The Temporary President

By G. R. Daniels

When a U.S. military transport plane crashes in the Arctic, Major Dan Court is thrust into an unexpected and perilous mission. Readers accompany Court on journeys to both an unforgiving Canadian Arctic and through the corridors of power on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. The narrative is a seamless blend of impeccable grammar and an effortless writing style that weaves dialogue and description, mystery and urgency, into a complex mission full of harsh challenges and a cast of characters, each with hidden motives and questions. The Temporary President promises a thrilling blend of military intrigue, government secrets, and Arctic survival, as Major Court navigates treacherous political and physical landscapes, in his deadly race to uncover the truth behind the crashed military plane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G. R. Daniels
• Release date: Dec 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215724347

G. R. Daniels

G. R. Daniels is the pen name of this author. He is a veteran journalist who has worked as a front-page reporter, editor, tv writer, tv on-air reporter, tv producer, radio producer, internet blogger and website writer. He also is one of the world's busiest media relations trainers and crisis consultants, working on major and one-off projects for corporations, government bodies, institutions and individuals. His popular novels offer heavy doses of action, thrills, intrigue and complex plots. They are fascinating and fun reads from someone who has been there and done that for world-wide audiences. Daniels writes often about his native Canada but also provides his readers with international stories such as Escape from Zaatari. Many readers are joining the growing audience for Daniels' exciting and absorbing novels. Become one and write a review for this outstanding author's works.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Why me?

I didn't do more than mouth the words silently as I stared at the smartphone in my hand. Maybe, I should have been shouting in outrage but I held my tongue given my short tenure in my new job and its low position on the hierarchy totem pole.

After my first reaction, I fell back on the usual way I received orders when I was Major Daniel T. Court in a Canadian military intelligence unit. I went for clarity.

Let me see if I understand you. A U.S. military transport plane has gone down in the Arctic and you want me involved in the recovery. Is that the bottom line?

There was a brief grunt from the Deputy Minister. Briefing room. Five minutes. The phone icon on my phone greened out. I reached for my beret only to touch the bare top of my desk. I was no longer in uniform unless you count a dark gray suit, white shirt, tie and shined shoes as the uniform of the day for workers on Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada. No beret. An order was an order in the military or the bureaucracy so, I rushed out the door of my small office to get to the briefing on time.

Let's get back to the question. Why me? I retired from the Canadian Armed Forces only six months ago and immediately was tapped by a contact in the federal government to fill a newly-created position in the offices of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. My first day in this job was five months ago, on Monday of the first work week in February.

My title was Special Security Advisor to the Minister. At the time, it was carefully explained to me. There already was a National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister. I was not, in any way, the equal of this person or even in her league. I was attached to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a very important person but not the PM. The 'special' in my title, in other words, didn't mean I was 'special' good or 'special' valuable. I was 'special' because I was not particularly valued. I was special like a trailer hitch is special to a car. Good to have around in case you want something done that doesn't fit into the frame.

Why me? Why would the people far above want to reach down to get me involved in such a situation? Maybe, it was because I am ex-military. At retirement, I held the rank of major with the PPCLI, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, one of the most storied units of the Canadian Armed Forces. Also, I was a former member of JTF2, Joint Task Force 2, the premier special forces brigade. I was trained in Arctic warfare. All that gave me some validity, I suppose, but I had no training in search and rescue, none as a paramedic and knew very little about military aircraft except having flown in a lot of them.

We want you on this, because you are the only person we have in the ministry with any background in what we're facing. And we sincerely want to have a presence going forward. These were the first things the Deputy Minister told me after I took a seat at the table in a briefing room in the minister's office suite in the West Block of Parliament Hill. I guess that answered my question but not well.

Without getting into all the arcane details, the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada is top dog in the Department of Global Affairs, a sprawling creature with many offices and buildings away from Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa and abroad. I have no idea why my minister is not named Minister of Global Affairs so don't ask.

I work for the minister herself who sometimes hangs out in her Hill suite along with other alpha members of the federal government. She was busy so I often ended up taking direction from her Deputy Minister. Both of them wanted to be represented in the recovery of a huge U.S. military plane that had come down on our soil - or tundra or ice or whatever it landed on in Ellesmere Island, our northern-most region. Enough said about who’s who. More important was the what’s what.

