White Cell Page 3

  The car reacted with a loud squealing sound to the change in direction. With the bridge so well salted, the car turned to the right with relatively little lateral movement and moved steadily across the three traffic lanes toward to the rails of the bridge. Mintz closed his eyes as the car quickly covered the distance of three lane widths moving at high speed toward the bridge rail, though in his mind it all happened in slow motion. He knew the rail was ahead and he waited for the automobile to break through it and fall to the icy waters below.

  Isaac had made his plan, but the plan did not quite work as he had expected. The car did not go careening off the bridge; instead, it came to a sudden stop with a crash when it hit the rail. Nonetheless, the result was the same. The front half of the automobile was completely destroyed as it met the bridge rail and Isaac Mintz, who had not been wearing a seatbelt, had his chest thrown against the steering wheel and his head thrown against the windshield. He died instantly. Blood, flesh and bone were strewn everywhere creating a gruesome mess, but Isaac Mintz was now at peace.

  Chapter 2 - In the Air

  Fri Apr 30th

  Penny Stein was engrossed in an article on the front page of the newspaper. Having skipped over both the banner article about a United Nations resolution and a small article underneath it about a helpful hacker who destroyed a new computer virus, she was now reading an article on health care. As an ultrasound technician, Penny Stein was always concerned about health care.

  Penny was almost 30, five foot seven inches tall, with dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin. Dressed as she was now in blue jeans and sweater she was a very pretty girl. On self examination her main complaint with her looks was that her appearance was inversely proportional to the quality of clothes she wore; the nicer the clothes, the worse she looked. This was her curse, she thought, that she always looked best in blue jeans.

  “Yes?” said Penny looking up from her newspaper, surprised. She then tilted her head to the stewardess on her right. Penny was careful not to look out the window to her left.

  “Would you care for something to drink?” asked the pretty woman dressed in a flight attendant uniform. The words were not particularly clear, competing with the constant background noise of the airplane’s engines.

  “Just an orange juice, please,” said Penny, seeming quite distracted.

  “Are you alright?” asked the concerned stewardess.

  “Oh, yes. I’m fine,” said Penny, dismissing the concern. The stewardess looked at Penny intently. “I am just terrified of flying,” Penny explained.

  The stewardess nodded at her knowingly, said nothing, and tossed two ice cubes into a plastic cup and then added orange juice. She placed the cup on Penny’s tray along with a napkin and a package of peanuts.

  “Thank you,” said Penny.

  Because there was nothing that frightened her more than flying, Penny had spent most of the flight trying to forget that she was in an airplane. She was not afraid of insects nor was she afraid of confined spaces or heights. So far as she knew, flying in an airplane was her only irrational fear and, because of it, she had avoided flying all of her life. This trip was her opportunity to overcome her fear and, though the flight had been difficult for her, it had gone much better than she had imagined it might have.

  Penny left the drink and nuts on the tray and began to think of what had put her on this plane today. For the last few years she had worked at the Branson Hospital in Toronto and, though she had enjoyed her job, her life had been dull in the extreme. She had a number of good friends but, somehow, they and she were always busy with work and she had not managed to find a niche for herself, a cozy lifestyle where she felt completely comfortable. In a way she felt like she was living someone else’s life. Not that she was unhappy or uncomfortable with her life, she just felt, well, a little stagnant. If her only problem had been a little boredom, she probably would have let things go. But there was more.

  “Are you going to eat those?” asked the man to Penny’s right, pointing at Penny’s untouched package of peanuts.

  Penny had been looking blankly at the newspaper but looked up when she heard the question. “Sorry?” asked Penny.

  “You want your nuts?” asked the man, picking up Penny’s peanuts and waiving them at her? The man seemed a little annoyed that Penny had not given them to him directly.

  “Oh,” said Penny, completely uninterested. “No, you can have them.”

  “Thanks,” said the man, shooting her a big smile of appreciation.

  Penny returned to her thoughts. She remembered talking to her good friend Cindy Lyndon on the phone several months ago. She and Cindy had grown up together and had been inseparable until Cindy had moved away. Years earlier they had attended the same high school and then later the same university. Only after their university graduation had they had gone their separate ways when Cindy had decided to move to Ottawa. Penny missed Cindy’s nonchalant attitude to everything, even though she could sometimes be a bit of a bubble head. Penny smiled to herself as she thought back to her university years, years Penny longed for when the two of them lived together in a downtown apartment and would stay up until all hours talking about everything and nothing at all. Cindy had been the best friend in the world and a whole lot of fun and Penny had not been able to replace her since.

  Recently Penny had told Cindy about her feelings of isolation, at which point Cindy had become very excited. “You have to come to Ottawa!” Cindy had implored her.

  “But, Cily,” objected Penny. “I don’t know anybody there!” Since high school Cindy Lyndon’s nickname had been “Cily”, pronounced “silly”, and every one of Cindy’s good friends used the nickname. It was a contraction of her first and last names, the “Ci” coming from Cindy and the “ly” coming from Lyndon but no one could remember who had created the nick name.

  “Bull!” exclaimed Cindy. “You know me.”

