Tuesday, November 26, 2024

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Mistakes come back to haunt you. In my case it was telling the lady with the bad cold, on the run from CSIS and the RCMP, to dump her phone through the sewer grate in front of my office. I should have shredded it first. The GPS on it was still working.

So it was inevitable that one day my door would be kicked open and two men in plain clothes but military haircuts, obviously CSIS, burst into my office with right hands under the left side of their jackets, “just in case”.

“Are you Rick O’Shea? Are you aware you may have committed treason?”.

“I am indeed Rick O’Shea. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“If you don’t cooperate you may just disappear. We ask the questions; you give us answers or as they say in the movies, ‘vee haf vays uff making you talk’.

“We tracked a phone to the sewer in front of your office. We have reason to believe the owner of that phone gave you a flash drive with confidential information on it which instead of turning it over to the authorities, you forwarded the material to The Globe and Mail.

“Fortunately, we have people on the inside who caught the material before it reached anyone else, or it would have created a national crisis.”

(What? Ottawa paid off a Quebec engineering firm again? That is hardly earth-shaking news.) That wild guess flashed through my mind.  

“Why blame me? I admit a woman came in here in a panic. I didn’t ask who she was or what her business was. The less I know, the better. She must have found my name in the phone book, no idea. She wanted a passport to get her out of the country and a burner phone. She paid well. I got both for her and she left. I never even look inside the passport. I went with her to the airport but never got out of the taxi. If she had a flash drive maybe she sent the contents over her burner phone. I know nothing about it”.

“Except Pete Picket said you bought two burner phones, Smart Ass”. And he told us the name in the passport”.

“Since you seem to know everything, why are you bothering me?” These guys made me seem like an amateur. How did they find out about Pete “The Fence” Picket? I was beginning to think I needed to find a store that sells paddles ASAP, as I seemed to be without one.

“The woman, Kryztyna Agnieszka is her real name, works for a foreign agency, International Democracy Union, bent on influencing the Canadian federal election, shifting it to the extreme right. The information she gave you was forged but would have checked out. Publishing it in the Globe and Mail would have given it credibility and it would have brought down the government. No one with any sense believes anything in the National Post.

She must have figured you as a patsy that would buy her story, though she was right in that we were after her. Maybe you should check some of your clients out before you do the gallant knight routine. She must have paid you well from the looks of the Scotch you are drinking. Even better than how Matt Gaetz likes his whiskey – 12 years old and mixed up with coke.”

“So now what happens?”. I was wishing I hadn’t lied about the second burner. Lying to cops is bad. Lying to spooks is worse. My butt gripped the chair so tight that if they took me, the chair would come with me.

“Nothing. You got lucky. Also maybe find a better line of work. Something you are more suited for. I’d give you a suggestion, but you might be insulted.”

After they left, I thought long and hard about my life of sin, over the rest of my Scotch. Maybe I should become a TV preacher. Wear my collar backwards but not my pants. I could put a coat hanger in my mouth, smile like Joel Osteen, rake in millions from the rubes and live in a mansion the size of Windsor Castle.

About 10:30 there was a gentle knock on my door. . . 

Thanks, She Who Seeks


8 comments:

  1. Not even sure where to even get a burner phone.

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    1. Most phone stores can sell you a cheap phone with a certain amount of time prepaid. It just isnt registered to any company

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  2. Another tour de force! But sheesh, who would have thought CSIS was that organized and competent? And kicking doors open? Is that the CANADIAN way? Had a good laugh at "No one with any sense believes anything in the National Post" -- you got that right, lol! My fave, though, is "My butt gripped the chair so tight that if they took me, the chair would come with me." Youch!

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    1. That is what you call pucker power. You are right, they would have knocked. Politely nd said "Excuse me, I'm sorry but . . . "

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  3. Thanks for the smiles. He can keep the Scotch though. I view both it and Coke as poison.

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