Cal Rogan Mysteries, Books 4, 5 & 6 (Box Set)

by Robert P. French

  I look back at the screen. Maybe I should open WORD and see if he has any recent documents that might be of interest. The other app already open is a conference call program. I click on it then click 'File’. As I move the cursor down to the 'Close’, it passes over 'Recent’. I click it; one of the options is 'The Ruling Group’. That is one mother of a conference group name. I click on it. Three windows open, accompanied by an irritating pinging. All three are blank. The pinging continues and suddenly the middle window goes grey for a second, then shows the face of a man. “Is it do—” For an instant there’s fear in his face. “Who the hell are you?” he snarls. He stares into my eyes. Then there’s what looks like the dawning of a bad dream. The window goes blank.

  If I can just put a name to the face I saw for three seconds, we may have another piece of the puzzle.

  I open the door. Jen pushes past me into the entranceway and looks around furtively. “What the hell do you think you’re doing in the house of a government minister?” she says in a loud whisper. “Tony told you to leave this alone and go back to Vancouver. Are you crazy? You could be in serious trouble here.”

  “No need to whisper,” I say. “But you do need to see this.” I walk into the study and she follows. I point to the body.

  “What the f—ˮ Her expletive is deleted as she sees the assailant. He’s awake now and silenced with tape across his mouth.

  “Victim, murderer and murder weapon.” I can’t keep the smugness out of my voice.

  “The perfect trifecta,” Tina adds.

  Jen is silent for a long time. Finally, “What exactly happened here?”

  I tell her in detail up to the part about the man on the conference call screen. I have a raw, pulling sensation in my gut. It’s my 'keep quiet’ feeling. Something is telling me not to share this with Jen. So, for better or for worse, I don’t. “That’s about it.” I look across at Tina. The question is in her face but she gets it and says nothing.

  Silence again from Jen. Then, “Tony took this up to the Director, Markus Heath. Markus told him that the RCMP already has an investigation going into Neil Harris and that we were to back off. Somehow, I’m going to have to explain what I’m doing here. Anyway, I need you two to leave, I don’t need to complicate matters by having to explain your presence. And please… go back to Vancouver.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Jen about the guy on the conference call?” Tina asks, as soon as we are back in the rental car. There’s excitement in her voice.

  “Dunno. Something in my gut.”

  “Who d’you think he was?” she says, as she starts the car.

  “I have no idea. He looked like… a… well… like a take-charge kind of guy.”

  “OK, good, that cuts down the field to like about a million Canadians,” she chuckles.

  “I don’t even know if he was Canadian.”

  “Great, one in ten million. So where do we go from here?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Harris was our only real lead. With him gone we are just about nowhere. Maybe we should do as we’re told and go back home.”

  “Or maybe we should go back to the hotel and commiserate with each other. Nudge, nudge.”

  Despite my frustration I can’t help laughing.

  I lean across to kiss her cheek and my phone rings.

  “Hey Steve.”

  “Hi Cal. I talked to David Fox’s guy. Turns out the guys who are supplying arms to Hamas were big-time rivals of Fox and his gang. Fox’s guy was only too willing to give up a name.The only person whose name he knew was an Iranian living in Ottawa, his name’s Majid Zarin.” He spells the name for me. “I’m sure your CSIS friends will have a file on him.”

  “Thanks so much Steve, you’re a star.”

  We’re Canadian, so we do the polite stuff and I hang up.

  If David Fox’s guy is telling the truth and this Majid Zarin is the one buying arms for Hamas, using the End User Certificates signed by Neil Harris, I should really hand it over to Jen for her to pass on to her RCMP buddies. But it still rankles that both she and her boss told us, in no uncertain terms, that we’re off the case and should go back to Vancouver.

  I turn to Tina.

  “We’re back in business.”

  She takes one hand off the wheel and fist bumps me. “So… celebrate rather than commiserate,” she says with a big grin.

  “I love you.” It’s out before I can stop it.

