Ice Lake (30 page)

“What do you mean? Andy’s in charge of security. Ah—
was
in charge, I should say.”

Cinq-Mars sat up straight then, mumbling something to himself that nobody caught. He asked Mathers, “Did you get the spelling on that name?”

While it was being verified, Cinq-Mars surveyed the grounds. The twelve-story building appeared immense, being the only structure of more than two stories for miles around. Its black glass, grey concrete, and monolithic posture made it appear aggressively imposing. The stance of the building was reinforced by the chain-link fence, crowned with barbed wire, that defined the acres of property. Maples and a few evergreens had been planted close to the buildings and drives, but the vast expanse of the perimeter had been cleared of trees. No one could leave or enter the premises without either breaking through the fence and crossing the open exposure, or announcing himself at the front gate.

Outbuildings—one a low sprawl that covered about five acres—had been constructed next to the tower and were identified, in large block letters, as labs. The fence, the moat of open property, the guards at the gate and doors, video cameras positioned like gargoyles to ward off whatever version of evil spirits the modern age spewed forth—all this indicated that security was an issue at BioLogika. Especially so, Cinq-Mars imagined, now that the Head of Security had been murdered.

They drove around to the back of the building and Mathers parked in the massive lot there, which was only
spotted with a few other vehicles. “You got a plan?”

Cinq-Mars remained mute a moment and rubbed his freshly shaven chin. In the end he chose to state only the obvious. “I’m so tired. I’m wiped.”

“Me too, partner.”

“Do you know what happens when I get tired?” the senior officer demanded. He slouched down in the car seat as though intending to snatch an impromptu nap. “I grow irritable.”

“You don’t say.”

“It’s hard to believe, I know, but I grow irritable. I become crabby.” Cinq-Mars folded his hands across his stomach and burped. “Excuse me. I ate too much. That’s what happens when I get crabby and irritable, I eat too much. This is wrong, Bill. The bad guys should not be out hunting cops. The bad guys should be the ones in hiding, not me and my wife.”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed any difference to your irritable nature, Emile. You seem like your usual self to me.”

“Very funny. You won’t be laughing as time goes by. This is wrong, Bill, that’s what I’m saying. We should not be the ones running and hiding. I’m taking offence. I’m way down the road to being royally ticked off.”

“I’m with you there, partner.”

Cinq-Mars sprang the door latch but still didn’t move. He yawned, and the great gape of his mouth remained open awhile. Mathers noticed how truly worn down he was. He had to remind himself that his friend had at least twenty years on him, and what was tough enough for him was certainly more wearing on Emile. The older man conducted himself with an erect bearing, a sense of eminence, which gave the impression that he was immune to fatigue or boredom. Mathers reminded himself that that could not always be true.

“I’ll take on the president,” Cinq-Mars announced. “What’s his name again? Hog-walks?—works? Hoggin-works?”

“It’s easy. Honigwachs. Here’s the spelling.” Mathers tore off a page from his notebook for him. “What do you want me to do?”

“Locate Andrew Stettler’s office. Look through his desk. Check out his staff. Learn what’s there to be learned. Snoop your ass off, but keep in mind that we have no right to be here. The next time we come back we probably won’t be admitted, so this could be our only chance. At some point, go where you should not go. Find out what level of security responds. I’d be interested in that. Generally, make a pest of yourself.”

“Same old routine,” Mathers mentioned. “I mingle with the riffraff, you kow-tow to royalty. I choke on cigarette smoke, while you have coffee with the big shots.”

Climbing out of the car, they were both dragging their bodies up, staggering a little on their feet. Cinq-Mars leaned against the vehicle to steady himself. “How am I supposed to do my job on next-to-no-hours’ sleep?” he brayed, then burped. “Whoa.” He stretched his spine to resume his upright posture. “There. That’s better.”

“You’re ready to meet the Prez.”

“Four eggs. Five slices of bacon. What got into me? Talk about a heart attack on a plate.”

