SOME COMMENTERS HAVE asked if I’m hiding the names of people and places, why did I call out the Vine Athletic Club directly? Well, it’s closed now. And it’s been in the news. You may remember. That entire section of Victoria St. was closed down for about six hours. The club is sealed and taped off. It’s not likely to reopen. There’s no point in hiding the name of the club when everyone knows about it.
So yeah, remember that big radiological incident that worried everyone in K-W a couple of weeks back? That was me.
After the RCMP released me, I went straight home and googled how much radiation was in a chest X-ray, did a little math, then relaxed a bit. I spent about ten minutes soaking my hand in cold water, as if that would do anything. I was just drying it off when Jim’s wife called again.
She wanted to meet me. Could I come by her place and explain what was going on? I agreed, but only because so much had happened. And I figured that by this point, I was no longer on the case. I figured I owed her a summary.
When I dropped by, she was in tears. Jim still hadn’t shown up, and she was certain that either he left her for some other life, or something terrible had happened.
I explained a little about what was going on, without going into too much detail. Basically, Jim was either an unwitting or unwilling participant in some kind of plan to secure materials that could be used in a harmful way. It’s possible he was doing this for money, or that he was coerced in some fashion, but we just couldn’t be sure at this point.
As to his whereabouts, the last time I saw him was in Pembroke. He had just met with a woman from work, and that she was a suspected terrorist or smuggler. Something bad.
She didn’t like hearing any of this, and demanded I find her husband. I told her I would try, but at this point, there wasn’t much I could do, aside from tracking down the woman from work, but it was likely she left town after recent events.
She said I should confirm that the woman had left town. And she was right. She was absolutely right. I told her there was one place I could check. It was unlikely she would return to work, but there was a chance she might still be at the motel.
I drove directly to the motel where I’d last seen Wendy. It was a long shot, but if she hadn’t left town, this was my only clue, other than driving straight to Ottawa, and I didn’t have five hours available to me. If that radioactive material got into the wrong hands—but who was I kidding? It was already in the wrong hands. I should have risked the radiation exposure and kept watch over it while I still had it.
But that was stupid thinking. That thing was giving off a really intense heat, and I’m surprised the entire building didn’t catch fire.
They say uranium oxide pellets aren’t particularly radioactive before they go into a reactor core. And when they’re spent, only between one and ten percent of the material is actually used. The rest is just—well, the rest of the fuel is unable to keep the fission reaction going. It’s still hot, just not usable as fuel in most reactors. That’s why it gets pulled out and sunk in a swimming pool for fifty years. Lots of plumbing and plumbing supplies required to keep that system operational.
That would probably equally apply at any test laboratories, but I’ll bet the process isn’t as streamlined in the smaller places. Security, though, should still be rock solid. I can only guess that Jim was being used to obtain and store the waste before it got safely and discreetly moved out of the country. All while ensuring airport or border crossing warning sensors weren't triggered. Maybe they planned to use one of the many unattended border crossings to the U.S., or sneak it onto a private boat somewhere in the Great Lakes.
It’s highly probable that Zander was one of the inside contacts at one of the waste facilities, or had his own contacts. Maybe they were compromised as well, or maybe Wendy and others had seduced them in order to get the materials smuggled out.
Maybe it wasn’t being smuggled out. Maybe it would be used in Canada.
I drove faster.
As I pulled into the motel parking lot, I saw her car was still there. Same place as before. I pulled up beside it and approached the door to the motel room. I could hear a disturbance inside. Crying … no … vomiting.
I took a step back and figured out where my foot should go. Just to the right of the door handle. A deep breath, and then a firefighter’s kick.
The cheap motel door flew open and smashed against the wall. There she was on the bed, a wastebasket full of barf sitting on the bed beside her, and the canister on the floor by her feet.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. No surprise. No anger. No remorse.
I told her she was in danger and she looked up at me with tear-stained eyes. She pulled some stray hairs from her head. Her hands were red and swollen. It had only been a day.
“No shit,” she said.
“Let me get you some help. I can make a call.”
“We’re way past that, hon.”
I nodded and asked if she needed anything.
A cigarette, if I had any.
I didn’t.
She spat blood into the wastebasket.
“At least tell me why you’re doing this. Tell me who your contact is. Where’s Jim?”
Finally, I saw a shadow of doubt fall across her face, and there was a moment where, in her dying breath, she might give us some clues as to what the material was for, where it was going, and who else might be involved in this terrible affair.
But the crack of a gunshot filled the room with a deafening thunder. Wendy fell backwards onto the bed, then tumbled to the floor. The shielded container stayed right where it was, burning a hole in the carpet.
I turned with my arms raised, fully expecting it to be the RCMP, but it was Jim’s wife. Let’s give her a name, finally.
Mary.
Mary was holding her husband’s gun. She had it aimed at me, and all I could think was, “Pretty good shot, all things considered.” I knew she could hit me if she wanted to, but I was tiring of giving her updates. I figured it was time to lay all the cards on the table.
I told her that her husband was most likely dead. Either shot, or tortured, or … and I gestured at Wendy’s body. Radiation poisoning.
He had been involved in a scheme to steal radioactive waste from one or more facilities around Ontario. It’s possible Wendy seduced him to do this, or they planned it together, or that they had threatened Mary’s life to ensure Jim’s compliance.
She said I didn’t know for sure.
I said I was one hundred percent sure that Jim was dead. But that she’d just killed the only person who could tell us where the body was.
I added that every minute we were in this room increased our risk of developing cancer later in life. She started crying, and I caught the tremor in her hands. She probably wasn’t used to holding a .357 Magnum revolver at shoulder level. But then again, who was? That was a six-inch barrel. Definitely a hand cannon.
I closed my eyes and heard two gunshots, one of which was deafening. When I opened them, I saw Mary slump to the ground. I felt a hot trickle of blood on my right arm, near the shoulder. I barely noticed it.