by Jim Stark
"I'll hold you to that, Randall,” said Cam, pointedly.
"Fine,” agreed Randall, “but keeping Victor out of your hair doesn't distance you from the LieDeck, and we have to discuss where we go from here on that score."
"Knock knock,” said Laurent Gauthier. He'd spoken to the boss on the phone earlier, and his sense of the situation was that no more talk was due or welcome on the subject of the bombing and the RCMP.
"Hi Laurent,” said Randall. “Sorry you and your people will have to work weekends for a while, but I'll make it up to everyone."
"It's okay,” said Gauthier, laughing. “The shop floor is quite literally humming with calculations about the profit-sharing agreement. If sales go as well as we expect, then the production workers are looking at major bonuses. They're not complaining."
"Everything under control out at the lodge?” asked Randall—he'd put his chief engineer in charge of the rebuilding project.
"Yes, actually,” said Gauthier. “We found the original architect's plans. It'll get done. It's just a matter of putting enough people on it. Rebuilding the place will cost about a hundred thousand dollars more than what the insurance will pay, but—"
"Helen, we're ready,” said Randall into the intercom.
Helen joined the group already in Cam's prized corner office. She had agreed earlier with Whiteside that it was a good idea to conduct the meeting there. Cam would feel a bit like the teacher, behind his desk, while the others would seem like mere supplicants. The morning sun was being dissected through slim, burgundy verticals, and the fortunes of Whiteside Technologies seemed destined to fare no better.
"We've got trouble,” said Randall. “First, we get some idiot bombing the lodge and trying to assassinate Victor, and almost killing Annette. Next, our inventor friend takes off. And now I've received word that the LieDeck may never see the light of day."
"Say what!?” said Cam, followed by similar exclamations from the others, including Helen, even though she was way ahead of the curve.
"Don't ask me how I know this,” said Randall, “but the military has demanded that the Prime Minister classify the LieDeck as top secret, along with all information about the device—for national security reasons, of course—the damned Cold War II, mostly, and of course the war on terror. They could tie us up for years, decades. So ... if we're going to save the thing, we have to move now, right away, whether or not Victor approves. And as far as Victor is concerned ... well, he put himself out of the loop. Laurent, how many units have you made up so far?"
"Over three hundred,” said Gauthier. “We only planned to make four hundred of the first type and then—"
"When are the microminiaturized LieDecks scheduled for completion and release, the wristwatch ones?"
"We should have the first lot of a hundred thousand by September five, twenty weeks from now,” reported Gauthier.
"How soon could you produce twenty thousand of the ones we're making now, in the Dictaphone casings?” asked Randall.
"Jeeze Louise!” said Laurent. “We never worked that out ... didn't expect we'd ... I'd have to check with—"
"Ballpark,” demanded Randall.
"Well, they're not hard to make. I suppose if ... if we had no problem keeping up with parts, and if we went to three shifts a day and set up a second production line, we could turn out ... mmmm ... maybe twenty-five hundred a day, starting—uh—tomorrow. We could be up and running by midnight tonight, if that's what you—"
"Do it,” said Randall. “There's no freakin’ law says the God damned things have to be microminiaturized right from square one. So the product is as it is now, a wallet-sized device in a Dictaphone case. In a few months, we'll see where we stand, and maybe get back to the wristwatch model."
Cam was becoming concerned. “But—"
"Laurent,” continued Randall, “if we're marketing the prototype, it should be a lot cheaper than the wristwatch model. How much should we be charging for that?"
Laurent hadn't been asked to prepare for this contingency. He hated being caught off guard, but he also enjoyed being able to come up with a plausible answer no matter what the circumstances. He knew the costing in every minute detail, and he knew the general formula that the company had used to price a host of other products. “The cheapest we could go is ... not less than six hundred dollars, retail,” he said. “But considering we're the only producers, and the demand will be virtually unlimited, I suggest we go for the bucks, sell it at nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five friggin’ cents, and then let the market forces bring it down ... later ... hopefully much later."
