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Aug. 19, 1993. Maslenica Bridge, Sector South, Croatia.

The whole Canadian Battalion has taken over this sector and we’re quartered at the old school again, waiting for the withdrawal agreement. I feel like we’ll be stuck here forever, ducking the shells, while the <span class=">UN plays with itself and the Croats get ready to wipe the Serbs off the map. I can’t wait to go home. Only a month to go, if we don’t get killed. Every day the artillery shells fly over our heads. The Serbs are trying to snuggle up as close as they can to use us as cover while they attack, but the Croats blast back at them anyway.

The company commander figures both sides are trying to drive us away so they can have a clear shot at each other. But he’s decided we are going to stay put, so all night long, when the Serbs can’t see us, we fill sand bags and hump them up the hill to build the biggest bunker you’ve ever seen. The soil is really red, and Sarge is afraid it’s radioactive from some old mine that’s near by. But the OC says “you want to die now, or later?”

Aug. 22, 1993, Maslenica Bridge, Sector South, Croatia.

Today all hell broke loose inside the camp. We got blasted by this shell fifteen metres from the bunker while we were asleep. It blew up a whole wall of sand bags and we were all choking on the red dust. Sarge says “that’s it!”and he grabs his rifle, jumps in the Jeep and goes off. Word is he threatened to blow the company commander’s head off and it took three guys to restrain him. Anyway, a few hours later the Hammer comes up, pins a master corporal maple leaf on Danny and says he’s the new section commander. Just like that. I’m glad for Danny, but I’m worried about Sarge. He was only trying to look out for us.

* * *

John Blakeley’s condominium was not at all what Green had expected, given what he had learned about the man. It was on the twelfth floor of a glass and steel spire on Laurier Avenue West, and had a spectacular view of the Ottawa River, the copper roof of the new War Museum, and in the distance across the river, the rounded hills of the Gatineau. The taxes and condo fees alone, even without a mortgage, would have put the average enlisted man in the poorhouse, but Blakeley also had a riverside estate in Petawawa, where he and his wife presumably spent most of their time.

As soon as they had finished with Neil Thompson, Green and Sullivan headed straight over to see Blakeley, wanting to catch him by surprise and give him little time to plan a defence strategy. Atkinson had almost certainly warned him that they were making inquiries about the past, but neither the sweep team nor MacDonald’s and Weiss’s names had been mentioned before. Green hoped that gave them at least a small element of surprise.

Standing outside the steel and glass high rise, Green was no longer sure what to expect. A man as tall and remote as the place where he lived? To his surprise, Blakeley buzzed them in cheerfully, and when they emerged from the elevator on the twelfth floor, he was standing in the hallway with a hearty grin on his face. In person, even more than in his photo, the ridged white scar across his left eyebrow gave him a warrior’s air. He was dressed in ratty jeans and a red Ottawa Senators T -shirt. His white hair, so well tamed in his campaign poster, flew about in wild disarray and his grin revealed a chipped front tooth. He was shorter than Green, with a thick, muscular body.

He shook Green’s hand with a vigour that made Green’s teeth rattle.

“You caught me in my Sunday best, boys,” he exclaimed as he ushered them inside. “But I’ve been expecting you. Roger said you’d dropped by. I’ve asked Leanne to put on a pot of coffee. Terrible thing about your detective, and I’ll do whatever I can to help. I have some contacts with the police up in Petawawa.”

He led the way through a brightly lit hall into an enormous living room banked by an entire wall of windows. The view was unobstructed by curtains, as if inviting the vast open skies into the room. The floors were acres of blond wood and, again surprisingly for the rugged warrior who lived there, the furniture was white leather. The only strong colours came from the vivid framed photographs that lined the walls. Close-ups of nature—a gnarled tree, a rusty tugboat at sunset, a snake coiled in a tree. Not the nature of postcards and tourism brochures, Green noted, but the underbelly. A reflection of the man himself, perhaps?

Green sensed immediately that he was in the presence of a powerful man. A man of strong emotion, vast intellect and a charisma that pulled people in his wake. No wonder the Liberals wanted him. Green chose the leather armchair by the window, so that he was facing into the room and backlit by the sun. It was a small advantage, but he suspected he was going to need every one he could get. Sullivan folded himself into a loveseat at the opposite side of the room, leaving Blakeley no choice but to sit between them, unable to keep both in his sights.

