Deadline (9 page)

He stepped away and started for the elevators, but Cochrane lingered.

“Sophie,” he said. “This could be very important. If you get any idea of where Ed’s BlackBerry is, I need you to let me know. Even before the police. It’s a question of national security.”

Sophie nodded, he squeezed her arm and turned to go.

In the lobby, as Donahoe and Cochrane waited for the elevator, the door opened and Greg Mowat and Donahoe came unexpectedly face to face. Mowat’s face turned momentarily into a scowl, then brightened. He was trailed by Claude Bouchard, his chief of staff.

“Jim!” said Mowat. “You must have come to look in on Ed. How is the poor fellow?”

“He hasn’t said a word since they pulled him from the water. His parents and Sophie were sitting with him when I arrived. They’re very upset.”

“I can well imagine,” said Mowat. “A terrible shock. And do the doctors know how long it might be before the boy pulls out of this?”

Donahoe shook his head. “No idea when or if.”

“Well I just wanted to peek in on Sophie,” Mowat said. “She must be beside herself.”

The Sawatskis had returned to their son’s bedside by the time Mowat arrived.

“Minister!” said Sophie, and jumped to her feet.

“I’m sorry to barge in,” he said. “But I wanted to see how you were doing, Sophie.”

She rushed toward him and gave him a hug. He pulled her to him, and patted her back. Then she remembered herself and pulled herself away, flustered and crying. Mowat pulled a hanky from his pocket and gave it to her. Then he turned to the Sawatskis.

“I’m Greg Mowat,” he said, reaching out to shake Tom Sawatski’s hand.

“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. My daughter Clarissa was badly hurt in a fall from a horse a few years ago. She had a broken leg, a concussion, was unconscious when we got to the hospital. Maude and I were frightened out of our wits. There’s nothing worse than sitting by the hospital bed of your own child. We sure did some praying.”

Beverley Sawatski looked up from her chair, holding her son’s hand in her own.

“It’s just so frightening,” she said. “The doctors can’t tell us anything.”

“Well, Ed will be in my prayers,” said Mowat. “And Maude’s. She’s been praying for your boy ever since I called to tell her what happened.

He walked over to the bed and looked down at Ed, who was still staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. “Son, we know you’re a fighter. We’re pulling for you.”

He shook hands again with Ed’s father, and held Ed’s mother’s hands in his. “I just know your boy’s going to come through.”

He turned to his press secretary. “Sophie. Will you walk with me to the elevator?”

Bouchard was waiting for them in an empty waiting room by the elevators, his laptop open in front of him. He stood and gave Sophie a hug.

“I’m sorry to do this to you right now,” he said, “but I have to ask you a few questions. It’s a police investigation and we have to know what’s going on.”

Sophie nodded sat down, quickly gathered her thoughts and professionally told them what she knew about the night before.

“That poor boy sure has a wild side, going off to the French ballet with a reporter till all hours,”
said Mowat, shaking his head.

“Did he send you any messages?” asked Bouchard.

“Yes,” said Sophie.

“I need you to give me your BlackBerry for a minute or two,” he said.

Sophie handed it over. “They’re kind of personal.”

“We need to figure this out, Sophie,” he said. “We might be able to find something that helps the police.”

“I already gave them the messages Ed sent me last night,” she said.

“All the more reason we need to see them,” he said.

Bouchard plugged her cell phone into a USB cord and bent to the keyboard.

Sophie looked at Mowat. “I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me when you read all my messages.”

Mowat gave her a reassuring smile. “I can tell you right now that there’s nothing on that phone that can change the way we feel about you and your work. You have nothing to worry about.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Okay?”

She nodded.

“Now there’s one more thing,” he said. “Do you know where Ed’s BlackBerry got to?”

She shook her head. “No. I told the police and Jim Donahoe the same thing. He had it when he went to Pigale, because he messaged me from there, but I don’t know where it went. Maybe it’s in the water.”

“Any chance the reporter has it?”

“Maybe,” she said. She looked down at her hands.

“What is it?” he said.

“You’re going to read it anyway,” she said. “Ed went for a lap dance. He messaged me right before. Told me he was leaving his phone with Jack for safekeeping. I don’t know if he gave it back or not.”

Mowat looked at her for a long moment. “You need to find out for me, okay? You need to go and see Jack, and you need to ask him to give you the BlackBerry, and give it to me. It’s really important that we see that phone before the police do. It’s a question of national security.”

“That’s what Cochrane said,” said Sophie.

Mowat and Bouchard exchanged a glance.

“Well, you let us know before you tell anyone, Sophie,” said Bouchard. “Okay?”

“Yes, of course,” she said.

Mowat took hold of her by her shoulders.

“Can you handle this, honey?” he asked. “Are you strong enough?”

Sophie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I have to find out what happened to the BlackBerry.”

