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DAY FOUR

Wednesday, September 1

Wednesday, September 1, 0900 hours

Air Canada Flight 8565, Montreal to Winnipeg

The flight out of Montreal was routine enough – a cursory once-over at the gate by bored inspectors more interested in their communal gossip than their dull jobs, a bad seat, and no in-flight meal. Alex always asked for a window seat on the right side of the aircraft when he travelled west. It was a three-hour trip over some of the most beautiful land in the world, especially as the aircraft sailed out high over Lake Superior’s wondrous blue waters framed in grey granite dressed in autumn’s red and yellow forests.

Alex dozed uneasily for the last thirty minutes of the flight. The thump of the landing gear locking into position brought him back abruptly to the world of metal and machines and bitter politics. He tightened his seat belt and watched the farms and fields slip under the wing as the aircraft pulled into a tight southerly turn, dropped over the Perimeter Highway and landed slickly on the windy runway. He followed the other passengers off the plane, through Gate T, and down the stairs into the lobby. Alex retrieved his suitcase, headed outside, and joined the taxi queue.

When his cab came, he got the door himself, settled into the backseat, and told the scarlet-turbaned Sikh driver, “The Occidental Hotel, Main Street, please.”

The cabbie hesitated. “The Occidental? Are you sure, sir? Have you been here before? It’s not in a very fancy place – kind of a beat-up area for a hotel, really.”

“Yeah, well, business is tough in Ottawa these days,” Alex replied, deliberately lying about where he was coming from, as he’d been instructed to, in order to cover his tracks. “We’re saving money this month.”

The cabbie shrugged, pulled away from the airport, and cut out on to Wellington Street. “Most of our visitors from Ottawa go to the best places.” He paused for the traffic and grinned at Alex in his rear-view mirror. “Can you still tip?”

Alex smiled back. “Oh, sure – special rates, though.”

The taxi turned down Flight Road to Sargent Avenue directly to the inner city. The driver cut across Cumberland, manoeuvred though heavy traffic out on to Main Street, and pulled up on Logan, stopping in front of a run-down, three-storey building, the famously infamous Occidental Hotel.

“Here you go, sir. Are you sure I can’t take you somewhere else?”

“No, this is fine.” Alex looked at the meter and passed the driver thirty dollars. “Keep the change, but I’ll need a receipt.” As Alex stepped out onto the noisy, dusty sidewalk, the driver said, “Thanks. Have a nice day. And watch your wallet in this part of town.”

The cabbie hesitated at the curb, curious to see whether his wealthy-looking passenger was really going into the Occidental or, Alex thought grimly when he noticed the driver watching him, whether he’d make it inside without being hassled outside on the street. As Alex reached for the hotel door he saw the cabbie through the taxi’s grimy side window shaking his head as the car eased away from the curb. The old Sikh would have a story for the guys tonight.

Wednesday, September 1, 1140 hours

Winnipeg: North Main Street

Alex was familiar with Main Street, and even the barroom of the Occidental, from his first posting several years ago to the 2nd Patricias, then stationed at Kapyong Barracks on Kenaston Boulevard. But his experiences then only added to his sense of apprehension this morning. If anything, the intervening years hadn’t been kind to north Main Street or the old hotel-saloon. The Occidental was known by reputation to every Winnipegger, although few decent citizens have ever stepped into the place, except cops and the odd bunch of college kids on a dare. The three-storey building sat on a concrete island, isolated by the flow of traffic along Main and Logan streets and the busy Disraeli Freeway. Its uninviting front door faced the even less-inviting Bon Accord block across Logan, while its shabby rear, strewn with broken crates, boxes, and rubble, overlooked three dilapidated grey houses.

Still, the Occidental, perhaps in tribute to its sheer tenacity, was held in a kind of respect, a landmark residents would hate to see vanish almost as much as they’d hate to see its insides. The old girl displayed her aspirations in bold colours on a fancy sign hung on the Main Street wall: Furnished Rooms, Suites, Private Baths. Special Discounts for Artists, Musicians and Students. And, thought Alex, nightly brawls outside, no charge, join or watch, take your choice.

In the days of beer parlours and ladies-and-escorts segregated drinking establishments, the hotel had been the favourite of ordinary working white guys looking for ten-cent draft beer. They enjoyed the rough and the reassuring company of people like themselves. In those days, keen members of the Salvation Army would drop by to save souls from drink and damnation. The new locals, though less prosperous, drank beer there too, but they looked to other saviours and another religion. Alex grimaced at the sign over the entrance, White Buffalo Spiritual Society, then stepped inside.

The smell of old carpets and stale beer buffeted him on his way in the door. He blinked in the dim light and walked to the desk, where a middle-aged, unshaven clerk put down his paper and scowled at this unusual customer. “What will it be, chief? Nice suit. On welfare or are you one of those guys they hired in the government to make things look fair?”

“You have a room for me,” Alex replied stonily. “The name’s Grieves. Or do you have to ask your boss first?” He flashed a twenty and they settled for a draw. The clerk glanced at the register and said, “Yeah, sure, okay. Staying three days it says here. Prepaid.” His eyes flicked up in genuine surprise, and a note of sarcasm crept in as he continued, “Top floor, 372, the presidential suite.” He handed Alex a key and an envelope, taped shut and initialled. “Elevator’s broke. Stairs are over there.”

Alex crossed the small lobby and walked up the stairs, not too fast. He was conspicuous enough in his suit without taking the stairs two at a time; nobody that healthy had stayed in this hotel since 1953. He walked down the dark third-floor corridor to room 372, fumbled with the key, and pushed open the door. The room was small, just a creaky steel bed, a chest of drawers, and a well-used “private bath.”

He threw his bag on the bed and tore open the envelope that had been waiting for him at the desk. It contained nothing but a card with a phone number written on it. He flipped open his cellphone and dialled the number. Two rings, then a grunted “Yeah?”

Alex replied to the voice according to the set of code-words and counter-challenges he had been given at Akwasasne.

“You left me a card.”

The voice hesitated, then asked, “Birthday?”

“April.”

“Party?”

“Tea.”

“Okay, you’re cleared. Clothes are in a sealed box in the closet. Put them on. Pack everything else except your shaving kit, take the back fire-escape, and drop the suitcase beside the dumpster. Toss the cellphone in the dumpster there, then go to Disraeli, cross Main, and walk up Alexander. Wander a bit. Check for tails. We’ll be watching for ’em too. Take your time, then head to the Presbyterian Church on Laura at Alexander and sit in the pews. We’ll make contact if you’re clean.” Beep. Click. Dial tone.

Alex tore up the card and flushed it down the toilet. He opened the box and found worn jeans, white socks, old Nikes, green plaid shirt, a thin red jacket, and a beat-up Blue Bomber tractor hat. At least they were clean. He changed quickly, packed, threw the keys on the bed, opened the door, and checked the hallway. Clear. He made his way down the fire-escape and out into the alley. As he passed the hotel dumpster, Alex chucked his cellphone into it and dropped his suitcase on the ground. That, he said to himself, will be gone within the hour.

