CHAPTER ONE

They told me that they had been watching me. An odd thing to say to an employee of the federal government of Canada. I thought, perhaps, it was part of a performance review. It was not unheard of in Ottawa in 1958. But there were rumours, chilling accounts of similar revelations. I was working on foreign trade, lumber exports to the United States, and overseas. I was highly educated with a degree in Forest Management and Silviculture. I was told that two men were waiting to see me in the lobby of our office block. They didn’t say who or why, but that it was a serious matter and that I should attend at once, and that there was nothing to fear. Perhaps, I thought, it was one of the Americans that I had met with over softwood lumber. Meetings had been going on all week. Or, perhaps, it was the businessman from B.C., who was looking for new markets, new opportunities. I got on quite well with him. But I was afraid. It was a feeling I had. There was something malicious on the wind that was rushing down the city streets. And it had the face of the trusted.