My phone rings. This could be good news. “Damien,” I say to Jen. “Hey man,” I say to him.
“Cal, you need to come to my office.” His voice has an edge to it that I’ve never heard before.
“I can’t. I’m at the airport waiting for my flight to leave.”
There is silence on the line for a good five seconds. “Sorry Cal, you’re gonna have to miss that flight.”
It’s my turn to pause. “What have you found?” I ask.
He gives me another pause. “I was in a meeting when your colleague texted me so I only just got to it. You should give her a raise by the way, a big raise. She worked out the encryption key.”
“What was it?”
“Honi soit qui mal y pense.”
“What?”
“It’s the Latin motto of the Order of the Garter. It means ‘shame to him who thinks evil.’”
“So you were able to decrypt the documents?”
“Yes. Well, some of them. You have to miss your flight and get over to my office right now.”
“Why can’t you just email them to me?”
Again with the silence. Then, “I do a lot of work for the federal government and I have a top secret security clearance. If I don’t turn these documents over to them, that clearance is at risk. I can’t afford to lose it. I must be mad but I’m going to let you see them before I turn them in because I’m going to have to tell them I got the documents from you. I can’t even take the risk of emailing them to you. Either you come here or…”
He leaves it hanging. I process what he’s saying… for less than a second. “One hour,” I say and hang up.
I finish the Trash Panda in three good gulps and stand up. “Damien decrypted the documents,” I tell Jen. “It’s better if we get a later flight to Ottawa, if we can go there and have the documents with us.”
“Why doesn’t he just email them?” She asks. I tell her Damien’s reason. She thinks for a moment. “Better I meet late with my boss, with some evidence in hand, than meet early with nothing.” She stands up. “Let’s do it.”
We head for the exit.
Damien seems surprised, impressed and a little relieved when I introduce Jen as a CSIS intelligence officer. He leads us into a conference room with blinds drawn and a large screen on one wall. He locks the door behind us. “Help yourself to water or coffee.” He gestures towards a fancy coffee machine and two baskets containing designer water and healthy-looking snacks. I realize I haven’t eaten yet today and take a couple of nutty granola bars and press the buttons to deliver an espresso. Jen just takes water.
As we sit down, Damien opens his laptop and after a couple of clicks his desktop appears on the wall screen. He opens a folder titled ‘Cal’, inside it there are two more folders, one titled ‘EUCs’ and the other titled 'Opdocs’. “This is what I found when we decrypted the file,” he says. “The 'Opdocs’ folder is full of documents, but they are individually encrypted with a different key, or keys, so I don’t know what’s in them, and I don’t know if they were encrypted by the same person but I’m guessing they weren’t; why double encrypt them? I’ve got one of my guys working on decrypting them. However there are twenty-one documents which were not double encrypted.”
He opens the ‘EUCs’ folder which is full of PDF files. He selects them all and opens them. They all pop up on the screen. Although I can only see the ones on top they all look the same. They are all headed with a logo of the Canadian flag and the words ‘National Defence, Défense Nationale’. Under that are the words ‘END USER CERTIFICATE’.
“Whoa!” Jen says loudly. I look at her and she has a stunned look on her face.
“What’s an end user certificate?” I ask.
She gathers her thoughts and answers, “When a company that manufactures guns, or munitions of any sort, sells their weapons to a foreign country, they need an export permit from their own country before they can ship them. To get the export permit, one of the documents you need is an end user certificate from the government of the country that’s buying the weapons.” She turns to Damien. “Zoom in on one of them, please.”
He clicks his mouse and one document fills the screen. The first paragraph reads, ‘This is to certify that the following items, for the needs of the Armed Forces of Canada, have been purchased from Unimax Weapons Systems Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA to be shipped by USCAN Import Export Corporation, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.’ Underneath that is a list of weapons and quantities purchased. There are three thousand machine guns, fifteen hundred grenade launchers, tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, granades and a whole bunch of various accessories, most of which I don’t understand. Beneath the list is a declaration which reads, ‘National Defence Canada hereby certifies that the items listed in this End User Certificate are for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces of Canada for peace keeping purposes and will neither be re-sold, re-exported or transferred to any third party nor used for any purpose other than described herein.’
The document has a seal and a stamp on it and the signature of Neil Harris, Minister, National Defence. It is dated five months ago.
“It looks legitimate,” Jen says.
“It is, up to a point,” Damien agrees. “I priced out the probable cost of this order, it’s around forty million dollars. And it’s reasonable that Canada would be buying this quantity of weapons for the army. But look at this one.” A different end user certificate appears on the screen. “This is for weapons from the UK. It’s for about eighty million dollars and it was signed three months ago. While I was waiting for you to get here, I went through all of them. Each one is for weapons from a different manufacturer and they are from countries all over the world, including places like Serbia, Bulgaria, Finland and others. Each certificate is reasonable on its face but taken together they represent about five billion dollars of purchases. The oldest one is dated eight months ago and the latest one is last week. There is no way that the Canadian armed forces are buying that amount of armaments from seventy different suppliers over a period of less than a year.”
