“Hey Ian,” she says.
“Hi Tina. Nice to see you in the nation’s capital again.”
She introduces me as Cal, her new 'video guy.’
“I’m hoping to get a comment from Neil Harris,” she says.
“What about?”
“A big new scandal.” She gives him a mischievous grin.
“What new scandal?” I see all his reporter’s antennae twitching.
“Hang around and see,” she says.
Before he can ask anything else, she spots the Prime Minister with his coterie of advisors. All the newspeople converge on him and bombard him with questions about whether his minority government will be able to keep control of parliament after his latest, inopportune comments on a video, taken at a NATO Summit, that went viral. As he fields their questions, I see Neil Harris, Minister of National Defence, striding in through the entranceway. He sees the mob of reporters around the PM and looks both angry and disappointed that they are not milling around him. As my hero once wrote, he’s choked with ambition of the meaner sort. We’ll see if he is going to choke over something else.
I tap Tina on the shoulder and indicate our advancing target. She taps her colleague, Ian, on the arm and steps away from the crowd around the PM, onto a trajectory that will intercept Harris. As I follow her, I give a glance backward and see that Ian has got a couple of others to come with him.
Harris’ frown gives way to a smile as he sees the small group detach from the crowd and head towards him. Tina hangs back and lets Ian and one of the others get ahead of her. Ian is the first to get to the Minister. He thrusts his microphone forward and his cameraman aims his lens. “What do you think about the PM’s comments at the summit, Minister?” Ian asks.
He slows his pace but continues walking. “I’m sure we have all done things that we regret,” Harris says, somehow managing to convey that he doesn’t personally have any such regrets, “and I am sure that the PM has moved past those unfortunate comments,” he adds, giving every indication that he doubts it. It’s the perfect hatchet job. The words are supportive of his boss but the delivery is a condemnation. Maybe Neil Harris has his sights set on the Prime Ministership. I watch as Tina changes direction to place herself right in the Minister’s path. He fields one other question then comes to a stop in front of Tina. I pretend to be the cameraman my pass says I am and point Tina’s expensive video camera at Harris.
“Minister, I have a national security question,” she says. He nods and smiles. “Is it true that a late, um… shall we say, friend of yours, stole some documents from your home office?” Her voice drips innuendo.
For a fraction of a second, he looks like he has been slapped in the face, but he recovers almost instantaneously. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He walks around her, increasing his speed.
Tina matches his pace, leans toward him and says quietly, “Certificates?”
His face has taken on a nasty snarl but I can see fear there too.
“No comment,” he growls and walks quickly along the corridor.
Tina stops and lets him go.
“What was that about stolen documents?” Ian asks her.
“What did you whisper to him Tina?” another reporter asks.
She just smiles at them. “Check out my column in the Hound, gentlemen,” she says and taking my arm she leads me towards the exit door.
Phase one is complete.
Now we just wait.
33
Jen
Tony Hille is a good boss. He listens to everything that I tell him about my trip to Vancouver, without interjecting either questions or comments. If I wasn’t used to it, his unflinching stare would be unnerving but I know he’s analyzing everything I say and probably spotting things I missed. As I agreed with Cal, I don’t leave out anything except for Harvey’s death. I just told him that Cal rescued me from the house while Harvey was out.
When I finish, he looks at the ceiling for what seems like a long time.
“This investigator, Rogan, how much do you trust him?”
“With my life,” I say. “I checked him and his partner out, before I went to Vancouver. Rogan’s a former addict and his partner has some baggage but I trust them completely.”
He nods. “Have you got the USB drive with the end user certificates,” he asks. I take it out of my purse, hand it over and watch him plug it into his computer. He looks at all the end user certificates, clicking between them. “All from different countries, all bound for Canada.” I nod. He clicks some more. “All shipped by different companies, but all of them are registered in Vancouver. That’s odd. Vancouver’s hardly the shipping capital of the world.” He clicks through a few more. “This is evidence of a multi-billion dollar gunrunning operation. Well done Jen.” Tony rarely gives praise and even more rarely calls me Jen. It’s almost always Jennifer. “I have to take this upstairs to the Director.”
