Klein worked with the customers, the guys in Dallas (they kill presidents, don’t they?), and made arrangements for the Lear. I had the Albanian contacts, so I took a break from tailing Margaret for a week in early November to go to Tirana to set up Abzal’s reception centre. Clugg did the easy part (easy for him). After a final double-check of the Bhashie cavalcade’s exit route, he stuck his IED in the skate shack at four a.m. and triggered it six hours later from fifty metres away with a modified garage-door remote.
Albania. I never dreamed you’d agree to go with me. I was heading back there anyway, to make sure my acquaintances in the Security Ministry followed through on their commitments before I paid the final instalment. Enter Hanife Bejko with his, “Abzal Erzhan, he say pliss help.” That’s when I burned my finger, reading that note. Those assholes had stiffed me. Stiffed our customers, anyway. My idea was to wander away from you at some point, come up here to Tirana, and tell them to finish the job. Never thought I’d be going by ambulance with busted ribs and possible perpetual brain damage. Never thought I’d die here. That wasn’t part of the master plan.
You enjoy your life, Arthur. You earned it.
Confidentially yours till the end of time,
Ray
P.S. I forgot to mention the little detailing touch that would have made the whole thing credible had those shufflers in Tirana done their job. “No problem,” they said, “we learn at CIA school all best enhanced interrogation methods.” I forget the exact wording we’d agreed on for Abzal’s note, something like this: “My darling Vana, how sad I am that I can never return to you and my beautiful children. I must stay in hiding forever. I love you, and will always remember you. I did it for my country. For both my countries, Bhashyistan and Canada.” Then after they terminated him, we’d mail that goodbye kiss from some international haven for escapees, crooks, and deadbeats, like Costa Rica.
P.P.S. Somewhere along the line, expect to bump into a guy named Vlad Mishin, he’s one of the best. He’s so fucking transparent, though, I don’t know how he gets away with it.
Arthur added more logs to the fire, and fed the pages into it, then wandered off to join Savannah and Zack. They were laughing, not fighting, over some obscure and improbable word, gruffish. Arthur studied the Boggle cubes. “You could have added ‘ible’ to ‘gull,’” he said.
“Son of a bitch,” said Zack. “I missed it.”
“So did I,” said Savannah.
“So did I,” said Arthur, and went out to feed the goats.
38
Gerard Laurier Lafayette bent low into the wintry blast as he followed a snow blower to the Centre Block steps. On this third Tuesday of March, Ottawa’s enduring winter seemed bent on eclipsing the thirty-year snowfall record, 175 inches. “Three inches to go!” trumpeted the Ottawa Sun. The headline smacked of lewdness, reminded him of penis-extension spam.
Only two protesters had ventured out today. “Global warming is a Lie,” proclaimed one sign. “You’re an Idiot,” said an opposing view.
As Lafayette gained the front portals, a parliamentary officer, a supporter of Nouvelle Reforme, greeted him with inordinate enthusiasm. “Give ’em hell in there today, sir. The whole country’s behind you.”
Perhaps an exaggeration. Arguably, thirteen seats failed to demonstrate massive public approval, particularly since five had been filled by post-election crossovers from the Conservative Party. But enough to confer on Lafayette, to the astonishment of all, including himself, the title of Leader of the Official Opposition.
The Tories, leaderless and floundering, had eleven members now, tied with the NDP and Bloc. The Greens had outpolled them all, but lacking a regional base gleaned only four seats — a respectable showing, however, for Madam Blake, her reward a front-bench desk to the Speaker’s left. Dominating Parliament was a faceless swarm of 258 Liberals, in flood across both sides of the chamber.
Lafayette was confident those numbers would halve after four years of Cloudy McRory’s wayward efforts to govern. A patient scholar of politics, Lafayette would wait for the inevitable turning of the tide.
He was met in the foyer by several of his aides, who formed a phalanx to guide him through the mobs seeking entry into 253-D, where the Royal Commission on Issues Relating to the Dispute with Bhashyistan had been in boisterous session for the last three weeks. Lafayette might pop in if time permitted — today’s sitting promised some sport: Beauchamp was on the stand.
As he doffed his coat in his office, his chief political adviser swivelled a computer monitor toward him. “You may find some material here for Question Period, boss.”
YouTube, with its library of fatuous visual collectibles. “A production from Bhashyistan Revolutionary Front Studios,” proclaimed the intro, which dissolved into a familiar pulpy face, the insufferable Mukhamet Ivanovich.
“Welcome, all freedom-loving people, to new, improved version of beautiful Bhashyistan. Today, we are showing President Erzhan in action, praise Allah, may he long reign.” Erzhan had recently got a hero’s welcome in Ottawa, his testimony before the royal commission marked by a fawning display of solicitude from his interlocutors. After an exchange of consuls, he’d spirited his family back to Igorgrad.
“Here is President Erzhan cutting ribbon for friendly military base near Igorgrad to protect borders from foreign interlopers.” Various views of the country’s new leader shaking hands with Russian officers and Gazprom apparatchiks amid wild applause from onlookers, then moving to a microphone to laud “friends too long ignored.”
“Here also sharing spotlight is Prime Minister Ruslan Kolkov, long may he also reign.” A red-bearded giant from the Siberian steppes, favourite son of his Kremlin overseers. Thus had that miserable nation been restored to its historic role of satellite.
Clara Gracey’s timidity over Bhashyistan had deservedly pink-slipped her to political oblivion — she’d lost her seat and nearly her deposit. McRory had expressed his gratitude by posting her to lead Canada’s delegation to the World Economic Forum. Politics had never suited her — she was too … was principled the word? Too ingenuous for the rough-and-tumble.
“And now we conclude with stirring tribute to our dear friends from Bonavista to Vancouver Island. No hard feelings, Canada, over recent trobbles. God willing, always be glorious and free like us.”
Cut to a motley band playing the classic former theme to Hockey Night in Canada.
Lafayette felt a hint of nausea as he observed one of his aides blinking back tears.
Arthur settled himself into the witness chair under the black, unforgiving glare of his long-time nemesis, Wilbur Kroop, retired chief justice of the B.C. Supreme Court. How he had ended up chairing the Royal Commission on Bhashyistan was a distressing mystery, the final appointment of the imploding Conservative government. Maybe it was intentional. Get Beauchamp.
C.P.G. Barclay, the commission counsel, rose and carried on in his unflappable manner, taking up where he’d left off the day before. “Mr. Beauchamp, you have conceded that on January fifteenth, two months ago, you received, posthumously, an email from Mr. DiPalma.”
“I have not hidden the fact.” One has to be honest.
“As I understand the law, Mr. Beauchamp, death terminates solicitor-client privilege under special circumstances.”
“Only when disclosure may prevent imminent harm. That is not the case here. Alive or dead, Mr. DiPalma and his reputation are entitled to my silence and protection.”
Clugg and Klein weren’t talking either, though Arthur could hardly feel he was in good company. Morbid irony resided in DiPalma’s suicide — an act encouraged by his certainty they would sell him out. Arthur too had expected they’d dump everything on DiPalma. They might yet, subject to advice of counsel, of course.