Crisis In The Cold

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER SIX

During the two-hour flight from Washington, D.C., to Toronto Jackson mulled the situation. He made plans to speed up the work of programming and compiling code for Version 3.0 software. He also thought about the man who had died on the ice. As soon as he passed through the arrival's procedures, he took out his cellphone and placed a call to Graham Carde. He smiled as he did so and thought about Graham and his lengthy friendship with the man.

Graham was an interesting character to say the least. The tall and lanky guy with a tangle of dirty blonde hair was a helicopter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the late 1990's. He saw action in a number of hot spots around the world and, apparently, liked the experiences so much he transferred his flying skills to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. He flew helicopters on water-bombing runs to fight forest fires through the northern parts of the huge province. He crashed his craft into a lake as he was replenishing its water supply. Both legs were fractured along with some ribs but he swam to shore and spent two days in extreme pain living on wild blueberries until a search crew rescued him. The government laid him off with disability benefits.

Carde met Jackson while Jackson and his late wife Laurel were planning the cottage that would become their retirement home. By this time, Carde was a hunting and fishing guide and short-order cook at a roadside restaurant just outside of Parry Sound. Graham had thrown together a lunch for Jackson and Laurel when they stopped at the eatery and they had pronounced it fit for the Michelin Guide. The man had helped the couple site the cottage on Shield Island and had guided them on a spectacular fishing trip.

After Laurel's death of a heart attack, just before construction on the cottage was to begin, an anguished Jackson hired Graham to take him on a week of remote living so he could begin to recover from Laurel's passing. He ended up hiring Graham as a housekeeper for the cottage and a cook whenever Jackson hosted guests on the island. Graham had little cooking to do but managing and cleaning the cottage kept him occupied as much as he wanted to be. It also paid him enough so that his guiding was available only when Graham felt like it.

Jackson asked Graham to go to Serpent Island and other islands within a couple of miles of his Shield Island. He was to look for any signs that might show Dale Delmonico had travelled near or through the islands on his way to the scene of his death. Graham agreed and told Jackson he would check the likely places where one could take a snow machine onto the bay ice.

The executive offices at JPI were in turmoil when Jackson reached them after being driven from the airport by a limo service. A group of programmers were rebelling because they were housed in a hotel that didn't have free breakfast. A designer was feuding with an engineer. Two executives didn't like the new name for the Safe Environment Division or SED. The rest of the day went on in the same vein until Jackson spoke sternly to a few people and left muttering that he was 'too old for this garbage.'