In High Places

'You disappoint me,' Dan said. He extended a foot and scuffed a desk leg disconsolately.

'Sorry. I wish I could do more.' There was a pause, then Alan asked curiously, 'Why's the Prime Minister coming to Vancouver anyway?'

'It's some sort of nation-wide tour he's making. All very sudden; there's a lot of speculation about it.' The reporter shrugged. 'That's somebody else's business. My idea was to get the two of you together.'

'He'd never see me,' Alan declared.

'If he were asked, he couldn't afford not to.' Dan Orliffe pointed to the pile of newspapers on the office chair. 'D'you mind if I move these?'

'Go ahead.'

Dan dumped the papers on to the floor, turned the chair around, and straddled the seat. He faced Alan, his elbows on the chair back. 'Look, chum,' he contended earnestly, 'if you haven't figured it by now, let me lay this out. To ten million people, maybe more – to everyone who reads a newspaper, watches television or listens to a radio – you're Mr Valiant-for-Truth.'

'Mr Valiant-for-Truth,' Alan repeated. He inquired curiously, 'That's from Pilgrim's Progress, isn't it?'

'I guess so.' The tone of voice was indifferent.

'I remember I read it once,' Alan said thoughtfully. 'In Sunday school, I think.'

'We're a long way from Sunday school,' the reporter said. 'But maybe some of yours rubbed off.'

'Get on with it,' Alan told him. 'You were talking about ten million people.'

'They've made you a national image,' Orliffe insisted. 'You're a sort of idol. Frankly I've never seen anything quite like it.'

'It's a lot of sentiment,' Alan said. 'When all this is over I'll be a forgotten man in ten days.'

'Maybe so,' Dan conceded. 'But while you are a public figure, you have to be treated with respect. Even by Prime Ministers.'

Alan grinned, as if the idea amused him. 'If I did ask for an interview with the Prime Minister, how do you think it should be done?'

'Let the Post arrange it,' Dan Orliffe urged. 'Howden doesn't love us, but he can't ignore us either. Besides I'd like to run an exclusive story tomorrow. We'll say that you've asked for a meeting and are waiting for an answer.'

'Now we're getting to it.' Alan swung down his feet from beside the typewriter. 'I figured there was an angle somewhere.'

Dan Orliffe's face had a studied earnestness. 'Everybody has an angle, but you and I would be helping each other, and Duval too. Besides, with that kind of advance publicity, Howden wouldn't dare refuse.'

'I don't know. I just don't know.' Standing up, Alan stretched tiredly. What was the point of it all, he thought. What could be gained by attempting more?

Then, in his mind, he saw the face of Henri Duval, and behind Duval – smugly smiling and triumphant – the features of Edgar Kramer.

Suddenly Alan's face lighted, his voice strengthened. 'What the hell!' be said. 'Let's give it a whirl.'

Part 15

The Party Director

Chapter 1

The young man in the tortoise-shell glasses had said 'a couple of days'.

Actually, with a weekend in between, it had taken four.

Now, in party headquarters on Sparks Street, he faced Brian Richardson from the visitors' side of the party director's desk.

As always, Richardson's sparsely furnished office was stiflingly hot. On two walls, steam radiators, turned fully on, bubbled like simmering kettles. Although only mid-afternoon, the Venetian blinds had been lowered and shabby drapes drawn to circumvent draughts through the leaky windows of the decrepit building. Unfortunately it also had the effect of blocking out fresh air.

Outside, where a bitter blanket of arctic air had gripped

Ottawa and all Ontario since Sunday morning, the temperature was five below zero. Inside, according to a desk thermometer, it was seventy-eight, There were beads of perspiration on the young man's forehead. Richardson rearranged his heavy, broad-shouldered figure in the leather swivel chair. 'Well?' he asked. '

'I have what you wanted,' the young man said quietly. He placed a large manila envelope in the centre of the desk. The envelope was imprinted 'Department of National Defence'.

'Good work.' Brian Richardson had a sense of rising excitement. Had a hunch, a long shot, paid off? Had he remembered accurately a chance remark – a fleeting innuendo, no more -uttered long ago at a cocktail party by a man whose name he had never known? It must have been all of fifteen years ago, perhaps even twenty… long before his own connexion with the party… long before James Howden and Harvey Warrender were anything more to him than names in newspapers. That far back, people, places, meanings – all became distorted. And even if they were not, the original allegation might never have been true. He could, he thought, so easily be wrong.

'You'd better relax for a while,' Richardson suggested. 'Smoke if you like.'

The young man took out a thin gold cigarette case, tapped both ends of a cigarette, and lit it with a tiny flame which sprang from a corner of the case. As an afterthought he reopened the case and offered it to the party director.

'No thanks.' Richardson had already fumbled for a tobacco tin in a lower drawer of the desk. He filled his pipe and lit it before opening the envelope and removing a slim green file. When the pipe was drawing, he began to read.

He read silently for fifteen minutes. At the end of ten he knew he had what he needed. A hunch had been right; the long shot had paid off.

Closing the file, he told the young man with the tortoise-shell glasses, 'I shall need this for twenty-four hours.'

Without speaking, his lips tightly compressed, the other nodded.

Richardson touched the closed file. 'I suppose you know what's in here.'

'Yes, I read it.' Two spots of colour came into the young man's cheeks. 'And I'd like to say that if you make use of any of it, in any way whatever, you're a lower and dirtier bastard even than I thought you were.'

For an instant the party director's normally ruddy cheeks flushed deep red. His blue eyes went steely. Then, visibly, the anger passed. He said quietly, 'I like your spirit. But I can only tell you that once in a while it becomes essential that someone gets down in the dirt, much as he may dislike doing it.'

There was no response.

'Now,' Richardson said, 'it's time to talk about you.' He reached into a file tray, thumbed through some papers and selected two sheets clipped together. When he had glanced through them he asked, 'You know where Fallingbrook is?'

'Yes, northwest Ontario.'

Richardson nodded. 'I suggest you start finding out all you can about it: the area, local people – I'll help you there -economics, history, all the rest. The riding's been represented by Hal Tedesco for twenty years. He's retiring at the next election, though it hasn't been announced yet. Fallingbrook is a good safe seat and the Prime Minister will be recommending you as a party candidate.'

'Well,' the young man said grudgingly, 'you certainly don't waste any time.'

Richardson said crisply, 'We made a deal. You kept your part, so now I'm keeping mine.' Pointing to the file on his desk, he added, 'I'll get this back to you tomorrow.'

The young man hesitated. He said uncertainly, 'I don't quite know what to say.'

'Don't say anything,' Richardson advised. For the first time in their interview he grinned. 'That's half the trouble with politics: too many people saying too much.'

Half an hour later, when he had read the file again, this time more thoroughly, he picked up one of the two telephones on his desk. It was a direct outgoing line and he dialled the Government exchange, then asked for the Department of Immigration. After another operator and two secretaries, he reached the minister.