Chapter 28 #3
“We still have no proof,” said Gamache.
“The video?” said Shona, sitting up now and feeling less like she was about to throw up and pass out. Maybe one or the other, but not both. “Won’t that be enough?”
“Non,” said Lacoste. “All it proves is that he lost his temper. There’ll be blowback, but he’ll manage it.”
“He threatened a journalist and had two senior S?reté officers beaten,” said Shona. “He can’t survive that, politically, can he?”
“It can be explained away,” said Gamache, “as a strong leader in a time of stress pushed to do something drastic to stop a lunatic—”
“You,” said Shona.
“—from seriously damaging international relations and maybe even provoking a conflict.”
“Would anyone believe that?” asked Shona.
“Millions believe Canada is training geese to down planes,” Lacoste reminded her.
“Napoleon is always right,” said Gamache.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we. Still, the geese … maybe not such a bad plan…”
“We need evidence,” said Gamache. “The video will help, but we need more.”
“We have the link to War Plan Red,” said Shona. “The one your person found. I sent it to Paul. If anything happens to us, he’ll release that.”
“Oui. But it’s from a site known to contain wild conspiracies,” said Gamache. “Non. Not enough.”
“Do you think Prime Minister Woodford realizes we know he’s the one behind what’s happening?”
“He does now,” said Lacoste.
“That was always the risk,” said Gamache.
They were deep inside the Parliament Buildings, and the wolf was at the door. They had to find a way out.
He turned to Isabelle. “Does it seem to you—”
“—that the guard pulled her blows? Oui. She knew exactly what she was doing. It could have been much worse.”
And would almost certainly be. Woodford could not let them leave. Ever.
In his Toronto office, Paul Workman, the former Chief Foreign Correspondent for CTV News and the most respected journalist in Canada, watched the videos.
They’d come in from two difference sources, two separate phones.
One was from his protégée, Shona Dorion.
She’d warned him something was coming, but had not said it was this explosive.
The other, incredibly, appeared to be from the phone belonging to Manon Payette, Prime Minister Woodford’s Chief of Staff.
They hadn’t just been recording the events, they’d been streaming it to him. Which was very bad news for the PM. Woodford must’ve thought in taking away Shona’s phone he’d contained the damage. Instead, he’d only managed to make it worse.
The image of a Prime Minister using violence to stop a journalist from reporting an event was shocking. Damning.
As a seasoned journalist who’d covered wars and insurrections, riots and natural disasters, few things surprised him.
But what he saw on those two feeds from Parliament left him shaken.
Made worse because he’d voted for James Woodford.
Had thought him a decent person, a man of integrity.
But the mask hadn’t just slipped, it had fallen and shattered.
He posted the raw video on his site. In doing so he placed his formidable reputation on the line. His social media was trusted by journalists and opinion makers worldwide.
Then Workman sat back and watched the views and shares tick up. And up. As the confrontation in the PM’s office went viral.
The PM’s face was thunderous.
Messages were pouring in. All red-flagged. All asking what the hell he was thinking. What the hell he was doing.
Cabinet ministers, party executives, donors, even other world leaders were forwarding social media posts containing links to videos on Paul Workman’s site. And reposted. And reposted.
Giselle Trudel, the Minister of Defense, was about to click on one when the television screens covering one wall changed. The Canadian networks had moved from the exterior of the White House to the interior of the Prime Minister’s office. And up came the video.
“Fuck me,” moaned the PM.
There for everyone to see was Chief Inspector Gamache shouting “War Plan Red,” and the PM ordering his security to violently stop a journalist from videoing it.
The feed continued even after the phone was taken from Dorion. Now, from a different angle, they saw first Inspector Lacoste, then Gamache drop to the floor, hit with the butt of a rifle, on orders from the PM.
Then the senior S?reté officer, on the ground, begged the Prime Minister to come clean about the plan.
For a moment those in the office were silent, shocked. Not that it had happened, they’d all seen it in person, but that it should be broadcast. And that there was clearly a second phone that had recorded the shameful events.
Woodford looked around. “Where’s Payette? Get her in here!”
“I’ll find her,” said Ferguson.
As he left the office, the Minister of Public Safety glanced down at the slip of paper Chief Inspector Gamache had placed into his ID.
Whether it was meant for him specifically, Robert Ferguson didn’t know, but it was put there deliberately by Gamache for someone to find. He must have gone to the PM’s office knowing what would happen. Knowing he was ending his career.
Knowing his ID would be confiscated. And so, in a beau risque, he’d written out this message and placed it where someone would find it.
Someone, Gamache was gambling, with integrity.
As he left the room, the Minister of Public Safety crumpled the paper and was about to drop it into the wastepaper basket. But, changing his mind, he put it into his pocket. And left.
The Minister of Defense watched her cabinet colleague.
Giselle Trudel had had her doubts about him for a while now, no longer believing Robert Ferguson could be trusted. She’d said as much to the PM, but he hadn’t believed her.
But since the poisoning plot, and the revelations about Marcus Lauzon, her concerns had ratcheted up.
More than once her own Chief of Staff had come to her worried that files had been compromised. And that could only be done by another minister. Or the PM.
And now this mess.
Still, Trudel was a Woodford loyalist. She knew that leaders had secrets, things that were confidential, classified.
“What’re we going to do with Gamache and the others?” she asked him.
“Let me worry about that. I’m calling a full cabinet meeting in half an hour. Be there.”
“Of course.”
Once out the door, she turned to go to her office, then changed her mind.
“They’ll be fine, they’ll be fine,” Reine-Marie repeated as she and her friends watched first Isabelle, then Armand collapse to the floor of the Prime Minister’s office.
“They’ll be fine,” Clara and Myrna, Gabri and Olivier agreed, their eyes wide with disbelief.
“Though I don’t think Woodford will be,” said Gabri. “And I voted for the shit.”
Ruth reached out a scrawny hand and gripped Reine-Marie’s.
“He’ll be fine,” she whispered. “Now that the images are out there, they can’t do anything to harm them.”
Reine-Marie squeezed the old poet’s hand. “Merci.” Then she got up and called Isabelle’s husband. And after that, Annie and Daniel.
“They’ll be fine,” she told them.
Evelyn Tardiff was barely conscious. Her breathing came in rasps as she dragged air through her slowly collapsing windpipe.
As her head was pulled back, she could see she was not alone. She had a companion in the caves. The body of Margaux Chalifoux was not two feet away.
It wasn’t enough that Moretti had her put there; she had to stare right into Chalifoux’s face, frozen and contorted in pain and horror as her own noose had tightened.
That would be her, soon.
Evelyn Tardiff, the head of Organized Crime for the S?reté du Québec, was about to die. And nobody would find her. She’d rot there.
Her legs dropped again, and her windpipe closed. She struggled, but that only made it worse, tightening the noose further. She gurgled. And then … nothing.
No more air. No more air. No more air.
The only consolation was that she’d no longer have to stare into those dead eyes of Margaux Chalifoux.