DAY ONE

      Sunday, August 29

      Sunday, August 29, 2345 hours

      On the Ottawa River, west of Petawawa

      Alex cut the outboard motor and let his small boat drift into the dark, shallow bay of the island in the middle of the Ottawa River. One by one, the other five aluminum fishing boats of his makeshift raiding party pulled in near him. The boats were painted mud brown, their motors muffled by burlap covers. His party’s weapons, as yet unloaded, were also covered, to avoid clattering against the metal hulls.

      The current, always strong in the upper reaches of the Ottawa, tugged at the boats, threatening to pull them back into midstream. Luckily the crews had learned enough from their numerous rehearsals to jockey the boats into the planned order and keep them there for the next dangerous leg across the broad river and onto the beach at Canadian Forces Base Petawawa. Well, that’s already something, Alex thought.

      Twice he flicked his red-shaded flashlight, signalling the helmsmen to shut down their outboard motors in unison – the better to camouflage their number from curious ears. Another instruction remembered and carried out properly, even with the adrenaline pumping. That was good, because things were about to get a lot more complicated.

      The boats had all been loaded according to his careful instructions. Backpacks, carrying-boards for heavy loads, first-aid kits, and an assortment of straps, ropes, wires, and cutting tools – “a place for everything and everything in its place,” as his old Airborne platoon sergeant had never tired of reminding him. But the crews tonight – seven per boat, a helmsman and six carriers – though they styled themselves “warriors,” did not have the experience of his old sergeant. Their description of themselves was in fact a wild exaggeration, for his troop was in reality a motley, inexperienced, mostly young, gang of natives.

      They certainly weren’t soldiers. Alex had shaped their enthusiasm as best he could over the past six weeks, and he figured if all went well they could at least keep some discipline on the march from the beach to the target and back again. Now he watched through the darkness as they unbundled their assorted rifles, shotguns, and the one automatic weapon picked up from “the merchant” at Akwesasne. The helmsmen checked the readiness of their boats and each then flashed two red signals back to Alex.

      “So it begins,” he muttered to himself. He knew that other raids were under way across the country, although he knew none of the details of any of them. For Alex and his team, what they were about to do in Petawawa was the only mission that counted.

      * * *

      Across the river, on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, Military Police Corporal Joan Newman tried not to spill a lukewarm cup of instant coffee on her way to her patrol car. Join the Armed Forces, she thought bitterly. See the world. Yeah, well, they didn’t mention the part about marrying a warrant officer who’d come back from Africa with a drinking problem. Or aiming for the paratroops and winding up a military policeman instead.

      Now divorced, Joan was looking at spending the remaining four exciting years of her current enrolment patrolling half-empty bases on dark, lonely nights. And drinking too much while wondering what … Damn! She had spilled her coffee. No time to change her green military sweater either. Her boss was a real stickler for keeping to the regular patrol schedule, even though she, and no doubt other MPs, had pointed out it just made things more predictable for anybody up to anything worse than the occasional drunken fist fight. Not that anybody ever was. As she got into the car, Joan told herself for the hundredth time that this was not the life she’d planned for herself.

      * * *

      Alexander Gabriel, full-blood Algonquin (so his grandfather insisted), was born on the Golden Lake Reserve near Eganville, Ontario. Other kids on the reserve had made fun of him because he did well in school. When he turned eighteen, he enlisted in the army as an infantry officer cadet, partly for the adventure, partly to get away from the life the other reserve kids were heading for, and partly because he was in awe of his Uncle Simon’s heroic and much-honoured service in Korea. Alex was sent to Royal Military College at Kingston to serve Canada; however, he promised his grandfather he would remain true to his people’s traditions.

      Unfortunately, he had quickly come to realize that there was little room for his native traditions in the army or anywhere else outside the reserve. When his classmates at “the zoo,” as cadets refer to RMC, called him “chief” or “moccasin,” they said they meant nothing by it. Yeah, right. They didn’t single out other guys with racially based kinds of nicknames.

      Even so, Alex liked military life and found he was good at it. After graduation, he advanced quickly from lieutenant to captain. Captain Alex Gabriel was marked by his superiors and peers as “a bright star” and a “streamer,” a fast-rising infantry officer. His outstanding record won him a position in the new Special Service Regiment when it was established as part of the elite Canadian Special Operations Force Command.

      Others had noted his rise also, and Alex could still remember the meeting when he had begun to see that the promising career the army seemed to be offering him might not be what he really wanted. It had happened a year or so after he had joined his unit. Alex arrived home on leave to find his grandfather waiting for him in his small cottage. To his surprise, three middle-aged men, all natives, were sitting quietly around the wooden table in his kitchen. Alex recognized one of them, a local chief from a nation across the Ottawa River.

      “These elders would like to speak with you, Alex,” said his grandfather. “I’m going fishing, so you can talk and I’ll see you for supper. You’re a good boy, Alex. You do what you think is best for the people.” He turned and walked out the door before Alex could answer.

      Without introduction, the chief beckoned Alex to a chair at the table. “Alex,” he began, “I’ll be brief. We represent a nation-wide first nations organization which I am sure you’ve never heard of before