The Inside Passage (Ted Higuera Series Book 1) (16 page)

Ottawa, Canada

Pierre Chasson sat
at his desk in the southeast corner of the steel and glass tower in Ottawa
watching the sun rise. He was a morning person. Even in July, when the sun
broke the eastern horizon at an ungodly hour, Chasson beat it to his desk. He
loved this part of the day. So full of promises for a new beginning, each
morning gave him a fresh chance to get things right.

An un-earthly
orange glow swathed the puffy clouds as the world slowly revealed itself below
him. It looked like the fire of the gods. He held onto his mug of tea and drank
in the day. Like Zeus on Mount Olympus, he sat ready to judge his world, to
hurl down thunderbolts on those who dare violate the sanctity of his domain.
And, as Canada’s Deputy Minister of Defense, he had thunderbolts to hurl.

Chasson stood and
walked to the windows. He saw a trace of his reflection in the glass. With his
height and a good tailor he hardly noticed his growing pot belly. He hated the
shine of his bald head. Maybe he
should
consider a rug.

Manila folders littered
the large desk behind him, the inbox overflowed. A busy man, he had the well-being
of the entire nation in his hands.

He heard a quiet
knock at the door.

“Good morning.”  

“Jean?” Chasson
turned to the door. “Good, come in. Care for tea?”

“Thank you, no
sir. I just had coffee.”

A small,
red-haired woman in her late thirties, Jean Broussard responded quickly to any
requests to her agency. In her twelve years in the CSIS, the Canadian Security
and Intelligence Service, she had climbed rapidly to Assistant Director.

“I have the report
you requested ready.”

“Come in. Sit
down. I have to report on international terrorist activity to the new PM
Monday.”

“We’ve been
getting a lot of noise on the network.”

Chasson’s eyes
locked on her legs. Jean tugged at her gray skirt as she took a chair.
Too
bad she’s wearing that darned jacket,
he thought as she buttoned her jacket.
Why do women always try to hide their chests?

“Go on.”

“Something’s up.
Sources in Iraq and Afghanistan say there’s a lot of activity going on. We
don’t know yet what it is or who it’s aimed at. We think London is a likely
target again. We’re passing off our information to MI5.”

“What about the
CIA?”

“We’ve kept them
in the loop, too. They don’t have much to add to what we already know.”

Chasson’s eyes
fell on the swell of her breasts.

“We’ve got intel
on a couple of US issues, sir.” She handed Chasson a file folder. He looked at
it through his half-lens reading glasses.

“This can’t be
serious?” He drained his tea cup. “Molly, a refill?” he yelled at the empty
door.

“It’s not really
much of a threat sir. A handful of crazy Islamic radicals plotting to attack
Fort Dix, New Jersey.” Jean leafed through her copy of the file.

“Don’t they know
that that’s a US Army base? They wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“I think that’s
the idea.” She put down her file and looked at Chasson. “It’s a suicide
mission. They plan to die for the glory of Allah. They want to show the world
that there’s no safe place on the planet for their enemies. She handed him
another folder. “Here’s a more serious threat.”

“Still American, I
see. Hmmm . . .” Chasson raised his eyebrows. “They plan to blow up JFK?”

“Yes sir. The plan
is to blow up the jet fuel lines that feed the airport. The pipes run under
residential neighborhoods. It could kill thousands.”

“How strong a
threat is this?”

“Not very, sir.”
Jean glanced at her copy of the file, as if she was afraid she might miss
something.  

A tingle ran up
and down Chasson’s spine. He loved feeling power over a lesser person.

“There are about
six Caribbean immigrants, all US citizens I think, that are working on this.
They don’t seem very credible. The FBI has a CI inside the group. They’ll pick
them up long before they can cause any harm.”

“Hmmm. . .”

“Here’s what
disturbs me, sir.” She handed him an eight and a half by eleven black and white
photograph.

“That man is
Qayyum ali Adham. Saudi Arabian by birth. He’s one of bin-Laden’s right hand
men. He’s dropped out of sight. We’ve had fairly regular reports on him until
last week. He was seen entering North Korea, now he’s just disappeared.”

“Do we have any assets
on the ground in North Korea?”

“No sir. But we
haven’t heard anything about him from any sources. It makes me nervous.”

“Okay,” Chasson
dropped the photo on the pile of folders on his desk. “What else do you have?”

“Money moving
around.” She handed him another black and white photograph.

“This is Yasim
Shareef Hassan. Toronto resident. Unemployed. His wife supports him as a cab
driver. He’s a known Islamic sympathizer. An Abdul Shayub just wired him a
million dollars, US.”

“Who is this Shayub?”

“A US citizen
living in Arizona. He knows nothing about the transaction. He certainly doesn’t
have a million dollars. His passport and credit cards were reported stolen last
year on a trip to Spain.”

“How credible is
this information?” Chasson looked up over his half-glasses.

“It’s from
Interpol, sir.” Jean withered at his glance. “I think we can trust it.”

“So someone was
using his identity?”

