Snow Job (8 page)

“Squad Boss, Squad Boss, this is Alpha One.”

“Roger, this is Squad Boss, over.”

“Do you have a visual?”

“We’re right on him, about angels twenty, just above the goo. We’re looking at some weather down there.”

“You’re looking at a fast-moving Arctic front. That flying junk-pile could fall apart. How’s your juice?”

“Ten minutes to bingo. Out.”

Clara could barely endure the stench emanating from the male armpits in the room, sweat born of fear, confusion, desperation, with an acrid overlay of resentment. She’d been the lone dissenter, and now no one could look at her, not even Finnerty, and
especially
not Lafayette. The tattletale, spreading word she’d broken cabinet secrecy. All the more hurtful for being true.

The feed was courtesy of General Buster Buchanan, Canadian Forces chief of staff, who’d been joined by a few other brass plus a radio technician. Plus the national security adviser and the RCMP
commissioner. Throw in several PMO staff and three dozen cabinet members, and it was a full house. Huck looked shaky. A bad day to have a hangover.

“Alpha One, this is Squad Boss.”

“What have you got?”

“We’re practically touching wings, but the driver’s pretending he can’t see us.”

“Weapons safe. Stay with the drill.”

“Roger wilco.”

“Let’s try to avoid Plan B.”

“Roger that for sure. Wait one.” More static, then: “Hey, BH-zero-niner-niner, you see me now?”

A heavy accent. “Have trobble with radio.”

“I think you hear me real good. Can you
see
me? … Right, that’s me, playing left wing for
les canadiens
. You know hockey, captain?”

“Is national game. Have many hockey heroes.”

“Here’s your chance to be one. You get to be goalie. We’re the forwards. You know what forwards do?”

“They shoot puck.”

“That’s right. How many parachutes have you got?”

“Two, but not working.”

“Okay, so think of your wives and families, and throttle down to a nice, easy three zero zero knots, and I’m going to give you a set of coordinates, and we’re all going to glide back down to a friendly little air force base.”

“I talk to fellow workers.” After a moment, the pilot returned to the radio. “We ask your contry giving us what you call refugee state. Not send back ever to Bhashyistan. If no deal, okay, shoot puck.”

Buster Buchanan looked at Finnerty, who glanced around — at everybody but Clara. A woman, she wasn’t expected to hold useful views on military strategies.

“They’re going to screw us around. Blast ’em out of the air.” This hard line, from Dexter McPhee, the defence minister, earned an
embarrassed silence. Clara knew it was just bluster, but the P.M.’s aides looked shocked.

“This isn’t a time to joke,” Lafayette said. “They face execution if deported. Their terms should be accepted.”

Finnerty agreed. Buster Buchanan went on air personally to tell Bagotville it was a done deal. A few seconds later, the squadron leader came on, sounding relieved. “Alpha One, this is Squad Boss, we’re taking this bird in.”

“Bravo Zulu, Squad Boss.”

Sighs of relief. Finnerty rose unsteadily to stretch and refill his coffee. Clara felt sorry for him. Events had propelled him well beyond his normal range of competence. Commissioner Luc Lessard, normally so thoughtful and phlegmatic, was looking unusually distressed after the RCMP’s botched security job. Probably wondering how far his head was going to roll.

At the far end of the table, near the non-functioning fireplace, sat Gerry Lafayette, a headset on, a secure line to his ministry. While others seemed befuddled by events, he was intent on showing stern, decisive coolness. He bore no responsibility for this mess. The buck stopped at Finnerty, and one did not have to be a diviner of souls to see the resignation in his face. He had been at this job only a year, would be remembered only for this catastrophe. However tragic was this terrorist act, it accelerated Lafayette’s resolve to lead
les bleus
from the wilderness.

He looked around at the strained, expectant faces and slipped off his headset. “Staff has been trying to message them every conceivable way, through the Brits, through the Yanks.
Rien que silence
. I suspect we must issue a statement soon. The fourth estate is anxious. The Ultimate Leader may especially be eager to hear our carefully worded regrets.” The PMO’s director of communications took this as a directive, went off with the press secretary to hammer something out. “I wonder, Prime Minister, now that the cabinet is briefed, if we could dwindle to a slightly more manageable size.”