“And don’t tell anyone that we had this talk, okay?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”

“That’s my girl,” said Mowat. “I’m proud of you. In the years ahead, I’m going to need people who can keep cool when things get hot. I won’t forget how tough you are.”

Awkwardly, he hugged her again, and stood.

“Now, are you finished with that darned thing, Claude?”

The first taste of beer brought Macdonald back to life.

After his interview with Flanagan, he thought his hangover would kill him. The stress of the day settled on him like a heavy weight, and he was suddenly terribly thirsty. He drove to his little Sandy Hill apartment, left his car in the parking lot and walked straight to Chez Lucien, a hole in the wall in the Byward Market, with friendly waitresses, a jukebox with no bad songs, and a long wooden bar where you could sit and drink pints in peace.

The first pint of Griffon Blonde took the worst edge off his hangover, and Jack had a chance to think back through his long, strange day: the police interview, the chaos on the Hill following the news that Stevens was resigning, and his terrible hangover from that morning.

By the time he started his second pint, he was thinking back to the night before and how hammered he’d been to agree to go to Pigale at 2 a.m. on a Monday.

He could remember arriving, taking a table near the main stage, ordering four beers and staring at the naked, tattooed girls crawling on stage. After a few songs, they had gone out for a smoke out in the cold. Jack remembered Ed babbling at him as they shivered and sucked at their cigarettes, his Newfoundland accent stronger than usual.

“B’y, I’m going to own this fucking town inside a year. Just you wait, buddy, I won’t forget you. I’ll hire you to be a D Comms, and you can forget about being a fuckin’ reporter.”

“Don’t be so foolish,” said Jack. “You’re a just a little Newfie crackie, like me, buddy, yappin at the heels of the old bastards who run this town.”

“No, I’m making a move. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. I’m going to be on my way to the top soon enough.”

“Sure, b’y, I’m sure you’ll be prime minister inside a year.”

“I won’t be prime minister, but I might be at the right hand of a prime minister.” Taking in Jack’s drunken, sceptical face, he had laughed. “Do you know the definition of a transition period? The period between two transition periods. Think about it.”

After that, Jack couldn’t remember much but getting into another cab.

He took a drink of beer and pulled Ed’s BlackBerry from his pocket, and put it on the bar. He took the battery from his and put it in Ed’s.

When it was booted up, Jack hit Unlock. The screen gave him a password prompt. He sat there staring at the screen. He had already tried SOPHIE. He tried NEWFIE then TOWNIE.

Jack drained his second pint, dropped the phone back in his pocket and headed downstairs to the bathroom.

Balfour was at home watching a porn video on his home computer, one hand down the front of his sweat pants and the other gripping a bubba cup full of Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, when his phone buzzed. He pulled his hand out of his pants, hit pause, the screen freezing on a close-up of fellatio, and grabbed the Berry. It was an automatic message from the application tracking the missing BlackBerry:

He shut down the video, made a secure connection to his office network, and signed into the application. A map of Ottawa showed on the screen, and he zoomed in on a red dot until he placed it near the corner of Dalhousie and Murray streets, in the Byward Market. He quickly opened another window and looked up the location on Google Maps. It was Chez Lucien. He switched back to the tracking program and opened a window that showed the detailed tracking information. The phone had been reactivated three minutes ago, at 8:23 p.m., and had pinged several times from the same location.

He picked up his own phone and booted up the little tracking program that he had written and installed as an overlay to Google Maps. It was working. The program showed a dot at the corner of Dalhousie and Murray.

He sent a message.

To:
74X93B4


From:
58K42E6


Subject:
BB location


The BlackBerry is now at the corner of Dalhousie and Murray. Looks like Chez Lucien, a pub. It was reactivated at 8:23 p.m. You should be able to track it if you open the program I sent you to install on your BlackBerry.


He sat back and stared at the map on his computer, watching the little dot pulse every thirty seconds. In a few minutes, his BlackBerry buzzed.

To:
58K42E6


From:
74X93B4


Subject:
Re. BB location


Roger that.


Balfour sat back to watch the dot blink.

Jack had just started to pee when the phone in the pocket of his suit coat buzzed. Without thinking, he grabbed it and answered.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” said a woman’s voice. “Mr. Sawatski?”

Jack recognized the voice. It was Ida Gushue.

“No,” he said. “Is that Mrs. Gushue? It’s Jack Macdonald here. I’m afraid Ed’s had an accident. He’s been badly hurt.”

“Oh my,” said Gushue. “What happened?”

“It’s pretty serious,” said Jack. He’s in a coma. The police are investigating. They think someone may have tried to drown him.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Gushue.

Jack thought for a moment. “Is there any way there could be a connection between his call to you and what happened to him?”

Gushue was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. I’m wondering that myself now. My late husband was a member of the RCMP. I can’t think why Mr. Sawatski would be calling me unless it was related to my husband’s work.”