“If you can’t get it sooner, yes.”
And Lacoste left them to their dinner and headed out into the snowy evening once again.
She came away without the Valcourts’ coordinates, but with something else. The certainty that whatever had happened, Lea Roux was at the center of it. She was in charge.
And Lacoste remembered the advice given to Mossad agents. Advice Lacoste had found abhorrent, wrong on every level. Until it had been explained.
The instruction given the Israeli agents, if they met resistance during an assault, was kill the women first.
Because if a woman was ever driven so far as to pick up a weapon, she would be the most committed, the least likely to ever give up.
Kill the women first.
Lacoste still hated the advice. The simplicity of it. The baldness. But she also hated that the philosophy behind it was almost certainly true.
Gamache took a few steps through the snow, into the woods. Not far.
Then he turned around to face the back wall of the church and as he did, lights went on, illuminating the ground around him. The snowflakes, like crystals caught in the light, gleamed.
He stood for a moment, taking in the sight, so bright, then he turned and looked into the gloomy woods.
With a last puzzled glance at the back wall, Gamache retraced his steps, climbed the stairs, and entered the warm church, where Jean-Guy was whacking his gloves against his coat.
“Madame Gamache said you wanted to see me here.” His stomach growled and he covered it with his hand while giving Gamache an accusing look. They could be eating by now instead of standing in the chilly church. “Why were you outside? What’re you looking for?”
“Rum runners.”
“They went thataway.” He pointed toward the cemetery.
Gamache turned in that direction, his brow furrowed, thinking. Snow trickled along his scalp and down his face and the back of his neck, as though the effort of thinking was melting it. The rivulet found its way past his collar and dribbled straight down his spine, making him roll his shoulders in discomfort as he led the way downstairs to the Incident Room.
CHAPTER 29
A fine line of perspiration trickled down Chief Superintendent Gamache’s neck and soaked into his collar.
In the powerful air-conditioning of Sûreté headquarters, he could feel his sodden shirt growing clammy as it clung to his body.
He wished he’d had time for a quick shower and change into clean clothes, but that would have to wait until after this meeting.
The officers had stood as he entered the conference room, but he waved them to their seats and took his own chair at the head of the table.
Gamache looked at each of them, men and women of all ages, all ranks. Who’d sat around this table, in those same seats, at least once a week for almost a year.
He remembered the private interviews, as he’d decided the members of this inner circle. From the thousands of officers, he’d chosen these few, for their intelligence, their determination. Their ability to work as a team. To both lead and follow. They were chosen for their bravery and boldness and their loyalty.
Not to Gamache. Not to the Sûreté. Not even to Québec. But to the Québécois. To protect them. Perhaps at great cost.
He’d taken the most promising, and asked them to possibly, probably, almost certainly, destroy their careers. And they’d agreed.
Not, it must be admitted, without a fight sometimes, as the long view was obscured by leaping and waving and screaming immediate needs. And by their own training and morals. To stand aside, to do nothing, as crimes were committed. It was soul-destroying.
But they’d held together. Finally.
And now here they were.
For almost a year they’d put their plan into place. As well constructed, as focused, as hidden as the cartel they were trying to bring down.
A glass house, Judge Corriveau had called it. Transparent.
That’s what it was. And that’s what they were. Now.
A good hunter, Gamache knew, learned from his prey. And he’d learned from the cartel to be lean. Focused. Invisible.
To appear to be weak, while actually gathering strength.
But the time had come for exposure, on both sides. By the end of this night, one would be victorious. One would be shattered.
Grabbing a tissue, he wiped the perspiration from his face, no longer concerned about how it would be perceived.
“Tell me what you know.”
His gaze moved around the table and settled on Superintendent Toussaint, who was looking uncomfortable.
“Seems we were wrong, patron.”
“Is that so? About what?”
He knew the importance of appearing calm and controlled, even as his heart began to pound.
“The nesting dolls. There were two shipments, we now learn. One with the chlorocodide and the other without.”
“I see. And?”
“The one with the drugs left Mirabel last night. As soon as that huge shipment of fentanyl got across the border.”
“Has it crossed the border?” Gamache asked. His voice remained steady, though all depended on the answer to that question.
The room felt like it was teetering on the edge of a cliff.
“We don’t think so. We think it’s in the holding area.”
“You think?” asked Beauvoir, trying, with less success than the Chief Superintendent, to sound calm.
“Yes,” said Toussaint, an edge now to her voice. “Think.” She turned back to Gamache. “As far as our informant knows, it’s still in Québec. We have some indications that he’s right.”
“Really, now this is the same informant who told us earlier today that the shit, the krokodil, was still in the warehouse?” said Beauvoir.
“It is. He made a mistake.” Superintendent Toussaint’s voice was icy now. “You’ve heard of those. But he went back to confirm, at great personal risk. Then he contacted me.”
Toussaint and Beauvoir stared at each other.
“We have no way to be sure?” asked Gamache.
“Not without exposure, no,” said Toussaint.
“So we don’t really know where the drugs are,” said Beauvoir. “Except that they’re not in the warehouse.”
“Correct.”
“You said you have other indications, though,” said Gamache. “What’re those?”
“The head of the syndicate for the East Coast is in Vermont. Burlington.”
The officers looked at each other, then at Gamache.
“He could be there for any number of reasons,” said Toussaint. “We don’t know for sure…”
“It’s a short drive from there to the border,” said Beauvoir, his excitement overcoming his annoyance. “One of those reasons could be to meet the shipment.”
“And not just the shipment,” said Toussaint. She turned to look at Gamache. “It could mean they fell for it. More completely than we dared hope.”
“Go on,” said Gamache. He was thinking the same thing, but Toussaint had had more time to consider, and he needed to hear her thoughts.
“I think the head of the East Coast syndicate is in Vermont for more than a tub of Ben and Jerry’s. And more than the krokodil.”
Gamache nodded, slowly. Taking this in. Trying not to let his elation override his good sense. Trying not to race ahead to a conclusion he was desperate to arrive at.
It fell to Beauvoir to say what Gamache was thinking. What they were all thinking.
“A meeting’s been set up. When the exchange is made,” his voice was low, almost a whisper. “The heads of both the Québec and the East Coast cartels will be together, in one spot.”
“Holy shit,” said several of the officers.
“But which side of the border?” asked one. “Would he come into Québec? Would he dare?”