

  “Gas main goes into the house under the front porch,” said Jonathan into the microphone set into his helmet as he pointed to the farmhouse in the distance. “I’m gonna look after that.”

  Chris nodded as Jonathan’s words came through clearly from the earphones in his helmet.

  “You want to go for those two propane tanks at the back,” continued Jonathan. “Like we said, we’ll set the detonators in sequence afterwards. I’d like the first explosion up front then the two tanks a couple of seconds later.”

  “I’m feeling a bit guilty that you’re paying me to do this,” Chris grinned into his mike. “This one’s so easy I could do this just for fun.”

  “Don’t worry, my friend,” Jonathan chuckled back. “There will be others for which you’ll find you have been grossly underpaid.”

  “Are we sure the place is empty?” enquired Chris, getting back to business.

  “Nope,” admitted Jonathan. “We haven’t had round the clock surveillance. We’ll ride down to the front porch and knock. If somebody’s home, I’ll ask them if the property’s for sale. It’s a nice spread and I might be interested.”

  “OK,” replied Chris. “Let’s go.”

  They proceeded carefully down the rugged slope and once at the bottom, accelerated across the relatively flat, unused farm field, reaching the house after three or four minutes. Jonathan climbed off his ATV and headed for the front door, discreetly scanning the area as he went while Chris remained behind, alert in the unlikely event of trouble. After banging on the door several times and waiting a few moments, Jonathan returned, comfortable that the place was empty.

  “Doesn’t seem to be anyone home,” he informed Chris, intently surveying the open fields which surrounded them as he spoke. “You go get busy with the tanks out back and I’ll look after the main.”

  “Consider it done,” said Chris, putting his bike into gear and heading towards the rear of the farmhouse. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes.”

  “Keep your eyes open,” warned Jonathan into his mike as Chris rounded the corner of the house, out of sight. “Just in case somebody’s hiding somewhere.”

  “All the time,” came Chris’ reassurance through Jonathan’s helmet phones.

  * * * *

  “Christ, my head’s gonna bust open,” muttered Simon Lavallée in French, rolling over on the dirty mattress which lay in a room on the second floor of the farmhouse.

  Sitting up, still somewhat groggy from the previous night’s drinking, he squinted at the light as he tried to get his bearings on where he was. Slowly it came back; Tremblay’s place. He had gone out with the boys and had gotten pretty drunk. When Daniel had driven him home, Suzanne, his bitch of a girlfriend, had refused to let him in. “Enough is enough,” she had screamed. “All you can do is drink.” Not attracting the police was important, especially these days, so Daniel had driven him here so that he could sleep it off.

  There it was again, that’s what had woken him. Someone was banging on the door downstairs. Attempting to stand, the spinning of the room quickly caused Simon to reconsider and he dropped back in a seated position on the mattress. He breathed deeply for a moment, to try to clear his head then rolled over on all fours to crawl to the window. Leaning on the sill for support, he made another attempt at standing, this time successful. He peered through the filthy pan
e of glass and saw a leather-clad, helmeted man digging into the fibreglass saddlebag of a four-wheeler. Apparently finding what he was looking for, the man turned and moved towards the side of the front porch, out of sight.

  “What is he doing there?” Simon questioned aloud in French as he quickly sobered. “We’ll see.”

  Not bothering to put on his shirt or shoes, he hurried downstairs, stopping at the hall closet for a shotgun before heading for the front door. Slowly, he opened it, praying for the hinges not to creak and his request was granted. He stepped gingerly onto the wooden porch, suddenly thankful that he had remained barefoot, and proceeded slowly towards the side of the house he had seen the intruder go. As he approached the edge of the porch, he could see the man kneeling in the dirt where the porch joined the house. One more step and the helmeted head was in view. The uninvited guest appeared to be busy at removing a portion of the trellis which closed off the porch’s underside.

  Leaning slightly forward, Simon extended the barrel of the shotgun downwards and firmly tapped the top of the full-face helmet a couple of times.

