The Spy I Loved (32 page)

The
subjects waited briefly after making the call. This would be
standard procedure, because of the security cams which were
becoming universal. After a while, they got up and walked away,
disposing of the phone in the trash on the way out. The message
could have been sent from anywhere in town, from a vehicle or an
alleyway even.

“
I’m suggesting that we give them what they want—EMERALD,
basically just the piece we have here.” If they could get away with
it.

“
All right, Liam. If you can get authorization on that end, do
what you have to do.”

Liam
nodded.

“
Goodbye, sir.”

“
Good luck, everyone.”

Liam cut
the connection.

Looking
up, there was a semi-circular row of faces watching him
soberly.

He nodded
brightly.

“
And now, we wait.”

Sooner or
later the subjects would call back.

***

With no
idea of how long they might have to wait, feeding all of these
people was a good idea. He had a couple of junior members outside,
running the barbecue. Luckily, he had laid in plenty of hotdogs and
hamburgers. It was three a.m. when it struck him that the enemy had
a good reason to wait.

Kayla—he
had finally learned her name, beckoned from her station at the
kitchen table where she sat vigil with her phone and a half-eaten
cheeseburger and a paper napkin beside her.

“
Spencer is free now. He’s mobile. They were relatively
well-equipped when they left.” She gave him a look.

They had
three more warm bodies now available. Bringing them back here might
not be the best way to deploy them. It would be too easy to take
the whole bunch out at once.

“
Have them hold up in town. They can get a motel—hopefully.”
She typed it in carefully.

They
still had agents on Agnew Lake. They had people stationed up and
down the Trans-Canada Highway. They had agents, boats, planes to
the south, where the river discharged into Lake Huron by Manitoulin
Island.

She
nodded, and as Liam straightened and looked at the back door, she
gave Ian further information.

The smell
coming in the back door on the light northwestern breeze was
getting outrageous.

Liam
didn’t know when he might get a chance to eat again.

He stuck
his head out the back door. They were just taking off a half a
dozen steakettes. There was a slice of melted cheese on every
second one. Another person deftly turned a dozen or so wieners,
just turning black and sizzling under a thick coating of barbecue
sauce.

“
Here—give me a couple of those.” The young fellow quickly
grabbed toasted buns off the rack and flipped meat patties into
them.

“
There you go.”

“
Condiments?”

“
Never.”

Liam
shook his head and the young fellow grinned.

Holding
one in each hand, Liam wandered down to the beach, where all was
peace, calm water and those damnably inscrutable stars overhead in
their billions and billions.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The phone
rang.

It was
them.

That
queer voice came over the speakerphone.

“
Good evening, or perhaps I should say good morning. Mister
Kimball. Well, well, well. What a tricky little fellow. It seems
you haven’t been entirely forthcoming with us.”

“
Whatever do you mean?”

“
You know what I mean. The debris or components that have been
recovered from up north. Agnew Lake, I believe.”

“
I don’t have any control over that one. It’s not in my
custody.”

“
But you can get it, can’t you, Mister Kimball.”

It wasn’t
a question, it was a statement. It was even true. He
hesitated.

“
I’m afraid I really can’t give you both of them. You already
have a significant portion yourself—as I recall, you stole it fair
and square.”

The
chuckle that came out of their tinny speakers was enough to raise
the hackles.

“
And yet you
do
want the girl—”

“
I expect you to deal in good faith. She’s a very nice girl. I
will grant you that. But if you kill her, you get nothing. Also, if
you have harmed one hair on her head, I will follow you to the ends
of the Earth. I will find you. Sir. And we’re not giving you both
pieces.”

They held
their breaths as the sound of nightjars and other nocturnal birds
came in through the open back door, where the grille sizzled still
as it slowly cooled.

“
Very well then. We’ll take the one from Agnew Lake. That one
sounds so very much more interesting than a wonky old engine
cluster—bent, broken and crushed as it is. Your call, Mister
Kimball.”

Shit.

They
seemed to know an awful lot all of a sudden.

“
I’ll see what I can do.”

“
You had better do it quickly, Mister Kimball. I’ll tell you
what. Why don’t you bring both pieces to the old McKerlie sawmill
in exactly thirty minutes. Oh. And you had better be
alone.”

The call
was cut off.

That was
it.

Liam
looked at Kayla.

“
The McKerlie Sawmill…” She zoomed in on the local area and
her eyes scanned back and forth.

Liam
stood on stiff legs. Finally she found it. Her finger pointed at a
small dot on the end of yet another obscure lake, reservoir, a bend
in the river.

“
Here.”

He nodded
grimly.

“
Get Ian on the line.”

Half an
hour was cutting it fine.

It was
impossible, there was just no way that they could do it.

If the
opposition was so smart, they must have known that.

***

“
I sure hope we know what we’re doing.”

Liam
shrugged, taking in the Canadian. Ian’s face was serious. His
concerns had been noted for the record.

“
It’s been known to happen.” Liam put the four wheel drive
utility vehicle in gear, their two prize pieces of EMERALD in the
back.

