by John Farrow
They carried on, fast, pell-mell, slowing for intersections, but barrelling through them the moment other cars caught his flashing light.
Cinq-Mars returned to his original question. “So why do you want me there?” “Somebody has to bring me coffee.” He honked at a bus and got it to move over. “Which reminds me.”
“What?”
“Give me back my badge. The next time you want to come out on the job with me, wear a uniform.”
Émile Cinq-Mars was a detective no more. But he was still a smart cop. He told Touton, “I’m not here to bring you coffee. I know what I’m here for.”
Touton kept driving, but looked over at him a few times. Eventually, he bent his head down and back up again, as though to concede the point unspoken between them. “I may need you to talk to Anik.”
“I know.”
The prime minister had chosen to watch the proceedings from his official residence at 24 Sussex Drive. Gérard Pelletier kept him company and interceded whenever the Justice Department called.
“We’re going to close this out,” Pelletier assured him, much relieved.
Television commentators were asking police officers how the discovery of the FLQ hideout had occurred. The cops talked, their lips were definitely moving, but they weren’t explaining much.
“How did this happen?” Pelletier inquired.
Trudeau didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Remember the Cartier Dagger?” Pelletier nodded. “That’s the price I paid.”
The secretary of state took in the news, observing his old friend for any untoward reaction, or any reaction at all. “Should I ask?”
Trudeau shook his head. “You won’t get an answer.”
They both watched the tube awhile. Then Pelletier noted, “Expensive, no?”
The prime minister dug a hand down the middle of his back to give himself a serious rub, working out the stresses there. Then he shrugged. “Not if this works.”
A while later, thinking politically, Pelletier posed another question. “If you can’t tell me the reason you’re letting them go, how will you explain it to the public?”
He delivered another of his famous shrugs. “The Brits put pressure on me to free their guy. In the end, I decided that his life was worth a lot more than the pleasure of incarcerating his kidnappers. If someone wants to know if I was negotiating with terrorists, I’ll just say that the British made me do it.”
“The Brits are tough. If they made you do it, then it had to be done.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
The old friends smiled. A few minutes later, evaluating everything, Pelletier assessed the situation with a positive nod. Fair enough. If it had been his decision, he’d probably do the same thing. Get the hostage back. Say good riddance to the rest. Nobody needed the kidnappers around being heroes in their prison cells, and Trudeau had already abolished the death penalty. Just get rid of them.
“This is a tough country to hold together,” he opined.
Trudeau looked over at him briefly, then back at the TV. Pelletier had always been a master of understatement.
Touton walked the long distance across the street. He remembered a day, years ago, when he flushed a syphilitic gunman from his home by tossing stones into one room after another until he showed himself. If the terrorists opened the door a crack for him, they first had to defuse the dynamite, then he could crash it down. He had the strength. His reflexes might be suspect, but if his legs performed to an old standard, he’d be on them so fast no shot would be fired. The kidnappers would be face down, their hands behind their necks, before they had a chance to blink. If they did blink, they’d be in handcuffs, wishing they’d never sipped mother’s milk.
Still, he had Cross to worry about. Something to keep in mind.
Anik telephoned after Cinq-Mars had gotten in touch through a clandestine exchange. Touton ordered everybody out of the command truck to talk to her. “Mounties might be listening,” he warned. “I can’t be sure.”
“Okay,” she said, “I get you.”
“I’m going over there, to talk to the kidnappers in person.”
“I’ll see you on TV,” she told him, and laughed a little. “I’m watching now.”
“I’ll try to remember to fix my tie.”
“Don’t wear your hat,” she advised him.
“My hat is my trademark.”
“That’s true. All right. Wear your hat.”
He exhaled. “I need to know something.”
“What?” Her voice was tentative, worried. She’d made a few tough decisions lately. She didn’t need to make another.
“Somebody you once knew—I’m saying it this way because the Mounties are listening—he wanted the object to go into the right hands. What he considered to be the right hands, anyway.”