I did wince at the term 'going forward,' which is a particularly dumb, fairly recent addition to one of our official languages. Sylvester Archambault, the deputy minister, was speaking in English to the dozen people around the table. At any moment, however, he could switch into French. The bilingual ability of virtually everyone on Parliament Hill, if not Ottawa, has always impressed me. Everywhere you go on The Hill and the city around, you hear conversations switch smoothly from one language to the other and back again. It is one of the things that makes Canada seem more European than American. Of course, in many parts of Europe, citizens switch fluently through four or five languages but we do our part in this multi-lingual world. Except for that 'going forward' blather.

The deputy's eyes shifted from me to the rest of the group. Here is what we know. The plane is a C-5M Super Galaxy, made some years ago by Lockheed Martin. It is huge, the biggest military transport in use by the US Air Force. The thing is big enough to carry five helicopters or six armoured cars. It crashed but there are survivors. How many, we don't know.

Jesus. The interjection came from one of the Assistant Deputy Ministers, the one responsible for the ministry's budget. How the hell are we going to carry all that stuff out...

Mr. Baxter. I wish you would hold all your questions for later, the Deputy said with evident exasperation. Baxter's lips clamped shut and his face flushed.

But, just to keep you happy, the Deputy added, There is apparently no cargo aboard this plane. Washington tells us it was carrying just people. There are infantry soldiers aboard, apparently hitching a ride home from training duties near or in Ukraine, along with a small number of civilian passengers.

There were frowns on the foreheads of more than half the people at the table. Yes, I know, Archambault added as he noted the consternation. That's a lot of plane just to carry a relative handful of passengers. But if the Americans want to waste fuel, that's their problem. Right now, we have to worry about finding this plane, rescuing survivors and recovering bodies.

A small woman sitting to the right of the deputy minister looked down at her notepad and up at the deputy. She whispered. He listened and said to the group, Ah, yes. Our sources of information. We're getting everything from Washington.

One of the other women at the table raised her hand and the deputy nodded. Virginia Gault, the minister's personal assistant, spoke in her typical, clipped manner. Are we getting any intel from people on the plane?

Nothing directly. Washington says not much is getting through, came the response from Archambault. Our embassy is dealing with the Pentagon ... a brigadier general named Parks. He told our military attaché in Washington that the pilot, co-pilot and navigator are dead. There were gasps from around the table. The cockpit apparently is crushed. What communications they are getting are via a satphone used by survivors. So, someone is alive back there even though the plane obviously crashed. But the communications are broken up. Something to do with the Arctic ionosphere. I don't really understand... The Deputy threw up his hands in a very Gallic shrug.

Ms. Gault, still holding the floor, turned her sharp eyes away from Archambault. They swivelled to me and I felt like I was caught by the blinding headlights of an oncoming truck.

What's Major Court doing here? She didn't like the creation of my job and her competitive streak was showing.

When all the eyes turned toward me, I wished I had brushed my short-cut, medium brown hair and straightened my dark blue tie. I immediately sat more erect to make the most of my five-foot-eleven-inch lean frame. Then I was embarrassed by my vanity.

The Deputy Minister had been speaking in his normal tone, level-headed and straight-forward. Now, his voice became curt. I had seen him annoyed only once before in the half dozen times I had been in his meetings. I was seeing it again.

He is here because I invited him. We'll be running operations out of Alert on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut. For those who haven't met him, Major Court is the only person in the ministry that I know of that has experience in the Arctic, in the military and in intelligence. He's familiar with communications as well. I'm not sure where Archambault got that tidbit of background; what I knew about communications was about 10 percent more than the average 17-year-old but I wasn't about to argue. The man was defending me.

He will be our representative on the ground. I was glad he didn't say 'man on the ground'; that would have sent Virginia into a frenzy.

Well, now it was official. I tried to remember if I had taken my really-cold-weather gear with me when I packed up my belongings at my last posting. I had hit my retirement date while on secondment to Germany as an intelligence officer with NATO. Packing-up had been a slapdash affair and largely handled by a lance corporal assigned to the Officer's Quarters on base. I still hadn't unpacked all the boxes that had been delivered to my condo storage unit in Ottawa. I would have to rummage through my locker before heading to the farthest north part of the country.

Why, asked Virginia Gault, would we send anyone to that crash site? Why not let the Americans handle their own crisis? The question made a great deal of sense. The big, U.S. Thule air base was only about 500 miles south of Alert on the west side of Greenland. The Strategic Command there could send aircraft into next-door Ellesmere Island with our permission.