  She hits the brakes and pulls the car over to the side of the road.

  Her eyes are fixed on the road ahead, her hands gripped tight on the wheel. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Missi— She turns and drowns me in her huge, brown eyes.

  “I love you too.”

  39

  Jen

  Wednesday

  Email. The curse of the working classes. I have fifty-five new ones since Cal called me out of the office at six yesterday evening. I kind of miss having his brain on the team but Tony was adamant: orders from above. I scan through the email subject lines. I deal with all the urgent ones and then spot one from Adry. I must have missed it yesterday. That reminds me I’ve got to dry clean the clothes she lent me and send them back to her with a nice thank-you present. I open it.

  Hi Jen, we had some excitement after you left. Someone tried to kill Nick. Nick shot him but he got away. Nick is indestructible. :) Also someone went to Cal’s apartment looking for him. We think he might be a soldier. I have attached one of those computer images of his face, could you use your fancy-shmancy face recognition software to find out who he is? Hope to see you soon, Adry.

  Hmm. Sorry Adry, no can do. All my searches are logged and I’ve been told to lay off this whole Neil Harris investigation and anything to do with it. The Director told Tony that it was all being handled by the RCMP. When I called the Mounties to Neil Harris’ townhouse last night they sent Inspector Saunders, I’ll forward the email to him. He’s a good guy, I’ve worked with him before; he can do the searches and I’ll ask him to let me know the result.

  I double-click on the image file and a face appears on my screen. The shock sends a bolt of electricity down my spine. It’s a face I know. It’s the guy who killed Neil Harris. I check the RCMP directory and dial. It’s seven in the morning but I’m sure he’ll be on duty. He answers on the first ring, “Saunders.”

  “Hi Clive, it’s Jen Halley over at CSIS. The man you took into custody at Neil Harris’ house, do you know who he is yet?”

  “Hi Jen. He’s keeping his mouth tight shut. He won’t say a word to anyone. But we did get him to open his mouth long enough to put in a swab. DNA says he’s former Staff Sergeant Anton Wills of the Special Operations Regiment. He served in Afghanistan and Iraq and was honourably discharged in two thousand seventeen. Why?”

  “He was in Vancouver yesterday, we think trying to assassinate Cal Rogan.”

  “Who?”

  “The private investigator who discovered the End User Certificates that Harris signed.”

  “What End User Certificates?”

  WHAT?!

  “Aren’t you part of the team investigating Harris’ possible involvement with an illegal arms sales scheme?” I ask.

  “No. I’m just investigating his murder.”

  Unbe-friggin’-lievable!

  “Listen Clive, you guys have got a serious case of one hand not knowing what the other hand’s doing. You need to talk to your bosses so you can co-ordinate with the team on the arms sales investigation.”

  “Thanks Jen. I’ll check it out. I owe you one…” His voice is the voice of a confused man. “I think.”

  Jeez. And I thought we were the secretive department.

  So Adry was right; he is, or rather was, a soldier. I reread her email. He tried to kill Nick, got shot, then went after Cal. I need to talk to Adry. It’s just after four in the morning in Vancouver but can’t be helped.

  She answers on the fifth ring. “Hi, Jen. Don’t they teach you about timezones in CSIS?”

  “Sorry abo
ut that, but this is important. I just saw your email. You were right. He was a soldier. Did you say that he tried to kill Nick, got shot, then went after Cal?”

  “No. It must have been two guys. One guy tried to kill Nick at around eleven at night, Nick shot him but he got away. So Nick called me immediately and I went over to Cal’s house and I saw the other guy just leaving.”

  “I think you need to tell me the whole story.”

  When she’s given me all the details, one question stands out in bold print. Who the hell is this general that the would-be assassin, former Staff Sergeant Anton Wills, spoke to?

  I have some research to do.

