Read Online Red Snow by Michael Slade - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Slade
Tags: Canada
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said. “That’s a clue.”
“It is?”
“E, F, G, H. That’s another.”
“Beats me.”
“Tsk-tsk,” Jackie clucked. “And you call yourself a detective? The obvious question for any kid is, Does every can of alphabet soup contain all twenty-six letters?”
“Does it?”
“Now that would be cheating. You know it’s a sin to blab the end of a mystery.”
The phone on Dane’s half of the desk rang.
“Sergeant Winter,” he answered while jotting “Buy alphabet soup” on his notepad.
“Niles Hawksworth, hospitality manager at the El Dorado Resort. It may be a hoax, but we just received a call to say there’s a dead officer in room 807.”
* * *
VISU had the staggering task of building an impenetrable shield against terrorist attacks during the Olympics. From its operations base in the old Motorola building, a huge office complex near the Fraser River, the unit was gearing up to protect more than one hundred venues. Its territory spread from the airport near the U.S. border to the mountain slopes, and included countless smuggling coves on the world’s most indented coastline.
No event presents a better target for terrorists and political zealots than the Olympics. The massacre of eleven Israeli competitors by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich games had proved that. The threat was palpably real—the rise in militant extremism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombs going off in London, Madrid, and elsewhere—and there were gaps in the shield. Security, by its nature, is never 100 percent foolproof. You can secure an Olympic village or an isolated venue, but you can’t secure an entire city and a hundred-mile swath around it, unless you turn the area into a police state.
A Stalag behind barbed wire.
And even a stronghold can be breached.
VISU was assigned to protect 5,000 athletes and officials, 10,000 media, 25,000 volunteers, and 250,000 visitors from hazards ranging from fire to a hail of manmade junk plunging from outer space. The nightmare scenario was a dirty bomb, a radiation device offloaded from a ship at sea and smuggled ashore by a motorboat putting in to one of the coves.
Come February, air force fighters would patrol restricted skies, and navy destroyers would guard the waterfront. CSOR—the Canadian Special Operations Regiment—would defend against biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. JTF-2 commandos, the 350 best counter-terrorists, would act as snipers and bodyguards.
Regular policing would fall to an army of cops with bomb-sniffing dogs, as well as to hostage negotiators and riot squads. There would be miles of fencing delineating safe zones with limited access points. Everything would be watched by surveillance cameras, and biometric software would identify known terrorists by measuring their facial features and analyzing their walks.
Special X was but a cog in that giant machine.
The Special External Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police predated the world’s current obsession with acronyms. If not, it would now be known as SES or—with a little fudging of the abbreviation—SEX. Imagine the jokes that would spawn!
Tied to Interpol—the International Criminal Police Organization—Special X investigated crimes committed in Canada but with links outside the borders. It kept tabs on violent troublemakers and would hunt down any killer if a murder took place at the Olympics. With the countdown on and time running out, the last thing the officers stationed at Whistler needed was the death of one of their own.
Though it was a short trudge from the Special X detachment to the El Dorado Resort, Dane and Jackie were white with snow by the time they pushed through the revolving door. Bundled up in fur hats with earflaps, storm parkas, scarves, mitts, and boots, they brushed themselves off. Their plumes of breath evaporated as they entered the hotel, but their cheeks stayed flushed from the chill outside.
A fretting Niles Hawksworth met
“It is?”
“E, F, G, H. That’s another.”
“Beats me.”
“Tsk-tsk,” Jackie clucked. “And you call yourself a detective? The obvious question for any kid is, Does every can of alphabet soup contain all twenty-six letters?”
“Does it?”
“Now that would be cheating. You know it’s a sin to blab the end of a mystery.”
The phone on Dane’s half of the desk rang.
“Sergeant Winter,” he answered while jotting “Buy alphabet soup” on his notepad.
“Niles Hawksworth, hospitality manager at the El Dorado Resort. It may be a hoax, but we just received a call to say there’s a dead officer in room 807.”
* * *
VISU had the staggering task of building an impenetrable shield against terrorist attacks during the Olympics. From its operations base in the old Motorola building, a huge office complex near the Fraser River, the unit was gearing up to protect more than one hundred venues. Its territory spread from the airport near the U.S. border to the mountain slopes, and included countless smuggling coves on the world’s most indented coastline.
No event presents a better target for terrorists and political zealots than the Olympics. The massacre of eleven Israeli competitors by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich games had proved that. The threat was palpably real—the rise in militant extremism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombs going off in London, Madrid, and elsewhere—and there were gaps in the shield. Security, by its nature, is never 100 percent foolproof. You can secure an Olympic village or an isolated venue, but you can’t secure an entire city and a hundred-mile swath around it, unless you turn the area into a police state.
A Stalag behind barbed wire.
And even a stronghold can be breached.
VISU was assigned to protect 5,000 athletes and officials, 10,000 media, 25,000 volunteers, and 250,000 visitors from hazards ranging from fire to a hail of manmade junk plunging from outer space. The nightmare scenario was a dirty bomb, a radiation device offloaded from a ship at sea and smuggled ashore by a motorboat putting in to one of the coves.
Come February, air force fighters would patrol restricted skies, and navy destroyers would guard the waterfront. CSOR—the Canadian Special Operations Regiment—would defend against biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. JTF-2 commandos, the 350 best counter-terrorists, would act as snipers and bodyguards.
Regular policing would fall to an army of cops with bomb-sniffing dogs, as well as to hostage negotiators and riot squads. There would be miles of fencing delineating safe zones with limited access points. Everything would be watched by surveillance cameras, and biometric software would identify known terrorists by measuring their facial features and analyzing their walks.
Special X was but a cog in that giant machine.
The Special External Section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police predated the world’s current obsession with acronyms. If not, it would now be known as SES or—with a little fudging of the abbreviation—SEX. Imagine the jokes that would spawn!
Tied to Interpol—the International Criminal Police Organization—Special X investigated crimes committed in Canada but with links outside the borders. It kept tabs on violent troublemakers and would hunt down any killer if a murder took place at the Olympics. With the countdown on and time running out, the last thing the officers stationed at Whistler needed was the death of one of their own.
Though it was a short trudge from the Special X detachment to the El Dorado Resort, Dane and Jackie were white with snow by the time they pushed through the revolving door. Bundled up in fur hats with earflaps, storm parkas, scarves, mitts, and boots, they brushed themselves off. Their plumes of breath evaporated as they entered the hotel, but their cheeks stayed flushed from the chill outside.
A fretting Niles Hawksworth met
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