“Patron,” said Jean-Guy as Gamache gripped his arm and hauled himself to his feet.
“Anton got away,” said Gamache, staggering a bit as he moved toward the open back door of the bistro.
“Oui. The American and his lieutenant took off after him,” said Beauvoir.
The turmoil in the bistro burst over Gamache.
Lacoste was on the floor, Ruth by her side. Holding her hand. Whispering.
Gabri was kneeling over Olivier.
Patrons, sipping drinks moments earlier, were crying and huddling and hugging and shouting. For help.
But he couldn’t stop.
“Armand,” Reine-Marie shouted, as she and Myrna and Clara arrived in the mayhem.
But it was too late. He was gone.
*
“You get Anton,” said Gamache. “I’ll get the American.”
“There’re two of them,” Beauvoir shouted after him.
He didn’t know if Gamache had heard, and there was no time to make sure.
The cartels had the advantage of a head start. But Gamache and Beauvoir had the advantage of familiarity.
They knew the woods, and the paths, and the route to the border. Partly because they’d walked the trails, in preparation. Partly because they’d spent hours and hours, in the Gamache home, poring over the detailed topographical maps.
They’d talked to hunters and hikers. To geologists and campers. To those who cut wood, and those who fished in the rivers.
In the past eight months, since finding the hidden door in the root cellar, and the oiled hinge, and understanding the significance, they’d been sure to learn every inch of the terrain.
The drug smugglers had not. They’d found the most direct route through the forest, from the Prohibition bolt-hole to the border. And they’d stuck to it.
“We’re studying the situation,” Gamache would reply with equanimity bordering on the dim-witted when microphones and cameras were thrust in his face. And sharp questions were asked about the rising level of crime.
Oddly enough, it was the truth. Though not the entirety of it.
He was studying the situation, just not the one the reporters were talking about.
Gamache had ordered a quiet investigation into all the cabins, barns, schools, and churches used by bootleggers almost a hundred years earlier along the long border with the United States.
There were holes that had never been plugged. All along the watchtower. His tower now. His watch now.
And then he’d ordered surveillance on them all.
And what they saw was that one by one, the Québec syndicate had used all the bolt-holes. But none more than St. Thomas’s, in the quiet, pretty, forgotten little village of Three Pines.
Where they could get across the border easily. And where the boss could monitor it all, from the kitchen where he worked, first as a dishwasher, then as a chef.
Anton had learned from his father, and his uncle, and apprenticed with his father’s best friend and confidant. Antonio Ruiz. Whom he was named after.
Until he’d been ready to take over himself.
They could hear the others, up ahead. They were gaining on them, since the drug dealers were essentially running wildly. One chasing the other. The Americans needing to kill the Canadian cartel head. To take over the territory.
And Anton needing to escape, and regroup, and defend his territory.
And Gamache and Beauvoir needing to stop them both. If they failed, there would be a bloodbath.
They could not fail.
Gamache saw Jean-Guy, just up ahead, split off and head east, and Gamache, understanding what he was doing, turned west.
They were driving their quarry, herding them, toward where Toussaint and the assault team were waiting.
*
Madeleine Toussaint arrived at the bistro with her team, weapons drawn. They approached rapidly but carefully, not sure what they’d meet.
The krokodil heading to the village had been a surprise, but she realized that even if the exchange took place there, they’d still have to get it across the border. And so she’d ordered her team to sit tight. To stick to the plan.
Until she’d heard the shots. Then she’d changed the plan and ordered her people into the village. To help the officers down there.
Even at a run, it took precious time to get there.
They skidded and scrambled down the hills, crashing through the forest, the gunfire getting louder and longer.
And then it stopped. And there was silence.
And then they heard it. The screams. The shrieking. The cries for help.
And then even that went quiet.
Superintendent Toussaint led her team into the village. Her sharp eyes taking in everything. Her assault team in formation behind her, they crouched and swung their weapons, scanning the homes, the windows, the gardens.
Bikes were lying on the side of the village green. A ball sat there.
But there were no people. No dogs. Not cats. Not even birds.
And then a woman came out of the bistro, a fireplace poker in her hand. Behind her, Toussaint heard the familiar and unmistakable sound of assault rifles leveled.
She raised her fist. Stop.
It was Madame Gamache. Running toward them. Calling for help.
Toussaint gestured to a squad to patrol, while she went to Madame Gamache.
“Are there any targets inside?” she demanded.
“Targets? I don’t know,” said Reine-Marie. “There’re people hurt. Some dead, I think. We’ve called for help.”
“Stay here,” said Toussaint, and led her team into the bistro, guns at the ready.
Reine-Marie did not stay there. She ran in behind them.
Toussaint saw tables and chairs overturned. She smelled the putrid scent of recently fired weapons.
But it was what she heard that she would never forget.
Nothing.
There was near total silence. As eyes, wide, turned to her.
“You have to help Armand,” Madame Gamache broke the silence.
“Where is he?”
She scanned the place and saw Lacoste on the ground, an elderly woman and two others kneeling beside her. One of the women, Toussaint noticed, was clutching a fireplace brush. Another, a duck.
Chief Superintendent Gamache wasn’t there. Neither was Beauvoir.
They weren’t dead. But neither were the cartel heads.
“They went through there. Into the woods.” Madame Gamache pointed toward the back of the bistro.
“How many were there?” Toussaint asked Madame Gamache, her voice urgent.
“I don’t know.”
“Three.”
A slender blond man, a dishtowel tied tightly around his arm and propped against a heavyset man, spoke. His voice weak but his words clear.
“Anton and two others,” said Olivier.
Toussaint ordered her team out of the bistro.
Instead of going out the back, Toussaint led her assault team the way they came.
Past the church, up the hill, and into the woods.
If she were Gamache, she thought as she ran, she’d try to herd the cartel members toward the border. Where the S?reté assault team would be waiting and could finish the job.
Except they were no longer there. They’d veered from the plan.
Shit, shit, shit.
*
Gamache’s lungs were burning and he could taste blood in his mouth, but he didn’t slow down. Willing his legs forward, faster.