Chapter 23 #2
All the way there from Three Pines, he’d been discussing it with Lacoste.
Getting her take. But finally, neither of them had an answer.
It wasn’t that they suspected Shona of working for the other side; it was that information was her fuel, and giving her more could, almost certainly would, propel the young investigative journalist into dangerous waters.
“You’ve figured out what’s happening, what’s going to happen,” Shona said, leaning toward him. “Come on, Papa, tell me.”
Lacoste raised her brows when she called him “Papa.” But realized it was said ironically, and maybe, maybe, with just a little nascent affection.
“In exchange for this information, you need to promise not to act on it. Not to post about it until I say so. And to leave AQB. In fact, to pack a bag and come with us now.”
“Where to?”
“First Ottawa, and then down to my home in Three Pines.”
“Where?”
“Exactly,” said Isabelle.
While the two cops stared at her, Shona Dorion had her own decision to make.
She hated, loathed, having to make any sort of deal with cops, especially this one.
But she also recognized that they were offering her an exclusive on what might be the story of a lifetime. One that could win her a Polk award.
She also recognized that she almost certainly had no choice. Gamache was framing it as her decision, but that had already been made. Unless …
“May I see the warrant?”
Lacoste got up and showed Shona a document on her phone. A warrant for her arrest.
“It’s signed by you,” she said, turning to Gamache.
“True.”
“It’s a lie. I’ve done nothing to be arrested for. This is an abuse of power.”
“Absolutely. I have, in signing that warrant, broken the law. Who knew?”
It was said with some amusement, though his eyes remained intense. She tried, tried, not to feel grudging admiration for the man at that moment.
But anything she felt was fleeting.
Armand Gamache had also arrested her mother, probably with as much cause as this warrant. It had led to her death.
“I clearly have no choice.”
“Well, you do, but it’s not a good one,” said Lacoste. “The shit’s about to hit the fan, and you’re standing right in front of it.”
“What do you mean?”
Gamache nodded to Lacoste, who showed Shona the photo sent by Evelyn Tardiff.
“This was taken by S?reté surveillance two days ago.”
Shona squinted at it, then looked up. “That’s Moretti. And he’s talking to Margaux Chalifoux. Holy shit. The head of AQB’s involved with the mob? She’s even stupider than I thought.”
“She’s far from stupid.” Lacoste clicked her phone shut. “If AQB is a front, then she’s managed to keep it under the radar for years and is almost certainly an accessory to at least three murders, maybe more. This is not someone you want to underestimate.”
“But what are they up to? You know.”
“You will not post what I’m about to say. Not until I tell you to. And then you need to use your social media to sound the alarm.”
“Well, now, there’s a problem with that, one you’ve probably already considered.”
“That you don’t take direction well?” asked Lacoste, and got a smile.
“That too, though I am willing to make an exception.” She looked at Gamache. “You tell me the problem if you’re so smart.”
“The problem is that you’ve made a career out of calling out politicians, cops, judges, corporations. You have a small and very loyal following. But it’s not enough to sound any serious alarm. Not quickly enough anyway.”
“Exactly. All it will do is alert whoever’s behind this and put everyone, including myself, in the crosshairs. But—”
“Oui?”
“There is someone who could do it. My mentor, Paul.”
“You have a mentor?” asked Lacoste.
“And you don’t?” Shona’s eyes slid to Gamache. “At least mine knows what he’s doing and doesn’t act without proof.”
“Does he have a big enough following?” asked Lacoste.
“Well, he’s unemployed, so he has time.”
“That wasn’t my question,” said Lacoste.
“Yes, he has a following.”
Lacoste studied the young woman, then turned to Gamache. “You must know other journalists, patron, contacts who can get the story out when the time comes.”
“I do. We have drinks regularly, as you know, and exchange information.”
“But?”
“While I trust them, I’m not so sure about their editors and execs.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Shona. “One of the first things any tyrant does is control the narrative. And that means controlling the media. My guy’s no longer involved.”
Gamache was nodding. “His stories no longer need to be vetted and approved. Who is he? Have I met him?”
“I doubt it. He hasn’t spent much time in Canada.”
“Does he spend time on this planet?” asked Lacoste.
“He swings by occasionally, when the Great Pumpkin allows it.”
“Good grief.” Isabelle was trying not to like this annoying young woman, but she found herself hoping her daughters might grow up to be like Shona one day.
“Not a word to him until I say,” said Gamache.
“Jesus, control issues?”
