Chapter 31 #2
It was true. He knew to the day how long it had been since he’d arrested her for manslaughter, a charge her politician father had had dropped. And the high-stakes match with Marcus Lauzon had begun.
He looked down at the weapon still pointed at him. “That’s dangerous. Please give it to me.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
That shocked him. “Why would I do that?”
“My father always told me to stay well away from you. To be careful whenever I went home to Québec. That you had it in for both of us and had the weight of the entire S?reté behind you.”
“He was wrong.” Armand noticed that in her other hand she was gripping some files. “Why are you still here? You could’ve gotten out long ago.”
“I was about to, but then I heard that you’d escaped, so I waited for you.”
“Here? In the basement?”
“Where else would you go? If you were going to escape, it wouldn’t be through the front door.” She looked around. “Where’re the others?”
“They escaped out the front door.”
“Come on.”
“Really.” At least, I hope …
“How?” She thought about it. “They must’ve had help. One of the guards?”
Armand considered, then nodded. Everyone would know soon enough. “Captain Pinsent. We can’t stand here forever. Do you really plan to pull the trigger?”
“I will if I have to. You’ve caused my father, my family, enough pain. He’s a good man, you know. Far better than you realize. I needed to find out where you really stand.”
“I think you know where I stand and have all along.” He glanced down at the gun, which had not moved. “Just as you know what you did all those years ago. I wasn’t the one on the wrong side of the law then, and I’m not now.”
She looked about to argue, but instead exhaled, suddenly tired. “I need you to read this.”
She held out the files.
“I will, but first…”
She hesitated, then handed over the gun. He’d recognized it right away as S?reté issue and knew it must be Isabelle’s. He quickly took out the magazine.
“We’ll be unarmed,” she said.
“True. I have no intention of shooting fellow officers, or anyone else. Having a gun escalates violence, it doesn’t prevent it. How did you get this?”
“I asked for it at the front door. Told them the PM wanted it as evidence. I also have…”
She handed him his phone.
He noticed, without surprise, that there was no reception down there.
“We need to get out.” He tucked the weapon into his belt and the phone into his pocket.
“Non.”
“Non?”
“You need to read this first.” Once again she offered him the slender dossier. “I got it while the cabinet meeting was on.”
“I’ll read it once we’re out.”
“Now, read it now. It won’t take long. We’re not leaving until you do. It’s important. I think you’ll be surprised.”
He looked at his watch. It was one o’clock.
“What?” she said. “You have a lunch date?”
Not exactly that, but he did have an appointment with Jeanne Caron at the Haskell Opera House in three hours. But that was not going to happen unless he got out of Parliament. And he needed Marie Lauzon for that.
He took the file. The light was dim, and he’d lost his reading glasses when he’d hit the ground after the blow. But slowly his eyes adjusted.
It was just two pages. When he finished, he reread it to be sure he understood. Then he looked up at Marie Lauzon.
“You know what that says?” she asked.
“I’m not sure…”
“I think you are.”
“Do you know for sure that this”—he held up the file—“is legitimate? Not doctored. Not put there for us to find?”
What she’d found was essentially a skeleton. The structure, the core of what was planned. What was plotted. While complex, covering years and eventualities, this slender document acted as a clear schematic. Appropriately, Gamache thought, in bullet point.
It was beyond damning, if true. It named names. It outlined roles.
“It’s real. We need to get to Prime Minister Woodford.”
“Are you insane?” he asked.
“Are you a coward?”
“I’m a realist. There’s no way we’re getting to Woodford.”
“Not just getting to him, we need to bring him with us.”
He looked back down at the document in his hand. It was more dangerous than any weapon he’d ever held or beheld.
If they got caught, it would be destroyed, and they’d be killed. They’d have to be. There was no doubt now.
He raised his eyes to hers and wondered if she realized the full import of this slender document. What it was saying without actually saying it.
But that didn’t matter. Not now, not yet. All that mattered was getting it out.
He thought about taking a photo of the document, but if they were caught and his phone hacked, they’d know he and Marie Lauzon had the file. They’d be forced to give it up. He wasn’t sure how long either of them would stand up to torture.
