THE GREAT NORTHERN MAPLE SYRUP ADVENTURE

PART THREE: SANCTUARY

In Parts One and Two, Fraser and Ray V followed the trail of the maple syrup from Chicago to Quebec, while back in Chicago, the 27th precinct and Canadian Consulate try to find them . In the course of their investigation, they uncovered a major international arms and drug smuggling operation. Trapped in the abandoned NORAD tunnels underground in Quebec, Meg and Ray, with an unconscious Fraser in tow, fled for their lives, only to find a doorway to ... heaven?

CHAPTER ONE

Fraser opened his eyes. He blinked several times until his vision cleared. Gradually, he became aware that he was lying on his back. In a bed. In a room. Staring up at a white ceiling. Daylight streamed through a window to his left. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was late afternoon. He closed his eyes. Afternoon! His eyes flew open. He bolted upright, then groaned as his head exploded into a million pieces. He put his hands to his temples, gritting his teeth. It felt like giants wielding sledge hammers were pounding on the inside of his skull, trying to break out.

"That'll teach you to take it slow," a familiar voice said.

Fraser pried his eyes open a crack, and saw Ray Vecchio standing over him. When Ray saw him looking, he smiled. "Welcome back, Benny."

Despite the pain, Fraser managed a sickly smile of his own. "Hello, Ray," he croaked, before squeezing his eyes shut.

Ray propped a couple of pillows behind him, and eased him back. After a minute, the pain receded to a bearable level. He opened his eyes again.

"Here," Ray said, handing him a ceramic cup. He held it steady for him. Fraser's own hands were too shaky. It was water. Cool, delicious water that soothed his dry throat. He drank thirstily.

"Take it slow," Ray urged, pulling the cup away. "You don't want it coming up again."

When he finished the water, Fraser felt a little better. He eased back on the pillows and took a curious look around. He was in a very small room, simply furnished. He was lying in a narrow bed, which lined one wall, covered by a sheet and blanket. There was a night stand, a wooden cross on the wall above the closed door, a hook on the back of that door, with a brown garment hanging from it, a straight-backed wooden chair near the bed, a book splayed page down on the floor. Ray must have been reading in the chair, waiting for him to wake.

"Where am I?"

"The Abbaye de Sainte-Jean-Baptiste," Ray said, getting the pronunciation mostly right. "It's a monastery," he added, helpfully.

Fraser frowned. It meant absolutely nothing to him. "How did I get here?"

"It's a long story," he said, slowly. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Memories of the firefight at the warehouse facility flooded him. He sat up again, alarmed. "Meg!" He looked intently at Ray. "Inspector Thatcher? Is she all right?" The sledge hammers were back. His stomach lurched and he swallowed convulsively, trying to hang on to the water.

"She's fine, Benny. Take it easy." He eased him back. "I mean it."

Fraser leaned back against the pillows, breathing deeply until the pain in his head receded once more. When he opened his eyes, he saw the anxiety on his friend's face. "I'm OK, Ray."

Ray blew out a breath, and pulled the chair closer to the bed. As he sat, he said, "You, my friend, have a pretty serious concussion. Not to mention that bum arm." Fraser's right shoulder and upper arm were bruised and swollen still, the initial damage from the snowmobile crash compounded by the pummeling from the big security guard, the one who had marched Meg into the warehouse compound at gunpoint. She had told Ray about the fight between Fraser and the guard in Antoine's office, and how she'd ended it. The look on her face when she spoke of bashing Henri's head with the phone console still gave Ray pause. Fraser was looking down at the bandage on his right forearm.

"That's the cut I sewed up for you. Remember?"

"Thirty two stitches are hard to forget, Ray."

That was a good sign, he thought. "Do you remember the barge?"

"Home crate and canned peaches, yes."

"How bout the snowmobiles?"

"Yes," he said. "Did anyone find the Arctic Cat we left at the truck stop?"

He nodded. "The Ontario Police impounded it."

"Good. That was a sweet ride."

Ray breathed a sigh of relief. Benny was battered and bruised, but he was back. Sure, he was bound to be a little fuzzy, considering. But, that freaky little-boy-lost look he'd had in the underground room was gone.

