The Sand Trap (27 page)

Richard knew there were other such
operations in other countries, since he met annually with the other
Directors of other NATO country intelligence operations and at some
point during their annual public meeting they met secretly to
review the activities of each of their “assets” over the past
year.

There were three ways that an “asset” could
be called into action. The country that owned them could ask them
to do a “job”. The only person at NATO who knew of the operation
could make a request of a country for their “asset” to do
something. Or one country could ask another to help out with a
domestic problem. Most of the "asset’s" work originated from the
latter two requests since it was too dangerous for an asset to do a
job that was linked to his or her own country. All participating
countries had the same process. A very legitimate and valuable data
gathering operation provided their countries and NATO with valuable
information to proact to any number of national or global threats.
A very small, one person, secret operation eliminated threats that
were uncovered in this data analysis that public and legitimate
governing processes were not able to do. While Richard was only
called on to activate his “asset’ once every year or longer,
whenever he read of a “bad guy” somewhere in the world dying he
figured it was the NATO “asset” gang at work. Neither he nor anyone
else other than the few involved would ever know for a fact.

Gord Salmy had been NATO’s, Canada’s, CIDC’s
and Richard’s asset for twenty-five years and had carried out
nineteen assignments in nineteen different countries without a
hitch or a suspicion. He had eliminated drug dealers, child
prostitution ring leaders, corrupt despots, mass murderers,
terrorists and, in the most recent case an embezzling banker who
was funding nuclear programs in North Korea. During those years
Gord had never questioned a job, although during the recruitment
phase years ago he and Richard had many conversations and debates
about the morality of such work. In the final analysis the
understanding that there would never be any killing for political
gain, no killing of children or collaterals of any kind, and that
the decision was backed up by an immense amount of legitimate
research, had placated their consciences enough that both had long
ago tacitly agreed to not raise the morality issue in their work.
In his case, Richard knew he was just rationalizing to not have to
think about the work. He had long ago lost any patriotic zeal. It
was just a job and he would retire soon enough with the pension he
deserved. In Gord’s case Richard was never sure. He had grown to
know Gord on a very personal way and outside of their little secret
they had become good friends. Richard kept everything secret from
Gord except his own role. Gord didn’t know he was the only Canadian
doing this, or that he had a watcher who looked over him, or that
he was part of a larger NATO team. From Gord’s side, he never told
Richard how he would carry out a job. He would ask for things from
Richard and they would be done. Like turning off the infrared
detectors in Korea. Other than those things, the method was up to
Gord, with the condition that it was seen as an accidental, or
natural death. As long as they kept their little secrets to
themselves their relationship worked fine. They played golf
together on Saturday and when their kids were growing up and when
they were both still married they had Sunday barbecues together and
even the odd cottage holiday together.

Like Richard, Gord was recruited directly
from a Ph.D.in linguistics. Gord had applied for the diplomatic
core and Richard had seen something in the application that tweaked
his interest; a not a very athletic looking person but strangely a
highly talented athlete, spoke five languages fluently, slightly
obsessive compulsive, not homely looking but more innocuous in
appearance than handsome. Gord was told at first that he was being
recruited into the secret service as an agent and he needed special
training so he accepted that without question. There was the
martial arts, the lessons on how to kill, and the other traditional
things that someone like him would figure you would need to be a
James Bond, even though no one would ever mistake Gord for Sean
Connery. When Richard finally told him what his special role would
be and that he would start at the end of the month as the V.P.
International for a small college in Ottawa, Gord just accepted it
and, as Richard had predicted, simply became obsessed with the
methods of “natural killing.”

And now, in 2012, after years of never
questioning his role, Gord Salmy wanted out. This pained Richard
because the Directors agreed there was one other rule of this
operation. The only way an asset was replaced was if they left in a
coffin. He knew for a fact that on at least a couple of occasions,
unknown to either, one country’s asset had been called upon to take
care of another country’s asset. He wasn’t sure if he could do this
to Gord, but if it became known that Gord was out then he would
have no choice. Since he may not have to call on Gord for some time
now, he had time to figure it out.

He called up the watcher on his secure cell.
“Hey. How are you?”

“Fine,” she replied. “That last job was a
close one don’t you think? I mean a fistfight in a public washroom?
Really!”

“What were you doing through this
debacle?”

“Well there wasn’t much I could do except
wait for him to finish and if he was late go in after him. Isn’t
that my job? To clean up if necessary?”

“Sure. But you didn’t have to. No one made a
connection between the banker’s heart attack and our man in the
washroom. All of the security cameras in the washroom and the
tunnel had been disabled.”

“Yeah. Right. No one is making a fuss
because no one wants to. If the Korean security boys wanted to look
further into this it wouldn’t take them long to find the trail and
raise suspicions that the death was not a natural occurrence.”

“You know that’s not likely to happen.”
Richard paused and announced. “He wants to retire.”

There was a pause at the other end of the
line. “I’m not surprised. As you know he has retired from
everything else. He quit his VP job. It will be tough to find as
good a cover as that job.”

“You know that no one retires to golf and
grandkids from this job.”

“Yeah Richard,” she replied with a little
exasperation. “I had the Hotel California speech as well.”

“Well, I have decided what we are going to
do with him.”

There was silence at the other end. Richard
couldn’t even hear her breathing. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” she responded quietly.