Five billion dollars! That makes the man who shot Nick a very small time dealer.
“They’re all signed by Neil Harris?” Jen asks. Damien just nods. “I have to get these to my boss. Can you copy those onto a thumb drive for me?” He nods again. She checks her watch. “We need to get booked onto a later flight.”
“There’s not one. Adry booked the last fight of the evening.” A part of me is glad because it means I get to spend another night with Tina before flying off to Ottawa for who knows how long.
“Damn, I really wanted to get these into Tony’s hands first thing tomorrow. Any idea when the earliest flight is?”
I pull out my phone to check and get interrupted. “Maybe I can help,” Damien says. “Our people have to go all over the world, often at a moment’s notice, so a year ago I got a private jet. It can get you to Ottawa tonight. It’s at the airport right now; it’s yours if you want.”
My excitement of taking my first-ever flight in a private jet is balanced by my disappointment at not being able to see Tina tonight.
Then an idea tips the balance.
Not just an idea… but a great idea.
28
Nick
It’s good to be out of the ICU. It was so busy there, sometimes I couldn’t hear myself think. It was a bit odd saying goodbye to Brenda; now she knows I’m not going to die she’s gone back to Toronto. But Lucy is staying for a few more days. It’s nice to have her here and catch up on her life. With Matt gone, she’s my only family. I finally got around to telling her I’m gay. She gave me a big hug and said, “I know Dad.” I didn’t ask her how she knew. She’s gone back to Cal’s place to spend the night but I can’t sleep.
One of my nurses is pretty cute. I’ve thought about saying something to him but I’ve been in the closet all of my life and I don’t know how to go about it.
Rogan’s being a bit melodramatic about these guys who burned
down that safe house. Still I’m glad he came by before he went to Ottawa. I grab my phone to check the time. Eleven. It’s two in the morning in Ottawa. He’ll be there now. I can’t believe he’s seeing someone, staying at her place too. He’s lucky.
Why can’t I sleep?
My door is opening. In the semi-darkness I can’t see if it’s the cute nurse. He’s wearing scrubs but moves more like a soldier than anything else. Or a cop. My senses go on overdrive.
“Mr. Stammo?” he whispers.
“Yes.” I roll onto my side, facing away from him.
“One of our alarms is beeping outside and I just want to check you’re connected to the monitor OK.” He comes around to the right side of the bed to face me. Good. Then he crouches down and before I can react, he is holding a knife to my throat. Not so good. I feel him push something soft and squishy, like cold gelatin, over my mouth. I don’t know what it is, but it silences me better than any gag. I slide my right hand under the pillow. “Unfortunately Mr. Stammo, you and your partner know too much. One of my colleagues is dealing with him even as we speak. You, however, will be easier.” I move my hand further up and feel it. “I have something for you, something undetectable. You just have to breathe it in and sleep.”
He moves his hand off the gelatin-like stuff and it stays firmly in place. The hand reappears in front of my face holding a rubber, bulb-like thing with a short nozzle. I shake my head like mad and it works: he doesn’t notice the movement of my hand under the pillow. I get my hand around the grip and release the safety. He’s trying to push the nozzle into my face as I jab my gun into his side and pull the trigger. The bulb thing flies out of his hand and he staggers upward and backwards, swaying. I aim at his middle. “Freeze!” Except no sound comes out of my mouth. He drops out of my line of sight beyond the foot of the bed. I hear him scrambling across the floor. I try to sit up but the pain from my surgery cuts through me. I scream against the stuff in my mouth. The door opens… and then closes. For a moment all is silent and I make a promise never to call Rogan melodramatic again. Bringing me my gun was a stroke of genius.
Then I remember the words. ‘One of my colleagues is dealing with him even as we speak.’
But Rogan’s in Ottawa.
And Lucy’s at his house.
I grab my phone. Then realize I don’t know his home number. I always call him on his cell. I don’t even know if he has a home number.
Only one thing to do.
I pull the gel thing out of my mouth. it comes away with a sickly, sucking sound. I press my phone’s home button.
And around me all hell breaks loose.
29
Adry
Damn. I was just getting to sleep. It’d better not be one of those damn telemarketers. I grope for my phone and squint at the screen. “Nick, do you realize it’s—” The urgency in his voice snaps me fully awake. “Cal doesn’t have a landline at his place. Why?” There is a lot of shouting in the background and I can hardly hear what he’s saying. “He lives a couple of blocks from me but I don’t remember his exact address. Why?” I find myself shouting to match him. I can just make out what he’s— “What?!”
“Who is this?” The voice isn’t Nick’s. Someone’s taken his phone from him but I can just make out Nick’s shouts in the background. “Get the cops over there, Adry!”
The strange voice says, “I said, who is this?”
I hang up.
