Deadline (4 page)

“Not me,” said Ashton. “Too many cameras around. The city might be pretty sleepy at 4:30, but security cameras never sleep. This is in the shadow of Parliament Hill. Must be cameras all over the place.”

“I’ll see if we can get some video from last night,” said Flanagan. “I don’t suppose we can get a diver to go in, see if there’s anything on the bottom?”

Ashton shook her head.

“They don’t want to pay for it,” said Ashton. “Not for what might be an accident. It’s too bad. I talked to Sawatski’s boss. They’re worried about this. The kid’s BlackBerry wasn’t on him when he was pulled out of the canal. There may be sensitive information on it, and they would like to know where it is.”

“Well, it will soon be too late to send down a diver,” said Flanagan. “The canal’s already freezing up. It’s supposed to go down to minus 30 tonight and stay below minus 25 all week.”

NTV reporter Ellen Simms made an impression when she entered Metropolitan, a bistro a few minutes’ walk from Parliament Hill. Most of the diners recognized her from the nightly news, and those who couldn’t place her watched her just as closely as those who could. She had a mesmerizing quality that drew eyes to her – a blank, perfect face, with a pouty mouth and small, sharp pretty blue eyes. Everything about her was store-bought. The high, pointy breasts, the carefully cascading reddish hair, the high heels and stylish leather skirt, the Dolce and Gabanna handbag, the diamond earrings. Everything but that perfect doll’s face, and the twitch in her hips when she walked. But that was enough to turn all the heads in the restaurant.

Fred Murphy, Ottawa bureau chief for NTV, stood when she came to the table. She smiled, apologized for being late, moved her head so that her hair flipped off her shoulder, and leaned in for a two-cheek kiss.

He already had a beer in front of him. The waiter appeared, in no time at all, to take her drink order. A Pinot Grigio? Fine. Great. Thanks.

Murphy almost had to tell the waiter to buzz off the way he hovered after she had ordered. Instead, he congratulated himself for being past the point where a bombshell like Simms made him act the fool.

At sixty-two, after more than thirty years of working on the Hill, Murphy was the reporter with the most juice in Ottawa. The lead political reporter for the top-rated English TV channel in Canada, he had chits to bargain with, and he knew how to play them. He was ruthless in pursuit of a story, and came up with the goods time and time again, carefully cultivating connections that could get him the stories, no matter what the camp. He was the top dog when the Liberals were in, and he was the top dog now that the Conservatives were in.

But he had a problem with Ellen.

The camera loved her. His bosses in Toronto loved her. Some politicians loved her. He feared her, though, because he couldn’t trust her work. He had caught her lying to him twice in the six months since she’d come up from Thunder Bay, hungry for the big time. Once she had completely missed the obvious angle on the biggest story of the day, and blamed a cameraman – a level-headed veteran whom she should have known better than to disparage. Murphy knew the cameraman hadn’t made the rookie mistake but he checked anyway, and found that she had indeed lied to him. He kept that to himself.

Then she stole an investigative story from a researcher and claimed it at as her own, even hinting who her source was, when the researcher had told a producer a week earlier what she was working on, and the producer had told Ed. Ed had kept a straight face and quietly let the researcher know that he knew whose story it was, and put something nice in her file.

He had hoped that Simms would settle down when she found her legs in Ottawa, when it sunk in that she was where she belonged and didn’t have to lie or steal or cheat to get ahead, that she already was ahead, that there was no farther ahead to get, not in this country. But she hadn’t changed, and if the rumours were to be believed, was even willing to sleep with sources for stories. She had broken up at least two marriages in Thunder Bay, and had managed to win a good divorce settlement just as she moved to Ottawa. Since then, he knew that she had slept with several MPs, and could only imagine that she did so for the information they could offer her.

It offended Ed’s Catholic sensibility, but if she was ready to get dirty with party hacks as old and broken down as he was, well, that was her call and it was unlikely to come back on him, or NTV. It wasn’t his business what she did in bed. What made him nervous was the desperation behind it. If she would do that, what else would she do?

After hearing the most recent rumour, which had her picking up a minor scoop in the bedroom of the Conservative party whip, he decided to invite her for lunch, planning to take her temperature, size her up better, and, most of all, let her know that he was damned pleased with her work, very impressed, let her know that he was 100 per cent behind her. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was the only approach he thought might be helpful – to let her know that he had her back. Maybe, over time, this positive reinforcement would take the edge off her frantic ambition. Maybe he could show her how he worked, how he developed relationships with sources, over decades, always playing it honest. Not nice, but honest. He would put the knife in if he had to, but he would put it in the belly, not the back, explaining calmly why he had to do it as he slid it in. It was the story. Nothing could get in the way of the story. It was business, and the smart ones understood that, and the stupid ones usually didn’t know much of anything anyway. He thought that if she could learn how the long game was played, he might be able to come to trust her.

“How the hell are you, superstar?” he said as she settled in. “What do you know?”

She gave him the big smile, the heartbreaker, and plopped a BlackBerry and an iPhone on the table in front of her.

“I’m great,” she said, giving her shoulders a little shimmy. “You know, chasing stories, breaking hearts, having fun.”

He laughed and it crossed his mind that maybe he worried about her too much.

“Take it easy on them, kid,” he said. “You don’t have to kill every fucking fish the first time you go to the lake.”

They laughed together.

“Reminds me of a joke,” he said. “It’s a bit, uh, spicy, but with your permission.”

“My favourite kind,” she said, and smiled as if she meant it.