Ms. Gault had done me a favour although she certainly hadn't meant to. In effect, she posed my first question. Why me? Inwardly, I cheered for her. Yeah, why the hell are we sending anyone to the Arctic crash site of an American plane?

Mr. Archambault brushed the question aside and motioned Gault to relinquish the floor. With a harrumph, she did so. As she sat back in her chair, the deputy simply said. It's our territory. Our people are going and we are in charge. Major Court will see to that. We'll tell Thule when we locate the crash. Last thing we want at this time is American planes flying over our territory.

I thought the deputy was being disingenuous; U.S. flights share our air space all the time. There was something going on in our cross-border relationship that was not only new and strange, it was scary.

The meeting wrapped up minutes later without much more information being imparted. I was still in my seat, trying to understand my role, when the deputy minister spoke. Mr. Court. Come with me.

CHAPTER TWO

We left the conference room and walked a short distance down a hallway. I followed the deputy as he entered another room. He waited until I had passed him before closing the heavy door. I found myself in a well-appointed office with a large seating area. The place was dimly lit and I saw heavy drapes had been pulled over the large windows that faced the river behind the government complex on Parliament Hill.

You asked to see Major Court, the deputy minister told the woman who had risen from an armchair to greet us. She was tall and I guessed in her mid-40s. I would call her attractive in sharp-featured way. Her face was made up of angular planes that came together to project intelligence. Her eyes were striking; they were light gray with silver bits in her irises that sparkled like tiny stars through a winter sky. Her mouth was turned up as if she alone knew what the joke was all about.

Hello again, Major. Thank you for coming to my lair. That reminded me I had seen her before only in meetings or in the minister's office. Her voice was quiet and pleasant but I imagine it could play various tunes depending on what was needed at the moment. I had met her, of course. She was the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, a very powerful member of the bureaucracy. She wasn't my nominal boss but was certainly my superior. If it involved national security - as my job did - it came under her purview if not her direct command. If she wanted it done, it would be done. If she wanted me to sit, I would sit.

I sat on the leather-covered couch across a coffee table from her. She sat, as did the deputy, in matching armchairs.

Nice place, I said, glancing around. Then I felt stupid.

I inherited it from a minister who is no longer with us. She smiled.

Well, she said, leaning forward in her chair. You're going up north. She wasn't asking a question.

I had learned less than an hour ago about the plane crash and that I would be going to the crash scene - somewhere, sometime, somehow. Uh, I guess I am, I said, again feeling overwhelmed and brainless.

Deputy Minister Archambault chuckled. The major has just learned about the crash. I haven't explained his role to him yet...

Mrs. Elizabeth Gaitor - known to all in government as 'Alli' - laughed once more. Ah, that's why you look so... so... constipated, Major. She turned from me to the deputy. Why don't we fill him in on what we know.

I was in the meeting, I said, hoping to appear more alert and informed than I had let on so far.

That was the public consumption part, Alli said with a wry grin. Now, the back story.

She and the deputy minister ran a tag-team briefing that added a great deal to the information I took from the preceding meeting.

The Super Galaxy - all 75 metres long - had crashed on Ellesmere Island yesterday afternoon. The plane had been returning to the U.S. from Ukraine and was flying a polar route that was well away from the flyways used by civil aviation. The Pentagon had taken complete control of the situation even before the plane went down. Military air traffic controllers had informed command of the emergency calls being made in flight by the pilot and co-pilot of the Super Galaxy. The flight crew reported the plane was losing fuel from a puncture in its right wing and had depressurized due to another puncture in its fuselage. Immediately, the Pentagon knew the plane had been fired on. In response, the Pentagon clapped a black ops label on the flight and barred any mention of the emergency outside of the immediate chain of command.

When it broadened its communications to include us, on a need-to-know basis, the Pentagon told us the blackout was so encompassing, its own air base at Thule was not to be involved. That made no sense, as I said several times, but ours not to reason why.

Canadian flight controllers had not been informed in advance of the entry into their air space of the Galaxy flight. The first they heard of the plane was when they saw the plane's signature on their radar screens as it passed over the North Pole on the edge of Canada's coverage area. Controllers at the Canadian Forces Station at Alert queried the crew of the flight but received no answer. The Galaxy flew over the Arctic Ocean for about 500 miles past the North Pole, most at a surprisingly low altitude, before it vanished from the Alert screens.

