Snow Job (42 page)

“Too much prep, Prime Minister.”

“What’s our risk level?”

“Light to medium. I can’t guarantee there won’t be casualties.”

Nor, she supposed, could he guarantee against calamity. She looked over at E.K. Boyes. “Nothing ventured,” he said. Other advisers nodded. Unspoken was the fact that an election was in the balance.

“We had unreliable information for Eager Beaver.” She looked at Crumwell, his cold, deadpan expression. “Buster, has there been any unusual activity in this town, or around their jail? Anything to suggest they might be expecting us?”

“Negative on that. Our drones are keeping a watchful eye.”

Instinct told Clara to put off her decision, to tread with caution.
She’d been the one government voice urging thoughtful patience. But she had a week and a half to say go or no. Her headache was not abating. She kept seeing Mukhamet’s hamlike face.

“I’m giving this a provisional green light. I’ll want an update two days prior to the point of no return. Let’s have lunch.”

Crumwell had looked ready to eat and run, but his escape was thwarted by Percival, who ushered him into Clara’s study with coat in hand. “You asked if I could stay behind, Prime Minister.”

“Yes, sit down.” She swivelled to the window, the forest of frozen bare-limbed trees that made the grounds seem spooky. She struggled to quell her distaste for the spymaster, his mask of competence, his paranoid mindset, his misogyny. “Anthony, I’m still waiting for that briefing note.” Promised a week ago.

“Yes, I have that project on my desk. I haven’t been feeling too tickety-boo.”

“I’m very sorry. Well, brief me now. What’s the latest on this threatened tar sands bombing?”

“We’re waiting. We have eyes everywhere, but we’re not sure of their timing.”

“But you have someone in deep cover. What’s his name — DiPalma.”

“Ray DiPalma.”

“And is he still out of contact?”

“It’s been eleven days. I can’t say we’re not worried.”

“You’ve no idea where he is?”

“Afraid not. He has befriended Zack Flett, whom you’ll remember is posing as Ms. Blake’s hired hand — though his real goal is to run around the country stirring up trouble. Flett’s movements are known to us, but he’s had no recent contact with Agent DiPalma, by telephone or otherwise. I should add that we have a judicial order to intercept the suspect’s calls.”

“Does that extend to Margaret Blake’s home phone?”

“Indeed.”

“Okay, I want that stopped. You are not to bug the line of a member of Parliament.”

“Excuse me, madam, but that would seriously compromise our efforts.”

“It could seriously blow up in our faces. Especially if it turns out your Mr. DiPalma has been fed a line of bull.”

Crumwell looked shocked. “Agent DiPalma is a very capable operative.”

Clara pulled a news clipping from a file. “This him? Left his laptop in an unlocked car in a shopping mall?”

“That was, uh, when he was having marital difficulties. Started off brilliantly … I did discuss all these matters with Minister Thiessen, but let me brief you.”

“Please.” She was in growing dread that a massive screw-up was afoot, a concern not allayed by Crumwell’s narrative of nervous breakdown and wife-stalking. Astoundingly worse, it appeared DiPalma was quickly outed as a CSIS agent by his targets on Garibaldi Island.

“Sorry, I’m spinning. He is posing as a
traitor?
”

“He has artfully persuaded Zack Flett he is a convert to his cause.”

“And Margaret Blake as well? And Arthur
Beauchamp?
” Unable to still her fury, she stood, her fists balled. “Do you think they’re
idiots?
Are you saying Charley Thiessen did
not
put a stop-action on this?” Her voice cracked.

Crumwell stammered. “I, um, didn’t see this as being so awkward, because, uh … the operation was also cleared by Gerry Lafayette …”

She sat with a thud, pinched herself. No, she was not asleep, this was not a nightmare.

“And now your incredibly talented Mr. DiPalma has vanished into thin air. Let’s bloody hope we don’t find his body floating down
the Fraser River.” She sighed wearily. “Anthony, tell me bluntly. Has anything else been going on I should know about?”

A massive clearing of throat. “Excuse me.” He drank some water. His eyebrows scrunched in thought. “No, uh, no, nothing comes to mind.”

O
n this first day of the new year, Arthur had decidedly little to celebrate. He’d just returned to his hotel in Gjirokaster after six days of bureaucratic hell, so morose that he was fighting the seductive pull of the half-litre of cognac DiPalma had left behind.

Ray was still in Tirana — he’d been transferred from its National Trauma Centre to a Catholic clinic and hospice for recovery care. On his several visits Arthur had seen physical improvement but also emotional decline — DiPalma was oppressed by an intense sense of failure. Gone was the braggadocio, replaced by teary confessions of incompetence — not just in the field of espionage but in life generally. His inability to sustain a marriage or a love affair or any kind of deep friendship; this he blamed on the early loss of his mother, the disaffection of his father.

He’d entered an extreme depressive phase, said his physician, who was concerned that the concussion may have accelerated the symptoms of Parkinson’s he’d observed. It was as likely, Arthur thought, that DiPalma no longer had the strength to hide the shakes. Adding hugely to the toll: he was battling addictions to alcohol and nicotine.

