Chapter 31
“They’ll be all right,” said Jean-Guy, staring at the screen. “They’ll be fine.”
He sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. He was as shocked as everyone by the images of the Prime Minister of Canada effectively ordering a journalist detained and two S?reté officers beaten. And not just any officers. His friends. His family.
Beauvoir tried to tamp down his rage.
When you fight, stay as calm as the ocean …
“FINE you say?” said Ruth. “Well, that sure describes someone in that video. Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and egotistical.” She turned to Rosa. “I wish we hadn’t voted for the bastard.”
Rosa nodded. Though she had soiled her ballot.
Nichol stared at them, unsure if she loved or loathed the elderly woman. And her duck.
Myrna and Clara had tended to Chief Inspector Tardiff’s wounds, putting salve and disinfectant on the rope burns and offering her painkillers. Which she rejected.
“I need a clear head,” Evelyn rasped, wondering if her voice would ever stop sounding like Fats Waller. Her whole body ached. The wounds on her neck, where the rope had torn her skin, stung, but they also acted as a welcome counterirritant, to take her mind off her throbbing head.
But she was alive. Alive. Alive …
As the three of them rejoined the others, they heard Reine-Marie say to Jean-Guy, “You really think they’ll be okay?”
“I do. The RCMP officer pulled back at the last moment. She made it look worse than it is. And with the video out for everyone to see, there’s no way Woodford can do anything more.”
What worried him, and obviously worried the others, was that by now this video was an hour old. Who knew what had happened on Parliament Hill in the meantime.
What was happening now.
In the background the television was providing updates from Washington. The President was safe. A Chief Petty Officer was being questioned, but it appeared the assassins were dead.
There was no word on General Whitehead’s condition.
The National Guard had taken control of the capital, and a state of emergency existed. Rumors were rife that this was the first of a series of planned attacks, hitting at the very heart of American democracy.
The rhetoric was ramping up, even from seasoned reporters and anchors.
Myrna switched to a Canadian station, where there was a shot of Parliament Hill, while commentators analyzed what had been posted on Paul Workman’s site.
“Look.” Clara showed them a feed from a popular social media site. The video had been changed, edited to make it appear Gamache and Lacoste were attacking the PM and the guards were simply defending him.
“No one will believe it,” Beauvoir said. “The original is out there. What is it?”
“They’re saying that the first video is doctored,” said Clara, “and that this is what really happened.”
The edited video from Ottawa was beginning to appear on the major networks in Canada and the US, with analysts now saying that the new video made more sense.
“More sense?” demanded Myrna. “To who?”
There was a tinge of hysteria in the air, the airwaves, now.
“They’re beating plowshares into swords,” said Ruth. “What’s happening to the world? I don’t understand.”
“Believe me now?” said Marcus Lauzon. “There’s your wolf.”
Frozen on the laptop screen was the face of Prime Minister Woodford, distorted. A wild creature unmasked.
The alarm had been sounded.
Not a siren. This was an alert sent only to the men and women guarding Parliament and its perimeter. The three detainees had escaped and needed to be found.
Two of them had left the building and were at large. One was almost certainly still in Parliament. All efforts needed to be focused on recapturing him. There was reason to believe Chief Inspector Gamache was armed and planned to harm the PM.
He should be considered dangerous and stopped at all costs.
Armand pressed himself against the wall, squeezing his large body between two tall filing cabinets. The stomp of boots on concrete was getting closer. Closer.
He held his breath. All senses heightened, tingling.
And then the guards were upon him. He tensed, prepared. Then they raced right by. He waited a few moments, exhaled, and continued on.
He had no idea where he was going.
He’d taken the back stairs down, down, figuring they would lead into some warren of a basement. Which they did.
As he’d led the guards away, he’d searched his memory for anything he knew about the layout of Parliament. Despite what he’d told Isabelle, he actually had very little knowledge of the building beyond what he’d seen over the years when coming to meetings.
Unfortunately, none had been held in the sub-basement.
All he could remember now was what he’d learned fifty years ago on the tour of Parliament with his parents.
The guide had explained that everyone had expected, in the 1850s, that Queen Victoria would choose Kingston, or maybe Toronto or Montréal, as the capital of the soon-to-be sovereign nation of Canada.
