Chapter 29 #2
A few feet away they found the body of Margaux Chalifoux. Trussed up and cold.
All three had to look away from her face.
“We need to bring her with us,” said Nichol, indicating Chalifoux’s body.
“No, she stays here.”
“But we can’t just leave her,” said Lauzon.
“And if we bring her?” said Beauvoir. “What then?”
They couldn’t very well take her to the morgue. There’d be questions as they lugged this contorted body down to the basement. And the mob definitely had informants in the morgue.
No, they had to leave Chalifoux. They’d come back for her once this was over.
Beauvoir and Nichol supported the semiconscious Tardiff as they made their way out of the cave.
Once back in the sunshine, Nichol tried to get reception on her phone. But she’d dropped it into the cold water and stepped on it. It wasn’t working. Beauvoir had lost his phone in the fight with the mob enforcer. And of course neither Tardiff nor Lauzon had one.
They’d grabbed the phone that had recorded the attempted murder but could not unlock it.
“Caron,” Tardiff rasped. “She’s behind this.”
“We got your pictures,” said Nichol, holding her tight. “We know.”
Then Tardiff’s blurry eyes focused on Lauzon. “What’s he doing here?”
“It’s okay,” said Beauvoir. “He’s with us. Do you need a hospital?”
“Non, non.” There was a deep cut on her forehead and a bloody slash around her throat where the rope had cut in. Her voice was gravelly, and her breathing came in gasps, but it was improving.
“We need to get away before Moretti realizes what’s happened,” said Lauzon, dragging Beauvoir forward.
“We’ll go to headquarters,” said Nichol as they made their way to the car.
“Non,” said Tardiff. “It’s the first place they’ll look, and who knows who’s compromised.”
“I need to find a phone,” said Jean-Guy.
They stopped at the first convenience store they came to. But there was no answer from Gamache or Lacoste. Jean-Guy left a message, then ran back to the car.
“South. Go south.”
To Three Pines. Where else would a boy on a bicycle go when the straight road splayed?
The Minister of Defense for Canada finally reached the last page of War Plan Red, where the shiny new combined nation was described.
A country and peoples enjoying security and prosperity unknown in the last half century.
A once deeply divided nation, on the verge of another catastrophic civil war, had at the last minute turned its ire outward. Northward. And was finally united.
The document described a new North America.
A place of cohesion, under one flag. A country envied by the rest of the world, where there was peace and plenty.
Where abundant water flowed south. And, with it, wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and power beyond even Alexander’s and Napoleon’s fantasies, for whoever would lead the luminous new land.
Along with a return to water security and stability and a life of plenty, there’d be a return to common values. Christian values.
Happy days.
Giselle Trudel looked up from her phone. “Dear God, it might work. Enough people might buy into this bullshit. The Prime Minister needs to see this. He needs to be told.”
She made for the door, but Isabelle Lacoste stopped her.
“He knows. Why do you think he denied War Plan Red exists, then had us isolated?”
“We’ve been through this. The Prime Minister has no idea what the US plans to do. Is doing. He might know that this plan exists, but not that it has been updated and implemented. He needs proof, and this is it.”
“That’s not it,” said Lacoste. “That’s a document anyone could have created and put on a dark web site populated by marginal conspiracy theorists.”
“Are you so sure that isn’t what’s happened?”
“People have died to get us WPR,” said Lacoste. “This is no lunatic fantasy.”
“And it’s not just the US,” said Gamache.
“Surely the document makes it clear. This didn’t start with the Americans.
It started right here in Canada. The leader, the architect, is Canadian.
We’ve already signed over vast amounts of our forestry and mining and fisheries to the Americans.
Someone powerful in this country had to do that. ”
“Yes. It was Lauzon. Remember him? A narcissistic shit-head if there ever was one. And he’s in prison. This”—she held up the phone with the document—“is out of date. Whatever was once planned has been stopped.”
“Non. Not stopped. It isn’t Lauzon,” said Gamache. “He’s been set up. We’re meant to think it’s him.”
“Are you really saying Lauzon’s innocent?”
“Well, innocent,” said Gamache. “I would never use that word to describe him, but yes, Marcus Lauzon was not behind the poisoning, nor is he behind the takeover. He’s the scapegoat.”
“Why did Prime Minister Woodford leave our meeting this morning after we told him about Whitehead’s visit to the President?” asked Lacoste.
The Minister was briefly lost in what seemed a non sequitur. “I have a feeling you’re going to tell me.”
“He said it was to get Manon Payette, his Chief of Staff, but I spoke to her,” said Lacoste. “She admitted he went into a private room and made a call.”
The Minister paled. “You think it was to the President? To warn her about what Whitehead was about to ask?”
“To someone in the White House,” said Gamache. “There was no need for him to leave to get his Chief of Staff.”
“I took Payette aside and pushed her,” said Lacoste. “She admitted nothing, but neither did she deny it. I asked her, begged her, to stream what was about to happen. She was uncomfortable and didn’t commit—”
“She did,” said the Minister. “That video of the PM was from more than one angle, one phone. The PM has sent people to find her.”
“Payette’s disappeared?” asked Gamache.
“Yes.”
“I hope she knows a good hiding place,” said Gamache. “What is it?”
The Minister was looking perplexed. “I find it hard to believe she’d help you, of all people.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Gamache.
“You obviously don’t know who she is.”
“Manon Payette.”
“Like many Québécoise whose first name is Marie, she goes by her middle name, Manon. And Payette’s her mother’s last name.
She didn’t want anyone to know who she is.
Didn’t want preferential treatment. She was my Chief of Staff, but after the poison scandal, Woodford transferred her to his office, where he could offer her some protection. ”
“From whom? Who is she?” asked Isabelle.
“Marie Lauzon.”
“Merde. Marcus Lauzon’s daughter.” Isabelle turned to Gamache. “The one you arrested for manslaughter years ago. Her father got her off and never forgave you. Tried to ruin you.”
“Not just me.” Armand wondered if they knew what Lauzon had done to Daniel.
His eyes narrowed as he quickly tried to see what this might mean. It was clearly not good news. But just how bad would it prove to be?
Though one thing was not debatable.
“We need to get out of here,” he said.
“Agreed. If you’re right, they’ll need to silence you too. I suspect the only reason they haven’t is because of that video. But something will happen to you, it has to.”
The Minister now seemed to believe them about Woodford. She looked at all three, and something dawned on her. “Huh. You knew when you arrived there was a chance you’d be the first victims of a covert war.”
“Not the first. The first was a young biologist murdered on a street in Montréal,” said Gamache. “But yes, we discussed that possibility.”
Giselle Trudel went to the door and asked the head guard to join them.
Shona looked at Lacoste, who was looking at Gamache, who was staring at the Minister of Defense, who turned to the guard.
“Arrest them.”