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At that point I thought this was all some kind of practical joke being played me. Two of DND’s biggest critics had the blueprints for special operations command’s new Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit (which used to be called the Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence Company) installation and they had no clue whatsoever what they were looking at.
I jokingly berated Mr. Staples for pulling my chain on what I thought was an elaborate stunt…. but he said he didn’t know what on earth I was talking about. He was so preoccupied with his press conference set for today that I don’t think even by the end of the day he had fully comprehended what was in his hands.
It was a truly bizarre situation. The plans for a secret military counter-terrorism installation had been sitting in the corner of the Rideau Institute’s office for a week. Neither men had realized the extent security had been breached at DND.
Then I had a another thought (my cynical side working overtime). This seemed too bizarre to be a coincidence- especially since it involved Mr. Staples and Mr. Salloum. Maybe someone was setting these two guys up for a fall. Certainly, catching DND’s critics with sensitive records might be a good way of discrediting both Mr. Staples and Mr. Salloum, since after all they had become royal pains in the ass for DND.
Had someone placed the rolled blueprints on Bank Street just so Mr. Salloum’s spouse would see them? The documents were so big….at least a metre in length, they would be impossible for someone to miss.
But as Mr. Staples kept talking, reading details from the blueprints, things started to make more sense and I eased up on my conspiracy theories. The Trenton blueprints had project identification numbers on them as well as the time, date and the name of a civilian contractor who had printed them out. (I later tracked down the name of the contractor and confirmed it)...