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then other friends pick them up and truck them to here and then I help them into the States or I help them stay in this country, whatever they want. Most of them want to be in the States though.”
    Great, me vs. the United States and Canada. Semper fi , do or die! In the back of my mind the only thing I could hear were the Crash Test Dummies playing the “Superman Song.” And the only thing I could feel was a profound desire for a fix, which kind of took me my surprise. Drug addicts are never really free of their habits, it just becomes a long time between fixes, so I tried not to think about it. “What kind of cross-border route do you have?”
    Marie smiled and stirred her coffee. “A good one. Are you in?”
    Claire interrupted, “Let’s be straight about this. Monty will be helping you set things up on this side of the border, right? Not crossing?”
    “And helping me set up the safe houses here in Manitoba, making sure they’re secure. Can you do that?” Marie looked at me expectantly.
    “Sure.” I asked about the route again and she thought it over before answering.
    “There’s a First Nations band on the border with Minnesota, right on the Lake of the Woods. We move the people there and then smuggle them across the bay in small boats and up a river to where they’re off-loaded.”
    The ahwah was cold and I finished it anyway. “Who takes over from there?”
    Marie smiled and intricate patterns of wrinkles showed up beside each eye. “Some Mennonite farmers and people take them from there; they’re very reliable. And very close-mouthed.”
    Claire asked quietly, “What about out on the water?”
    “What about it?” Marie was puzzled by the question.
    I put the cup down. “I’ve smuggled before. In Canada there’s the RCMP in Manitoba and sometimes the Ontario Provincial Police cross borders. Then there’s the Federal Border Services and whoever is providing policing for the band itself.”
    Marie dismissed everything with a wave of the hand. “The band is clear. There’s only a cop there on an as-needed basis and the band is small, 200 people, and we have friends there. We just don’t bring people through if the police are awake. As for the rest of them, the RCMP are stationed twenty kilometres away in the town of Sprague and don’t come on the band’s
land unless asked. As for the Border Services, they don’t have a customs post nearer than Fort Frances, a long way away.”
    Sounded good. “Okay, what about on the US side? Their customs service is pretty good.”
    “It is. And they concentrate their attention on the posts in the eastern and western parts of the country. We’ve done research and, frankly, they don’t have a lot of resources. There’s also the anti-terrorism net and that is mostly holes, the middle of the country is wide open.” She was being dismissive.
    I probed a little. “And the crossing is in Lake of the Woods, so that means the US Coast Guard?”
    “There’s nothing. The Great Lakes are controlled by the 9th Coast Guard District, which has some Minnesota bases and some cutters stationed there but they’re all in the Great Lakes, none in Lake of the Woods. They’re never anywhere near where we are. As for the Canadian Coast Guard, they have a post in Kenora, which is over 100 kilometres away through some really complicated waterways.”
    She smiled again and shrugged. “Your best bet is to let me show you. Tomorrow?”
    I looked at Claire and she at me. We both shrugged at the same time and I answered, “Might as well; can’t dance.”

#4
    M arie showed Claire and me out and we started to walk hand in hand the six blocks back home. Out of curiosity I directed us along a different, slightly circuitous, route, along streets neither of us normally frequented. About halfway home we turned down a narrow, elm-lined street that was strangely dark. That didn’t slow me down much; being an ex-bad guy thug means I’m fairly confident I’m the most dangerous