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John Blakeley’s popularity was visible long before Sullivan and Leblanc hit the outskirts of Petawawa. Large red billboards began to pop up on businesses and retirement bungalows amid the forest of Tory blue, announcing “John Blakeley—a Voice for You”. The man’s picture conveyed a mass of contradictions. His battered face looked like he’d taken on all the warlords in Afghanistan singlehandedly, and a jagged scar bisected his left eyebrow. But his thick white hair was swept into perfect place across his high forehead, and his prim smile looked like a kindly preacher trying to hustle his flock into line. Odder still, a clear, no-nonsense intelligence shone in his deep-set eyes.

Sullivan thought the eyes were likely the true measure of the man, whereas the smile and the hair were the work of Liberal Party spin doctors who thought he looked too scary in his warrior guise.

As he passed through the struggling farmsteads of the Ottawa Valley, Sullivan had to block out his own aversion to the place. The sparse, rocky landscape fostered a fierce combination of pride, independence and bitterness among those who hung on there. “This Land is Our Land; Back off, Government” warned the huge signs staked in fields along the roadsides. He should have felt pride and sympathy for the families who clung to their land in defiance of bureaucratic red tape and urban ignorance. But for Sullivan, who had grown up in one of them, it evoked memories of isolation and helplessness, drunken violence and wanton neglect. Of starving and hiding and never knowing when he was safe. He’d been eighteen and on the first bus out of town after high school before he ever felt safe.

The red Liberal signs signalled the invasion of another culture, not based on the land or the seasons, but on the military, whose loyalty depended on who had the power, the purse strings, and the vision to see the world their way. John Blakeley was one of their own.

Sullivan felt his adrenaline pump as they drew closer to their destination. Six months, he thought. Six months since he’d felt the excitement of a case, of following up leads and tracking down a bad guy. Of doing something more worthwhile than drawing up staffing plans. What the hell had he been thinking when he’d taken the transfer to Strategic Planning?

He’d been thinking about the next rung on the ladder, the next notch in his belt, the prestige and pay of a staff sergeant’s rank. He’d been thinking about the exhaustion and humiliation of his twenty unappreciated years fighting society’s bottom feeders in Major Crimes. He’d been burned out, pure and simple. He’d lost sight of the camaraderie and the sense of triumph when they closed a case. He’d forgotten the novel and unexpected twists of each new day. But damn it, it felt good to be back. This was why he’d become a cop, and this is where he’d always belonged.

When they turned off the Trans-Canada Highway and headed towards the centre of Petawawa, he instructed Leblanc to pull up his email on the laptop and check for Gibbs’s reports on Blakeley and Atkinson. He’d felt bad leaving Gibbs behind at the station, poring over his computer yet again, while others went on the adventure. Perhaps the trip would have been good for him.

His guilt disappeared when he saw Gibbs’s reports, which were much shorter than usual. The poor kid was in shock, and in no shape for field work. Sullivan pulled into a gas station out of sight of the Blakeley Campaign headquarters, sent Leblanc out to do the fill-up and swivelled the laptop towards him. The reports were full of typos and oversights the meticulous detective rarely made, and Sullivan felt a twinge of sympathy that the young detective couldn’t be home giving himself some TLC .

John Blakeley was a local boy born and bred in Renfrew in 1953, the son of an Anglican minister. He had attended Kingston’s Royal Military College and graduated as a civil engineer in 1975. Last summer, after thirty years in the army, he’d retired as a full colonel, having spent the last two years on the staff of the army’s top general at National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. His military record looked impressive to Sullivan’s untrained eye. Before this last stint, he’d spent two years at UN headquarters in New York, working with the UN High Commission on Refugees as an expert on the delivery of humanitarian aid. Prior to that he’d served as a military observer and as a staff advisor to peacekeeping operations in six different countries.

The perfect poster boy for the new military, thought Sullivan. He combined a soldier’s discipline with an intelligence and sensitivity that allowed him to navigate the diplomatic minefield of international affairs. He’d been married twice and now lived with his second wife in a home just outside Petawawa on the Ottawa River. Gibbs had provided the address, but Sullivan figured that in the middle of a work day he’d have more luck finding the man at his campaign headquarters. Besides, he wanted a crack at Roger Atkinson as well. Perhaps even more, for as Green had pointed out, Atkinson may have been the one Patricia Ross was after.

Gibbs had had less luck tracing Atkinson’s background, probably because the man was not nearly such a public figure. Reporters were all over Blakeley, but no one seemed interested in the man planning the battle strategy behind the scenes. Roger Atkinson had been born in Sheet Harbour, Nova Scotia in 1970 and had a short stint in personnel with Halifax City Hall before picking up stakes and moving to Pembroke, Petawawa’s neighbouring town, in 1996. Although details were sketchy, he’d worked first in personnel and later in public relations for various transport or supply firms in Eastern Ontario. His involvement with politics seemed to start when he did some lobbying of a prominent Ottawa MP , which led to working in the man’s constituency office and later on his campaign. As far as Sullivan could see, Atkinson was a nobody from nowhere who had parlayed a small pencil-pushing job into a major source of influence, with the potential to make or break party fortunes.