“First. You are going to lay off him for a
while and move to watching his replacement. I have had a succession
plan in play for a while now. Gord is 58 after all. Despite his
personal considerations, age becomes a factor here. I’ll get you
her details by the usual method.”

They had a secure Internet “drop box” method
they used to share written information.

“But you are no longer his watcher.
Secondly. We are going to support him in every way we can with this
crazy senior golf thing. I have a hunch this might actually give us
a way out. Thirdly. I need you to find a way to get his personal
life fixed up. Use whatever means necessary to get the divorce all
done. Make arrangement for his house to be sold and the realtor to
find the perfect place for Gord to live. You know what I mean by
perfect.”

She was silent, thinking with some relief
that this didn’t seem like an asset elimination strategy. “No
problem for any of this. Will I have to get a new job?”

“Yes. How are your financial skills? You
will soon be offered a job as an international investment
strategist with a Canadian firm that specializes in takeovers all
over the world.”

“Wow! My dream job!"

He ignored the sarcasm. “OK. We’ll not make
contact again unless I have a job for the new asset, or there is
something about Gord we need to discuss. The resources you need
will be made available in the usual way through the RBC
account.”

Richard broke off the call and returned to
the mundane world of intelligence analysis and a 275-page report on
the flow of Mexican drug money to an Al-Queda terrorist cell.

(Back to Table of Contents)

Gord was surprised when the real estate
agent called him in the morning and told him the house had been
sold and even more surprised when his lawyer called in the
afternoon and told him the divorce was final. Gail gets the house
and he gets the Anguilla condo and everything else was split down
the middle. Gail had her own career at the National Research
Centre, so there were not any alimony issues or anything like that.
As far as he was concerned she could keep whatever she had already
taken from the house as long as he was left with his music stuff,
his clothes and, of course, his hidden cupboard. Financially he
really didn’t care that much. He had a small pension from the
University but he also had twenty-five years of Agency retainer
saved and compounding in a bank in Anguilla. All along he had
envisioned that he and Gail would retire to one of the most
beautiful islands in the Caribbean. He was going to surprise her
with the money when he retired. He had a fleeting thought that he
hadn’t shared it before or she would now have half of a multi-
million-dollar account.

He could easily get weepy about the house.
He and Gail had built and designed the house and they had raised
their two children there. Despite the ignominious end to the family
dream he still had many very good memories of their life in the
house. As he walked through the empty children's bedroom, and the
den where they all grew up armed with the truth according to cable
television, he smiled and wondered if he would ever have such
personal relationships again – at least ones that would raise such
emotions as he was now feeling. Even the master bedroom had enough
happy history to offset the last five years of marriage misery. Now
he had to make some decisions about his secret stash behind the
wall of stereo equipment. He figured he would throw out some, take
some to a remote location and bury it so it would never be found
again and keep some for future disposal. He just hadn’t yet figured
out which was in what pile, or for that matter why he was keeping
anything. He was retired after all. Some of the chemicals and
organic materials had taken him years to accumulate and could
probably never be found again, or at least not easily brought into
Canada. Some of the rare plant and insect products came from some
isolated parts of the world and he smuggled them into Canada and
into his secret stash well before 9/11 and the rigour of modern
luggage screening. He just couldn’t throw them out. Besides, some
were too dangerous to be easily disposed. Maybe he would leave them
to some university in his will and let some grad student figure out
what they had been used for. But all that was for another day.
Tonight he had to get some rest since tomorrow was the first day of
the club championship. He had a great reunion with the guys last
Saturday for his first round of golf in over two months. Given the
strange things he was doing with his swing they were surprisingly
gentle with him. He had expected no end of ribbing about the
one-foot rule but none of them said a thing until he took out the
belly putter and then the ribbing started.

“Why don’t you just use a hockey stick like
Adam Sandler?”

“I guess as your dick gets shorter your
putter gets longer!”

“I hope you didn’t buy that thing! Probably
found it outside Sunset Living Lodge.”

All comments elicited loud laughter from the
three friends.

Gord gently reminded them that two of the
biggest and youngest winners in the PGA the past year had used
belly putters and Paul Azinger has been using one for years.

“And where is Azinger now?” Richard
asked?

Gord answered by placing a curving twenty
foot putt right in the middle of the cup and said a secret, “thank
you Bruce!”

Gord never tried to explain the changes he
had made, just put up with the ribbing and shot the lowest round he
had ever had at the club. He smiled confidently and felt he was
more than ready for tomorrow and the tournament. The club
championship was a three round event starting with eighteen holes
of medal play on each of Friday and Saturday. The top ten players
in each flight made the cut for a round on Sunday for the flight
and club championships. There were six flights allowing golfers of
all handicaps to enjoy the competition. With an official three
handicap, Gord was in the championship flight with all golfers who
had a handicap less than five. There were a lot of good golfers in
that flight. At least eight of them were currently
twenty-somethings on scholarships at a U.S. university. One young
member had actually made it to the final round of the PGA Q School
before a final round put him in the top seventy-five and a year on
the Nationwide Tour. After a couple of years of travel and hotels
he had returned to a job with his Dad’s insurance company and been
reinstated as an amateur. Another senior golfer like Gord was a top
ten finisher in the Canadian Senior Open; though he had put on so
much weight he was having trouble walking the course as was
required in the tournament. While Gord had been successful in the
club senior championship, none of the top players in the club saw
him as much of a threat for the club championship. He was just too
old. Gord of course hoped to reshape their opinions today.