  “Lose something, mister?” he sneered in French, taking a half step backwards.

  Stiffening for a fraction of a second, Jonathan slowly raised his head and evaluated this unexpected, unplanned obstacle as he mumbled inside his smoked visor.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French,” he replied coolly, rising cautiously to his feet.

  “Crisse d’anglais,” his separatist captor swore. “You’re at the wrong place,” he continued in French...

  Chris quickly, expertly applied the plastic explosive to the first propane tank and proceeded to insert the detonator. He was pleased to see that the gauges on both tanks indicated that they were quite full.

  As he turned his attention to the second tank, he heard Jonathan’s voice come softly through his earphones. “I’m gonna need some help, bud. Someone’s here after all.” Then, in a louder tone, he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak French.”

  Retrieving a small crowbar from the open saddlebag of his four-wheeler, Chris hurried along the opposite side of the house, thankful for the muffling effect of the growth of weeds underfoot. As he approached the front of the farmhouse, he withdrew the silenced Beretta .22 from the shoulder holster under his jacket.

  Peering around the corner of the house, he could see the man training a shotgun on Jonathan. As Chris watched, the man gestured with the gun, indicating towards the house to his prisoner, and slowly started stepping backwards to maintain a safe distance.

  “Go on, inside,” the French speaking man ordered nervously and gestured with the gun, obviously not at ease with the situation at hand.

  “OK, OK,” replied Jonathan, arms spread to each side as he cautiously walked toward the porch steps while his captor backed away in an equal cadence.

  ‘Come on, closer, my radical little friend,’ Chris thought as the man continued backwards in unison with Jonathan’s forward steps. ‘Just a little more.’

  Jonathan reached the bottom of the steps and stopped, leaving the armed man standing half a dozen feet away from him and no more than four feet from the corner where Chris hid.

  “He’s all yours, buddy,” muttered Jonathan into the mike. “Let’s just hope he’s not trigger happy.”

  “What did you say?” the Frenchman demanded of his prisoner.

  “He said that you should shut up and put the gun down,” Chris ordered quietly in perfect French as he pressed the cold tip of his silenced handgun to the base of the man’s skull.

  “Tabarnaque,” Simon swore softly as he visibly stiffened.

  “Do it now,” continued Chris in French, “Or I will kill you.”

  Apparently convinced that Chris spoke the truth, Simon removed his finger from the trigger and slowly lowered the gun to the dirt with Chris following the descent, keeping the position of his pistol intact. Once Simon had returned to a standing position, Jonathan quickly approached to retrieve the shotgun and then addressed his ex-captor.

  “Allez, mon ami,” he said, his French flawless. “We have work to do and you’re wasting our valuable time.”

  “Crisse de tabarnaque,” Simon swore again as he complied.

  Once inside, they proceeded upstairs where Jonathan selected a room which suited his purpose. It was, in fact, the room where Simon had been sleeping off his hangover moments earlier.

  “Lie down on the mattress,” ordered Jonathan, leaning the shotgun by the door, well away from their prisoner while Chris kept cover.

  “W-what are you going to do?” asked Simon, fear having had time to set in during the last few minutes.

  “We’re just gonna help you sleep a bit,” Jonathan replied soothingly as he produced a small plastic box from an inside pocket.

  Opening the box, he selected one of four pre-loaded syringes and leaned towards the Frenchman.

  “This won’t hurt at all,” he reassured Simon, thrusting the needle into the man’s arm and rapidly depressing the plunger.

  Only seconds were required for the powerful sedative to take affect.

  “He’ll be out for fifteen to eighteen hours,” Jonathan informed Chris. “More than enough time for our little plan to happen. Let’s go.”

  They hurried downstairs and outside, picking up where they had left off before Simon’s annoying intrusion. Ten minutes later, their task complete, they reached the top of the incline from where they had observed the farmhouse a half hour earlier and stopped.