"I like the way you think, Laurent!” said Randall, with a smile. “I want to make an outrageous profit on these LieDecks. You got any more ideas on that?"
"Sure,” said Laurent. “Cut out the middleman. The demand will be phenomenal. We don't need retailers. We can advertise nationally, internationally, put people on a waiting list, have them call our one-eight-hundred phone line and use their credit cards. If we do that and ship their LieDecks out to them by courier, we increase our profit margin by a ... by maybe thirty percent."
"Laurent, you snake!” said Randall. “I love it! Get the ads on the radio tomorrow, right after my press conference, coast to coast."
"Okay,” he said, “but what if the government classifies the LieDeck?"
"I intend to fight that,” said Randall. “There's no way I'm going to let them cut our legs out from under us with that tired old ‘national security’ bullshit."
"And ... how do you propose we accomplish that?” asked Laurent, looking skeptical and nervous.
"Cam,” said Randall, “get Grant Eamer to fly you to New York in the Learjet with two hundred of the LieDecks we've got now. Do it right away, and bring two hundred of those pamphlets we had written about the operation of the thing. Just get photocopies—they don't have to look pretty. Tomorrow, you give five LieDecks to the UN Secretary General. Get a courier to rush-deliver a LieDeck to the ambassador of every UN member state, all hundred and ninety-five of them. Make sure they sign for it. We'll call ahead to the ambassadors from here so they're in to accept delivery personally. Use Fleet Courier. Call their head honcho, Ian Fox. He's an old buddy of mine. I want these transactions to start at one p.m., and I want them completed by close of business tomorrow."
"I'm ... not really the best person to—"
"Either you go or I send Helen,” snapped Randall. “If you're not up to the job, then I think—"
"I'll go,” said Cam as he stormed out of his office.
"Jesus H. Christ,” said Laurent. “You can't just end-run the fucking government."
"Just let them try to classify the thing top secret when every nation in the world already has one,” laughed Randall.
Chapter 22
THE DEFECTOR
Ralph Dellaire and Nicholas Godfrey were doing their best to heed the Prime Minister's admonition to treat each other with respect, but it wasn't easy. Ralph had become St. Aubin's chief of staff in large part because he was a skilled “big picture” man, a macro-politician. He perceived the Defence Minister's obsession with detail as a flaw, a fault, a weakness, an Achilles’ heel for one so highly placed. Nick Godfrey, for his part, saw Ralph Dellaire as a dilettante, a gadfly, a dandy political playboy with no philosophical underpinning for his actions. “Anybody can push pawns around a board,” he frequently told his wife, “but it takes a strong sense of purpose and considerable wit to achieve checkmate."
On the subject of the renewed Cold War, their differences were particularly sharp. In the 1980s, Ralph had been a longhaired student at the University of Toronto. Louis St. Aubin was then the president of the students’ union, and Ralph was his VP. They were both serious, and both had joined in protest demonstrations—even organized them—to stop the nuclear arms race and end Cold War I. They saw the first Cold War as a mere contrivance, a diabolical ruse by the military-industrial complex, as Dwight Eisenhower had called it, a horrid ploy to ban
krupt the old Soviet Union and simultaneously enrich American arms manufacturers ... all this without reference to the actual defense needs of the Western democracies.
Nick Godfrey had been in military college in the 1980s, and his view of Cold War I was quite different. It was a contest between freedom and oppression, and the good guys had to win, no matter what the cost in terms of dollars or danger. And they had won, briefly, from 1989 until 2012, when Russian Prime Minister Andrie Zenko found himself on the receiving end of a Communist putsch. Godfrey took pleasure in reminding anyone who would listen that the western strategy used for the first Cold War had worked, if only for twenty-three years. Now that the Communists had recaptured the Republic of Russia, he saw no reason to approach Cold War II any differently.