Alex followed his instructions, moving along Disraeli, dodging across Main Street’s several lanes, and up Alexander. Despite the clothes, he felt conspicuous, too upright in these beaten-down surroundings. He forced himself to discard his habitual upright, parade-ground posture, pace, and presence. Loser, he told himself. Think loser. Act loser. Look loser. Shuffle. Head down. Drift. He checked himself in the store windows as he walked along, trying to look as if he was stopping to ponder a smash-and-grab.

As he ambled along, he stopped at a bench in the churchyard park at Fountain Street. Maybe I should have brought a bottle, he thought. Nah, don’t want cop trouble. Just look thirsty. He hung his head but quickly checked the street behind him, looking, he supposed, for a shady character even scruffier than himself, or maybe someone in a trench coat, who would suddenly stop walking, turn away, pull up his jacket collar, and light a cigarette. I watch too many detective movies, he told himself.

After another half hour of wandering up and down the streets of this depressing neighbourhood, Alex found it was unpleasantly easy to shuffle along looking discouraged. Time to get going, he thought. He headed for the rendezvous point. The church on Laura was just one of the many churches and fine buildings in this once-prosperous part of Winnipeg. The grand red-brick Canadian Pacific railway station on Higgins Avenue, built in 1904, had once been the centre of a lively local economy that supported numerous small manufacturers, warehouse businesses, banks, and one-product shops; a number of rival churches and synagogues had been built for the mostly east-European immigrants who had come to build a better life in the early twentieth century. But that was ancient history.

In the sixties, businesses had started faltering or had moved to newer parts of town. The closing of the CP station was a big blow. And then the demographics began to change. As the middle class moved out and welfare clients moved in, trade fell off, and other stores, banks, and services moved out. Residents moved to the suburbs and businesses left Main Street for the new malls on west Portage Avenue and Pembina Highway to the south. Then the native population swelled, displacing the white working poor, if not the derelicts.

Ill-prepared young natives moved from the reserves to the city in search of the life they’d watched on TV. They didn’t find it. Instead, kids living on welfare, drugs, booze, and prostitution wandered the streets. Gangs began to multiply. More businesses left. More banks closed. Seedy hotels, pay-day “banks,” and little else remained. Winnipeggers grew resigned to the native slum around north Main, Selkirk, Slater, and MacGregor: what can you do? Just don’t go there, especially at night. Every election, the white politicians talked about doing something, and between elections they did nothing.

We will make something better for our people, Alex thought. We’ve got to. He reached the church on Laura and noticed the paint peeling off the door.

He went in and stood at the back, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He walked partway down the aisle and sat in a pew, not too far back, but not in front either. The place was empty except for a couple of old women several rows away, drinking from a bottle hidden carelessly in a paper bag. He watched them for several minutes and then an attractive little native woman came swiftly down the aisle, dropped onto the pew beside him, and immediately knelt as if to say a prayer.

Good grief, he thought. They don’t watch enough detective movies. You are way out of place, lady. After a few moments of inaudible prayer she raised her voice and whispered, “Come with me and keep quiet.” She rose as quickly and quietly as she had arrived and continued forward towards the altar. Alex got up immediately, wondering whether it was more obvious if he went with her or followed six feet behind her, and decided he couldn’t afford to lose her.

Alex hurried after her, through a doorway beside the altar, along a hallway, down a flight of stairs to the basement, across an empty, cement room with faded yellow paint, out a creaking metal door, up four concrete steps, across a rubble-scattered backyard, through a break in a collapsing wooden fence, across another small yard, and down another set of steps into the basement of an old house on Ellen Street.

“Very complicated. Does the priest know about this setup?” Alex teased.

“The priests here are liberation priests, just like those fighting for justice in other oppressed countries,” the woman replied tersely. “Now, no more questions. When we go outside, hold my hand like we like each other and walk with me.”

“If I’m going to hold your hand, shouldn’t I at least know your name – just in case we get stopped, of course?” Alex smiled as he took her hand, but the flush that crept into her cheeks was angry, not embarrassed. “I’m Deanna. But we won’t get stopped. Let’s go and stop talking.” Alex stopped smiling.

They walked up a set of uneven wooden steps to a dismal kitchen, went out the back door, and followed the narrow stone walkway along the side of the house to Ellen Street. Deanna, if that was her name, led Alex to Henry Avenue, then east to King Street and turned towards the great Logan CPR train yard. They worked their way east along the tracks and climbed up to the Main Street overpass, crossed the bridge, and finally slid down into a muddle of ragged bushes to a basement doorway at the back of the rundown “Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg Inc.” on Higgins Avenue – the once-majestic CPR station, a gilded lady turned to new pursuits.

Deanna took Alex’s arm, directing him to a small basement doorway, half hidden by scrawny vines. Inside, she pointed down the hallway to another door. “Go there!” With that she turned and walked away, cold, hard, tense, and bitter. Alex shuddered. God only knew what her life had been like before she had joined the Movement and what it would be like after Molly Grace was done with it.

Alex examined the door. It had a coded lock, and a surveillance camera covered it from a corner. To knock or not to knock? As he raised his hand to knock, the door swung open and a native half a head shorter than Alex, but about a foot wider, motioned him in then frisked him roughly.

“Come with me,” he said, speaking and moving at the same time.

The burly man walked down the hallway to another closed door, grunted at the kid guarding it, and knocked once. A lock turned and the door opened. Alex stepped in. A small group, five young natives and an older man standing around a large table, stopped talking and looked up, interrupted in mid-conversation. The leader stepped back from the table, folding a large map over on itself as he did so.

Wednesday, September 1, 1235 hours

Winnipeg: Colonel Stevenson’s Headquarters

Even a stranger would have seen that the older man was in charge. But Alex wasn’t exactly a stranger. Though a few years had passed since he was under his command, Alex recognized Colonel Sam Stevenson at once.

“Okay, everyone, take a break for ten minutes while I speak with the hero from the Petawawa raid,” the colonel said. Suspicion turned to admiration on five young faces as they filed out, leaving Alex and Sam alone. The colonel closed the door.

Habit made Alex straighten up, almost to attention, but a tiny motion of Stevenson’s left hand said, “Stand at ease.” His right hand gave Alex a firm, welcoming handshake.

“Glad you’re here to join us, Alex. Good trip? You’ll meet the others a little later. Have a seat.” He motioned Alex to a chair in front of a smaller desk to the right of the main table. “Coffee, tea?” Alex declined both and sat down.

“Colonel Steele,” as his regular force soldiers called him, was hardly a Hollywood Rambo-style soldier. His hair, slightly greying, was trimmed short and neat. He was Docker-dressed, as the saying went: matching shirt and trousers, both pressed and creased. But the colonel was short for an action hero, at most five-seven, slight, physically unassuming, his posture concealing rather than emphasizing his exceptional fitness for a man in his mid-fifties. He wore thin-framed reading glasses hung around his neck, librarian-style.

“Do you know why you’re here, Alex?” Stevenson asked, dispensing as usual with small talk.

“Not exactly, sir. I was only told to come here to help you command the operation in this sector. Beyond which, Molly Grace told me you would fill me in. I must say, sir, that I am honoured to be with you, and I hope I can be helpful.” Alex blushed. Damn, he said to himself, that sounded trite – like I’m some ass-kiss, first day on the job in NDHQ.

