Face/Mask (14 page)

“Hmph,” Prescott rubbed his chin. “That certainly seems to describe our Mr. Janus. Betting on dog-fights in the slums, and now this...this inexplicable need for exotic thrills, as you call it.”

To Prescott’s way of thinking paying for the privilege of lying where who knew how many men had gone before made no sense, whatever supposed health guarantees there were. Finding added titillation in sneaking into the internment camps to fornicate with some unwashed desert tramp was beyond the pale.

“I don’t care what some plumbers or lawyers enjoy doing, disgusting as it may be,” Prescott told Sévigny, removing his glasses and wiping them nervously on his tie. “But this kind of insalubrious conduct on the part of a Department head is a different matter. He has access to sensitive information, and he’s leaving himself open to blackmail or other undue pressures.”

“That’s assuming he isn’t passing secrets on willingly,” Sévigny noted.

“Yes. And what would make him to do something like that? Would he have some sort of sympathy or common interests with these Muslims?”

“There is something I found out which you’ll be interested in,” Sévigny said, “although at this point it doesn’t seem to be relevant. It didn’t come out in his polygraphs, which is surprising.”

“What do you mean, ‘didn’t come out in his polygraphs’?”

“I mean it never came out in any of his interviews, not when he first entered the civil service, nor at any of his promotions. This leads me to believe that he might not have been aware of it.”

“And what exactly is
it
?”

“His wife is part Muslim. One-quarter, to be exact.”

“What? That’s impossible. He never could have gotten so high in the administration with a Muslim wife.”

“As I said,” Sévigny explained patiently, “she is
one quarter
Muslim. Her paternal grandmother was Syrian, born in some place called Quneitra. She converted to Catholicism when she married Teresa Pizzi’s grandfather.”    

“Who?”
     “Teresa Pizzi.
Mrs.
Janus. And the grandmother died when Mrs. Janus was sixteen years old, well before she met her future husband.”

“What of that?”

“Nothing, except that it might explain why he didn’t know about it. It might have been something she wouldn’t have wanted to tell a prospective husband.”

“I suppose. Could this family secret have been kept from the grand-daughter as well?”

“Teresa? Oh no, she knew about it. She registered with the
Bureau des citoyens étrangers
in 2020, the year it became obligatory.”

“Merely registered?”

“It’s on all her census forms too. If it’s only one pre-deceased grand-parent it’s considered sufficient. There was never a question of sending her to Laval.”

“But would she deliberately keep this a secret from her husband, even after marriage?”

“She would if she knew it could affect his career. She must have been aware of the polygraphs he had to undergo.”

“And yet a few months ago he suddenly becomes enamoured of all things Muslim. And you don’t believe his wife’s family history is relevant?”

“I haven’t been able to link Janus’s…activities, for want of a better word, to his wife’s side of the family.”

“But he
is
having surreptitious meetings with unknown confederates in Laval, is he not?”

“It could be just the whore,” Sévigny said, his tone betraying his growing impatience. “It is to her apartment that he’s been going every week.”

“No. I’m not so naive to believe that a man in his position would risk everything merely to fulfill some sordid desires. There are whores aplenty in Montreal.”

“Well something has got him to go to this prostitute’s apartment on a weekly basis for seven months now.”

“What is this woman’s name?”

“She goes by Sahar Chamseddine. She was born Sarah Shaheen, right here in T.M.R. to a Maronite family, if you can believe it. She converted when she married a Muslim man in 2013.”

“Converted, eh? Who knows, she might well be more fanatic than someone born into the cult. This whole prostitution business might be a front for the radical group she and Janus are working for.”

“Perhaps,
Monsieur
Prescott, we should gather some actual evidence before coming to that conclusion.”

“Oh, I’m sure the evidence is there for you to find. I want you to put this Chamseddine woman under twenty-four hour surveillance. I want the names of every-”

“I’m quite aware of how to do my job, sir. After-all, I still work for the Security Directorate.”

“Yes, of course, Sévigny. That’s quite right,” Prescott said, and smiled to show that he wasn’t offended by the obvious jibe about his new position. “And I have no doubt that you will do it very well.”

Yves Prescott headed home that evening, confident that Sévigny would uncover whatever dirty little secrets Allen Janus was trying to hide. His time as the head of Security Prosecutions had taught him to look upon anyone who deviated from the path that had been set out by the administration as a potential radical, or even a terrorist. This meant that a large number of the people he dealt with on any given day were suspects in his mind, and this suited him just fine. If that was what had to be done to keep his city safe, then so be it.

He sat in his car on a dimly-lit street, keeping a sharp eye out for sudden stops or lane-changes by the incompetent drivers around him. The permanent traffic jam that was downtown Montreal forced other cars too close to his own, as drivers tried to squeeze into his lane or drove within an inch or two of his rear bumper.

There weren’t many pedestrians out on the sidewalks. Due to the permanent smog few people walked or rode bikes. Even the homeless had been cleared from the streets and placed into massive shelters, except for the hundreds who’d died before the administration got around to helping them.

The public transport system was old and unreliable, so most people took their cars wherever they went, and this increased the pollution. Hybrids and electric cars hadn’t come on the market early enough to prevent the inevitable damage to the environment, especially once China and India decided they deserved the same luxuries that Western countries had so long taken for granted. With the damage around the world being all but irreversible the middle and working classes had little enthusiasm for the extra expense of eco-friendly vehicles.

