Someone got a Canadian flag from a smuggler, and it’s hanging outside, just above a rough sign that says, translated, National Headquarters, BDRF. Little Hasran, who is only fourteen, has a dream of becoming a Canadian pilot someday. One time they chorused us with “O Canada,” it sounded hilarious. I was truly shocked to hear a partisan recite a dozen stanzas of “The Shooting of Dan McGrew.”
And they’re always carrying on about Abzal Erzhan, the great things he did, sending the Great Father the way of Dan McGrew, blowing up “those nine sons of whores who sucked on Igor’s tit and stuck their heads up his Ivanovich,” as bowlegged old Ilyich crudely put it. (Ilyich has no fingernails, but he wasn’t born that way.)
They meet a lot, Redbeard the Pirate in the chair, trying to keep things on keel, but they shout and argue. A lot of them can’t speak Russian, which is the second language here, but I could still pick up they’re talking guerrilla warfare, incursions into the countryside to give hope to the people there and bring more fighters into the fold. Sort of like Castro in the Sierra Maestra.
Plans to smuggle us across the border are on hold. “When the time is ripe,” Ruslan says. “Not taking chances with our beautiful Canadian ladies.” Sometimes I writhe with worry. Sometimes I’m at peace and full of hope, not just for ourselves, but for this defiant ragtag band of warriors.
Christmas, I’m having trouble visualizing it. The tree, the turkey, the hanging stockings. Old Tom Witherspoon in his creepy Santa suit, snockered on rum punch. Mabel Zytishin and her jinglebell necklace and out-of-key carolling. The girls dragging us out of bed at half past six. I have to stop now.
21
Arthur stared into the half-emptied closet, wondering what to pack for Christmas in Albania. Three suits would be too many; he’d surely find a dry cleaner somewhere. A warm sweater or two, an umbrella for the rainy winter climate. No point in taking his cellphone. Its reach did not extend beyond North America.
All Margaret’s clothing was gone but a pair of briefs that had somehow got mixed in with his underwear. He pocketed a stray earring, one of a pearl set he’d bought her for a Christmas past. Christmas present would be spent in Albania, where a Christmas present must be bought for her. Surely that struggling little republic would have something distinctive on offer, some handicraft or colourful fabrics.
Before heading off to her riding to set up her campaign, she’d given his trip her tentative blessing, warning him not to let DiPalma lead him into trouble — despite Arthur’s latest efforts to champion him, she was sticking to her view that he was capricious and unstable. At the slightest hint of mischance, she would hand a copy of Hanife Bejko’s letter to the deputy foreign minister. Until then, no one in government would know about this mission — certainly not Crumwell, whom Arthur heartily distrusted.
Margaret had called from Garibaldi, to inform him, with frost in her voice, that a klatch of women had come by to buck her up with cookies and sympathy, welcoming her to the cheated wives’ club. “Christ, this island is hopeless. Arthur, you didn’t …”
“Damn it,” he’d moaned. “If it will shut them up, I’ll pay for a full-page denial in the Bleat.”
“Please don’t.”
Piling his arms with clothes, Arthur listened dully to the scales on a violin, repeated monotonously — it was Sunday, when 1 °C’s musicologist gave lessons to neighbourhood youngsters. When he returned to the living room and his yawning suitcases, the scritching of strings was succeeded by the bawling of the male lead of “Marital Bonds,” who’d been exiled to the balcony. “Jules and Patsy? You what? Invited them over? Tell them I’m tied up!”
“Give him a gag too,” someone called from below.
Arthur turned the radio up for the news, catching the back end of the lead item: “… not only hacked into, but all hard drives on their networks rendered inoperative. Here’s a further report from Angela Brinker in Toronto.”
“Clyde, members of the RCMP electronics crimes division said the virus has clogged computers of several big-box chains with some kind of screensaver that is multiplying exponentially like amoebas gone wild. It’s in the form of a high-resolution banner that reads in translation: ‘Death to the Assassin Erzhan.’”
Operation Storming Ram. Arthur got it: Random-Access Memory. Either the third son or one of his helpmates was a genius. Cyber warfare had struck at the true heart of Western democracy, not government but consumerism, the prime engine of commerce, mega-mall shopping outlets. Just before Christmas.
“While the virus seems to have originated in Bhashyistan,” Ms. Brinker said, “it has been traced to a proxy Internet provider in Russia. Experts say it will be days before all computers can be cleaned. Losses are expected to be in the tens of millions. Back to you, Clyde.”
Arthur listened without much heart to condemnation from government, politicians, industry spokespersons. International figures too, but Canada’s powerful Western allies seemed unwilling to move off the sidelines, as if expecting Bhashyistan to implode on its own and the problem to disappear.
Arthur could only guess what awaited him overseas; he harboured little faith that his quest would end well. He’d followed the horror stories from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, terrorist suspects crippled for life or driven to madness by waterboarding, sleep deprivation, acts of unbearable humiliation. Or killed.
Who had engineered this extraordinary act of extraordinary rendition of a Canadian citizen named Abzal Erzhan? Russia seemed well in the picture, given reports from Sully Clugg that ex-KGB agents may have been involved. Billions in oil revenues were at stake for Gazprom if the Alta deal could be scuttled. As well, the computer virus had been traced to a server in Russia, where cyber crime flourished and the rule of law was idly enforced.
But Arthur preferred the signs that pointed to Anglo-Atlantic Energy, with its wealthy backers and powerful British and American ex-politicians — who, presumably, had easy access to the former spies mentioned by Agent Clugg, international mercenaries operating under the cover of a London security company.
Given the ease with which Abzal had been plucked from the streets of Chambly, might CSIS operatives also be involved in this shadow world of espionage agents? What about Clugg himself, whom DiPalma called a “thoroughgoing jerk”? Was Anthony Crumwell complicit? His background, after all, was as former head of MI5’s anti-terrorist wing. Arthur had never met him, but heard he was embittered at the world after a letter bomb shredded his hand.
Arthur returned his attention to the radio: the first poll figures of the campaign were out. Liberals forty-nine per cent, Conservatives eighteen and on the verge of a near-historic collapse, the NDP, Bloc, and Greens in low double digits. Progressive Reform was sniffing at the leavings while busily nominating candidates — a few respected names but many malcontents, fringe elements. Lafayette had been busy, scouring the country in an effort to patch together a credible team.
Arthur was not looking forward to this tedious, crowded global warming flight, but to kill time he’d picked up a Lonely Planet tour guide and an Albanian phrasebook. As he zipped up his bag, there came strained laughter from the neighbour’s balcony. “Don’t get the wrong idea, Jules — the straps are to keep me in bed. I have a sleepwalking disorder.”
Arthur sighed, wondering if he would forever be haunted by the Episode.
Tragger, Inglis’s Ottawa branch was small in numbers but big in rarefied specialties: trademarks, patents, private international law. Arthur’s first stop there was the office of Antoine Salzarro, the former Public Security mandarin who’d liaised with CSIS for many years.