The God Game Read online

  Other Dan Sharp mysteries

  Lake on the Mountain

  Pumpkin Eater

  The Jade Butterfly

  After the Horses

  This book is for

  Stanley Almodovar III, age 23; Amanda Alvear, 25; Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26; Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33; Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21; Martin Benitez Torres, 33; Antonio D. Brown, 30; Darryl R. Burt II, 29; Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24; Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28; Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, 31; Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25; Luis D. Conde, 39; Cory J. Connell, 21; Tevin E. Crosby, 25; Franky J. Dejesus Velazquez, 50; Deonka D. Drayton, 32; Mercedez M. Flores, 26; Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22; Juan R. Guerrero, 22; Paul T. Henry, 41; Frank Hernandez, 27; Miguel A. Honorato, 30; Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40; Jason B. Josaphat, 19; Eddie J. Justice, 30; Anthony L. Laureano Disla, 25; Christopher A. Leinonen, 32; Brenda L. Marquez McCool, 49; Jean C. Mendez Perez, 35; Akyra Monet Murray, 18; Kimberly Morris, 37; Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez, 27; Luis O. Ocasio-Capo, 20; Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25; Eric I. Ortiz-Rivera, 36; Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32; Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25; Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37; Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24; Christopher J. Sanfeliz, 24; Xavier E. Serrano Rosado, 35; Gilberto R. Silva Menendez, 25; Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34; Shane E. Tomlinson, 33; Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25; Luis S. Vielma, 22; Luis D. Wilson-Leon, 37; Jerald A. Wright, 31 … we are all one pulse.

  Pulse Nightclub

  Orlando, Florida

  June 12, 2016

  The flower of politics is war.

  — Mother Teresa

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Author’s note

  Prologue: Toronto, 2013

  One: Toronto, 2014

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Copyright

  Cover

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s note

  Although Canada is seen by many as a country where integrity and fairness are the rule rather than the exception, politics is still a messy business. In my depiction of the political landscape, I have dealt with a real-life scandal. Apart from the barest facts and characters already known to the public, however, all characters and events herein are entirely fictional and should not be construed as having any existence or validity outside the pages of this book or my own dark imagination.

  Prologue: Toronto, 2013

  Disgrace

  Never in his life had anything like this happened to him before. He was not the sort of man to be given the sack. And that was precisely why he’d been drinking for the past two weeks. I am not the sort of man to be given the sack, he told himself as he grabbed at his bootlace and pulled. I am John Badger Wilkens III and I was not — here the bootlace snapped — born to be subjected to public ridicule and disgrace.

  He frowned and threw the lace down in disgust, glaring at the ragged ends as if they were to blame for his shameful dismissal. John Wilkens, you are hereby suspended from your official duties for suspected inappropriate conduct until further notice. He remembered every word. That was exactly what they had said when they came to remove him from his office.

  He sat there, one boot on and one boot off, staring at the empty bourbon bottle sitting beside the empty tumbler on the otherwise empty table. What a dismal thing to be turned out for suggesting that all was not well behind the scenes at Queen’s Park. A pack of lying thugs had taken over, besmirching his name in the process. And at Christmas, of all times!

  He stared at the rebellious boot. If he simply bypassed the top eyeholes and tied the laces shorter — if he could just reach them — he leaned down and grasped. There! That would make sure it stayed on long enough for a tramp in the night air.

  He needed to clear his head and think. What was to be done? Yes, what was to be done? Never had anything like this befallen him. Clearly, he was in a pickle. What could he do to fight the forces marshalled against him? He’d raised his voice above the crowd and dared to suggest that things were not all they seemed. And no sooner had he spoken those foul words than he’d found himself dismissed, facing allegations of personal misconduct and improper use of public funds. Absurd! To make things worse, they’d locked him out of his office, separating him from his files and suspending his computer password. How could he prove his innocence now? It was absolutely reprehensible for someone with his record to be treated so meanly. So rottenly!

  He tugged at the other boot. It seemed to take ages to get them both on, one lace shorter than the other but secure at last. He tramped to the hallway. The closet swung open with surprising ease, clipping his nose in the process. He didn’t know his own strength!

  I don’t know my own strength, he told himself. With a tug, he pulled his trench coat from its hanger and slung it over his shoulders, inserting his arms into the sleeves with difficulty. The garment resisted his efforts. When had he last worn it? The belt barely made it around his waist.

  The vestibule opened onto an unseasonably mild December evening. A warm front had come in, creating a dense fog. Streetlamps gleamed like distant fireflies before vanishing around the corner. The whole world was murky. John stepped onto the porch, feeling the coolness surround him. The air felt good against his burning cheeks.

  He patted his pockets for keys. Both sets were there, house and car, but he wasn’t about to get into the driver’s seat. All he needed on top of everything was to be stopped for driving while intoxicated. No, they weren’t going to pin something like that on him. A taxi was also out of the question. Leave no trail. He’d been warned to come alone.

