Borderless Deceit (8 page)

Promotion after promotion elevated him to the senior ranks, but he always insisted on keeping the liaison role which mirrored mine. It was he who arranged my unique access to the ever-expanding universe of information which sophisticated technology was opening up. Every day in my cell, solitary as a monk, I tapped the keys, formed instructions, directed searches and, courtesy of Hugh-S, threw fine-meshed nets over half of humanity and filtered out knowledge.

Hugh-S was like a patron, the way he allowed me access to special data. Of course, I served him in return, by sharing my analyses with him. The delight on the other end of the line was often unrestrained.
“Masterful work, Cahsun. More than a few folks here'll like what you came up with.” They did, and it brought me still more access. Already back then, in the Cold War days, I proposed schemes to assemble information from different sources, linking it up, allowing deeper insight into relationships of special interest, for example, between the Soviets and West Germans (where much more was going on than met the eye), or between the communist regime in Poland and Africa's Marxist states. Hugh-S obliged. And so I acquired paths into sections of the American intelligence storehouse denied to other allied watchers. Without Hugh-S I would not have been able to track Rachel as thoroughly as I did.

The day after the plague struck I called him on a direct-link scramble phone. The tone it carried was hollow and deepened his drawl. Of course, he knew we had been hit by the virus.
Bin kinda expectin' it
. Their position all along was that our network was vulnerable. He said a request for assistance by someone in our Service to determine what caused the plague had already been made through the US ambassador. “We's workin' on it, Cahsun,” he assured me. He added that the first scan they ran showed the virus might have travelled through the pipeline, our secure data link to a battery of servers in Langley, Virginia. Naturally this worried them. A preliminary analysis showed there had been a huge jump in the volume of data passing through the pipeline.

“Kinda like a volcano erupting. It showed up just about the time yous Canucks went belly-up. Smells like gator shit to me, Cahsun. Guess you doan have that kinda stink in Canuckland, but, man, I tell you, the smell of gator shit is sumthin else.”

“You think there's a link between the data jump and the meltdown?”

“Yup. Tracin' it right now. Let you know as soon as I do. How's it for yous up there? Feelin' buggered?”

“I'd say…we feel mishandled. Who asked your ambassador for help?”

“A woman. Claire something…”

“Desmarais?”

“That's the name. My aunty's called Claire. Sweetest lady there ever was.”

“This one tends to the sour side.”

“That really is too bad.”

“I hope we're not out of business long.

I'm closing in on the deal for those mothballed Exocets sold to Iran.”

Hugh-S purred. “Cherries gettin' ripe? ‘Bout ready for pickin'?”

“Three containers full, heading there via Georgia and Turkey. ETA eleven days from today.”

For months I had been piecing together this operation's details. The starting point was happenstance, serendipity, a lucky correlation of people, times and places. I had put a French perfume manufacturer under surveillance. He owned an estate on an island in Georgian Bay. I was also keeping an eye on a Mongolian fireworks designer whose uncle owned hotels in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. The uncle too had a cottage – on that same Georgian Bay island. The two summer residences were in spitting distance from each other. My interest was piqued when a Turkish freight forwarder entered Canada three times over a period of six weeks, declaring each time that he was a tourist, yet only staying two days. This showed up in the routine computer searches of custom entry forms and airline passenger departure data. As always, it generated an anomaly tag. For the Turk's fourth visit the tag triggered my computer alarm when he boarded a flight at Charles de Gaulle airport for Toronto. By the time he landed I had initiated tracking procedures. A small device was inserted behind the hinge of his suitcase before he collected it from the Toronto airport luggage carousal. From there satellites monitored his movements minutely. He stayed at the Frenchman's cottage one night and the Mongolian's the next. As if on cue, as if predictable, in the coming months all three met twice more, in Tbilisi, Georgia. Databases were combed; more contacts came to light. For example, meetings had been arranged by the perfume manufacturer with arms dealers in Paris. Then the Mongolian travelled to Islamabad to meet a small group of Iranians, and then these Iranians journeyed to Istanbul to meet the Turk. A full picture was emerging. I had been with the Frenchman, Mongolian and Turk every inch of the way for more than a year; we were close to the end.

