Page 68 of The Grey Wolf
“You hear agreement in this conversation? What must disagreement sound like to you? Look, what would the mob be doing with two middle-aged people who have led blameless lives? Doesn’t make sense. Besides, there’s nothing up in the Saguenay but lakes and trees.”
“There’s aluminum.”
Tardiff laughed. “You think the Sixth Family is now trafficking in tin foil?”
She’d used the nickname for the Moretti family. After the five leading mob families in the US, this Montréal mafia family was considered the sixth. Powerful and ruthless, it had consolidated its hold on territory after the paterfamilias had died.
Armand managed a smile. “It seems unlikely, I agree.”
He decided not to pursue it. As he left, he wondered why Tardiff was being so obtuse. Almost defensive. As he pressed the down button, he wondered if she was telling him everything.
As he walked out of the elevator, he wondered why he was wondering when he knew the answer to that. It was no. She was not telling him everything.
And now he wondered why.
“David.”
“Armand.”
Gamache stood up to greet his friend and colleague from the RCMP. “Thank you for meeting me. Coffee?”
“I’ll get it.”
He came back to the small table shoved against the brick wall with a mug and a blueberry muffin. Sitting down, he stared at Gamache.
“I got your text yesterday.”
“But you didn’t reply.”
He fiddled with the handle of his chipped mug. “It’s delicate.”
“To say the least, yes.”
“I needed to do some research.”
Gamache waited.
“Your message didn’t have any information,” said Commissioner Lavigne. “No context.”
“True. Do you need it?”
“I think what we need is an exchange of information.”
They were sitting at the back of the small restaurant, invisible to anyone walking by.
Vankleek Hill was a village in Ontario, almost exactly halfway between Ottawa and Montréal. An hour’s drive for each of them. It was outside Sûreté jurisdiction. He would not run into anyone who worked with him.
David Lavigne wasn’t just a colleague in law enforcement, he was the assistant commissioner of the RCMP. And a friend. His specialty, over twenty-five years, was domestic and international terrorism.
“You asked about recent movement in the biological or chemical weapons sector.”
“And?”
He sat back and considered for a moment. “There’re rumblings out of Rome and Paris, about something, some target in North America. We’re trying to get a handle on it. It’s vague. Our informants are scampering for cover.”
“Which means it’s big.”
“Or at least different. Anything outside the regular playbook gets people nervous. And not just us, also the terrorists.” He smiled. “When terrorists get scared, we get terrified. Do you have information?”