“Never mind. I’m sure you’ll do fine, and like I said, I’m glad to have you. In fact, you’re here because I specifically requested you, before the raid on Petawawa. You have a fine record, brains, guts, and experience. That’s what I need, and frankly I don’t have enough of it here. They’re keen, Alex, and they’ll die for the cause, but they’re not all soldiers and there isn’t time to make them into soldiers. You’re going to hold them together, Alex. I’m giving you a big job: I’m giving you command of the Winnipeg battle group, the garrison in effect.

“Here’s the outline. Soon, when the operation begins, your mission will be to create a major disturbance, draw police and army units into the centre of the city, and then hold them there, pin them down, while we move the larger units from the north into the cities and vital points across the province. It’s a diversion within a diversion, Alex.”

Alex held out a hand. “Hold on please, colonel. With respect, you’re suggesting that we’re going to launch a full-scale attack on a major Canadian city, a city of some 700,000 people, with small groups of untested, so-called warriors, and intentionally invite the army and the police to counterattack us! Do you expect, one, that we’ll be able to hold on until the other untested warriors come to our rescue, and, two, do you expect any of us to survive the experience?”

“Well, Alex, yes, I do expect you will be able to hold until relieved, mainly because we have been preparing the teams you will lead for many months. They’re not all untested, as you say; the key sub-unit commanders are mostly trained soldiers with experience in the Canadian army and the U.S. Special Forces. And two, I’m not sending anyone on a suicide mission. You’ll have plenty of backup, and once we draw the army and the police into the centre of the city – get them committed there – you’re going to pull out.

“Remember, Alex, we have surprise on our side, and the army here is just the local militia, no better trained than our young people. As for the police, they’re simply not prepared for the kind of action we’re going to put them in.

“Let me give you the bigger picture, put things in context. After that, and once you’ve completed your recce of the area, if you have doubts or see a need to change the outline plan, well, we’ll discuss the details and make whatever changes fit the bigger strategy. Fair?”

“Fair enough, sir. It just seems rather too bold. I mean, I can’t think of many civilians who would believe the scenario even if we told them about it in advance.”

“That’s our major advantage, Alex, here and in the whole country. The Ottawa politicians just assume that the outrageous things they do can go on without any organized response from us, and they think, too, that we’re too lazy or drunk to figure how to organize a nationwide resistance movement. Complacency and prejudice is a deadly combination in politics and war.

“So, let me explain why Molly Grace sent you west when the action seems to be in the East.”

Alex nodded. “That would be helpful. I thought about it all the way here.”

“Well, what’s happening back there in the East is a bigger diversion, to draw forces into Ontario and Quebec so we can act here. Then we’re doing it again, or rather, you’re going to do it again. It won’t be easy for us to get south in sufficient numbers if the army and the police are able to block the roads south and concentrate their troops north of Winnipeg. So your job is to make them think the problem is in the city, a kind of native intifada. We need them to commit to the city before they see us moving south, and then we need to hold them and prevent their move north. It’s a kind of tar-baby strategy – a nice, little trap. But timing is everything. Here, look at the map.”

Stevenson unfolded the map he’d hidden so obviously when Alex entered. It covered much of the table and illustrated the city and its environs in considerable detail, with aerial photos of specific targets. It also showed military symbols, a familiar second language to Alex, denoting vital points such as electrical and water works, military establishments and units, police headquarters and substations. Two smaller, more detailed maps at one side of the table showed the inner city and the airport plus its infrastructure in greater detail.

“You can see,” Stevenson explained, “that we have two areas of concentration – the inner city with all its high-value targets, and the airport, because it’s the most likely place where the army would try to concentrate a large number of troops for a counterattack on the downtown. If they try to come by road from outside the province, well, too bad for them. We’ll trap them in skirmishes and by blowing up bridges and culverts all along the way.”

The tactical picture rapidly took shape in Alex’s mind and a stream of questions flowed from his quick intellect. “A rude question, colonel: hold till when? Until the cavalry arrives?”

“That’s two questions, but good ones. I could say, ‘Hold until relieved,’ like the British did at Arnhem – or so the movie has it. But we’re the Indians, remember? If the cavalry shows up, it’s not on our side.

“No, your job is to hold the city centre until the enemy is thoroughly committed to the fight in Winnipeg. When he realizes that Winnipeg isn’t the real target, he’ll be too late to cover our move south. Once I’m sure the white guys are stuck into it here and it’s too late for them to stop our bigger plan, I will pass the word to you that your job’s done, and then you’re to withdraw, taking your people north out of the city. It’s a big, bold plan, Alex. It’s been in the making for more than two years, and your operation is a critical part of the Central Committee’s grand strategy – which, I guess you know, means Molly Grace’s grand strategy. Come, sit down again and we’ll do the staff college thing, at least in outline for now.”

Despite the very different circumstances they were in now, Alex felt comfortable – like he was once again in uniform. And Alex and Sam were both soldiers, no matter that they’d taken off the Canadian Forces uniform. Colonel and captain, revered senior officer and trusted subordinate, played their parts automatically and effortlessly.

Stevenson opened his well-worn map folder and flipped through several pages. “Okay, Alex, here’s the staff college estimate of the situation, and so on. You read the concept of ops then we can talk about the details.” He dropped the thick document onto the table.

Alex sat up in his chair, reached for the brown canvas case, and stared at the document: Operation Middleton. The irony of the code name, the name of the British officer who had accepted Louis Riel’s surrender in 1885, registered immediately.

Alex ran his fingers through the table of contents: “Concept of Operations”; “Allocation to Tasks”; “Logistics”; “Command and Signals”; “Annexes.” There were also lists of code words and nicknames; descriptions of the ORBAT – the order of battle; target lists; and maps. Complete enough, at least on the surface. He started with the “Concept of Operations,” the heart of the document.

OPERATION MIDDLETON

Aim: To capture southern Manitoba and install a provisional First People’s government by no later than 30 September.

Phase I: Battle Group Riel, seven combat teams, three Special Forces sections, four combat engineer sections, and a headquarters and communications section capture Winnipeg’s inner city and establish control over the downtown core bordering on Portage Avenue, Memorial Boulevard, the River Assiniboine at the Osborne Bridge to the Forks, north to Alexander Avenue and the Disraeli Freeway south to Ellis Avenue and Balmoral. Battle Group Riel will hold the area until relieved by Battle Group Winnipegosis advancing from northern Manitoba. Most important target is the legislative buildings, to be fortified in two lines: outer perimeter on the grounds to the River Assiniboine, and inner strong point within the building.

In Phase II, Battle Group Métis assembles combat teams in outlying areas north and west of the city and moves on the airport to capture Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg, destroy Canadian Forces aircraft, damage runways, and secure terminals. Security patrols would control the airport and deploy Blow Pipe anti-aircraft teams to defend against any air attacks or airborne attempts to reinforce the Canadian Forces in the area.

The whole “Western Territory” operation in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta is under the command of Colonel Stevenson, first from HQ at the old CPR station in Winnipeg, then after the assault from a hangar on the military base at the airport.