  He was halfway down the street before he realized that the insistent tugging at his waist was because he’d mistakenly taken his wife’s overcoat instead of his own. It crossed his mind how ridiculous he must look, but it didn’t matter. Then he saw he’d also left with two mismatched gloves: one leather and the other Thinsulate. One pair for good and the other for shovelling. For pity’s sake! he thought. Whom the gods would humiliate …

  If he’d taken a proper look before leaving, he might have noticed another small incongruity: the garage door left slightly ajar where earlier it had been closed, a coil of yellow nylon rope missing from the interior. He might have, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

  At that moment, John was thinking about how that worm of a ministerial assistant had come to him late in the afternoon, ordering him to pack his personal belongings and leave. A distasteful man in so many ways. Clarence, the security officer, had stood behind him. They had said good morning to each other every day for the last five years. Now, the expression on the man’s face made John sick. It was hard to conceive that he, too, believed the reports of John’s dishonesty.

  Staggering along the empty street, it came to him with a flash of drunken clarity: they were going to gang up and pin this on him. With the e
lection coming, that egregious minister and his mob of supporters were cooking things up to besmirch his party. And they thought there was nothing he could do to stop them.

  They were wrong! He had a secret weapon. He’d peeked behind the curtain and discovered a thing or two in the process. Knowledge. It was man’s downfall before it became his redemption. He shouldn’t have looked, but what choice had he had? Something was out of line and it had nagged him till he’d verified the facts. And, oh, what he’d discovered!

  But he wasn’t the only one who knew. He thought of the mysterious emails he’d recently received. We both know what’s going on here. I can help you, their sender had offered, but whether they came from friend or foe, he couldn’t tell. He’d left the first unanswered. The second was more straightforward: You’re running out of time. Talk to me.

  He’d tried fishing around to see how much the emailer knew: Who is this? What do you think I know? The reply was almost immediate: What they’re doing to you, they’ve done to others. We can discuss this. And they had done it to others, John now clearly saw, while making a mockery of truth and public trust.

  Whatever the sender knew, it meant John wasn’t the only one sitting on such explosive information. Someone besides him realized what was going on. Someone outside the inner circle of ministers and flunkies in the government, maybe even someone with a vested interest in bringing the government down. With the election, everybody was skating on thin ice. What better time to clear his name? That’s what his mysterious contact was hinting at. And he, John Badger Wilkens III, would gladly lend a helping hand.

  From the start he’d tried to stay out of the rabble-rousing, to steer clear of the dirt and keep his hands clean. But the dirt had come to him. He’d thought it enough to act from pure motivations, but he’d been tainted by these shadowy intrigues. They were impossible to avoid. And, once he began to dig, it was inevitable that he would find something.

  Nothing could have stopped him from looking once he had the idea. Because he had to know! How could he not? Nine hundred and fifty million! All that public funding down the drain! It still seemed impossible to believe, even when he’d seen the proof.

  The final message came the afternoon he was suspended. It’s you or them. Deal with me or I go public, his secret sharer had warned.

  None of the notes had been signed, but he had his suspicions. They had all heard rumours of a mysterious, behind-the-scenes manipulator who could make or break you. A Magus. He hadn’t believed in the Magus, but that had been naïve of him. It was just that much easier to do the dirty work if the world refused to believe in you.

  When the problems surfaced, he’d thought of resigning to save face for the party, but now it was too late. They wanted a scapegoat. A martyr. He wasn’t going to let them off the hook without a fight. He’d just received the final email when the security guard entered with the assistant. That snivelling worm, that ankle-biting cur. John had typed in his private phone number and sent off the reply to his mysterious would-be saviour, then looked up into the faces of his executioners.

  Twenty minutes later he was out of the office, his reputation in ruins.

  But now it was his turn. He was going to tell his mysterious contact everything he knew in return for clearing his reputation. One thing was sure, he wasn’t going to have this pinned on him like some apparatchik run afoul of the Kremlin.

  “Information for information,” he said aloud to the fog as he stumbled along. “You tell me what you know and I’ll fill in the blanks for you.” A deal was a deal. Whoever he was about to meet would surely agree that was only fair. “You want to know what I know, then you tell me what you know and how you know it.”

  His breath swirled in the air, joining the wisps and curlicues of a diaphanous curtain. Lost in fog. That was the expression. He stopped and looked back. His home had disappeared in the whiteness. Thank goodness he’d sent Anne away. His cheeks burned with the memory of having to tell her that although he’d done nothing wrong, it might look otherwise until he could reveal a few simple truths. I will clear my name if it’s the last thing I do, he’d told her. Because the whole fucking mess would come out in the wash sooner or later. And then he would be vindicated.