“The land route through Turkey isn't fast,” I briefed Hugh-S, “but if the stretch from Erzurum across the border to Tabriz goes smoothly we'll know there's complicity by Turkish government officials.”

Hugh-S was listening with concentrated silence. “Oughtta get a posse ready to ride on out. Can you send me the co-ordinates on the containers and the routing?”

No problem. Unlike Beausejour I didn't store my information on network servers. I kept my files on removable storage devices. Two were necessary to get at my information, a double key approach. But even if an outsider acquired both and studied them, the information wouldn't appear sensitive because I had my own process for hiding things, an approach based less on encryption and more on illusion. One removable device, such as a memory stick, might have files on it containing a series of essays, say, on ornithology, whereas the second device could contain an anthology of First World War poetry (“In Flanders Fields,” for example). Even if both devices fell into the wrong hands, the scrutinizers of my data would think the items were trivial, representing my personal interests. Only if both the essays and the poems were viewed simultaneously by a computer using a complex word and letter filtering program with a unique key would the sensitive information come out. The process could be likened to having two transparencies, one of a landscape, for example, and the other of a crowd scene. When superimposed such transparencies produce a third image if light falls through both. Only I was able to get at that third image which represented my data. So Hugh-S could have the container co-ordinates. But with the Service network down the information would have to be handed over
en clair
, and that was something I would want to do personally.

He was instantly accommodating. “Sure. Someone'll skedaddle on up. Guess we gotta bone up on some ancient rules though.” By this Hugh-S meant the procedures for transferring information in a place where the transaction couldn't be observed. What was my opinion?

I thought about it. Then on the spur of the moment, given the weather, I mischievously suggested a spot outside the city. “Send a cross-country skier. I'll meet him in the Gatineaus. There's a place called Herridge Cabin. Saturday. Say, at noon?”

“Cahsun!…That rules me out! Snow 'n me, we doan get along.”

“Send a strong skier. It's a good run. Give him a blue backpack with a red Maple Leaf stitched on. We'll switch bags there. Dead simple.”

This was quickly agreed and I began to look forward to the skulduggery, as well as to being out on the fresh snow. Each time I'm in the hills across the river I relive the day I skied there with Rachel. Gliding through the forest I recite the words she spoke to me, as if they are an inner book of psalms.

But that reverie would play out on Saturday, whereas the trance today, induced by Heywood, was ending. The watchers showed relief. They were exhausted. No one had expected so much pompousness.

“Anything you want to add, Jaime?” the Czar asked.

With a slight shake of her head she declined.

“No inspirational words? Nothing about how much fun it will be to go snowplowing together?” Jaime still didn't bite. The Czar then brought his palms together, bowed and expressed thanks.

The pair departed as they came: Heywood, wide-legged, his abdomen leading, Jaime, light of foot, with the coiled energy of a spring in every step. The struggling geraniums, the untidy cabinets, the stained office carpet waved them goodbye. The sliding doors opened. The sliding doors shut.

The watchers immediately struck up a loud post-mortem which I declined to join.

“Guess we got 'em pumped up,” the Czar concluded, lumbering to the elevator with Jaime.

“Not sure. Not much goodness in those faces. One guy at the back was a total crab. I think he hated us.”

“The tall one in the corner?”

“Pretty tall. Big shoulders.”

“Carson Pryce. Hah! There's a few who'd like to knock him off his high horse.”

At the elevator Jaime pushed a button. When it arrived, passengers shuffled to the cabin side and the Czar cramped in. On the ground floor, squeezing out, he said, “Your new digs coming along, Jaime? Shall we take a peek?” The previous day the Czar had ordered an extensive computer chamber to be installed for Jaime overnight.

As they ambled back to Operations Tower, Jaime asked, “Know him well?”

“Who?”

“The tall dude.”

“Carson? Oh yeah.”

“What's his problem?” When Heywood took his time, Jaime pressed. “It looked as if his bowels were in an uproar.”