“Getting shot at, Émile. It made you feel young again.”

Cinq-Mars chuckled. “Right. This morning I was pushing twenty-five. By the time we quit tonight I’ll be slurping Pablum for dinner.”

Lucy Gabriel was driven to a low-slung, broad cabin deep in the woods on the Kanesetake Reserve. The smoke billowed from a chimney in a steady white plume until it cleared the trees, then grazed eastward. She knew where she was. She had been inside the cabin before, and had dated the guy who lived there.
She had slept on the bed across from where she was now made to sit on the floor.

Her captors kept her ankles bound but they untied her wrists and passed her a plate of pork and beans for breakfast. She ate. She was famished.

Eventually, Constable Roland Harvey arrived home. He knelt in front of her and used a hunting knife to free her ankles, neatly slicing through the rope.

“Usually you’re in it up to your hips, Lucy.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“This time, you’re in a pile up to your eyebrows.”

She was interested. He seemed to know more than she’d expected of him. Then again, he was not merely a Mohawk Peacekeeper, but also a member in good standing of the Mohawk Warriors. Just about everybody knew that. Compromises were necessary in the rough-and-tumble world of domestic politics, and if the bad guys wanted a least one cop on the force to look after their interests, then things were bound to be that way.

He helped her to stand.

Other men were sitting around the cabin, and Roland suggested, “Let’s take a walk, Lucy.”

She put on her coat and the two went outside. They followed a path around behind the hut, through the woods over the snow. For Lucy, it felt good to be fed, freed, and walking again. Her gunshot wound was not giving her much trouble, just a steady dull throb.

“You got people upset with you, Lucy.”

“What else is new, Roland?”

“What’s new? You got every police force in a few provinces and states out looking for you. I don’t know what you been doing, so you’ll have to tell me yourself. Do you want them to find you or not?”

She had to think about that. “Not particularly,” she replied.

Roland Harvey nodded. “The bad boys know enough to ask our permission. We’re the ones who
negotiated to keep you alive, Lucy. That’s what we all have in mind right now. Everybody wants you alive.”

“What are you saying?”

“You can’t go home. You can’t be seen anywhere without being taken into custody. Maybe killed, that might be on the radar screen too. It’s a rock-and-a-hard-place kind of thing. You’d be safe in custody, but I think I’m hearing maybe you’d rather skip that experience. Yup?”

“I don’t want to explain it, Roland, but I can’t go to jail right now. That’s what we’re talking about. Jail time. A good long stretch of it.”

“All right then. I can offer you a compromise. You’ll go into hiding. We’ve got a place for you. Yup. You’ll be all right. Just don’t cause nobody no trouble.”

“On the reserve?”

Roland Harvey shook his head. “Too dangerous. You know that. Cops will look for you here. The Peacekeepers are out looking for you right now, and I can’t exactly tell them to stop.”

“I understand. Where, then?”

“The monastery. It’s all arranged.”

“Oka?” She knew of no connection between the Mohawk Warriors and their quiet neighbours, the monks.

Roland’s breath was vaporous in the air. He hadn’t put on a heavy enough coat and now he’d stopped walking, shivering, wanting to head back. “They got a whole wing that’s empty. Not so many young men become monks any more. One of the brothers looks after the building during the winter, takes care of the maintenance and stuff like that. He’ll take care of you too. But you got to agree.”

Lucy didn’t have any mittens and hugged herself, her bare hands under her biceps. “So I just stay there.”

“That’s right.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes, I guess. We’ll wait for the cops to get less interested in you. The bad guys, they have to forget you exist. You tell me how long that takes.”

Lucy turned with him and they walked back toward the house. Before they’d gone halfway, she told him, “All right. I’ll stay there. Thanks, Roland.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and they walked in that manner. “You’re welcome, Lucy. Hell, we owe you. You know that.”

