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 eleven?
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 attack by water. Their target was Geneva Park!
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 self-expression. But this guy was different. He was a fanatic calmly carrying out his version of Allah’s will. Within minutes he would stroll into the main building, pretending interest in the show-your friendly lawn-care guy attracted by the crowd and the music. He’d find a good vantage point in the semi-darkness, put the bag down, whack a bullet clip into the machine pistol, lay out the extra clips in a neat line for rapid reloading, and let the gun make a statement that would ensure he’d be remembered for decades-and so would his cause. He’d open up on the crowd, screaming that God was great as bullets tore into flesh and bone, filling the air with a fine mist of gore. Within minutes the auditorium would be a slaughterhouse strewn with corpses, the floor a lake of blood. When the cops came for him he’d keep tossing grenades until he was shot dead. He’d be a martyr.
And Raphaella would be among the dead.
“Hey!” I called out.
He stopped about ten paces from me. His broad shoulders bunched. He turned slowly, his dark eyes hard and calculating.
What to say next? I scrabbled for words. Blanked. Stood like a fool, mouth open like a startled fish.
“Er, have you seen Mary?” I blurted, my heart battering my chest wall. “I… she told me this was her cabin. Number… whatever. But nobody’ll answer. See?”
Moronically, I demonstrated by rapping on the screen door. I ransacked my brain for a way to delay him, but I had run out of ideas. He took a step toward me. He still hadn’t uttered a word. Behind him in the distance I heard the opening cymbal bash of the overture for Merrie Olde Orillia.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “They have nothing against you. They’re innocent.”
His eyes flared. His fingers tightened on the looped handles of the bag. Something came over his face-a shadow-and I could almost hear him asking himself how I knew that he was about to make the auditorium an inferno of gunfire and smoke. The dark unyielding eyes widened again. Did he realize I was the intruder who had come upon him and his followers in the forest outside Orillia, who had caused the arrest of his accomplices and the destruction of his plans?
“Think about it,” I said desperately. “You can’t do this.”
He strode determinedly toward me. The hand gripping the shovel’s handle relaxed and allowed the tool to slip through his palm until he could grasp the end of the shaft. I readied myself to shift quickly at the right second. But he fooled me. In one lightning-fast circular motion he flung the shovel. It whickered end over end across the space between us, small lumps of earth flying off the blade as it spun.