The Black Wolf: A Novel By Louise Penny - 29

Beauvoir, Nichol, and Lauzon made their way forward.

The deepest caverns were not just dark, they were pitch black. No light penetrated. No cell phone signal. They’d had to risk putting on the flashlights of their phones to see where they were going. Beauvoir watched his beam shake and wondered if the others realized he was trembling.

The walls were closing in. Crushing him. He felt lightheaded as the panic came in waves. He worried he was about to pass out.

He was, he knew, a liability. An armed liability. If something happened, he couldn’t help.

“ Patron. ” He felt a hand on his arm and saw Yvette Nichol looking at him. “Let me take the lead. She’s my boss. I need to be the one to find her.”

Beauvoir nodded, and while he was willing to accept what she said, he knew it wasn’t the truth. Nichol did it to save him and his jangled nerves.

“Careful,” she whispered a few minutes later. “There’s a drop-off. This section’s flooded.”

He heard a small splash and a sharp intake of breath. The water was bitterly cold and waist-deep on her.

Then it was his turn. He slipped into the water and gasped. But the biting cold acted as a sort of slap, bringing him out of his panic at least enough to regain some control.

A current was dragging them forward. Getting stronger. They had to fight to stay upright.

Nichol turned a sharp corner and put up her hand to stop the others. Switching off her flashlight, she whispered, “There’s a light up ahead.”

“Maybe I should stay here,” whispered Lauzon.

Beauvoir considered, then agreed. If there was a confrontation, there was little the former politician could do. And maybe he could escape and at least tell someone where they were.

Beauvoir retook the lead and felt Nichol’s small hand on his shoulder, keeping close, as they edged forward.

The tunnel was closing in for real now. The way ahead getting tighter and tighter. His shoulders rubbed the walls, and he kept his eyes focused on the dim light ahead. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

“Oh, God,” Nichol whispered.

On a ledge jutting out from the wall were two bodies. Trussed up. A phone with its flashlight on was propped against the wall. Since there was no cell phone coverage, it wouldn’t be live. It was recording the murders. A snuff film.

Sick fucks.

He scanned the area. They appeared to be alone.

Nichol surged forward before Beauvoir could stop her. She’d been so focused on Chief Inspector Tardiff, she’d missed what he’d seen at the very last moment. The movement in the shadows.

Beauvoir shoved Nichol aside and fired, just as the shadow fired.

Both missed, their bullets ricocheting off the stone, the sound echoing down the long passageway. There was, along with the echo, the sound of surging water, as both Beauvoir and the shadow plowed toward each other.

And then the other man was upon him. Jean-Guy lost his footing, and the current swept his feet out from under him, carrying both downstream until their bodies struck a wall and were pinned there. It was totally dark now. Jean-Guy had lost his gun and his phone and was lashing out with his fists, hoping to strike flesh and bone.

Then his face was shoved underwater. Jean-Guy felt pressure on his head. A boot was crushing his cheekbone against the cave floor. He thrashed and fought, but the boot was too firm. He was losing consciousness.

Dear God, I’m going to die.

Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the pressure was gone. Beauvoir bobbed up, and through his coughing and sputtering, he heard the sound of fighting close by.

Nichol. She must have jumped the man. But she wouldn’t have a hope …

There was another shot, but hardly any echo. The bullet had found its soft target.

Nichol … Yvette …

Hands grabbed him again, and again Beauvoir lashed out. Fighting for his life.

“ Non, non , stop!”

It wasn’t Nichol, it was Lauzon.

Marcus Lauzon had come back. Marcus Lauzon had saved them.

The door opened and Giselle Trudel stepped into the room.

It was not the cabinet minister Armand had been expecting. He watched her, warily.

“We need to go in with you, ma’am,” said the guard.

“No, you don’t. You and I both know these people are not threats.”

There was a pause, a reluctant nod, and the officer withdrew.

“Do you need a doctor?” Advancing into the room, she turned to Inspector Lacoste, whose hair was matted with blood. “Are you all right?”

“‘All right’ is not how I’d describe our situation. Would you?”

“I’m sorry.” Trudel hesitated, then chose her words carefully. “I think you put something into your ID, Chief Inspector. A piece of paper.”

Gamache was silent, studying the woman.

“Ferguson palmed it.”

“Why are you here, Madame Trudel?” he asked.

“I want to know what it was you passed to him.”

“Do you plan to beat it out of me?”