“Yes, sir.” Jean
pulled her jacket down again, then resumed looking for answers in her file. “We
think it was ali Adham’s subordinates. They wired the money from Hamburg, Germany to Toronto, then Hassan dropped off the radar.” She put down her folder
and looked up at Chasson. “Something’s up, we just don’t know what. We don’t
think Hassan’s connected with the Toronto plot though. As far as we know there
has never been any contact between them.”

A pretty young
woman in a short skirt brought Chasson another cup of tea.

“Thank you,
Molly.” Chasson stopped to watch his assistant enter the room. Her legs went on
forever. “Where’s the money coming from? It always helps to follow the money.”

Jean didn’t
respond. Molly handed Chasson the mug of tea and turned to go. His eyes
followed her until she was out of sight.

“Ahem!” Jean
cleared her throat. “We think it’s from identity theft. The German police and
Interpol have just arrested two Pakistani nationals. The Pakistanis set up an
elaborate phishing scheme to steal credit card numbers, social security numbers,
address info, etc. They used the credit cards to buy airline tickets, night
vision goggles, outdoor equipment. They used the identities to bleed the
victims debit card accounts. Interpol thinks they’ve stolen millions.”

“I see. . .”
Chasson paused and sipped at his tea. “How’s the Toronto plot going?”

 Jean passed him
another stack of black and white photos. “Here they are.”

“These are them,
then, eh?” Chasson flipped through the photos.

“Yes, sir. At
present we have identified seventeen men in the plot.” Jean looked down at her
notes. “All with ties to al-Qaeda. We have a CI inside the cell. They’re
planning on blowing up Parliament. They want to take the Prime Minister
captive. Then they plan to take over a TV station and behead him on national
TV.”

“We’re on top of
them, of course?”

“Of course, sir.”
Jean stopped fumbling with her folders and looked Chasson in the eye. “The RCMP
is setting up a sting now. They’re going to sell them the nitrates to make the
bomb. The terrorists are asking for three times the amount used to blow up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.”

“And then . . . “

“And then, we’ll
nab them sir. We’ll have assets in place to grab all seventeen of them at the
same time. It’s well planned. I’m confident that none of them will get away.”

“Good. Make sure
of that. I don’t want a single Canadian citizen hurt. I won’t have a 9/11 in
this country.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And by the way, I
want this Hassan found. What’s an unemployed sympathizer going to do with a
million dollars?”

Johnstone Strait, Canada
 

 “I’ve timed our
departure to coincide with flood tide.” Chris pushed the starter button and
brought the
Defiant
to life. “It’ll carry us through the Johnstone Strait and into Blackfish Sound.”

 Two hours later,
while Meagan was buried in a paperback, Ted felt like he was once again afloat
in an enchanted water world, dotted with emerald islands. Seagulls soared
lazily overhead, calling their greeting to the morning.

“
Madre de Dios
,
check that out, Chris.” There was a hint of alarm in Ted’s voice as they
crossed the narrow pass between Cormorant and the Pearse Islands.

A wall of water
four feet tall rushed through the pass. Chris altered course to starboard.
“That’s the biggest tide rip I’ve ever seen.”

“This is worse
than the rips in Seymour Narrows.” The on-rushing mass of water transfixed Ted.
Visions of the
Defiant,
over-whelmed by a wet avalanche ran through his
mind.

“You don’t want to
get tangled up in a tide rip like that.” Chris set his thermal coffee mug on
deck and gripped the wheel with both hands.

“It talks about
them in
Waggoner.
” Meagan reached for the cruising guide. “Here it is. I
read it a couple of days ago. It says that the author had a friend on a big
commercial fishing boat that got caught in a tide rip off of Malcolm Island. The boat sank and his friend drowned.”

“Dad always told
me how dangerous they were, but I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Chris carefully steered the
Defiant
away from the tide rip. “Look at the
debris being shoved along the tide line.”

The waterfall
pushed everything from Styrofoam cups to branches from trees in front of it. A
large log tossed end over end as it went over the cascade.

“Look at the
whirlpool.” Meagan pointed as the
Defiant
came out of the lee of Cormorant Island.

Ted followed her
finger to a whirling pool of water a quarter of mile across. With a slight lip
around the edge, He looked down into the bottom of the pool, five or six feet
below the level of the water’s surface. “That can’t be good,” he said.

“A whirlpool that
big can suck a boat in and cause a lot of damage.” Chris altered course further
south to give the whirlpool wide clearance. “My dad told me stories about boats
getting sucked under in big whirlpools.”

The
Defiant
entered Baronet Passage on the slack tide.

Hundreds of bald
eagles circled the sky. Occasionally, one swooped down, flared its wings just
above the water and reached down with its talons. Virtually every time it
flapped its wings and climbed back into the sky with a salmon in its grip.

They couldn’t make
it all the way to Nelson Inlet on one tide, so they decided to seek refuge at
the tiny marina in Lagoon Cove. In the morning they would try the passage
again.

****

Ted grudgingly put
his feet on the cabin floor and stood.
Whoever invented mornings should be
shot.
He pulled a sweat shirt over his head, stepped into his jeans and
poked his head out of the companionway hatch.

The tall hills
behind the marina disappeared into a heavy fog. Chris sat in the cockpit, mug
of coffee in hand, a dumb smile on his face.

