Moonheart (22 page)

He didn't care much to be disturbed at any time— whether he was working on a complicated calculation in the lab, or simply relaxing at home, it never failed to irritate him. So he wasn't prepared to be intimidated when he reached the door.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"Gannon," came the soft-spoken reply.

Hogue's fingers trembled as he unlocked the door. Phillip Gannon pushed past him into the apartment with the assurance of someone who was very rarely denied anything he wanted. He reminded Hogue of Tucker. Like the Inspector, Gannon was a big, self-confident man who knew how to intimidate without appearing overtly threatening. As such, he was the antithesis of Hogue, whose bullying was reserved for the few men in the lab who had to work under him and was based only on Hogue's placement in the bureaucratic structure.

Gannon was very much like Tucker, except that Gannon's street origins were cloaked under a veneer of civilized behavior that was all the more disquieting when one was aware of his capability for sudden violence. Tonight he wore a light beige overcoat on top of a tailored three-piece suit, patent leather shoes, a Christian Dior shirt and a narrow black tie. He was the picture of an elegant businessman standing in Hogue's hallway, leaning casually against the doorway as though he belonged there, his voice cultured and soft; but he had the body of a weight-lifter and the cold, dead eyes of a fish.

"What are you doing here?" Hogue asked.

He didn't like the way he felt when confronted by men like Gannon and Tucker. It made him too aware of how his overweight and out-of-shape body betrayed the same softness within as was displayed without.

"Mr. Walters would like to speak with you," Gannon said. "Better get your coat."

"Tell him I'll... I'll call him in the morning."

Gannon shook his head. "Mr. Walters would like to see you in person. Tonight. No discussion."

As always, Hogue capitulated immediately. His sense of self was abysmally low. It had been like that for him in public school and carried over through college and medical school. By now it was so firmly entrenched in his mental make-up that he could not stand up for himself without a complete reversal of what thirty-four years of bowing and scraping and petty-minded unrealized dreams had turned him into. His only solace was his profession. He showed a certain brilliance amidst the straightforwardness of scientific logistics, and within the power structure of the bureaucracy— where he was amongst the upper echelons— he was one who "got things done." Never mind that the greater part of such work was largely conceived and carried out by his understaff. In the lab he was an authority. A mover and a doer. Everything his life otherwise lacked. Outside those white-washed walls...

"Let's
go,
Dr. Hogue."

Gannon gave him a small push and Hogue stumbled to the closet to get his coat. The simple fear he felt in Gannon's presence escalated and was replaced with a more chilling one. What did Walters want with him tonight?

His hands were shaking as he put on his coat and he wished right then that he'd never gotten involved with this affair in the first place. Unfortunately, the time for such a decision was long past. And to be fair, given the way his life had been going, how could he have chosen otherwise? The additional financial considerations aside, Walters' interest in his career was a stepping-stone to greater things. He'd been shocked and impressed with his own importance when J. Hugh Walters had first called to discuss some articles he'd had published. Hogue had been eager to help then.

But in the months that followed, he'd become enmeshed in a nightmare from which there was 'no escape. It was then that he first learned about how much control one man could have over another. But by then it was too late to back out. There was no place for him in the world of men like Walters and Gannon.

"There's a car waiting downstairs," Gannon said when Hogue finally had his coat on.

He ushered Hogue out before him and closed the door to the apartment. The lock caught with a small click and Hogue shivered. The sound was an ominous reminder of how he'd closed the doors on all his options. He tried to remember what the turning point had been. When had a good student, and later a good researcher, become the man who could be taken from his own home in the middle of the night by some Gestapo-like goon?

Sometimes Hogue thought that if he could figure that out, there might still be a way out for him. Mostly he knew that for the wishful thinking it was. Walters had too strong a hold on him. The RCMP were unforgiving when it came to one of their own leaking secrets— even if that one was only a CM, a Civilian Member. And Hogue didn't even want to think about what Walters would do with him if Project Mind-reach was closed down. He'd read enough spy novels to know how loose ends like himself were usually tied off.

