Deadline (13 page)

Young felt his anger
boiling over. “Fine, go back to pretty boy. Just don’t come running
back to me when he goes back to screwing everything in skirts. It’s
time you grew up and faced realities, Megan. Life is not a fairy
tale. There are no Prince
Charmings
out there and everyone
doesn’t live happily ever after.”

“
Dad, you really are a
cynical shit.” Megan glared icily at him and stormed out of the
office.

Chapter 35

Toronto Police Headquarters
2:25 PM

THOMAS PHILPOTT started to
sweat.

The glare from three overhead
fluorescent lights bored into his pupils. He sat at a small metal
table with chairs, across from Detectives Moon and Savage. They had
interrogated him for more than 30 minutes.

Savage played the bad cop, haranguing
Philpott with dire threats of what would happen to him if he didn’t
confess to the Wolfman murders.

Moon played the good cop, trying to
sympathize with Philpott. Telling him things would go easier on him
if he just confessed and got things off his chest. He told Philpott
he would feel better by coming clean.

Philpott, however, stubbornly stuck to
his story. He denied being the Wolfman.

“
You’ve got the wrong
person, officers. I could never commit such horrible murders. I
don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I never sent
those e-mails.”

“
Look you perverted piece
of shit. If you don’t come clean soon, I’ll knock it out of you,”
said Savage, staring at Philpott menacingly while clenching his
right fist.

“
Now Brian, that will be
enough of that talk. There is no need for threats. Mr. Philpott
wants to help us with our inquiries, don’t you, sir? If he didn’t
do it, he is perfectly within his rights to deny it. There is of
course one way to definitely prove you are not the Wolfman. Would
you be willing to provide us with a DNA sample for
testing?”

“
Of course, I have nothing
to hide,” replied Philpott. He was eager to grasp at any straw that
would prove his innocence.

“
It is very simple, Mr.
Philpott,” said Moon, removing a Q-tip swab from his desk drawer.
“I will take a sample of your saliva and we will test it against
DNA evidence recovered from the Wolfman’s victims.”

He took the sample from Philpott’s
mouth and placed the Q-tip in a small sealed container. It would
take a few hours for the results to test Philpott’s DNA with
evidence from the bite marks on the victims, but that would
conclusively tell them whether Philpott was their man. But Moon was
beginning to seriously doubt it.

Philpott’s vehement denials and his
body language under interrogation didn’t strike Moon as being
indicative of this wimpy librarian being the Wolfman.

“
But have you ever found
anyone in your office who shouldn’t be there?” Moon eyed the
anxiety-filled suspect closely. He was beginning to believe
Philpott’s story. He somehow couldn’t see him as the Wolfman. He
didn’t fit the bill.

It must be someone else at the
newspaper.

“
But if it wasn’t you who
sent those e-mails, who did?” Moon took a softer tone in his
inquiries. “You must have some idea who might have had access to
your computer.”

“
Anyone at the paper could
have sent them, detective Moon. I’ve told you that my office and
the library are never locked. Like I told you at the paper, I never
come in that early and those e-mails were sent in the early
morning.”

The door to the interview room
suddenly opened. Another detective poked his head around the door
and beckoned Moon. The detective sergeant excused himself and
stepped outside to consult with the other detective, David
Sloan.

“
Peter, we’ve checked out
his home and his computer,” said Sloan. “They’re clean as a whistle
concerning this Wolfman stuff. No indication that he’s our guy. In
fact, we found some gay porn on his computer. I think this guy’s
interests lie in other areas. He likes young boys. He may be a
pervert, but I doubt he’s a killer.”

“
Thanks, Dave. I’ve been
coming to that realization myself. This just confirms it. We’ll run
a DNA test to be certain, but I think we’re going to have to kick
him loose. I don’t think he’s any threat to the women of this fair
city.”

Moon pulled out his cell phone and
called Katie Cannon’s number.

“
Katie, just wanted to let
you know that Philpott is not our man,” said Moon when he heard
Cannon’s voice. “We’re going to release him shortly. We need to
start to looking elsewhere. If he didn’t send those e-mails, then
someone else at the paper did. The Wolfman is someone working at
your paper. I need you to come down here so we can get profiles of
who might be likely candidates.”

“
I’ll be glad to help if I
can Peter, but it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,”
replied Cannon. “There are more than 350 employees at the Daily
Express. I only know a few of them and I have no idea who could be
the Wolfman.”

“
Well, we have to start
somewhere. At least we’ve narrowed the field down to 350 or so
suspects out of a city of three million. I’ll send a car to pick
you up.”

“
Don’t bother, Peter. I’ll
drive myself down to police headquarters. I’m leaving now and
should be there in 20 minutes.” Katie scooped up her digital
recorder, dropping it into her purse.

She headed out of the newsroom towards
the garage and her waiting car.

Chapter 36

Antonio’s Restaurant 2:45
PM

THEIR LUNCH seemed to take an
agonizing time to complete.

Chase felt like a fish furiously
wriggling to get off the hook. Ashley and her marriage proposal had
caught him completely off guard.

Between bites of her salad and sipping
a Chardonnay, Ashley rambled on about how wonderful their life
together would be. She seemed to assume that Chase had accepted her
marriage proposal, though he firmly remained
non-committal.

“
Listen, Ashley,” he said.
“This has all come as a big surprise and shock for me. I need some
time to reflect on your proposal. I’m already in a relationship
that I’m committed to although I’m not quite sure yet whether my
partner feels the same.”

“
Nonsense, Andrew,” Ashley
replied. “If she doesn’t realize what a catch you are, you should
kick her to the curb. We are alike you and I. We’re like two peas
in a pod. We complement each other nicely. We travel in the same
social circles. We should be making this lifetime journey together,
darling.”

