bags and computer on the bed and glanced out the window in time to see the police car drive off. He locked his computer, locked it inside his bag, and then motioned Joe towards the door. “We can’t talk here. Let’s go for a walk.”
He didn’t speak again until they were in the parking lot. “I looked over your Ranger record,” he told Joe. “You’ve been busy. Tell me about your people.”
Joe pointed toward the centre of town, suggesting a turn along the noisy main street. “I have twenty members in my patrol. Two are ex-army – infantry, not too bad – but I have to kick their asses if they get near the booze. The rest are kids from around the village and nearby. Most have three years in and two had advanced courses outside. They’re steady enough, but they’ve never done anything except throw a few grenades at our homemade range.”
“Have they got the legs for the work?”
“Yeah, we’re okay there. I work them pretty hard, lots of packing cross-country. And living on the land comes naturally, of course. But working at night is still a bit awkward – they see spooks and ghosts and stuff. I don’t know exactly what you have in mind, but they can hump it and they do as I say.”
“Okay. What about the other cells in the area?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I know most of the leaders from Ranger courses and some from the States. But some I just met after I got the message from Montreal. As for their people, who knows?”
“Montreal? Who did you talk to and what did they tell you?”
Joe stopped walking and hesitated. “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it,” he said. “Except to say Maurice told me to follow your orders.”
Will nodded. “Okay. I have a fair idea of the makeup of the cells and patrols, and their leaders’ strengths and weaknesses, but I need a feel for their guts – are they disciplined, confident, more than just boys playing a game? What’s your feeling?”
Joe thought for a minute. “They seem ready to do something more than training,” he said. “They’ve got the bravado of all inexperienced soldiers who’ve been training. You know how people change when you hand out the live ammo. But their leaders are okay, and they understand the challenges. I think they can hold their people together with a pat on the back and a kick in the ass when needed.”
They waited for a car to pass and then crossed the street. “Well,” said Will, “they’re going to get their chance, sooner than they might think. Okay. Here’s what I want: a rental truck, civvy maps of the local area, and some safe place to store supplies heading our way. I’ll call a meeting with the cell leaders, together if possible, some time later. But in any case, these guys had better be committed because they know too much already. If you have any doubts about any of them, come clean now.”
“All the guys I know are all right, I’m sure of them,” Joe said, looking into Will’s eyes. “The ones I just met, I didn’t get a bad feeling about any of them.”
“Fine. I’m counting on you to lead your patrol and to back me up as second-in-command. Can you do that?”
“Yeah. If we need to, I’ll have my number two back me up so I can back you up.”
“Good. Here’s what we’ll do for now. I’ll rent a pickup later this afternoon. Tomorrow I have business out of town that doesn’t concern you. I’ll meet you back here at the hotel, day after tomorrow, thirteen hundred. Don’t be late. Lateness is one thing that really pisses me off. It gets people hurt.”
Will reached into his jacket. “Here’s two cellphones. Use one to call the leaders to meet you tomorrow at the RV north of Chisasibi you were told to select last week. The leaders are not to say a word to their members; they just have to drop everything, say they’re going hunting, and make for the camp. They’re to wait there for orders I will pass to you later in the week. Once you’ve reached them all, smash the phone and throw it in the river. Use the other as a backup or to find anyone you can’t reach tonight, then get rid of it too. My cell number is on this pad; it’s legitimate, so only use it if you have some real emergency. And then speak as if the Mounties were listening because they probably are. Got it?”
“So we’re going somewhere, some real action?” asked Joe excitedly.
Will’s easy manner changed abruptly. He turned to face Joe directly and stepped toe-to-toe into the young leader’s space. “Don’t ask questions unless you don’t understand what I just told you to do.” Will raised his voice just enough to convey the intended reprimand. “Do you understand what you’re to do?”
Joe, startled, pulled his hand from his pocket and dropped his arms to his sides, awkwardly trying to stand to attention without attracting attention. He blushed. “Yes, sir!”
“Good. Then do it!”
Will walked away. Joe, a couple of steps behind, followed along in silence – the boundary between superior and subordinate clearly established. After a few steps, Will, without looking back, waved Joe alongside. “Come along, Joe. Let’s get something to eat and an iced tea – do they make iced tea in this metropolis?”
Monday, August 30, 1530 hours
Robert-Bourassa Generating Facility
It was late afternoon when Will joined a small group of tourists on a trip to the great generating facility, to view, in the inviting words of the Hydro-Québec commercial, “the splendid northern vistas and colossal hydroelectric structures” that, together with the mechanics of the generating system, are the heart of the La Grande hydro project which supplies more than half of all the electricity generated in Quebec, and as such is a crucial component of a vast network of interconnected power grids serving eastern North America.
The project is in fact a giant stairway of dams and hydroelectric plants, all founded on the vast watershed of the east shore of James Bay and the steep, eternal cascade of the La Grande Rivière as it races towards the bay. The centrepiece of the project is a massive fifty-three-storey-high storage dam near Radisson and the immense reservoir behind it. Here the river is diverted through plunging tunnels into two underground powerhouses which together comprise the fifth-largest hydroelectric development in the world. By far the larger of the two powerhouses is the Robert-Bourassa plant, the pride of Hydro-Québec, the largest in Canada, and the world’s biggest underground powerhouse. It was here that Will and the other visitors were taken.
The tourists were promised a view of “nature as you have never seen it” – a promise difficult to keep because the site is in every respect unnatural. Will marvelled at the awe on the faces of the visitors as his small group wandered, whispering, through the “true cathedral-like structure carved into the bedrock at a depth of 140 metres.” They walked reverently amid the roaring generators and complex machines, staring at the high granite ceiling and pointing to the wonders not of nature but of man’s invention.
The well-rehearsed guides, clutching electric torches, seemed to Will like minor officials in some great mediaeval European church, reciting sacred phrases to worshippers rather than offering technical guidance to the curious in a workshop. At each station, the guides’ ever-respectful manner and the soft cadence of their words combined with the sheer scale of the site to transform the tourists into pilgrims of technology, much as a visit to Rome and the Sistine Chapel is said to convert every tourist into a Catholic pilgrim, if only for a moment.
But Will Boucanier was no idle visitor and he wasn’t there to see the wonders of nature, the docility of