Prime Minister St. Aubin was Catholic, and he had dug up an old trick he'd learned from his studies of Pope John XXIII. The wily pope used to take two men, from opposite sides of an issue, and tell them to construct a joint proposal to solve a problem. It worked, for the pope. St. Aubin was less certain whether this technique would work for him, but he had to try something, and that was the best he could come up with. He'd sent Nicholas Godfrey and Ralph Dellaire to interrogate Roger Findlay, the defector. He instructed his men to recommend what the Government of Canada could do about the story that Findlay had promised to tell concerning Cold War II intrigue by Americans ... on Canadian soil ... and elsewhere ... this whole WDA conspiracy thing.
St. Aubin had gone to talk to Colonel Findlay two days earlier. The American colonel had spilled the beans about the LieDeck—he knew it as the C.V.A.—but he wouldn't name names or go any further, and he hadn't said a thing about the WDA. That was his trump card. The price of his continued cooperation was immunity from prosecution, and that was up to cabinet. Cabinet had agreed. Now it was up to Ralph Dellaire and Nick Godfrey, a dove and a hawk, to take this matter the next step.
* * *
Colonel Findlay had been held incommunicado at National Defence Headquarters. It wasn't a cell, although it might as well have been. There were two armed guards at each door of the small suite, and there were no windows. There was a bed, a table, chairs and a TV. He was well fed, and he was allowed to exercise and shower. Apart from that, he felt as if he could have been on the moon.
An hour earlier he'd been told to expect two visitors soon, and since video recording equipment had been set up in the room, he felt very confident that he would be granted his demand for immunity. Still, he was depressed. His life as a political player was over.
"Okay,” said Defence Minister Godfrey as he entered the room, “you got immunity, Mr. Findlay. It's written down. Your ambassador has a copy. Here's your copy. The video camera is rolling, so get it right the first time. Here's a cell phone. Make your call."
Findlay sat at the table, glanced up at the lens of the camera, then he read the two-sentence note. By decree of the Government of Canada, he would be allowed to stay in the country for as long as he wanted. He would be given a new identity and a good job, and he would be absolved of all responsibility for acts that he was involved with. For the deal to stand, the government demanded his full and immediate cooperation. He made his call to the U.S. ambassador to be sure the deal was on the level, and he was satisfied.
"So let's have it, all of it, now,” said Godfrey as he sat down opposite the defector. Ralph Dellaire sat beside Godfrey.
"I want to begin by telling you that I never intended to hurt anyone,” said Findlay.
"Beep."
"False,” said Godfrey. “If you tell one more lie, we'll terminate the agreement. The deal was full cooperation, and starting off with a lie is not helping your credibility. This is called a LieDeck,” he said, taking the device out of his suit jacket pocket. “You knew it as the C.V.A. I'll put it on the table, right in front of you, Mr. Findlay. From here on, you are the author of your own fate."
The defector felt his adrenal gland erupt. Not only was General Brampton right about the microminiaturized C.V.A., but the Canadians already had the thing. He shuddered imperceptibly and let the words flow.
"The first Cold War didn't begin in the early 1950s, as many people believe,” he said. “It began immediately after World War II ended in 1946, and was planned even before that, during the latter stages of the war. It lasted until 1989. It took forty-three years to win the thing, and for most of that time, the risk of total destruction was real; on several occasions, it was considered imminent. When Cold War II broke out in 2012, those who had fought the first Cold War, people in high places, decided that this time it had to be ended decisively ... and forever ... even if it took the use of WMD ... weapons of mass destruction.” Findlay knew that Godfrey already knew the acronym, and wondered why he had bothered to explain it. Just get on with it, he scolded himself silently.
"These veterans of Cold War I set up an organization called the World Democratic Alliance, a secret organization. It was supposed to destroy communism once and for all, and lead eventually to the creation of a democratic world government—dominated by the United States, of course—based in what is now the UN. The WDA has many thousands of members in over a hundred countries, and I know for a fact that some WDA members have been killed by our own people ... killed because they started to have doubts ... and because they considered talking ... like I'm doing right now.