Rules of Engagement: All troops, police, or other armed force not identified as NPA units to be engaged with deadly force within assigned areas. Civilians held as captives to be treated according to the Laws of Armed Conflict on pain of severe penalty to commanders. Other civilians to be escorted to the perimeter and released unharmed.

Alex looked up from the paper. “Every combat unit in Western Canada will come down on us like a ton of bricks. Have any of your people any idea how complicated this mission is? Have they any basic training at all? Being a soldier requires more than being able to mouth the words.” He stopped, caught between his anxiety and his respect for Stevenson.

Stevenson wasn’t at all upset. “Yeah, that’s possible. Actually, with a bit of luck most of the army won’t be in Western Canada. But if the army wants to tie up units fighting for buildings in the city or the airport, well, so much the better for the grand strategy. Your guys don’t have to conduct open-field military operations, Alex, just irregular urban warfare.

“Of course it’s a challenge, holding this mostly amateur native army crowd together,” he continued, “and they’re not much else. But that’s your job. We always had it easy in the regular army, you know that. We commanded volunteers who wanted to be the best, who often set the standards for officers to live up to. If you couldn’t get an ‘outstanding’ rating leading those guys, you were a real screw-up.

“Most armies aren’t like that. They’re like this ragtag outfit. If their officers don’t lead from in front, and check everything, nobody steps up to do it. What’s worse, your subordinates are keen but they’ll get you killed if you don’t watch out. And if they do, your operation will fall apart. Think of it as defensive leading. It’s not easy, Alex. You have to be out in front but keep your bloody head down. And I don’t just mean when bullets are flying. For this operation, with these guys, you have to change your expectations, but not your style. These guys will follow you as best they can, but who knows really how they’re going to react once we turn the heat on. But that’s why I asked for you to command them, Alex.”

Alex nodded and returned to the document to skim through the plan again. Then he stood for a long while over the map. He’d always had a gift for being able to embed maps in his mind, to see the patterns on paper in 3D and as if moving through them in real time. “We come down here, there’s that tall building and we …”

Stevenson interrupted his concentration. “Okay, Alex, come meet my staff. After that, I want you to begin your recce of the area and the targets. Tonight you meet your sector commanders and we’ll begin the detailed review and rehearsal of the operations. That battle drill sequence – recce, planning, orders, and deployments – will increase in intensity and extend down the chain of command until we get a warning order from higher. I’m not sure on the timing, it’s pretty tight, but we’re at three days notice to move so we have a bit of time to shake things out.” The colonel opened the door and called in the staff.

* * *

Alex was partly relieved by the briefings, which were mostly clear and concise. Obviously this small staff had been trained somewhere and by professionals. When they were done, Stevenson offered Alex a couple of guides to show him around the city, but he refused them.

“I can manage, thanks. A group of Indians in old clothes walking about with maps taking notes might attract attention. I’ll just take a cut out of the centre of the map for reference and see you back here early this evening. Can I meet with my own people, say around eighteen hundred?”

A few people at the table looked at Stevenson in surprise, but the colonel understood and appreciated Alex’s independent style. “Sure. Matt here will be your chief of staff and you can begin your own battle procedure right now. Okay, folks, that’s it for now. Planning meeting as usual at seventeen hundred. Alex, you can see your people after that.”

Wednesday, September 1, 1400 hours

Winnipeg: Main Street

Alex picked up his map and a notepad and made his way out the rear entrance of the Aboriginal Centre. He scouted around the east side to Maple Street; it was immediately obvious that the entire site was easy to defend. Early settlers had seen its potential and built Fort Douglas nearby in 1812 as the headquarters of the Red River Settlement. Both the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company built defended locations near Point Douglas, taking advantage of the natural protection provided on three sides by sharp turns in the Red River. The grounds now housed various native facilities and exhibitions, but Alex looked first at the high buildings and the railway embankment around which he’d formulate his defensive plan for the north flank of the downtown position.

He began to construct his plan, asking himself, then answering, a series of related, complex questions he had been taught in staff college and in real operations. Where is the key terrain, the ground that must be held if the mission is to succeed? Where are the approaches to the key terrain that must therefore be defended? Where are the killing zones into which attackers could be funnelled? Where is the “dead ground,” the possible avenues of attack we won’t be able to see – behind buildings, for instance – from the natural defensive firing positions? Where are the best sites for which weapons and how many people will be needed in each location? What’s the logical allocation of scarce weapons and people to tasks? How can the scattered sites best support each other?

Alex looked first at the east-west railway line where it crossed Main Street. That, he told himself, would be the northern boundary of his defensive position. With a few snipers and anti-tank weapons, it would be easy to barricade and defend the north Main Street approach where it passed under the tracks. Walking along Higgins, he decided he would have to barricade the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge at Salter, and the Disraeli Freeway as well, probably where they passed over Sutherland Avenue.

I can use buses and trucks, there and there, Alex thought, and support the roadblocks with a few well-placed gunners in the high windows of the Centre, in the tower of the abandoned fire hall at Maple and Higgins, and in the north-facing buildings on Higgins and Henry avenues. I’ll also need to secure my western flank with snipers and build hasty barricades around Isabel and Logan.

He looked again at the core of his position, the Aboriginal Centre. It was a perfect strongpoint to close north Main Street and provide some security for his headquarters in city hall a few blocks away. The city hall, he reasoned, wasn’t crucial to the overall plan, but from a military standpoint it was a useful outpost for protecting his main position, and moreover, the optics of a native flag of revolt flying from it on the TV news would help ensure a rapid rush by the Canadian authorities into the downtown. So he walked the back streets along King and Notre Dame to recce the city hall area, continuing to mark on his map the high buildings and narrow streets near the site, the ready-made firing points and spots for roadblocks.

After reconnoitring the approaches to city hall, he made a detour over to Dagmar and Notre Dame to check out the large fire and medical service centre there. His plan involved getting as many “first responders” as possible, along with their pieces of large equipment, deployed and stuck in separate street locations, not trapped in the station house. That would probably force the second wave of “rescuers” to find and extract the first responders who would be stuck all over the downtown area, further disorganizing the response. Besides, crippled fire trucks would become both convenient obstacles to military operations trying to retake the downtown, and potent symbols of chaos. He made another note on his map and headed to the next major target, Lombard Square, and the famous junction of Portage Avenue and Main Street.

Portage and Main, besides being Canada’s windiest corner, is the heart of Winnipeg’s financial district. In Stevenson’s scheme to hold the downtown core and attract a counterattack, Lombard Square was the hard nut in the centre of the chocolate. Alex circled back from the fire hall to Main Street at McDermot Avenue, pocketed his map and notebook as a police car drove by, then strolled into the concrete garden at the foot of the Richardson Building. He grabbed a coffee from a street vendor and sat quietly on a bench sketching the site in his mind.

Winnipeg Square is the key terrain to controlling the downtown area, he thought to himself. Whoever controls these high buildings controls the Square, whoever controls the Square controls the city centre, and whoever controls the city centre more or less controls Winnipeg. Which was all fine and good, but the Square presented a tricky tactical problem. He gazed around, trying to pull the complex of buildings, streets, and avenues into a pattern.

