Deadline (47 page)

She was surprised again when the door opened and Bouchard came out with Doug Amos, the deputy minister, neither of them looking pleased.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Bouchard?” said Marie-Hélène, falling into stride with them as they headed for the exit.

He gave her a little smile and nod. “Everything’s fine thanks, Marie-Hélène.”

The deputy minister didn’t even look at her.

Sophie had ejected them by walking in and holding the door open.

“I’m sorry gentlemen,” she’d said. “I wouldn’t dream of doing this normally, but something urgent has come up that demands the minister’s attention immediately.”

Greg Mowat raised his eyebrow at Sophie’s interruption, stood, smiled apologetically at Amos, promised to call him soon, and turned to hear what Sophie had for him, wearing an expression of polite curiosity. His mouth tightened and his eyes widened when Jack followed Sophie in and he froze, awkwardly, half sitting, half standing, with his hands on his desk.

Jack frowned deferentially and leaned on the closed door. Sophie stood in front of the desk.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “But this is very important. If you disagree with me, if you think I have overstepped my bounds by barging in here, I’ll resign today without complaint, but you are going to have to give us a few minutes first.”

Jack stuck out his hand. “I’m Jack Macdonald, late of the St. John’s
Telegram
.”

Mowat looked at Jack’s hand as if someone were offering him something unpleasant to eat. He sat down heavily without taking it. “What’s this about, Sophie?” he said.

“Jack has a presentation for you, minister.” she said. “It’ll just take a few minutes”

Mowat nodded and his expression said, this had better be good.

Sophie pointed Jack to the projector, and he plugged in his laptop. Sophie pulled down a screen on the wall, and closed the blinds, one after another, blocking the view of the Ottawa River, until the room was half-dark.

Jack checked the projector and nodded at Sophie. She switched off the lights and leaned against the wall. When Jack clicked on an icon on the desktop, the screen was filled with a video of Mowat and Sophie and Sawatski in Sophie’s bedroom. They were naked. The men were on their knees on the bed, with Sophie between them. Ed was in front of her and Mowat was behind her. He wore an animal grimace of pleasure.

After staring in silence for 30 seconds, Mowat spoke. “That’s enough,” he said in a cold voice.

Jack clicked pause. “That’s the video we retrieved last night from Ed Sawatski’s BlackBerry,” he said. “I have had that Berry since the night that Inspector Emil Dupré put Ed in the canal and left him for dead, but we just got the password last night.”

He shut the video program and opened a PDF. “This is an affidavit, describing how I came into possession of the BlackBerry, and the various attempts to get it from me. Twice Inspector Dupré has tried to kill me.”

Jack clicked the file shut. “Sophie’s lawyer, Jonah Chisholm, is in possession of this affidavit, in a sealed envelope, and of the preceding video,” he said. “He also has a copy of the following video.” He clicked an icon and the screen showed Dupré entering Jack’s living room, taking the BlackBerry, and Jack’s voice over the webcam.

“I recorded this video remotely about ten minutes ago,” he said. “I set up a web cam in my apartment. I set the alarm on the BlackBerry, so it would go off at 8:30 this morning, with the goal of catching Dupré breaking and entering my apartment, in the hopes that the evidence, along with the evidence on the other video and in my affidavit, would provide sufficient cause for the authorities to take action and stop Dupré from killing me as, I suspect, he tried to kill Ed.” He let his words sink it for a minute. “I also informed the Ottawa Police Service about the potential break and enter and they likely have Dupré in custody now.”

Sophie switched on the lights and sat down.

“Greg,” she said. “This man tried to kill Jack, and he turned Ed into a vegetable. Did you ask him to do those things?”

Mowat’s face was still and expressionless.

“Sir,” said Jack, taking out his BlackBerry. “If you don’t give us answers, the truth, I will call Chisholm and ask him to open the envelope and distribute the contents to the Ottawa Police Service, the
Commission
for Public
Complaints
Against the
RCMP
, and to the Ottawa Press Gallery.”

Sophie repeated her question: “Greg, did you ask Dupré to kill Ed? Did you ask him to kill Jack?”

Mowat finally reacted. He spoke very quietly. “Are you recording this, right now?” he asked.

“No,” said Sophie. “I would never agree to that.”

Mowat turned to her, searched her face and turned to Jack. “Is this an interview? Will you use this conversation in a story?”

“Under no circumstances,” said Jack. “I don’t know if I will ever write about this. But I need to know.”

Mowat turned in his chair to stare at the closed blinds. He sat upright and spoke without inflection.

“On Oct. 18, there was a reception in the West Block, for the Canadian Television Fund,” he said. “I stopped by after work to have a Coke and say hello. Ed came up to me then and grabbed me by the arm, quite hard, and leaned in and whispered in my ear. He said: ‘There’s a video. Sophie doesn’t know it, but I have a video of the three of us.’

“He gave me a funny, kind of manic smile. I managed to get away from him, but he emailed me the next day, asking for a meeting. Against my better judgement, I invited him to pop by here, before work, a week ago today. He didn’t mention the video, but he told me he wanted a job. He told me he wanted to be my principal secretary after I become prime minister. He offered to help me win, by sabotaging Donahoe’s campaign from the inside, and he said he had a guarantee that I wouldn’t double-cross him, which he would surrender to me after the election, if I honoured my commitment.”