I have been to Alert in the Canadian Territory of Nunavut. The weather/scientific station and military base constitute the most northerly permanently inhabited place on earth. It is within the region called Baffin but the only people who are recorded as living in this large area are the 60 or so 'temporary' residents of Alert, called so because most Alert's staffers are rotated on a six to eight -month schedule.

I could imagine the concern of the controllers at Alert Airport when the blip on the screen disappeared. While they wouldn't know much more about the flight that an identification number, they would know it was a big, multi-engine plane owned and operated by the U.S. Air Force. If a plane like that came down in the Arctic expanse, it was a major, international incident that promised to make Alert a lot busier than it wanted to be. Ditto, moi.

The briefing went on, well beyond the time of the first meeting in the briefing room. No one, Alli reported, knew exactly where the flight had gone down. The Pentagon said it was receiving occasional messages via satellite phone from a survivor so they knew the flight had crashed on land or solid ice. The phone's co-ordinates seemed to put the plane, impossibly, in Alaska.

The Pentagon's top ranks knew the flight crew had died when the cockpit slammed into a rise, either of ice or rock, and was compressed to a few feet of scrap metal and human gore. Behind the cockpit and the forward loading section, the reinforced interior had remained intact but some of the passengers had been injured or killed in the crash. The satphone messages were intermittent and garbled because of atmospheric interference, according to the Pentagon, so details were still sketchy. Cockpit devices, of course, were destroyed in the mangled cockpit.

I'm a suspicious type. I wondered if it was the satphone or the generals at the Pentagon making details so scarce. With all their resources, information seemed pretty slim. Was there any reason for the generals not having more intel about the reason for the crash and the whereabouts of a large plane? If not, their actions would be inexcusable, I thought.

There were next-of-kin in the U.S. and many others who would want to know about the tragedy. The news media would want to know about it, of course. I could see why the Pentagon would want to throw a blanket over the 'punctures' in the hull and wing of the plane but not the rest. Giving the cause of the crash wouldn't be necessary under the legitimate guise the cause was under examination by the military and the transportation safety agencies in Canada and the United States? Was the 'garbling' of the satphone call true or a convenient excuse for the Pentagon to avoid disclosing information?

I posed the question and got a surprisingly candid answer. I see you've already given some thought to this, said Mrs. Gaitor. As you will know, Major, Canada and the United States are committed to sharing intelligence. We're both members of the Five Eyes, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We are members of NATO. And so on.

But... I said.

But, she stopped me with an upraised hand. But, the United States has proven over the past decade or so, it has no intention of sharing all information with its partners. It shares what it feels like and, even then, much of what it shares comes under the category of False News. President Trump turned lying into a constant habit and that habit has been adopted and perfected by many in government, She took a sip of water from a bottle.

Bottom line, Deputy Minister Archambault added, We aren't getting the whole story and what we are getting we can't believe. This is where you come in.

I looked at both of them in shock. It certainly wouldn't be a big surprise to learn that the U.S. Pentagon was covering up a crisis in one of its units. It was no longer shocking to hear senior bureaucrats of any nation criticize the Americans in this way, even in a meeting like this. For these two people to talk about our once-closest allies in this way, showed how thoroughly fed up with the Yanks for their perfidy many of us feel.

"What do you mean, 'This is where I come in?'

We know what you did in Syria, Major. When you were training Kurdish fighters near the Turkish border.

I stared at her. She may be a confidant of the Prime Minister. She may be the top security advisor in the Canadian government. She may be cleared up the wazoo by the Mounties and CSIS and the rest of the security services in the country. But, there is no way Alli Gaitor should have intimate knowledge of what happened in Syria.

With all respect, Mrs. Gaitor, My former service is need-to-know only. My voice was louder than I meant it to be but I was not only shocked, I was angry.

Not all of it, Major, she hastened to assure me. The reports are redacted, even for my level. But I know enough.

Even that may be too much, Ma'am, I said at a lower volume.

She ignored my comment and continued. We know that you found out just how duplicitous the Americans became besides their government’s assurances to the contrary . You trained and sometimes fought alongside the Kurds. You were close friends with many of them including their leaders. You were there when they learned Trump was throwing them to the killers of the Syrian regime and to the Turks. We don't know exactly what you did to help many of them get out of the path of the Turkish invasion. That's redacted. We understand, though, what you went through professionally and, understandably, personally.