A woman glided into the room with the grace of a cat, bearing a tray with coffee and a plate of scones. She sized up the situation and her lips drew a thin, tight line. “Perhaps you’d prefer to sit at the table,” she said, gesturing to the adjoining dining room, where a heavy white table was encircled by plush suede chairs. “It’ll be easier that way.”

Remind me not to underestimate this woman, Green thought. “Oh, this is no trouble,” he replied blandly.

“Gentlemen, this is my wife Leanne,” said Blakeley. “Put it over here, honey.”

Leanne shot a brief glance at Sullivan before setting the tray on the coffee table between them. She looked at least twenty years Blakeley’s junior, as lithe and fine-featured as he was rugged, but Green sensed a will equal to his own.

“Yes, your wife and I met yesterday,” said Sullivan. “She runs a very efficient campaign office. Nice to see you again, Ms Neuss.”

Leanne inclined her head gracefully, then turned and walked from the room without a backward glance.

Green launched the interview while Sullivan quietly extracted his notebook. “We really appreciate your offer of help, Mr. Blakeley—”

“Please call me John. No formalities here. How do you take your coffee...Mike, is it?”

“Cream and sugar, thanks.” Green ignored the familiarity. “I know you’re a busy man, so I’ll get straight to the meat of the inquiry. Our information is that in September 1993 you headed a sweep team over in Croatia which included a young reservist named Corporal Ian MacDonald. Is that correct?”

If Blakeley was surprised, he betrayed no sign. His brown eyes looked thoughtful, then sad. “That is correct. I remember him well.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he’d been recommended for a medal of bravery— and subsequently got it—and I was expecting a damn fine soldier. In fact, I requested him.”

“Why?”

Blakeley didn’t hesitate. “Because he sounded like the kind of soldier that I needed for the job. He had strength, courage, but most importantly heart. When we walked into the villages after the fighting, I wanted the first Canadians those poor people met to be men like Ian MacDonald.”

“And was he what you expected?”

This time Blakeley did pause, ever so slightly before he nodded.

“Why the hesitation?”

Blakeley handed coffee to Sullivan, then tended to his own, drawing out the silence. “It was a difficult mission. Most of the boys struggled with it one way or the other.”

“What was MacDonald’s struggle with it?”

“He went in, as we all did, expecting to help relocate and bring medical aid to the local population, and also in his case to the animals. He ended up bagging bodies, burning dead livestock to prevent disease, and putting cruelly injured animals out of their misery.”

“Our information is that this sweep mission changed him in a way all his previous operations had not. He became depressed and remote, dropped all his plans for vet school, and eventually killed himself.”

Blakeley nodded grimly. “I heard. I was appalled.”

“What happened to him?”

“Beyond what I’ve just told you, I don’t know.”

“Come on, John, it isn’t enough to talk about trauma and disillusionment.” Hoping to unsettle him, Green speculated further. “Something very real happened to MacDonald. Something he couldn’t reconcile himself to, and ultimately couldn’t live with.”

Blakeley looked from one to the other as if gauging the threat and the appropriate response. He set down his coffee. “Boys, we were at war. Make no mistake about it. Forget all the peacekeeping rhetoric. Half the time there’s no peace to keep, and we Canadians are the only ones who believe in it. The rest of the world solves conflicts by war, and it’s only the losing side that calls in the UN . We get over there, with our heads filled with peacekeeping fluff and both our hands tied behind our back by the UN , and we’re told to take care of things. Don’t come whining for hardware, because there isn’t any; don’t try defending any civilians or fighting back, because that’s taking sides. And then when the whole operation goes down the toilet, everyone including our own military and political leadership says what the hell were you boys playing over there, tiddlywinks? Well, yeah, because that was the only game in town.”

“Mr. Blakeley—John, we’re talking—”

“I’m getting there! But you know how it is, Mike. On the street day after day, you cops make judgement calls that you hope like hell you’ll never have to defend to the press, or to your superior officer. A little entrapment here, undue force there... It isn’t pretty, but it gets the job done.” He held up a hand. “I’m not condoning it. And I’m not condoning any wrongdoing a soldier does in the heat of the moment either. But they’re out there halfway around the world, laying their lives on the line twenty-four seven in somebody else’s war, and if for two or three seconds they’re less than exemplary soldiers—”

“Are you saying Ian MacDonald did something wrong in the heat of the moment?”

