force the spirit to slink away for good, and as always I was stuck for an answer.
I opened the pamphlet I had picked up at the gate, curious about the World Youth Congress just under way. The teenage participants had come from all over the world, representing more than two dozen countries. No wonder there were rent-a-cops around, I thought. The congress brought the kids together to inspire “mutual understanding and cooperation between cultures,” through activities like “team-building” and “goal-oriented tasks that encourage and reward collaboration.” I hoped that meant the kids could have fun together and get to know one another by sailing, swimming, playing games, and generally horsing around.
I looked up when I heard boots scraping on the footpath. A man in a sweat-stained brown uniform made his way along the shore. Grass clippings clung to his trouser cuffs. He glanced at me and continued on without saying anything. He looked familiar, in a vague way.
I folded the pamphlet and slipped it into a back pocket, thinking the congress was a terrific idea. I liked it when people from different countries and cultures mingled. Lazy in the heat, I settled back against the tree and idly picked up a clump of dry brown pine needles. Dad had tried to teach me some arithmetic once, long before I started school, using pine fascicles. We were hiking the Ganaraska Trail, west of town, in a blaze of autumn colour, and he was rambling away about white and red pines, how their needle clusters were different. Five white, two red, he chanted, not realizing that I was barely paying attention. He plucked one fascicle from each kind of tree and pointed out that the red pine fascicle held two needles, the white five.
“Remember, the word ‘white’ has five letters, and the white pine has five needles. The word ‘red’ has three letters-two less than five-therefore red has two needles. And white times red makes ten.”
How he imagined this convoluted logic would help me remember anything was beyond me-for a while, until I realized it had worked.
I checked my watch. The show would be starting soon. I got up and ambled back, using a different route. The trees threw long shadows across the trail. I passed through a cluster of sleeping cabins-old log structures that had been updated. The cabins were scattered across a pine grove. Whitewashed rocks delineated the paths leading from the gravel walkway to the ground-level platform at each cabin door.
White times red makes ten popped into my mind again. Ten divided by white equals red. Ten divided by red equals white. I chanted as I walked.
Ten.
At the edge of my vision, a brown blur. I whirled around in time to see a man hurry into the trees behind the cabin nearest the lake. It was the groundskeeper I had met at the shore, the one who had looked familiar. He was carrying one of those small foldable shovels. He hadn’t noticed me.
Ten.
What kind of task would take a landscape worker into the bush? I wondered. Keeping the cabin between him and me, I worked my way around it until I could see movement in the maples beyond the pine grove. Where the ground sloped away to the lake he stopped, got to his knees, and began to dig. I crept back to the front of the cabin, my shoulder brushing the log wall.
Ten.
I ransacked my memory, frustrated. I couldn’t place the man’s face. Why did that number and the image of the face chase themselves around my brain box? Were they linked? I allowed my vision to play across the grounds and the tall white pines that striped the area with shadows. Around me, all was quiet. No one stirred in any of the cabins or along the walkways. Everyone was in the audience, waiting for the show to begin.
Ten.
In a dark corner of my mind, something clicked as a connection was made.
Ten.
The news reports about the suspected terrorists associated with the paintball/jihadist training camp called the men who had been apprehended by the police the Severn Ten.
And I hadn’t paid enough attention to the details.
Ten had seemed right. I had seen exactly that number of camo-boys at the camp, and I had taken photos of some of them, including the leader. Ten men had been arrested in Scarborough and Mississauga.
But one news report had stated that an imam had been taken into custody as part of the conspiracy. Was the imam one of the men at the camp? Or should the total number of arrests have been
Had the cops missed one? Had one of the paintball-camp terrorists slipped out of the net?
Frantically, I snatched Raphaella’s cell from my pocket. My hands shook so violently I could barely thumb the keys.
“Hello?”
“Dad, put Mom on. Hurry.”
“What-?”
“Do it!”
My mother’s voice came on a couple of seconds later. “Garnet?”
“Mom. You have the photos from the paintball camp on your laptop.”
She caught the excitement in my voice.
“Yes, I still have them.”
“Email the picture of the guy with the machine pistol to Raphaella’s cell. Right away.”
“Got it.”
I disconnected. I stole a look around the corner of the building. The man was still at work, deep in the trees, digging. I stood quietly, listening to the air flowing in and out of my lungs. Once more I scanned the cabins, each with its path neatly bordered by white rocks, each with its single window and low platform before the door. I visualized another cabin, colourful paintball strikes around the door and windows, like acne.
The PIE vibrated.
I punched buttons. Opened the email. Mom had sent the photo. I zoomed in on the face of the camp leader. Take away his moustache, exchange the camo field cap for a brown groundskeeper’s hat, and there he was.
I erased Mom’s email and called her back.
“Listen carefully,” I said in a low voice, trying and failing to hold back the adrenaline buzz. “He’s here-at Geneva Park, at the World Youth Congress. I saw him.”
It all made sense, I rushed on. Why did the terrorists access their camp by water, from Lake Couchiching down the Trent system to the landing? Because they intended to
And what had they been doing out on the lake during a storm that night? Rehearsing. Practising. Getting their timing right. Maybe landing at Geneva Park in the middle of the night, in a storm, when they wouldn’t be seen, and burying arms and ammo right on the grounds. But they ran into trouble. A violent thunderstorm. An overloaded boat, maybe. A boat pitched around by savage waves. One of them-the undercover-fell out of the boat during the thunderstorm. Or his cover was blown and they killed and dumped him. His GPS floated free and washed up on the grounds of the Corbizzi estate.
“They planned to assault Geneva Park during the youth summit all along, Mom! I-”
“I’m phoning my contact at the cops. Hang up, Garnet. Right now. And get the hell out of there!”
I thumbed the Off button and shoved the PIE into my pocket. Then I heard a twig snap behind the cabin.
IV
I FLATTENED MY BACK against the logs and held my breath.
The terrorist in the brown uniform walked purposefully past the corner of the building, heading down the main walkway, his feet crunching on the gravel. He held the shovel in one hand and a gym bag sagging from its handles in the other. What weighed down the bag was easy to guess. Thoughts flicked on and off in my mind like camera flashes in a stadium crowd. A man twisted with hate carries a rifle into a Montreal school and massacres more than a dozen women. A couple of Colorado teenagers zoned out on self-pity make war on classmates, leaving a dozen dead. It seemed every country had its school shooting or equivalent, where twisted minds saw murder as a form of