Tucker pulled his Buick up to the curb at the corner of Waverly and Elgin and shifted into neutral. Beside him, Collins took a final drag from his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray.

"Thanks for the lift."

"S'okay. See you in the morning."

"Yeah."

Collins reached for the doorhandle, then turned to regard Tucker.

"Everybody feels bad about what happened to Paul," he said. "It was a piss-poor way to buy it. Not that there's a good way, only..."

Tucker stared straight ahead. "Only what?"

"Maybe you should take it easy, you know? Get some sleep, maybe."

"Yeah. Sure. Until the next guy buys it."

Collins shrugged.

"Look," Tucker said as he was getting out. "I appreciate the concern, okay? But I can't let it rest. Nobody gets away with wasting one of my team."

"Paul was my friend."

Tucker turned. "Then maybe you understand."

"Yeah. I guess I do."

Collins shut the door and watched the Buick pull away before heading for his apartment. He wasn't going to sleep much himself. But until they had something hard to go on, what could they
do?
But when they finally got hold of the guy that did it. Then... oh, yes. Then.

In the foyer of his building he shook out another Pall Mall, lit it and checked his mailbox. As he went up the stairs with his phone bill in hand, he wondered how much he had left of that fifth of Scotch he'd picked up on the weekend. He hoped there was enough of it to put a haze across the knife-edged loss that was cutting up his gut.

After dropping Collins off, Tucker headed up Elgin and took the Laurier Bridge across the Rideau Canal. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the big clock on the Peace Tower that was part of the Parliament Buildings, but they still hadn't gotten it working. Hell of a way to run the capital of the country. The Peace Tower clock didn't even work. It was about as much use as the bozos they'd voted into office that debated in the Commons below it.

His wristwatch told him it was just going on one. Hell of a way to spend a Wednesday night. Hell of a way to spend any kind of a night. Not that he had a whole lot else to do— at least not since he'd broken up with Maggie again.

Tucker sighed. He had neither family nor very many close friends. It was hard to get to know people when your job took you back and forth across country, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. He had about four months vacation leave piled up and double that again in sick leave. What he should do was just take the whole lot of it and go some place like Jamaica or Greece and let someone else deal with all of this for awhile. Christ, anything was better than this.

He smiled bitterly. Well, Tucker, he told himself. You've got 'em again. Them old mid-operation blues.

On an impulse, he turned left on King Edward, drove the three blocks to Daly, and turned right, coming to a stop across from the house where Thomas Hengwr had kept a room. He switched off the ignition and stared at the darkened building, not bothering to check the windows in the building on his side of the street where one of his men was holding down the stakeout on Hengwr's place.

So where are you now, Hengwr? he asked the shadows that spilled between the old houses. Was it your idea to have my man blown away? Or did your boy do it on his own time?

He sat in silence for a long time, waiting for some inspiration to come to him. Then, sighing, he started up the Buick and headed up to Rideau Street. He decided it was time to have another look through the files back at the office. Christ knew he could just about quote them word for word as it was. But he couldn't just sit around and do nothing, waiting for a break that might never come. He might come across something he'd missed before. Yeah, and maybe Hengwr and Foy'd waltz in and turn themselves in.

But that wasn't the way it worked in the real world. Real world? Hell, with the speculations on which this Project was founded, who was to say where the real world even fit in?

Meeting J. Hugh Walters in his private study wasn't quite the same thing as being dined by him in the Chateau Laurier, Hogue decided. For one thing there was no one to see how important you were. And for another, there was a palpable sense of danger floating in the air. The sudden realization came to him that at some point between the last time he'd met with Walters and tonight, he'd been thrust across the boundary that separated colleague from employee. He wondered if he'd ever get a chance to work his way back.

"Sit down, Lawrence, sit down," Walters greeted him. "Would you care for a drink?" But once Walters took his chair behind his big desk, little time was wasted in getting to the matter at hand.

