The Burma Effect (5 page)

“You're talking to a former political reporter here. I still always assume the worst,” Delaney said. “Just have a look at it, would you?” Delaney read the first few lines aloud: “Many of Canada's security preoccupations originate abroad, making it imperative to identify and understand developments that could become ‘homeland issues' for residents or citizens of this country. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service continues to adjust its method of investigating threats to national security in response to the changing geopolitical environment and the emergence of threats against the Canadian economy, information infrastructure, proprietary information and technology.”

He looked over at Rawson. “Pretty dreary. Annual report stuff.”

“Well spotted, Francis. A lot of that draft is from annual reports, documents like that. Not too exciting.”

“No. The audience will fall asleep. If they are already in this sort of game.”

“I know. Have a look at this section, though.” Rawson flipped a couple of pages over and showed Delaney a typewritten section that had been pasted into the text:

Delaney read aloud again: “Foreign sources of threat-related information have become predominant. Events have increasingly required us to operate abroad.” Rawson looked somewhat furtively around the bar.

“That's getting better,” Delaney said.

“Any reporters going to be listening to this?”

“Yes, probably. Or maybe we will leak it to someone here.”

“This will get some play, I would imagine. I wouldn't mind covering this myself. Or leak it to me,” Delaney said with a grin. “Your guys would love to see my by-line on something like this, wouldn't they?”

“Behave yourself, Francis,” Rawson said. “Read on.”

Delaney read: “Canada's enemies respect no barriers, either international or moral. The situation calls for an integrated approach to intelligence collection that is not bound by artificial administrative barriers. Accordingly, working covertly abroad has become an integral part of CSIS operations . . .”

“Jesus Christ, Jon.This will set the cat among the pigeons. There's a headline if I ever saw one.”

“You figure? That's mostly from me. And Smithson.”

“Of course. No one's ever said this in public before, as far as I know.”

“This might be the time,” Rawson said.

“Is your guy going to buy into this for a speech?”

“Maybe.”

“Some of the politicians across the road from here are going to go apeshit.”

“This might be the time.”

“Or you might be looking for work.”

“I'm not giving this speech. The chief is giving it.”

“You're helping to write it.”

“Me and a cast of thousands. Hundreds anyway. Dozens.”

“The MPs across the road, a lot of them anyway, are going to take a very dim view of you guys operating way beyond your mandate. You always told me that and I always thought that anyway. What are you going to do next, tell them about people like me and Kellner? Why don't you just take out a full-page ad in the
Globe and Mail
?”

“We want to generate a little bit of debate about our mandate. Some of us are sick and tired of sneaking around, doing what needs to be done abroad and fussing about legislative mandates. You of all people know that.”

“Well, you'll generate some debate with this, Jon. No doubt.”

Delaney finished reading the speech, making a few notes in the margins as he went. Rawson drank his whiskey slowly and appeared to be pondering his fate. Kenny the barman stood idle.

“It's good,” Delaney said when he had finished. “Except for the bureaucratese in the first couple of pages, it gets pretty good. You'll have reporters ringing your phones off the wall.”

“If our guy delivers it like that,” Rawson said.

“Exactly.”

“Maybe he'll figure the time is not right.”

“Exactly.”

“We shall see,” Rawson said glumly.

The bar was starting to fill up now, as print media reporters and editors and hangers-on came in after their day's work. The TV people would start coming in soon as well. Kenny started scurrying around making drinks. He had turned up the sound on CNN.

“Put it on CBC,” someone called out. “The news is almost on.”

“Fuck that,” said someone else. “Leave it on CNN.”

Kenny ignored everyone and went on about his business. CNN prevailed.

“I've got to go,” Rawson said.

“OK,” Delaney said.

“You staying?”

“No. Not with this crowd.” Delaney said. They took the elevator down together and came out of the National Press Building onto Wellington, all but deserted as usual on a weeknight. Across the street on Parliament Hill a TV reporter, standing in a circle of intense light, delivered a stand-up to camera. The sound man hovered with a giant microphone the size of a mortar covered in furry grey felt.

“Sources on Parliament Hill have told CTV news that the second reading of Bill C-78 may have to be postponed for at least a week,” the reporter said, with a stylish toss of her heavily permed hair. Delaney and Rawson exchanged glances.

“Hard-hitting stuff,” Rawson said.

“She'll blow this town wide open.”