“I'll tell you his problem. He's smart, but it's gone to his head. You, me, everyone…he believes we're a lower breed. He finds ways to
let you know he thinks that.”

Jaime and the Czar were passing beneath the canopy of flags of all the countries of the United Nations hanging down from the foyer ceiling high up. Around them, visitors to the Service complex were stamping snow off outer boots, shaking hats clean and unwrapping thick parkas, showing that miraculously bright and living things could emerge from the drab cocoons entering the building. Outside, the temperature was dropping; the wind was picking up; white swirls howled up the walls and spilled out over the roof like packs of snarling dogs. A haunting scene. Nature deranged.

Heywood stopped. “Look at this, Jaime,” he said with wonder. “People earn a living in weather like this. When I grew up…chain saws in the forest…the distant clattering…all winter long…loggers coming out at the end of the day…icicles hanging from their beards…hard work…making an honest effort…that's us. We were bred up, not down.”

Jaime looked up at the flags draping down. They formed a backdrop, a kind of wreath over the Czar's head. In deadpan she said, “Irv, are you telling me you think it's the weather that's responsible for us being the top-ranked country in the world?”

“Hadn't thought of that before,” he replied solemnly. “Fits though. Makes us New Brunswickers proud.” With a stately turn he recommenced the journey to Operations Tower. “As for Carson,” he added, “maybe he treats us as a lower breed, but actually he's the one that got bred down. There's stories I could tell you.”

Jaime slowed her stride to match his. “Sounds juicy, Irv. How'd you know them?”

The Czar chuckled. “Everyone's got a file.”

“Sure…so what's in his?” Jaime pictured the brooding figure at the back with a mouth set grim and a forehead knotted so tight it must have hurt. “Was he always a blister?”

“Well, you know, he's been doing the spook thing too long. After a while everyone in that crowd loses perspective. Half the stories they come up with are invented, then they make them taller still and in the end they claim they've found a new gospel…something like that. Carson's been a spook for twenty years. Won't budge. To be fair – and we've got to be fair – he's not a total disaster. No one sees the links
between raw intelligence and geopolitical calculations like him. The problem is what happens next. He loves to ram a brilliant piece of work down your throat. He does it to everyone. Me too. Years ago. What's the reaction? People get stroppy right back.”

At the entrance to Operations Tower, Alphonse stood alert. When the Czar came around the corner and Alphonse perceived that today's arrival was benign, like a great ship berthing, he gauged the shrinking distance perfectly. Softly whistling the day's tune – the majestic opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony – he executed a well-timed, dignified, swinging of the door. The Czar acknowledged him.
Bonjour, Alphonse. Merci
. Alphonse, not dropping a note, whistled them through.

Jaime wasn't finished. “So the dude's got a hot brain but a nose that's out of joint. What does he do when someone chucks his stuff back at him? Grab ‘em by the throat?”

“Too clever for that, Jaime. He goes cold, looks you in the eye and hammers you with logic. A frontal assault. It unnerves people. They conclude they should meet Mr. Pryce as seldom as they can.”

“Heavy.”

“Deep down, we think, he may be living in hell.”

“Hot stuff.”

“Hot? I don't know. He was married once, so maybe he is, or was for somebody. With his reasoning power he wouldn't have done that just for the free sex. He'd have seen that if that's all marriage is, the price is too steep. So there must have been some feeling. Possibly some lingers.” They were traversing a remote part of Operations Tower. When they stood before a back staircase, Heywood stopped to catch his breath.

“Him? He tied the knot? When?”

“Before he joined, I think. In university maybe. Or high school even.”

“No way.”

“Sure.”

“Where?”

“Here.”

In the half-light of the barren stairwell, the Czar rested one foot on the first step and leaned heavily on the railing while Jaime
continued her questions. During Heywood's Investiture days, when he'd been keeper of the people files, he had pawed at them like a bear. Fantastic stories in them all. Touching descriptions of moral calamities and careful renderings of human failings. Each file was a book and each book took strange twists. The Czar knew all there was to know about Carson Pryce. During their slow climb up the stairs he recounted what he once read.