Six main buildings offered themselves as strong points, he decided. Control of only one or two, even the most central, would mean nothing if the police or the army controlled the others and got snipers high up, dominating my positions. But controlling and defending all six would take a lot of people. Too many. More than I have. I could cause enough trouble to keep a fight going for a while, but not nearly long enough. I’d have to put too many of my people in the Square, then the army would wipe me out here and roll up the other positions.

Alex got up and strolled about the Square, trying not to be conspicuous. He paused at the southwest corner, where a plaque declared that the Bank of Montreal had been established in 1871. A tough-looking bronze army officer stood guard in honour of the warriors of the 1914–18 war. Alex stopped to admire the statue and the idea it represented: liberty though strength and sacrifice. That’s our creed too, he thought. I’m still a soldier, he found himself silently assuring the bronze officer.

After a minute, he glanced across the Square to the TD Bank building. It wasn’t much of a fortress, despite its imposing height, especially because of the car garage behind it, overlooking Main Street. He drew a quick sketch of the area, awkwardly holding his notepad as he thought a street artist might, and marked imaginary interlocking arcs of fire from building to building.

He shook his head – the sketch confirmed his fears. If the police got into that garage, and they would, his guys wouldn’t be able to move anywhere along the street or down lower Main Street. The Manitoba Telephone and the Scotia Bank buildings provided firing positions northwards if they fell to the police, and they would. If he couldn’t hold or neutralize the TD building, life in the open Square would be miserable and short. A difficult situation, he thought. Too many options demanding resources and skills and people I don’t have.

Alex followed the civilians and tourists making their way from one segment of the Square to another via several flights of stairs leading down into the underground hub connecting all the streets together. After a few confused attempts, he surfaced at the Main Street exit at the Richardson Building and strolled past it, trying to visualize a plausible capture and defence of that site. Damn. There just didn’t seem to be a way.

At Lombard Street, his attention was drawn to the tall, elegant Union Tower building. A greenish plaque on its wall proclaimed it to be the site of the first Masonic Lodge in the Red River Settlement, established in 1864; the Northern Lights Lodge, led by Messrs. Shultz, Bannatyne, and Inkster. More land thieves, he thought sourly. He gazed up at the old structure’s high windows, noted absently the “For Lease” sign in the ground floor window, and turned back to the perplexing Square. And suddenly he saw the way. He had his plan. So simple it was brilliant, or, if you prefer, brilliant because it was simple.

Why fight it out above ground? he asked himself gleefully. Why control all the buildings? He spun quickly in a tight circle, taking in the Square all at once. The aim was to tie down the police and the army. So start by grabbing a few city buses to barricade the streets, pick a couple of well-protected sites to cover those barricades, and control everything not from above, from the buildings, but from below, from the underground concourse.

On his notepad he drew a circle linking all the surface exits from the underground mall. If I can seize the Union Tower, he thought, I can control the intersection and that troublesome car garage easily. Just a few snipers in the high windows of the Bank of Montreal give me the crossfire I need. But the key is the underground – with that in my hands, my people can move rapidly under cover from various parts of the square. I’ll need a few commanders in high buildings to control the action and direct traffic.

But if the police want to fight it out at close quarters underground, so be it. Let’s see who has the stomach for knife fighting in the dark. And anyway, win or lose, it would take hours for them to clear the area, and that would serve my aim just fine. I’m sure I can “hold until relieved,” even in a messy cat-and-mouse fight in the underground mall and in the cellars of the buildings. Especially if I can keep my people off the street and tempt the army and the police into the killing grounds.

Much relieved, Alex set off westwards in the underground passageway along Portage Avenue towards his next major objective, the Hudson’s Bay store at Portage and Memorial Boulevard. Obviously they would need to block the western approach to Lombard Square and the crossing routes north and south from the Bay. But that would be comparatively easy. Block the streets with buses again, and the Bay would provide a ready-made fort – a Hollywood Western cliché, Alex smiled, but this time the Indians would be on the inside. Plus, the Winnipeg Art Gallery across Memorial Boulevard would provide an excellent high shooting post, as would the open balcony of the Canada Centre on the north side of Portage.

It was all falling into place now. Alex spied a bonus feature, and his notebook acquired a new entry: the glassed-in walkways that pass over Portage Avenue at Vaughan Street. They would provide a handy gallery, letting his riflemen control long stretches of both streets and giving them a free run building to building under cover. Once the warriors were in place, the police would have a miserable time gaining control of the area. Trying to manoeuvre around the outside of the occupied buildings and clear them from exposed positions while the native forces moved easily under cover inside would create lots of vacancies for promotion in the city force in a hurry. The classic advantage, Alex noted instinctively, of interior over exterior lines.

As he turned towards the government offices a few blocks down the Memorial Boulevard, he saw in the distance the “Golden Boy” shining in the sunlight atop the big prize, the Legislative Building.

The Legislative Building and its surrounding grounds insulted the native community every day that they remained. It hurt Alex even to look at them. They fouled the traditional grounds where for centuries the people had walked, talked, traded, travelled, and lived. Government House, set off to the side of the Legislative Building, housed the defining human symbol of the people’s defeat, the lieutenant governor, the “white mother” personified. The Legislative Building, constructed of massive Tyndall stones taken from the people’s land, sat on sacred land, and was sited there purposefully to taunt the people and to remind them every day of their defeat. Tourists marvelled at the fossils captured in the stone, symbols of the ancient land. But where were the true symbols of the land, the natives? Nowhere.

The building, designed by a French architect, was a majestic monument to Western mythology and prejudice, and was decorated with the white man’s superstitions, including, as with the Union Tower downtown, scores of weird Masonic symbols.

Even the one nod to the New World was, for natives, filled with bitter irony. Two giant bison guarded the grand inside staircase. Two giant bison, designed by Europeans and built in the United States, emblematic of the mindless greed and destruction Europeans brought to the prairies. Did these treasonous metal beasts now guard the settlers against the ghosts of their kin, slaughtered without reason or mercy? Were they here to guard the whites against the return of the native? Or were they secretly waiting for us to come and right the wrongs done to them as well as us? Alex wondered. And then there were the sphinxes. What were symbols of Egypt’s ancient culture doing here? Were they put there deliberately to offend us?

His eyes drifted upward to the Golden Boy, the crowning insult. Another European disgrace, designed and forged in France, the pride of the local worthies, it depicted an idealized white man who gazed serenely over the grasslands and the meeting place of the peoples, dismissive of their spirits and traditions. Gold, Alex thought. What more telling symbol of white settler values could one imagine? The people had not scraped away the fertile land for shiny metal of no value except that given to it by Western money-lenders and, today, advertising moguls. This statue was the perfect symbol of the three C’s of European conquest – Commerce, Civilization, and Christianity – cast in metal, coated in gold, imported from a bastard foreign culture, raised up high, alone, dominating the skyline. Nothing bragged so loudly of the white settlers’ pride and values. Nothing stood so high out of reach, a striking symbol of the people’s unending defeat everywhere. But we’re coming for you, Golden Boy, warned Alex.

