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“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.