The bulk of the ministers got the message and began filing out, probably feeling relieved and perhaps guilty that Gerard Laurier Lafayette was showing the leadership their party had denied him. He took the chair next to Finnerty, at mid-centre of the long table, and spoke low: “Information has not been kept close to our chests, Huck. Or our breasts, if you take my meaning.”

Clara didn’t hear that but saw them glance at her. She didn’t need the equation written in chalk on a blackboard. That silky Iago was making a move on the operationally challenged old trawler-man, who was so hungover, so out of his depth, he was delegating power to his adversary.

Invited to stay were three Finnerty cronies, Dexter McPhee of Defence, Attorney General DuWallup, Charley Thiessen of Public Safety. Plus the P.M.’s chief of staff, executive assistant, communications director, national security adviser, and the RCMP commissioner.

The finance minister, however, was getting the bum’s rush. “Nice job, Gerry,” she said, on her way out.

“You’re very kind.”

“No, I mean it.”

“I hadn’t thought otherwise, Clara.”

Clara needed a smoke badly, she was stinging from the insult of being excluded. She was deputy prime minister! But she maintained outward composure as fellow evictee Buster Buchanan held the door for her. McPhee called after him: “General, let us know when our boys get back home safe.”

In the anteroom, Clara joined the other exiles in retrieving cellphones and Blackberrys from the bank of safety deposit boxes — wireless transmitters were banned at cabinet sessions. She took Buchanan aside to pass on her thanks to the heroes of Bagotville. “That Cool Hand Luke up there deserves a medal, General.”

“Ma’am, he’ll get one.”

Ma’am — she loathed that, it made her feel eighty years old. From the restricted zone known as the Horseshoe, outside the PMO
complex, she could see down to the foyer and the press thronging there, an impatient, hungry wolf pack. How she would love to toss them some meat.

Instead, she charged up to her office and stomped inside, her angry vibrations scattering the huddle at the TV set, sending them silently to their desks. She slammed into her private office and screamed: “That rat’s asshole!”

Panting, shaking a little, she searched her bag, found her Number Sevens, lit up. Percival Galbraith-Smythe, her fussy, starchy executive assistant, knew exactly what she was up to and walked briskly in, opened a window, situated Clara close to it, and brought the ashtray out from behind the shelf of Hansards. “Lafayette, I suppose.”

“It’s a putsch. I have been effectively purged from government. He’s got the Huckster under his thumb, he’s schmoozing with DuWallup and Thiessen and McPhee, getting their blessings. I want it all over town that I opposed this Bhashyistan initiative from the get-go.”

“Already done, precious. Informed sources will hint that this day would never have happened had it been up to you.”

Finnerty tilted his flask while he took a whiz. The hot burn of aged rye gave him a hit of courage; he might yet make it through this day. “What do you think the Bhashies will do, Charley?” They were alone in a washroom, he and Thiessen, at adjoining urinals.

“Well, they sure aren’t going to be recalling their ambassador. Don’t see any solution but we send over eight of our ministers for them to kill. Maybe they’ll settle for Gerry. You may want to reel him in a bit, Huck. He’s stealing the show.”

Clara Gracey would have been a counterweight; Finnerty felt a little crappy about excluding her from the loop, a slap in the face. But let it be a lesson. She’d been leaking like Molly’s rowboat.

“Be glad the cops have to carry the can, buddy.” Thiessen left Finnerty to finish his piss, an anxiety-constricted stop-and-starter, requiring exertion. What had been his orders to DuWallup last night? Increase security, stick to the timetable, tell nobody a Bhashyistani assassin was on the loose. How was he going to get out of this?

Though it was only noon, this was already close to being the worst day of his life — worse than when his engine conked during Hurricane Zelda, maybe worse than when he stumbled onto his wife giving head to her yoga instructor. The only good news was the Ilyushin was safely on the tarmac at Bagotville.

