CHAPTER 31
Gamache and Beauvoir were more than halfway to their destination, and still no word from Lacoste.
But they had received a text from Superintendent Toussaint.
The equipment was assembled, the van was loaded. The assault team was ready.
“If we don’t hear otherwise,” Toussaint wrote, “we’ll leave Montréal in ten minutes and get into position before nightfall.”
“Merde,” wrote Gamache. The Québécois equivalent of “good luck,” and an internal S?reté signal that all was proceeding well.
“Merde,” she replied. And went silent.
They wouldn’t see each other again until the action was under way.
Gamache looked at the dashboard clock. Six thirty. It would be dark by eight thirty. Superintendent Toussaint had timed it perfectly.
“What’s keeping her?” Jean-Guy asked, as he drove.
The “her” he meant was obvious.
“I don’t know.”
Picking up his iPhone, Gamache called home. And let it ring. And ring. Until he heard Reine-Marie’s recorded voice.
He left a cheerful message, saying he was on his way and that Jean-Guy was with him.
“No answer?” said Jean-Guy. “She’s probably at Clara’s or Myrna’s.”
“Probably.”
*
Once in the bathroom, Lacoste locked the door and hit the green talk button. Hoping, hoping the old handset signal reached that far.
She heard a dial tone and quickly punched in numbers.
“Chief?” she whispered when he picked up after half a ring.
“Isabelle, where’ve you been?”
“I couldn’t get away until now. I’m in the bistro. He’s here.”
“Who is?”
“The head of the cartel. Here in Three Pines.”
“We know that,” came Beauvoir’s voice over the speaker. “That’s why you’re there, right? To monitor.”
“No. I mean the American cartel.”
Gamache and Beauvoir looked at each other.
“Are you sure?” asked Gamache.
From anyone else, in any other circumstances, Lacoste would have been annoyed. But she understood his need to be absolutely clear.
“Yes. The American cartel.” The insistence in her voice made it sound like a hiss.
“Shit,” said Beauvoir. “Did he recognize you?”
“I don’t know. The other man with him, his bodyguard or counselor, kept staring. I think Anton told him who I am.”
“Fucking great,” said Beauvoir.
“But I made sure to order a drink and even waved at him.”
“Waved? You waved at the head of the drug cartel?” demanded Beauvoir.
“Well, I didn’t wave my gun,” she said. “I wanted him to know I’d seen him, and clearly had absolutely no idea who he was. It was a friendly little gesture. Maybe you’ve heard of them.”
Gamache nodded slowly. Few people had the presence of mind, the poise of Lacoste. It was exactly the right thing to do. And if the U.S. cartel had any doubts about the incompetence of the S?reté, that would surely put them to rest. A senior officer not recognizing one of the top criminals in North America.
“What should we do?” she whispered.
The handle of the door rattled. Someone wanted in.
“Just a moment,” she sang out, and the handle went silent.
“How many are there?” Gamache asked.
“The Americans? None outside that I noticed. Only the two of them in the bistro.” Lacoste had dropped her voice even further. “The head of the cartel and an older guy. He’s the one watching closely.”
Yes, thought Gamache. Like in Canada. With the new opioids, the new dark economy, and new technology, there’d been a new leadership. Sometimes bloody, as in the States, sometimes generational, a passing of the torch, as in Canada.
It was a young person’s game now. And few people were more vicious, in Gamache’s experience, than young men. Or women. They hadn’t yet grown weary, grown disgusted with all the bloodshed. In fact, they seemed to revel in it. In their ability to order a kill, and have it carried out. To kidnap and torture and deliver adversaries back in pieces.
It was their own grotesque addiction.
No one was immune. Cops, judges, prosecutors. Children, mothers, fathers. All targets for the butchers.
Unfettered by conscience, they were all-powerful. Immortal. Not godfathers, but gods.
If the S?reté action that night didn’t work, there’d be bedlam. And the payment would be in flesh and blood. Theirs. Their families’.
Gamache was under no illusion about what was at stake.
“Once you arrive we can take them,” said Lacoste. “I’m sure of it. How far away are you?”
“Twenty minutes,” said Beauvoir, and sped up. “Fifteen.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Gamache’s mind flew over the different possibilities.
He’d expected to confront them in the woods that night, not in the bistro.
But in some ways, this was even better. It meant Toussaint was right and the cartels had fallen for it completely. They were so convinced that the S?reté was no threat that they’d come this far into the open.
It was rare, almost unheard of, for the actual head of a syndicate to be at the site of any criminal act. They sent their lieutenants. That’s what they were for.
To have not one but both exposed was exceptional.
Yes, this was far better than they dared hope.
And even worse.
Their plan was based on a meeting in the forest, surrounded by trees, not in the bistro, surrounded by friends. By family.
“We can’t arrest them yet,” he said, his voice calm and steady. “We have no proof against either of them. That’s been the problem. Their soldiers, yes, but they make sure to be clean themselves. We have to catch them doing something illegal. Sitting in the bistro is not.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck,” said Beauvoir under his breath. Once again, the mantra did not calm him down.
The chief was right.
Their entire operation depended on catching them with their hands dirty. And that meant on site when the krokodil crossed the border. Until that happened, they had no definitive proof against the heads of the cartels.
They were together, yes, but in the wrong place.
If the exchange happened in the woods, while the cartel heads were having a pleasant chat in the bistro, then they’d have failed. They’d lose them. They’d lose.
Beauvoir was staring at Gamache, his eyes wide and questioning.
Lacoste was waiting on the other end of the line. They could hear her breathing. And then the rattle of the door again.
“Hello?” came a man’s voice, in English.
“Tabernac,” she said. “I think that’s the bodyguard.”
“Almost done,” she sang out cheerfully.
Gamache knew once he hung up he couldn’t reach her again. His orders had to be clear, definitive. And fast.
One shot.
“There’s one other thing,” came Lacoste’s voice, so low they could barely hear it. “Madame Gamache is here too. With Annie and Honoré.”
The blood drained from Gamache’s face and he looked at Beauvoir, whose hands tightened on the steering wheel, and the car’s engine roared as he sped up even more.
“They have to get out of there,” said Jean-Guy.
“No, wait,” said Gamache. “Wait.”
They waited a beat.
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes—”