They got to Rawson's car, a brown government issue Ford.

“You going back tonight?” Rawson asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“You'll head to Bangkok on Monday?”

“Tuesday latest.”

“It'll be our usual arrangement. Let us know where you want the money sent.”

“I trust you guys, of course.” They both smiled. “You're always good with payments. Payments yes. Information not always.”

“Watch how you go over there, OK Francis?”

“I know Bangkok,” Delaney said.

“It's not the city I'm talking about.”

“I know that.”

“How have you been anyway?” Rawson asked suddenly.

“You asked me that already. In the bar.”

“How's the Mountie?” Rawson asked.

“No comment.”

“Troubles?”

“No comment.”

“You all right these days? How have you been? Seriously.”

“I'm seriously all right.”

“Francis, I often wonder . . .”

“No, Dad, I'm not over Natalia yet. No. You usually ask me that earlier in the night.” “It's a long while ago now, Francis.”

“Yes. And you think it's time for me to move on.”

“Yes.”

“Move on where?”

“Hook up with that Mountie, maybe. See how that turns out.”

“I don't like surprises, Jon. You know that.”

“You're getting into the wrong business if you don't like surprises, Francis.”

Delaney watched as Rawson's car moved off down Slater Street. He watched until Rawson signalled left and turned onto Laurier. Then he walked on down to where he had parked his own car, across from the Westin in an outdoor lot. For a moment, he thought about checking in and ordering a room-service meal and a good bottle of wine. But then he thought about how many hotel rooms he had done that in, in how many cities, and he unlocked his car instead.

It was just after 10 p.m. He sat in his idling car and felt an urge to just drive anywhere, any direction, except Montreal. It was Thursday night. He could be in New York for breakfast if he left now. He could be in Toronto sooner than that.Then the urge passed. He could check into the Ottawa Westin instead. He could pick any hotel in Ottawa, put down a credit card, stay for a week, more if he wanted to, live on room-service meals, watch movies, news channels, game shows on TV.

The car idled quietly, ready to go anywhere. Delaney pulled out his mobile phone and dialled Kate's home number. No answer, no answering machine. He looked for a long while at her mobile number in his own mobile's memory.Then he tossed the phone onto the seat beside him and pulled out of the parking lot, heading for the only place that ever felt remotely like home.

A
s always, there were a few loose ends to tie up before Delaney left on any assignment, whether as reporter or spy. He usually declined to think of how few loose ends he actually had left. Light duties now for the newspaper, apartment and related matters, an on-again off-again book project, a few friends, mainly O'Keefe, maybe Kate.

He decided he would see Kellner's sister before he left. And he decided he would go to Bangkok via London, to see some of the people Kellner worked for at
Defence Monthly
. He spent most of Friday morning setting things up: plane ticket for Sunday night, emails to the London magazine trying to make appointments, reading some of Kellner's recent articles on the Internet. Kellner's sister said she could see him that afternoon.

He tidied up one of his emergency columns for the
Tribune
, a stand-up piece about whether the Quebec separatist movement had now, once and for all, lost its way.
Patricia will think this doesn't break any new ground
, he thought grimly as he called her just before noon. It would have to do for the next week. The one after that, if he was still away, he would write in a hotel somewhere or other.

“Patricia, I've got some good news for you,” he said when she answered. “Two bits of good news. I'm going away for a week or so, so I won't drive you crazy for a while. And I'm filing next week's column early, today. It's in the system now. Your lucky day.” Nothing ever made Patricia truly happy.

“You're going away again?” she said “Yeah, I'm going to chase up some columns in London, maybe a few other places.”

“The focus is supposed to be on Canada and Quebec,” she said.

“The column is called ‘Delaney at Large,'” he said. “I'm at large for a few days. I've always got the Canadian angle firmly in mind, Patricia. It is lodged firmly in my mind. Have no fear.”

“You clear this with Harden?” she said.

“Not yet.”

“You going to?”

“Probably.”

“You'll need to for the travel money,” she said, apparently sensing an obstacle that would prevent the trip from taking place.

“I'll keep my receipts. Claim when I get back. Cash on delivery.”

“I think you better have a quick word with Harden, Frank. I had a meeting with him yesterday. About your column. Where it was going, maybe trying to refocus it a bit.”

“That was good of you Patricia. Looking after my career like that.”

