A secret agent, two guys making bombs, a bunch of teenagers with sex on their minds, a couple of Navy SEALs, and a priest who has God speak to him down by the river. Not to mention a woman convinced she's hosting a UFO alien and the tree-covered pluton named Mount Moriah, of course .... A tender Canadian story.
Excerpt:
In the Warm Buns café Aklif, proprietor of the Corner Convenience, was talking with Abdul, the tailor. For reasons unknown to the universe, two Muslims talking hadn’t yet triggered the American Defence Response, so their conversation was unmonitored, except for pieces picked up by Wyvalla and Windsong. Those two knew their responsibilities, even if they weren’t sure who would eventually want to know. Two Muslims talking could get the Warm Buns Bakery into serious trouble.
Aklif was concerned. Since Copeman was a government agent, and they were Muslims, they were bound to be concerned. Somehow, since the fall of Nazi Germany then the Soviet Union, there weren’t too many people for the guardians of the west to watch, except for themselves, smokers, and Muslims.
“You think so?” Abdul asked. “Things aren’t supposed to work that way here.” Abdul knew that in Yemen if the police were investigating you, your kin, or anyone on the same block or in the same apartment building, it was time to start taking stock of escape routes and making up your will.
“No doubt. I do not doubt it. These millions of western people run up against a hundred crazy Muslims and suddenly they are all crazy too!” Aklif ate a sweet lemon tart which, Wyvalla and Windsong had assured him, contained no pork products whatsoever. Vegetable shortening, they said, was all they used. Being addicted to sweets from his years in Afghanistan, he enjoyed his afternoon breaks at the bakery. But he wished they’d learn to make coffee in the eastern way, very strong and very sweet. Alas, one could only ask so much in a new country.
Abdul nodded. Ever since the CIA had killed his cousin, he knew his store was bugged. He wondered if that CSIS agent, Copeman, knew that. Well, he should have; any Muslim who stayed in one place long enough would have a transmitter installed in his telephone line, behind the picture of his kids, and even, once his proctologist had been coerced, up his butt. He figured the bakery would have a camera in the Simpsons birthday cake soon, looking out of one of Homer’s eyes. “We are clean, aren’t we?” he said, meaning was Aklif hiding anything.
Aklif nodded. “I did, as you did, come to this glacier of a country to get away from such people. But,” he added, waving to Wyvalla (or Windsong; he wasn’t sure which was which and suspected they changed names every now and again) for another coffee and another lemon tart, “we may be close, too close, to some people of interest.” He rolled his eyes up and to the left.
Abdul nodded. “The Bonisteel brothers, Tom and Jerry.”
“Young guys with fake names. I don’t like that. I am suspicious of them, whether they are westerners or not. If they are up to no good, we will be the ones the next plane out of here, I think. ”
“What can we do?” Abdul looked sadly into his coffee.