But Arthur too endured a sense of failure after his week in the Albanian capital. He’d been hung out to twist in the wind, shuffled from one prison official to another, his inquiries met with grins
and shrugs. None were able to unearth records of Abzal’s transfer from Prison 303. Arthur had made it as far as the assistant director-general of prisons. “If Warden Chocoli says he was taken away by the border police, then I’m sure he’s correct.” He professed to know nothing about Arthur’s client; he had too many problems at work to follow the world news.

The border police had no evidence Abzal Erzhan had even entered the country — though they were aware, from Interpol bulletins, that a man by that name was wanted. “We escort prisoners into the jails, not out,” said a senior officer who opened computer records showing they’d not visited Prison 303 on December 13 or any other day that month. He begged Arthur to believe Warden Chocoli had made an honest error — some other policing agency must have taken custody of Mr. Erzhan.

A bored clerk in the Justice Ministry asked him to come back in ten days while they checked on the matter. Immigration officers knew nothing. Doors of more senior officials were closed for the holidays.

Arthur refused to believe Abzal was lost within the labyrinthine oblivion of the country’s jail system. This was a classic case of stonewalling, an effort by corrupt officials to hide their illegal role in a high-profile rendition.
There are other people involved, people in Tirana
. People who’d been paid a vaster sum than Arthur’s laughable offer of thirty grand to Chocoli, their underling. He had a sick feeling that Abzal might have been disappeared permanently. A sham accident or suicide.

Arthur had never been inclined toward paranoia, but had sensed a strong whiff of it in Tirana. On every street he’d walked, he’d glanced back to see followers. Sometimes a man, sometimes two, sometimes a man and a woman — ducking into shadows or doorways. He stopped venturing from his hotel at night. In the day, he took taxis. Even then he sensed pursuit, felt danger. The message: don’t get too close to the truth; you can disappear too.

The Gjirokaster had kept his room for him, and from its balcony he stared out at a fittingly dismal, wet day, murky clouds hanging
low over the hills, the street vendors protecting their wares under umbrellas — among them Djon Bajramovic, wiping his thick glasses clear of the steam rising from his curbside cookery as he served two burly men in rain hoods.

He glanced back at that flagon of Skënderbeu
konjak
, but was rescued from temptation as much by firmness of will as by recall of the New Year’s Eve revelry on the streets of Tirana, the hapless, roaming drunks, a fight spilling from a tavern. That morning, the driver of his minibus, dangerously hungover, had nearly skidded off the road.

To make matters worse, his cash reserves were down to five hundred dollars’ worth of leks, and the local bank was closed for New Year’s. Happily, Bully’s fifty thousand was there — the bank manager had confirmed this by telephone. Unhappily, he could conceive of no useful way to spend it: he was at a dead end, his campaign beyond resurrection.

The money would stay in the bank for now — Arthur would feel very jittery carrying big sums around. Doubtless his contract with Chief Bizi for police security had expired — unless those two heavyweights munching Djon’s
qebaps
and looking up at him were undercover police.

He returned inside, gave the operator the Blunder Bay phone number. Savannah answered with a poorly smothered yawn, and he realized it was five a.m. there.

“I’m sorry, I’m obviously quite discombobulated.”

“Hey, I was going to get up anyway.”

“Please don’t wake Margaret. Tell her I’m returning to help with her campaign as soon as I can make arrangements. I’ll call her later in the day.”

“Where are you anyway? Somewhere exotic I heard, but nobody’s saying.”

“All will be known soon.”

“Sounds like you’re not having a happy new year.”

“The most dismal I can recall.”

Pride goeth before a fall. Reckless in his anger at Anthony Crumwell, Arthur had vowed to solve what that thief of privacy had been unable or unwilling to grapple with. He would look moronic on his return to Canada. Going cap in hand to the Foreign Ministry, to CSIS, seeking forgiveness for DiPalma, begging help to rescue Abzal.

He’d gathered some evidence to confirm the rendition, but would an infamous fence like Hanife Bejko be believed? Might Warden Chocoli spirit away the Prison 303 guest register? Arthur had photos of it, but the prospect of presenting such paltry proofs to Crumwell caused his stomach to clench.

That stomach would feel better filled. He put on his coat.

“For best customer all of Albania, unless you are observing Jew or Muslim, best buy today is pork. New Year special. Organic, from farmer friend, Christian like me. How is Mr. DiPalma?”

“He’s very depressed.”

“You also look not happy, Mr. Beauchamp.”

“There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.” Seneca’s despairing cry.

“You not have success in Tirana? Did I warn you? Hire Djon Bajramovic, otherwise they jack you around.”

“Djon, I am not a developer. I am a criminal lawyer.”

“The truth is revealed.” Djon passed him a thick nugget of braised pork. “You try, you like. Feast of gods.”

“I am representing a client unlawfully detained in your country.”

“Ah, yes, Abzal Erzhan. Why you not say so earlier?”

Arthur gagged on the meat. “What? What? You know about this?”

“Is secret? Not to Djon Bajramovic. Erzhan is well-known outlaw, famous in news. In Prison 303, north of Korça.”