MACKINNON CALLED to say that Perry was in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Daniel replayed the crash that he had seen in his rear-view mirror. It was a miracle that Perry had survived the spinning, the sparking, the crashing, and the inferno afterward. MacKinnon didn’t dwell on the news. They had a BOLO out on the Cadillac. Daniel’s car had been towed and would spend the evening in the forensics lab.
As soon as Daniel arrived at the station and saw MacKinnon standing, waiting, he shot him a look of concern. “How’s the pizza guy?”
“He suffered from shock and some bruising. He’s being treated at the hospital. He already gave us a description of his assailant.”
Daniel nodded. “The same one I saw at the Westin? The one who tried to run me off the road.”
“It would seem so. We need some help, then.” He pointed to another officer who approached, one Daniel didn’t recognize. “This is Detective David Touesnard, who will be taking Perry’s place while he recovers.” Touesnard was about the same age as MacKinnon, but taller and fitter, sporting a thick cover of black hair and a trimmed beard. He appeared strong. His arms barely fit into his shirt. Daniel thought he seemed like a good choice for a personal protection officer.
MacKinnon turned to Touesnard. “I’ll let you know if I get a call back.”
“Understood.” Touesnard looked at Daniel. “He’s got another assignment.”
Touesnard fiddled with his cellphone before stuffing it into his jacket pocket. “Smugglers.”
MacKinnon changed the subject. “We have an ID on the man from the demonstration.”
That caught Daniel’s attention. Who was that mountain of a man who attacked me?
“We got help from the RCMP. His name is Max Pitt. He’s a member of the Alberta Independence Movement, a small-time fringe political group in Alberta.”
Daniel didn’t register the answer at first. “How fringe? Like a neo-Nazi?”
“Sort of.”
“What was he doing in Halifax? At that rally? Was he after me?”
“Don’t know yet. He’s not saying much.”
Touesnard accompanied Daniel back to his apartment to collect his essentials. He wouldn’t be allowed to stay there while the hit man was free. They put him in what they called a safe house, a room at a moderate downtown hotel facing the harbour, with Touesnard nearby. MacKinnon told him to stay put.
Daniel didn’t sleep much that night. The unfamiliar hotel room felt like a prison. He was trapped between two worries that his mind swatted back and forth like a tennis ball. Vanessa — what was she up to? — and Forrestal’s murder. He needed to do something proactive, but he was stuck in this hotel.
He needed to see for himself what was going on with Vanessa and Emily. Flying back to Montreal would be the best thing to do. But the police wouldn’t give the all-clear until they could track down the hit man.
Daniel tried to rewind the last few days of his life. His problems began with Forrestal’s call. Why did he want to talk with me when he could have talked with anyone else? How did he even know who I was?
And Lloyd, that egotistical big fish in a small pond, knows him. But he won’t help me. I’m on my own. He calmed his mind for a moment to still the rushing questions and emotions linked with Emily, the worry about Forrestal, and the stress that arose thinking about Lloyd. When in doubt, one of his undergrad teachers had told him, return to first principles.
His troubles started after the call from Forrestal. So his first question was clear. Who was Patrick Forrestal, really?
He returned to Forrestal’s investment company website that he had found before his failed meeting Tuesday morning. He clicked on the “About Us” link and moved to a new page with a professional photo of the founder, chairman, and CEO, Patrick Forrestal. There was a short bio. Forrestal founded the company twelve years ago and had increased sales and profits every year. Daniel’s curiosity piqued. The page didn’t quantify the profits or anything else about the company’s performance. The CFO and VP of marketing were listed, but Daniel didn’t recognize their names.
Daniel searched SEDAR next. Canadian securities law compels every publicly traded company to publish key financial and personnel information. To manage this information, the securities industry created a simple system with a complicated 1970s-style name: System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval. Although Fireweed wasn’t publicly traded, Daniel assumed that Forrestal, being such a prominent business personality, would sit on the boards of other companies. As a director, he would be asked to review and approve the company’s strategy, key investments, and top executive appointments. Daniel didn’t find a single document with Forrestal’s name.
Daniel’s curiosity shifted into overdrive. Forrestal was famous for “rescuing” high-tech failures and transforming them into winners. Thousands of people owed their livelihoods to his financial wizardry. He demonstrated an uncanny ability to team up with local experts who could master completely unrelated technologies. He had purchased a company that made video display cards for computers, another that developed a vaccine that the World Health Organization hailed as a lifesaver for the Third World, even a Calgary restaurant that had just won its first Michelin star. A few years ago, he had bought a start-up that developed and sold a smartphone application that teenagers around the world used to maintain private chats out of the purview of their governments and their parents. All winners.
But he wasn’t listed as a director with any of these companies.
Why didn’t Forrestal join the boards of companies that he had saved? They would have been grateful and certainly would have offered him a board seat. Or they would have been vulnerable, and he could have just taken a seat. But he hadn’t. Daniel wrote a note on his pad to figure out the answer.
Daniel couldn’t shake a nagging feeling. Who is Patrick Forrestal? He had started his company twelve years ago. That was all Daniel knew so far. He got the distinct impression that Mr. Forrestal had liked to keep his life private. Now he was curious to know why. Private and rich spelled trouble.
A new Google search revealed nothing else of substance about his life. All links returned to his corporation’s bio page. He tried other search engines, with similar results.
Forrestal’s main business wasn’t technology. It was akin to company “first aid”: identify the patient, diagnose the disease, treat the disease, make the patient presentable, and then sell the patient to the highest bidder. This was his formula for business success. And judging from the Google search results, he had done it at least a dozen times over the past decade or so in several countries. A stunning track record of success.
The money to pay for the companies he fixed came from his second business: stock portfolio investments. He had some proprietary combination of stocks on all of the major exchanges around the world. He consistently outperformed the markets by a few percentage points. Even the 2008 financial crisis barely dented his spectacular track record of generating profits. And it was these profits Daniel assumed that he channelled into his company “first aid” business.
Daniel decided to search for news clippings mentioning the man. Being so prominent, he must have been noticed in the media. A Lexis-Nexis query revealed hundreds of articles in the national news. After reading a sample of them, Daniel knew no more about the mysterious Mr. Forrestal than before.
As far as he could tell, Mr. Forrestal sprang into life twelve years ago.