En Route
Jay Robertson sat in the passenger compartment of Elf 4, one of several Boeing Spanners owned by Gael-Falstaff Enterprises. He was squinting at an 18-centimeter screen. The single engine jet was traveling over the Atlantic coast, headed to Quebec and the scene of the destruction of Toad Hall.
“Jay, have they found anyone’s body yet?” The image on Jay’s screen was Donald Wu who was on GFE’s floating headquarters, the Citisle.
“Unknown, Donald,” Jay Robertson replied. “I’ll be there soon enough.” Robertson’s image, a lean, grim face, with a fine scar under the right eye, salt and pepper hair, appeared in Wu’s console on the Citisle. Other staff watched the conversation from GFE’s operations center in the Australian desert region called Lake Disappointment. The links were by tight laser beam relayed through two private satellites in complementary geosynchronous orbits over the Pacific and Atlantic. Although encrypted, the line was not totally secure, a fact both men had elected to risk. “I got telemetry from the Snark. Gael and Falstaff made orbit.”
“That’s a relief,” Jay said.
“Do you know anything about damage to the residence?”
“My Quebec contacts have done a fly-over. They say that Toad Hall was cut to pieces, ransacked, burned right to the dirt. Torque’s agents are on the way, but our Quebec allies are holding them at bay. At our request, the media lid is clamped down.”
“Donald…We need to take this up later.” There was another pause, while Robertson looked off screen. “It looks like we have picked up some hostile traffic.” He turned to address Joe Dixon, the pilot. “Joe, do you see that?”
“Yes, sir. Two G-21 Sharks, probably from Elgin base. I am being directed to turn about or they will put us down without further ceremony. What’s our next move, Boss?”
“One minute…Donald?” Robertson’s tone was elaborately calm, “I assume you heard that. It appears that Torque is playing all his cards. Shall I call their bluff?”
“After what ‘someone’ just did to the Toad Hall, this is probably no bluff. We can’t afford to lose you or Joe, and you can’t fight this in the air. Stall. I’ll see what I can do. Out.”
Jay tapped the “pilot only” band on his screen. “Joe, I assume you heard the boss. We are to play along for now.”
The next transmission was from the cockpit in Joe Dixon’s laconic voice:
“One niner five. This is GFE zero seven niner three. We are changing course, following you to base. Do you copy? Over…”
On the Ship Citisle, Gulf of Mexico At the same moment
Donald Wu’s screen momentarily showed the aft view from Robertson’s Elf 4: a dawn sky streaked with three contrails. Then he saw a titanium wing flash dully in the wan winter sun, and the picture turned to confetti. Wu stood up disgustedly from the communications console and walked to the window. The sky over the Gulf was clear and intensely blue.
“Get me Washington, D. C., optimum secure line,” he said to a staff operator. “I want to talk to Hanford Grant.”
In a few moments, the image of a man in a business suit appeared on the screen.
“Vice President Grant’s office,” he said.
“This is Donald Wu. I’m calling from GFE Security. It is urgent that I talk with the Vice President on a secure line.”
“One moment, sir.” The screen blanked. A new image appeared: a marine major in uniform.
“The Vice President will be with you in a moment, Mr. Wu. We are patching…” The scene then changed to display a middle-aged man in an athletic shirt with a tennis racket; he was standing before a concrete background.
“Hello Donald,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Vice President. Is this a safe channel?”
“Medium safe. Do we need something better?”
“Affirmative.”
“Just a second…” The Vice President turned off camera. “Ernie, encrypt this, class one, and step outside, please.”
“Yes, sir.” The picture was momentarily interrupted, then resumed.
“Safe now,” the Vice President said.
“Two or three Sharks from Elgin base have commandeered the unarmed aircraft of our Security Chief and are proposing to force it to land somewhere. What do they want?”
“They are under Regional Authority command.”
“Damn it, several of our people in Quebec may have been murdered, and several hundred million dollars worth of GFE property destroyed. What can you do for us?”
“What about Mr. Gael’s expensive toy?”
“That shuttle?”
“Commissioner Torque’s assistant called to report that an unauthorized shuttle launched a few minutes after the attack.”
“Am I missing something? What’s the big deal? A minor international functionary calls and you are in a twit? Your boss, the one in the Oval Office, personally authorized all of the shuttle sales to GFE.”
