As soon as he’d read the slip of paper Jean-Guy had handed him, he’d known that this was what they’d been working toward.
Luring the cartel into making one great, fatal mistake.
“More than fifteen thousand people died in Canada from illegal drugs,” said Gamache, meeting her eyes again. His voice calm and steady. As though he had all the time in the world. “In a year. That statistic is a decade old and those are the ones we know about. There were almost certainly far more. We don’t have a more recent report, we’re working on putting one together, but we do know that opioid use has skyrocketed. As have the deaths. Heroin. Cocaine. Fentanyl. And more. Nothing is stopping these drugs from hitting the streets. From killing mostly young people. Never mind all the crime that goes with drugs.”
He leaned forward, very slightly, and dropped his voice as though inviting her into a confidence.
“We lost the war on drugs years ago and are just going through the motions, because we don’t know what else to do.”
Judge Corriveau’s eyes widened, just a little. But enough to register her shock at the statistic. But not at his pronouncement.
She knew he was right. They’d lost. She saw it all day, every day. In her former practice. In her current courtroom. In the halls of the grand Palais. A parade of lost youth, hauled up on charges. And they were the lucky ones. They were alive. For now.
They were also, for the most part, the victims. The ones who should be on trial were free, eating in fine restaurants and going home to large homes in respectable communities.
What Gamache had just said was true and shocking. But—
“What does that have to do with the murder trial?”
“We know that organized crime is behind the drug trade,” said Gamache.
“Cartels,” said Zalmanowitz, feeling he should contribute.
“Thank you, Monsieur Zalmanowitz,” said Judge Corriveau.
“By mutual consent, Québec has been divided into regions. Different organizations run each area. But it’s become clear that one dominates all the others,” Zalmanowitz continued, ignoring the pinched look on her face. “We’ve been chipping away at it, but without effect.”
“Not really chipping,” admitted Gamache. “More like a gnat and an elephant. It didn’t help that many of the top S?reté officers were in the pay of the cartels.”
He’d said it without irony. And no one was smiling.
“But you’re in charge now,” said Corriveau.
Now he did smile. “I’m flattered you think that might help, and I am trying.” He held her gaze. “But I came to the realization when I first took over almost a year ago that there was nothing I could do.”
“Nothing?” she asked. “But like you said, so much of the crime in Québec stems from drugs. Not just the gang violence, but thefts, armed robberies, beatings. Murders. Sexual assaults. Domestic violence. If you can’t stop the drugs—”
“It’s not a matter of stopping,” Gamache interrupted. “We can’t even keep it stable. It’s growing. We’re past the tipping point. Doesn’t look like it, yet. People can still go about their normal lives. But—”
“What you’re saying, Chief Superintendent, is that not just drug abuse is out of control, but all crime is about to get worse.”
“And worse,” said the Chief Crown.
“Thank you, Monsieur Zalmanowitz.” She turned back to Gamache. “You said you realized there was nothing you could do. Nothing effective anyway.” She examined him more closely. “But that’s not quite true, is it? There is something you’re doing, and it has something to do with the trial.”
“The Chief Crown is right,” said Gamache. “One cartel dominates all the others. We didn’t realize it for a long time. We thought they were at war, hoped they were, and that they’d do some of our job for us. But as we looked closer, we realized it was all a sham. The other organizations were satellites, circling, protecting, decoys for the main one.”
“The biggest of the cartels,” said the judge.
“Non, that was its brilliance and our mistake,” said Gamache. “And why it took so long to identify it. It is, in fact, one of the smallest. It appeared to be just another organization, and not a very effective one. It was static, stale. Not growing or diversifying like all the others. It was so small it really wasn’t worth our effort. We were looking for just what you said”—he gestured toward her—“a great big powerful organization. I made the mistake of equating size with power.”
She took that in. “The nuclear bomb,” she finally said.
“Smaller than a car and can wipe out a city,” said Gamache.
“And did,” said the Chief Crown.
“Thank you, Monsieur Zalmanowitz.” She was smaller than both men, and could wipe them out. And might. “But you found it, right?” she said, returning to Gamache. “Eventually.”
“Oui. Took some time. We knew we were spread too thin, trying to go after all the cartels. All the crime. We had to focus, had to find the heart. But we were looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place. We were looking for a huge organized crime syndicate in Montréal.”
She was nodding. It was a reasonable assumption.
“Where did you find it?”
“It seems so obvious now,” said Gamache, shaking his head. “Where do most of the drugs end up?”
“Montréal,” said Judge Corriveau, though with a slightly questioning inflection.
“The stuff for Québec, certainly,” agreed Gamache. “But this province isn’t the major consumer. The problem is big enough for us, and tragic enough, but it’s tiny by cartel standards. We’re simply a highway. Some parcels fall off the truck, and stay here. But the vast majority is bound for the border.”
“Into the States.” She thought for a moment. “A massive market.”
“Hundreds of millions of people. The amount of opioids consumed, the amount of money involved, the consequences in suffering and crime are almost incalculable.”
“But don’t most of the illegal drugs into the States go through Mexico?” she asked.
“Used to. But more and more are coming through Canada,” said Gamache. “With all the scrutiny on the Mexican border and so much of the DEA’s attention focused on Mexico, the head of the cartel here saw an opportunity.”
“Bring it in where they aren’t looking,” she said quietly. Thinking.
“The country with the longest undefended border in the world,” said Gamache. “Thousands of miles of forest, and no guards. No witnesses. The rum runners during Prohibition knew that. Fortunes were made in Canada by getting illegal booze into the States.”
It was true, Judge Corriveau knew. Many prominent families could trace their wealth, if they had the stomach for it, back to those days.
First it was the robber barons, and then came the rum runners.
Canada had a great reputation for law and order, as long as you didn’t look under the table.
“How did you discover all this?” she asked.