Isabelle turned to her mentor. “Please tell me we aren’t putting all our eggs in this basket case. Any other ideas?”
“None.”
Shona Dorion got up and packed a bag.
“No, I’m not calling you liars,” Prime Minister James Woodford said a couple of hours later as they stood in his office on Parliament Hill. “Though I’m not sure I believe you. I’m talking about a strategy Hitler had, a theory he described in his book.”
“Mein Kampf,” said Gamache. “A self-aggrandizing polemic written by a man on the threshold of derangement.”
“But a compelling read,” said Woodford, “for a population longing for hope, for leadership, for a way out of their degradation and misery.”
“Unless you happen to have any sort of disability. Or be gay or a Gypsy or Jewish,” said Gamache.
“My guardian, my adoptive grandmother, was Jewish. Deported from Paris. My father found her close to death in one of the camps and brought her to Montréal. She raised me after my parents died. Mein Kampf is a manifesto. A hate-filled, hateful blueprint for how to turn a friend into an enemy.”
“The necessary first step in any invasion,” said Woodford. “I’m sorry about your parents, about your grandmother. I didn’t know.”
He wasn’t the only one. Shona was staring at the Chief Inspector, surprised by this series of revelations.
“Unfortunately, Hitler was right about this,” said Gamache. “If you want to start a war, first you create a Big Lie. And, from there, a common enemy.”
Oy Gutt, his grandmother’s expression, came to mind. It was a shame they were themselves tied to the Big Truth. So much harder to believe.
“Sir, we need to take this seriously. I think there’s still time to stop it, but we need to act.”
“And do what? You still have no proof.”
“You need to speak to the American President. She must be aware of the chatter. Get a sense of where she stands.”
“Are you thinking she might be involved?”
“I don’t know. But she needs to know that we are aware that Canada is being re-framed as an enemy of the American people. An enemy with all the resources the US needs, including, especially, water.”
“Will you excuse me, please?” Woodford made for the door. “My Chief of Staff needs to hear this.”
He returned a few minutes later.
“I don’t think you’ve met everyone here. Manon Payette, this is…” The PM introduced them. “Can you repeat what you just told me, Chief Inspector?”
When Gamache finished, Payette looked at him as though the head of homicide for the S?reté du Québec was wearing a tinfoil hat.
“No offense, but are you nuts? The Americans are going to invade Canada? Are you sure you haven’t stumbled on the plans from the War of 1812, when the Americans last invaded? A war which, by the way, we won.”
“Well, that’s disputed,” said Gamache. “Though we did repel them. And yes, I’m pretty sure their plans have been updated in the last two hundred years.”
Just then there was a sharp rap on the door, and before the PM could say anything, it burst opened.
“Mr. Prime Minister, there’ve been shots fired.”
“What? You showed Gamache photographs of us together?” demanded Margaux Chalifoux. “Are you crazy?”
“I had no choice,” said Evelyn Tardiff. “He was beginning to suspect me. I had to give him something.”
“You gave him me, you dumb fuck! I’ve spent years setting up this blind, and you blow it? Now we have to sterilize AQB before they raid it, if it hasn’t happened already.”
She reached for her phone, but Moretti stopped her. “No rush, Margaux.”
Chalifoux looked puzzled, but replaced her phone.
They were in the Jean-Talon market, in one of the storerooms. It smelled of fish, and innards and broccoli on the turn. The women were breathing through their mouths. Moretti and his soldiers seemed not to notice the stench.
“She did the right thing.” Moretti looked at Tardiff. “Your informant in Gamache’s circle says they have the biologist’s laptop and the map. You’re sure of that?”
“And have found .family, oui. I confirmed it with the passwords.”
“They’ve gotten further than I’d have liked. Thanks”—he shifted his gaze—“to you.”
“Me?” said Chalifoux. “What’ve I done?”
“It’s the sin of omission, Margaux. Charles Langlois worked for you, but you didn’t know what he was doing? You didn’t realize he was collecting information on us?”
She pressed her lips together. She knew Moretti enough to know any defense was seen as an offense. And that, for Moretti, was a capital crime.
“You went to the lake with Frederick Castonguay. He trusted you because Charles Langlois did. He hadn’t yet tumbled to your rule. But then you killed Castonguay before he found the laptop. And now they have it.”
It was said in a reasonable, measured voice. Which was terrifying.
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and was about to defend herself, to tell Moretti that Castonguay only knew the lake was important but had no idea why.
