little native woman came swiftly down the aisle, dropped onto the pew beside him, and immediately knelt as if to say a prayer.
Good grief, he thought. They don’t watch enough detective movies. You are way out of place, lady. After a few moments of inaudible prayer she raised her voice and whispered, “Come with me and keep quiet.” She rose as quickly and quietly as she had arrived and continued forward towards the altar. Alex got up immediately, wondering whether it was more obvious if he went with her or followed six feet behind her, and decided he couldn’t afford to lose her.
Alex hurried after her, through a doorway beside the altar, along a hallway, down a flight of stairs to the basement, across an empty, cement room with faded yellow paint, out a creaking metal door, up four concrete steps, across a rubble-scattered backyard, through a break in a collapsing wooden fence, across another small yard, and down another set of steps into the basement of an old house on Ellen Street.
“Very complicated. Does the priest know about this setup?” Alex teased.
“The priests here are liberation priests, just like those fighting for justice in other oppressed countries,” the woman replied tersely. “Now, no more questions. When we go outside, hold my hand like we like each other and walk with me.”
“If I’m going to hold your hand, shouldn’t I at least know your name – just in case we get stopped, of course?” Alex smiled as he took her hand, but the flush that crept into her cheeks was angry, not embarrassed. “I’m Deanna. But we won’t get stopped. Let’s go and stop talking.” Alex stopped smiling.
They walked up a set of uneven wooden steps to a dismal kitchen, went out the back door, and followed the narrow stone walkway along the side of the house to Ellen Street. Deanna, if that was her name, led Alex to Henry Avenue, then east to King Street and turned towards the great Logan CPR train yard. They worked their way east along the tracks and climbed up to the Main Street overpass, crossed the bridge, and finally slid down into a muddle of ragged bushes to a basement doorway at the back of the rundown “Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg Inc.” on Higgins Avenue – the once-majestic CPR station, a gilded lady turned to new pursuits.
Deanna took Alex’s arm, directing him to a small basement doorway, half hidden by scrawny vines. Inside, she pointed down the hallway to another door. “Go there!” With that she turned and walked away, cold, hard, tense, and bitter. Alex shuddered. God only knew what her life had been like before she had joined the Movement and what it would be like after Molly Grace was done with it.
Alex examined the door. It had a coded lock, and a surveillance camera covered it from a corner. To knock or not to knock? As he raised his hand to knock, the door swung open and a native half a head shorter than Alex, but about a foot wider, motioned him in then frisked him roughly.
“Come with me,” he said, speaking and moving at the same time.
The burly man walked down the hallway to another closed door, grunted at the kid guarding it, and knocked once. A lock turned and the door opened. Alex stepped in. A small group, five young natives and an older man standing around a large table, stopped talking and looked up, interrupted in mid-conversation. The leader stepped back from the table, folding a large map over on itself as he did so.
Wednesday, September 1, 1235 hours
Winnipeg: Colonel Stevenson’s Headquarters
Even a stranger would have seen that the older man was in charge. But Alex wasn’t exactly a stranger. Though a few years had passed since he was under his command, Alex recognized Colonel Sam Stevenson at once.
“Okay, everyone, take a break for ten minutes while I speak with the hero from the Petawawa raid,” the colonel said. Suspicion turned to admiration on five young faces as they filed out, leaving Alex and Sam alone. The colonel closed the door.
Habit made Alex straighten up, almost to attention, but a tiny motion of Stevenson’s left hand said, “Stand at ease.” His right hand gave Alex a firm, welcoming handshake.
“Glad you’re here to join us, Alex. Good trip? You’ll meet the others a little later. Have a seat.” He motioned Alex to a chair in front of a smaller desk to the right of the main table. “Coffee, tea?” Alex declined both and sat down.
“Colonel Steele,” as his regular force soldiers called him, was hardly a Hollywood Rambo-style soldier. His hair, slightly greying, was trimmed short and neat. He was Docker-dressed, as the saying went: matching shirt and trousers, both pressed and creased. But the colonel was short for an action hero, at most five-seven, slight, physically unassuming, his posture concealing rather than emphasizing his exceptional fitness for a man in his mid-fifties. He wore thin-framed reading glasses hung around his neck, librarian-style.
“Do you know why you’re here, Alex?” Stevenson asked, dispensing as usual with small talk.
“Not exactly, sir. I was only told to come here to help you command the operation in this sector. Beyond which, Molly Grace told me you would fill me in. I must say, sir, that I am honoured to be with you, and I hope I can be helpful.” Alex blushed. Damn, he said to himself, that sounded trite – like I’m some ass-kiss, first day on the job in NDHQ.
“Never mind. I’m sure you’ll do fine, and like I said, I’m glad to have you. In fact, you’re here because I specifically requested you, before the raid on Petawawa. You have a fine record, brains, guts, and experience. That’s what I need, and frankly I don’t have enough of it here. They’re keen, Alex, and they’ll die for the cause, but they’re not all soldiers and there isn’t time to make them into soldiers. You’re going to hold them together, Alex. I’m giving you a big job: I’m giving you command of the Winnipeg battle group, the garrison in effect.
“Here’s the outline. Soon, when the operation begins, your mission will be to create a major disturbance, draw police and army units into the centre of the city, and then hold them there, pin them down, while we move the larger units from the north into the cities and vital points across the province. It’s a diversion within a diversion, Alex.”
Alex held out a hand. “Hold on please, colonel. With respect, you’re suggesting that we’re going to launch a full-scale attack on a major Canadian city, a city of some 700,000 people, with small groups of untested, so-called warriors, and intentionally invite the army and the police to counterattack us! Do you expect, one, that we’ll be able to hold on until the other untested warriors come to our rescue, and, two, do you expect any of us to survive the experience?”
“Well, Alex, yes, I do expect you will be able to hold until relieved, mainly because we have been preparing the teams you will lead for many months. They’re not all untested, as you say; the key sub-unit commanders are mostly trained soldiers with experience in the Canadian army and the U.S. Special Forces. And two, I’m not sending anyone on a suicide mission. You’ll have plenty of backup, and once we draw the army and the police into the centre of the city – get them committed there – you’re going to pull out.
“Remember, Alex, we have surprise on our side, and the army here is just the local militia, no better trained than our young people. As for the police, they’re simply not prepared for the kind of action we’re going to put them in.
“Let me give you the bigger picture, put things in context. After that, and once you’ve completed your recce of the area, if you have doubts or see a need to change the outline plan, well, we’ll discuss the details and make whatever changes fit the bigger strategy. Fair?”
“Fair enough, sir. It just seems rather too bold. I mean, I can’t think of many civilians who would believe the scenario even if we told them about it in advance.”
“That’s our major advantage, Alex, here and in the whole country. The Ottawa politicians just assume that the outrageous things they do can go on without any organized response from us, and they think, too, that we’re too lazy or drunk to figure how to organize a nationwide resistance movement. Complacency and prejudice is a deadly combination in politics and war.
“So, let me explain why Molly Grace sent you west when the action seems