“Can you delay that?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “Why?”
Here’s where I hope his ambition and mine are aligned. “Neil Harris can’t be doing this all by himself. There must be others in the government who are involved. Rogan’s girlfriend is a reporter. She’s going to put a scare into Harris and see what transpires. Rogan thinks he can find out who the other people involved in this are. If you take this to the Director now, he’s going to have to tell his boss because a government Minister is involved. The Director’s boss is the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and he’s going to tell the Director to hand it over to the RCMP; it’ll be out of our hands and they’ll get all the kudos. If you can put off telling the Director for a day, two days tops, we might be able to have a lot more to go on.”
I watch the wheels spinning in his mind. He has a tell when he’s undecided. He kind of grips his teeth together causing his jaw muscles to pulse. He’s doing it now. I know he’s itching for a promotion. This could swing the scales for him.
The pulsing stops. He pulls the USB drive out of his computer and puts it in his pocket. All he says is, “End of day tomorrow, I take it upstairs.”
“You won’t regret it Tony.”
I hope he won’t.
I pray I won’t.
34
Cal
December in Ottawa is way colder than the Vancouver version. Although I have several layers on under my leather jacket, we’ve walked a mere one hundred and fifty metres from our hotel and I’m freezing. Tina’s arm is curled through mine as we walk along the Rideau Canal. It feels good. We come to our first destination. The area is still cordoned off but is surrounded by bunches of flowers in memory of the eleven victims of Canada’s first terrorist bombing. There is still scaffolding around the Shaw Centre as they fix the damage caused by the blast which killed Annalise Lamarche. I wonder why the bomber chose this particular spot. Just a quick walk across the bridge and he could have detonated it in front of the Parliament Buildings.
We stand in silence for a while just looking and thinking.
Then Tina checks her watch. “It’s lunchtime. Are you sure he’s going to call?”
“Absolutely. He’ll want to know what you know. I’ll bet money he’s got people asking your buddy Ian who you are and how to get hold of you.”
“Let’s go have lunch. Seeing as you are giving me what may be the biggest story of my career as a journalist, I’m buying.” She points across Colonel Bye Drive to the Westin Hotel. “There.” She adds.
It’s close and it’s warm and it’s expensive. How can I refuse.
As she pays the bill, her phone rings. “Tina Johal,” she says. She looks at me and nods enthusiastically. “Yes Minister,” she says. There is a pause. “Absolutely.” Another pause. “I can’t meet this evening, unfortunately. How about first thing tomorrow morning?” She listens for a while. “I’m afraid I can’t sir.” She smiles as she listens. “OK… Got it. Thank you, Minister. I look forward to meeting with you, too.”
She hangs up. “Done,” s
he smiles. “He didn’t like that I wouldn’t meet him later today—and I must say it went against all of my reporter’s instincts to ask him to delay until tomorrow—but he agreed. I just hope he doesn’t call back to try and rearrange it.”
As if on cue, a phone rings, except this time it’s mine. I wrestle it out of my pocket and take a look. “Hi Damien,” I say.
“Hi Cal, you remember there was a folder called 'Opdocs’? Well my guys managed to decrypt one of the documents in it. We used up a lot of computer cycles doing it, but it was worth it.”
“What was in it? Can you email it to me?”
“I can’t tell you what was in it and no, I can’t email it to you. This document is classified, I’d be breaking the law big time if I sent it to you. I emailed it to intelligence officer Halley via an encrypted email. I’ll let her make the decision as to whether she wants to share it with you.”
We say our goodbyes and hang up.
Then I call Jen.