  He stumbled along, wondering who he was about to meet. He had his suspicions: it was likely to be one of those beastly reporters hanging around the assembly, sifting the dirt, looking for a juicy story. Whoever it was had found a good one and locked onto the likeliest target: John Badger Wilkens III. To his everlasting shame.

  Why do you want to go into politics, Badger? his father had asked years ago. It’s a dirty business. Don’t you know that? John had simply shaken his head, thinking of ambition. Thinking of righting a few wrongs in the world. But to do that, you had to stay clean yourself. You’re too good for the rabble, Badger. Don’t besmirch yourself.

  In his father’s day, politics meant that the big boys came in and assessed the scene, then hired the companies to mine for ore and, once that ore was found, they let the corporations bid on the right to extract it. Corporations owned by friends. Next they set hiring standards and got other friends to implement those standards into law and pay the workers, men too desperate for work and too ignorant of what safety meant to ever refuse a job. They came from all over the country, with their wives and children trailing behind. There were always accidents as they stripped the earth and polluted the environment till the vegetation died and the rivers ran rusty and someone cried foul, then safety standards were enacted and environ­mental laws set up to counteract the destruction until the day the ore itself ran out and the workers went elsewhere to start all over again, leaving behind ravaged landscapes and empty pockets for most, but swollen bank accounts for a privileged few, the company executives, who simply waited for the next big strike-it-rich opportunity.

  And always there were secrets to be kept, names to be protected. Then more laws were enacted to shield those same men from legal repercussions as the whole thing went round and round again. It was not the men you saw, but the men you didn’t see who made the wheels turn in their tortured, squeaking revolutions.

  That was what his father had warned him about: those men you didn’t see coming. The ones John had vowed never to become like or be outsmarted by. Ruthless and rapacious, they were adept at making up reasons to justify their selfishness. They were the ones who gave politics the bad name he now clearly saw it so richly deserved. And here it was happening all over again. To him.

  It was a relief to know his father had died before finding out how true his words had been.

  John stopped and peered into the fog, where everything seemed to disappear in a void. Houses, trees, cars. As if there was nothing left of the living world. His bootlace had come undone. He bent to retie it. At least his head felt clearer. Perhaps alcohol hadn’t been the best idea, but it had given him courage. Purpose.

  He looked around. Nothing was familiar. He might have been at the ragtag end of the universe, some point of land far from the known regions. He staggered to a corner to read the sign: Heath Street. How on earth …? In the fog and in his drunken state he’d ended up on one of those little cul-de-sacs backing onto the ravine. The signs had been warning him: No Exit.

  Three cars were parked along the curb, their outlines hulking like camels bedding down for the night. The first, a black Honda, butt-ended a grey Audi. You didn’t leave expensive cars on the road, even in this neighbourhood. The final car was white, a big utility vehicle of the sort that painters and repairmen drove. He thought he’d seen it once or twice in the lot at Queen’s Park. Maybe it would turn out to be someone from the security division wanting a private word. A moment of optimism came to him: they were conducting an internal investigation and needed his co-operation, having known all along he was innocent. Well, by god! He’d be glad to give it to them after the way he’d been treated.

  A private place, the voice on the phone had said. Somewher
e close to your home. And then the promise of discretion: Come alone. It’s just a talk. We won’t record anything. There’ll be no witnesses. At first John had hesitated. How did he know he could trust the other party? But then reason intervened. He’d done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide. What would it matter if they recorded every last word? It would only be to his benefit.

  A fence loomed up out of nowhere. On his right, a pile of refuse threatened to topple over onto him. His life was a garbage heap! How fitting. His father had been right: politics was dirt, filth. And there was no one he could turn to except a mysterious emailer intent on discovering what he knew. Well, then. Let me tell you what I know, he would say.

  The fog was thicker now, enveloping him with its ephemeral arms. He wanted to get on his knees and curl up in a ball beside the garbage. The refuse of his life. He felt the rage welling inside. He’d only done what was right! He had stood up in the face of evil. But it had been smarter than him. Smarter and stronger. There was too much to fight against. Too much corruption and injustice.

  Just shut up about it, John! It comes with the territory, he reproached himself. You knew that before you began, so don’t whine about it now.

  He reached the end of the alleyway. There was no way forward. The moon suddenly snapped into view, a bone-luminous light coming through the fog. Beyond lay the immensity of the galaxy, the universe spreading on forever. In that moment of illumination, he saw stairs off to his left leading down to the ravine. He was saved!

  Then, just as suddenly, the light was gone again. Eclipsed. It dawned on him that it was nothing more than a streetlamp with a rickety connection. So much for the grandeur of it all. He stopped and laughed at the absurdity. They had him exactly where they wanted him.

  It might have been the only moment of true perspective he’d had all week. We are nothing, he thought, peering into the swirling fog. All this is for nothing! We live and die in the blink of an eye. A brief space between two eternities. All the while, he wondered if it was the alcohol talking. Babble, babble, babble. Just like those fools in the legislature.