A recce of the legislative grounds would be, Alex suspected, a tricky affair. He was sure he could get away with simply walking the perimeter; a scruffy native wandering along Broadway or the riverside walk wouldn’t be noticed. But touring the interior of the building in these shabby clothes might tempt a guard to let loose the dogs and possibly compromise the entire operation. Unfortunately, time was in command here. Alex needed information and details and he needed them now.

He stopped in a bus shelter to straighten his shirt, comb his thick black hair with his fingers, and tuck in his shirt; he stuck the tractor hat in his pocket. He pondered his map and notebook for a moment, then arranged them into a neat bundle held in scholarly fashion, right hand angled upwards across on his chest. I’m a student, he thought, dressing on a budget but with a perfect right to the legislature, not some shambling, confused street bum. Here his habitual military bearing was a distinct asset. Back straight, eyes forward, he strolled deliberately to the front, north-facing entrance.

On his way in, contemplating Queen Victoria on her throne outside the grand entrance, he automatically recorded the completely open approach to the doorway. Even a light truck could drive directly in from Broadway without reducing speed too much; that would allow it to keep up momentum to get up the grassy embankment and onto the wide staircase. In any case, the short curved driveway presented no obstacle to crashing up the entrance staircase in vehicles. Now, he told himself, let’s test the interior security.

He walked up the staircase, pushed open the tall glass door, and stepped into the deserted foyer. The whole building seemed quiet, nearly empty. A bored custodian glanced up from behind his curved, polished desk. “Is the legislature open for tourists?” asked Alex, wishing he’d thought to bring wide-rimmed glasses. “Actually, I’m a history student, not a tourist, and I’d like to take a look at the architecture and decoration.”

The little grey-haired man behind the desk mechanically thrust a clipboard at Alex. “Sign here. There’s no tours till later, but you can walk about if you want. Just don’t touch anything.”

Alex signed in as “Dagwood Bumstead” and walked through the open door to the base of the main staircase. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, he thought. No time to get cute. But the custodian returned to the sports page of the Free Press without a further look at the form or the man who’d signed it.

For the next forty minutes, Alex walked freely about the building, covertly measuring key distances by counting footsteps and recording the numbers and their tactical consequences in his little book, periodically adding a sketch of some carving or vista to maintain his cover just in case someone checked. No one did. He walked up the grand staircase past the great bronze bison – a security measure at least as effective as the old man at the desk – and right up to the doors of the legislative chamber, unchallenged. The massive doors were locked now. But someday soon, he mused, one of my people will stride through those doors and take control of the ornate blue room beyond them.

As he walked back to the main entrance, Alex measured the distance from the desk to the chamber again just to be sure. A mere skip and a jump, he thought; a good warrior could make it through the outside door, up the stairs, rake the chamber with fire, and withdraw in literally a matter of seconds, before the guard could make a phone call for help. So much for increased security against terrorism after 9/11, he thought. As a soldier I used to worry about that. Now I’m glad of it.

“Thanks for the visit,” he said as he passed the guard. “Beautiful place. You can be sure I’ll be back someday soon.” No answer. This guy wasn’t even going through the motions.

Back outside, Alex walked around to the side of the building and sat on the west entrance steps to make some notes under the stony gaze of General Wolfe and Lord Dufferin. Appropriate somehow, he thought. I’m still fighting the guy who took the people’s land with a gun and the one who took it with false words.

The rest of his walk around the grounds was a routine check for surprises or new barricades. There were none. On the east side only La Vérendrye and Lord Selkirk, two other celebrated robbers, stood watch. For what – invading native hordes? “Well, gentlemen,” he said out loud, “wait no longer. Here I am.”

Alex strolled out across the east lawn onto Kennedy Street, circling the lieutenant governor’s house as he went. I probably could walk in for a drink, he thought, but then added, no need to tempt the spirits. I’ll need all my luck and shouldn’t behave arrogantly. Leave that to the whites. He limited himself to a military estimate – the house was unguarded and tactically simple, with a greenhouse at the side that offered a covered approach to the south entrance of the Legislative Building. Again, no surprises, no new features. That was all he needed to see personally. The rest of the details he could get from government-supplied maps and the Internet.

Alex walked out to the south-facing riverside promenade. And there, suddenly, stood Louis Riel. Alex put his notes away, ran a hand through his hair, and stepped up to look respectfully at Riel. The great leader, mystic, politician, untutored soldier, rebel, and traitor, symbol of his people, in life, now in bronze, he stood facing the Assiniboine River, back to the legislature, a political man yet apart from politics.

Even today, he was too politically costly for white leaders to ignore, but too powerful a symbol of native rights for them to allow him a place inside the legislature, so they put his statue here. Riel in life and death, the rebel and the ironic symbol of white power and white guilt, hanged on a rope by a distant Sir John A. Macdonald. Three times elected to the House of Commons but never able to take his seat, thanks to the white man’s democracy. Alex stood for a while, contemplating the man. Riel the victim, symbol of the victims, the outsider, standing darkly shrouded, separate – forever outside.

Alex studied the statue. It was a revised Riel, he knew, unveiled in 1996 and meant to be respectful, unlike the tormented nude 1971 version now safely tucked away at the Collège Universitaire de St. Boniface. But the conventional style of the new one – moustache, neat city clothes, long, wind-blown coat – made him look more like a Washington senator of Lincoln’s time than a prairie catholic evangelist. He held a scroll, perhaps his demands, and under his arm, a book. Of what? – laws, a Bible, his own work? But it was exactly the boring style of the boring statues of prime ministers on Parliament Hill. Where was the man? Maybe the sculptor meant to be polite, but by denying his essence, he had only made him respectable. There wasn’t even a plaque, Alex noticed. It was as if Riel didn’t need to be explained. As if Riel couldn’t be explained. What would a plaque say? “The true spirit of the people and their Métis brethren, he died for liberty”; or “Mad traitor, threat to the settlers’ gold”; or “Patriot who died to save the power of the Rome church.” Why not all three, stamped in brass in three languages?

Alex turned uneasily away. Riel, the romance of a lost cause left behind. But were the Métis and aboriginals better off for what he did? A zealot, arguably half-mad, incapable of compromise, he led his followers and his people into disaster, twice! Is that what you’re doing? Alex asked himself as he boarded the Main Street bus heading back to the Aboriginal Centre. How was Molly Grace different from Riel?

The yellow-and-orange bus coughed to a sudden stop at Main Street and Higgins Avenue on the outskirts of the rundown Point Douglas community. Alex stared out the grimy bus window. He could see nothing clearly.

Wednesday, September 1, 1410 hours

Ottawa: Integrated Threat Assessment Centre

Eliot Quadra tapped his pencil on the shiny table with increasing impatience. In front of him, down both sides of the table in the most secure conference room inside the ITAC, sat the best intelligence officers he could assemble from the Canadian intelligence community. They had been assigned to the analysis section because they were both experienced and intuitive. Each of them had the rare ability of being able to extract the essence of a security problem from masses of data. They all possessed that rare and vital analytical quality, insight – the capacity to find the hidden truth in complex situations. Yet here they sat, after an hour of discussion, with no clear idea of how the Native People’s Movement was organized and, more to the point, what their leaders were planning now that they had openly attacked Canadian Forces bases and armouries and collected a worrying range of deadly weapons.

