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Monday September 23, 9:30 a.m.
Even if I had temporarily forgotten about Agents Smith and Smith, they had not forgotten about me. As I was soon to discover, CSIS had enthusiastically pursued its investigations into Steven McCartney, and I continued to be their biggest potential source.
As I was about to back up out of my parking spot at Tim Hortons, the now-familiar black sedan pulled up in front of my car, just like in the movies. The front passenger window rolled down dramatically, and Agent Smith lowered his sunglasses to peer at me like an annoyed schoolmarm.
“Mr. Love, we’ve been worried that you lost our phone number.”
I felt annoyed with myself for my knee-jerk reaction of fear at the sight of the agents, so I was a bit cheeky. “No, no, I haven’t.”
Agent Smith narrowed his eyes. “Have you forgotten about our arrangement, sir?”
I have to admit that I did feel my stomach lurch at that one. “Well, I don’t think that we had an ‘arrangement’, per se,” I said slowly.
“Yes, we did, Mr. Love.”
“No, I don’t think we did. I mean, it’s possible that the, uh, air quality of the room may have affected my memory of our meeting, but I don’t believe that I agreed to anything, Agent Smith.”
At the sound of his name being uttered aloud in a public place, Agent Smith recoiled back and the window slid up. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the back of their sedan in the farthest corner of the parking lot, beside a dumpster that stank to high heaven. Agent Smith behind the wheel sat ramrod stiff, facing away from me. I got the distinct impression that he was disgusted with me.
In the passenger seat, Agent Smith was clearly not happy. “You ate our donut,” he said carefully. The accusation hung in the air between us.
I stammered back, “But that’s not an agreement. That’s just a snack, you know, a trans-fat-laden treat. That’s all.” I carefully watched the two agents for any sign of backing down.
Agent Smith, the driver, suddenly lost his composure, twisting angrily to face me. His words were clipped and stinging. “In this country, Mr. Love, that is a binding contract. I don’t know what they do in Scotland, but your parents surely taught you a few things about the Canadian honour system. In this country, sir, a donut isn’t just a donut.”
As he turned away from me to face the front once more, I thought I heard him mutter something that sounded like “Damn immigrants”.
His partner took a deep breath and made an effort to speak calmly and evenly. “Mr. Love, we have been very patient with you, but if you do not give us the information about Mr. McCartney that you have been withholding from us, we will play hardball.”
As scared as I was, the hilarity of this scene hit me. I did something that Allison had always hated, a kind of nervous reaction to the bad moments of my life: I burst into shrill laughter, right in poor Agent Smith’s stern face. The man’s expression twisted in confusion for a second, and then the righteous anger of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service kicked in.
He triumphantly held up a piece of paper. “Do you know what this is, sir?”
Gasping for air, I tried to swallow down the hysterical giggles. I peered shakily at the sheet. “It—it looks like an Air Miles statement.”
“Do you see the name at the top?” There was a trace of a smirk at the corners of his mouth.
I looked, and suddenly the laughter was gone. “That’s me. That’s my name.”
Now Agent Smith issued the coup de grace. “Do you see the number at the top, Mr. Love?”
It was a zero.
“Y—You guys can’t do that! That’s illegal.” I swallowed. “Isn’t it?” Allison and I had saved up those points for three years. We had planned to get a night in a nice hotel room with those!
Both agents shared a small smile with each other. Clearly, this was the part of the job that made it all worthwhile.
Agent Smith put it simply, so that I, a poor, naive civilian, could really understand.
“Mr. Love,” he said, “we can do whatever we want to you. We are here to protect you from yourself. Now,” he said briskly, pulling a laptop computer out of nowhere, “which question will you answer first?”