Fraser was peering at him. "What are you wearing?"

Ray looked down at himself. "You like it?" He held his arms out at his side. It was a long, brown woolen robe with a cowl, tied at his waist with a rope belt. "It's very comfy."

Fraser chuckled, then stopped abruptly as his head pounded. "It's not exactly Armani."

"Don't laugh," he said, grinning. "That's yours hanging on the hook."

For the first time, Fraser realized his chest was bare. He peeked beneath the sheet. He was naked. He looked up, noticing that Ray was clean-shaven, his hair trimmed and neatly combed. He rubbed his own jaw. His beard was gone, too. He sniffed himself. A woodsy herbal scent filled his nose. Soap! He was clean and warm. After so many days of being grubby, smelly and cold, it was a delicious, decadent feeling, quite at odds with the monastic setting.

"They have a good barber here. Brother Michael," Ray said, smoothing his hair back with one hand. "He does a great tonsil."

Fraser blinked. Barbers acted as surgeons in the Middle Ages, but ...

"You mean, tonsure," he corrected. Then, his hand flew up to the crown of his head. To his immeasurable relief, his hair was all there.

"I stopped him in the nick of time, Benny. Told him if he touched that pelt, we'd be going a round, even if it was holy ground."

"Thanks, Ray," he said, sincerely. Then, he sobered, "How long was I out?"

"You've slept a solid thirty six hours since we entered the Abbey. A few hours before that, you were kinda in and out."

"Thirty six hours," he breathed, in disbelief.

"Brother Nathaniel - he's the doctor here - didn't want you traveling a coupla hundred miles over rough roads to a hospital. He's been taking real good care of you." He pointed to a clipboard on the night stand. "Someone's been with you all the time. Every twenty minutes, a monk was taking down your pulse and respiration rate. Making sure you didn't have a problem." Ray had told Brother Nathaniel about the plane crash last summer and the bizarre effects of the head injury Fraser had suffered at that time. Since he'd been carried into his infirmary, Nathaniel had been watching Fraser, like a hawk.

"But, thirty six hours!"

He shrugged. "Well, thirty. You've been stirring for the last six so they eased up on that. Brother Nathaniel figured you'd come around soon. Do you remember falling?"

Fraser frowned at him.

"Or the tunnel?"

"Tunnel?" His brow furrowed. "Tunnel. I'm not sure what I remember." He rubbed his forehead. "I've been having some odd dreams. Very odd."

Ray averted his eyes. "Like what?" he asked, a little too casually.

Fraser paused, gathering his thoughts. "Shooting a car so it would explode." A horrified expression crept over his face. "That wasn't ... I couldn't ... I didn't blow up your Riviera?"

Ray laughed. "No, she's safe and sound in Chicago. But, that was real. What else?"

"Climbing a glacier in the middle of a blizzard?"

"Dream. What else?"

The look in his eyes grew faraway as he struggled to remember. "The mountains. Fortitude Pass. I found ... " His expression darkened as he trailed off. "Never mind."

"Victoria?" Ray said, softly.

Fraser looked up, sharply.

"You were out of your head. You called her name a coupla times." At his alarmed expression, Ray quickly reassured him. "That's all. Just her name."

He swallowed. "So, not real, then."

"Not real," he confirmed, then quickly moved on. "What else do you remember?"

"A cave inside a mountain?"

"Well, we were in a tunnel under a warehouse. Half-dream, half-real. What else?"

"You'll laugh, Ray."

"I could use a good laugh. What?"

"I remember ... a red light. You and the Inspector ..." He waved a hand dismissively. "No, it's too bizarre."

"What?"

"Well, you and Inspector Thatcher were ... uh, locked in a passionate embrace." He laughed softly. "Weird, eh?"

Ray forced a laugh. "Me and the Dragon Lady?! Ha! Ha! Ha!" He punched Fraser lightly on his left arm. "Good one, Benny!"

"I know!" He chortled. "That's it. Oh, except ..." He looked sheepish. "I thought I saw an ... angel ... who appeared out of nowhere and guided us to safety." He shook his head, gingerly. "Some dream. I must have really been out of it."

"That, my friend, was no dream."

"Very funny, Ray."

"No, really," he insisted, "I saw him too."