“Oh my God,” said Sophie, under her breath. “Ed.”

“When he told me he had a guarantee, he patted his BlackBerry and winked at me,” Mowat said, turning back to face her. “I told him I admired his work for Donahoe, and I would very carefully consider his offer, and I hustled him out the door.”

He sat in silence for a moment.

“Then what did you do?” said Jack quietly.

“I was very upset, as you can imagine,” said Mowat. “I decided to resign. I drafted a letter to the prime minister, which I did not send.”

He lapsed into silence again.

“What did you do?” said Jack, almost a whisper. But Mowat was lost in thought, and Sophie had to say his name before he would respond.

Jack repeated his question.

“I spoke to Duncan Wheeler later that day,” said Mowat. “I had got to know him pretty well since I took over the portfolio. I like him. Trust him. We see eye to eye about a lot of things.”

“And?” said Jack.

Mowat turned to him.

“He was sitting where you are,” he said. “Just the two of us in here. I broached the subject with him. Told him I was being blackmailed. Told him I was thinking of resigning. Told him I didn’t want to do that, but I’d be damned if I let some little punk blackmail me. No way of knowing where it would end.”

“What did he say?” said Jack.

“He told me not to do anything in a rush,” he said. “He told me to see if the blackmailer could be reasoned with. ‘I have a fellow,’ he said. ‘A very good man, someone I would trust with my life, very psychologically astute character, good with people. Name of Emil Dupré. Let me send this fellow to have a chat with the punk. See if he would give up the video right now. Explain to him that we don’t play that way. Get him to see the light.’ ”

“So you said yes,” said Jack.

“I said, ‘Yes, thank you, let’s give it a try. Christ. I can always resign tomorrow.’”

“But something went wrong,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Mowat. “Early the next morning, Wheeler called me, insisted that I see him. He arrived in a big rush, out of breath, told me that Dupré had accidentally killed the boy. He trailed him all night – the two of you, I suppose – and then waited for him at his building, your building, Sophie. Ed was completely drunk. Dupré grabbed him easily enough, put him in the car, told him he was charging him with blackmail. He parked on Sparks Street and walked with him up to the Peace Tower, past the East Block, and then onto the path that loops down to the locks. He was trying to reason with him, telling him how politics works, telling him he was in too much of a rush, telling him, I suppose, that he would be looked after, if only he would give us the video, not after I become prime minister, but right away.

“Ed must have been scared, but he wouldn’t say where his BlackBerry was,” said Mowat. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there, but I suspect that Dupré misjudged him, thought he was hiding something when he wasn’t. I think Ed was just too drunk to remember what he’d done with it.

“Evidently, Dupré marched him down by the locks, under the bridge, and decided to persuade him by dunking his head in the water there, and holding him under for a spell. He put handcuffs on him and forced his head under the water. He thought that would be persuasive. God knows what happened, but Dupré miscalculated and drowned him. When he realized what he had done, he removed the cuffs and dumped him in the canal. He believed he was dead. He was sure of it.”

Sophie made a small choking noise and Jack turned to notice that she was crying quietly, and appeared to have been doing so for a while. Her cheeks were wet and her chin was trembling. Jack stood to comfort her, but she waved him off. He turned back to Mowat, gathered his thoughts.

“Then later you found out he was still alive,” he said.

“Yes. And we thought you had the BlackBerry, or might have. Wheeler told me to let him handle it. He didn’t tell me how he was going to handle it, but he said he would. I didn’t know they tried to kill you. I didn’t think they would do that.”

“No?” said Jack.

“No,” said Mowat. “Honestly, by that point I was so rattled I didn’t know what to think. It has been a terrible, terrible week. I wish so much that I had resigned straightaway.” He smiled slightly. “I guess that’s the good news now. I can resign now. That’s the bright side. Ha.”

Sophie stopped crying. “No,” she said. “No you can’t resign.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” said Dupré, when they slapped the cuffs on him. “I have identified myself as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer. I am here on police business, on a national security investigation.”

“Do you have a warrant?” said Flanagan. “If you have a warrant to search that apartment, I’ll release you right now. Otherwise, you’re under arrest for breaking and entering.”

Flanagan patted the Mountie down, took the BlackBerry, pistol and silencer.

“I am an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, here on police business,” said Dupré. “Please release me immediately.”

Flanagan passed the weapon and the phone to Ashton. She put them in plastic evidence bags while Flanagan hustled Dupré down the stairs.

“If we get a ballistic match on this, you’re fucked,” he said. “You shot an ambassador’s son.”

“You are making a mistake here,” said Dupré. “You’re going to regret this.”

Ashton called Zwicker while Donavon put Dupré in the back of the cruiser.

“We arrested him,” she said. “We caught him leaving Macdonald’s apartment. He has a pistol, a silencer and a cell phone belonging to Ed Sawatski.”

“What’s he saying?” said Zwicker.

“He has identified himself as an officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” said Ashton. “He says he is here on police business, on a national security investigation.”

“Fuck,” said Zwicker. “What did you charge him with?”

“Breaking and entering,” she said. “He failed to produce a warrant.”

“Okay,” said Zwicker. “That’s good enough to bring him in. I think we’re okay there. Bring him in. Tell him I’m calling Wheeler.”