Free Deadline by Stephen Maher

need to find out for me, okay? You need to go and see Jack, and you need to ask him to give you the BlackBerry, and give it to me. It’s really important that we see that phone before the police do. It’s a question of national security.”
    “That’s what Cochrane said,” said Sophie.
    Mowat and Bouchard exchanged a glance.
    “Well, you let us know before you tell anyone, Sophie,” said Bouchard. “Okay?”
    “Yes, of course,” she said.
    Mowat took hold of her by her shoulders.
    “Can you handle this, honey?” he asked. “Are you strong enough?”
    Sophie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I have to find out what happened to the BlackBerry.”
    “And don’t tell anyone that we had this talk, okay?”
    “No,” she said. “Of course not.”
    “That’s my girl,” said Mowat. “I’m proud of you. In the years ahead, I’m going to need people who can keep cool when things get hot. I won’t forget how tough you are.”
    Awkwardly, he hugged her again, and stood.
    “Now, are you finished with that darned thing, Claude?”

    The first taste of beer brought Macdonald back to life.
    After his interview with Flanagan, he thought his hangover would kill him. The stress of the day settled on him like a heavy weight, and he was suddenly terribly thirsty. He drove to his little Sandy Hill apartment, left his car in the parking lot and walked straight to Chez Lucien, a hole in the wall in the Byward Market, with friendly waitresses, a jukebox with no bad songs, and a long wooden bar where you could sit and drink pints in peace.
    The first pint of Griffon Blonde took the worst edge off his hangover, and Jack had a chance to think back through his long, strange day: the police interview, the chaos on the Hill following the news that Stevens was resigning, and his terrible hangover from that morning.
    By the time he started his second pint, he was thinking back to the night before and how hammered he’d been to agree to go to Pigale at 2 a.m. on a Monday.
    He could remember arriving, taking a table near the main stage, ordering four beers and staring at the naked, tattooed girls crawling on stage. After a few songs, they had gone out for a smoke out in the cold. Jack remembered Ed babbling at him as they shivered and sucked at their cigarettes, his Newfoundland accent stronger than usual.
    “B’y, I’m going to own this fucking town inside a year. Just you wait, buddy, I won’t forget you. I’ll hire you to be a D Comms, and you can forget about being a fuckin’ reporter.”
    “Don’t be so foolish,” said Jack. “You’re a just a little Newfie crackie, like me, buddy, yappin at the heels of the old bastards who run this town.”
    “No, I’m making a move. You don’t believe me, but it’s true. I’m going to be on my way to the top soon enough.”
    “Sure, b’y, I’m sure you’ll be prime minister inside a year.”
    “I won’t be prime minister, but I might be at the right hand of a prime minister.” Taking in Jack’s drunken, sceptical face, he had laughed. “Do you know the definition of a transition period? The period between two transition periods. Think about it.”
    After that, Jack couldn’t remember much but getting into another cab.
    He took a drink of beer and pulled Ed’s BlackBerry from his pocket, and put it on the bar. He took the battery from his and put it in Ed’s.
    When it was booted up, Jack hit Unlock. The screen gave him a password prompt. He sat there staring at the screen. He had already tried SOPHIE. He tried NEWFIE then TOWNIE.
    Jack drained his second pint, dropped the phone back in his pocket and headed downstairs to the bathroom.

    Balfour was at home watching a porn video on his home computer, one hand down the front of his sweat pants and the other gripping a bubba cup full of Jack Daniels and Diet Coke, when his phone buzzed. He pulled his hand out of his pants, hit pause, the screen freezing on a close-up of fellatio, and grabbed the Berry. It was an automatic