  40

  Cal

  I watch mesmerized, still revelling in the warm glow of new love. One lock of curly, black hair caresses her forehead as her fingers fly over the keyboard. “OK, this is him,” she says, swivelling the laptop towards me. A handsome, slightly overweight man in an immaculate, blue, pin-stripe suit smiles out of the screen at me. “Majid Zarin, commercial attaché at the Iranian embassy. I thought the name rang a bell.”

  So, according to David Fox’s thug, this is the man who supplies weapons to Hamas. And according to Jen, the arms shipment to Lebanon, detailed in that Shipment #17 document, was almost certainly bound for Hezbollah and probably Hamas too.

  With Harris dead, Majid Zarin is our only lead to uncovering the reason that Denis Lamarche was beaten to death and to find out who’s trying to illegally sell arms to terrorists.

  “How did the name ring a bell?” I ask.

  “I wrote an article about a Canadian company which was trying to circumvent the Iranian trade embargo. Zarin’s name came up when I was researching it,” she says

  “We need to interrogate him,” I say.

  Tina laughs. “You’re joking,” she says. “He’s the trade representative of a sovereign state, he’s covered by diplomatic immunity.”

  “Yes, but we’re not police or RCMP. We’re not constrained by legalities.”

  “So how do you plan to interrogate him? Kidnap him off the street and tie him up in our hotel room?”

  “No. He has to come to us.”

  “But how?”

  Good question.

  And I might just have the answer.

  The Iranian embassy is an unattractive red-brick building on Metcalfe Street a few blocks from City Hall. We are sitting in our rental car just around the corner. I’m in the driver’s seat and she is in the back. We have rehearsed this over and over again and Tina is ready for the live performance. She takes a deep breath and dials her phone.

  I’m holding my breath.

  “Good morning,” she says in her brightest voice. “This is Tina Johal from Daily News Hound dot com. I’d like to speak with Commercial Attaché Zarin, please.”

  A brief wait then, “May I speak with him please.” She listens intently for a while. “Yes. Please tell him it’s about the shipment from Dubrovnik to Beirut… Yes… Certainly, I’ll wait.” She gives me a big, excited thumbs up. We wait… and wait. I reach behind my seat and hold her hand. She squeezes tightly. Then, “Mr. Zarin, thanks for taking my call.” She listens for a moment and then interrupts. “No, you listen to me. Here’s what you need to do. I am sitting in a maroon Chevrolet on Somerset, one block from the embassy. If you are not sitting in the back seat of this car in two minutes from now, I am going to press 'Send’ on my computer and the story of how you conspired, with Neil Harris and others in the Canadian government, to ship weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas, will be all over the Internet. Do you understand?… Good. One hundred and twenty seconds, starting now. One… two… three…” She hangs up.

  I watch the rearview mirror intently and put the car in Drive. If more than one person comes running around that corner and heads for the car, we are out of here. A woman pushing a stroller with a baby in a bright blue winter jacket… A teenager, with hair dyed orange, on a skateboard… A man with flowing dark hair and an expensive Burberry: Zarin. And he’s alone.

  I put it in Park, get out and, like a good chauffeur, walk around the back of the car and open the back door for him. When he’s inside I walk back and, as I get into the driver’s seat, I catch the tail end of his sentence. “… all about?”

  I pull away from the curb.

  “As I told you on the phone,” Tina replies, “I have docum—ˮ

  “Ms. Johal,” he snaps. “I came to speak to you as a courtesy.” His accent is high-class British, probably acquired at Oxford or Cambridge. “If you say you have documents linking me to these arms shipments you speak of, I would like to see them.” He seems very confident. Yet here he is, sitting in our car. Why? I check the rearview mirror. There is a black Mercedes behind us. I turn left, it follows.

  Tina says, “I’m not prepared to show them just yet but I will tell you what I have. One: an End User Certificate signed by Neil Harris the Minister of National Defence for armaments from a Serbian manufacturer. Two: a shipping document that details a shipment of those same armaments sailing from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Beruit, Lebanon, with your name as the payer of the fifty-two million, three hundred thousand US dollars price.” She smoothly slips in the lie about his name being on the document together with the truth of the precise dollar amount. I check the rearview. He’s wearing his best poker face but he’s weighing options. I take a right turn and the Mercedes follows.

