Deadline (12 page)

Jack hunkered down, squatting on his haunches behind a Honda Civic, and peered over the hood at his own building. He was starting to shiver from the cold when the front door opened and two heavyset men carrying flashlights stepped into the light. At first, Jack thought they were going to get into the black Buick parked in front of his building, but they walked around it and headed toward him. When one of them shone his light at the nearby cars, the hair on the back of Jack’s neck stood up and his stomach dropped.

He ducked his head, turned and crawled across the dirty floor, to the rear of the parking lot into the alley behind. He took cover behind the building and ran towards the chest-high chain link fence at the back of the property. He jumped, jammed his toes into the mesh and hauled himself up and over, already out of breath. He dropped to the other side, in the parking lot of another building, slipped on the dirty ice, banged his kneecap, but kept running, limping now, in a crouch.

At the sidewalk, Jack looked over his shoulder and saw a dark figure approaching the fence he had just climbed. Cursing all the cigarettes he ever smoked, he turned right and ran downhill in the shadows of the rundown houses and shabby apartment buildings. He darted across another street and kept going, arms and legs pumping, lungs bursting. Halfway down the next block, he stumbled over the lip of a concrete path and fell hard into a shrub. He was pulling himself to his feet when headlights lit up the houses across from him.

He stayed down, breathing heavily, his face on the frozen ground, and peered out from beneath the branches of the shrub. A black Buick crept along the street and stopped a few houses ahead. When the red reverse lights went on, he pulled himself to his knees and took off in the direction from which he had come.

When Sophie got home to the little apartment she shared with Ed, she collapsed on the couch and looked around the room. She thought she had cried herself out, but as her gaze passed over their possessions, she felt a fresh wave of bitter emotion wash over her. Ed’s personality was all over the place. When she turned away from his lobster trap coffee table her eyes landed on his sprawling collection of CDs and DVDs, and she couldn’t help but cry. Being in the place where they had spent so much time together made her realize how alone she felt without him. She wept freely. She could almost see Ed once more prancing through the apartment, waving his arms, telling a story, or cooking breakfast in his underwear. She had no idea if he would ever do that again.

When she had moved to Ottawa after she finished university in Quebec City, Sophie had been lonely and unhappy. She missed her carefree school days, missed her friends and family, missed the night life and found it hard to make friends with her new anglophone colleagues in Greg Mowat’s office, who were nice but seemed bland.

When she started to go out with Ed, the whole city changed for her. He was larger than life, a blowhard and a braggart who always had to be the centre of attention, but who was also warm and funny. She liked his Newfoundland friends, who were more spontaneous and fun than the many serious westerners who had come to work for the Tories.

Now Ed was lying on his back, unable to move, staring at the ceiling, and the spark she loved was gone from his eyes. It was hard to imagine that he would ever be here with her again, animating her life with his presence.

So she sat and cried for a while, and then thought of her mother in Rivière-du-Loup, and how she had had to go on raising six children after losing her oldest child, and only son, who died in a motorcycle accident at sixteen. Her mother had struggled with sadness and depression since then, but somehow found the strength to come back to her surviving children and raise them with joy, although Sophie had occasionally caught her with a look of deep sadness in her eyes.

“I can be tough if I have to be,” said Sophie to herself. She dried her eyes, poured herself a glass of wine and turned her attention to her BlackBerry.

She lost herself reading work emails for a while, and then remembered that she should let her boss know that she had talked to Jack.

She sent him a quick message, telling him what Jack had said. Her phone rang immediately.

“Sophie,” said Mowat. “How are you?”

“Okay,” she said. “Tired.”

“How is Ed?” asked Mowat.

“No change,” said Sophie. “He was just lying there, staring at the ceiling, or at least he was until the nurses closed his eyes.”

“Well,” said Mowat. “It’s early yet. All we can do is hope and pray. He’s a tough kid.”

“I know,” said Sophie.

“Well, look, I should let you rest, but I want to ask you about your friend Jack. You say he told you he doesn’t know anything about where Ed’s BlackBerry is.”

“That’s right,” said Sophie.

“Now in one of the messages he sent you last night, he said he was going to give it to Jack to hold on to. Did Jack tell you he gave it back to him?”

“Well, I didn’t ask him about that. He just told me that he thought Ed had it when he saw him last. He said they were really drunk.”

“You think he’s telling the truth?”

“I think so. It was over the phone, so it’s hard to tell.”

“I’d like you ask him about it in person,” he said. “Sometimes people remember things better after they’ve had a chance to think about it. Or he might be lying. Do you think you can do that?”

“I will,” said Sophie. “I understand it’s important. I’ll do it as soon as I can.”

“Thanks,” said Mowat. “Also, can you come into the office tomorrow morning? Just for an hour or so?”

“I was planning to do that,” said Sophie.

“Okay,” said Mowat. He hesitated before adding, “Thank you so much, Sophie. I wish I could tell you how grateful I am to you for your support, and I wish I could do more to help you right now.”

“I know,” said Sophie, very quietly.