“To be honest, Frank, we don't think you're giving that column your full attention. We think it shows sometimes.”

“We?”

“Yes. Harden is concerned too.”

“Before or after you pissed in my pond?”

“I think you'd better have a word with Harden before you go anywhere, Frank,” she said.

“Delaney is at large,” he said.

“I'm serious,” she said.

“Me too.”

He tried not to slam the phone down too hard. A minute later, it rang. It would be Patricia, he was certain of that. Five minutes later his mobile rang. The tiny screen told him “Patricia, office.” He let it go.

Cynthia Kellner lived a life of suburban Montreal ease. She had, as the saying used to go, married well. Her husband was in the rag trade, ran a big women's wear operation in Montreal's East End. Ladies' blouses, skirts, cheap jeans with brands no one had ever heard of. Lots of Quebecois and Vietnamese and Haitian staff manning the cutting and sewing machines and the loading dock.

When business had been very, very good, before Asian factories started chipping away at the trade in Montreal and New York, Cynthia's husband, Josh Rabinowitz, had made serious money. He spent a lot of it on a giant house in Côte Saint-Luc —a split-level number with a three-car garage and perfect hedges. They had several children, apparently; rarely seen. Delaney had met Cynthia a few times; he could barely remember when or where or why. In the old days when he and Kellner had run in approximately the same circles, probably at a party somewhere, or at a bar. She was about 35 or 38 or so now. He had never been to her house.

She was impeccably and expensively dressed for a weekday afternoon—black cashmere sweater, designer leather pants, black also, and what looked like fake snakeskin boots. Very black hair, very expensively done up, probably that morning. Cynthia had not wanted to meet him downtown.

She was epileptic and didn't drive. Kellner remembered that much about her.

She kissed Kellner elegantly on each cheek in the European way. Her perfume smelled of money and order and calm as she led him through the cavernous entry and living area of the house to the backyard to where some weak April sun was making it just possible to sit outside on what was still known in such neighbourhoods as the patio.

The outdoor table where she poured Perrier and sliced a lemon was the requisite wrought iron and heavy frosted glass. The chairs, wrought iron with the requisite cheery blue cushions and cheery yellow piping.

“It's been years,” Cynthia said as she spooned ice from a small stainless steel bucket. “I always wondered what happened to you and some of the old crowd.”

“Still plugging away,” Delaney said, wishing the vacuous part of the conversation could be dispensed with altogether.

“I don't see your articles in the paper much anymore.”

“I have a column now. On the opinion page. On Saturdays.”

“Oh,” she said. “I don't usually look at that page.”

“Not many people do. Not enough, or so they tell me.”

“I'm sure your column's fine,” she said. Fine is not a word anyone had ever used to describe his column, even when it actually was fine. He decided to save them both a little time.

“Look, Cynthia, I wanted to talk to you about Nathan for a few minutes.”

“So you said on the phone.”

“Have you heard from him lately?”

“No.”

“Is that unusual?”

“No, not with him. Not since he moved to Thailand. I saw him last year when our mother died. He came in for two days only. He stayed downtown, not with us. Josh had to lend him a suit and a yarmulke for the funeral.” This seemed to be a capital offence.

“What's he got himself into now?” Cynthia said, sipping her Perrier. “And why should I care? Why should you care all of a sudden, for that matter?”

“I'd like to talk to him about something I'm working on. I haven't been able to reach him at all. I'm going over to Bangkok next week and wanted to touch base.”

“I would imagine he is still living with that teenage girl he hooked up with,” Cynthia said. “My mother detested that girl.”

“She met her? She's not a teenager, you know.”

“Nathan brought her over here once. On some kind of holiday. God knows why.”

“They've been together for a long time,” Delaney said.

“Maybe she doesn't charge by the hour anymore,” Cynthia said.

“I don't think she was like that. I'm pretty sure she wasn't a bar girl,” Delaney said. “Nathan made a point of telling everyone that.”

“Why would anyone believe anything my brother ever said? He usually couldn't think straight, he smoked so much dope.”

“He handled it pretty well when I knew him. He was a lovely writer. Very strong. Everyone thought that. And he's made a bit of a name for himself now in Asia. He's a real specialist on the region.”

“He squandered his talents. My mother said that and I said that. Most of you used to say that, too. He could have gone far.”

“Get himself a Saturday column at the
Tribune
, for example. That no one reads,” Delaney said.

