True Patriots

by Russell Fralich

  It was barely open, but moving, and there was a hand low, pushing it open —

  Larch saw a shadow veer to the left. He had been spotted. He darted into the room, holding his pistol straight out, ready to face anything.

  The girlfriend stood alone in a T-shirt and track pants a few metres away, looking surprised, transfixed, and unbelieving.

  Claire didn’t know what to make of her situation. She was still dripping and a stressed man just busted open her door to her apartment. And he was holding a pistol, what looked like a Beretta. How to react?

  “Get out,” Claire ordered. “Vas-t’en, maudit —”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Always on the offence, her training reminded her. She lunged at the man with her comb as her only weapon. It was, after all, a row of sharp plastic spears.

  But the man was ready, his body and centre of gravity low, the pistol in his right hand. He shifted to his left to avoid her assault, but she anticipated his move, and her foot slammed into his chest. His body thudded into the wall beside the door, her lone framed picture crashed, and glass splintered on the floor. She grabbed the gun’s muzzle and wrenched it away and out of his hand. The gun spun across the floor, out of reach.

  Another flurry of fists and she scratched his face. As she retreated and anticipated his counterattack, his hand found blood from his cheek. The pain shot to his brain just ahead of the feeling of surprise.

  Then, he saw what she held in her hand. A plastic comb. Another surprise. He would be more careful now.

  She came at him again with a ferocity that surprised him. A slash with the comb, then a blow from her elbow onto his nose. She kicked at his knees. She knew they were a weak spot, easily broken. Any fighter was swiftly weakened with a broken knee.

  He saw the move, shifted to the right, and slammed his own elbow down onto her extended left arm, frozen for a moment as her strike missed its target. The scream he heard confirmed that he had hit the right nerve, and her arm was immobilized.

  But she didn’t stop.

  She retreated a step, swept her hand behind her, and used her familiarity with her space to search for another weapon on the low living room table. Larch lunged across the floor away from her and spun around to face her.

  Claire was breathing heavily, as if she were engaged in a boxing match. She grabbed a small bowl. It seemed made of porcelain or something else potentially lethal if she managed at high speed to make contact with his head.

  She threw it but missed his head. It smashed with a loud crack on the wall instead. He lunged at her, tackling her headfirst. She fell backward, her head smacked the floor, and then her world collapsed into black.

  Claire awoke, suddenly aware of the whirr of the refrigerator and the slow tick of a wall clock. A buzz pulsed through her body. She heard a loud ringing in her right ear. How long had she been out? She opened her eyes. She tasted the salty sting of blood. She was sitting on her bed, her head propped up against a pillow. The stranger sat in a chair directly in front of the bed. He looked relieved. He held a pistol loosely in his right hand.

  “Miss Marcoux. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He dropped her wallet on the table between them. She saw the contents of her purse scattered on the kitchen counter behind him. “I see why you were so effective in fighting me.” He waved her navy ID card.

  “Qui êtes-vous? … Who are you?” She noticed that the man tensed immediately as she tried to move her hands to rub her eyes. Her hands were bound with several layers of duct tape. As were her feet.

  “My name is not important. What you have to say to me is.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Where is Mr. Ritter?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “When are you expecting him back?”

  She said nothing.

  “Don’t take it personally. It’s just business. And you’re just the latest impediment to the completion of my duties.”

  He pulled out his cellphone. He knew how to use her to meet his deadline.

  FIFTY-THREE

  MACKINNON HAD NEWS that couldn’t wait. Touesnard placed his cellphone on the table and put it on speaker so Daniel could hear.

  MacKinnon’s voice was raspy with tension. “I just finished meeting with my RCMP colleague, Detective Inspector Whitby. We think we’ve found some disturbing connections.”

  “Lloyd is an asshole? That’s not news.” Daniel sniffed.

  MacKinnon was unfazed. “Let’s start at the beginning. Remember how Forrestal changed his name?”

  Daniel and Touesnard nodded.

  “He had a son. I did some digging. The son’s name is Garth. Garth Haynes.”