I scroll through my recent calls until I find the one with the four-one-six area code and I tap it.
It rings several times and then I hear her voice. “Hello.”
“Lucy. Thank God. You have to get out of there right away.”
There is a short silence. “Why?” she says. There’s kind of an echo, like it’s on speakerphone.
“Your Dad just called me. Someone tried to attack him. He thinks someone is coming over there to get Cal. You need to get out of there like immediately.”
Another silence, then, “OK, I will. Thanks, Kate.” She hangs up.
Kate?!
OMG.
30
Lucy
He throws my phone next to me on the bed. “Who was that?” His voice is calm. It makes him like a hundred times more scary. He’s standing beside the bed looking down at me.
“She works for my Dad.”
He thinks about it for what seems like a long time then says, “OK. Fine. Let’s get back to you. All you have to do is tell me where I can find Cal Rogan and I’ll go and never bother you again.” He’s a lying sack of shit. He is not going to leave me around as a witness. I have to play for time.
“I don’t believe you. I’ve seen your face.”
“You’ve been watching too much television.” He smiles as he says it. Creepy. “I just need to know where Cal is, then I promise I’ll go.”
“If I tell you, how can you guarantee not to hurt me?”
Still in the same friendly tone he says, “If you don’t tell me, than I guarantee I will hurt you. And I’ll hurt you a lot.”
“Maybe you don’t have time,” I say.
“What do you mean?” He doesn’t sound so smooth now.
“You heard what she said on the phone. She said that someone tried to attack my Dad. My Dad will have sent the police over here. They’ll be here any minute.”
“If the police were on their way, why did your friend Kate call? Why wasn’t it the police?”
He’s right. Why did Adry call? Why didn’t Dad call the police. Maybe it doesn’t matter. She’ll know something’s wrong because I called her Kate. She’ll have called the police, surely. If he thinks the police are on their way…
“OK,” he says. “Enough.” He puts his hand behind his back, under his jacket. I can feel a horrible tingling in my gut as he pulls out a knife. It’s one of those knives used by fishermen. Sharp on one edge and serrated on the other. “You’re very pretty. I can make you very ugly, very quickly.” The tingling gives way to something far worse. “Where is Cal Rogan?”
I feel the wetness spreading over my legs. “The police are on their way now. She will have called them.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She’ll know something’s wrong.”
He leans forward and holds the knife right up to my face. “Where’s Rogan?”
In desperation, I shriek, “Her name’s not Kate.”
His eyes go wide. For the first time I see indecision in his face.
Then his eyes go wider as he hears the sirens.
“You bitch!”
His arm jerks back and then slashes forward.
31
Adry
I hear the sirens as I run down the street towards Cal’s building. I only know where he lives because I often jog down here and I once saw him driving out of the building’s car park in his cute little English sports car. Note to self: have everyone’s home address on file. As I get to the front door of his building, I put my phone back to my ear. “It’s two, four, one, seven,” I pant to the dispatcher.
“They’ll be there in less than sixty seconds,” she says. I hear her voice telling the patrol car the full address. I move to the curb so that I can wave at them.
I see the movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone’s leaving the building. It’s a tall, good-looking guy wearing black. I run to the door and he holds it open for me. “Thanks.” I hold the door open and wait for the arriving cops. The tall guy smiles, nods and marches off down the road. Definitely hot.
I only have to wait a few seconds before the cop car pulls up and the officers stride over to me. “Are you the one who called it in?” the older one asks.
“Yes, but I don’t know the apartment number.”
“It’s four-oh-three,” he says. How did he know that? “You wait here miss and we’ll go and check it out.” They head for the elevator. I watch the numbers above the elevator door go up to four and then stop. The number above the other elevator is a G. I can’t wait down here, not knowing whether or not Lu
cy’s OK. I run to the elevator and get in. It takes what seems like forever to get to the fourth floor. I follow the arrow pointing left and see that the door to apartment four-oh-three is open. Taking a deep breath, I step inside. I hear the cop’s voice talking on his radio. It’s coming from down the hallway. I walk towards the sound of his voice and look through the open bedroom door. Lucy is on the bed with the cops standing, looking down at her.
I take out my phone.
I have to be the one to tell Nick.
32
Cal
Tuesday, Ottawa
The great thing about flying by private jet is that there was no airport security to go through so I was able to take my trusty Glock with me. It’s safely back at the hotel because it would never get through the security here. Tina’s press credentials as a reporter from the Daily News Hound got her in here and my hastily forged credentials get me in here as her photographer—the second advantage of private jets is there’s no baggage restriction so I’m decked out with all her camera equipment.
Tina has been busy trying to get quotes and comments on a variety of topics from a variety of politicians who have passed through this corridor on their way to do the nation’s business in the Parliament building. I’ve stood around trying to look useful, but it’s all a prelude to the main event. There are a few other members of the fifth estate milling around doing the same thing as Tina. She walks over to one of them. I recognize his face from the CBC News.
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 40