  “So, I guess you aren’t feeling as guilty about getting paid,” kidded Jonathan as they scanned the area one last time. “Wasn’t as easy as you thought.”

  “Oh, come on. Piece of cake,” chuckled Chris before kicking the bike into gear and riding off.

  Chapter 4 - Monday, May 26, 1997

  His meeting with his broker had finished sooner than expected and by eleven-thirty, Chris had left Place Montreal Trust on McGill College Avenue. Considering the time, he had taken a chance that Dave McCall might be free for lunch and had called the captain at the Special Homicide Task Force Centre on Cypress, off Dominion Square.

  Yes, the captain was in and yes, he would take the call, the receptionist had informed Chris. After chatting for a few minutes, they had agreed to meet at Ben’s on Peel Street, world renowned for its smoked meat, where Chris now sat, enjoying a cold beer as he read a particularly interesting article in the morning paper. It related the facts surrounding the explosion of a farmhouse in Laplaine, a small town north of Montreal. Eight people had succumbed to the blast. Although police were investigating, initial findings pointed to a faulty gas main as the cause of the deflagration. Authorities intended to pursue their search further however, as the owner of the property had been one Ronald Tremblay, reputed to be the head of the QSM, a recently formed radical group with a self-imposed mandate of successful secession for the province of Quebec. Tremblay had been one of the eight having perished in yesterday’s explosion.

  He finished reading the article, a slight smile to his lips and looked up to find Dave approaching the table.

  “What are you smiling at?” the cop asked, sliding into a chair opposite Chris.

  “I was just reading this article about the explosion of the supposed QSM headquarters,” replied Chris, pointing to a photograph of what remained of the farmhouse. “Maybe there’s some truth to live by the sword, die by the sword.”

  “When you play with fire, you can get burned,” agreed Dave. “Actually, I was reading a progress report on that just before I headed over here. There are some indications that the explosion might not have been due to natural causes. This QSM might have tried to play hardball with some bigger guys than them. Regardless, it ain’t my problem. That one’s for the QPP or the RCMP. I’m just a little local cop trying to solve some murders.”

  “You getting anywhere with that thing on Saturday?” asked Chris, always interested to hear about Dave’s cases.

  “Nah, not yet,” Dave shrugged. “Just don’t have eno
ugh to go on for now.

  He paused while the waiter arrived to take their order, two Big Bens, a coke for Dave and another beer for Chris.

  “You should have seen this place, Chris,” he continued once the waiter had gone. “A real massacre. Victim in the buff, tied to the bed, multiple stab wounds and his manhood gone.”

  “Ouch,” Chris winced. “You’re really dealing with a sick person. No witnesses? Nothing?”

  “Nope. Happened in a rent-by-the-hour hotel on Sherbrooke. Real dump. The owner remembers the girl somewhat, if it was a girl. Might have been a guy in drag. There’s a lot of them in the area. He or she rented the room for an all-nighter earlier in the day. Owner didn’t see her come back in or leave.”

  “Worry not,” Chris stated reassuringly. “The Great Dave McCall will figure it out.”

  “Yeah, right,” was Dave’s unconvincing response. “Sometimes I wonder if the Great Dave McCall isn’t just a little sick to keep at it on a job like this. I should have done like you, become real rich and retire at thirty-five.”

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Chris warned with a grin. “It ain’t as easy as you’d think. Take this afternoon for example. When you leave here, you can go back to work. Me? I’m probably gonna end up going to play a round of golf with Sandy. It’s sunny out there, Dave. I might burn.”

  They continued their chatting and bantering for the next hour, after which Dave headed back to his murder solving activities while Chris, with Dave’s latest case on his mind, went home to pick up his wife and his golf clubs.

  * * * *

  Clad in faded jeans and a short muscle shirt, both very tight, Bobby sauntered slowly along Calixa Lavallée Avenue, which cuts through Lafontaine Park. He was well aware of the Cadillac Deville rolling slowly some twenty feet behind him and accentuated the swagger in his walk, sending out a clearer invitation.