Deadline by Stephen Maher Page A

way she dealt with Simms. It’s my fault for telling any staff after the meeting.
    “Anyway, can you let me and Claude handle this?” he asked. “Keep it unofficial? I mean, when it comes down to it, I’m responsible for the darned leak.”
    Knowles didn’t say anything for a moment and Mowat and Bouchard looked nervously back and forth at one another, waiting.
    “Okay, Minister,” Knowles said eventually. “Thanks for calling me. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we need any follow-up.”

    Jack’s chest was heaving from running away from the Buick. Panting, he slowed to a jog on the sidewalk, looking over his shoulder every few moments, heading towards the Byward Market. He cut through the parking lot of a nursing home, keeping low enough to stay out of sight. When he got to the next street, he crouched behind a parked car and looked back. His heart sank when he saw the Buick cruising his way.
    He took off again, running hard behind the cover of the nursing home, and then dashed across King Edward Avenue and up towards Rideau Street. He kept running, cutting diagonally into the heart of the market, where there were people walking to and from pubs and restaurants. He slowed to a walk and turned under a stone arch into a cobblestone walkway between two old stone buildings and into a courtyard lined by restaurants and bars. Apart from a cluster of smokers at the back door of a bar, the usually lively mall was empty. Certain that he’d lost his pursuers, Jack bent over, his hands on his knees, to catch his breath.
    He was startled when his phone buzzed. It was Sophie, in tears.
    “It’s so hard. Jack,” she said. “I’m home and I can’t stop thinking about Ed.”
    “Is there anybody there with you?”
    “No. I’m here by myself.”
    “Okay,” he said. “I’m coming over. See you in ten minutes.”

    The man was getting angry with Balfour for relaying confusing and contradictory directions, and Balfour was getting tired of sitting in front of his computer and taking abuse. He hadn’t had time to put the tracking program on the man’s phone, so he had to keep giving him the latest coordinates for the blinking red dot. The man yelled at Balfour and then yelled the fresh location to the men chasing Jack. Sometimes he yelled into the wrong phone.
    The triangulation wasn’t that accurate – only to within twenty metres or so – and it lagged behind someone moving quickly. So Balfour couldn’t give precise directions, especially since Jack kept cutting through the middle of blocks. When he ran across the middle of King Edward Street, his pursuers had to go well around, wait at a set of lights and do a U-turn before they could get on his trail again.
    When Jack stopped in the courtyard, though, Balfour was able to give them a fixed position, and the car pulled up outside the arch where Jack had entered. The men were getting ready to go in on foot when Balfour reported that Jack had left by the other exit, and was on Sussex now, headed south.

    Jack was walking briskly up Sussex, smoking a cigarette, glancing over his shoulder every few paces, looking out for the Buick, even though he was sure he had lost his tail. He jogged across the street, and was headed for the steps to MacKenzie Avenue, when he looked back and saw the Buick turn onto Sussex. He ducked into the shadows of the stairway and peered around the corner. It was definitely the same car, and it was coming toward him. He could make out two figures in the front seats, both looking around as the car crept closer.
    “How the fuck do they keep finding me?” he wondered aloud, just as his BlackBerry vibrated on his hip. He realized in a flash how they were tracking him. His phone!
    The revelation stabbed fear into his guts. If they could track him by his phone, they had to be CSIS, or the cops. But if it were the cops, they would just call him, wouldn’t they?
    Jolted back into action, he scrambled up the steps and emerged on MacKenzie across the