Road Fever by Tim Cahill Page B

Al Buchanan, recap our talk.
    “Letter to Ron Royer, thanks.
    “Letter to Alan Russell at Guinness, recap parameters.
    “Talk to Art Christy tomorrow, Pontiac.”
    Christy was a retired executive at Detroit Diesel, “a bit of a godfather of all these projects,” Sowerby explained. “He first introduced me to John Rock. I think he can help me figure out how to approach Detroit Diesel.” Over breakfast, Christy told Garry that $25,000 from DetroitDiesel might be possible. Sowerby left that meeting and flew to Toronto. He made some notes on the plane:
    “Letter to Detroit Diesel with a modified proposal about getting involved for twenty-five thousand dollars.
    “Letter to Bruce Goodsite, retired director of public relations for Detroit Diesel, help on the above.”
    In Toronto Sowerby met with GM Canada and a group called CanExpo that ships vehicle components off to different factories all over the world, including South America. Later he stopped to see his friend Finlay McDonald, who had taken some of the videotape that was shot on the Africa-Arctic run and pieced together a credible half-hour adventure film. The ambush wasn’t on film but the audiotape had been running, and you could hear Eddy Grant singing, and then there were a few isolated pops, followed by automatic-weapons fire and shouting soldiers. Garry sometimes showed the video to prospective sponsors. It caught their attention.
    Finlay McDonald introduced Garry to a man who hosted a Toronto business show called
Venture
. Sure, Garry said, he would love to do an interview, talk about his sponsors.
    F EBRUARY 19: “I’m in suite 302 in the Delta Hotel in Ottawa. Jane’s with me and she’s been on the phone for the last few days, calling all the foreign embassies in Canada trying to figure out what I need to go on the recces: visas and the like. I’ve been trying to get the government in gear in terms of giving me some letters of introduction from the prime minister, secretary of state, and from the minister of sport. My meeting yesterday with Senator Finlay McDonald certainly got things rolling.”
    On previous trips, Sowerby had dealt with other government officials, but Senator McDonald was the father of Garry’s friend Finlay McDonald, who made the video Garry uses to sell his proposal. It all fit together.
    “Finlay’s got an office in the east block of the Parliament buildings,” Sowerby said. “It’s a couple of hundred years old and very pleasant: muted yellow walls, high ceilings. The senator himself is a bit of a character and moved very fast. I sent him a letter last week. I went to meet him and he started dictating letters to his executive assistant to get things in gear. Basically I want to be able to meet with high-level diplomats in South and Central America. I want them to be informed that I’m coming. I’d like them to get that information from the ministerial level. I want to get a letter translated into Spanish on a ministerialletterhead. You never know when you can use a letter like that to impress some bureaucrat, especially if Canada is helping to fund a dam project or build a school down there.”
    Later the same day, Sowerby met with Janet Connor, an old friend of his who is an assistant to the minister of sport, and they talked about a letter of introduction from that ministry.
    Sowerby and I had agreed early on that it would be best if the expedition was perceived as a Canadian effort. The United States has an unfortunate history south of the border and Latins have long memories. There were entirely understandable antagonisms. Canadians, on the other hand, had never invaded any nation south of the United States and were, predictably, considered
simpático
.
    Late on the evening of March 3, Garry sat in his office and read off the contents of his “In” basket:
    “I’ve got a spare-parts list and a service plan. Instead of having a service depot of spare parts and engine assemblies and transmission assemblies, which we