The two detectives found the campaign office without difficulty. It was a nondescript storefront that took up almost half of a small strip mall on Petawawa’s main road, but Blakeley’s workers had livened it up by emblazoning his name across the entire outside facade in massive red letters. Nice touch, Atkinson, Sullivan thought as he pushed open the glass door. Inside was a large rectangular room filled with volunteers who were hunched over lists at makeshift desks, working the phones. Lawn signs, posters, leaflets, T -shirts and party hats were stacked high on shelves around the room, all with the now familiar red and white colour scheme. Sullivan scanned the room for the man in the poster. No such luck, but a couple of private offices at the rear caught his eye, so he headed that way.

A woman leaped up to block his path. She barely reached his chest, but she faced him down like a pitbull. Her blue eyes challenged his. “Are you a new volunteer?”

Sullivan suppressed a smile. With his linebacker bulk and his frank stare, people rarely mistook him for anything but a cop, but perhaps in this crowd he looked like an off-duty sergeant major. He debated showing his badge but wanted to save the surprise for one of the men he was after. Instead he nodded towards the back.

“No, I’m here to see Mr. Atkinson.”

“Oh.” She shot a glance at a partially open door. “He’s extremely busy. Perhaps I can help you? I’m the office manager, Leanne Neuss. And you gentlemen are...?”

He reached for his badge irritably. “Sergeant Brian Sullivan, Detective Leblanc of the Ottawa Police. This won’t take long.”

Startled, the woman stepped back, and Sullivan seized the occasion to plough past her. With a perfunctory knock, he strode inside the office, waited for Leblanc to follow suit, and shut the door behind them.

The man at the desk was on the phone. He swivelled around and stared at Sullivan through bewildered eyes. Obviously not too many got past Madame Neuss unannounced. Sullivan had the impression of blond good looks that had seen too much booze and fast times. His sandy hair was thinning, his cheeks were florid, and his hazel eyes shot through with red. A second chin had begun to form beneath his jaw, and it wobbled as he gathered his features into a frown.

“Can I help you?”

Sullivan sat down and introduced himself, while Leblanc took up a position in front of the door. The man’s frown transformed to alarm. He looked at the phone, which was still in his hand. “I’ll call you back,” he said and hung up. Plastering a smile across his face, he rose and extended his hand.

“Roger Atkinson. How can I help you?” The man’s handshake was slick and practised, but Sullivan felt a pent-up power behind the grip. On closer inspection he could see the muscles rippling beneath the man’s crisp white shirt. For a pencil pusher, this guy was in damn good shape.

On the drive up, Sullivan had tried to plan his questions, but the truth was he was walking into the interview virtually blind. Despite Gibbs’s research, he knew almost nothing useful about the man or his possible connection to Patricia Ross, which gave him no leverage in confronting him. And Atkinson didn’t look like he was easy to push around, either. Flattery might be the best way to go.

“One of our detectives was assaulted up here yesterday,” Sullivan said. “We’re looking for all the help we can get.”

The man pulled a sympathetic face. “Of course. Detective Peters. How is she?”

“Touch and go. She was investigating the recent murder of Patricia Ross. I understand you knew her.”

Atkinson’s jaw dropped then snapped shut. He made a show of searching his memory before arranging a puzzled frown on his face. “Should I? The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“You’re both from Nova Scotia.”

Atkinson gave a dry chuckle. “Nova Scotians have invaded everywhere, Sergeant. Even I can’t know them all.”

“She came up here to see you last week.”

“What the devil makes you think that?” Sullivan said nothing.

In the silence, Atkinson groped for his tie, which wasn’t there. Finally, he shrugged. “That’s certainly news to me. We didn’t connect. I’m sorry I can’t help you more.”

Sullivan reached into his pocket and unfolded the fax of the newspaper article. “This appeared in the Halifax Herald on April 9th. It’s the reason Patricia Ross left Halifax to come here.”

Atkinson reached for the newspaper and dropped it on his desk, but not before Sullivan caught the tremor in his hand. He pored over the article long enough to have read it three times over.

“Nice plug for us,” he said eventually. “Seems fairly straightforward, though. I can’t imagine why it would bring her all the way up here.”

“To see you,” Sullivan said. “You’ve come a long way from your heavy drinking days at the Lighthouse Tavern, Roger, but she remembered you.”

Atkinson’s jaw dropped again, but this time he forgot to snap it shut. He stared at Sullivan a full five seconds before his eyes widened in recognition. “Oh, my God. Daniel Oliver’s girl.”

Nice save, Sullivan thought. “You were at the table with them the night he was killed.”

Atkinson lowered his gaze ruefully. “In another life. My misspent youth. I was so tanked I don’t remember a thing.”

“That’s not what the bartender says.”

“The bartender? The place was hopping. I’m surprised he had time to notice a thing.”

“He says you bragged it was a military man from their Yugoslavian mission who killed him.”