“I believe that,” she said.
“Not the fascists, or the commies or the unions, not the Church or the government—but into what he considered to be the proper hands. He might’ve been right, he might’ve been wrong, it’s not for me to say. But he wasn’t looking to make a quick buck, even if he had some deals cooking. I think it’s fair to say that.”
“I don’t have any deals cooking,” she said.
“Because that might’ve been his downfall.”
“I’m looking to put the knife into the proper hands.”
“That’s what I’m asking, I guess. Because it’s fair to say it’s been in the wrong hands before. And for too long.”
She needed a moment to think. “I’m not taking it from the man who has it to give it to the man I used to be sleeping with, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It’s a concern.”
“Those two have to fight it out on their own. They’re big boys. They have to get by without any props.”
“All right. I guess what I’m asking is—”
She waited for him to say it. When he didn’t, she provoked him. “What? You think I have my own FLQ cell now?”
“I want to know that you’ll look after the knife. That it’ll be your decision. Not somebody else’s. Just yours. You, I can trust. But if you’re being manipulated, or coerced, or influenced—”
“It’ll be me,” she said curtly.
“I don’t mean to insult you.”
“No? You’re doing a pretty good job of it.” He could hear her breathing become calmer. “It’ll be me,” she said. “On that part, you just have to trust me.” “I wanted to know. Before I go over there.” “I’ll be watching,” she said. “Maybe I won’t wear my hat.”
“Yeah, it’s the seventies already. Nobody wears hats anymore. You should change your style.”
Touton smiled as he crossed the street, knowing that commentators on television would be wondering what amused him so much. Other cops standing around looked aggrieved. This one was smiling. He wasn’t wearing his hat, so his face was easy to see on the cameras, and that must mean something. One analyst mentioned that he had never seen the captain without his hat. Probably, he suggested, it was a way to help put the kidnappers at ease.
They made the absence of his hat a turning point in the negotiations.
He entered the building. A man spoke to him from behind the door to the first-floor apartment. As if he was reading his mind, or recalling his reputation, the man warned, “We got a gun on Cross. Try anything, he’s dead—like that.” The young fellow snapped his fingers, and Touton decided to forgo any heroics. On his rickety legs, he’d need better odds than those he was facing now.
“Don’t put ideas into my head. We just want to get through this negotiation. I understand it’s hard. But you brought me in here because you figured I’d be a stand-up guy to talk to, right?”
“We want to stick it to the Mounties. Keep them out of the picture.”
The comment made Touton chuckle. “You’re doing a good job. They’re peeved. Us Montreal guys, we appreciate it. We’ve had a few bad turns during this manhunt. We haven’t come across so well.
So it’s nice to look like we can walk and talk at the same time.”
The man inside also chuckled. Then he asked, “What did you want to tell me that you couldn’t tell the lawyer, Mergler?”
“Bernie’s a good guy. Trust him. Some secrets are secret though, you know what I mean?”
The man said he didn’t have any idea what Touton meant.
“Getting you on a plane to Cuba has been authorized by the prime minister of Canada. He talked to Castro himself to make it all happen.”
“That’s nice if it’s true. How do I trust you? How do I trust him?”
Touton realized the man was sitting on the floor, so he slumped down as well. There were three apartments in the building, two of which were above them. For more than a day, a cop had been residing on the top floor, with a make-believe wife, in a place borrowed from a school crossing guard.
“In the course of this investigation,” Touton said, “we found something out about our Mr. Trudeau. About a lot of people, if it comes down to that. But we’ve got something on him, that if it comes out, he loses the next election.”
“Oh yeah? What?” This was unexpected, a carrot tossed into the stew.