  “True,” said Penny. “But I would have to get a new job.”

  “That’s exciting!” countered Cindy.

  Penny could not help but get caught up in her friend’s enthusiasm. “I guess it is,” said Penny, sounding a little more interested.

  “Damned right,” said Cindy. She paused and then added thoughtfully, “But, Penny, there’s more to this than just boredom, isn’t there?”

  Penny was silent.

  “I thought so,” said Cindy. “Spit it out!”

  “It’s minor.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” said Cindy sarcastically. “But I bet I know what it is,” she added.

  “Go on.”

  “It’s the parents.”

  Penny was surprised. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Easy,” said Cindy. “You live in the same city as your parents,” she said. “Same city parents are usually a problem if you are married. They are always a problem if you’re single.”

  “You’re amazing!” exclaimed Penny, flabbergasted.

  “Yep – that’s me. So what is the specific problem?”

  Penny was silent again.

  “Alright, said Cindy. “Let me guess again.” She waited for Penny to object. When no objection was forthcoming, she continued. “Your parents want you to get married like … let’s see … yesterday.”

  Penny was amazed again. “How …?”

  In good humour Cindy patronized her. “Elementary, my dear Penny,” she said. “You are almost thirty and your parents are worried their lovely daughter will not be giving them grandchildren. It’s every parent’s worst nightmare.”

  “Well,” interrupted Penny speaking slowly. “It’s a little worse than that.”

  “How?”

  “My parents are insisting that their new son-in-law be Jewish.”

  “Oh, big deal!” countered Cindy.

  “It is a big deal.”

  “Nonsense! I have heard tell that Cindy Lyndon, of the United Church, is dating a Jewish guy.”

  “No way!” exclaimed Penny.

  “Yes way,” said
Cindy. “And he’s a cutie too.”

  Penny’s resistance was wearing down. “But you’re the only one I know in Ottawa,” she said as a last protest.

  “What better place to move to than a place where there’s me?” asked Cindy.

  Penny smiled. This was typical Cindy Lyndon, always making herself the focus of the conversation. The comment was said light-heartedly but, when Penny thought about it, she realized that Cindy was right. Cindy was the critical ingredient.

  However irrational it may seem later, Penny was convinced. She missed Cindy and, despite all of their plans about visiting one another, the visits had happened infrequently. And there was nothing important keeping her in Toronto.

  Penny looked around the plane. Everyone was somehow involved, either drinking, eating peanuts, talking to a neighbour or sleeping. Penny returned to her thoughts.

  A few weeks after she had spoken with Cindy, Penny had applied to all of the Ottawa job ads she could find. Eventually she had landed a job as an ultrasound technician at the Ottawa Hospital. It was a lateral move for Penny paying about the same as her current job at Branson, but Cindy had said the cost of living in Ottawa was lower than Toronto. Cindy had even found her an apartment.

  Once the job and the apartment had been sorted out, Penny had considered using the move as an excuse to overcome her fear of flying. The decision was made easy when she remembered the Air Miles she had been accumulating. She had always shopped at stores that issued Air Miles and, though she never thought she would use them, she felt they were her due. Penny was apprehensive when she had first walked onto the plane, but it was the takeoff that really rattled her. Even now, in the air, Penny still avoided looking out the window.

  The move itself had made Penny feel as though she were disembodied. She had no home, no roots, and all of her worldly possessions were in the cargo hold of the plane she was travelling in. If she should crash there would be nothing left to remind the world of Penny Stein.

  Penny was brought back to the present by the chime from the aircraft’s intercom system.

  “Attention ladies and gentlemen,” said the captain. We are preparing for our approach into Ottawa. Please place your trays and your seats in the upright position and prepare for landing. I have turned the seat belt light back on. The weather in Ottawa is sunny with a gentle breeze from the North West. The temperature is fifteen degrees Celsius.”

  As the captain repeated his message in French, Cindy drank her now diluted orange juice and passed the cup and napkin to the stewardess.

  The captain began again in English. “For those of you on the left side of the plane you should now be able to see the city just in front of us. If you look carefully you can even see the parliament buildings on the south side of the river.”

  Penny was getting very excited now. She tried to look out her window though, as soon as she saw the city below, she immediately turned away. Because she really did want to see the approach to Ottawa she forced herself to look out the window again and tried to pretend that she was watching this on television. It seemed to work. She could just discern the river. With the bright sun and no cloud cover, the view was incredibly clear and very blue. And, yes, she thought, she could just see the parliament buildings between the river and a maze of office towers on the south side of the river. Penny thought back to Cindy’s excitement on the phone and then began to truly look forward to her new life.

  ***

  On the opposite side of the plane from Penny Stein sat Ellen Kincaid, a sixty eight year old Catholic mother of one. Like Penny, Ellen Kincaid had lived all of her life in Toronto but, unlike Penny, she was not moving to Ottawa; instead, she was visiting her son who had moved there a number of years ago. Ever since her husband had been killed in a highway accident two years ago, Ellen Kincaid had felt isolated in Toronto with her son living in Ottawa. Because she felt she was too old to move, she tried to visit him at least four times a year. She also used every bit of Catholic guilt she could muster to encourage her son to come visit her in Toronto as often as possible. But she knew she had to work harder on the way she dispensed guilt because she had only managed to get Jimmy to visit her twice a year at the most.