“No, I’m not. I’m talking about the standards we demand of our boys—”

“I don’t want a campaign speech, Mr. Blakeley. I want to know what really happened with Corporal MacDonald.”

Blakeley’s face flushed, accentuating the angry white scar. He calmed himself by reaching for a scone, which he buttered with care. “Why? Will it bring him back? Ian MacDonald was a hero. If we put all our boys under a microscope and dissect their every move, we won’t have any more heroes. And whether you care or not, we need heroes in the military. We need inspiration and glory, and all the things that are no longer in fashion, or we won’t find anyone willing to go out and fight these dirty little wars on our behalf. And the victims of this world will be the worse for it. Look at Afghanistan—”

“So you’re saying we should sweep this all under the carpet as a small price we pay for the help we provide to the world?”

“No, I’m saying our boys are human. When we send them into these hell holes, we have to understand that. If we expect them to be God, we’d better not send them.”

Green leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Blakeley’s. “I might be willing to do that, John, except that in this case his friend Daniel Oliver died because of what happened to Ian MacDonald on that sweep team. And that’s not something we cops are prepared to sweep under the rug.”

Blakeley had just taken a bite of scone, and his hand froze in mid air. “What are you talking about?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Green had been aware of Leanne moving quietly about in the kitchen, and she chose this moment to glide back into the room. She slipped onto the sofa next to her husband and took his hand in hers.

“I don’t think my husband is suggesting you should sweep anything under the rug, gentlemen.”

To Green’s surprise, Blakeley did not object to her interference, nor pull his hand away. “Of course I’m not, and I know that’s not what the inspector means. He’s saying that a young man died—two young men if we count Ian MacDonald —and finding out why is more important than personal reputations or public trust.”

“Not just finding out why,” Green said, “but who. Because the killing hasn’t stopped—”

“You’re not implying my husband had anything to do with that!”

Since she was running such effective interference, Green decided perhaps she was the one he needed to reach. “He knows something, Mrs. Blakeley. He was the leader of the mission where Ian MacDonald’s troubles began. He can’t pretend ignorance when the victims keep piling up. First Ian MacDonald, then Daniel Oliver, his fiancée Patricia Ross, Detective Peters, and the latest, a homeless woman whose only crime was to be in the vicinity when Patricia Ross was killed.”

Blakeley looked shocked. Almost stricken. He looked at his wife searchingly, and she tightened her grip on his hand. For a moment neither spoke, then Blakeley shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. I wish I could be more help.”

“Where were you on April 9, 1996, ten years ago?”

Blakeley frowned. “I have no idea. In 1996 I was posted here in Ottawa from January to August.”

“Did you travel to Halifax during that time?”

“Not that I recall.”

“That was just before our wedding,” Leanne said. “You proposed to me in April, remember, darling?” She smiled at the detectives. “I don’t think we spent a single night apart for nearly a year.”

“You’re absolutely sure?” Green asked. “No business trips, brief consultations? Because we will be verifying this.”

Blakeley was shaking his head back and forth, but Green thought he looked distracted. Even pale.

“How did you get on with Corporal MacDonald?”

Blakeley shrugged. “He was no trouble. As I said, he was that fine balance the Canadian military needs for our peacekeeping role—a warrior with heart—because we are both fighters and humanitarians.”

“Did Ian MacDonald have any conflicts with anyone else on the team?”

“Most people liked him.”

“Well, there was that police officer,” Leanne said.

Green leaped at the remark. “Who?”

Blakeley gave her a sharp look, but she ignored it. “The one you told me about. It may be important, John.”

“It’s ancient history, honey. A trivial disagreement, that’s all.”

“Didn’t you say they disagreed about a cause of death or something?"

“Or something.”

“Whose death?” Green interjected.

“I don’t recall.”

Blakeley shook his head grimly. “God knows there were enough deaths to argue over.”

“Still,” she said, “if the police think there’s a connection, and if people are still getting killed, then maybe—”

Abruptly Blakeley stood up. “No. This is a fishing expedition, and I will not continue this speculation any further. Innocent people are being maligned.”

“Innocent people are being killed,” Green retorted.

“I need the police officer’s name, Blakeley. Was it Jeff Weiss?”

Blakeley strode to the apartment door and yanked it open without a word. As Green and Sullivan rose to go, Leanne moved quickly to their side. “He was from Ottawa, I know that much. You can figure it out.”