“I can’t tell you that,” Touton said. “The truth is, I don’t know. But somebody who does know will talk if Trudeau doesn’t keep his word to you guys, if he doesn’t make the flight to Cuba happen. He’s aware of the situation. He knows it’ll all come out if he lets us down. Trust me. He doesn’t want the embarrassment.” The policeman adjusted his sitting position, becoming more comfortable, which was meant to indicate to the man inside that he was being more trusting himself. “Anyway, you should understand this: he wants you out of the country. He doesn’t need any of you becoming martyrs—that’ll only make his problems worse. He doesn’t want you sitting in jail cells, either, becoming folk heroes. We don’t want people writing songs about you. You want to know why you’re going to Cuba? Because you’re holding James Cross? Don’t believe that. Hey, if you were just a gang of bank robbers who’d taken a hostage and it was just you and me, I’d have raided by now. I’d have smashed the door down and taken my chances. ‘Fuck the dynamite,’ that’s what I would say. ‘Just go get ‘em.’”
“Try it,” the man inside threatened.
“I won’t,” Touton thrust back, commando-style, hard and fast, as he was trained to do—only not with his fists this time, but with words. “Why won’t I? Because nobody wants another killing, and because I have my orders. We all do. Nobody wants you dead, sir, and nobody wants you in prison and nobody wants you in the system. You think going to Cuba is your best answer? Guess what? It’s everybody’s best answer for you.”
The man inside was quiet awhile, but Touton could tell that he was thinking. Something told him that more than one person had been listening. Probably the terrorists were exchanging hand signals, and Touton was vaguely tempted again, because he knew that they would have taken their fingers off their triggers. But that was an old self speaking to him, powered by adrenaline and instinct. Given the state of his knees, and his present position down on the floor, in any assault he’d need about thirty to forty seconds just to stand up. Some charge that would be.
Then the guy stipulated what he had been waiting to hear. “Send Mergler back and we’ll work it out. Listen, I don’t want a bunch of Mounties escorting us. That would be humiliating. City cops. Only.”
“It’ll be mostly city cops,” Touton promised. “We’ll escort you through the streets. A Mountie or two, and some SQ will ride along. Please, don’t say that can’t happen, because, to tell the truth, I’ve got enough headaches right now without going through that discussion with them.”
“One more thing,” the man inside said, without disputing what he was told. “How come there’s all those plainclothes cops outside, walking around with red armbands?”
“Two reasons,” Touton told him. “In case of a shootout, they want to be able to identify who’s a terrorist and who’s a cop. If I were you, I’d wear a red armband. You’ll be safer.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“They want to scare you, because the truth is, nobody wants a shootout. So far, that’s worked.”
“I’m not scared,” the man said, but who on this earth would believe him? “I am,” Touton told him.
The man inside locked the door again, and Armand Touton pushed himself up to his feet, groaning a little from the pain in his legs. Then he went outside and crossed the street.
TV commentators noted that he was limping on the way back. One suggested that the legendary captain of the Night Patrol might be showing his age, and he and his partner beside him chuckled into their microphones over their mean zinger.
Back in the command truck, Touton told the go-between, “Bernie. Good man. Go. Do your lawyer thing. End this.”
In Canada, only the queen of England on an official royal visit could command such a motorcade. Marc drove his relic of a Chrysler, the one in which Cross had been kidnapped, his foot heavy on the gas. A replacement car was driven along behind in case his broke down. Twenty-two motorcycles and eight cars raced through Montreal towards the island named after Champlain’s child bride, Île Ste.-Hélène. Streets along the route were closed to traffic, with cops waving the entourage through the intersections. Thanks to live television coverage on every channel, the route was lined with the curious, as if for a parade. In this instance, rather than welcoming a monarch, they were watching kidnappers flee the country. Tens of thousands stared as they sped to the makeshift Cuban consulate at sixty miles an hour, while the rest of the country watched their history on television.
The process seemed very Canadian—polite, without drama or fanfare. In the former Canadian Pavilion from Expo 67, temporarily designated as Cuban soil, the kidnappers surrendered their weapons and Cross was taken into Cuban custody. He said goodbye to none of them, and shook only Cuban and British hands, no others. The terrorists waited, then were joined by Lanctôt’s wife and child. She was close to giving birth, so a physician would accompany them on the flight in the event that a delivery became necessary.