The CSIS building is modern and purpose built. I have been through multiple layers of security, which have included me leaving my phone and the contents of my pockets with a security officer. Tina wasn’t allowed in and is unhappily cooling her heels outside in the rental car. I left my Glock in the hotel; no way I’d get in here with that in my possession. Jen has even had me sign the Official Secrets Act.
Jen and I are in a secure conference room with Tony Hille, her boss. He seems like a good guy but I’m going to reserve judgement. She connects her laptop to a cable protruding from an enclosure in the centre of the table. Two clicks and the wall screen springs into life. There is a document displayed.
“Is this the document that Damien decrypted?”
Jen just nods but Tony adds, “He’s a very talented guy. I’ve asked some of our people to try and decrypt those documents and they estimated it would take at least a week. He seems to have decrypted the first one in about twelve hours. I’m going to contact him and offer him a contract to try and decrypt the other documents; he should do very well out of it.”
The document is headed 'Shipment #17’.
It starts off with a list of military equipment. It looks familiar. “Weren’t these weapons in one of the End User Certificates that Neil Harris signed?” I ask.
“Yes,” Tony says. “The one for the Serbian weapons. The value is about thirty-seven million dollars Canadian.”
Jen scrolls down the document, it reads,
Shipping Agent: DKSY Shipping Inc.
Shipping date: 2019-11-19
Ship from: Dubrovnik, Croatia
Ship via: S.S. Rose of Belgrade
Delivery date: 2019-11-24
Ship to: Beirut, Lebanon
Landed Price: $52,300,000 US
Payment 1 received: 2019-11-07 (50%)
Payment 2 received: 2019-11-27 (50%)
“You realize what this means, Cal,” Tony says. “An End User Certificate, signed by the Canadian Minister of National Defence, was used so that someone could buy weapons, ship them to Beirut and make almost thirty million dollars profit.”
“We can’t be sure that he signed them,” says Jen. “They could be forgeries.”
Tony shakes his head. “Unlikely. The weapons manufacturer in Serbia would have to have had contact with senior officers in the Armed Forces and likely with the Minister himself. They wouldn’t ship that quantity of weapons just based on paperwork.”
I say, “When Tina asked Harris about documents stolen from his office, it was like a slap in the face. He knew what she was talking about.”
“About that, Cal,” Tony says, “I originally told Jennifer that I would give you some time to find out what you could from Neil Harris, but now I’ve seen this, I have to take it upstairs to the Director. I have an appointment with him in an hour. This is now an official CSIS investigation. I wanted to show you this document so that you would understand what I am about to say. I really appreciate you and your girlfriend’s help but you have to back off now. Go back to Vancouver and leave it to us to deal with. I can’t order you to do that, but if you do anything more about this issue, you will be putting yourself, and possibly her, in legal jeopardy and I will take action against you.” He stands up, shakes my hand and leaves.
“Sorry, Cal,” Jen says. “I know you wanted to help us but it’s out of my hands now.”
“No prob, Jen,” I lie. “Glad we could help.”
“I’ll walk you out,” she says. We take off along the corridor. “You can tell your buddy Damien thanks for the flight in his jet. He can probably expect some lucrative contracts from us if he can decrypt documents that fast.”
“I will.” When we get to the elevator, I ask her, “Who in Lebanon can afford to buy fifty-two million dollars worth of weapons?”
“Good question. No one. My guess is that the weapons were paid for by Iran but are being shipped to Hezbollah in Lebanon. They’ll use them to attack Israel and maybe share them with their Hamas buddies in Palestine.”
The words trigger a memory.
I can’t wait to get my phone back. I need to make a call to Vancouver, fast.
“He told us to what?” Tina says, incredulous. “Clearly he doesn’t know me very well, does he? No government dweeb tells Tina Johal to back off. We—well actually, you—uncovered this story and we’re going to see it through, right?”
I know why I love this woman: she thinks like I do. Wow, second time I’ve used the L word. I suddenly have a strong desire to say it out loud. I look at her and smile.
“Right, Cal?” she repeats.
