Chapter 32 #2
Beauvoir dragged the unconscious man into the woods, cuffed him, and picked up his rifle. Crouching down, he looked across the airstrip. There was no sign now of the second guard.
Nichol had done her job.
Lacoste crept forward, then paused and looked behind her.
“Are you getting this?”
“If you mean a nice shot of your ass, then yes.”
The Reuters reporter smiled. They were now in Workman’s office, watching the live streaming on his laptop.
Oddly, that was always her worry. Not just that she’d be killed while covering a war or natural disaster—that would be bad enough—but that the last photo of her would be of her ass, since the photographer with her was always “bringing up the rear.”
“What’s so funny?” Paul asked, his censure obvious.
“Nothing.” Though she suspected Paul and all other male reporters were even more vain and had the same fear. That the last photo of them would be deeply unflattering. And would be the one that won a Polk.
Isabelle Lacoste turned back toward the activity in front of them.
The planes were almost loaded. It was now past four in the afternoon. Would they take off or wait until morning?
If she’d filled in the blanks correctly, those canisters contained some sort of firebomb. Napalm or the like. Against a night sky the resulting fire would look like Armageddon.
If she was calling the shots, she’d make sure those planes got off the ground and dropped their bombs in time for the six o’clock news.
“Isabelle?”
The tone of Shona’s voice froze Isabelle’s blood.
“Oh, shit,” said Workman.
His Reuters colleague was staring at the screen, no longer smiling.
The S?reté inspector had been struck hard and fallen to the ground.
The phone streaming the images also dropped. Then went dark.
“Is that…,” began the Reuters journalist.
Workman was already on it, going back a few seconds. As the phone slipped from Shona’s hand, it hit the ground, bounced, and a moment before it went off, a face appeared.
“Robert Ferguson.”
“Your Minister of Public Safety.”
“After seeing that video from Parliament,” Caron said, getting up and moving to greet Gamache, “I’m surprised you made it. How did you get out?”
“I had help. Seems not all the RCMP guards are willing to just follow orders.”
“Thank God for that.”
She noticed movement behind Gamache, on one of the balconies. A sniper was steadying their rifle. Waiting for her signal.
Armand seemed oblivious. Clearly whatever instincts he once possessed had been blunted.
“We haven’t much time,” he said. “Fortunately, we got Woodford out. We also found this. It’s pretty damning.”
He held up the dossier.
“What do you mean you got Woodford out?” she demanded. “You kidnapped the Prime Minister?”
He offered her the file. “Here.”
She took it. “Where did this come from?”
“The office of the Minister of Defense.”
Jeanne Caron was silent as she looked down at the file, but did not open it.
“I think you already know what it says,” he continued, quietly. “Since you wrote it.”
“I did no such thing. What’re you saying?”
“Why’re you objecting, if you don’t even know what’s in it? It might be good things. Or it might be the outline for the revised and updated War Plan Red.”
The two stared at each other.
“You’re a fool, Armand.” She stepped away and nodded toward the balcony and waited for the sharpshooter to take the shot.
Nothing happened.
“Jeanne Caron?”
She turned.
A man, familiar, though she couldn’t quite place him, was walking toward her from the far door. He was in uniform.
“I’m arresting you under the Homeland Security Act on charges of terrorism.”
“What the hell is this?” she demanded, turning back to Gamache, whose face was neutral.
Not yet panicked, she waited for the shots that would drop Gamache and now this other man.
None came.
She turned back to the man, and now recognized him. It was the valet from the Oval Office that morning.
They had to move quickly now.
Nichol closed in from one side, Beauvoir from the other.
His targets were Moretti’s people moving the containers to the planes. Nichol had only one goal: Don Moretti himself.
She got there first, coming up behind the mafia boss, who clearly felt he was perfectly safe.
She placed her gun at the base of his skull. “Joseph Moretti. Agent Nichol of the S?reté du Québec. You’re under arrest.”
“What the fuck?” He whipped around and reached out for her.
She pulled the trigger.
All activity on the airstrip stopped, the moment frozen in time. Then, quick like lightning, everyone turned and looked toward where the shot had been fired.
Everyone except Beauvoir. He’d been trained well enough, by the best, to just keep going.
“Don’t look back,” Gamache had always warned them. “You need to keep your eyes on the target. That must be your priority. Keep moving forward, no matter what happens.”
And Beauvoir did. That moment’s pause gave him time to reach the first man and drop him with a sideswipe. Then he turned and fired, just as another pulled a gun and was about to shoot.
The man dropped. But now two others closed in on Jean-Guy. He could never get both.
“Arrêtez!” It was Nichol’s voice, commanding.
And then another sound. A man screaming in pain; then his voice, strangled but recognizable: “Stop.”
It was Moretti. He was kneeling on the ground and bleeding from a bullet wound to his shoulder. Nichol had him in a headlock and was pressing her fingers into his wound. He was writhing.
“Do as he says,” she commanded, “or—” Without hesitation she dug her fingers in deeper and he screamed.
There was a hesitation, then they dropped their weapons.
Beauvoir scooped them up.
“Open it.” He pointed to a canister.
The man looked to Moretti, who gasped in pain and nodded.
First one, then another, then another, until all the drums had been opened.
“What?” said Nichol, still holding up a now semiconscious Moretti. “Napalm?”
“Sand.”
“Can’t be.”
“All of them. Just sand.”
Moretti, eyes closed, managed a chuckle. “Damn Caron. She’s fucked us all.”
Beauvoir stared in disbelief at the sand. It was the wrong airfield. They were in the wrong place. The bombs were somewhere else.
“You’re American,” shouted Jeanne Caron. “You have no jurisdiction here.”
She backed away and bumped into Gamache, who didn’t move, except to point to the floor. And a thick black line.
He was on one side, and she on the other.
“I’m Chief Petty Officer Oscar Flores. You’ve crossed illegally into the United States, ma’am. I can and will arrest you.”
Once again Jeanne Caron looked around, searching the balcony, the stage, the entrances and exits for Moretti’s people. And there were men and women standing there. In Canadian uniforms on one side and American uniforms on the other.
She turned to Gamache, who looked anything but triumphant.
But she did. There was malevolence in her eyes, in her voice.
“You really are a fool. This won’t hold.
I’ll be out in days, if not hours. And then there’ll be no mercy.
When they’re finished firebombing the forests, we’ll turn on your little village and obliterate it.
As punishment, and a warning to anyone who also thinks they can stop us. All you’ve done is made it worse.”
Gamache ignored Caron and turned to Flores. “General Whitehead?”
The officer shook his head.
As he left, Armand glanced toward the empty stage.
So don’t be so na?ve, and take that heart off your sleeve,
For a fool and his life will soon be parted.
War’s a fact of life today, it will not be wished away,
Forget that fact, and you’ll be dead before you started.
Stepping into the cool late-afternoon air, Armand could smell the earthy forest, the sweet pines.
This needed to end. And it would, before the sun set. One way or another. He desperately wanted to head north to the airfield, but knew by the time he got there, it would all be over.
Whatever the outcome, his place was back home.
I’m dreamin’ of the trees in Canada, Northern Lights are dancing in my head.
If I die, then let me die in Canada, where there’s a chance I’ll die in bed.