Besides, even if he was able to send the photos of the documents to Jean-Guy and Isabelle, they would never be considered proof. Only the original would be accepted.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“Wait. Wait.” He was speaking to himself. “Wait…”
There might be a way. Not to get to Woodford—that would almost certainly fail, and they’d be caught in the attempt. And if they couldn’t get out, neither could the document. But there was something else they could do. He thought.
Think. Think it through. He stared at the file folder. Think.
The plan had been updated in the past year. It was detailed, and yet, finally, like many invasions, it came down to weather. Something the conspirators could not actually control. All they could do was wait for the right conditions.
He remembered the numbers on Charles Langlois’s map. The isobars.
“Come on.” There was urgency in her voice. “Waiting isn’t going to help. Let’s go!”
“Wait … wait…” He almost had it. There was one other thing, something he needed to—
And then it was there. FEDS.
She was pulling at his sleeve. Still he stared. And then he finally spoke.
“Where’s the corridor to the other building?”
“When the time comes, we won’t take it. There’s an unused tunnel that houses the electric cables and old pipes. We’ll take that. Later. First we need to get to the Prime Minister. Come on.”
“I’ll go with you to get him, but you need to show me the way to the tunnel.”
“In case I’m caught?”
“If you are, so am I. We can’t take this with us.” He held up the file. “We need to hide it, and the tunnel seems the best place. Then I need to get far enough up to send a couple of messages.”
“How long do we wait?” whispered Shona.
It was dank and cold beneath the stone bridge. They’d been there for twenty minutes, and there was no sign of Gamache.
“Longer.” Isabelle knew if he didn’t show soon, they’d have to leave. And leave him behind. It was no use all of them getting caught. Already they’d evaded one patrol, but eventually someone would look closer. Someone would find them.
The alarm had obviously been sounded. She wondered how Captain Pinsent was doing. Mostly she wondered about Armand.
Pulling out her phone, she wrote Jean-Guy and was about to hit send when Shona touched her arm.
“Gamache just wrote.”
Lacoste grabbed Shona’s phone. Thank God. But why would the Chief write Shona and not her? Was it a trick? Was he being forced? Or maybe it wasn’t from him at all.
But the short text contained their private code to identify themselves.
I’m FINE, the message began. It was him. And on his own phone. Which meant he’d run into Marie Lauzon. Or vice versa. And somehow he’d recovered his phone and, she hoped, her gun.
When she read it, Isabelle understood why he’d sent it to Shona. He almost certainly had very little time, maybe just enough for the one message. And it really was for the young journalist.
“I don’t understand why he wants me to do it,” said Shona.
“But can you?”
“Yes.”
“Then hurry.”
Minutes later Jeanne Caron studied the email she’d just received from the senior meteorologist and muttered, “Jesus.”
She thought for a moment.
Then she wrote a text. But didn’t yet send it.
This was happening much faster than expected, certainly sooner than was ideal. But ideal had passed them by when the poisoning plot had been discovered and stopped.
If that had worked, they’d be in the transition phase now, that netherworld between complete chaos and utter control.
The War Measures Act would have been declared and in place for a few months.
Any protests would have been quashed, the protesters rounded up.
Most Canadians would not only have accepted the draconian measures but welcomed them, as a bulwark against anarchy.
They’d be getting used to living in, essentially, a police state.
They’d happily trade freedom for safety.
History had taught those in power that frightened people always did.
Which made fear of an attack a far more effective weapon than any actual attack. And less messy.
While Canadians welcomed the strong hand of a single leader, in the United States there’d be moves to demonize the nation to the north.
The messages in the media, social or otherwise, would declare that Canada was moving into a dangerous dictatorship.
A nationalistic, fascist, protectionist state that had closed its border and was jealously guarding its resources. And had no intention of sharing.
And they would not be wrong.
Something would have to be done to bring Canada to heel and get the resources that the United States so desperately needed. And that would belong to them, if not for some arbitrary line on a map.
How bad, really, would it be to move that line? To remove that line?
That was the ideal.
Since the poisoning plot had been discovered, Marcus Lauzon arrested, and the War Measures Act made unnecessary, they’d had to pivot.
And they had. It proved more difficult to paint Canada as a threat, especially since few Americans gave the benign nation to the north a first, never mind second, thought.
But the narrative was taking hold, thanks to wildfires and sophisticated messaging.