Fanatics

he’s at it.”

WHEN I CAME DOWNSTAIRS Dad was still raising mayhem in the yard, a clutter of hemlock cuttings at his feet. I dragged a chair beside Mom and sat down.

“How’s the research going?” I asked.

“You haven’t explained your cryptic answer to my question when you came home.”

“You first.”

“Are you still my confidential source?”

“Yup.”

“Meaning anything I tell you can’t be shared.”

I nodded.

“Even with Raphaella.”

“No dice, Mom. I tell her everything. Besides, she already knows most of it.”

“All right. I’m not surprised. Anyway, I’ve contacted the Mounties through my lawyer. The laws relating to terrorist activity and suspected activity are pretty broad, so someone like me has to be careful about even possessing information affecting national security, because that can be interpreted as a crime. Protecting an anonymous source is very difficult. The old rules about reporters refusing to divulge a source don’t really apply. It’s all very unclear, and if it’s unclear, the practical result is that the security forces have very wide powers to make my life hell.”

“So you think these guys are terrorists?”

“I think it’s possible. I know the Mounties will think it’s likely. I can’t tell the authorities about the cellphone-not yet anyway-without getting into legal complications. In the meantime, my lawyer has worked out a deal with the cops. My position is that an anonymous source warned me about some suspicious-looking guys at a hunt camp near Orillia. I followed up and got enough info for a story, and I want to go ahead. But I understand the cops’ position that I can’t compromise an investigation. So I’ll agree to hold off. When the cops break the story, the basic facts will go out via the usual press conference. Once it’s announced, I have the exclusive on all the details.”

“That’s great, Mom. You can continue your research so you’ll be ready when you get the green light.”

“Exactly.”

“Will it go worldwide, d’you think?”

“Probably. For which I have you to thank.”

“True,” I replied, smiling.

“Even though you bribed me.”

“If you want to play in the big leagues, Mom, you gotta be tough.”

She laughed. “Right. My son, the hard rock.”

“Anyway, go on before Dad finishes.”

“The phone was the key,” she continued. “By tracking down many of the numbers I’ve been able to identify some of the men. Most of them live in the Scarborough area. A lot of the calls were made to a particular mosque in the same locality. I’m beginning to piece together a scenario, but I have lots more research to do, including a trip to the city to confirm a lot of what I have.”

“How does the drowned guy who was found up on Cumberland Beach fit into all this?”

“I’m coming to that. You were right about the link between the cellphone, the GPS, and the drowned man. There’s been an information blackout on the corpse. Since the body was discovered there has been no further information about him-no name, no cause of death, no autopsy report. When I made enquiries I was stonewalled. The Mounties won’t confirm or deny that there was an autopsy.”

I remembered one of Mom’s reporter’s maxims: if the authorities refused to tell you something, it was because they had something to hide. Which demanded the question…

“Why?”

“Good question. One of the first things I did was follow the links. The dead man owned the GPS you found. The GPS took you to the camp, where you came across the cellphone. The info on the phone’s memory card led me to the Scarborough mosque and the men I mentioned before. But there’s more. It turns out that whoever owned the cellphone made dozens of calls to a certain very interesting telephone number. I pulled in a few favours and discovered that telephone number belongs to a cop. A Mountie.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. The Mountie was the drowned man’s controller. The dead guy must have been undercover.”

“Meaning he was also a cop.”

“Or working for them as an informer. Feeding them intelligence. Or helping them to set up a sting. Everything you and I know-and more-the cops are also aware of.”

“Meaning,” I added with a shudder, “there’s a good chance the undercover was found out by the gang and killed.”

I recalled the night at the mansion, when I stood at the window and watched the thunderstorm tear up the sky. I had thought I heard a motorboat. Were the paintballers dumping the body of the murdered undercover man, not realizing that somehow his GPS had floated away?

“I wonder what the paintballers are planning,” I muttered.

“You should stop calling them that. It makes them seem like innocent sportsmen. These guys are serious characters. They’re in training. They were considered dangerous enough for the cops to infiltrate the group.”

I thought of the paintball hits around the door and window of the cabin out at the camp, and of the leader, with his commanding air and the machine pistol hanging across his chest. But then I saw in my mind’s eye the so-called sentry I had come upon that very morning. He didn’t seem dangerous. He was a joke, playing at soldier with his music-player buds in his ears.

“The Mounties still don’t know about the GPS and the cellphone,” Mom said. “That’s why I had you take the cell to your new workshop. It’s evidence. If the cops turn on me and get a search warrant for the house to take away my files and computer and so on-and they’ve done it before to other journalists with pretty flimsy cause-I need the cell to be off-site where the search warrant won’t apply.”

“No worries on that score, Mom.”

She pinned me with her eyes. “Why do I get the impression there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“The GPS is gone, like I told you. The phone is back where I found it.”

Mom’s pretty features clouded over. “That’s what you meant by ‘eventful’ when I asked you about your day. I thought I told you-”

“Like I said, No worries.”

“Please don’t go near that place again.”

The sound of Dad’s hedge clippers died and we watched him trudge across the lawn, winding the extension cord into big loops on his way to the garage.

“Anyway, Mom, you haven’t shared your theory. What are these guys planning?”

Dad came out of the garage and walked down the flagstone path toward us.

“Stay tuned,” Mom answered.

III

NEXT MORNING, Raphaella and I went through the familiar routine-taking compulsory tea with Mrs. Stoppini, anxiously opening the library doors, every nerve vibrating-releasing locks to get into the secret cupboard. But this time, the spectre didn’t appear. We left the mansion with the professor’s manuscript at the bottom of my backpack.

With Raphaella riding pillion, I piloted the Hawk through the cool morning, turned in to the big mall, and parked near the front door of the office supply store. We walked inside, filled in an order form, then waited while a man wearing green braces with his purple trousers ran off a copy of the manuscript.

While Raphaella was paying for the service I dropped a few dollar coins into the shrinkwrap machine and sealed