“God, no.” She looked horrified. “Ferguson was about to throw it away, then changed his mind. I suspect by now it’s ash.” Her intelligent eyes were studying him. “You need to tell me what it said. Quickly. Before they come for you.”

There was a beat as Gamache weighed the options. Then spoke. “It was an IP address and password.”

“You came here knowing your ID would be taken?” He nodded. “You wanted it taken. You did all that on purpose.”

“It served many purposes, but yes.”

While his voice was steady, his mind was racing, trying to work out what this could mean. He saw Shona watching him, worried. This was not how it was supposed to go. Their plan wasn’t so much unfolding as unraveling.

“It was your bad luck Ferguson was the one who found it,” said Trudel.

“Did Prime Minister Woodford see it?” His tone gave away none of his anxiety. Only Lacoste, standing beside him, could see his right hand closing into a loose fist.

“No.”

The fist relaxed.

Trudel turned to Shona. “You smuggled your phone into the meeting and live-streamed?”

“So it’s out there?” said Shona, excited. “Paul got it out?”

“Workman? Yes. It’s going viral, of course.”

While Shona laughed with relief, both Armand and Isabelle simply exhaled. One huge part accomplished.

“Did you really have to do that?” Giselle Trudel continued. “You’ve ruined the career, probably the life, of a decent man who made a mistake.”

“‘Mistake,’” said Shona. “Is that what you call it? And yes, I really had to do it. I’m a journalist. We witness, and we tell the world what we see. Until, that is, we’re stopped by a tyrant.”

“What we see is not always the whole picture. The Prime Minister isn’t a tyrant. He made a mistake when he ordered the guard to assault you. But you aren’t exactly blameless.” She turned to Gamache. “You set him up. It was a psychological and emotional sting operation. He’d just seen his friend and colleague, the American President, narrowly escape assassination. He was on edge and you pushed him over.”

“Are you practicing for the news conference?” Gamache asked.

“No. I’m simply telling you what I know to be the truth. Now it’s your turn. I want to see that IP address.”

Since the Rubicon was already crossed, Gamache walked over to the desk and wrote it out, along with the password. Then handed it to the cabinet minister.

“What will happen if I put it into my phone? Will this be treason? Will I be fired?”

“Treason? No. Fired? Almost certainly.”

“Where does it take me?”

All three continued to stare at her but said nothing.

“Is War Plan Red for real? Are the Americans really planning to annex Canada?”

“Annex?” said Shona. “I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

“But they’d never get away with it,” said Trudel.

“You think not?” said Lacoste. “Who’ll stop them? You? You couldn’t even stop your own people from doing this.” She held out the bloody tissues.

The Minister opened her mouth, but no answer came out. Then she looked back down at the paper. And, making up her mind, she put in the internet address.

“Are you kidding me?” she said, staring at the site that had appeared. “I knew about .onion. We monitor it. But I was told that’s as deep as the dark web goes.”

She hesitated just a moment before taking the final irrevocable leap into the darkness. Into .family. Then she typed in the code. And there it was.

What she read was not some rusty old battle plan using bullets and bombs and young men sent to slaughter. And abandoned in 1939. Here was a long-range, detailed blueprint for the takeover of one country by another. Years in the making, fine-tuning, adjusting as technology and society changed. As the narrative changed over the decades. As the needs and threats changed.

It talked of AI and journalistic “dark arts,” used to both manufacture consent and undermine any protest. It was a slow drip, drip, drip until that final drop that started the flood.

It was never meant to be acted upon. It was, as Bert Whitehead said, a contingency. An exercise even. Taken as seriously as the alien-invasion exercise.

But then someone had found it and seen the potential, the opportunity buried in the looming climate crisis. In the catastrophic and inevitable loss of fresh water.

Someone saw the possibilities. And War Plan Red was secretly updated and quietly put into action.

It was all mapped out in the document the young biologist Charles Langlois had found. Though it was possible, even probable, he never really believed it. .family, after all, was littered with lunatics.

His hesitation had cost him his life. As had his decision to show it to the wrong person.

The ground war, should one be necessary, was also mapped out. It would be short and brutal. And once Canada ceded, as it eventually must, would come the final step. The silencing of all dissent.

And those few who continued to resist? According to the plan, their homes and workplaces and families would be targeted by angry mobs of “patriots.”

The Minister sat down. She’d have missed the chair if Lacoste hadn’t moved it for her.

Evelyn Tardiff was still alive, but unconscious.

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.”