They enjoyed, and had negotiated to assure, TV coverage. The cameras helped guarantee their safety and, they believed, helped advance their cause throughout the world. That satisfaction took a bad turn. They deposited suitcases in the trunk of Marc’s rickety Chrysler, and now could not open it. “The damn lid’s jammed.” Rather than make a spectacle of themselves on international TV, trying to break into their own car and possibly failing, they abandoned most of their belongings. What they had taken in the back seat, however, across a pair of their laps, was the big old television they watched so intently over the previous sixty days, and they lugged that into the Cuban embassy, all set for passage. They would not be arriving in the Caribbean without a few trappings of home. They would bring what was most important, for sure. Their revolutionary gear. A few books. Their TV.
Once they were in the hands of the Cubans, they were off the airwaves. For posterity, and for broadcasts later that evening, film of their departure was made, but live coverage had been concluded. A military Sikorsky helicopter took them to the city’s airport, where, as they waited on the tarmac, they horsed around a little. They boarded their aircraft, a Canadian Forces CC-106 Yukon, fitted out to transport dignitaries, in silence.
Inside, they briefly broke the tension.
“Hey! We’re going in style.”
“Like princes.”
“Like presidents.”
“Like kings and prime ministers.”
“Like queens.”
“Like revolutionary heroes.”
Were they that? They didn’t know.
Their plane—Military Flight 602—rose unobserved into the sky above the city of Montreal, and above the province of Quebec, and as the land fell away, they soared among the sparse clouds, pleased that they had killed no one, but also that they had saved themselves. The men and women wondered about the others, those who killed Laporte, g
uessing that they were observing their escape on television, for they did not know that their friends were hiding out in a tunnel dug beneath a barn thirty miles from the city. From there, they’d be flushed a few days after Christmas to face a rowdy trial and imprisonment. Those who had not killed continued to rise above the land and took succour in hopes they’d see those friends again, or any friends, and those with window seats noticed that, below them, the higher landforms had whitened with the advent of winter.
They cleared Quebec skies, heading south.
Onboard, C.T. was thoughtful. His girlfriend slept fitfully in the cradle of his arms. Whenever she awoke, she looked around, then wept, then curled more closely into him again. She was already missing her homeland, already dismayed by exile.
He had learned some things, he knew. He had learned that he was no terrorist. Che, his hero, had talked about becoming a killing machine, but he wasn’t one and wanted no part of becoming one. He told Cross one time that they planned to let him go after a few days of captivity, and his cell would have done so, except that Laporte was kidnapped, too, and that changed everything. Then Laporte was murdered, and that changed everything again. Che had never talked about what to do when you discover that you’re not a killing machine, and didn’t want to become one, either.
So, in the end, they weren’t killers. Consequently, neither were they revolutionaries. They committed a revolutionary act and affected history. But they discovered other dimensions that embodied who they were, and they were not people who killed middle-aged British diplomats, no matter what their cause. C.T. had seen his colleagues change during the action. Jacques grew into their leader, directing that Cross not die. That made him their leader, because they were thinking the same way, yet Jacques had the courage to state it, to instruct the others accordingly. Initially, Marc was their leader. He was ten years older than anyone else, they had followed him, but now Marc followed the others and did as they decreed. Yves, who was passing himself off as Pierre Simard and held a passport in that name, was the only one among them from the upper classes. He embraced his new life, his new identity, but he was not a killing machine, either. None of them were made of that material. Had they been, the only man to die in the previous months would not have been a fellow Quebecer, while the English captive walked free. Under the pressure of the time, they found their true selves, and uncovered strength, and fortitude, and the substance and supremacy of their own humanity, their own care for life. They uncovered the courage to follow through on a newly determined objection to violence.