Honour Among Men (15 page)

Perhaps.

And yet . . .

Green wrestled to make this new piece of the puzzle fit in with the subsequent murders. Daniel Oliver had been Ian's section commander in the latter part of their rotation, and he had recommended Ian for a medal of bravery—a relative rarity in the peacekeeping ranks, where combat heroism was less
valued than mediation skills. His platoon commander, Captain Hamm, had supported the recommendation, but if his tepid letter of condolence was any indication, he did not share Oliver's enthusiasm for Ian's accomplishment.

“Somehow, all these things connect to Yugoslavia,” Green said eventually. “Ian's suicide, Oliver's murder and Patricia's murder. I think something happened over there . . .”

“Yeah, well, with Norrich handling that part of the investigation . . .” She paused, grimacing as she picked oily chunks of batter off her fish. “I suppose I could have a go at the West Nova Scotia Reserve Regiment myself. See if anyone knows anything.”

“That won't help. We need to find out who served with them in Yugoslavia and interview every last one of them.” He reached into his pocket and slid the photo Mrs. MacDonald had given him across the table towards her. “These are some of the guys in their unit. We should start by
ID
ing them. I have a contact in army personnel in Ottawa. I'll get one of my men in Ottawa to follow up.”

McGrath shoved aside her half-eaten fish and picked up the photo. She angled it to catch the light and studied it closely. A faint frown played across her features.

Green's interest quickened. “What?”

She shook her head and peered more closely. Her frown deepened. Then she tapped at one of the men in the photo. He was posed behind the others, leaning against the hood of an army truck. His helmet cast much of his face in shadow.

“This man. I can't be sure, but I think . . .” She looked up at him, her eyes widened with excitement. “Mike, I think he might have been the other man in the bar the night Oliver was killed. The man talking to the killer beforehand.”

“You mean the guy who gave you the fake
ID
? And claimed
he had no idea who the killer was?”

“The very one. And if you believe that, I've got a schooner full of flying codfish to sell you!”

The minute they arrived back at the Halifax Police Station, Green put in a call to Gibbs. The young detective sounded as if he were fairly bursting with news.

“We've uncovered another possible military connection, sir! At least, Sue—Detective Peters has. At the Voyageur Bus Station. Th-th . . .” He took a deep breath as if to slow himself, and Green could almost see his Adam's apple bobbing. “This morning she took the photos of Patricia Ross and her purse to the bus station to see if anyone remembered her buying a ticket there. And . . . it took two shifts, but you know Sue, she sticks to things, and on the afternoon shift she found a floor cleaner who remembered Patricia. Said she wore a hole in his floor pacing up and down, going outside every ten minutes for a smoke while she waited for the bus. And guess where she caught the bus to?”

Green's pulse leaped. “Petawawa.”

There was abrupt silence on the phone, as if Gibbs had even stopped breathing. “How did you know?”

“You said there was a military connection. There aren't too many Canadian Forces bases within bussing distance to Ottawa. And Petawawa is home to a large infantry regiment that has gone on numerous peacekeeping missions.” Sensing Gibbs's disappointment, Green reined in his racing thoughts. “What day did she go?”

“M-monday the 17th. Almost a week after she arrived.”

And almost a week before she died, Green thought. More
and more he was convinced she'd been on the trail of someone, and had stirred up a hornet's nest along the way. “Excellent work, Bob,” he said. “Once we know Daniel Oliver's military associates, maybe we'll be able to determine who she went to see. Anything else come up today?”

“That reporter from the
Sun
called, sir. Frank Corelli. His witness agreed to a meet. I wanted to wait to check in with you, but I figured it was more important to get her information, so we set it up for noon today over at Confederation Park. It's a busy enough place, especially at lunch hour, that I figured our surveillance teams wouldn't be obvious. Staff Sergeant Larocque gave me half a dozen patrol officers to cover it, and I figured we'd have no trouble picking her up.”

“After she talked to Frank, I hope. Otherwise, she's likely to shut up like a clam.” Green glanced at his watch. Five thirty. Which meant it was four thirty in Ottawa, well past the rendezvous time. Something in Gibbs's tone suggested trouble. “How did it go?”

“She didn't show, sir. We waited a full hour, and Corelli sat in plain view on a park bench with the
Sun
open in front of him.”

“Maybe the surveillance was too obvious.”

“Maybe, sir, but not a single woman came near him. Or even seemed to be watching him.”

“She was probably just testing his interest. Tell Frank to be ready, because I think she may call again, demanding a higher price.”

“Either that or she has nothing to sell,” Gibbs said. He sounded frustrated. “It may all have been just a bid for attention. She tied up a lot of resources today.”