Going as
fast as he could, he followed the grassy, two-lane goat-path that
led to the McKerlie Sawmill. The place had been abandoned fourteen
years previously in response to changing market conditions and the
off-loading of jobs to countries where labour, environmental and
human rights concerns were not allowed to disrupt the raking in of
great, possibly obscene profits.

The track
was heavily overgrown, with long, low branches hanging across what
might have once been a paved road. Now it was just a track. The
opposition had either chosen the place of exchange very well, or
very badly.

Keep ‘em guessing, that’s always the way.

They were
at the end of a very long road. The only other way out was across
country, or by air or water. Interestingly, the hills around the
mill had been pretty much denuded within the last fifty years.
Consequently, there weren’t a lot of logging roads, at least
nothing that showed up on maps or satellite pictures.

The
opposition must know something we don’t—an inescapable conclusion.
Their exit plan must take the one single road into account. Their
options for escape were a little too obvious, and a little too
easily circumvented.

With
police and other agencies waiting and watching, with bated breath
and weapons cocked, there was only one way to find out. The road
went up and down, with the occasional boulder sticking up out of
the ground. Some of them were high enough to be a threat to the
sump. Dawn was near. The deadline had long since gone. That
deadline had been imposed to shake them up. They want to keep us
off balance. This made sense, but how they expected to exploit it
was a good question.

The mysterious voice had ordered them to ground all
helicopters, to keep the police out of it. According to the voice,
they would know if anything was untoward, anything out of place,
anything suspicious. They
might
have the people, the communications, and the
instrumentation to do it—they might.

The girl
would be killed instantly.

There was a new threat—if the opposition was interfered with
in any way, terrorist bombs would begin to explode in Canadian
cities—small ones, but
beautifully
placed,
all across the land. They were
escalating the prospect of violence.

As
threats went, it was fairly credible. Technically, it was all too
feasible.

At this
point, all Liam wanted to do was to make the exchange and get
Lindsey to safety.

There was
more than one way to skin a cat. A blinding spark down low in the
trees was the sun. It was so hilly that he was plunged into
semi-darkness just around the next bend and the next hill. He was
blinded for a moment in the glare, then went plummeting into the
mist-laden gloom of the next valley. The cargo tugged on its
restraints with every bump.

The
authorities had the roads, the highways, the waterways and the
airspace above all sewn up.

Theoretically.

More than
anything, this promised to be interesting.

***

Liam
found the decaying remains of the McKerlie sawmill to be a
confusing maze. There were multiple collapsed and burnt-out
structures, overgrown areas that must have been parking lots and
several oddly intact buildings. The only sign of their demise were
broken windows and treetops sticking out of the
rooftops.

The path
was clearest dead ahead. Zigzagging along, there was a clear space,
mostly weeds but there were patches of intact tarmac. Pulling to a
stop, he looked around. There was an open door on what might have
been the main part of the mill, where rough logs were cut into
two-by-fours and perhaps plywood might have been made.

With no
clue as to where they might be, he drove in the door with the high
beams on.

The
vehicle was strong, but it wasn’t bulletproof and the possibility
of ambush was high. Liam was wearing body armour and he had his
gun—that was the strange part. No mention had been made of coming
unarmed.

Alone was
good enough for them.

He drove
to the middle of the space, with a dozen steel I-beams scattered in
a regular pattern, holding up the sloping metal roof. Liam switched
off the engine and got out. Liam left the door open.

They were
already an hour and a half late. They had received no calls in the
meantime.

“
Mister Kimball.” It was him
.

A man
stepped out of a door.

Liam
recognized the build, but not the face. This was a stocky blonde
man, with a straggling mustache that was undoubtedly fake, and yet
convincing.

He
turned, keeping his hands loose and open at his sides, extended
well away from the body.

“
Mister Borz.”

The
expressive dark eyes lit up.

“
You’re as good as they say. We meet again, Mister
Kimball.”

“
Where’s the girl?”

“
Where’s EMERALD?”

Liam
politely indicated the back end of the vehicle with a nod and
waited for direction.

The man
wasn’t exactly shy. Borz was apparently unarmed, but the old
building was nothing if not dark inside. It was also a warren of
upper-level offices, catwalks, skylights and open trusses overhead.
It was all built-up in tiers along the south and east sides.
Someone almost surely had him lined up in their sights.

It wasn’t
the nicest feeling.

“
Open it.”

Liam
leaned way into the vehicle and used the button in the glove box.
This was one reason why he didn’t carry a gun at the small of the
back.

The latch
popped as Borz stood at his side. Liam went around and lifted the
hatch.

Borz
stepped forwards, and Liam lifted the thin khaki canvas tarpaulin.
The satellite itself, the two major pieces that they had, plus a
couple of plastic screw-top canisters of smaller components and
other debris, were banded onto a small maple skid that barely
cleared the interior of the vehicle.

“
Sorry, the light’s not that good in here.”

Borz
nodded.

“
Excellent. Very thorough.”

He must
have known what he was looking at. The man’s face came around.
There was an unexpected glint of humour in those eyes.

“
Very nice. Thank you.”

“
You can take the vehicle or we can dump that off right
here.”

“
Thank you, Mister Kimball. We will take it from here.” In a
surprise move, Borz reached in, lifted the back end of the skid,
and pulled it smoothly over the lip at the back.