(17) Dennis To The Rescue
He did, believe it or not, come in that fashion. Andrew chose to believe. He could have doubted he supposed. Jordan had warned him not to, but he was darned if he’d do something just because Jordan issued a directive. He could be as bad as King Ethan when he wanted. Funny that, Andrew’d been thinking of the Hirsute administration as arrogantly kingly for ages, and then suddenly the leader of the opposition had quailed, in perhaps mock despair, Who does he think he is, the king? That had been in yesterday’s Globe, something Andrew actually had had time for, much to his surprise. On the Thursday night, anxiously awaiting the next five minutes for a good few hours, pretty much until Lara had phoned for a ride and given him something serious and manly to do, he never would have guessed a relaxed read of the paper could have been on Friday’s agenda.
He’d been so trivialised by quintessential antsyness even Imrat, his resident ghost, had slipped from his ethereal serenity into irritable agitation. He’d watched Andrew pace about, and then escaped to the lakeshore, where not having witnessed the phone call, he had no idea what was up. Later on in his ghostly career he’d learn various tricks of the trade from friendly types like Hetty’s husband, and this type of remote sensing would be one of them. Using a focused mental attention to turn on taps would be another, but Harry would convince him this was a household disruption of the most disrespectful kind, fit only for a mischievous poltergeist, which, of course, Imrat had no intention of being.
Lara and he had lain abed Thursday for what might have been an hour or more, if either of them had been paying attention, going over the attack and its various ramifications. Jordan had been succinct when contacted: They’re on to us. And he didn’t mean the brothers. Someone had passed the info along. Not a friend of ours and not a friend of theirs, he was sure. Or at least he sounded sure. Maybe Andrew needed him to be sure. He imagined men in dirty white vans, sipping cold coffee and recording conversations. He imagined ex-cops and second rate ex-intelligence types, independent contractors with maxed out credit cards, gambling habits and hooker girlfriends. Jordan accused him of cop show-itis, but couldn’t seem to come up with a more convincing profile. They agreed to disagree and Andrew was asked to dream a solution. Or at least some clues. But Andrew had been too antsy to dream.
Lara said her thigh hurt like hell, but the pain killers were beginning to kick in. The brothers had been determined, she thought, but not really desperate. It was as if they had been ordered and were going through the motions so they could say they’d tried. They’d looked more afraid than angry. Asha had been the angry one, looking like she’d could have happily torn the two of them apart, given the advantage for but a moment. The warrior queen, that’s what she looked like. Andrew asked if this was all to make him feel better. Better about what, Lara wanted to know. They were lying entwined, her right leg lopped over his thighs and her face nested in his neck. It was the other leg that was killing her, and eventually its awful ache brought her round to lying on her back again.
They discussed Jordan’s theory. Lara thought it quite plausible, and couldn’t see why Andrew had so many doubts. If there was that much smack in Imrat’s family home, and it had some connection with Canadian military brass and a paedophile ring and god knows what else, and they were the only ones who had even come close to suspecting, why wouldn’t those who organized the operation do what they could to discourage them? And revealing Asha’s location to her family was a good way to start. At least from their point of view. Why, just look at those three, what were they now, researchers or doctors, arrested last month, some terrorist conspiracy to blow up power plants or something. How likely was that? Three professionals, with years of training and expenses, giving up their careers for martyrdom? Misguided teenagers they were not.
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