Atkinson rolled his eyes. “If I had a dollar for all the bullshit I’ve dished out in bars over the years...”

“Yet right after that, you landed this cushy job near the major military base of Petawawa, and it’s been nothing but upwards ever since.”

The sheepish smile disappeared and the hazel eyes grew cold. “I don’t think I like your implication, Sergeant. Like most men with an ounce of ambition, I wanted to go where the jobs were, and I used my contacts to land a job. Army folks move all over, which was very handy.”

“Then it was just a lucky contact that landed you a job as right hand man to a future Liberal Party star?”

The man’s double chin quivered in outrage. “I’ve worked damn hard to get where I am and I’m good at it. That’s what landed me this job. And by the way, Blakeley is not just a Liberal Party star. When the Liberals win, he’ll be in line for a cabinet post. The Liberal leader himself pressed his nomination, as much as promised him Defence if he could take the riding from the Conservatives. My God, do you know what that would mean to our military and to the country? To have a guy running the country’s defence policy who’s actually walked the walk, and knows one end of a tank from the other?”

Sullivan glanced around the room at the dozens of framed photos and press clippings that covered the walls. “He’s that impressive, is he?”

“He’s that important.”

Sullivan rose and began to peruse the display while he planned his next move. So far, as he’d feared, Atkinson had given him nothing. Most of the clippings trumpeted the missions Blakeley had led or the famous people he’d met. Blakeley’s stern, clear gaze dominated all the photos, whether as an officer surrounded by his men or as a political hopeful shaking hands with the Liberal leader. One picture in particular caught his eye. Blakeley stood in the middle of a semi-circle of men, all in formal dress and smiling broadly for the camera. Atkinson was visible to one side, looking smug. And at the back, barely discernible was a face that rang a vaguely familiar bell. It had been among the many faces Green had shown him earlier in the day. But the name eluded him.

He turned back to Atkinson. “After we’re done here, I’d like a word with Mr. Blakeley too.”

Atkinson’s proud smile disappeared. “That’s not possible. He’s in Ottawa.”

“Oh, does he live there most of the time?”

“Oh no, no. He lives here, but his business with the defence department often brings him into the city for long periods.”

“What business?”

“Consulting on peacekeeping operations, helping to draft new policies.”

“I thought he was retired.”

“He is. But all that expertise... His advice is quite invaluable.”

Sullivan returned to the chair. “Who was your army friend who got you the first job here?”

Atkinson blinked at the sudden change of topic. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”

“Humour me. Was it Blakeley?”

“Of course not. I’ve only known him a year. It was just an old drinking buddy. No one important.”

“Patricia Ross thought it had something to do with shutting you up. You say it was just a lucky contact. It would be nice to be able to verify that, and get you off my list of suspects.”

Atkinson flushed and clenched his fists involuntarily.

“Before the opposition parties get wind of it,” Sullivan added, to help him along.

Atkinson sputtered a protest. He cast about as if looking for an escape route, but found none. Slowly he deflated. “I don’t want any trouble for him. He was just a friend, a noncom in logistical support. He tipped me off to a job with a company that was going to re-outfit the 2 CMBG .”

“2 CMBG ?”

“Second Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group—that’s the group based in Petawawa.” He pulled on his nose awkwardly. “It wasn’t really illegal but they aren’t supposed to use their knowledge or influence... He put in a good word for me.”

“Why?”

Atkinson shrugged. “I fixed something for him in Halifax. Lost some paperwork at City Hall. It was nothing, but it could have hurt his career.”

“A name, Atkinson.”

“Terry Lawlor.”

“And I can find him here on the base?”

“Oh, not now. This was years ago. He’s retired now, and I have no idea where he is.”

Sullivan swore inwardly. More names, more fucking twists in the trail. He leaned forward on the desk and stared the man down. “Don’t fuck with me now, Roger. The truth. Did you tell Detective Peters about any of this?”

Atkinson whipped his head back and forth, scrambling to recover his shattered cool. “On my grandmother’s grave, no. I never even spoke to the woman.”

* * *

July 22. Some shithole in Sector South, Croatia.

Our new assignment. It’s hotter than hell here, nothing is moving and we’re waiting it out while Command finds us a suitable camp. It looks like the moon. Villages torched, bigmortar holes in the ground, no trees or crops. The belligerentshave tanks down here and they’ve dug professional trenches.

The Hammer says we’re waiting for the politicians and UNbigshots to work out a withdrawal agreement, and then we’resupposed to enforce it. Apparently this used to be a Serb areaprotected by French peacekeepers, but the Croats think it’s partof Croatia, so they grabbed a bridge and a dam right underthe French noses. Anyway, the Serbs were some pissed at theFrench, so in come the Canadians again to do the job right.

This is war, our CO says, and we’re sitting right in themiddle of it, so keep your head down. And by the way, watchwhere you step and shake out your clothes and shoes before youput them on. Lots of snakes and scorpions. I say bring thesuckers on. It’ll be my pleasure to kill them.