"We destroyed reputations, planted false stories, framed innocent people, and wiped out organizations that stood in our way—lots of peace groups, a few unions, some left-wing journals, even church groups. The oath of secrecy is tighter than that of the Mafia. The people involved are highly placed in military establishments and governments, but mostly in security forces. In Canada, there's an RCMP unit—I don't know its name—that is totally controlled by the WDA. They pulled off the attack on Victor Helliwell at the Whiteside estate. Anything less than a bomb shelter and they would have got him, and it would have been concluded in a public inquiry that it was an economic crime, committed by a ruthless American corporation which sought to patent the C.V.A. itself and produce it ... I mean the LieDeck. There would have been a credible fall guy, and he would have happily served the rest of his life in prison for an act that he had nothing to do with. The WDA is that sophisticated, and the people who run the WDA and act for it really are that committed.
"The WDA operates on a cell structure. No one knows more than he or she absolutely needs to know. General George Brampton runs the show in Canada. He was my handler, and he works out of the U.S. embassy. As you already seem to know, Ambassador Foley had no knowledge that all this was happening under his nose.
"As for the situation in Canada, I know of no involvement inside your military. The action was handled by that unit in the RCMP. We all assumed that direction came to them from a headquarters in the U.S., probably in Washington. However, it was my impression that we established our presence in various countries only after we had the cooperation of some members of the government. I would suspect there is at least one cabinet minister who reports to the WDA. And ... that's all I know."
"Beep,” went the LieDeck.
"Sorry,” said Findlay. “I don't mean that's all I know, only that the rest is detail. I'll answer all of your questions."
Nick Godfrey and Ralph Dellaire went over to a corner of the room and had a brief discussion on how to proceed. They didn't particularly like each other, but circumstances, and Prime Minister St. Aubin, had thrown them together on this one, and they realized that their differences were simply irrelevant compared to the import of this man's words. “You go first,” said Ralph.
They returned to their seats at the table. “One thing I don't get,” said Godfrey. “The RCMP is involved in this WDA business, and yet you attacked the Whitesides’ lodge using an RCMP plane, with the insignia right on the side. Wasn't that rather stupid, to draw suspicion to yourselves like that?"
"It wasn't an RCMP plane,” said Findlay. “They were RCMP officers in regulation RCMP uniforms, but it was a private plane, made
to look like an RCMP plane. The plan was for you to find the plane in a couple of days or a week, which would allay suspicions and get the RCMP off the hook. The assumption would be that the uniforms were also bogus. The RCMP could then become involved in the investigation and steer it away from themselves, away from the WDA, and towards the fall guy."
"Pretty slick,” said Ralph Dellaire.
"We thought so,” said Findlay.
The interview went on for three hours. The Colonel became increasingly resigned to his status as a defector, and as the burden of guilt diminished, he grew animated. The videotape equipment took it all down for the next critical phase in the plan that had been hatched the previous afternoon, in the garden-to-be behind 24 Sussex.
* * *
At 8:00 p.m., one hour after the interview with Colonel Findlay ended, an American embassy limousine pulled up to the front door of the Department of National Defence. Ambassador Cyrus Foley and General Brampton were welcomed by an assistant to Defence Minister Nick Godfrey.
"The Prime Minister and the Minister are waiting for you upstairs, Mr. Ambassador, General,” said the aide.
"What's this all about?” asked Foley, with an edge of irritation in his voice.
"Major security problem, sir,” said the aide. “The Prime Minister will explain."
The two Americans were escorted up an elevator, down a hall, and into a room with no windows. There was a boardroom table with a TV set and a VCR at the end. Louis St. Aubin and Nick Godfrey met their guests at the door, smiling.
"Ambassador, General, Happy Easter and all that,” said St. Aubin. “I very much appreciate your coming over on short notice."
"Good evening, gentlemen,” said Ambassador Foley as he shook hands with his high-powered hosts. “You've both met General George Brampton, haven't you?"
"Good to see you Prime Minister, Mr. Godfrey,” said the general as he shook hands, and as the door was quietly closed, and locked, behind them. “What's the problem?"
