13

I CAUGHT A FLIGHT back to Castlegar where my jeep and trailer waited patiently On the cramped little plane I made myself some notes. Working backwards chronologically, I started with a roundup of what Walters had added to my knowledge both openly and by inference.

•  Walters had been in the case since before the first call from Beach. Walters’ last known assignment had been in Germany where he was deep in anti-terrorist work, learning from and cooperating with European and Israeli security forces. His transfer to Vancouver must have been prompted by some secret information. There had been no overt terrorist activities in this area recently to account for the presence of the top Canadian expert on international terrorism. Question: What brought him back here?

•  Israelis were tops in this field. Walters would obviously monitor them at all levels. Beach’s interest in me would be of special interest. The two men would cooperate with each other to a limited extent, both holding out on the other through habit, if nothing else. Questions: Did Walters know about Shoreman, Carol, Misurali? Harry and Sid had a lead they hadn’t told me about, that was obvious. My guess was it had been Ben .… Did Walters know that?

•  Walters had at least one undercover agent in place. Who?

•  Walters had access to details of the official investigation into Ben’s death, the junked station wagon and the two men missing from it. He could follow its process but wouldn’t interfere in any way. It looked like the scenario was going to hold: two strange Americans murder an old Doukhobor and then disappear. That’s what the papers were saying. No motive was apparent yet but there was speculation about a lost silver mine! No one with any sense could buy that. Question: Would Harry and Sid be allowed to surface, dead of course, perhaps as a result of an ‘accident’ in Ben’s truck, which was also missing, or would they just disappear? Were the Mounties likely to pursue the matter and turn up anything else?

•  Strongest impression I’d received from my encounter with Walters was that under no circumstances was any hint of terrorist activities, possible sabotage, or even arms smuggling to become public. Once that was out, there would be no possible way to prevent American interference, political meddling and general escalation which would take matters out of his hands. Question: How far would he go with a cover-up? For instance, would he engineer a cover-up with the Mounties if they got close? More dangerously for me, would he take the risk of putting me out of commission ‘one way or another’ in spite of the tape? This was a definite possibility. In Canada at least he could probably have the tape buried under ‘National Security’, ‘Official Secrets Act’ and the like. Wouldn’t work in the States, though. The press and politicians there would jump at any hint of terrorism near their borders. So probably I was safe. But it was nerve-wracking to be protected ultimately by a weapon I couldn’t use.

Next I turned to the tangle of people and events ‘on location’.

•  The ARC connection was no coincidence. Carol, Dean, the commune women, Shoreman, all worked for ARC. A construction company was perfect cover for building up a terrorist cell in these mountains. Arms, personnel, equipment could be transported, hidden, prepared. Questions: Was the company as a whole a front or was it just infiltrated and used? There had to be central control. What exactly was Dean’s role? Did Huber equal the mysterious Misurali connection which had brought the Israelis to the Kootenays? And where did Carol fit?

There were too many questions to list. I went on.

•  Old Ben Soteroff, the dead man, had intimate knowledge of the whole area. Abandoned mine shafts, etc. It was a good bet that he’d spotted some suspicious activity somewhere, dropped hints and had to be silenced. Also a good bet the Mossad boys were onto him, hoped for information, and walked into a situation they couldn’t handle. Whoever arranged Ben’s death was no dummy. Cool. Snatching Harry and Sid and leaving their car near Ben’s body made them natural fall guys for the old man’s murder. Plausible enough to fool the Mounties if they didn’t look too hard. Strangers make good suspects. Questions: Where were they or their bodies? Where was Ben’s truck? How did he get to the park where I’d found him? What was the role of Win and Echo in all this? And again — what about Carol, Dean, Shoreman, Huber?

I dropped it. Too many questions, not enough data for further speculation. I went on to the Hardy boys.

• They had undoubtedly been sent to get Carol. I’d been hired to bird-dog for them. Their boss must have assumed that a female detective would be a patsy; good at finding another woman but easy to scare. Questions: Was this a side issue or was it connected to the ARC action? Was the error of sending boys to do a grownup’s job likely to be corrected?

Mulling it over I decided that the answer to the first questions was no, there was no connection, but that I must expect another attempt, this time by the real thing, heavies, not boys. That was my working hypothesis, as they say in academic circles.

So far, so good. My scribbling had clarified a few things. Gave me a sense of direction, where to go from there. Of immediate concern was my freedom of action. Would the Mounties be a problem? Even without any prompting from Walters, did they want me for questioning? I must have cropped up a number of times in their investigation. At the campsite next to the missing suspects, on the park road looking for them, at Ben’s house with Win and Echo. If they managed to unsnarl all my comings and goings, all my contacts of the last few days, they just might get onto the real story. That would be disastrous. My instinctive distrust of cops didn’t lead me to underestimate their capabilities once on the track of something this big. Perhaps Walters would head them off, after all. But there was bound to be a time lag between events in the Kootenays and Walters’ possible reaction to any threat of exposure. His two-way pipeline wasn’t instantaneous. The Mounties could still grab and hold me. That had to be avoided. By the time I got to Castlegar my mind was made up. I had to leave the highly visible trailer and use the jeep only when and if absolutely necessary. I needed a hideout and another set of wheels. Women’s Acres and their speedy little motorbikes were the obvious solution. But first I had to check out Nelson again.

Castlegar airport is small and generally quiet. There is always a uniformed Mountie or two on duty. But that turned out not to be a problem. They weren’t checking deplaning passengers. Since they weren’t going to any great lengths to get me I concluded it was reasonably safe to take the jeep. Just to make matters harder for the police, assuming they were on the lookout for it, I decided to get the jeep off the main highway as soon as I could and take the Beasley road to Nelson.

Driving carefully towards the unmarked road entrance at Bonnington Falls, crossing the river and later along the steep dirt road on the other side, I observed the dams and holding pools with special interest. The river and all its adjacent lakes and tributaries were totally under man’s control. All part of the Columbia control system. Walters’ paranoic speculations took on a certain plausibility. Nothing is too farfetched any more. It wasn’t hard to visualize armed guards on every dam, machine gun emplacements on road approaches and the whole beautiful area in the grip of martial law. It was only a little more difficult to imagine the havoc both here and downstream if these dams were destroyed. I shook my head clear. There was no shred of evidence for the latter danger. It would be a massive enterprise to carry out sabotage on a scale large enough to be effective. On the other hand, even a hint of such a possibility could bring on disproportionate counter measures and probably vicious retaliation against anyone, no matter how innocent, who fell under suspicion of complicity. I’d no doubt which represented the greater danger. Ronald Walters was right, regardless of his motives. In a peculiar sort of way we were on the same side.

I stopped in a lumberyard on the edge of Nelson and waited for darkness. There was no point making it easy for anyone who might be out to get me. So it was almost ten before I ventured out on foot, carrying a knapsack and looking as much as I could like a hiking tourist. In a motorized society a pedestrian may be more vulnerable but is also more likely to be overlooked. I debated with myself whether to make first for the Jam Factory or for the house where Shoreman was supposed to live. Mentally I tossed a coin and it came up tails. So it was Shoreman’s house. That chance decision turned out to have significant consequences.