The Black Wolf: A Novel By Louise Penny - 23

“What do you want?”

“To apologize.” Nichol was whispering into the phone. It was the next morning and the others had left, and left her alone. Of course. Still, she needed to be careful. “And—”

“Apologize?” demanded Evelyn Tardiff. She didn’t need to whisper. She was in her office at Sûreté headquarters with the door closed. And no assistant out front. Of course. “For which part? Spying on me? Leaving me? Betraying me?”

“But you knew that’s why Gamache put me in your office. You wanted me to report back to him.”

“That doesn’t make what you did any better. And now you’re with him. You said you were sick, but instead, you deserted me.”

“But we’re all on the same side, non? How can I desert to my own side?”

“You know what I mean.”

Nichol did, and she didn’t. She understood that she’d lied to her Chief. But then Chief Inspector Tardiff had lied to her.

Earlier that morning, before the sun was even up, the four of them had sat at the long pine table in the Gamaches’ kitchen.

A fire was lit in the woodstove at the far end of the room, taking the damp and chill off. The old percolator was bubbling away on the counter, sending coffee vapor into the air.

“No, patron , there’s no way to find out who’s feeding those sites,” Nichol had said, in answer to his question. “That’s the whole point of them. .onion is deep enough, encrypted and protected. But .family is something else.”

“Keep trying.”

“Waste of time, but okay.”

“There are other lines of inquiry,” said the Chief Inspector.

“Thank God for that,” muttered Nichol.

“Any luck tracking the plane that flew Castonguay and his killers to the lake?” Gamache asked.

“Not yet,” said Beauvoir. “We’re scouring the airports and flying clubs. Especially the fish and game clubs. It would help to have some idea of the date.”

Lacoste was shaking her head. “He’d been in the ground too long. You saw the report. Dr. Harris just said weeks.” She turned to Gamache. “I’m trying to track down the corporations that paid to take over Canadian primary industries. We know it was billions and the money was laundered through Action Québec Bleu. Anything from Agent Fontaine?”

“Not yet.”

“From Shona Dorion?”

“Only the isobar information. We’ll stop on our way up to Ottawa and take her with us.”

“Willingly?” asked Jean-Guy.

“If not…” Lacoste showed him what was on her phone.

“Don’t you just hate people who make life difficult?” asked Nichol.

Beauvoir no longer knew when she was kidding. And no longer cared.

“And you, Jean-Guy, need to get up to Archambault and interview Marcus Lauzon again. Get him to admit the payments and tell us who they were from.” Armand leaned forward, his eyes intense. “I think that’s our best hope, our way in. We just need one of those corporations. One Chief Executive. One comptroller to testify. One witness.”

“But they’d never admit it,” said Lacoste. “For no other reason than that they’re terrified of Moretti. They know what he’ll do to them, and their families, if they talk.”

“We need to convince them that he’s going to kill them anyway. Their only hope is to help us stop this.”

“But why would Lauzon give us a name now?” asked Jean-Guy. “He’s denied everything so far.”

“Why would he warn us about FEDS?” asked Gamache.

It was rhetorical. He really didn’t know. What he did know was something no one else had seen: the former Deputy Prime Minister’s eyes as he’d stumbled into Armand and whispered his warning about FEDS. Armand knew terror when he saw it, and he’d seen it then, in that split second.

“Lauzon obviously didn’t want Tardiff to hear him,” said Beauvoir.

“That must be a mind-fuck,” said Nichol. “Trying to throw suspicion on her.”

“Maybe,” admitted Gamache. “You’ve worked closely with Chief Inspector Tardiff. What do you think of her?”

“You’re asking if she can be trusted?” There was silence while Agent Nichol considered. “I would. I do.”

Gamache turned to Isabelle. “Agents are still watching Margaux Chalifoux’s home?”

“ Oui ,” said Lacoste. “They reported a few minutes ago. She isn’t up yet.”

Gamache looked at his watch, then got up. “I need you to come with me. Jean-Guy?”

“I’ll head up to Lauzon.”

“What about me?” asked Nichol.

“You stay here.”

Of course , thought Nichol with a scowl.

“Keep trying to get into those last .family sites. They must be important if they’re so protected.”

She heaved a sigh so forceful, her lips fluttered in a raspberry.

“Gamache thinks there’s a chance you’re working for Moretti,” said Nichol.

“And you?”

“No. I know you’re trying to stop him. I called because I don’t think Gamache will tell you, and you need to know what we’ve found.”

“Go on.”

When Yvette Nichol finished, Tardiff said, “So he has the laptop. No, he didn’t tell me. Has he found Charles Langlois’s map?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck. I need that password.”