  “So, what does that have to do with anything?” Daniel asked.

  “The son is involved in politics as the head of the pro-independence campaign going on right now in Alberta.”

  “Yet another link with Alberta,” Daniel said.

  “There’s more. The RCMP interviewed the smuggler the navy captured. In an operation led by your friend, Lieutenant Commander Marcoux, by the way. He admitted being a member of a white supremacist organization called AIM.”

  Daniel smiled as he pictured Claire for a moment. They would soon be on their first date.

  MacKinnon continued, “He was trying to smuggle a lot of weapons. Military weapons. Enough to equip a small army. Guess who was a founder of the AIM organization?”

  “Mr. Forrestal? No.” Touesnard crossed his arms. “The son, Garth Haynes?”

  “Yes. You have been paying attention. So now we have a connection between Mr. Forrestal’s money trail and weapons for a white supremacist group.”

  Daniel scratched his head. “Didn’t Forrestal’s money also pay for the hit man? The one trying to kill me?”

  “The one who killed Mr. Forrestal himself?” added Touesnard.

  “So Forrestal bankrolled his own killer? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Unless he didn’t know he was paying for an assassin,” said MacKinnon.

  “So Garth pays for the murder of his own father?” Daniel shook his head. “That’s really messed up.”

  Touesnard raised his hand. “Or the instructions came not from Mr. Forrestal but from the professor.”

  Daniel’s mouth was agape. “Lloyd wants weapons? And he paid someone to kill Forrestal, his mega-successful business partner? I don’t believe it.”

  MacKinnon took a deep breath. “So we have quite a few questions for Mr. Haynes and Professor Fanshawe.”

  “You’ll arrest them?” Daniel said.

  MacKinnon paused before answering. “Not yet. The RCMP wants to see how this plays out first. It might be a white power gang issue. Or it might be something much bigger tied to the referendum campaign.”

  The puzzle was beginning to fill in for Daniel. Forrestal had changed his name to hide from a stained past. Coward. Instead of facing up to his mistakes, he fled. Then there was a financial link between Forrestal and an offshore bank account used to transfer money in Daniel’s name as an attempt to blame him. And Lloyd had paid for the man now trying to kill Daniel.

  But who wanted Forrestal dead? Was it Lloyd or Forrestal’s own son? And why did Forrestal want to talk with him? Too many questions with no answers.

  Lloyd was the one person with connections to both Forrestal and to the hit man, and Daniel had an idea about how to get him to talk.

  “Know your enemy,” Daniel repeated to himself as Touesnard drove him back to campus. They were running out of time. Weapons, enough for a small army, MacKinnon had said. Lloyd’s in on it, too. Whatever they’re up to, the timing with Monday’s referendum is key.

  Lloyd was where he always was after teaching a Saturday MBA class: at his desk, sending emails. Daniel didn’t knock this time. He walked right in and sat in the empty chair facing Lloyd’s sparsely covered desk. It was so neat, with papers properly stacked. Even his coffee mug was clean. A perfectly ordered life. Nothing out of place.

  Daniel took a big b
reath. “I have a proposal for you.”

  Lloyd closed an email window and looked at Daniel, as if he were trying to imprint an image of him, knowing they would never cross paths again. “I’m busy.”

  “Don’t you want to hear it? I thought you liked a good deal?”

  He glared at Daniel. “Have the police found Patrick’s killer yet? I haven’t seen anything on the news.”

  “Murder. Remember, he was murdered.”

  “Of course. Do the police have any leads? Any suspects?”

  “Yes, they do. They expect to have the main suspect in custody soon. The suspect is here. Close by. Following me. He’s been following me since the murder.”

  Lloyd didn’t react.

  Daniel thought about the telltale signs of lying. TV shows showed polygraph tests, sweating, and nervous looks. But they were only partly correct. The real test of lying was in putting together multiple cues. Nervous looks alone were not enough. However, lying might be present if combined with the extra brain processing necessary to cross-check the fib with facts that the interviewer might already know. It was this short delay in response, or stalling by overtalking, that Daniel waited for in Lloyd. If Lloyd were lying, he would take longer to provide meaningful answers as Daniel wove the story into something ever more complex. He had used this technique before, with good results.