"I'm not at all pleased with your handling of Project Mindreach, Lawrence."

"I... I can explain," Hogue began, trying to relax so that his trembling hands wouldn't spill his cognac.

"I'm sure you can," Walters replied wearily. "But I don't pay you for explanations. I pay you for results. The latter, it seems, are beyond your capabilities."

Walters frowned and Hogue wanted to crawl under the rug. He felt like a nobody, compared to his host, who had controlling stocks in a half dozen multi-national consortiums, who chaired a number of important advisory boards as a favor to friends in the Senate, who was on a first name basis with both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, whose actual political interests were of a far greater scope than simply the country of his birth and present residence, who when he traveled abroad was as welcome in the war-torn Middle East or in the Eastern Block as he was amongst the member nations of NATO.

"I could get better results if it wasn't for Inspector Tucker," Hogue said.

"I understood that the strategies were yours. He simply implemented them."

"Yes. That's true. But since then— since we lost Hengwr, and now Foy— he's taken over."

"I don't understand what you're driving at," Walters said.

"No," Hogue explained. "It's I who didn't understand. When you first brought him up, I thought he'd be perfect for the job. We needed tight, absolute security. And we have that. But now that we've had a couple of setbacks— based on my strategies, I'll admit— he's taken over the Project."

"That won't do." Walters tapped his fingers on the blotter before him. "If it's true, we'll have to have him stopped."

"I don't think you fully appreciate the uniqueness of Tucker's position on the Force," Hogue said. "I didn't myself until just recently. They simply turn him loose on the problem and don't check up on him again until the operation's finished. He doesn't get told so much as he tells. He's answerable only to Superintendent Madison, who in turn reports directly to the Solicitor-General's office. I don't think even the Commissioner is aware of Tucker's position."

"I don't believe he is," Walters agreed. "But then again, when I recommended that such a position be set up, there were good reasons for it— reasons that no longer apply as that old problem has since been rectified. In the meantime, there seemed to be no reason to change Tucker's status. He has been doing an exemplary job."

"You recommended...?"

"That was some time ago— around the time of the APLQ fiasco." Walters was referring to the burglary of the Agence de Presse Libre du Quebéc offices in 1972. The APLQ was a politico-journalist organization that, along with the Mouvement Pour la Défense de Prisoniers Politiques du Quebéc, was sympathetic to the FLQ cause and alleged to have lent assistance to jailed "political prisoners." The affair, like a low-key Watergate, didn't become public knowledge until some three and a half years later with the arrest of an RCMP Constable involved in a bombing attempt on the Mount Royal home of a Steinberg's supermarket chain executive in Montreal. Subsequent evidence pointed to the first time that the RCMP had been implicated in methodical illegal activity.

Tucker had been assigned to assist the Royal Commission that was established in the summer of 1977 to determine the scope and frequency of those activities.

Seeing Hogue's baffled look, Walters shrugged.

"At any rate," he said, "when it was decided that we needed the tightest security available, I naturally thought of Tucker."

"And does he..."Hogue licked his lips nervously. "Does he know anything about the arrangement between us?"

"Heavens, no. He doesn't even know that I recommended him in the first place. But that's rather irrelevant. You were telling me how he was obstructing the positive flow of the Project. How so, exactly?"

"It's not something that's easy to explain."

"Try," Walters urged dryly.

"Yes. Well. It's more a number of small things than anything major. But you know as well as I that in research, great discoveries are made not from major efforts, but—"

"Spare me the lecture. How is he hindering the Project?"

"We lost Hengwr. Then—"

"I understood that Hengwr's loss was due to your miscalculations, not Tucker's."

"Yes. Perhaps. But tell me this then: why wouldn't he bring in this Sara Kendell? She had potential. Not to mention that he refused to cover up a loud-mouthed ADM out in Tunney's Pasture who was threatening to go to the papers. Not to mention that he lost one of his men—"