Undercover Crisis

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

The month of March morphed into April and a full-blown spring. By April 30th, the crocuses had bloomed along with roses and dandelions. The weather in Toronto was a balmy 20 degrees and was only two degrees cooler 114 kilometers north in Barrie. It took Carde an hour and a half, as usual, to drive from downtown Toronto to his rental house in Barrie. He had been in another of what seemed like an interminable run of classes designed for him by JPI's human resources staff along with Payne and Barry Tenant. He had another month left in which to become a full-fledged CEO of a brand-new technology company. He had another month to live through with terminal boredom a bigger threat than anything he had suffered as a soldier, pilot and cook.

Clancy was standing in the driveway of the rental as Carde drove in. He had come from the small condo he had taken in the city. Both men were searching for permanent homes to buy in the area and were eager to move away from their basic rentals. They were focusing on places in rural settings near the new CDSI headquarters.

It was mid-afternoon but the days had grown longer after a long and particularly gray winter. The sun wouldn't set until after 8 p.m., about five hours away. Clancy looked at his watch as Carde got out of his car.

"Hey Carde, you want to take another ride?" Clancy asked his friend and boss.

"Sure. Maybe we can grab some food. Where to?"

Carde drove as Clancy settled comfortably into the passenger's seat of the SUV. " I haven't been to the H.Q. in a while," Clancy told Carde. "It's time I took another look. I'm still wondering why someone set that fire."

"Any ideas?" Carde took the southbound ramp off Essa Street leading to Highway 400.

"No." Clancy stared out his window. "It cost us a couple of days. That's all. Except for the extra workers we had to take on. Penny ante stuff, when you figure it out, and not worth risking jail time for arson. Then there's the shooting... not your typical vandalism."

"Are we still paying for the extra workers?" Carde had just come from a human resource class and workers were on his mind.

"The contractor kept on a few guys, I know that. Carruthers told me they were unskilled laborers and weren't costing much so it was cheap and easy to keep the more productive ones who were familiar with the site." Clancy looked over at Carde. "Actually, that was one of the things I wanted to check out."

Carde frowned. "You think they might be up to something? After all, they were brought in originally to make up time lost to the fire. Think they could have set the thing in order to open up some jobs?"

"Boy," said Clancy with a chuckle. "That's stretching it. I just wanted to see if the contractor really needed the extra guys." He thought for a moment. "But, that's not as weird as it seems. It's a motive, isn't it?"

It took less than half an hour going against traffic to get to the building site south of Barrie. Carde and Clancy found the site boss, Joe Carruthers, in his office in the long trailer. On arrival at the site, the two had been impressed with the progress of the building. The shell of the four-storey headquarters building was complete and the windows had been installed. The front of the H.Q. was entirely windowed with huge panes of glass while the rest of the building was covered with metal siding with only a row of small windows high on interior walls giving light to each floor.

Carde had worried about the front windows. He had questioned the security and had been assured that the 'glass' used in the huge windows was a new kind of transparent material that could not be penetrated by anything short of an Exocet missile. It was impervious even to graffiti which could be removed overnight. He also had worried about delays in installing the windows but all front panels were prefabricated and put up with a crane in only three days.