The Spy I Loved (6 page)

Liam had
a couple of big sandwiches in a cooler bag provided by The Pines, a
bag of cookies and some other goodies if he got the munchies. He
had his pipe, and there was this timeless feeling on the
lake.

It was
like time lasted forever out there, something he’d noticed the year
before.

The
object
stemmed from Project EMERALD, a Canadian-built orbital
surveillance satellite. Its ostensible purpose was to monitor space
debris, mapping it accurately so that predictions could be made, as
to the safest time and vector to launch rockets. The purpose was
ostensibly peaceful, but anyone with a half a brain in their heads
could see that the technology might have military applications.
There were one or two genuinely interesting bits of kit in there
that any number of nations might like a look at.

The
public story, as such things often went, was pure
bullshit.

The
trouble was that such satellites had to be powered. They had to be
tested, and eventually put into orbit. This required a launch, and
in this case, a crash. There was nothing wrong with the satellite.
The problem was traced back to sabotage. The booster had been
Indian, in a multi-national cooperative venture. Indian engineers
must have picked up a little something about the payload’s
capabilities. The news hounds had to be told something, after all,
and they were responsible for getting it into orbit. Somehow, word
had gotten out about EMERALD. Although there were some who would
sabotage any western effort, there were concerns that the sabotage
and the payload, rather than just the launch itself, might be
related. There were nations who would see EMERALD as a military
satellite and consequently, a threat.

But would
they try to recover it when they had equal or superior capability
of their own?

The answer was a resounding
yes.

They
would like to know its capabilities. They would like to know how it
worked.

And we would like to know who done it.

The
presence of his observers might very well confirm someone’s
interest in EMERALD.

The only
real question was whether it was just routine surveillance, or if
they had indeed been blown.

***

Sunday
morning dawned bright and clear. The sun was barely up, the day was
warm already and the dew gone in a thin mist that didn’t hang
around long. Flies buzzed in amiable tones and the cheerful voices
coming from the dock area helped to lift her spirits, if only in
the sense that she would be busy. She shoved certain things firmly
to the back of her mind.

She
couldn’t help but enjoy the fresh faces of the kids. They paraded
around in their new hats and with the rods and lures trailing, a
colourful plastic tackle box in the other hand. Proud parents
opened wallets and purses, indulging toddler and teen
alike.

Liam was
over by the kiosk with Mark, buying minnows and filling up the fuel
tanks on his boat. She could only wave as she was confronted by a
gaggle of thirteen year-old girls, all legs and arms and braces on
the teeth, giggling and splitting around her like a rock in a
stream. One of them blurted out something incomprehensible.
Laughing hysterically, they bolted past on their mysterious errand.
Friendships were being formed there that would last forever, or so
she told herself.

Mark was
having a busy day. They were making money and that was
good.

There
would always be a little tug on the heart with one such as
Liam.

Somehow
she just knew it.

She
watched as he puttered about the dock and the boats on some obscure
errand, then motored off slowly but with a kind of authority. Then
there was another sensation as the men from Cabin Seven came down.
She had a moment of real irritation as the two mystery men, looking
almost hurried for a change, desperately tried to pull their motor
into life as apparently their electric start had died. They didn’t
want to wait about for a charge, judging by snatches of talk from
over there.

“
It’s not the battery, it’s got plenty of power.” Mark was
taking charge from Dale, who seemed very shaky this
morning.

“
Lindsey?”

It was
Bev, mother of one of two sets of twins presently blessing the camp
with their presence.

“
Yes, Mrs. Macdonald?”

“
I’m terribly sorry, but the toilet is plugged—” She blushed
beet red, going no further, standing there wringing her
hands.

The
Macdonald’s had Cabin Eighteen, which had the best view in the
camp. It was at the top of the bluff and the treetops were thin
because of the rocky ground.

“
Okay.” Lindsey almost smiled.

It really
didn’t get much better than this…Mark and Dale were upselling like
crazy over at the dockside. Someone in the store would be looking
for marshmallows or hot-dog buns or milk or something. They would
sell a lot of minnows and gasoline today. Which was what it was all
about, when you got right down to the nitty-gritty.

“
If you’ll just give me a second, I’ll be right along, Mrs.
Macdonald.” She had no choice but to check on the store…

The odds
were against it, but the tone was good and the smile came off well
enough.

Tall and
spare, the lady nodded gratefully, eyeballing the two dark foreign
men, voices raised, as they desperately tried to get their motor
running. She turned back and gave Lindsey a look, and a quick
headshake, as if to ask, why would anyone ever want to hurry, and
on such a beautiful day?

Surely
there was no real need for such language.

The women
smiled, more in tune with each other now, and they parted, at least
for the moment.

She
caught Mark’s voice on the wind, calm and cool as ever.

“
I’m sorry, it looks like the spark plug lead has loosened
up…I’ll fix that in a jiffy.” She heard him saying something about
the damp.

She
hovered at the back of the crowd, waiting for the door.

There was
a pop, and then another, and for a moment, it looked as if the
mystery men might almost cheer. The motor settled into an idle and
that was the first time anyone had seen either one of them smile.
Mark hurriedly buttoned up the motor-casing.

They
dropped into their seats, let go on the bow and stern ropes, and
then they were off.