“ Oui, patronne. ” Though there had been a slight hesitation.

“You aren’t doubting me, are you? Gamache hasn’t gotten into your head.”

“ Non, patronne. ” Yvette Nichol hung up and hit send on the password, then sat back in her chair in the Gamaches’ study and took a sip of the Gamaches’ coffee, then looked at the remains of the Cap’n Crunch cereal with chocolate milk Madame Gamache had made her. And Yvette Nichol wondered why she felt so uncomfortable.

Then she rifled through the desk and found the copy of Charles Langlois’s second notebook.

Here was the document that everyone had dismissed, thinking it contained Charles Langlois’s initial notes. Thinking it was unimportant, and not, as it turned out, the most important.

That was until Gamache had gone back and reread it and realized their mistake. His mistake. And understood it contained a warning of something much bigger than the poisoning.

And yet, read and reread it as the Chief Inspector might, as the others might, they could not figure out what Charles was warning them about.

Yvette Nichol took the sheafs of worn paper into the kitchen, and sitting in front of the woodstove, she began to read. Once finished, she returned to the study and got the other one. The first one … the one they now dismissed, believing it had already coughed up all its secrets.

Many kilometers away, in Montréal, Chief Inspector Tardiff placed a call.

“We need to meet.”

“Agreed,” said Moretti.

Prime Minister Woodford stared at the three people in his office. His sharp gaze went from Gamache to Lacoste to that intense young woman who was introduced to him as Shona Dorion.

He’d listened to what they had to say. Now he opened his mouth, then closed it again. When the Prime Minister of Canada finally did speak, it was not what anyone expected.

“ Mein Kampf .”

While Lacoste and Dorion looked at each other, perplexed, Armand Gamache opened his eyes wide in surprise. “My struggle?”

“Yes.”

Of all the things a leader might say when told of a possible plan by a foreign power to invade, the title of that book was not one.

“Why are you quoting Hitler, sir?”

Now Dorion mouthed “Hitler?” and Lacoste frowned. Both turned to Gamache, who seemed to know the what but clearly not the why of it.

“His book, Mein Kampf —” the PM began.

“I’m familiar with it.”

“Then you probably know about the Big Lie.”

Oh, shit , thought Lacoste. He doesn’t believe us. Though she didn’t dare say anything.

“Are you calling us liars?” Shona asked and watched as the Prime Minister of Canada turned to her.

When she’d woken up that morning, she’d never expected that this would be part of her day. Her week. Her life. That within hours she would find herself in a private meeting with the PM. That he would be looking at her. At her. Shona Dorion.

Granted, his expression was one of annoyance, but still …

Indeed, Shona was trying to catch up with everything that had happened so far that young day.

She’d just showered and dressed, getting ready to go into Action Québec Bleu, when there was a knock on the door. Her phone said it was just after seven. This could not be good. Had she paid the rent? Yes. Had she given her neighbor back her dishes from two nights ago?

Yes.

So who could—

“Ms. Dorion, it’s Armand Gamache.”

Oh, fuck. Not him.

“Go away, you dirty old man. I told you I’m not putting out again.” She grinned, imagining his face turning a bright red. She hoped he wasn’t alone.

“I have something for yoooou.” The singsong voice of the Chief Inspector came through the door, and despite herself Shona laughed.

“Is it candy?”

“Better. It’s a warrant for your arrest unless you open this door in twenty seconds.”

His voice had gone from playful at the beginning of the sentence, to neutral, to actually menacing. It was both impressive and more than a little disconcerting.

She opened the door.

“ Merci ,” he said and introduced Inspector Lacoste. “May we?”

“Can I stop you?”

His answer was to step inside her tiny, tidy studio apartment in the Petite-Bourgogne quartier of Montréal.

“All this to stop me from going into AQB? You do know that because of what I did there you’re so much further along. I found out that those numbers on the map are isobars. And I got into Chalifoux’s computer and found the money being laundered through Action Québec Bleu. And I’m sure there’s more to find. I can do what you cops can’t.”

“And that is?” Lacoste asked. The bed was so tightly made, there was no give when she sat on it.

“Break the law,” said Shona.

“Nice that you think we won’t,” said Gamache, taking a chair at the table by the compact kitchen and waving her to join him.

Shona stood for a moment, then realized she just looked mulish. “You’re in my place.”

To her amazement, he got up and moved. She’d lied. It wasn’t where she normally sat, though he was now in her actual place.

Gamache was staring at her with such intensity, it almost frightened her.

She sat down. “What? What’s happened?”

He was trying to decide how much to tell her.

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 Sûreté 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 Sûreté 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 Sûreté 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 …