Eliot had to get something out of them. As the chief of the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre, the ITAC, it was his job – a job that was both routine and highly classified – to collate for the prime minister and the cabinet intelligence reports from most, if not all, the government’s snooping, listening, and watching agencies. His staff gathered information from Canadian organizations like the Border Service, the Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the military, and the RCMP and other police departments across the country. They used the information to produce regular assessments of threats facing Canada from sources inside and outside the country. Today the only questions were about internal security, and the prime minister was asking the questions. “I want,” he had told Quadra directly, “some solid, credible intelligence on the threat facing the government from the so-called aboriginal radicals. And I want something other than what the military is telling me.”

“Let’s go over it again,” Eliot said to the assembled intelligence officers. “We have a sketchy idea of who’s who in the Movement and where they’re mainly located. We know they have cells operating on many reserves and in some cities, especially on the Prairies. We assume, and let’s go right on assuming, that these raids were not spontaneous, but part of a deliberate plan to destabilize the government and encourage native uprising in various parts of the country. We assume also that the main area of interest is Quebec. And we know that getting inside the Movement and developing intelligence contacts is difficult, to say the least, so we don’t have and aren’t about to get reliable new information from that direction. Agreed so far?” Heads nodded around the table.

“Okay, let’s review what we don’t know. And if anyone has any Rumsfeld-style thoughts on ‘what we don’t know that we don’t know,’ please chime in. Otherwise, Maggie, give us the assessment in the West for a start.”

The lean, intense blonde woman to his left swept the table with her eyes as she began a staccato recital. “My people think there’s something big, maybe a type of intifada, building in the major cities across the West. A couple of my officers believe it’s even bigger, possibly a large-scale, well-organized uprising aimed at governments at all levels. What’s particularly supportive of both these ideas is the presence of senior members of the Movement in the West, especially in Winnipeg, including a couple of experienced ex-military officers, including at least one deserter. We’ve identified, for instance, ex-Special Forces Colonel Sam Stevenson, and we think a deserter – he may very possibly have commanded the Petawawa raid – a former captain named Alexander Gabriel, who served under Stevenson, we think he’s there too.

“We don’t know anything about their plans, but – worst case – they actually might organize natives in the northern communities and invade the south. Stevenson’s service record shows a consistent pattern of thinking big, moving against established ideas, and getting his opponents to look one way before coming at them from another direction. That argues for us looking in that other direction, outside the major cities. And also, let me emphasize, this intelligence suggests we’re wrong to assume the main area of interest is Quebec. There certainly seems to be trouble brewing there too. And folks, if something significant is happening in Quebec and out west, we can’t avoid the conclusion that what’s happening is very big and well organized.”

Eliot looked first to Mike Liu, a long-service operator and the oldest member of the team. “Mike, comments?”

“Well, I agree with most of Maggie’s assessment. But she suggests a great deal of sophisticated planning and coordinated operations, and I don’t see it, at least not yet. If the regulars in the Movement are in charge, which I admit we’re not sure is true, then this isn’t a military coup, it’s a political movement. If we think they are planning what Maggie suggests, or that someone else has taken charge and is planning something that big and that military, then we ought to try to imagine answers to the why, what, and how questions. I’m thinking why the West; with what possible objectives; how would they carry out the operation? We haven’t been able to answer these questions, and since these people aren’t stupid, I assume it’s because they’re not planning that type of activity.”

Wednesday, September 1, 1435 hours

Winnipeg: Colonel Stevenson’s Headquarters

The usual afternoon ops staff team sat around the large map table, notebooks at hand. Colonel Sam stepped up to the map. “Okay, let’s go over the outline operation to make sure we’re clear on objectives and how we’re going to reach them.

“The Western strategy is uncomplicated: control Winnipeg and we control the region. The Red River Brigade is assembling battle groups across the province; Alex Gabriel’s Group Riel is assembling in Winnipeg. Group Winnipegosis is being activated in Flin Flon and The Pas. Group Métis is still undercover but ready to form-up on short notice for action at the Winnipeg airport. And in the east, near Kenora, and farther west, in Saskatchewan and Alberta, other contingents are increasingly ready. The assault teams and columns in each group are commanded by cadres of seasoned, ex-regular Canadian Forces officers and NCOs who’ve hastily trained their civilian ‘warriors’ to handle small arms, work as teams, and, usually, follow orders.” Light-hearted banter and smiles eased the tension.

“Nevertheless, we need to keep things as simple as circumstances allow. In the first phase, and on my command, three mobile columns from the north and east will take the offensive in Manitoba. Column Cree will move from The Pas on Highways 10 and 60, then rapidly along Highway 6 to an assembly area spanning Warren on Highway 67 to Stonewall. Column Pelican will follow from Flin Flon via Highway 10 south to threaten Brandon and block western approaches along Highway 1 and southern routes into Winnipeg. Column Ojibwa will move from its assembly area near Kenora and move to block Highway 17 at the junction of Highways 17 and 44. Alex Gabriel’s Battle Group Riel and his combat teams will capture the centre of Winnipeg. In the second phase, we’ll threaten the real targets.”

Wednesday, September 1, 1450 hours

Ottawa: Integrated Threat Assessment Centre

Eliot Quadra looked around the table. “Okay, we have two different concepts. Any others?”

Walter Boudria joined the conversation. “Eliot, I’d like to go back to the question of the aim. Let me throw some kind of random thoughts on the table. I’m assuming a bold operation. We have all the tapes of Molly Grace’s public speeches and the secret electronic intercepts as well, and I don’t see any compromise in any of them. She’s not in this to win some treaty benefits. I think she wants the whole cake. So how about this: the Movement is going to try to grab control of all the ungoverned spaces in the West and hold them for negotiations about aboriginal sovereignty over the West. In which case, Maggie’s right: the Quebec thing, at least south of James Bay, is a decoy. And, by the way, I’m convinced they’re going to move soon.”

The assessment team looked to their boss, but Quadra deflected the group-think invitation and refused to endorse or reject Walter’s ideas. Instead, he continued evenly, “Okay, Walter, tell us how they’d carry out this bold plan of yours.”

“Well, the speculation factor expands with imagination, but I assume that they will use their main advantage, which is people. In other words, they’ll assemble large groups of natives across the North, move south suddenly, and simply overwhelm the local security forces, then sit on the ground until we quit or negotiate. We don’t have the resources to handle such an eventuality and Stevenson knows that. So I bet on his playing to his advantage. Besides, it’s simple, and he can’t manage anything but a simple strategy with the forces he has available.”

Mike broke in. “Sure, nice plot for fiction, but where’s the evidence? We would’ve seen some indication of this. Maybe not the overt preparation for an assault, but other things, changes in the routine in the community, things that are hard to hide. There simply aren’t any such indicators – no training camps, no rallies, no hostile movements, nobody of interest disappearing and then suddenly popping up in the community again. Things look normal.”

