Carter's Recourse - 17. Chapter 17

Andrew stood quietly a moment, his eyes troubled as he tried to get a glimpse of what else Will was struggling with. And Will stood there silently, Andrew's hand on his arm in the deserted corridor of the police station.

"You gonna be okay?" Andrew asked in concern after a moment's silence.

Will shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know," he replied in full honesty. He was being torn in so many directions at the same time it was impossible to try to wrap his head around how he was feeling or even why. He was stuck in a pattern of reacting to the situations as they unfolded; he no longer even tried to find his footing, there was no point when the ground beneath his feet threatened to give out at a moment's notice and send him plunging through a rush of new emotions.

"I'm close by if you need me," Andrew pressed, becoming nervous himself. His own worry was beginning to catch up with him; Will was closer to him than anyone had ever been in his life, and he shared in Will's inner turmoil. But life wasn't about to give them a chance to catch their breath.

"Hey, Highmore," Jane called impatiently from the far end of the hall. "We gotta go."

He cupped Will's shoulders and smiled at him reassuringly; neither of them needed to say or hear the words, the look was enough. Will offered a weak smile and a nod before he turned to head back to return to the situation room. The mask of control slipped back on to his face as he returned to the seemingly endless waiting for news.

* * *

Jane held the doors to the elevator open for him as Andrew rejoined her. A look on her face said she had questions. Andrew ignored her as he reached out to push the button for the parking garage.

Finally he sighed and looked over at her. "What?" he asked the amused little Hispanic woman.

"Nothing," she replied, folding her arms and grinning to herself, "just the thought of you all tender and shit..."

Andrew arched an eyebrow at her, "Shut up, Hernandez."

"I'm just saying," she replied still smiling, "you're soft on that MP."

Andrew shook his head, thankful that the elevator had spit them out into the parking lot. "Alright, so where to now?" He deliberately changed the subject as they crossed to his car and opened the doors.

Jane shrugged across at him, "Unless you've found something, we're all out of leads..."

"Not quite," Andrew replied thoughtfully. "We still have the vanishing bullet."

Jane gave Andrew a look that said he was totally insane and she was considering having him committed to the Royal Ottawa Mental Hospital. "How do you plan to follow a lead that doesn't exist?"

Andrew smiled, "Oh it exists, we just have to find something that's invisible."

* * *

Sam Johnson banged out a cigarette on the patio table and lit it up. It was about the only way a person could enjoy a meal and a cigarette at the same time in that damned country. For some insane reason Johnson couldn't fathom, the city had decided to enforce a smoking ban in bars and restaurants. It made Johnson seriously miss working in Saudi Arabia; at least there they were civilized enough to let a man smoke in peace.

He flicked his ash and fished out his cell phone, glancing at his watch confirming the time. CSIS had taken the bait, and had no doubt confirmed its accuracy... he snorted a laugh at that... and the information would be working its way through the system, reaching the right ears. It was almost time to set the next stage of his operation in motion.

"Calvary to the rescue," he murmured, flipping open the phone and stubbing out his cigarette as he dialed with his thumb.

"You have a go," he stated into it, closing the phone again and slipping it away, returning to his burger and enjoying the warmth of the Saturday afternoon sun.

* * *

The CSIS lab was one of the best in the country, and one of the advantages of CSIS's RCMP parenthood. Unlike the Canadian military that suffered woeful underfunding that resulted in deadly fires on antiquated submarines and trucks that toppled over in a stiff breeze, CSIS was blessed with having a number of strong patrons in Parliament.

It was linked into a number of university archives and had access to documents and papers from a wide variety of sources. Add to that the number of American contractors looking to secure lucrative contracts from the department by ensuring their product catalogs were up to date and it was just a matter of time and patience.

Both commodities Andrew suddenly found himself in possession of.

He sat, Jane leaning over his shoulder as he sifted through the data from the crash. He was trying to find anything in the catalogs that would create the same circumstances as the accident. The infamous ice bullet myth, where a bullet made of frozen water was fired from a gun and melted in the body before the medical examiners could find it. A nice idea that failed utterly in the application, the bullet would simply melt from the heat generated from firing before it could ever leave the barrel.

"The facts just don't add up," Jane said with a defeated sigh. "At least to nothing solid."

Andrew stopped and turned to look back at her, his blue eyes wide. "That's brilliant," he commented.

"What is?" Jane asked in surprise, glancing about her wondering what he was referring to.

"It isn't solid, at least it wasn't afterwards." He smiled, calling up some articles on powdered bullets. "These," he commented gesturing to the bullets on the screen, "are supposed to disintegrate on impact; they are literally made of powdered metal and break apart when they strike something hard..."

"Glass isn't hard," Jane reminded. "Besides, there would still be bullet fragments in the corpse of the driver..."

"True," Andrew said, "but the theory is the same--remember the cellulose traces found on the glass around the impact?"

"Yeah," she said suspiciously. "Cellulose is what, paper or wood fibre...?"

Andrew glanced about his cubicle and pulled out an operations manual and tapped the cover, "Bingo."

"So instead of an ice bullet you're thinking a paper one?" she asked incredulously.

"That still doesn't explain the carbon monoxide," Andrew stated, as he plugged in a request to the computer; moments later a window popped up with what he was looking for. He smiled triumphantly and turned to Jane.

* * *

"You expect me to believe the driver of the Deputy Prime Minister's car was shot by a paper bullet?" the Director-General said incredulously, sitting in his chair.

"Well," Andrew said slapping down the stack of printouts from his computer, "not exactly, sir. The window was shot by a cellulose shotgun slug..." He shrugged, "A modified twelve-gauge by the lab's estimate."

"I'm not following you," the director said. "If he was shot, what happened to the bullet?"