Green thought it over. He was in the incident room Inspector Norrich had provided for him, and the files still lay
strewn around the table where McGrath and he had left them. McGrath was flipping through a box for her interviews with the witness who'd given her the false
ID
. Her eyes were narrowed with a focussed excitement he knew so well. The feeling you get when a crucial detail in the case breaks loose.

With an effort he forced his thoughts back to Gibbs's problem. Gibbs could be right; the woman could simply be a media-hungry crank. But on the other hand, she had known about the body being moved after death. To know that, she had to be one of the investigating professionals, or she had to have seen it being moved.

“I think she'll call again,” he said. “So make sure Corelli's prepared.”

“Will you be back tomorrow, sir?”

“Yes. My flight gets in at noon, and I'll grab a cab straight to the office. I have something else I want you to do in the meantime.” Quickly he filled Gibbs in on Ian MacDonald's death and its possible connection to Daniel Oliver's murder and to their time together in Yugoslavia. He gave him Captain Ulrich's contact information at
DND
and asked him to try to track down as many of the soldiers in the peacekeeping unit as possible. “Starting with Major—or possibly a higher rank—Richard Hamm, who was their platoon commander. He may be out at
CFB
Edmonton. And Sergeant Sawranchuk, who was their section leader.”

“Ask him to get photos too,” McGrath interjected, looking up from her files. “And have him fax everything down here to me as well.”

Once Green had hung up, he filled McGrath in on Patricia Ross's journey to Petawawa. By the time he finished, McGrath's eyes were stormy. “Patricia was tracking the same story we are. Goddamn it, if it was this simple, if we missed an
obvious line of inquiry because of Norrich's stupid, macho incompetence, then I'm going to have his fucking balls for fish bait!”

June 18, Sector West, Croatia
.

Dear Kit . . . I had an amazing experience yesterday. Three of us were on a foot patrol, checking the back country paths to make sure no Serbs were sneaking weapons into the
UNPA
. The Serbs don't like our foot patrols because apparently the
UN
battalion before us just sat at their checkpoints and if they wanted to patrol, they had to ask the Serbs' permission. Permission, for fuck's sake
.

So when we arrived in Sector West, our
CO
said no, it's not going to work like that. Our mandate is to enforce the weapons ban, and that's exactly what we're going to do. This part of the country is loaded with little off-the-map trails that only the locals know about. So we set up observation posts to do foot patrols as well as the regular
APC
patrols on the main road.
OP
patrols are out for a week at a time, just a few guys against a mess of belligerents, and I know Sarge isn't happy with the danger, but those were the orders
.

So there we were, walking along, scanning the trail ahead for mines, when around the corner comes these four Serb guys, loaded to the gills—
AK
47s, grenades, sniper rifles, claymore mines, the works. No hunting party for sure. We told them to hand over their weapons and instead they pointed their rifles at us. You have to show who's boss with these guys or they'll walk all over you. So we raised our rifles too. Now, our rules of engagement are drilled into us. You can't initiate fire, and when fired upon you can only respond in kind. So we couldn't
do anything but stare at them and wait for them to shoot first. Like that makes any sense when you're staring down the barrel of an
AK
47
.

Anyway, Danny mutters fuck this and he shoots over their heads. They shoot back and we take cover and everybody starts firing. After about thirty seconds the Serbs turn around and run away. I started to laugh, relief I guess, and Danny's checking us out because the medic says sometimes when the adrenaline's going, you don't even know you've been hit. But none of us were hurt. I don't know if we hit any Serbs
.

I was proud of myself that day. You always wonder how you're going to hold up the first time you meet the real thing. You hope you'll keep your cool and remember your training„ but you don't really know. Well, when it happened, I didn't have time to be scared. I was pumped and I just acted on instinct. And we got the job done. Afterwards my legs were like jelly and I downed two beers the minute I got back to camp, but it didn't matter
.

Green's plans to hit the ground running in Ottawa by early afternoon were scuttled the moment he woke up the next morning to a fog so thick he couldn't see the street from his second-storey window. As the taxi crept out to the airport, the cabbie kept shaking his head sagely.

“Waste of time, sir. The planes have been stacked up at the departure gates since six o'clock this morning. Not a thing flying in or out of this soup.”

“When is it likely to clear?” Green asked as they pulled up at the terminal, which was still cocooned in white.

“When it feels like it. You might get off today.” The
cabbie's laugh was the last thing Green heard before the cab was swallowed up by the fog. For a moment Green regretted declining Kate McGrath's offer of a ride to the airport. He could have used the company, and they could have used the time to coordinate their plans of attack.

But the truth was, they had discussed everything to death already, and her company was proving a little too distracting for safety. And judging from the way her eyes had locked his when she'd dropped him off at the hotel the night before, the border into dangerous waters was very close indeed.