Glass Houses (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #13)(26)

Bold slashes. Of red. Of blue. Of green. Of black Magic Marker. Though hardly, Gamache thought, examining the patterns, magic.

Held up on their own, the bright lines on the transparencies were meaningless. But once laid on top of each other, and then on top of the map of Québec, the lines coalesced. A casual observer might think it was a subway route map. A very large subway and an extremely busy route.

And they wouldn’t be far wrong.

It was, in effect, a map of the underworld.

Lines snaked down the St. Lawrence River. Others came down from the north. Many branched from Montréal and Québec City. But they all made for the border with the United States.

Superintendent Toussaint, the new head of Serious Crimes, picked up a blue marker from the cup on the conference table.

It was, for some of the younger members of this inner circle, like picking up a hammer and chisel, so crude was this method of mapping. They were used to laptops and more precise, more powerful, tools.

But the map, and those transparencies, had a great advantage. No one could hack them. And, when separated, no one could decode what they meant.

And that was vital.

“Here’s the latest information,” said Madeleine Toussaint. “Our informant on the Magdalen Islands says a shipment arrived two days ago on board a cargo ship from China.”

“Two days?” asked an agent. “Why’s it taken so long to get the information?”

“We’re lucky to get it at all,” said Toussaint. “We all know what’ll happen if they find our informant. And he knows too.”

She lowered the pen until a blue blotch appeared on the islands, hanging out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

“Do we know how much?” asked Beauvoir.

“Eighty kilos.”

They looked at her in silence.

“Of fentanyl?” asked Isabelle Lacoste.

“Oui.” Toussaint lifted the marker. Blue for fentanyl.

They looked at each other. Eighty kilograms.

It would be the largest shipment in North America. By almost double. Certainly the largest they knew of.

The cartels were growing bolder and bolder.

And why not? They went almost unchallenged.

Everyone in that room turned to Chief Superintendent Gamache, who was staring at the tiny group of islands floating in the salt water between Gaspé and Newfoundland. A prettier spot would be hard to find. Or a more perfect place for trafficking.

Windswept, isolated, sparsely populated. And yet on a major trade route for cargo vessels from, and to, the whole wide world.

It was a port of entry into Québec. Into Canada. A kind of back door. A revolving door. Given short shrift by authorities who were busy investigating the major ports, air and sea.

But the tiny, achingly beautiful Magdalen Islands were the sweet spot.

And from there?

Gamache looked at the various bold lines in different colored marker. Originating in different points of Québec, but all heading in the same direction.

The border. La frontière.

The United States.

Almost all the lines, all the colors converged, and went straight through a tiny village not even on the map. Gamache had had to pencil it in.

Three Pines.

But it was now obliterated by the Magic Markers making for the border.

Drugs flowed into the United States through that hole in the border, and money flowed back.

Tons of cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin had moved across the border there. For years.

When Gamache assumed the leadership of the S?reté and realized the extent of the drug problem in and through Québec, he realized something else. Only a fraction of the trafficking could be accounted for through the traditional routes.

So how was the rest getting across?

Armand Gamache, the new Chief Superintendent of the S?reté du Québec, had assigned teams to investigate those drugs made in Québec, and those imported. Those consumed here, and those destined for a more lucrative market.

He set up teams. Scientists, hackers, ex-cons, informants, marine and aviation experts, biker gang infiltrators, dock workers, union officials, packagers, and even marketers were recruited. Most had no real idea what the end goal was, or even who they were working for. Each formed a small cell, with a single problem to solve.

And while the drugs were funneled to one point, so was all this information.

Chief Superintendent Gamache.

A decisive blow had to be landed. Not a series of small irritants, but a hard, fast, effective strike. At the heart.

After almost a year of intense investigation, the lines on the transparencies had grown. Intersected. Entwined. And a pattern had appeared.

But still Chief Superintendent Gamache didn’t act.

Despite pleading by some of his senior officers, Armand Gamache waited, and waited. Bearing the brunt of increasing private and professional and political criticism, from a public and colleagues who saw only a growth in crime and inaction on the part of the S?reté.

Then, finally, the team had found what they were looking for. The person at the head of all this.

The break had come through collaboration, intelligence, courage on the part of undercover agents and informants.

And the appearance of a dark figure on a sleet-slashed village green.

Though few people knew that was the pivot point, and Gamache was desperate to keep it that way.