Mubin Shaikh stepped outside his apartment, lit a fresh cigarette, and peeled back the plastic lid on his Tim Hortons coffee(medium, with four creams and four sugars). A black toque covered his ears from the February cold, and a pair of camouflage hunting pants stuck out from underneath his beige, knee-length Islamic robe. "A disaster has been prevented," he said, standing on the front stoop outside his building. "I would have had to turn over my passport and find a new place to live, because it would be over for the Muslims in Canada. It would be over."

By then, Mubin Shaikh was already a household name -- the young, charismatic Muslim who told the world that he was paid $300,000 to work as an undercover agent for the RCMP. Countless Canadians had watched him on national television, recounting how he spied on some of the 18 suspected terrorists arrested in Toronto last summer. Yet there he was, months after the sensational raids, standing in plain view outside his apartment -- the very same one that Fahim Ahmad, the group's alleged ringleader, used to visit. "People know where I live," he said. "But I'm not afraid of anybody. I'm from the T-Dot, born and raised, and I ain't going anywhere."

Shaikh kept his word. Today, he still lives in the same building. His phone number hasn't changed. And his faith -- in both Allah and his decision to work for the Mounties -- remains unshakable. "This is my destiny," he says now. "I realize that more and more." Along the way, Shaikh has realized something else: being the public face of Canada's largest-ever anti-terrorism bust is, as he puts it, "no barrel of monkeys." Many in the Muslim community still resent him for "snitching" on his brothers. Some are convinced that it was Shaikh who urged them to act, then sat back and counted his cash while the others went to jail. In April, his reputation took another well-publicized hit when Toronto police charged him with assault after he allegedly shoved two Grade 7 schoolgirls.

Then there was the cocaine. Lots of cocaine. In a series of interviews with Maclean's, Shaikh admits, for the first time, that the burden of being Canada's most famous mole became too much to bear. And when it did, he turned not to God, but to hard drugs. "I spent some money on it, money that I shouldn't have spent," he admits. "The stress of my involvement was so great. Nobody has been through the situation that I have been through, and because of its impact and importance and significance -- that is one hell of a weight to realize is on your head. It got so bad for me, it just broke me. It just broke me."

Shaikh, 31, has always been honest about his younger days. He was a partier, a pot-smoking tough guy who liked to drop LSD. After high school, though, he quit cold turkey and rededicated himself to Islam. He travelled the world, visiting Egypt, Israel and other Mideast countries before spending two years teaching in Syria. He also married his wife, Joanne Siska, a Polish-born Catholic who converted to Islam. They now have four young children.

But last July, after Shaikh went public with his role in taking down the "Toronto 18," the fame proved more than he could handle. "What I was going through was so intense that I can't even verbalize it," he says now. "It really, really struck the core of me, because I was disappointed. I was disappointed with the Muslim community." Shaikh was shocked, he says, that people were questioning his motives. While visiting a local falafel shop, one woman berated him for aiding the enemy. "I said: 'Enemy? Police are your enemy? So if somebody comes and robs your store, who are you going to call? Taliban? Bin Laden?' " Even those who quietly supported his actions began to distance themselves. "I was alone. I got back into my old friends, and I started doing s--t again." Shaikh says he bought "a couple thousand dollars" worth of cocaine over a six-month span, and before long, a few casual snorts had ballooned into a full-blown habit. "There were a couple of times when I got real scared because my heart rate started blasting up and I had to call an ambulance," he says. "I started realizing: 'Oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?' " He finally phoned his RCMP handlers and told them the truth. They checked him into rehab.

That's not exactly the type of news prosecutors like to hear. Much of the crucial evidence in this case -- from wiretaps to remote-controlled detonators -- was collected with Shaikh's help. He is the government's star witness. If his credibility is tarnished, if his motivations prove to be even the slightest bit insincere, it could be a damaging blow to the Crown. Right now, police investigators are testifying at a preliminary hearing for the 14 adult suspects(what they've said is secret; the court proceedings are covered by a sweeping publication ban). Shaikh is scheduled to take the stand next. Defence lawyers can hardly wait. "I think it's essential that the Canadian public is made aware of the extent to which these young men were manipulated and directed by CSIS agents," says Dennis Edney, Fahim Ahmad's lawyer. "Particularly when one of those agents is an admitted drug addict with a powerful personality."

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