As minister of public safety, Greg Mowat had an office on the top floor of the Terrasses de la Chaudière complex, a massive, ugly, Trudeau-era complex of government buildings in Hull, across the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill. The office was furnished with simple old furniture – no minister wants to risk a bad news story by blowing tax dollars on new furniture – but the office was huge and a wall of glass windows looked over the river to the picturesque neo-gothic Parliament buildings, now lit up and sparkling in the dark.

Mowat was tired. After he got off the phone with Sophie, he walked to the windows and watched the wind-driven snow swirl outside. He sat back down to go through a printout of the hundreds of PINs Sophie had sent or received in the past month. He rubbed his eyes from time to time, and made notes, struggling with exhaustion. He was relieved when Bouchard came to his door, holding another copy of the same printouts.

“I’ve been through these twice now and highlighted all the ones that are of concern,” he said. “I’ll cross-check them tomorrow with the ones you highlight, and make sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“That’s good, Claude,” said Mowat. “I think I’m about to give up for tonight. I’m running out of gas. We should both pack it in.”

Bouchard’s BlackBerry buzzed then. He looked at the call display.

“It’s Balusi,” he said.

“Put him on speaker,” said Mowat, and he walked over to the window to look out at the snow as he listened to the call.

“Hello, Ismael,” said Bouchard.

“We have a little problem, Claude,” said Balusi.

“What is it?”

“Knowles just called me into his office. He was watching the scrum tape from today over and over, and he’s suspicious.”

Mowat turned away from the window and fixed his eyes on Bouchard.

“What do you mean?” said Bouchard.

“He seems to think that someone in your shop leaked the news of Stevens’s resignation. Mowat’s lines were so good compared to everyone else’s. I guess the boss is pissed off about the leak and he’s pushing Knowles to find out who blabbed.”

“Shit,” said Bouchard. “Will Simms keep her mouth shut?”

“She will if she ever wants to get another story from me,” said Balusi.

Bouchard and Mowat exchanged worried looks. If the leak were pinned on this office, it would be very bad for news. Some governments leak like sieves, but Stevens had made it crystal clear time and time again that his government would not allow leaks. From time to time, Knowles and other top PMO staff spread false information to ministerial staffers and then watched for it to show up in a column or a blog. Mowat and Bouchard both knew veteran Hill staffers who suddenly found themselves sidelined after being caught in such a trap.

“What do you think we should do?” Bouchard asked.

“Confess,” said Balusi. “Call Knowles, tell him you just learned that someone on the staff leaked the news, and assure him you’re taking action.”

Mowat nodded at Bouchard. He mouthed one word: Sophie.

“Okay,” Bouchard said. “We can do that. Thanks.”

After Bouchard hung up, Mowat tapped in a number on the desk phone and waited for an answer.

“Rupert,” he said when the call went through. “It’s Greg Mowat here. I hope I didn’t get you out of bed.”

“No,” said Knowles. “Of course not. I just got home. About to look in on the kids. What can I do for you, Minister?”

“Well, I wanted to have a quiet word,” he said. “I just found that my office may have had something to do with the leak today to Simms about Stevens’s resignation.” He was speaking quickly, rushing to get out everything he had to say.

“I see,” said Knowles.

“Yes,” said Mowat. “Claude just came to me and explained what he thinks happened, and I thought I should let you know right away. If I know the prime minister, he’s got you trying to figure out how it happened, and I don’t want you guys chasing your tails when we already know. I know how the prime minister feels about leaks, and this one made me feel queasy. It spoiled a historic moment for him.”

“How did it happen?”

“Well, I’m responsible. It was a staff member, but the person is going to get a good talking to about it, and I can guarantee that it won’t happen again. I suspect there may be a more innocent explanation than it seems at first. Some of these darned reporters, you got to watch yourself or you’re telling them something by mistake. It’s a young staffer, and we’d like a chance to figure out exactly what happened internally, if you’ll give us the chance.”

Knowles was quiet for a moment.

“A young staffer?” he said. “Are you talking about Sophie Fortin?”

“Well,” said Mowat. “We want to deal with it here, if you don’t mind. Sophie’s a great kid and she’s under a lot of stress today. Her boyfriend, Ed Sawatski, young fellow works for Donahoe, he fell into the canal last night and he’s in hospital in a coma, so you can imagine how upset the poor girl must be.”

“I’m aware of that, Minister,” said Knowles.

“Of course you are,” said Mowat. “Look, the last thing she needs is to be worrying about her job at a time like this. If it was her that leaked it, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find that she’d been a tiny bit careless in the way she dealt with Simms. It’s my fault for telling any staff after the meeting.

“Anyway, can you let me and Claude handle this?” he asked. “Keep it unofficial? I mean, when it comes down to it, I’m responsible for the darned leak.”

Knowles didn’t say anything for a moment and Mowat and Bouchard looked nervously back and forth at one another, waiting.

“Okay, Minister,” Knowles said eventually. “Thanks for calling me. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we need any follow-up.”