Prescott slowed to a stop, the fifth or sixth car in a line-up at a weakly flickering red light. Somebody in his ministry, in Infrastructure he supposed, was responsible for maintaining this traffic light. He made a mental note to send the Department Head a memo complaining about their shoddy standards.

Of course, that would be Allen Janus,
Prescott reminded himself with a sneer.
Probably too busy day-dreaming about his filthy whore, if that’s what she really is, to see to it that his department is run well
.

Prescott shook his head in disgust over the kind of subordinates he had to put up with. Not like the people he’d worked with at Security: efficient as well as hard-working.   

Now that was work that had some meaning.

His thoughts must have presaged the scene that played out in front of him. Several people who were waiting in a bus shelter, wearing the air-masks that made them conveniently unrecognizable, stepped out into the slow-moving traffic. They were carrying a large object between them. As one stopped in front of Prescott’s car he saw that the man was holding one end of a banner.

The man lifted his end up on a long metal pole, and the others quickly unfurled it. In seconds Prescott found himself fuming as he read the brightly written and bilingual slogan: “
À BAS LE GOUVERNEMENT FASCISTE; L’AIRE ET LA LIBERTÉ POUR TOUS;
DOWN WITH THE FASCIST GOVERNMENT; AIR AND FREEDOM FOR EVERYONE.”

“Little fucks,” he grumbled, furious at having this sedition thrust into his face, blocking his car from moving forward at the same time. Other drivers honked at the trouble-makers, who took off running, leaving their sign stretched across the roadway. Most honked in frustration at having the traffic’s crawl slowed even further, while a few honked in support of the activists.

Prescott looked around him, trying to see if any of the other drivers were smiling or looking in anyway encouraging toward these young hoodlums. Everyone around him was wearing an air-mask, and he had no way of knowing what sort of expressions lay behind them.

So many people, so many strangers
.

One could never tell what they were thinking, or who they were. How many of them were possibly terrorists, or maybe just run of the mill criminals, or even psychopaths? If any one of these people was going to plant some sort of bomb, or was carrying a gun, or even a knife, how could anybody know it without being able to look them in the face?

He felt some tightness in his throat, which had gone dry. His heart began beating faster and he had trouble catching his breath. Was he safe sitting there? Was anybody safe anymore?

His squeezed the steering wheel and tried to calm his racing thoughts. Once, he’d been one of the chosen few tasked to protect the public against a menace of which so many were ignorant. He’d always taken pride in that responsibility, even if few people expressed their appreciation for his efforts. And now, even if he was no longer in an official position to continue his work, he still had enough friends at Security Prosecutions to continue his fight against those terrorist bastards in his own small way.

That, at least, was a comforting thought.

July 6, 2039

The weeks turned to months and Robert Sévigny was unable to find any reason for Janus to go see the prostitute in Laval each week…other than the most obvious one. He kept his ear to the ground but didn’t let the favour he was doing for Ives Prescott interfere with his regular duties, clamping down on potential subversives in the Laval camp.

When he received an e-message one grey summer day telling him to be available to receive a call from the Homeland Security Czar, Sévigny thought it was a joke. Hans Schultz had no reason to communicate directly to an RCMP Division Head, even one with a sterling reputation like Sévigny. Any such communication would normally go through the Justice and Security Minister and then the Deputy Minister before it reached Sévigny.

Nevertheless, at the appointed time of 3 PM Sévigny was at his desk and had left instructions that he not be disturbed.

Just in case
, he told himself, with a silent promise to rain down his wrath on whichever numbskull thought wasting his time like this was a good idea.

A few minutes past three Sévigny’s com whistled. He touched it, bringing the screen to life. He expected to see the dumb grin of one of his subordinates. Instead, he looked into the soft, somewhat watery eyes of Hans Schultz himself.

“Do I have the pleasure of speaking to Inspector Robert Sévigny?”

Sévigny managed to not show any surprise at this overly-courteous greeting, or the identity of the person offering it. Schultz’s accent and mannerisms made him a caricature of an antebellum Southern gentleman.

“Yes sir. Good afternoon, sir.”

“Inspector, I am so sorry to call on you like this, out of the correct order, you might say. Rest assured that I am in the process of communicating with several Division Heads across the eastern half of Canada.”

“Sir?”

“I will presume,” Schultz continued, paying no attention to Sévigny’s evident befuddlement, “that you are intelligent enough to understand that a call such as this one, which bypasses certain of your political superiors, means that our topic of discussion will remain between us. I need the cooperation of the police, not of politicians or any civil servants looking for a quick promotion.”

“Yes. That’s clear, sir.”

“Now, Inspector, what I am going to task you with is a bit unusual, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I seem somewhat vague about it. Quite simply, some highly classified information is missing, and we require your assistance in order to find it. Of course, this information may not even be in your jurisdiction, although for reasons we can’t explain, we believe there is a good chance that it is. It may have been placed on an info-disc, or a chip of some sort. Goodness, it may even be written on a scrap of paper. We can’t be sure.”

“And do you have any idea which group or persons may have gotten their hands on it?”

“Sadly, no. It may be a radical group, a rogue politician; your aunt Matilde, if you have one.”   

“I see. And what’s the nature of this information?”

“Excellent question; but as I mentioned, the information is classified, so I can’t even tell you, or any of the other Division Heads, its subject matter.”

“So, if I understand you correctly, I should get the word out to my sources to be on the look-out for anyone claiming to be in possession of information that they wish to use or sell. Yet I can’t tell them who these people might be, or what the information is, or where it came from.”

“That’s about the sum of things.”