It’s noisy in Aiden Tween’s RV. Everyone is talking at once. I can’t stop staring at the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service ID clipped to Deb’s Kevlar vest and the holstered Glock at the waist of her jeans. Not to mention the earpiece. She’s just finished telling us that they started monitoring the SPCA early in the fall and have been on the case ever since I first called her. “The problem was, we hadn’t ID’d all of them and they kept moving around, switching phones. We intercepted enough to figure out they’d try to shoot Aiden Tween if he sang the anthem. That was going to be the only way to draw them out. So we spoke with him and his people and asked him to go along with it to help save Bunny, with us guaranteeing his safety. I’ve got to give him credit. He stepped right up, said it wasn’t the first death threat he’d had.”
“I thought that pitch I made was too easy,” AmberLea says, nodding.
“Then we nabbed the shooters when they arrived at the concert and jammed the cell-phone frequencies so Jennifer Blum and the SPCA cell holding Bunny wouldn’t know.”
“Nabbed all but one,” I say.
Deb nods and raises a hushing finger. She hasn’t told AT’s people how close Jennifer Blum came to killing him. “We should have taken her then too. We knew she was the brains at this end, but not part of the muscle. Anyway, we owe you big-time for being on to her. Thank you. It was also very brave and very stupid of you to go up against her unarmed.”
“I didn’t think I was unarmed,” I said. “I had this.” I hold up the Colt .45. “I found it at the cottage. In The Anatomy of Melancholy.”
“Ah.” Deb sighs. “Right. I knew I’d left something there. The bullets were in another book, Yesterday’s Spy.”
“Fortunately,” Deb says. “There are too many guns already. I’ll take it.” She holds out her hand. I’d picked up the Colt after the wrestling match; now I hand it to her.
“Where do you keep your gun?” I ask.
“An armory at Department of National Defence. I have to apply to sign one out. Anyway,” Deb says, “the FBI and Homeland Security in the States have been staking out the Newman house where Bunny’s being held, and judging by the amount of pizza their fake delivery guy has taken to the door, Bun is fine. They’ll be going in any minute,” she says, looking at her watch, “and they’ve assured me it will be a quick, easy takedown. I should get back to M3C to monitor.”
“M3C?” AmberLea says.
“Mobile Communication and Command Centre,” Deb says, as I realize Bond is warbling in my pocket. I pull out my phone. Deb says, “Looks as if we’ve stopped jamming those band frequencies.” I squeeze through the crowd and out the RV door.
“Hello?”
“Bunny? Bunny! Where are you?”
There’s a dead spot in the reception, then I hear, “—o. I’m in a car.”
If he’s in New York State, I bet that “o” is the end of Buffalo. “Fantastic, Bun! Rolling home.” I’m actually jumping up and down. Bun starts to talk, but I can’t stop. “Mom said you’d be okay. Man, am I ever glad.”
“Mom?” he says.
“Yeah, she knows all about you. And guess what? She’s CSIS.”
A passing roadie looks at me curiously. I realize now I’m spinning around in little circles. I slow down and straighten my glasses. There’s a crackle on the line, and I hear Bun say something: “…the cops. Tell…” Then he doesn’t say anything, or there’s another dead spot. I hear “getaway…skates…” and then “don’t…”
“Don’t?” I say back.
“Whatever—” I lose the signal again. “Can’t hear you, Bun.” Not that it matters right now. He’s on his way home; that’s what counts.
“Don’t worry about me.” His voice comes through loud and clear.
“Okay, see you soon. Have fun.” I click off and hustle back inside. “That was Bun,” I crow. “He’s safe. On his way.”
“Thank God,” Deb says. She closes her eyes, puts her hand over her Kevlared heart and whooshes out a big breath. She hugs us both. After a moment she says to AmberLea, “Luckily, the rest here were amateurs. We had the other shooters rounded up the second they stepped off the streetcar.”
“The streetcar?”
“Well, one took the subway, actually. We’re talking low budget here, hon.”
“Hey,” I ask. “How did you get back from a cruise ship?”
“American Airlines, from our first port of call. Economy,” Deb adds drily, “on my credit card. We’re low-budget too. This operation maxed out department expenses for the next six months.” She turns back to AmberLea.
“You could’ve told us all this,” I complain.
“No, we couldn’t, Spence. We couldn’t risk you or anyone tipping them off accidentally. We made it an orange file—national security—so no one would meddle.”
“So who is Jennifer Blum?” AmberLea says.
“She’s a grade-three teacher with a sideline in voice-over work for commercials and cartoons. And she’s Zoltan Blum’s great-granddaughter.”
The anthem is lying on a table beside us. I pick it up. “Did you know?” I ask.
Mom shakes her head. “Not a clue. Also just a coincidence that my working group has the current Pianvia file. I’d never known your grandpa might have been involved. I still don’t recognize the picture in the movie.”
I hand Deb the anthem. “It’s evidence now,” she says, pulling a ziplock bag from her pocket. “It never did much for the smell anyway.” She smiles. “I’ve got to check in with M3C, talk to Bunny.”
I follow her down the steps. “Hey, Mom, um, how long have you…?”
“They recruited me in grad school. Grandpa’s suggestion. It can run in families.” She gives me a tired smile. “And I rarely do this kind of thing. Usually, I’m more oversight and analysis. That’s all I can say, really.”
I ask the big question. “Do you think Grandpa did what they said?”
Deb sighs. She puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eye. “I don’t know, Spence. Maybe that’s a sad comment in itself. Grandpa had many lives; we knew that. There’s a lot we’ll never know about. Maybe we shouldn’t. At the end of the day, the David McLean I love is the one I knew and remember.” She draws me into a hug. “And I can tell you, he would have been so proud of you tonight, just like me.”
Outside the traffic barrier, a white cube van is idling little clouds of exhaust into the New Year’s air. CCTV SEWERSCOPE INSPECTION SERVICE it says on the side. Deb walks toward it. “I’ll try to get home tonight—or this morning,” she calls, “unless I go to meet Bun. How’s the house looking?”
I lie a little. “Super. Except for your office. The cookies are kind of oily though. And the van died.”
As she walks off, I find myself wanting to ask her something else. If Bun was getting so much pizza, how come the first thing he said to me yesterday was that he was hungry? I don’t ask. I’ve heard from Bun. Maybe there are things we shouldn’t know, even at the end.