  “In fact, he seems to know where I am,” Daniel continued. “Even now, I bet he’s watching me.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Yes, a police officer is standing outside the door, but somehow I feel that protection isn’t needed now. I don’t think he’ll try anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m with you. And whatever happens to me has to remain far away from you.”

  Lloyd’s eyebrows folded down in the middle. He glowered at Daniel. “What are you saying, Daniel?”

  “I think you have a problem, Lloyd. A problem that I can help you solve. There is a man, a professional contract killer, looking for me. He’s tried to kill me twice so far, and being the pro that I’m sure he is, he’ll try again soon. I’ll be fine, though.” Daniel pointed to Touesnard, who was sitting passively on the bench, visible through the open office door. “I have police protection. But you don’t.”

  “Why would I need any?”

  “I think that I’m being hounded because I can identify Patrick’s killer. I saw him just after Patrick was gunned down. If I’m dead, no more witnesses. Just a grainy hotel video. And the killer goes free.”

  Lloyd said nothing, but Daniel noticed raised shoulders and a stiffening posture, signs that he was paying closer attention.

  “Whoever is giving orders to the hit man has one goal. No witnesses alive. That means anyone else who might know of whatever plan was behind the killing. At first, it seemed like retribution for a deal gone bad. But we both know that Patrick never made a bad deal. So there’s something else going on. Whatever it is, when I’m gone, you’ll be the next target.”

  “Are you delusional?” Lloyd sputtered.

  “You’ve known Patrick for a long time, haven’t you? Yet he calls me.”

  “What’s the big mystery?”

  “You gave him my name.”

  Lloyd’s face didn’t move.

  “I kept asking myself why you’d help me. You’ve never helped me before.”

  “Aren’t you a business professor?”

  Daniel nodded.

  “People listen to what you say. You’ve got your own prissy TV show.”

  Daniel gave only the slightest nod.

  “So Forrestal might listen to you, too.”

  Daniel folded his arms. “No, this was never about helping me. It’s all about helping you. So my question became, How can a relationship between Forrestal and me help you? Or more precisely, help Fireweed, your offshore company.”

  Lloyd flinched. “How do you know about that?”

  Daniel pressed on. “You and your financial dealings have attracted quite a bit of interest. Not just mine, but also the police.”

  He waited for a reaction. Lloyd was cool, maybe overconfident in his ability to conceal what he had done. Daniel aimed to break his resolve. “You two have been in a very successful business for at least a decade. I guess it started when you were in Calgary.”

  Lloyd’s lips tightened.

  Daniel tried hard not to smile. He pressed on. “You must have become close. He must have learned a lot from you. Like how to buy companies, flip them around, and leave before the mess appeared?”

  Daniel uncrossed his arms. “Whoever killed Forrestal and wants me dead will be coming after you next. You want help? Protection? Then you need to talk.” Daniel saw a change in how Lloyd glared at him. The look morphed from hate or indifference, he could never tell, to cool calculation.

  Lloyd switched off his computer screen and looked directly at Daniel for the first time, nervously twirling a pen around his thumb.

  Daniel pushed harder. “Let’s see if I’ve got the complete picture. You and Forrestal have a tidy business buying up struggling companies in precarious situations and turning them around. Each one is a winner. You cash out of each deal before something bad happens. It’s an amazing track record, even if you don’t actually do anything with their money.”

  “We know what we’re doing.”

  “You have only two accounts. One for money coming in, the other for paying your dividends to your existing investors.

  “Surprised I know?” Daniel noticed a few beads of sweat on Lloyd’s forehead. “And they’re all happy with, I would guess, ten to thirty percent returns on their investments. Which is quite extraordinary in this inflation-free market.”

  Lloyd didn’t move.