When kneeling on the ground, a gun to his head, the young man would have told her everything, anything.
But he did not. By then, of course, he had to die anyway.
All this went unsaid.
There was a small commotion outside the storeroom, unintelligible voices raised slightly.
“My informant also tells me that Gamache is speaking to the PM again today,” said Tardiff.
“For all the good that’ll do,” said Chalifoux.
Moretti’s look of annoyance was followed by a tense silence, broken by more noise outside. Moretti spoke to one of his soldiers, who left. Then he turned back to Evelyn Tardiff. “I want you to plant stories with your journalist contacts telling them what Gamache is saying.”
“The truth?” asked Tardiff. “About water and the Americans?”
“Exactly. I want him portrayed as a delusional old man, a broken-down warhorse who’s taken one too many blows to the head. Who needs to be replaced before he does any real damage.”
“Look, that won’t stop him,” said Tardiff. “He doesn’t care what others think and eventually he’s going to get proof. Why not just kill him?”
“Why not?” demanded Chalifoux. “Because it’ll convince everyone that he’s telling the truth.” She turned to Don Moretti. “Has it occurred to you that for them to get as far as they have, they must be getting help?”
“Actually, it has.” He slowly turned to Tardiff, as an owl might on spotting a mouse in a dark field. “Someone here is passing along information.”
He nodded to one of his soldiers, who advanced into the room.
Dear God, help me, thought Evelyn Tardiff.
But the large man walked right by her to Margaux Chalifoux.
“Are you crazy?” the head of AQB shouted at Moretti as the soldier gripped her arm and lifted her up like a doll. “She’s the informant. Not me.”
But Moretti was unmoved. Just then his other soldier returned, whispered in Moretti’s ear, and handed him a phone.
Reading the screen, his eyes widened in surprise. He waved Tardiff over.
“You need to see this.”
What they both saw was a live news report, and under it in red letters, Shots fired.
Marcus Lauzon had just arrived in the interview room in the penitentiary when the warden came in.
“Have you heard?”
“Heard what?” Jean-Guy instinctively reached for his phone, but he didn’t have it. He’d had to leave it in the guards’ room.
Yvette Nichol typed what she’d found in Charles’s notebook. The first one. The one everyone had set aside as no longer important.
As soon as the sequence of numbers and letters was in, she hit enter. “Holy shit.”
She sent off a secure text to Gamache, Lacoste, and Beauvoir, with the link. As she hit send, her phone lit up.
“Have you heard?” Madame Gamache stood in the doorway into the study, brittle leaves stuck to her heavy sweater and one hanging from her hair. “I’m turning on the television.”
In an instant Armand took in every detail of what was happening and instinctively stepped in front of the Prime Minister, who was on his feet and looking stunned.
Members of the RCMP’s Parliamentary Protective Service with weapons drawn had poured into the room. Guns out at close quarters was a dangerous situation, Gamache knew. One could go off unexpectedly.
Or even on purpose.
As he moved, Gamache put his hand to his hip, where his holster would be, if he carried one.
Then he turned to Lacoste. But she’d had to surrender her weapon at security since Ottawa wasn’t in S?reté jurisdiction. Shona was standing frozen in place, her eyes wide, staring toward the PM and his Chief of Staff.
“Where?” Gamache demanded of the officer in charge.
“Not here. Washington. DC. The White House. Get him away from the windows,” he ordered the agents surrounding the PM. “We’re locking down Parliament, just in case.”
On hearing that the danger was not close, was not imminent, there was a noticeable relaxation on the part of the Prime Minister.
“Turn on the televisions,” he said.
Manon Payette grabbed a remote, and the bank of monitors came to life. Assorted channels appeared, from CBC to Radio-Canada to CNN to the BBC and Al Jazeera. All showed the same image. The familiar exterior of the White House used by journalists in their stand-ups.
With everyone in the PM’s office riveted on the news, Gamache took the opportunity to slip out and get his phone, left in the outer office.
He quickly returned before he was missed and sent a text: Bert, what’s happening?
The PM was also sending messages. No doubt to the President and other world leaders. Desperate for information.
Armand stared down at his screen. Nothing.
He tried again. Then he tried calling.
It rang and rang. Nothing.
If shots were fired in the White House, the head of the Joint Chiefs must be rushing over from the Pentagon. Inundated with reports on the ground.
Unless …
Unless General Whitehead had done exactly what he had done. And that was go first thing in the morning to the leader of his country.
Now Armand lowered his phone and watched the news reports …