“Morning, amigo.”
Even his voice was grating.

I hate morning
people.

A large heron
waded among the rocks along the tide line, fishing for his breakfast. Even the
gulls’ cries seemed muffled by the fog. To add insult to injury, the fog lifted
but a steady drizzle hindered visibility.

“I guess it’s good
news, bad news,” Chris smirked at breakfast. “We may not have the sun, but at
least we have a steady wind.”

The previous three
days, though warm and sunny, were completely devoid of wind. Today the steady
fifteen-knot wind allowed them to sail again.

They beat into the
wind through the pass between Turnour and Minstrel Islands. Ted looked up the
mast at the white sails, billowed out with the wind. The Canadian flag, flying
from the signal halyard, flapped wildly in the breeze. He turned his head to
check on the American ensign at the taff rail. Old Glory stood out proudly. The
Defiant
heeled hard to starboard, white water creaming along her rails.
Okay,
so maybe mornings aren’t that bad after all.

The islands hid in
the mist, only the shoreline of the narrow pass visible from the deck. Coming
out of the pass, they had the wind under their coat tails all the way up Knight
Inlet. A long, hard day of sailing brought them to Echo Cove.

On the Third day,
they slipped through Cramer Passage on their way to Nelson Inlet.

The depressing
weather persisted. Chris and Ted stayed on deck, in their rain suits, while
Meagan remained in the cabin with Oscar, who also showed misgivings about going
on deck in the rain.

After Meagan’s
persistent complaining about the cold, Chris went below to fire up the propane
heater.

“I can be cold and
wet and miserable up there or warm and dry and miserable down here,” Meagan
said.

Oscar took
possession of a pillow on the settee in front of the heater and soaked up the
warmth.

“I don’t think I
can see a hundred yards in this crap.” Ted wiped the drizzle from his eyes when
Chris returned to the cockpit.

“Just keep a sharp
eye on the GPS.” Chris patted the little electronic box mounted on the steering
pedestal. “If we follow the course I’ve programmed in, we’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure
about this?” Meagan shouted up from the companionway hatch. “Even if we get to
the hot springs, it’s going to be too cold and wet to go in.”

“It’ll clear up,”
Chris replied, he was always a damned optimist. “It never stays lousy up here
for more than a couple days at a time.”

Ted thought that
he sounded a little too confident.
La Ley Higuera
(Higuera’s Law)
,
Ted had made up a corollary to Murphy’s Law.
If it can rain on your parade,
it will.

Chris lifted the
plastic cover from the chart, which he now kept on deck at all times, for another
peek.

“William and Mary Island is in the entrance to Nelson Inlet.” Chris pointed towards the opening in the
shoreline ahead. “The water forced up the inlet by the flood tide sweeps back
around both sides of the island on the ebb tide. Keep a sharp lookout as we
approach the entrance.” Chris thumbed through the tide book, then replaced it
under the plastic cover. “We don’t want to get caught in the tide rips.”

Chris took the
wheel and Ted went forward. “There’s a lot of white water on the right side of
the pass.” Ted, standing on the bow, holding onto the forestay, was coming into
visual range of the pass.

“According to
Waggoner
there’s deep water on the west side, but it’s really rocky on the east side. We
need to stick close to the western shore.” This time Chris had done his
homework.

In addition to
having the chart and tide table on deck, Ted watched him pour over both of his
cruising guides in detail last night. He knew that Chris could easily pull up
the material with his photographic memory.

“Sheet in the main
and jib,” Chris ordered. “We’re going to be on a beam reach.”

Ted returned to
the cockpit and hauled in on the sheets as Chris eased the helm to the north.

AH-OOOOOOHH, OOH,
OOH, OOH, OOH.

The loud horn
nearly made Ted jump out of the cockpit.

“
Madre de Dios
,”
Ted flinched and raised his hands to cover his head. “What’s that?”

“What’s
happening?” Meagan climbed on deck to see what was going on. Oscar stood in the
companionway, the hairs on his back bristling.

“A big ship,”
Chris answered. A huge white shape loomed in front of them in the passage.
“What the hell is a cruise ship doing way out here?”

“That’s no cruise
ship,” Ted yelled. “It’s a yacht,”   

“Well, get out of
his way,” Meagan shrieked.

“We have the right
of way. We’re under sail. He has to yield to us.”

“Tell that to him.
He’s not yielding.” Meagan’s screamed hysterically.

The big white
mega-yacht continued on its course, directly at the
Defiant.

“Jesus Christ,”
Chris shouted. “I don’t have room to maneuver. If I fall off to starboard we’ll
get sucked into that tide rip.”

The mega-yacht
stayed between them and deep water.

“Chris, look out!
A whirlpool,” Meagan shouted.

“He’s not giving
us any room.” Chris’ voice cracked.

The mega-yacht
forced them further and further to the east, inexorably towards the tide rips
and the whirlpool.

“Look out!” Meagan
screamed.

“He’s going to ram
us!” Chris shrieked.  “We’re going to need more power.” He reached down and
pushed the ignition button for the engine. “Hold on.”