“You and I both know…Donald…that Commissioner Torque carries a lot of weight with this administration where it counts.”
“But who runs your administration, the President or some unelected bureaucrat? And by the way, how did Torque know when the attack occurred?”
“Let’s not get upset, Donald.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I have no idea. Is that all, Donald?”
“Look…” Wu’s tone was even and menacing. “I have reports that beam weapons were used in the attack. You tell me what agency has access to those. Whose fingerprints are all over this? Your administration, that’s whose! Even the Regional Treaty Authority can’t move assets like that in North America without presidential authorization. If there was no permission then the president looks weak. Either way, you know the government of Quebec will go ballistic.” The Vice President was beginning to look apprehensive. “Let me get right to it. We also have certain high resolution videos with perfect sound tracks, time, date stamped, tamper proof, of the negotiations that your boss, the POTUS, conducted with us over the private sale of three surplus shuttles. How would his ‘special friend’ Marius Torque or the prosecutors in the Regional Authority react to cold, incontrovertible evidence of an unlawful, private sale of secret technology? Or for the Oversight Committee to find out how much it really cost? And how much money that boss of yours who lives on Pennsylvania Avenue at taxpayers’ expense is keeping in his secret Swiss account? I’m getting results, Hanford or I go public. Now!”
“…Exactly what do you want?”
“Call off the Sharks. Let Robertson’s plane get to the scene of this travesty.”
“…Anything else?”
“Not for the moment.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“You damn well better do better than that!”
The screen went blank. Wu sank back in his chair and sighed. A young woman in a crimson jumpsuit tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up. “Jack Falstaff’s first rule of politics,” he said. Then he slapped the console.
“What’s that, Donald?”
“In politics, the value of truth is subordinate to the question of who finds out.”
She smiled. “You are a good student.”
“Take charge of the monitoring personally,” he said. “Tell me the minute you hear anything.”
Quebec
A few hours later, Jay Robertson arrived unannounced at police headquarters in Quebec City to see Captain Chuck Gouin. “I couldn’t get your home number,” he said.
“Jay, it’s been months…And yes, I know why you’re here.” Chuck rose from behind his desk to shake his old friend’s hand.
“Congratulations on your promotion,” Jay said.
“Hey, you don’t call, you don’t write. Shit happens.”
The office was spare, but adorned with pictures of Chuck’s family, his Masters’ certificate from the University of Washington, and a framed letter of commendation from the Canadian Mounted Police. Chuck Gouin was a broad, blunt, black man of Jamaican and Irish extraction, with a gray mustache and a merry glint in his dark eyes.
“Maybe you can tell me what’s going on, Jay?”
“We had certain guests attending Finnegan’s secret lodge. Then I heard of major assets moving in your territory. I tried to fly on scene, but my plane was almost forced down until we persuaded the US administration to intervene. I need to take a look as soon as possible.”
Chuck looked closely at Jay for a minute. “You know,” he said, “Finnegan Gael is pretty popular in Quebec, sort of a folk hero.”
“That should make it easy. How quick can you get me access?”
“Wait here.” Chuck left the room and closed the door. After a few minutes, Jay got up and began moving about the room. He was studying a wall map when the door was opened by a young woman in uniform.
“Mr. Robertson, follow me please.” Her French accent was light but obvious. “Captain Gouin has something for you in our conference room. Can we get you some coffee?”
Chuck was alone in the conference room. An augmented satellite map of Quebec was spread out across the table. “I’ve put out a quiet APB on two vehicles that Torque’s people sent to the scene. I’m not letting those Regional Authority cars near the crime scene right now. And yes, we are treating this as a crime scene. If necessary, we’ll pop Torque’s agents for some traffic violation or another.” Chuck placed an index finger in a rural area near a small lake. “The main scorch spot is right here” – pointing - “about an hour outside of Saint-Exupery’s Village. That is the site of Mr. Gael’s personal compound, then?” Robertson nodded gravely. “You will note the circled area about two clicks north? Major construction there was impossible to hide from the satellite surveillance. What was it?”
“A shuttle launch site.”
“No kidding. Did Finnegan get away safely?”
“Think so. But I won’t have confirmation until he reaches Australia. There were injuries. Not everyone got out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why would anyone try to kill my bosses?”
“Don’t know, Jay, but you and I are going there together.”
“Good.”
Chuck grinned. “The Chief thinks it a very good idea that I keep an eye on you at all times. For the next few hours, we will be inseparable.”