Cinq-Mars ascended to the top floor of the BioLogika Corporation in a quiet elevator distinguished by soft mood lighting and black surfaces trimmed with reflective stainless steel. Subliminal New Age music provoked violent fantasies in him. The exhausted detective imagined himself emerging with a speaker in each hand trailing strands of spaghetti wire, the music shorted out in mid-chord and squawking.

At the top floor the doors swished open, and Cinq-Mars stepped out onto plush mauve carpet. The brushed softness underfoot caused him to feel sleepy again, as if inviting him to nap. His joints felt rubbery. Immediately ahead, a marble wall that travelled three-quarters of the way to the ceiling appeared suspended off the floor, adorned in its centre by a small scrap-metal sculpture vaguely suggestive of a Swiss Army knife gone berserk. Giving the artwork a quick study, he decided that, in a pinch, it might be useful at an office party as a communal bottle-opener.

He did a tour around the marble slab and on the opposite side found the receptionist’s desk, unoccupied. He’d arrived before business hours. Cinq-Mars patrolled the corridor, made use of the men’s room, then sorted out his bearings. As the president of such a company, would he not choose an office with a view of the lake? The detective strolled down to the north side
of the tower, located the most imposing door there, and knocked.

“Come!”

Opening up, he stepped into an opulent office, large enough for nine holes of mini-putt. Behind the president’s desk, floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the Lake of Two Mountains, with a bird’s-eye view of the fishing shacks where Andrew Stettler had been found dead. The carpet was deep, a dark grey with meandering lines of purple, and on it the company crest, a shooting star, was detailed in gold. Four chairs followed the sweeping curve of the broad cherry desk, and the wood cabinets and panelling that were prominent along three walls picked up the concave theme. Above the cabinets, an impressive array of sailing, golf, squash and equestrian trophies indicated an athlete on the premises, although Cinq-Mars had yet to locate the recipient of these accolades in the flesh.

To his left, a door opened wider. Bathed in light, a man in the executive bathroom was drying his hands on a towel that he hadn’t bothered to remove from its rack. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing hairy and muscular forearms. Poking his head out, he called through, “Yes? You are?”

“Sergeant-Detective Cinq-Mars, sir. Police.”

“Cinq-Mars! Of course. At long last we meet. Have a seat. I’ll be with you in two sees.”

The man returned to the depths of his cubicle without bothering to shut the door behind him, and Cinq-Mars sauntered farther into the office. He waited with his hands behind his back, trying to articulate what impression this opulence made upon him. What did it signify? He had expected an office dusty with scientific studies, perhaps Bunsen burners flaring on cabinet tops, walls of bottled pills and assistants frantic in white lab coats. He had expected—illogically, he realized now—a wild-haired biologist with rat feces on his
sleeves, strange plants from the Amazon gobbling insects on the window-sills. He had not prepared himself for this display of corporate excess.

His host reappeared, doing up the cufflinks on a light-blue pin-striped shirt as he approached. The detective noted that the panes of mirror in the bathroom behind him were fogged with condensation.

“Detective? Werner Honigwachs. Sorry about the circumstances. I caught you on the evening news last night. What a shock. We haven’t adjusted to the tragedy yet, not at all.”

Cinq-Mars shook the proffered hand. Honigwachs looked dapper, regal. Cinq-Mars ticked off a mental list of the man’s fashion accessories, noting the rings, an expensive watch, and a gold bracelet. The suit was blue.

“Please,” the man offered again. “Have a seat.”

Cinq-Mars was glad to accept. Conditioning himself to a lack of sleep was part of his job, but this morning his breakfast seemed rowdy, bent on payback, tormenting a body that had not taken proper care of itself.

“Interesting design,” he mentioned, indicating a freestanding sculpture of the solar system to one side of the presidential desk. Planets circled the sun. The earth’s moon revolved in its traces. Orbs were connected to the centre by stiff silvery wires as thin as gossamer. In the stone base, a digital readout told the time.