Anna took a fork from a drawer underneath the counter and handed it Justin.
“Since you opened this door,” Justin asked, “care to tell me about your midnight dates?”
Anna blushed and smiled.
“I haven’t had any midnight dates for a while,” she said with a sense of anticipation in her voice. She took a brief pause as if rethinking the rest of her reply. “Until now,” she added under her breath. Her last two words were loud enough for Justin to hear, but soft enough for a quick denial.
Justin read between the lines. I’ve promised myself not to fall for someone I work with. Besides, it’s not the right time. He pretended he missed Anna’s not-so-subtle hint.
Anna shrugged and dug into her dessert. “Hmmm, this is so good,” she said in a long moan. “Thank you so much.”
“Oh, you’re welcome.”
“Justin, what made you wanna do this?”
“You said you were hungry.”
“No, silly. I mean this job. Being a secret agent.”
“In preschool, when playing hide and seek, I was very good at finding the other kids.”
“Ha! Very funny. In that case you should have been a PI.”
“This job is much more fun. What made you want to impress a jury?”
“I don’t do litigation. Our section does research, analysis, and gives legal advice. I’m usually locked in the office for eight hours straight. On the rare occasions when I’ve seen the inside of a courtroom, it has been from a spectator’s seat or the witness stand.”
Justin nodded and licked his fork.
“But, you’re right in a sense,” Anna said. “I do want to impress someone. My father.”
“What does he do?”
“He used to be a judge, for the Court of Queen’s Bench, until he retired last year.”
“Health problems?”
“Yes. How did you know that?”
“A simple guess.” He shrugged. “That just happened to be right. Well, I have kind of a bit of insight, since I know a few people here and there, who can access certain databases—”
“No, you didn’t?” She threatened him with a fork full of whipped cream. “You ran a background check on me?”
“Guilty as charged, your honor.”
“You won’t be smiling when I’m finished with you.” Anna placed her box and fork on the counter, but Justin had already darted for the stairs.
“Don’t forget to clean up,” he said, keeping his voice as low as possible.
“Tomorrow, you’ll pay for this, Justin Hall.” Anna stabbed his image with her fork, but Justin noticed a joyful glint in her eyes. “And I’m not talking about the cake.”
“Good night, Anna. Sleep well.”
“Good night, Justin.”
As he climbed up the stairs, Justin failed to notice a small shadow creeping next to the fire exit door, at the far end of the hall on the second floor: Alisha hiding in the dark. She had been eavesdropping on their entire conversation.
“Arrogant? Difficult to work with? Patronizing? Somebody’s life is going to get extremely difficult, Justin. And I promise you won’t even see it coming,” Alisha mumbled as she tiptoed toward her room.
Chapter Five
“Neither Nuqatlak, nor Levinia, his longtime girlfriend, used their cellphones during the night or this morning.” Justin handed Kiawak a printout, while whispering on his microphone. Aboard the Eurocopter NH90, the communication set earphones cancelled the constant rattle of the helicopter’s engine. “So, even though we bugged their phones, there’s no new intel.”
Kiawak, sitting behind Justin on the second row of seats, glanced at the chart, full of rows of phone numbers, the time of the calls and their length, all from days ago. He shrugged, and passed it to Alisha, who sat across from him and next to Anna.
“We’ll be on the ground in five,” Carrie said and dropped the helicopter about ten feet.
None of the passengers were surprised by the stomach-twirling fall. The ride from Pond Inlet had been bumpier than if they drove a pickup truck without shock absorbers. But the helicopter had allowed the team to cross the two hundred and seventy miles separating the two towns in a little more than ninety minutes.
“Let’s hope he’s still there,” she added.
“Well, the office confirmed Grise Fiord has been Nuqatlak’s official address for the last three years,” Justin replied.
“You’ve got a problem right there,” Carrie said. “Official. Like his official job, which is a trucker.”
“Well, his files at the CIS and the RCMP were pretty thin, so that’s all we’ve got,” Justin said. “If he’s not there, we’ll comb the town for clues.”
Alisha analyzed the phone records Kiawak had passed her. “Who’s Job?” she asked.
“Levinia’s brother, I assume,” Anna replied. She titled her head but could barely read the printout. Alisha was holding it close to her face. “They’ve got the same last name. He’ll be our next stop, if a search of Nuqatlak’s home turns up nothing.”
Carrie tapped the helicopter’s controls and the aircraft veered to the left. They had just crossed Jones Sound separating Ellesmere Island from Devon Island during the short summers but joining them with a thick ice cap the rest of the year. The ice floes, which had just started to melt, resembled large pieces of shattered glass. At the shore, the small houses of Grise Fiord came into view. Carrie gained some altitude, in order to climb over a series of cliffs over the town about five-hundred feet high.
“This should muffle the chopper’s noise and give us the advantage of surprise,” Carrie explained. “By the time they notice us dropping over the town, hopefully it will be too late.”
She stared at the frozen plains and chose a suitable place for landing: a solid ice field, clear of ice boulders and with no visible, large cracks. She brought the helicopter down without any problems.
Justin and Kiawak jumped out of the helicopter only moments later.
“Here we go again in the cold,” Anna whined in protest as she zipped her jacket and put on her gloves.
Anna had just set foot on the ground when a black snowmobile jumped over a tall snowbank and landed with a loud thud on one of the narrow trails leading outside the town. The vehicle coughed out a cloud of gray smoke and sprayed a storm of ice shreds from its rear. The driver headed south, toward Jones Sound. A second rider hung tight onto the driver as the sled bounced over the ice bumps of the trail.
“Who’s that?” Anna asked.
“That’s our target,” Carrie replied.
Justin and Kiawak were running toward the town, in the opposite direction of the fleeing snowmobile. Knowing they would never be able to catch up to Nuqatlak and his accomplice on foot, Kiawak knocked on the door of the closest house. Justin stood by a Mazda truck parked on the driveway.
“What do we do?” Alisha asked.
“Can’t follow them in the chopper,” Carrie replied. “If they’re armed and fire at us, a damaged chopper means the end of our mission.”
“So, we’re just going to stay here?” Alisha asked with an accusatory frown.
“No. Follow me.” Carrie pushed the helicopter’s door shut and gestured toward another house. “We’ll go after them.”
“Who tipped him off?” Anna asked, trying to keep up with Carrie, who began running. Alisha had already fallen behind, struggling with the slippery ice sheet covering the trail.
“Maybe one of Kiawak’s buddies. But then, people caught up in these kinds of deals keep an ear to the ground at all times and live in constant fear. I mean, look, this guy bolted out of his home as soon as he heard the chopper.”