  “Ms. Johal,” he continues in his refined English accent, “as I’m sure you know, my first name, Majid, is a very common first name in my country and the middle east in general. The same can be said of my last name. I am willing to bet that there are, quite literally, hundreds of Majid Zarins in the middle east. If you even think of publishing anything so inflammatory, you will find yourself and your publication in court,” he pauses and fixes his stare on her, “or worse… and very quickly.” His emphasis is a not-so-veiled threat. “Driver, stop the car now.” I continue down the block and turn right. The Mercedes follows. “I said… Stop. The. Car.”

  I look at Tina in the mirror. She nods. I hit the brakes and stop in the middle of the road. The Mercedes almost smashes into the back of us. Zarin, sits in his seat, waiting. In the side mirror, I see the driver get out of the Mercedes. His face is vaguely familiar. He walks forward and slips between the cars.

  I open my door as he opens Zarin’s.

  Zarin and I exit the car in unison.

  I look across the roof of the car at Zarin’s driver.

  He glances at me.

  I’m looking at a dead man.

  41

  Jen

  There are over a hundred generals in the Canadian Armed forces. Who knew? On top of that, there are hundreds of retired generals, any one of whom could be the one I’m looking for. However, Harris’ killer Staff Sergeant Anton Wills was in the Special Operations Regiment and there are only a handful of generals who have had any association with Spec Ops, so I guess that’s a place to start. I print off their pictures. As I scroll through the other files, I get a depressing feeling that this is a lost cause. Also it’s a cause I have specifically been told not to pursue.

  Saved by the bell! I pick up my phone; it’s Clive. “Hi Jen. You said there was an RCMP team looking into Neil Harris and some End User Certificates?”

  “Yes. The Director told my boss to back off our investigation because you guys were handling it.”

  “I think you must have got it wrong. No one here knows anything about it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.” He chuckles. “Maybe it’s not our left hand not knowing what the right one is doing.”

  My head feels like it’s spinning out of control. I was sure Tony told me to back off because the Mounties were on the case. Feeling like a complete idiot, I mumble, “Sorry, I guess I must have got it wrong. I’ll go ask my boss again.”

  I put down the phone.

  What the hell is going on?

  I look at the faces of the Generals, current and retired, all of whom had Special Op
erations responsibilities. There are seven of them. I lay out their pictures on my desk. I pick up the picture of the ex-SO guy who killed Neil Harris. “Which one of these generals do you work for soldier?” I ask him in a whisper. He just stares up at me. “Who sent you and your buddy to try to kill Cal and Nick, then called you back to Ottawa to kill Neil Harris? And Nick shot your buddy didn’t he, probably wounded him badly. I wonder how—”

  I log into the airline systems and do a search. Air Canada… No. WestJet… No. No record of Anton Wills flying from Vancouver to Ottawa. So how did he get here? I don’t suppose he had a friend with a corporate jet… but maybe…

  I grab my phone and dial my liaison at the RCAF. After the polite stuff, I ask him, “I need to know details of all military flights that departed Vancouver for Ottawa between midnight on Monday and midday on Tuesday. Can you give those to me?”

  I wait. I can hear him tapping away at a keyboard.

  “There was only one in that timeframe. A Challenger flew from Uplands to Abbotsford which is just outside of Vancouver. It arrived at oh four-twenty Vancouver time, then left at oh five-thirty and returned to Uplands at thirteen thirty-five EST.”

  One thirty-five. That would have given him enough time. “Do you have a passenger manifest?”

  More keyboard taps then. “Hmm. Interesting. It’s classified. If you want it, I’d need an official request.”

  “Do you know who authorized the flight?”

  “No. You’d need to contact Four-twelve Transport Squadron for that.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best!” I tell him.