Maggie jumped to Walter’s defence. “But that’s the point, Mike. My assumption – our assumption – is that they’ve been successful in keeping things normal and that means they have to go for something simple. And for simple to be effective, it has to be big. If you were Stevenson, what would your plan be? Normal today, uprising tomorrow. We won’t see anything until we see the whole thing blow up in our faces.”

Elena Morales joined the sceptics. “But then what’s the rest of his plan? Why would the government negotiate, even if large numbers of natives moved south and sat around Winnipeg and Regina? We could wait them out. It’s true that Stevenson could get a pretty large number of angry people to do something simple on a large scale, but the other great weakness of amateurs, besides inability to coordinate things, is they don’t stick it out when things get tough.

“We’re nearly into autumn and you know there’s a good chance most of the region will be snowed in by Hallowe’en. Besides, who’s going to feed these people while they sit there for months, even if they don’t get bored and wander off? We agree on one thing: Stevenson can’t manage complicated logistics. So the government stalls until the natives go home, or we reassemble a strong military presence in the West. And Stevenson, or whoever’s really in charge, must be able to see that far ahead too. So what have they got, or what do they think they’ve got, to make us give in?”

Wednesday, September 1, 1510 hours

Winnipeg: Colonel Stevenson’s Headquarters

Stevenson looked around the table. “That’s the bare-bones outline. So what have we got to back it up? First, there’re our troops, the active people and the supporters in the background. There’re more than 70,000 native people living on reserves in Manitoba alone, and more than 100,000 in Saskatchewan and Alberta combined. We need only a small fraction of them to carry out this mission.

“Remember, all of Ireland and the bulk of the British army were held in fear and in check for more than twenty years by a few hundred Irish Republican Army radicals. The hard corps was not much more than a thousand men and women, but the real strength came from the silent supporters, ordinary citizens, who provided safe-houses, food, and so on, and who carried messages and kept an eye on the Brit soldiers and the security forces. We’ve got enormous strength there too. Not from everyone, not from all the elders, but more than enough to get the job done.

“Now let’s review phase two and the real targets.”

Wednesday, September 1, 1525 hours

Ottawa: Integrated Threat Assessment Centre

“So, what have they got, or what do they think they’ve got, to make us give in?” Eliot turned to Hugh Jones-Winsor. “That’s your cue, Hugh. Everyone, Hugh and I discussed the vulnerability factor earlier today with the defence minister after the CDS and Ed Conway softened him up with an outline version. I’d like Hugh to run through the assessment his section has developed from that meeting.”

“Thanks, Eliot. Just for background, I explained to the minister that the threat isn’t where we should be concentrating our attention. Rather we need to look to our vulnerabilities; you all know the argument. I’m assuming the native leaders understand our weaknesses and that they’ll be going for them right away. Remember that Manitoba chief who said in 2007, ‘The white man only worries about two things – his possessions and his money. Well, we’re going to take both if that’s what it takes to get his attention. If we have to use guns, well that’s the way it’s going to be.’ He was immediately shut up by the Movement’s strong-arm guys, but I assume that’s because he reflected their thinking, not because he didn’t.

“So, let me put our vulnerabilities on the table and then we can link it to Walter’s bold-move option. I brought some copies of the charts we used to brief the minister. Would you pass them around please?

“You all know it’s a big mistake to underestimate your adversary or to assume he won’t think of things because you can’t handle them or it screws up your plans. I’m going to start by assuming that the native leaders see our vulnerabilities the same way we do, and that they are going after them the way we would. Thus, raids on the cities will be dramatic, but the big Western target, because it is Canada’s great economic vulnerability, will be the resource industries, especially the gas and oil pipelines running to eastern Canada and south into the U.S. I believe the Movement leaders think that if they can threaten these, it will bring the federal government to the table quickly, and if the government hesitates, the destruction of a few key sites will bring them around even quicker. That’s why we don’t agree and can’t assume that the government can simply wait them out. And the Movement knows that too.

“It’s not a matter of some Indians squatting in the bush shouting slogans. Canadian natural gas and petroleum industries deliver the lifeblood to North America’s economy. They’re the critical components of the well-being of millions of Canadians and Americans even if we don’t always notice them. They’re especially important to the northeast, northwest, and west coast American markets, and they have to operate constantly or we’re in trouble fast. And it’s not just us. Ninety-five percent of Canadian natural gas production is exported to the United States through six great pipelines; that’s a full fifteen per cent of U.S. requirements, and that number is growing fast.

“The loss of gas or oil supplies, even for only a few days, would have a devastating and cascading effect across the entire United States. A long interruption in the West could, according to some estimates we have seen, plunge the United States into an irreversible depression.

“But the dependence and thus the vulnerability do not reside only in the American West. A complete loss of natural gas and oil supplies would cripple the economies of Ontario, parts of Quebec, and particularly Montreal. Furthermore, quite apart from the indirect impact of economic collapse in the far western American states, significant disruption of the pipelines would starve Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and Connecticut, and likely shut down manufacturing industries in Detroit and across the northern states as well.

“Should these interruptions occur any time between early October and May, a man-made winter disaster of enormous danger would engulf the entire northern tier of North America. Our vulnerabilities here are enormous.

“The four main pipelines – the Duke line to British Columbia, the TransCanada line from the northern and central Alberta fields to the eastern United States and Canada, the BP line into Washington State and California, and the TransGas line from Alberta and Saskatchewan – are the easiest and softest targets. In all, 38,000 kilometres of natural gas pipelines snake out of the Alberta/Mackenzie River valley western sedimentary basin, moving eighty per cent of Canada’s gas production to markets in Canada and the United States. The system includes not just the pipes above and in the ground, but also more than 115 large, complex compressor stations that drive the gas through the lines to its destination. There’s one about every 330 kilometres along the whole system. The compressor stations are the weakest link in a weak system.

“And you can add to this maze another 70,000 kilometres of oil pipelines. They aren’t guarded and there’s no way to guard them. I’d bet the mortgage that Stevenson will go for a few compressor stations first as a warning, creating damage easy to fix if we give in promptly, but he’ll start smashing up the whole system if we try any systematic attack on the native forces.”

“Surely we’ve done something to protect the system, especially after 9/11,” said Maggie. She pointed to Hugh’s maps and charts. “I can’t believe that we’ve just sat on our collective asses and hoped for the best.”

“Well, Maggie, the government did move quietly after 9/11 to enhance security at vital points across the country, but serious measures were taken only on military bases and at particularly vital points in Ottawa and major financial computing centres in Montreal and Toronto. Elsewhere, only ‘get ready’ warning orders have been passed to police detachments and to the Canadian Forces Reserve units. Even then, the prime minister in 2004 ordered that no overt actions be taken anywhere for fear of worrying citizens and disrupting investments.”

Eliot rejoined the discussion. “Nothing of consequence has been done to protect the energy transportation system. Not that anything really can be done to make the system perfectly secure.

“Sorry folks, but this situation is really bad and we have to assume the Movement knows it. I think the politicians are the only ones who don’t, or won’t, accept it. If we can’t protect our vulnerabilities, we have to reconsider countering the threats to them instead. That’s why we’re here.