“Well, there’s an old buffalo and a young buffalo up at the top of a bluff in Saskatchewan,” he said. “And what do they see? A herd of lovely buffalo cows, real beauties, chewing on the grass, looking pretty as buffalo cows can look. Real hotties, eh. The young buffalo gets all excited, he starts prancing on the spot. The old buffalo turns to him, says ‘What are you getting so excited about, young fellow?’ The young buffalo looks up at him, says, ‘Look at all them beautiful cows down there! Just look at them. Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s run down there and fuck one of them!’ ”

He smiled, getting ready for the punchline, when her BlackBerry rang, its screen flashed. Murphy could read the upside-down call display: Ismael Balusi.

She grimaced, showing her perfect teeth.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Sorry. Shit. I really have to take this. It could be big. Excuse me.”

She got up from the table and he watched her walk away, talking, gesturing with her free hand.

She looked nervous when she came back two minutes later. She took a long drink of wine.

“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’m
really
sorry. I just got a tip, a big story.”

He put on his game face.

“What’s the story?” he said.

“I’ve promised to hold it until 2 p.m.,” she said and looked at her watch. “If I tell you, you have to promise you won’t say a word to anybody.”

She stared at him.

“It’s big,” she said.

He scowled.

“All right,” he said. “I promise, goddamn it. What is it?”

She drained her wine.

“Stevens is quitting,” she said. “He’s announcing it today.”

I
SMAEL
B
ALUSI STROLLED
out of Stevens’s suite of offices on the second floor of the Centre Block just before 2 p.m. and the start of Question Period. He looked down over the stone railing into the foyer of the House of Commons and watched as Ellen Simms and a cameraman set themselves up in front of the elaborately carved wooden doors that lead to the chamber. Simms shooed away a print reporter who was standing in the background of her shot and started a live stand-up. Balusi slipped back into his office to watch it on TV.

Jack Macdonald didn’t usually go to the foyer before Question Period, but he needed to get his recorder in front of some Newfoundland MPs for his Ramia story, and they might try to dodge him on the way out of the House. He was leaning against the entrance to the chamber when Simms came in, her hips rocking from side to side, heels clicking on the marble floor, red hair bobbing. He watched her with a slow-burning lust, a voice in the back of his head panting and growling like a dog.

He smiled at her, but she ignored him until she had stationed herself in front of the doors, checked her hair and makeup and talked to the control room in Toronto. Then she looked around, noticed Jack and frowned. She took two steps over to him.

“Hi,” she said. “You’re going to be in our shot there, so if you don’t mind just moving to the other side that would be great.”

She gave him a smile that lasted about a second and turned away without waiting for a response.

The voice in the back of his head didn’t like that:
What the fuck? This is the foyer of the fucking House of Commons. I’ll stand wherever the fuck I want to stand.
But Jack obeyed her. He stepped behind her cameraman and watched as she began her standup, straining to hear what she was saying.

“Jim, we can report at this hour that Prime Minister Bruce Stevens is stepping down. Sources have told NTV that he informed his cabinet earlier today that he will stay in office until the end of the year, launching a leadership race to choose his successor – the next leader of the Conservative party, and prime minister of Canada. Mr. Stevens is planning to announce his decision at a news conference this afternoon.

“The prime minister has led the party through three elections, forming three consecutive minorities. I’m told he had promised his wife that he would not fight another election, and he believes that this is the right time for a change. We’re told he wants a three-month leadership campaign, so the new leader can take over in March.”

She paused and listened to the host in Toronto, nodding her head at the camera.

“That’s right, Jim,” she said. “This news is sure to send shockwaves throughout Parliament Hill. Everybody will be wondering who will be the next leader, and you can bet the potential candidates are already planning their moves very carefully.”

She again nodded and listened to the host.

“Well, Jim, it’s early yet to guess who might run, but the two names we hear most often are Public Safety Minister Greg Mowat, from Swift Current, Saskatchewan and Justice Minister Jim Donahoe, from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. We’re hoping to catch them as they come into the chamber now.”

MPs were starting to arrive at the Centre Block, none of them aware that the news of Stevens’s decision had leaked. Simms’s first victim was Emily Wong, the minister for national revenue.

“Ms. Wong,” said Simms. “What’s your reaction to the prime minister’s announcement today?”

“No comment,” said Wong. “I think I’d better leave that to the prime minister.”

Simms turned to the camera. “There we have what appears to be confirmation of the news that Prime Minister Stevens has told his cabinet colleagues that he is planning to step down.” She glanced to the side, “Oh, and here’s Jim Donahoe.”

With a chiselled jaw, aquiline nose, piercing blue eyes and greying blond hair, the justice minister had the air of an aging soap opera star, and he usually approached the cameras with the ease and comfort of a veteran performer, but he frowned in discomfort when Simms stepped in front of him and the hot light hit his face.

“Mr. Donahoe,” she said. “Will you be a candidate to succeed Mr. Stevens?”

The smile on his handsome face soured. “It’s far too early for that kind of decision,” he said. “I have had some calls, asking me to run, but I haven’t had even a moment to consider it, and would have to talk to my wife before I give it any thought at all. We’re focusing on the business of government.”

He seemed to realize suddenly that he had struck the wrong tone, and frowned. Simms spat another question. “Are those calls from cabinet colleagues? I’m told that so far only the cabinet has been informed.”

Donahoe’s smile was back.

“I think for the moment we should leave this to the prime minister,” he said. “This is the prime minister’s decision, and his announcement to make and I’ll leave speculation to the, uh, speculators.”

And he stepped around Simms and the cameraman.

Mowat was next at the door, striding hurriedly but smiling, the picture of a busy, hard-working silver-haired man with steel-rimmed spectacles, on his way to conduct important business, a faint smile on his face. He was followed closely by his press secretary, Sophie Fortin.