The Canadian government’s official outpouring of remorse, though quickly seconded by many other countries, had been met with continued loud silence by Bhashyistan. He tried hard but couldn’t conjure an image of the Ultimate Leader on his throne, or wherever he sat, reacting to the slaughter of his cabinet, the arrest of his personal jetliner. No one seemed to have a handle on Igor Muckhali Ivanovich, except that he was some kind of psychopathic blowhard.

The cabinet room had been set up as a crisis centre, several plasma screens, images dancing on them, but volumes down. A server followed Finnerty with trays of sandwiches, and he joined the chow line, everyone hungry but Lafayette, who was what you’d call a dainty eater, and the RCMP commissioner, who wasn’t showing much of an appetite.

An aide thrust a note at Finnerty. The CEO of Alta International, urgent, please call. Quilter was probably going berserk. “I’ll get back to him.”

Finnerty tried for a meaningful look at DuWallup, but saw he was listening to Commissioner Lessard, who had just got off a secure line with his explosives people.

“Semtex, they think. One of those super-IEDs that are showing up in the Middle East, explosive penetrators, copper-jacketed, directional, effective to fifty metres.”

“Pretty sophisticated,” DuWallup said.

“We’re not dealing with amateurs. These are trained terrorists.”

“Run it by us again, Commissioner, how Mr. Erzhan vanished on us.” Lafayette, sitting back, examining his fingernails.

Lessard summarized a written report: “Thursday, yesterday, at eight-fifteen hours, Abzal Erzhan left home with a bag lunch in a satchel, as he has done every school day for the last eight years. He’s a teacher in a local secondary school — mathematics, science, and physical education. Earned his certificate teaching leadership skills at an immigration centre. Industrious man.”

“Age?” Finnerty asked.

“Thirty-five. Wife, two children. It’s a twenty-five-minute walk to his school, but he didn’t show up. We have two confusing accounts that suggest a car stopped for him. We’ve instructed his wife not to talk to the press, or to anyone, as it could compromise the investigation. There’s no basis for holding her, no sign of bomb making in the house or its attached garage, no traces of Semtex. So far.”

“Yes, but to get back to Abzal.” Lafayette saw it his duty to take on the role of cross-examiner — Finnerty clearly lacked the energy to resume the reins. “You had surveillance on him yesterday?”

“Eighty per cent coverage. We couldn’t follow him on foot everywhere.”

“Of course. You were trying not to be too obvious. So he slipped away during the twenty per cent non-surveillance?”

“I suppose so.”

“And knowing that, knowing the standard scenic route to speed dignitaries to the airport was along Bronson and Colonel By, you didn’t alter it for the Bhashie cavalcade, didn’t check it, sweep it … I hope you don’t mind these questions.”

“I’m not sure what you’re implying, sir.” Lessard was getting testy.

“I don’t understand why you didn’t warn us immediately that Abzal Erzhan had slipped surveillance.”

“But I did. After we made every effort to track him, I alerted Justice Minister DuWallup.”

“Pretty late in the day, though.” DuWallup, a pathetic attempt to smile.

“Well, sir, I believe you called back that evening and instructed us not to depart from the security program, except to double the escort.”

Everyone was staring at red-faced DuWallup. He didn’t once look at Finnerty, who was sliding down in his seat, ready to crawl under the table. But Lafayette, smooth as chewed sealskin, said, “Obviously one of those misunderstandings that occur after a long, taxing day.”

Commissioner Lessard didn’t buy that. “I assumed he’d conferred with the prime minister.”

Finnerty felt his chest tightening through a long moment of silence.

“No, I didn’t discuss it with the P.M.” DuWallup was taking one for the Gipper, he wasn’t going to weasel out the prime minister of Canada. “He was exhausted. I took it on myself to deal with the situation.” He was looking appropriately hangdog.

Lafayette retreated from that prickly topic by asking if Erzhan had entertained any visitors of interest while under surveillance. That information was being collated, Lessard said, as were telephonic records.