Fraser was looking at him suspiciously, sure that he was pulling his leg.

Ray explained. "Except, his name is Brother Charles and he's one of the monks here." He settled back in the chair. "You see, Benny, seems there's this whole underground system of tunnels left over from an old NORAD site. Closed up when your government sold off the land in the seventies." He leaned forward. "Depardieu's warehouse - do you remember Antoine Depardieu? The guy whose Caddy you blew up?"

Fraser started to shake his head, then squinted in thought. "Wait! Do you mean the Boss, the one who yelled at Francois and Andre?"

"That's him. Turns out he's Toothpick Nardo's brother-in-law!"

He was delighted. "You were right, Ray!"

"So, were you," he said, grinning. "He's the other end of the smuggling operation. I'll explain all that later." He went on. "Anyway, all these tunnels were interconnected at one point, but were closed off when they sold the parcels to the public. The one we followed here -." He paused. "Oh, wait, you wouldn't remember that. After you blew up the car, you got hurt falling into the smugglers cache. You landed first, and then, we did a pile driver on top of you. I think your head got dribbled on the concrete floor a couple of times."

Fraser reached up and touched the back of his head. He winced at the lump he felt there.

"Ouch," Ray said, in sympathy. "Anyway, we followed the tunnel from the cache all the way to a dead end under the Abbey here. There was an old door down in their sub-basement, where they brew the beer." He spoke excitedly. "I know you don't drink, Benny. But you gotta try the beer here, when you're feeling better. It's great. Especially, the dark ale. They call it 'Elixir Celeste'." He translated, "The Heavenly Potion." He licked his lips.

"Ray?" he prompted. "The angel?!"

"Oh, right. Anyway, me and Meg - I mean, Inspector Thatcher - and you, of course, on the cart –" He caught Fraser's confused expression. He was really loading him up on way too much exposition. "I'll explain that later, too. Sorry about the knees, by the way."

Fraser looked down in alarm. He was relieved to see he still had knees. He moved his legs experimentally under the covers. Sore knees. And, a sharp pain in a new place.

"Butt hurt?" Ray asked, sympathetically.

"Yes."

Ray looked solemn. "That's where you got shot in the can." Then, he burst out laughing.

Fraser reached down under the covers. His left buttock and hip were very tender, but there was no wound, no bandage. He looked back at his friend, who was holding his ribs, tears streaming down his face. He waited patiently until Ray wound down and explained about the bullet deflected by the folded peach can in his back pocket.

"How long have you been working on that joke, Ray?"

"Since yesterday," he admitted. "OK. Back to the angel. There we were, trapped in that underground room, bad guys on the way, me pounding on the door ... when Brother Charles comes down to start the mash for the next batch of beer. He heard me. It took him awhile to move all the stuff out of the way, but he finally gets to the door. Now, he really had to shove, that door hadn't been opened in over twenty years. And, there he stood in his long, white robe, the light behind him. He looked just like an angel. We all thought so." He chuckled. "Even Meg." He added, "The brothers had just started their morning services with one of those whatchamacallits. DeLorean chants."

"Gregorian," Fraser corrected, automatically, though he was reeling as he tried to take it all in.

"Right! So, there's the light, the music, the angel. It was incredible!"

Fraser's headache had worsened considerably as he had listened to the story. He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes. Ray noticed how pale he'd become. He'd been warned not to overdo it by Brother Nathaniel. He patted Fraser's arm. "That's enough for now, I think. Why don't you get some rest?"

He wanted to protest that he'd slept thirty six hours straight, but when he opened his mouth, he yawned hugely. "'scuse me, Ray." His eyelids felt very heavy all of a sudden. "Where is the Inspector?"

"Oh, she's next door at the Depardieu facility. It's a madhouse over there. We've got the Surete bigwigs up from Montreal, some OPP head honchos, and a couple of top-level Mounties from Ottawa pow-wowing over all this. It's a big bust and everybody wants a piece of it." He grimaced. "I'm glad I'm out of it."

"But, Meg's OK?" he murmured, sleepily.

He nodded. "Meg's OK."