Ashley smiled like a cat eying a tasty
bird.

“
You didn’t feel like that
eight months ago when you dropped me,” said Andrew.

Chase still carried the hurtful wounds
from that experience. He enjoyed the relationship with Ashley. They
did have a lot in common and enjoyed some memorable moments, if you
could put aside her innate selfishness. He was surprised when she
suddenly ended their relationship.

Ashley was high maintenance and needed
to be catered to constantly. That would never change. She was
comfortable to be with, but Chase was not sure that he ever loved
her. Not in the deep sense that he loved Katie Cannon.

But Chase was tiring of their
secretive life.

It is time for Katie to publicly
declare her love for him. It is time their relationship moved on to
the next step. If not, perhaps it would be better to part and go
their separate ways. He desperately needed to talk things out with
Katie. He needed to know whether she was as committed to their
future together as he was.

Chase’s desperation for new sources of
funding for the newspaper made the $40 million offer from Ashley’s
father attractive. If he couldn’t marry for love, perhaps the next
best alternative would be to marry for money. At least his other
love, the newspaper, would continue to flourish. He wouldn’t have
to sell to that ogre Rupert White.

Choices. Difficult choices.

Who says being rich is easy and
carefree? The burdens of management and ownership are sometimes
overbearing.

Chase sometimes wished he could chuck
it all and live a carefree life as a beach bum on some Caribbean
island with Katie. Ah, but there’s the rub. He could only
contemplate such a carefree life with Katie – never
Ashley.

Ashley would never surrender her high
society life to go to a Third World island. Katie was the one he
really loved and he needed to talk to her before responding to
Ashley’s offer.

Chase pushed his plate to one side. He
picked up a napkin to wipe his mouth. “Well, Ashley, this has been
wonderful. But it is getting late and I need to get back to the
paper.”

“
Yes, it has been simply
marvellous seeing you again, darling. I do hope you will consider
my proposal and get back to me soon. We will need to start planning
right away. I think a Christmas wedding would be simply delightful.
Daddy will be so happy when I inform him of our nuptials.” Ashley
took another sip of her wine and smiled sweetly at
Chase.

He
signaled
for the waiter
and handed over his credit card to pay for the bill.

“
Well perhaps we’d better
not tell Daddy just yet,” said Chase. “We wouldn’t want to raise
his hopes falsely. I’ll consider your proposal carefully Ashley and
phone you in a few days with an answer.”

As Chase arose to leave, Ashley said
icily: “Do that, darling. But please don’t take too long. I don’t
like to be kept waiting. We do need to start planning the wedding
soon. The sooner it happens, the sooner Daddy will write you that
big fat cheque. I’m sure you can put it to good use.”

“
I’m sure I can, darling,”
replied Chase brusquely.

He couldn’t leave the restaurant fast
enough.

Chapter 37

Road to Peshawar Friday
1:00 AM

(Pakistan Standard
Time)

TREVOR TREVANIAN was back on the road
again in Pakistan.

He was headed to Peshawar -- the
nearest city to the tribal areas with the facilities to file his
interview with Osama bin Laden.

Peshawar is the provincial capital of
Pakistan’s northwest frontier. The name literally means City on the
Frontier in Persian.

Numerous invaders have ruled this city
of about 3.2 million people over the centuries, including the
Persians, Greeks, Turks, Mongols, Afghans and the British. Peshawar
is the commercial, economic, political and cultural capital of the
Pashtuns in Pakistan.

Trevanian was again a passenger in the
rusted Lada as it sped along the dusty highway toward Peshawar.
Dharwal, accompanied by his heavy-set associate Abu Garzai, drove
the vehicle.

Garzai seemed to be riding shotgun. He
didn’t speak much and Trevanian figured he didn’t speak English.
When he did utter words to Dharwal they were in a language
Trevanian couldn’t comprehend. It sounded like Pashto.

Trevanian sat in the back seat again.
Only this time he was unrestrained and without the nasty black
hood.

The ride was bumpy, but much more
comfortable than his journey from Afghanistan into Pakistan. He
worked on his laptop writing up the interview.

Dharwal was chattier and friendlier
during this leg of the journey. He said they should arrive in
Peshawar within 90 minutes if all went well. Good, thought
Trevanian. He hoped to file the story tonight in time to make the
late edition of the Daily Express.

Dharwal’s English was quite
good.

“
I have great respect for
you Canadians and your independence from the American infidels,” he
told Trevanian.

“
Ah, so we’re a better
class of infidel are we?” quipped Trevanian.

Dharwal told Trevanian he has a cousin
living in Toronto who drives a taxi.

“
I take a lot of cabs when
I’m in Toronto, I’ll be sure to look out for him.” Trevanian
couldn’t help wonder whether Dharwal’s cousin was part of an
al-Qaida cell in Toronto. The Canadian Security Intelligence
Service (CSIS) would likely be interested in Dharwal’s
cousin.

Trevanian checked his watch. It was
1:15 a.m. Friday here and 3:15 p.m. Thursday back in Toronto. With
luck he should be in Peshawar by 3 a.m., plenty of time to file his
story for the Friday edition of the Daily Express.

There was no doubt this story would be
picked up by the wire services and carried by news outlets around
the world. Osama bin Laden may be a terrorist with blood on his
hands, but he remained big news around the world. Especially since
he had not been seen or heard from in quite some time. Trevanian’s
piece would be sure fire proof that bin Laden was still alive and a
threat to the West.

Trevanian continued to work on his
laptop as the car sped along the highway in darkness. He could see
little outside the windows of the vehicle. It was pitch black
outside with only a little moonlight.

After about 30 more minutes, the Lada
began to slow. Trevanian could see lights ahead and two vehicles
blocking the road.