“Yes, why not? Better than wasting his life over in Bangkok, taking drugs and living with some little Thai tart.”

“Shall I put you down in the ‘no comment' section?” Delaney said. They both smiled.

“Sorry, Francis. It just makes my blood boil, that's all. I don't talk about him much anymore. I never see any of the old crowd anymore.”

“Nobody?”

“Oh, I still used to see that character Cohen, Mordecai Cohen, once in a while. You remember him. He and Nathan went to Côte Saint-Luc high school together. Hippies. They always stayed in touch. Mordecai was the man to see for dope in the neighbourhood; he was dealing even in high school. His mother lived around the corner. He used to come in once in a while to see me and Mum when she was still alive. He's over in Bangkok now, too, I think. Still there probably. Fancies himself an artist. Paints. Takes pictures. Used to, anyway. He's there for the dope too, I'd say.” “How long's he been over there?”

“I don't know. A fair while now, I think. His mother's still alive. She came to the funeral. He didn't.”

“That's interesting,” Delaney said.

“Why would that be interesting?”

“Well, it might help me track Nathan down.”

“Maybe. Unless they're off on some crazy escapade or other. You know what they used to do? Maybe they still do? Nathan told me when he was here for the funeral. You know what's their idea of fun, a little light entertainment? Mordecai, believe it or not, or maybe it was Nathan's idea, got some little stainless-steel pea shooters made, somewhere over there. He got them made up by some local gunsmith, god knows how, and they got them rifled inside, I think that's the word, got them fixed up inside like little rifle barrels so the peas would fire straight and go far. So you know what they like to do over there? They get stoned and or drunk and they go hunting the neighbourhood cats, scaring the poor things with rifled pea shooters. Like a couple of crazy boys. In their forties. Nathan bothered to tell me about this when he came home for my mother's funeral. They chase the neighbourhood cats around, scaring them with steel pea shooters and probably laughing themselves sick. At night. In Bangkok.”

“A victimless crime,” Delaney said.

“Francis, please,” she said. “It's not normal.”

“Do you know how I could get in touch with Mordecai Cohen when I get over there?”

“No, not really. I could ask his mother for you maybe.”

“Would you mind doing that?”

“No. That's OK. I can call you.”

“Thanks, Cynthia.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“You never got married again,” she said. “After the first time.”

“No. That was enough for me.”

“Was it bad?”

“At the end. The break-up was bad.”

“They always are.”

“Not that bad. Not always.”

“You seeing anybody?”

“Sort of.”

“It's always ‘sort of ' with guys like you.”

“Guys like who?”

“Oh, I don't know. Journalists. I don't know. Guys who don't settle.” “I'm still here in Montreal.”

“You've been everywhere. Foreign correspondent, war correspondent. Investigative journalist. You've written books. You're off to Bangkok next week. Bigtime guy.”

“Not anymore. Even you don't read my column.”

They laughed together, one last time.

“More Perrier?” she said, looking at a heavy Tag Heuer hanging loosely from her wrist on a steel bracelet.

“No, thanks. Time for me to go.”

“Me too really.”

The European kiss good-bye, a jolt of expensive perfume. Delaney couldn't be sure if it was the perfume that left him edgy as he drove back downtown, or something Cynthia had said.

Patricia had left two terse messages on his answering machine, giving him some career advice. Nothing from Harden. A good sign. Delaney didn't think the editor was as troubled as Patricia had said. Harden was an old pro. He was used to little problems with columnists, feature writers, malcontents. He had bigger fish to fry, putting out Montreal's only English daily in a tough Quebec market.

From Kate Hunter there was nothing. From O'Keefe, there was another invitation to drinks. Word, it seemed, had already got round the paper that Delaney was off to London and parts unknown. Patricia was a natural storyteller. O'Keefe always insisted on seeing him off before trips.

Delaney surprised himself by going to the gym. He hadn't been in weeks but he usually tried to go before a major assignment or a trip. For this one, since it was a CSIS assignment, he never knew what sort of shape he would need to be in. One session at a gym would not be enough, but it was his routine to at least go before any important departure.

At least at the gym he was sure to never meet any of the people from the paper. The younger reporters of course would frequent gyms, but not this one, an old and expensive and quite unstylish one right downtown. The scribes of approximately his age would not know what the inside of a gym looked like.