  Ellen Kincaid looked out her window but, being on the right side of the plane, she only overlooked farmland and could not see anything of interest. Like Penny, she was also now getting very excited. She was really looking forward to seeing her Jimmy even though he was too busy to spend more than a weekend with her. She just hoped they would be able to spend the whole weekend together and that she would hear that Jimmy had met a nice young girl. She loved her son but she found him far too removed from the social life she had hoped for him. And, like Penny’s parents, she wanted to see her son married soon. After all, Jimmy was also almost 30. The plane turned suddenly and both Penny Stein and Ellen Kincaid closed their eyes for the final descent into Ottawa.

  Chapter 3 The Airport

  Fri Apr 30th

  In 1969 the Canadian federal government designated a 4715 square kilometre area straddling the Ottawa River as the National Capital Region. Encompassing two cities in two provinces, the region now boasts a population of over one million people, with over half the population bilingual in both English and French. With three quarters of the population living in Ottawa, Ontario and the remaining quarter living in the Gatineau, Québec, the former was the dominant force in the area. The Parliament Buildings, Supreme Court and most foreign embassies have always been on the Ottawa side of the river and so most Canadians continue to think of Ottawa, and only Ottawa, as the true capital.

  With his window partially open, Ben Gould whistled to himself as he drove south on Ottawa’s Airport Parkway. Jim Kincaid, sitting next to him, played with the radio trying to find something more entertaining than the awful sounds emanating from Ben. Neither Ben nor Jim paid any heed to the beautiful spring day that provided a pristine blue sky, radiant sunlight, and an invigorating temperature of fifteen degrees Celsius. Despite the cool outside temperature, the inside of the automobile, bathed in luxuriant sunlight, was warm even as cool air filtered into the car through the partially open window.

  Jim finally found a good radio station. “Alright,” he said. “You can stop whistling now that we have something real to listen to.”

  Ben gave Jim a dirty look but stopped whistling. To the sound of Brian Adams he drove into the airport and toward one of the short term parking lots.

  Ben Gould was in his late twenties with dark, almost curly hair and dark brown eyes. At 5’9” he was about a couple inches shorter than Jim and at 182 pounds he was just a little over what his perfect weight would be. With skin that picked up a tan easily, Ben was a good looking guy, especially in the summer, even if he did look a little too much like an accountant.

  Physically, Jim Kincaid was quite different from Ben. He had dark auburn hair that was too wavy for his liking but suited his green flecked brown eyes. At 5’10¾” Jim was above average height and at 190 pounds he was, if anything a little light. Jim was also attractive but somehow never had time for the girls. His skin was lighter than Ben’s and he burned easily in the sun, something that he figured came with his auburn hair colour.

  Ben parked the car and then he and Jim walked into the terminal building. With glass skylights and windows, inundated with bright afternoon light, the Ottawa airport terminal building bustled with people who were simply too busy to do anything other than worry about their personal tasks at hand. Passengers, airport and airline employees, baggage and security personnel all covered the terminal floor, like ants on an anthill, each moving quickly to his destination.

  That the airport was so busy was a testament to the city’s resilient economy. True, Ottawa had been hard hit economically by the “dot com” collapse several years ago, but somehow the city’s economy had not been completely ravaged. With a second high tech boom now beginning, Ottawa was well placed to ride the new wave. With a relatively low cost of living, a highly educated work force, a critical mass
of high tech companies, and an enviable list of recreational activities, Ottawa was now attracting investment from all over the world and, in particular, from the United States. Though it was luck more than foresight that had recently created a new airport terminal building, it now looked like inspired planning. But with more and more traffic moving through the airport, the facilities were again being so stretched that there was talk of another terminal to be built in the near future.

  There was, however, another problem even worse than that caused by a lack of terminal capacity. With a growing number of daily direct flights between Ottawa and Washington for the diplomatic corps, between Ottawa and Raleigh for Nortel Networks, a telecommunications company, between Ottawa and San Francisco for many of the other high tech companies, and an expanding list of flights to other cities, both in North America and abroad, the Ottawa airport desperately needed a new runway.

  As the passengers wheeled or carried their baggage through the terminal, few noticed the newspaper boxes lined up and sitting unobtrusively against the wall. In one of the newspaper boxes could be seen the Ottawa Citizen, the local newspaper, with the headline, “Transport Minister to Open New Runway Today.”

  ***

  With a newspaper in front of his face and a third steaming cup of coffee held in his hand, Giuseppe Verde sat alone in the Tim Hortons coffee shop looking at the airport concourse through the glass wall. He took a sip of the hot coffee and then casually glanced over the top edge of the newspaper. The newspaper itself had been of little interest to the short, stocky man who was here to observe. As he watched the concourse he also listened for any announcements that came over the public address system. Watching and listening, both were important parts of airport surveillance.