I experienced an avalanche of memories. I have never seen such anger and such dismay as on the day the Kurds learned Trump had made a deal with Turkey and the Syrian government so he could claim he was bringing his soldiers home. Even those U.S. troops hadn't wanted to leave. They knew they were condemning thousands to misery and death. That day, the America's promises became one big, fat lie to hundreds of thousands of Kurds and others across the Middle East. That day, American soldiers became despised and objects of derision instead of trusted friends and supporters. It had been years since that debacle but the bitterness against the U.S. lingers.

I shared the cold anger of the Kurds. I couldn't do much to help those who were betrayed. What I did was directed not as much at the Turks as at the Syrians and their closest allies, the Russians. That was the part of the reports I hoped was redacted, blacked out so that it remained known only to those others who aided in what I did. We hoped it gave the Kurds some hope for the future and some tools they could use to fight back against their strengthened foes. We did it with the covert knowledge and support of the Canadian government so we did it believing we would be protected if the story ever surfaced.

Trump didn't withdraw all his troops from Syria. He took out only those that threatened Russian dominance over that country and its resources. He moved most troops into the oilfields of the region to protect the oil. The protection would not help the United States; it would help only the Syrian regime and the Russians who would eventually take over the fields to add to their majesty over oil used through the Middle East and much of Europe. I didn't fear my story getting back to Syria or Russia. I feared it getting to the U.S. and to the legions of extreme Right skinheads and crazies who still idolize Donald Trump. I didn't enjoy the spectre hanging over me of one of these morons opening up with an AR-15 on me and people close to me.

Don't worry, Major. Your secrets are safe, Mrs. Gaitor said with a smile. The expression was kind but I wasn't mollified. I kept my own expression neutral but said nothing. What we hope you learned from your experience is what to look for from our American cousins these days. It's a different ball game today; we don't want someone naive enough to think Americans walk on water.

I looked at her for a moment. You don't have to worry about that, ma'am, I finally told her in a voice full of bitterness.

You're not what I expected, Major. It was a candid statement and startled me because it was so personal. For one thing, you're shorter than I expected.

I couldn't help it. I laughed. I'm almost six feet, ma'am, I protested with a grin.

I thought you'd be more like six five. Wouldn't you expect that, Syl? she said, turning to the deputy minister. He nodded soberly.

What do you weight?

About 170, I answered, wondering where all this was going. You know, ma'am, most special services members are short. Most are shorter than me. Makes us smaller targets.

She laughed aloud at that. Okay. I also admit I thought you'd be better looking. Like Tom Cruise or what's-his-name, in the Bourne movies.

I shrugged. Cruise is about five feet tall.

Really? Alli Gaitor shook her head. Those Americans... liars to the man.

Or woman, the deputy chimed in. Those White House spokespeople...

We all laughed at that. Suddenly, the mood changed again.

You have a day or two to get everything together, Mrs. Gaitor said. Talk to Joe Arreak before you do anything. She stood abruptly and held out her hand to me. I jumped up, almost knocking over an Inuit carving on the coffee table. It rocked but didn't fall. I grasped her hand for a moment.

Good luck. Good hunting, said the National Security Advisor.

I wasn't sure of what she meant. Especially the hunting part. What exactly would I be hunting? Would I be hunting along with a contingent of Americans troops? And, finally, who the hell was Joe Arreak?

CHAPTER THREE

Canadian Rangers. The voice was so quiet I had to jam the phone tightly against my ear to hear it at all.

I'd like to get through to Joe Arreak. I found myself shouting into the phone.

There was a slight hesitation. Then the quiet voice again. This is Joe. What can I do for you?

You can speak up, please. I can hardly hear you, I answered. My ear was beginning to hurt. My name is...

The voice became louder and I could hear a trace of humour in it. Yes, Major. I know who you are.

I was startled. How... I began.

Joe laughed. I may be four thousand kilometres north of you but I do talk to Ottawa occasionally. My boss told me. I think you know Brigadier Mark Tiklak. He says you're a hell of a soldier.

I was a soldier, I suppose there was a hint of regret in my voice because Joe Arreak returned a brief 'mmm' of understanding. Now I'm a bureaucrat. But I know General Tiklak. I didn't know he was with the Rangers.

Joe chuckled. No, he's with military staff down south. But we're all proud of him. He's one of us but pretty high on the totem. We answer to him when we have to answer to anyone. It was my turn to chuckle.

There was a pause; then we both got serious. "I was