And with that, Fraser was gone. Ray moved the chair back against the wall and picked up his book. He'd tell him the rest of the story tomorrow. For now, he didn't need to know that Ray was under house arrest, confined to the monastery and its grounds until his status was determined. Turns out the Canadian government doesn't take kindly to foreigners who violate their gun laws and shoot up their citizens, even in a good cause.

He moved to the door. As he reached for the knob, there was a soft tap. He opened it. Meg was there. Putting a finger to his lips, he let her in and shut the door behind her.

She looked a question at him.

"He woke up," Ray said, softly. "We talked, briefly."

"And?" she said, anxiously.

He smiled. "He's OK. He's sore, a little woozy, major league headache. Mostly, he doesn't remember anything after he blew up the car, but his memory seems intact before -"

"What do you mean 'mostly'?"

He scratched his head. "Like in dreams. It's all jumbled. Glaciers, blizzards, caves, angels, Victoria, his father ... us." He glanced shyly at her. "He can't tell what was real and what wasn't."

Her expression didn't change when he said "us." So, denial was still the way she wanted to play that. Well, Ray was pretty good at that game, too.

"He'll be all right?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'm on my way to tell Nathaniel that he woke up."

She glanced over at the sleeping man. Then, back at Ray. "And how are you?"

He looked at her. "I don't know. How am I?"

She blew out a frustrated breath. "Hard to say. I'm doing my best, Ray."

So ... the duration continued. "I appreciate that, Meg."

"It's just that ... an American ... shooting Canadian citizens on Canadian soil tends to dredge up a lot of ... issues ... that really don't have anything to do with you as an individual."

"But, I'm a cop."

"Not here." She looked back at Fraser. "If he's awake tomorrow, they're going to want to take his statement immediately."

Ray bristled. "Jeez! Can't they cut him some slack?"

She flashed a smile at his mother-hen reaction. "I think he'd want to, if he knew that it would help you." She added, "Brother Nathaniel will have to approve it, of course."

Slightly mollified, Ray said, "OK."

She looked him over. "You should take a nap before dinner. You look all in."

Ray had been busy, too, watching over Fraser, reporting long-distance to Welsh, checking in with his family, and being questioned by a coterie of Canadian cops.

"I will." He opened the door. She was looking back at the bed. "You coming?"

"I'll just ... uh... " she nodded toward Fraser. "Be a moment."

"Understood," he said, softly. "See you later, Meg."

She nodded. He closed the door behind him as she approached the bed. Fraser, eyes closed, lay propped up on pillows. She almost removed them so he could lie flat, but decided not to disturb him. She studied his face. He was pale, thinner than he'd been in Chicago. Dark shadows smudged his eyes. His right arm and shoulder were a mass of bruises down to the bandage on his forearm. But, the monks had bathed and shaved him, in addition to treating his hurts. He looked more like himself. She laid a gentle hand on his forehead. He stirred slightly at her touch, without waking. This was normal sleep, she saw. Not that helpless, dead-to-the-world state that could have so easily tipped over into the real thing.

It was peaceful in this tiny room. She found she craved that peace. Since Brother Charles had opened the steel door in the sub-basement, events had proceeded at break-neck speed. She had hurriedly explained the danger to the astonished monk, who immediately granted her request for sanctuary. Ray had carried Fraser through the door and laid him on a heap of burlap bags filled with barley, then she had helped him with the bound, unconscious Antoine. There was nothing to be done for Emile and they had left him where he had fallen. Meg didn't breathe again until that steel door was shut and a heavy piece of equipment moved back in front of it.

Brother Charles, bless him, had quickly rallied the troops, or rather, the brethren. The injured men were brought at once to Brother Nathaniel's small infirmary. She had left Ray in charge on that front, while she had begged for a telephone. Officer Truffaut had immediately grasped the situation, the vulnerability of the Abbey once Depardieu's minions figured out where they must be, and the need for urgent action. His small force was there within the half hour. And, he had called in reinforcements. Braithwaite and the OPP showed up right behind them. Working together, the provincial forces had sealed the perimeter of the Depardieu Distribution Center and secured the Abbey. When the SWAT troops arrived by helicopter from Montreal, they had moved in.

