The Black Wolf by Louise Penny

Author:Louise Penny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

CHAPTER 20

“Do you believe him?” Lacoste asked as they drove back.

The roads were even worse now. The sleet had turned to snow that wanted only one thing: to tug vehicles into a ditch, or a tree, or each other.

Sûreté SUVs were patrolling, and tow trucks were assisting cars that had slid off the road. Flares marked accidents up and down the highway. It was no use stopping to help. The highway cops had it under control. Besides, in trying to stop, they’d almost certainly make it worse.

Lacoste’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and her lips were compressed as she silently cursed Nichol and her father for the bald tires. And herself for suggesting they take this car and not Clara’s. Or Myrna’s or—

“Do you?” Gamache asked.

“Believe the Prime Minister? I want to. Does it seem strange to you, patron, that the Prime Minister of Canada knows about FEDS? An obscure technology to track ash? A technology he admits is interesting but essentially useless.”

“That did occur to me. It also seems odd that he’s in daily contact with the Chief Meteorologist.”

“Well, we are a nation addicted to the weather. It’s our main topic of conversation.”

He gave a grunt of laughter. It was true.

“I noticed you didn’t tell him about being in touch with General Whitehead.”

“Non.”

“Or the map.”

“Non.”

She took her eyes off the road for a second to look at Gamache. “You don’t really think we’re about to attack the US, do you?”

He gave one quick burst of laughter and looked at her. “No, I don’t. Do you?”

She laughed now too, her sharp eyes back on the road. “Non. But it might not be an official, overt invasion. Maybe it’s by some marginal militia group. Could that be what Moretti’s involved in?”

“A sort of Canadian Bay of Pigs?”

“A what?”

“An American misadventure in the ’60s, using the Cuban mafia to reclaim Cuba from the communists.”

“It’s still communist. I take it the plan didn’t work.”

She’d been to Cuba a few times on vacation. Loved the people, the music, the culture. The level of education and literacy. Not so much the poverty and the fact the citizens were prisoners on their little island.

“Foolish scheme to begin with. A debacle.” Still, it got him thinking.

They both knew that the tendrils of organized crime reached deep into legitimate business, corporations willing to fork out billions to further their own needs. On top of that, the mafia had its fangs in the judiciary, the armed forces, powerful interest groups, including the media, not to mention elected officials and the civil service. On both sides of the border.

So that begged the question, why would they need an armed invasion? Didn’t they already have enough control?

Talk of an invasion was ridiculous, a smoke screen.

There was something else planned. Canada attacking the US would be like that animated short “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” Bambi did not fare well.

Though he now spent a few kilometers wondering what would happen if an invasion was launched. Not by the official armed forces, but some ragtag militia.

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