  Daniel raised his arms high. “You don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s why I think you should take this offer. I bet you think you’re usually a step or two ahead of everyone else. So I’m surprised you haven’t asked yourself the most important question.”

  He waited until he saw anticipation on Lloyd’s face.

  “If I can find out this information about you and Forrestal, he can, too.”

  Daniel was enjoying this moment.

  “And when he’s ordered to take you out, he won’t be as forgiving as me or the police.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  LLOYD, NORMALLY A SLIPPERY EEL, didn’t budge in his chair. For Daniel, that was proof of his interest in the deal. They waited for MacKinnon to arrive. He parked himself, arms crossed, against the wall beside the door. Touesnard stood beside him. They looked skeptically at Lloyd.

  Daniel locked onto Lloyd’s squirming face, his eyes shifting between Daniel, the two cops leaning near the office door, and his computer screen. “What did you need me for?”

  Lloyd remained still.

  He’s trying to make up a story. Daniel knew how to push. “Remember, no co-operation, no deal, right?” Daniel looked over his shoulder at MacKinnon, who nodded.

  Lloyd’s words seem to bubble up from some abyss in his personality. “High-tech start-ups. Spinoff companies from universities.”

  Daniel needed a moment to find the words to respond. “Wow, I’m flattered. You and Forrestal must think highly of me.”

  “You’ll do.”

  “Which universities?”

  “Dalhousie and Calgary.”

  Calgary. Another coincidence with Alberta. “But that doesn’t answer my question. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Not much.”

  Daniel leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms.

  “You’re just supposed to talk about the project,” said Lloyd.

  “But I don’t know anything about it.”

  “That’s what Patrick was going to explain when you saw him.”

  “It never happened. He was dead before I saw him.”

  “That’s why Mr. Larch wants to see you. To get you on board.”

  “Are you serious?” Daniel
tipped his chair forward onto all four legs with a bang and leaned over the desk, collapsing the physical and psychological distance between him and Lloyd. “He wants to see me for only one reason. He wants me dead. Our encounters so far have made that clear.”

  “No,” Lloyd snapped, “his job is to convince you to sign up to front the projects.”

  Daniel turned again to the detectives. “What do you think? He wants me dead or he wants me as a business partner?”

  MacKinnon spoke first. “Oh, I’d say dead. He’s a contract killer. He has an impressive resumé.”

  Touesnard joined in. “Once you identified him, we checked out his Interpol file. At least ten professional hits. All big-time political targets. Whoever hired him knew to hire the best.”

  Daniel could see that Lloyd was genuinely surprised.

  “Impossible,” Lloyd protested, “Garth sent him personally. I talked with him yesterday myself.”

  Daniel smiled. They were getting somewhere. “You mean Garth Haynes?”

  Lloyd nodded.

  MacKinnon leaned forward. “What is your relationship with Mr. Haynes?”

  “A business one. A private one.”

  Daniel stopped. “This is weird. Forrestal abandons his life in Edmonton after the fire. The photo you showed me before.” He looked at MacKinnon. “He had a family. A son. He changed his name. Jesus, he just didn’t abandon his business, he abandoned his own family, his only son —”

  Lloyd’s face reddened. “Are you people fucking nuts?”

  MacKinnon sprang away from the wall. “This Larch guy killed Mr. Forrestal. And he doesn’t want witnesses.”

  Daniel saw the beginnings of doubt on Lloyd’s face. He pushed harder. “So you don’t know everything that’s going on, do you? Did you know about Patrick’s relationship with Garth?”

  Lloyd shook his head. “You’re making this up. Garth’s father passed away when he was a child. He told me so himself.”

  Touesnard said, “We have a credible source.”

  Daniel edged closer to Lloyd. “He didn’t pass away, at least not until two days ago. He abandoned his family, including Garth, when a deal went bad. He’s been hiding ever since. But Garth found him. And sent Larch to exact revenge. You’ve been working with a professional killer, Lloyd. He’s just waiting to off me, before he gets new orders to take you out, too.”