To Meg's great relief, no shots had been fired. Antoine's second in command, somewhat at sea without him, had attempted to bluff it out, denying any wrongdoing. Confident that they had sanitized the premises, that the contraband was undiscoverable, and that the infiltrators were trapped underground in the maze of subterranean tunnels, he had consented to a premises search. But, Meg knew exactly where the illegal goods were stored and how to open the secret cache. They had seized the drugs and weapons and arrested the employees on site, some thirty eight in all. Not counting Antoine, who had woken up in the Abbey, spitting mad. Or Emile. He had been the sole casualty. There were wounded, of course, from the gun battle at the garage. But, none of those injuries were life threatening.

There was still much to be sorted out. The suspects had "lawyered up," to quote Ray, but he was confident that all thirty eight were unlikely to stand moot. But, Fraser and Vecchio had moved across state, provincial and international borders in their incredible journey. There were legal issues to be resolved at the highest levels. Ray was the most vulnerable. Meg had found, to her great surprise, that she cared deeply what happened to him here. She sighed. She supposed they had "bonded" by their experiences, as much as she hated that word.

One thing puzzled her. This whole adventure had started when Fraser discovered the Quebecois Dark Reserve in a Chicago eatery. Yet, they had found no trace of maple syrup, premium or otherwise, in the smugglers cache or anywhere in Depardieu's entire facility. Meg knew, of course, that a warehouse complex, part of the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve's network, was only a stone's throw away from Depardieu's site. That facility was situated on another one of the parcels that was sold off by the government in the decommissioning process twenty five years ago. But, as part of its security protocols, it was hidden under a cloud of disinformation. The fact that one third of the nation's maple syrup supply was stored at a nearby warehouse under the name of Fleming Manufacturing and Supply was top secret. Even Officer Truffaut thought that the Fleming company site housed parts for farming and snow removal equipment.

After the facility was secured, Meg had conferred privately with Wendy Morris, her old friend in Ottawa. Wendy had leaked the locations of the syrup sites to her prior to Meg's flight into North Bay. Now, she confirmed that the syrup stores were regularly inventoried by government auditors. The last inventory had been completed the week after Fraser had tasted the Quebecois Dark at the Chicago café for the first time. Nothing had been amiss. All the syrup had been present and accounted for at that time.

Now that Meg's missing officer was safe and sound, Wendy had begged her to keep the issue to herself, or they would both be in hot water. As far as Meg could tell, only she and Ray knew the location, and she had sworn him to secrecy on pain of disembowelment. The knowledge that the Reserve location was due east of Depardieu's property had saved their lives, leading them to take their chances with the eastern tunnel with the faint hope that they would find the Reserve and some egress out of the tunnel system that way. Instead, they had dead ended at the Abbey, which was situated in the middle, the halfway point between Depardieu's facility and the Reserve site on the opposite side of the Abbey's grounds. And, they had arrived, providentially, on Brother Charles' day to start the next batch of beer.

Over a pot of tea in the small parlor downstairs, Ray had filled her in on all the details of what had happened since he and Fraser disappeared from Brannigan's Wharf. She had been on the edge of her seat as he related a tale which had begun at a Chicago dockside, and spanned two Great Lakes, a waterway exchange of barges, the storm, the fight at the dock, the snowmobile chase, the pond, the truck stop, the warehouse, and finally, the Abbey.

They had both puzzled over the maple syrup. Ray told her of his and Fraser's conclusion that the syrup was never intended to be sold on the black market. Meg and Ray now surmised that it had been a bonus that Antoine had added to the shipment, a gift between brothers-in-law. Meg's best theory was that Antoine had secured a personal supply from a disgruntled syrup producer, who had refused to turn over all of his stock to the cartel. The fact that tracing the syrup had led her deputy liaison officer to a major international drug and arms smuggling operation had been, amazingly, a coincidence. Ray had shrugged philosophically. "Welcome to Fraserland, Inspector."

She sighed, wearily. There was nothing further to do tonight. To quote Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow was another day. She brushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead, and let her hand linger there a moment. "Sleep well, Ben," she whispered. Just then, there was a soft tap on the door, followed by Brother Nathaniel toting his medical bag. She left him alone with his sleeping patient and retreated to her own narrow bed for a nap before dinner.