Ice Lake (10 page)

“I’ve been meaning to tell you something myself,” he said to his father.

“I will go first,” the old man announced. “I’ve been thinking about this since your mother died. You were so sad at the funeral, Emile. As devastated, I would say, as I was. Rarely does one think of oneself in these terms, but I realized then that some day my own passing would cause you grief. It is the way of the world, but when you are a father, it is easy to forget what that means to the son.”

“I will grieve for you, Papa. I’m grieving now. I can’t help that. Nor will I resist it. But you understand grief, you’ve grieved for others. I’ll come out of it. I won’t forget you, but I’ll emerge from my sorrow.”

“Yes, yes,” Albert recited impatiently, “but you are jumping to conclusions, Detective, always one of your faults.”

Cinq-Mars smiled. The soul endures, he was thinking. This soul is no more near death than one yet to be born. “Go ahead. I promise not to interrupt again.”

“Thank you. I used to tell you, Emile, that I had wanted to be a priest. I used to encourage you to be a priest yourself. I wanted you to have the life that was denied me.”

Cinq-Mars knew the story well. War had interfered with his father’s vocation. He had decided to go to war,
that was his moral choice in response to the conflagration in Europe, although it was not the popular one in Quebec. By the time he returned, which was before the war’s end due to an injury which had not occurred in battle, his younger brother was enrolled in a seminary, his own father was ailing, and he had to assume the mantle of the family provider. Before he knew what was happening to him, Albert had fallen in love and married, and had a child on the way.

“I realized, at the time of your mother’s passing, and I don’t know why I did not see this sooner, that all my life I had been saying a cruel thing to you.”

“Papa—”

“You promised,” Albert shot back.

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Saying that I would rather have been a priest—how was that understood? Did my wife think that my marriage to her was, for me, a poor substitute for the Church? Did my son think that I would rather he had not been born?”

Cinq-Mars gazed into the eyes of his father then, until his father was the one who turned away.

“The life I lived,” Albert Cinq-Mars stated once he had again found the strength, “was the life I was meant to live, one far richer than the one I had imagined for myself. I have been blessed. My wife. My son. I was never deserving of such riches.”

With his hand on his father’s cheek, Cinq-Mars wiped a tear away with his thumb. He leaned forward when he felt that he had attained sufficient emotional control, for he knew that he wanted to tell him something, and not lose the force of his words to either grief or sentiment. He whispered in his father’s ear. “You are the father of my being. I have lived a life very different from yours, but you have always been my pilot. I love you. Thank you.”

Minutes later, after the nurse had taken away the cups, Albert beckoned for his son’s attention once again. “I need a favour, Detective.”

“What would you like, Papa?”

“I need you to be a detective for me.”

Cinq-Mars was understandably puzzled. “Why? Is something missing? Have you been robbed?”

“Emile, I thank God that you did not become a priest. The Church finds itself in disrepair these days. I am glad, that you, like me, remain with the Mother Church, to keep her upright, but what a depressing place it can be for a priest! Around here, there are so few priests. Many parishes are vacant. Others are inhabited by nincompoops. Emile, my time is close at hand. When I receive extreme unction I want the words spoken by a man who believes them. I want them spoken by a priest who is a man of God, not some molester of infants. Emile, be my detective. Travel about the countryside. Find the nearest priest who will be adequate.”

“Adequate?” the son asked.

“Who will not offend me. I do not wish to spend my last moments alive obliged to berate a priest. Or to bite my tongue to keep myself from doing so. I’d prefer to be comforted by a good man’s sincerity than made furious by his ineptitude.”

Cinq-Mars nodded. He understood. “I will find you a priest, Papa.”

“Thank you, Detective. It won’t be easy. If anyone can, it’s you. You know, don’t you, that I am proud of my detective son?”

Cinq-Mars held his father’s hand in both of his. “When you first started calling me ‘Detective,’ Papa, I sensed a certain disdain in your voice. Don’t worry. You haven’t fooled me. As the years went by, I heard the change of tone. I know that you’ve been proud of me.”

The old man shrugged, wanting, Cinq-Mars could
tell, one last jibe. “Who could not be proud? You were on television.”

They both chuckled, but what saddened Cinq-Mars, what caused the tears in his eyes to flow freely, was the realization that they had said what they had intended to say, and their conversation was over. Their words had been spoken. At least his father, always his pilot, had given him work to do. His father had delivered him from the helplessness of idly waiting for a loved one to die and given him an important chore.

He grabbed a sandwich in the kitchen and questioned the nurse on his father’s condition. She assured him that his pain and discomfort were being managed. Grateful for that, Emile Cinq-Mars left to track down a worthy priest. He brought to the assignment the same determination he’d have employed in chasing down a notorious criminal, and before the day was out, he had found his man.

5
A FIST AT THE SKY

Two and a half weeks later, Thursday, January 6, 1999

Preparing the truck’s cab as a mobile laboratory, Lucy Gabriel was constrained not by cost but only by time and an overriding desire to simplify. Modest electrical current could be generated by a bank of batteries the engine charged. If more power was necessary, she could plug into an AC outlet. The electrician explained that he could supply her with a generator on the roof, but she was dissuaded by problems of maintenance and noise. Instead, she’d operate only a small refrigerator and make do with a bare-bones system.

To brighten things up, the interior of the truck was slathered with a coat of white paint. As she needed to protect the lab from prying eyes, in lieu of side windows she had two tinted skylights placed in the roof to both admit daylight and expel the heat of a southern sun. Cabinets were installed, with shelves and locking drawers, and file holders were screwed into the walls. Bunk beds were added against the forward bulkhead, each with small portholes and ventilation hatches, and the sleeping quarters were separated from the lab by a sliding curtain. Lucy expected to spend most nights in motels, but she was also prepared for roadside naps and occasional, nervy overnighters in city slums.