By mid-morning, the extent of the destruction was evident at a distance of five miles from the air and there were visible signs a half-mile away on the ground. The fire had spread only to the immediate stands of trees surrounding the Gael Lodge, having been contained by a heavy snowfall, but the residual smoke was looming over the horizon, clearly visible when the CMP Helicopter was still twenty minutes away.
As the ‘copter began its descent, Jay strained against the shoulder harness for a look at the wreckage below. The foundation of Toad Hall still stood, along many of its steel structural members and part of the central chimney. There was a partly exposed passageway beneath the lodge proper that appeared to have taken only light damage. Two burned-out ground vehicles stood smoldering nearby, one of them partly inside a crushed mass of metal, the former carport.
As the chopper circled, Jay could hear Chuck’s voice in his earphone. “We got initial reports of this last night. The sound of explosions traveled three hundred clicks.” Several men and women, dressed in white coveralls, were combing the area in pairs. Emergency vehicles were parked around the perimeter. “ATTENTION: This is Captain Gouin. Regional Authority representatives are on the way to inspect. Everyone is instructed to keep them at least three kilometers away from the crime scene.” Chuck was seated across from Jay, just behind the pilot. He pointed to a large, smoldering hole in the side of a hill about a click and a half away. “Let’s take a closer look at that hole.”
The pilot complied, slewing the ‘copter over sharply and traveling to the wooded hilltop area Chuck had pointed out. The ‘copter hovered over a deep, concrete lined shaft.
“No shuttle there. You wouldn’t know anything about any unauthorized orbital craft?”
It was an official question. Jay gave him an official answer. “I can only hope for answers,” he said.
“Okay, let’s go down to the lodge area. I’d like to have a look around.”
On the ground, the acrid smell of burned metal, plastic and wood mingled with the still, cold winter air. One badly charred body had been removed.
“Male or female?” Jay was shouting at a man standing near the coroner’s van.
“Not much left. Male.”
“Are those red coveralls GFE?”
“Yes. There may be another uniformed male.” Jay turned to Chuck Gouin. “That would be one of the two caretakers they lost.” The two men stood at the edge of the ash-covered area near a patrol car that was parked, engine and heater running. It was 3:00 PM, and daylight was quickly running out. Workers were removing large flood lamps from another van. Metal girders that had formed the inner skeleton on the lodge were twisted like blackened tree trunks after a forest fire.
“Look at this,” Chuck said. The two strode a few meters into the ash to make a closer inspection of the nearest girder. The white ash was sodden and mixed with black mud. After a few steps, their progress was slowed by the clinging weight of the muck on their boots. The girder had been a corner support. It was bent slightly inward and ended abruptly at shoulder height. The steel had been sheared off at a sharp angle; the rest of the girder lay half buried in ash and mud.
Chuck slowly ran his fingers over the cut; it was smooth, but slightly rippled, as if it had been melted through with a torch. Along the metal just below the cut, droplets and spatters of steel rippled along the otherwise cleanly machined surface. “Son of a bitch,” Jay muttered.
“What?” Chuck said.
“Beam weapons,” Jay said.
The distant sound of a siren grew louder. Gouin turned around. On the road about half a click away, a lone black sedan was approaching with its lights on.
“That will probably be a Regional Authority car,” Chuck said, as he stamped his feet on the pavement. He picked up his radio. “Stop that car,” he growled. “Confiscate any weapons.” Two patrol cars immediately pulled out and blocked the sedan. Mounties walked to the window, guns drawn. The occupants got out and were searched. After a time, the agents reentered the sedan, minus their own firearms. The black car turned, spitting snow and mud, then pulled away.
“I’d like to have heard that conversation,” Jay said.
“Too bad you missed it,” Chuck said.
One of the emergency workers in coveralls in the center of the ash-covered area near the base of the chimney shouted. Two more arrived and stood looking at something on the ground. In a moment, one of the workers, a woman in coveralls, returned to a tech van where Gouin and Robertson were standing.
“What is it?” Gouin asked.
“A female body. Older gal, it looks like. White hair…This…” The woman was holding up a piece of fabric, “…is definitely part of a dress.”
Jay studied the fabric, making a mental note.
“Anybody you know?” Chuck asked.
“I don’t think former Australian Prime Minister Elizabeth Hoopes can be accounted for.”