***

Walking on the small rounded stones was bad, and the big
ones, looming just below the surface were black with tannin. The
rocks were almost invisible, and always seemed to come with sharp
corners at shin level. The sandy gravel patches were a lot more
attractive. He tended to find a spot and then stand in one place
for a while. Tucking the rod under his arm for a moment, he pulled
out his pipe and then his lighter. There were times when the world
was sublime. This was one of those moments. He also suspected his
calves would just
ache
later tonight, or more likely tomorrow morning. The stiff hip
waders put up a lot of resistance to even the slightest movement.
There was already tobacco in it, and he hit his oldest pipe with
the lighter.

Liam had decided to fish the mouth of a small, boulder-strewn
river coming down from the highlands in a foamy green torrent. The
water was at its yellowest on shallow gravel beds. He was
spin-casting in the deeper pools, not being a fly fishermen
per se,
and waiting to
see if his shadows turned up. There was the roar of a familiar
motor coming along just behind a headland to his left, or more or
less southwest. The prow appeared and then two familiar
figures.

The
corners of his mouth tugged, first this way and that, as the man on
the motor throttled back abruptly and the man in front hastily
swung his lure out over the side.

They were
a hundred and fifty metres offshore, but his boat was distinctive
enough and he had made sure to wear his khaki vest and a red
hoodie. It was a bit bulky, warm on a perfect morning like this. On
the plus side the vest had plenty of pockets. He chuckled at his
thoughts, but he could have sworn their boat was sitting funny in
the water.

Even as
he pulled his line in, wading carefully through crystal-clear
shallows to a low spot on the bank, there came a stream of loud
cursing from out on the river and it seemed as if they might be
taking in a little water.

It would
not do to laugh outright, so he ignored the bluster and the
recriminations as best he could. He picked his way along the river,
going upstream a few dozen metres.

It sure was a beautiful day. The rod came lazily back, the
arm cocked, and then the lure was spun headlong, if such a thing
could be said for a plastic treble-hooked artificial minnow. The
contented fisherman watched the shadows beside the bigger rocks to
see if any of the resident
brookies
were interested. The other boat was drifting on
the current.

He was
invisible now, screened from their sight by trees and brush along
the shoreline.

Going by
the sounds of things, they were having quite a time out
there.

Hell,
they might even be sinking. The two male voices were getting higher
and higher in tone, and a loud splashing noise and thumps from the
aluminum hull indicated that they were baling.

As to why
their motor might have been a little hard to start this morning;
that was a good question. Perhaps the fact that somebody had pulled
the spark plug wire and used a stiff rod to spread it ever so
slightly might have had something to do with it.

Someone
who was slightly evil might have done it.

***

Liam came
down off the end of the trail and out into brilliant sunlight. He
had four or five small speckled trout on a light chain. His lure
was hooked through the second eyelet from the end of the rod. With
a little light pressure and the catch on, it sufficed to keep the
lure safe and out of the way. As a young lad, he’d had a treble
hook through the eyebrow once.

Once in a
lifetime was enough.

Liam
hadn’t seen Billy in almost twenty years.

Every so
often, Liam wondered what happened to him, and some of the other
friends he’d once had. It was disturbing sometimes, just how few
names from his school days he could remember. Getting out of the
hip waders was always fun, but there was just no way he could sit
in the hot sun wearing them.

He shoved
the boat out into water, springing in at the last minute. He’d been
in and out a few times, managing to keep his toes dry so
far.

They
could hardly ignore him, try as they might. His motor fired up with
the turn of a switch and the press of a button. The pull-start was
strictly for emergencies in his polite opinion. He chugged out in
their direction on idle, just enjoying the morning and a brief
moment of company. The boat was small, but well thought
out.

They
stopped baling and fussing with the motor. They sat up straight, as
if expecting trouble.

“
Good morning. Are you catching any?” He made sure to get the
proper inflection, which sounded much like
are-ya
-
ketchin-ennie?

There was
probably a word much like it in the Ojibwa tongue, the area’s
original inhabitants.

“
Ah.” That was no answer, really.

He
received a polite nod from the younger one and a surly sort of
half-wave from the other.

They were
equipped with the usual cut-off bleach bottle. The junior man began
baling again. Liam gave them another nod, and then turned the prow
around to the north and east again. If they wanted to play games,
he could lead them a merry chase if he wanted to.

So far,
he hadn’t quite decided. Liam’s small lapel camera, capturing video
and still shots, would go a long way to identifying these turkeys.
Putting a radio transponder on his boat was a dead giveaway,
although he could understand their thinking. If he had taken the
right fork of the river and they took the left, it would be some
time before they realized their mistake. For them, it was the worst
kind of tail—all out in the open, with a small local
population.

If they
could be identified, it would be helpful in deciding what further
action might be taken. He wasn’t quite sure what to do about their
little radio-tag. It was stuck under the front seat with a gob of
pine tar. He’d probably just leave it there for a while.

***

Emil Borz
and Conrad Lom watched the Englishman motoring up the lake, really
just a widening of the river but it was so confusing around here.
GPS and good maps were a must.

Liam
slowed the boat, threading his way. Going under a low railway
bridge, the water was two feet deep underneath it, with sunfish and
small fry darting here and there in the shadows. Out on the other
side, the river swelled out into a blue body of water at least a
half a kilometre wide.