A third bunk was fitted down one side for the casual use of patients while Lucy drew their blood, or while they rested after consuming a large dose of drug cocktail, and an interior lock was added to the fold-down rear gate.

The exterior changed only slightly. The doors were repainted, and Crogan’s Cartage became County Cartage. Ogdensburg was erased and became Champlain. Andrew Stettler had a fresh set of New York plates stamped. He was able to supply false registration and insurance papers as well, to match the legitimate plate number.

“How do you know how to do this?” Lucy asked him.

“Don’t ask,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Never ask that question.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Lucy,” he steamed, “you don’t ask that.”

He was a difficult man to pin down on just about everything.

“Pretty fancy,” Camille Choquette commented, tongue-in-cheek, when she dropped by to inspect Lucy’s progress. They’d been friends from the day that Lucy had started work at Hillier-Largent Global. They had shared an interest in science, one that had motivated them to overcome their backgrounds. Lucy’s adoptive father had been a physician, one who had worked for a while on her reserve. His interests, particularly in science, had brushed off on her. Camille’s roots were working-class. An education had not come easily.

“I added a few necessities, that’s all,” Lucy responded.

Camille coughed up a little laugh. “The first time you went to the States, you did it in your own car. Then you borrowed a beat-up van. Now you’re travelling in a stolen truck with your own driver. What’s next? A luxury bus?”

Lucy smiled. “I was thinking, maybe, private jet?”

“With a stretch limo on the ground.”

“Stretch limo with a pool in the back.”

“Air-conditioned motorhome with your own masseuse,” Camille suggested.

“The masseuse I’ll keep, but I won’t drive a plush motorhome into Harlem.”

“At least you’re an Indian in Harlem. When I go, I’m strictly white trash.”

“Ah, but
sexy
white trash, Camille,” Lucy teased.

“Watch yourself, girlfriend.”

The two worked in the lab together, and had been involved with this extracurricular project from the beginning. Camille had introduced Lucy to Werner Honigwachs, the president of a pharmaceutical firm where she used to work. The relationship between the two companies was vague to Lucy, although Camille seemed to be in the know. The two firms were competitors, and yet at the same time they would collaborate on certain projects. Lucy had reminded Camille on the way to meet the president of BioLogika that she already had a job. “Just talk to him,” her friend had insisted. “Anyway, he’s dying to meet the famous Indian rabble-rouser. I promised to introduce you.”

Honigwachs, Lucy found out, was charismatic in a nasty-executive kind of way. He did nothing to present himself as charming, but he carried himself with authority, and his trim physique and good looks offered curb appeal. When he smiled, he looked like the man in the moon, his face round and bright Lucy did not believe that she could be influenced by a man’s position or wealth, but the way he moved attracted her, as did the understated cunning of that moon-like smile. She was also impressed that he knew a great deal about her and about the troubles across the river from his corner office.

“You’re a passionate young woman,” Honigwachs said, and Lucy was thinking,
Here we go, the seduction line.
For this meeting she had worn a simple, full-length summer dress, a mauve pastel patterned with large hibiscus flowers. She knew that it showed off her copper colouring to advantage.

“Some people are passionate. Others have an office on the top floor.”

“Passion can be an asset in our line of work, no matter what floor you’re on.”

“Really?” she responded dully, still sceptical.

“The world’s confronted with a crisis, Lucy. In Africa alone, millions die every year. Here, thousands.” He gestured while he spoke, stabbing at the air with his fingers, ardent. “We’re the people—me, you, Camille, others—who’ve been charged with finding a cure, and finding it fast.”

“Well,” Lucy attested, taken aback, “you—maybe. Others—perhaps. But not me. All I do at Hillier-Largent is separate plasma from blood.”

“You could play a more important role, if you wanted.”

“You mean, if I left Hillier-Largent and worked at BioLogika?” She assumed that whatever job he had in mind included stepping out of her clothes.

He swatted the notion of changing jobs aside. “Here. Hillier-Largent.
Where
is not important. Just join the fight. Save people’s lives, Lucy.”

She was tempted to blurt out, “What do I have to take off to save these lives?” but instead she asked, “How?” The word was no sooner uttered than she realized that she had both created an opening for him and altered the direction of her life.

When Lucy departed BioLogika later that day with Camille, she nudged her new friend with an elbow. “Are you sleeping with him?”

“Well,
duh,
wouldn’t you?” Camille hadn’t dressed up. She was wearing a white blouse and blue business slacks.

“Not if he’s sleeping with my best friend already.”

“I got him first. At least, I’m first in line after his wife.”

‘That’s okay. He’s not my type.”

“Yeah, right”

Some weeks later, Camille informed Lucy that her relationship with Honigwachs had ended. She offered no details. After that, Lucy wondered if she might be his next move, but it never materialized, although her work with the special project—which she considered to be
fas
special project, although Honigwachs was careful never to attest to personal involvement in any direct way—intensified.

Camille was Lucy’s immediate superior and her principal contact. Sometimes she talked to Randall Largent about general things, but when a project was underway her marching orders came through Camille. How, and via what source, Camille received her information was not known to Lucy, but she accepted the importance of a covert chain of command. All part of the fun. She accepted that she was not to know what even Camille seemed to know, ever, and she was not to ask questions. She had her job to do, an important one integral to their operation—administer advanced, untested drug therapies to the ill—but how they came into Camille’s hands, and subsequently hers, had to remain a secret.