"It disintegrated on impact," Andrew said coming around the desk and pointing to the data on the sheet. "The problem was I couldn't figure out where the rest of the volume of the slug went. That's when Hernandez suggested the bullet wasn't solid."

Hernandez held up her hands. "I actually think he's just crazy," she said emphatically.

Andrew ignored her. "Gas," he said simply. "It was filled with carbon monoxide gas." He turned the sheets over and showed a printout of a report describing the projectile in detail. Andrew smiled triumphantly as he straightened up.

"So let me follow this," the Director looked up at him. "The bullet impacts shattering the glass and disintegrating in the process releasing carbon monoxide gas into the face of the car driver..."

"A lethal dose," Andrew finished. "He loses control of the car and it crashes, and when we don't find a bullet we just assume he had a heart attack and died behind the wheel. The crash covers any other evidence effectively."

The Director-General squinted at the sheet in front of him, and then up at Andrew. "This is awfully high tech for a group of Iraqi insurgents," he commented.

"Yes," Andrew replied, leaning down to point at the bottom of the printout. "There's only one supplier, and they are an American government contractor..."

The Director-General set the papers down on his desk, "You're suggesting that the Americans assassinated one of our principal politicians?"

"And kidnapped kids," Andrew said, "blaming it on Iraqi insurgents..."

"We don't have enough to act on this," the Director replied, shaking his head. "It's just a theory and I can't take this up the hill." He caught Andrew about to protest and held up his hand, "...However, it is enough to get Johnson followed."

Andrew nodded. "That leaves one thing," he said quietly. "I don't think it's over yet."

The Director glanced up from the papers, "What do you mean not over?"

"Well, we assumed the names on the list had all been targeted," Andrew stated.

"They were," The Director-General replied. "We had the Foreign Secretary with the scandal and Carter and Hesston with the kidnappings."

"That's just it, sir," Jane said stepping forward to help her partner. "The kidnappers didn't mean to kidnap Peter McCormick."

"They don't know about the tie Peter McCormick has to Will Carter," Andrew added by way of an explanation.

"So why, then," the Director-General mused, "is he on the list of targets?"

"I don't know," Andrew said worriedly.

"Then I suggest you get back to our Mister Carter," the Director said standing up and gathering up the printouts to take with him. "Be sure you stop whatever it is they have planned."

* * *

Johnson paid for his meal, getting up and leaving a generous tip for the friendly waitress who knew how to flirt properly. He always appreciated a woman who wasn't so obvious about it. Had he more time he would have tried to get her number.

He got into his car and drove back to his hotel. By now the truck would be on its way towards the border, and once it crossed it they would be in the clear to call in the marines. Marines always looked good for dramatic rescues, they were all clean-cut and impressively all-American. Perfect.

He parked the car at the hotel and stopped to pick up a newspaper; he was eagerly awaiting tomorrow's headlines, ready to greet the bright-eyed Canadians on their way to church, or home relaxing on a Sunday morning. What better way to get the message across to as many people as he could?

The strategic call to Paul Schofield before his dinner no doubt had the reporter scrambling to file his second big story of the week. Good for his career no doubt, and after all why not help out a small-time journalist who was looking for a big break?

Johnson had a quiet night ahead of him, and he returned to his room sprawling out on the bed after kicking off his shoes. He seldom got an opportunity to catch up on his television, and after all, Canadian television was pretty much the same as American, just a little more pretentious in places touting its own superiority.

He searched around and came across a Braves game and settled in for a quiet evening.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Boudreau walked through the doors of the travel lodge after parking their Winnebago out front, two more vacationing seniors escaping a dull retirement to enjoy a trip away. Mr. Boudreau's fishing hat and Hawaiian shirt said he planned on exploring every inch of the Ottawa River, while Mrs. Boudreau looked set to seek out the nearest bingo hall.

The clerk behind the desk checked the couple into the hotel, just another couple in their sixties on a second honeymoon, reliving an old trip they had taken when they were young. And the clerk even noted that the woman had a decided grandmotherly glow about her as she fished through her purse for a tip. It didn't matter to the desk clerk who listened inattentively to their story about staying in the hotel years ago and having a specific room.

He sighed and checked the registration computer, noting that the room was empty and handing the keys over. He called for a bellboy to help the couple with their excessive amount of luggage, and wondered idly to himself if he would ever have love like that when he was a senior citizen.

Once the bellboy was gone, the couple dropped the facade and began to open their bags and set up their surveillance equipment. The old man, a veteran of the cold war era had been with CSIS since its founding in the mid-eighties. His "wife" had joined shortly afterwards, and even though they weren't married, they'd worked together long enough to pull off the ruse effectively.

"He's watching television," she said, sitting down and slipping on a set of headphones.

"Good," the old man said as he flipped open a second set of bags and began to rig up the recording devices. "We should be set in a few minutes," he reported.

Mrs. Boudreau pulled out her cell phone to let her daughter know they had arrived safely.

* * *

Jane nodded as she snapped the phone closed, "Our surveillance team is in position." She looked over at Andrew.

"What no promise of cookies this time?" Andrew teased, knowing how fond old Mrs. Boudreau was of Jane. In a way she was everyone's grandmother, on the local team, keeping an eye on all of them and making sure that they always ate properly. Andrew had received several stern lectures about being too thin in her opinion.

Jane stared out of the window of the Mustang as it ran along Montreal Road towards the heart of downtown, wondering to herself quietly about her partner and the politician he seemed so close to.

Andrew could be very distant emotionally at times, and she had grown used to his solitary acceptance of life and his role in it. But the way he was with the MP was different; he was warm, compassionate and caring. The way he looked at Will Carter said that he cared, and cared deeply. And Jane wondered what could have caused him to give up someone that obviously meant so much to him.