The three cities vied for it, competed, wined and dined the Queen’s representatives. Lobbied, cajoled, and bribed.
And then, when the time came, she chose … Ottawa. Ottawa??
Angry city leaders claimed she’d thrown a dart at a map and hit what was, at the time, essentially a cow town.
In fact, as their tour guide had explained, it came to light later that the decision was strategic and, as it turned out, prescient.
Queen Victoria, or more likely her advisers, had chosen Ottawa because it was farther from the US border. Should the Americans invade, the PM and other leaders would have more time to organize resistance.
While an invasion in the late 1800s did not seem likely, neither was it altogether unlikely. Even 150 years ago, the danger was obvious, if not imminent.
What Queen Victoria could never have foreseen, or believed, was that the threat would come from inside the border. From inside Parliament.
But all that was useless at the moment. What Armand needed was a way out.
He had absolutely no idea of the building’s layout. Just that wings had been added over the years. Common sense told him there must be some underground connection, where equipment and documents could be moved without clattering around the main corridors.
His goal at first was to keep the guards following him until he was sure Lacoste and Shona were out. By now that must have happened. The alarm must have been sounded. He was no longer being followed, he was now being hunted.
He needed to get out too.
The sub-basement of the old building was as worn and musky as he’d expected. There were the mechanical rooms, the storerooms; file cabinets lined corridors, filled with God knew what sensitive material.
What he hadn’t found, and now needed, was a passageway that would take him to the next building over. That was his plan, such as it was. Once there he could escape and head to the bridge.
Now, as the guards closed in again, he resisted the temptation to duck into one of the storerooms and hide.
To curl into a corner, as small as he could make himself, and close his eyes.
That was a childish impulse, an illusion of safety.
If they decided to search it, he’d be trapped with no way out.
His only hope was to get to the next building.
The RCMP guards were approaching. Slower this time, sure they’d passed him by. He could hear them opening and closing doors.
Had his hearing been better, had the cicadas all left, he’d have heard another, more subtle sound. Much closer.
The same one that, earlier that endless day, had alerted General Whitehead. But even had Armand heard the cocking of a gun behind him, it would have been, as it was for the General, too late.
“All right, out with it,” Beauvoir demanded of Lauzon. “What do you know?”
Everyone else had left. Beauvoir, Nichol, Lauzon, and Tardiff sat in a circle, leaning toward each other. A conclave.
“I know that your Black Wolf is the Prime Minister,” said Lauzon. “I’ve known all along.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?” asked Beauvoir.
“I had no hard evidence, and I assumed, no, I hoped that someone would at least take the time to look deeper. Honestly, any imbecile could see that the Prime Minister must be behind it. Who else could have possibly organized all this? Who else has the ear of the American President? I was set up, and my only hope of staying alive was to keep my mouth shut.”
Now that Lauzon said it, it did seem all too obvious.
“The PM calls the shots, with Jeanne Caron his covert number two,” said Evelyn Tardiff.
“That’s it. She’s the only one in a position to set me up so perfectly. She does the dirty work, as always, while Woodford remains in the shadows.”
“For Christ’s sake, we know all that, but it’s the Prime Minister!” said Beauvoir. “We need more than the word of a convicted traitor.”
Seeing the look on Lauzon’s tired face, Jean-Guy stopped and took a deep breath, pulling himself together. When he spoke again, his voice was almost gentle. “Désolé, Monsieur Lauzon. I went too far. But we need hard evidence, and we need it now.”
“Give me the gun.” Armand held his hand out.
While he hadn’t heard the weapon being pulled, he had sensed a presence and turned quickly, just as a hand grasped his jacket and yanked him backward.
Even as he fought to stay on his feet, instinct told him it wasn’t one of the RCMP officers. They’d have made themselves known in ways that would have been unmistakable and unpleasant.
This was different. Though also unpleasant.
The guards patrolling the corridor had passed by, and now he found himself in an indent in the stone wall, hidden behind one of the tall filing cabinets. With a gun pointed at his chest.
“Please”—his voice a whisper—“Madame Lauzon.”
“So, you know who I am?”
“I didn’t recognize you,” he admitted. “It’s been, what? Twenty years?”
“Twenty-two, as you know perfectly well.”