“Right.” Now’s not the time. Instead, while she drives, I tell her about the meeting and only when I’ve finished do I realize, with only the slightest twinge of conscience, that I’ve just broken the Official Secrets Act which I signed less than an hour ago.
I pull out my phone and dial. It’s seven-thirty in Vancouver, he’ll be awake now for sure. I reach forward to turn down the volume of the radio which is tuned in to CBC News.
“Hi Cal,” Steve says. There’s the usual wariness in his voice. “How’s Nick?”
“He’s much better, Steve.”
“Good, tell him the whole Department’s thinking about him.”
“I will. Listen, Steve, I’m following up a case and I’m in Ottawa. You remember when Nick was in David Fox’s house pretending to do the gun deal with him? It all went to hell in a hand basket when Nick said he was buying guns for Hamas. David Fox called him out on it; he said he knew who bought guns for Hamas and it wasn’t Nick.”
“Sure.Twenty seconds later we were knocking down his doors.”
“You’ve still got Fox’s man in custody eh?”
“Sure do.”
First comes the big lie. “The case I’m working on turns out to have some national security aspects and I’m working with CSIS on it.” Now comes the big ask. “Could you do something for me? Could you find out if Fox’s guy knows anything about anyone involved in buying weapons for Hamas. I’d really appreciate anything he knows. Tell him that anything he tells you will help lessen his sentence; anything to get him to talk.”
He’s silent.
“It’s really important, man,” I add.
“You’re a lucky bastard, Cal Rogan. I’ve got some questions for him. I’m going in to see him this morning. I’ll be with him in about an hour. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“You’re a star, Steve. Thanks.”
“Sure, sure. I’ll call you later, OK.”
He hangs up.
Tony Hille’s decision to talk to his boss in an hour has forced a change of plan.
Time for me to drive while Tina makes a call.
“Who the hell is this?” Neil Harris inclines his head in my direction.
“He’s my driver and my video guy. Just pretend he’s not here,” says Tina.
He digests that for a moment. “Ok. Please sit down.”
She does as he asks. I don’t. Instead, I stand by the door surveying his office. It’s n
ot as plush as I would have imagined the office of a federal cabinet minister to be.
“Ms. Johal, I agreed to see you to clear up a misunderstanding you seem to have that—ˮ
She interrupts. “Minister, let’s cut to the chase shall we? You were having an affair with one of your employees.” His eyes go wide. He ain’t seen nothing yet. “She saw some documents on your computer, documents she copied and sent to her brother in Vancouver; documents so important that he was killed in an effort to retrieve them.” He takes a breath and is about to say something but Tina holds up her finger and his mouth snaps closed. “Among other things, there were a large number of End User Certificates signed by you. I’m giving you a chance to get in front of this before I go to press and publish what I know.”
To give him credit, he recovers from the initial shock very fast.
“I have to congratulate you,” he says. “Your investigative skills are excellent. However your conclusions are wide of the mark. I did indeed sign a number of End User Certificates but in a very good cause. I can’t yet share it with you for a number of reasons, national security being one of them. However, I can certainly promise you a scoop if you can hold off publishing for a couple of days.”
“A couple of days is a long time in the news business, Minister. My competitors can move fast. When I talked to you this morning, CBC and the Globe and Mail were hovering around. I’ll need more than the promise of a scoop.”
This is it. Either we’ll get what we want or we might as well go back to Vancouver.
“Seems like we’re in a Mexican stand-off,” he says.
“Yes,” Tina agrees. “Maybe if you could give me a little more information, I could maybe hold off going to press.”
He smiles. “Perhaps we could talk somewhere else, somewhere private but away from the office.” He purses his lips for a moment… then makes his decision. He takes a Post-It note from his desk and scribbles on it then hands it to her. “Come to my townhouse, both of you, at six this evening. We can talk this over and come to an accommodation beneficial to both sides.”
Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set) Page 41
